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He moves with confidence down the hotel hallway, prepared for whatever lies behind the door of room 326. The anonymous tip had claimed the Twilight Lady was going to be brokering a lucrative drug deal there, but when she’s involved, anything could happen. Not just drugs, but all manner of lies, all manner of sins. He pauses and feels for the numbers on the nearest door.
325.
He reaches out his other hand instead, finding the door on the opposite side of the hall. What he doesn’t expect is for it to swing open at the lightest brush of his fingers. It’s the right room, but it wasn’t latched. An oversight, or a trap?
Now on guard, he enters, closing the door silently behind him. It sounds like there’s no one inside, at least no one awake. It’s possible that some of her goons couldn’t keep their hands out of the honey pot, and fell into a drug-induced stupor. But the room feels vacant. He feels along the surface of the queen-size bed, finding nothing. Nothing on the night table either. He's about to go check the bathroom when he freezes.
Something is wrong.
There’s a presence in the room. He’s starting to detect a heartbeat, one so steady and so controlled that it’s no wonder he didn’t hear it earlier. That’s not what unsettles him, though. It’s the smell. He’s picking up machine oil, and ozone, and leather, and coffee.
“Nite Owl,” Rorschach says quietly, turning toward him.
“Wow,” says Daniel. The direction of his voice tells Rorschach that he’s seated in a chair, most likely in a corner. “I never really believed you could do that.”
“What? I came here on a tip, did you also—"
“Oh. That was me, buddy.”
“Why? This is a waste of time, Twilight Lady is—“
Daniel has the gall to interrupt him again. “There’s no drug deal, Rorschach. I made that tip. Who cares what the Twilight Lady is doing tonight?” Although Rorschach is irritated, he still notices the rustle of fabric and the change in the angle of Daniel’s voice; his partner is standing now.
“Then why the trick?” His voice lowers in frustration. “You’re behaving strangely, Nite Owl.”
Daniel moves closer, well within Rorschach’s striking range if this turns out to be some nefarious ploy after all. “It’s okay, we’re alone here. You can use my name.”
"Fine. Daniel,” he gruffly concedes. “I still don’t understand why we’re here.”
“And yet I don’t see you leaving.” Daniel closes the distance between them, so close it takes more effort not to touch him than the other way around.
“Daniel,” Rorschach says again. The sounds roll over his tongue, the stop and the nasal and the lateral, the vowels in between broad like Daniel’s shoulders. He’s never seen Daniel before, of course, but he’s helped him when he’s been injured, touched him a few times. He can estimate height, weight, and build from the sound of his footsteps and the resonance of his voice. More than once he’s been tempted to discover how close the image in his head is to reality. But he's not willing to compromise his own identity to find out, nor is he comfortable with spying on Daniel out of costume, and the betrayal of trust that it would imply.
“I don’t know how you do it,” says Daniel. “Go out there and fight blind. Find clues, solve crimes.”
Rorschach feels frozen to the spot, afraid of what will happen if he moves. Afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t. “Other senses can be heightened with the proper training. I… I can sense shifts in the air. Get information from smells. Hear almost imperceptible sounds.”
“How did you know it was me?” Daniel asks.
Underneath his mask, he flushes. “I smelled you.”
“You smelled me?”
“You smell like the Owlship. Like your costume. And black coffee.” He swallows. “And I heard your heartbeat.”
Daniel’s fingers brush his hip. “Can you hear it now?”
“Yes,” he whispers. Of course he can hear Daniel’s heartbeat; it’s been quickening and growing louder over the last several minutes, second in intensity only to his own.
“Good,” says Daniel. His fingertips graze from his hip to his stomach, where his hands pause at the belt of his trench coat. “Can I…?”
He can’t speak anymore, can’t form the words, so he nods and lets Daniel’s hands start to take him apart.
~*~*~*~*~
He’s never been touched like this before.
He’s naked except for his mask, spread out underneath Daniel’s strong, warm body, arching into each touch as Daniel runs those hands over every inch of him. He's surprised to feel the callouses on Daniel's hands. Daniel is wealthy, educated, naive, but he has blue-collar hands, and he likes that. Toward the back of his mind, he feels ashamed for letting himself give into this physical temptation, but the sensations are so overwhelming that he can’t focus on anything but them right now. He feels almost intoxicated, it’s too much to take in — Daniel tracing his fingers along his side, the light contact becoming an electric crackle on his touch-starved skin. Daniel pressing kisses along his shoulder and up his neck, making him whine and squirm. Daniel brushing his palm over his nipples, making them tighten.
Daniel’s erection rests against his thigh, thick and hot, and when Daniel shifts it presses against his own hardness. He can feel both Daniel’s pulse and his own pounding alongside one another, combining into a frantic percussive beat. He gasps out Daniel’s name, finding his own wantonness both sickening and arousing. Luckily, his partner has no such internal conflict. Unluckily, his partner is content just to tease him for now.
“I wonder just how heightened that sense of touch is,” Daniel says, pulling back. “Tell me where I’m about to touch you.” He moves his hands to hover half an inch over Rorschach’s skin.
“Chest,” he says, and is rewarded with hands on his pectorals and Daniel’s warm mouth closing over his left nipple. He instinctively finds Daniel’s soft hair and clings there. He pulls a little harder than he meant to, but Daniel just moans against his chest, not seeming to mind. He loosens up enough to let Daniel turn his attention to the other side, where he sucks hungrily at the nub of flesh until it feels tender and swollen. Rorschach arches and whimpers at the pleasure-pain, yet another level of sensation becoming known to him tonight.
“How about now?” Daniel asks, moving his hands elsewhere.
“Legs.”
“Be more specific,” Daniel chastises.
Rorschach groans out, “Thighs.” Daniel spreads them with his large hands, exposing everything usually hidden between them. Strong, fingers knead into the tense muscles there. Rorschach extends his own hands down to rest on Daniel’s shoulders. His fingers start to learn the planes of his body — the angle of his trapezius muscles, the swell of his deltoids, and where the smooth flesh is interrupted by scar tissue. Before the night is over he intends to memorize every part of Daniel in this way.
“And now?” Daniel asks.
As if Daniel’s forefinger were a burning hot brand, he can feel it hovering over his scrotum. He can’t talk about such dirty things, he can’t bring himself to form the words. The anticipation of Daniel’s touch is too much for him, and his balls tighten for a moment, making Daniel laugh softly. “I’ll let that one go,” he says, gently stroking the skin there. “Last one.”
He has been waiting for Daniel to touch him there all night (and perhaps before tonight, if he’s being honest with himself), but wait. He can feel the electric almost-touch of Daniel’s fingers elsewhere, too. A thrill gathers in his throat and in the pit of his stomach. “Daniel, please,” he groans. “Don’t make me say. Just do it.”
“If you knew the way you looked right now, you wouldn’t be so modest,” Daniel chides, but he does as he’s asked. He loosely wraps one hand around Rorschach’s cock while the other hand’s fingers -- oh God, they're wet -- brush his hole languidly, just one at a time.
Rorschach feels like he’s drowning, or choking in a vacuum. Every time he tries to breathe, Daniel moves his hands again, and he’s sent reeling and gasping and unable to get any air. Surely it’s oxygen deprivation addling his head, that he’s allowing Daniel to slide a finger — no, two — inside of him. He’s stretched around Daniel’s fingers, savoring every inch of the slow, wet friction. It’s that pleasure-pain again, as Daniel scissors his fingers slightly, and then he crooks them somehow, and Rorschach moans aloud at the shock that goes through his entire body.
He can hear Daniel shifting, hears the soft wet sound of his partner licking his lips. Warm wetness envelops him as Daniel sucks on it, pleasuring him on both the outside and the inside. He can smell Daniel’s arousal, the sweat and musk mingling into the sex-smell he’s known from the time he was a child; but because it’s Daniel, it doesn’t seem so bad. If you knew the way you looked right now, Daniel had said. He imagines how it must look, his legs spread whorishly wide, head tilted back, fingers gripping for dear life at whatever part of Daniel they can find. And Daniel, crouched between his thighs, one hand disappearing inside him, his head bobbing up and down, the strong muscles of his neck and back working…
Keening through gritted teeth, Rorschach comes, the feeling ripping through his entire body. He feels like the Sun, like nuclear fission, like the heat death of the universe. Daniel moans around him, the vibrations adding to the momentum until he comes down, gasping.
Before he fully catches his breath, he’s pulling Daniel down onto the bed so they can trade places. He splays his fingers and touches his Daniel's face with all ten fingertips. A picture begins to develop in his head, adding everything he feels into a composite image of his partner's face. A strong jawline, a full mouth, a prominent nose that has seen at least one break. He can't get information like eye or hair color from this, but it's enough.
He sweeps his thumb over Daniel's lips again, telling himself it's still part of the mapping process, knowing that's not entirely true. Daniel moans softly and parts his lips, encouraging Rorschach to slide it into his mouth. Daniel hums around him, the smallest sound, but with the tremors it sends up his arm, he may as well be holding a jackhammer.
He's filled with the sudden animalistic urge to taste his partner. It's a powerful sense but one he can rarely apply on the streets. Decisively, he yanks his mask up to his nose. "Ohh," Daniel breathes, leaning up to kiss him. Rorschach shudders into it, finding there the twice-bitter mixture of Daniel's black coffee from earlier that night, and his own ejaculate, from not five minutes prior. Despite his anxieties and nagging thoughts (sin, lust, shame) in the back of his mind, he feels grounded, secure. He feels like he knows Daniel, and like Daniel knows him. He wonders, as his partner cups his stubbled cheek, if this is what it feels like to be loved.
"Can you taste yourself?" Daniel murmurs against him. His face reddens, and Daniel can probably tell, which just makes him redden more. He never knew his partner could be so shameless.
"I can taste everything," he answers. He winds one hand into Daniel's hair and turns his head to one side, exposing his neck. He leans down and licks at the vulnerable skin. He's not a scientist, not educated like Daniel, so he can't put a name to everything he finds, but he knows what they mean. "You went for a run this morning. Pushed yourself, ran further and faster than usual. Perhaps you were trying to steel yourself for tonight?"
Daniel laughs at this. "Okay, so you're psychic now, too. What am I thinking?"
"You're thinking 'don't stop,'" Rorschach growls, and he doesn't. He moves down Daniel's body, mapping it with his fingers and tasting as he goes. "After your run you took a shower. Expensive soap. You stayed at home during the day, worked on the Owlship at night. You flew here and left the ship on the roof." He nibbles at Daniel's stomach, catching a scent of Archie's foggers. "You used the smokescreen to hide it from prying eyes. Came down here via the fire escape. And you waited." He seizes Daniel's right hand and licks the palm. He can smell where Daniel's fingers were inside of him (he will not taste them, he will not), but there's something of Daniel here as well. "While you waited you touched yourself," he says hoarsely.
"Rorschach," Daniel groans, his hips bucking up toward Rorschach's face. "Yes, I was thinking about you and how much I wanted... Oh my God, please."
"First, one question," he says. "How did you know?" That I wanted you too, that I wanted this.
"I'm not the only one who notices things." His words transition seamlessly into a low moan as Rorschach goes to work with his mouth.
Daniel's is different from his, wider and lacking a foreskin. He runs his tongue along the underside, and the feel of Daniel's pulse against his tongue is so alien, so gratifying, that he does it again. He encircles the head with his lips, memorizing the feel of the hot, smooth flesh, then rests one hand on Daniel's strong thigh, while the other helps him pleasure whatever his mouth cannot reach. He's never done this before, though he's seen it enough times (too many times, in his childhood apartment, at the Charlton Home, and out on the streets) to know what to do.
He takes Daniel in as far as he can and holds him there for a moment, noticing how his partner's pulse is throbbing inside his mouth at a frantic rate. Protesting the pause in Rorschach's motions, Daniel bucks upward, bumping against the back of his throat. Rorschach presses both palms to Daniel's hips and pins him back down to the bed. He is about to chastise him, but then he realizes what he hasn't smelled or tasted -- somebody else. Not a woman's perfume or a man's cologne, not the musk of another person on his hands or his cock. Daniel hasn't been going elsewhere for gratification. Daniel only wants him.
"Mine," he growls. "You're mine." He takes Daniel's balls in one hand as if to demonstrate that point, and continues to suck his partner with renewed energy.
"God, yes, I'm all yours," Daniel moans, his hands moving blindly to claw at Rorschach's shoulders, then to fist at the bedsheets, then to brush Rorschach's own hands, as if he's so desperate that he wants to touch himself too. Rorschach doesn't want to hurt Daniel, but he tightens his grip on his balls just a bit to keep him from interfering. Daniel cries out suddenly, but it doesn't seem like he wants him to stop. Maybe Daniel appreciates that pleasure-pain as well. He likes the way that Daniel moans for him, likes the way that all four remaining senses are being used to their fullest potential, so he increases his pace. He knows what's going to happen soon, and he's both eager and afraid. His ears are full of the sounds of Daniel's lust, his nose takes in the sweat and musk and pheromones and everything else that is Daniel, his skin tingles and his heart buzzes with adrenaline, and his mouth--
"I'm gonna come," Daniel gasps desperately. "Rorschach--"
Daniel explodes into his waiting mouth, filling it with thick, hot liquid. It's bitter, and salty, and he doesn't miss a drop of it. Once he knows he's memorized its taste, he swallows it, and collapses with his head resting on Daniel's thigh.
Still panting, Daniel pulls at him. "C'mere," he says, helping Rorschach come up to lay at his side. Rorschach allows himself to be held, curling up close to Daniel and burying his face against his neck.
Daniel had once asked him why he deliberately obscured his vision when he could actually see perfectly well. Daniel has his night-vision goggles, his radar in the Owlship. Daniel is always trying to see more clearly.
"Because justice is blind," he'd said.
Only now does he make the connection between justice and love.