etherati: (WM - R/D - stakeout)
[personal profile] etherati
Title: Penetration
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Rorschach/Dan
Date Written: 2010
Summary: Some kinds of intimacy are more allowed than others.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, despite the title.
Notes: Vague dubconny vibes, but nothing too serious. For Kink Bingo(prompt: 'piercing/needleplay'), posted early just so I don't porn-bomb flists when I'm done. Not being crossposted until then.

*

He moves in and out of Daniel, effortlessly, efficiently. Daniel is very still under his hands, and he tries hard not to linger.

It isn't easy. He knows no one else is allowed this intimacy – it isn't the same for the punks on the street, with their stilettos and switchblades. They just move past, splitting things open in their wake, not allowed to stay under the skin.

Here, in this place and context, curved needle catching the light and the smell of antiseptic permeating the air, he is allowed to do this. He is allowed inside.

When he's the one injured, he doesn't feel any of it; he's numb with anesthetics, because Daniel believes in them. When it's Daniel who's injured he's stitched sober. Rorschach knows nothing about these drugs, where to administer the injections or how much, and he always makes his apologies even when he doesn't really mean them.

It's better this way.

Daniel hisses, and Rorschach stops moving, the needle halfway consumed by the skin. It's a shallow wound but in a high-flexibility area and the stitches must be placed widely to compensate. The dull end protrudes from the skin, looking lodged deeper than it is.

"Problem?" Rorschach asks, and it's gruff but he does mean it. He tries hard not to imagine other scenarios where he might say these words, but the images rise against his will; Daniel pierced too far and too hard in other ways, body closing around something other than surgical steel, breathing out a harsh need for stillness.

His fingers do not shake on the thin piece of metal. They do not.

"...no," Daniel finally says, and he still hasn't moved. Snaking down his shoulderblade, a dried trail of blood that's leaked free since they started, and Rorschach feels an impractical urge to duck and lick it away, to make the skin clean and whole again. "Keep going."

(Keep going, he would say, hitching himself higher and rocking his hips up against–)

His fingers work the needle, letting the tip reappear on the other side, straddling the slash wide. It's perfect, in its sharpness and precision, in the way it does precisely what he tells it to do. Unlike his hands. Unlike his sick, unfathomable mind.

He doesn't think Daniel knows, even after all this time.

In and out, repetitive, rhythmic. A pause on every cycle to set the needle into its tray, to tie off the bit of white suture thread and pull Daniel a fraction more together, close him off to the rest of the world. The injury is placed such that any shirt Daniel owns will hide it, and that's good; the paper boy and the grocery checkout woman and the man who owns the corner store have no right to this. No one does, and that is why he is sealing it off, meticulous. He isn't really sure what possessiveness feels like, or jealousy, but it might be something like this: stillness, and control, and making sure the flesh under him is open to no one else.

"Just stings a little," Daniel says, like he always does, a ritual. You're hurting me, says a faraway voice, so far away he often doesn't remember what it sounds like, anymore. The needle dances in and out of Daniel's body, coming out bloody every time, and he imagines all instruments of intimacy do.

When he is done, Daniel breathes out a shuddering sigh. The splash of white across his back is neat, is perfect, is like a signature or a marking and while Rorschach would never stoop to the idiocy of literally signing his name in the skin when there are far more practical needs, he likes to think that in a time when good needlework is increasingly underappreciated, it may as well be a brand.

Daniel reaches one hand behind himself, runs tips of his fingers over the bristling pattern, almost a caress.

"Thank you," he says, turning his head. His eyes are hooded and dark, and Rorschach has to bite the inside of his cheek. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Rorschach averts his eyes, gathering the cut ends of thread into the trash, depositing the needle into the sterilization bin just to get it out of his sight. "Probably find a way to do it yourself."

The trail of blood is still there, and Daniel doesn't seem to notice or care but it's a mark of Rorschach's brief passage, telling a story of how he'd been too rough, moved too fast, pushed too deep. "I don't know," Daniel says, voice as dark as his eyes, and it's just the pain doing that, the adrenaline. "It's a tough angle to get on your own. Fingers don't really bend that way."

"Managed for years," Rorschach says, and they both know he's talking about himself.

Silence, for a stretch, and then Daniel's picking his shirt up from the floor, pulling it on easy and smooth. He does up the buttons with a reluctant slowness.

Rorschach can feel Daniel's eyes on him as he reassembles the suture kit, puts the sterile packet of needles away, their new untouchedness glittering through the plastic. As he clips the kit shut, metal latching into metal, puts this indulgence away for another night.

As he considers whether he'd been too slow on the street tonight, whether he could have spun a moment sooner and disarmed the thug before the blade made contact, and–

The eyes bore through his back, relentless and hungry.

He doesn't think that Daniel knows.

*

Date: 2010-06-15 01:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tortoisegirl.livejournal.com
Oh wow! I've always thought tending wounds was an intimate thing and the perfect kind of intimacy for these two, and you've capitalized on that beautifully! Even without Rorschach's blatant sex thoughts it's a fantastically slashy scene. And dat ending! <3 <3

Date: 2010-06-18 09:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
But it's so much better when he has something to loathe himself over >:D

But yeah, it's funny how many suturing fics exist of these two that focus on the partial nudity or whatnot and not on the actual act of breaching the skin, given Ror's general fucked-uppedness about intimacy and his tendency to think in metaphor. It's pretty much a perfect setup for him.

<3

Date: 2010-06-28 03:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fallenthru78.livejournal.com
Damn! But Rorschach's using Dan! As a vehicle for his own pleasure! I'm seein' rape in the near future. (But that pentultimate line - Dan does know? Will make him pay? Please make him pay!) I would actually be less squicked by the whole sewing-up-as-a-kink deal if Rorschach was the one slicing Dan up in the first place.

Trusting some vulgar, thrid-party thug to mark your almost-lover, Rorschach? Tsk, tsk! Think of the lost opportunity! Dan could squirm under your violation and your penance! Much more sexy! (Plus, I bet he's way more into it than you'd expect...)

Date: 2010-07-06 11:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Eh, I think there are some dubconny vibes but I don't think that necessarily is a precursor to rape, shit dude. XD And yeah, Dan alllways knows.

But yeah... I don't think he's consciously letting Dan get hurt, I think he's just worried that he might be.

I would actually be less squicked by the whole sewing-up-as-a-kink deal if Rorschach was the one slicing Dan up in the first place.

Well, I do have a bloodplay square to fill...

Date: 2010-08-17 09:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] findmyantidrug.livejournal.com
hhhnnnn

So many good lines in this, but you've really nailed on the sensuality of it from Rorschach's eyes. Love how the violence here is quiet, but very noticeable to the point that it aches.

Rorschach feels an impractical urge to duck and lick it away, to make the skin clean and whole again.
So hot you could fry an egg on it.

Date: 2010-09-15 07:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
There really is a violence to it, isn't there? But he'd say there's violence in anything like this.

Thank you <3 You saying something is hot is one of the better compliments that can be gotten!

Date: 2010-09-14 05:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thingswithwings.livejournal.com
oh man oh man, the sheer quiet painful intimacy of this story completely gets to me. Perfect Rorschach pov, too - restrained and wanting.

Date: 2010-09-15 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Thank you so much - he's so tricky to nail down sometimes, but there's a complexity there that's so satisfying to explore. Intimacy is such a messy thing for someone like that.

Thank you also for running a great round of KB - I didn't make it to the blackout but I do have nine more stories to post once amnesty starts, and this allowed me to write a lot of things I'd already wanted to but thought I'd never get around to. Very appreciated. :D

Date: 2010-09-15 08:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thingswithwings.livejournal.com
I would assume that Rorschach is difficult to write, but you couldn't tell from all the fabulous Watchmen fic at KB this year - between you and liodain, I'm overwhelmed with excellent Rorschach fic. :)

I'm really glad that you had a good time during the challenge! That's what we love to hear. And I'm looking forward to the stuff you're going to post for amnesty.

Date: 2010-09-19 12:38 am (UTC)
threewalls: threewalls (Default)
From: [personal profile] threewalls
This is really good.

Date: 2010-09-22 04:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Thanks! I'm really proud of this one. :)

Date: 2010-09-22 03:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toft-froggy.livejournal.com
Oh my god - this is absolutely incredible, so hot and beautiful, and such an interesting, sharp look into Rorschach. This line - The needle dances in and out of Daniel's body, coming out bloody every time, and he imagines all instruments of intimacy do. I was quoting it in IM to Thingswithwings and flailing. Wow.

Date: 2010-09-22 04:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Fffff I am so unbearably proud of that line, if I let myself go on about it I'd be insufferable.

I'm so glad you enjoyed it; there's something way too hot about all his miserable repression and angst. Or I'm just a horrible person. XD

Date: 2010-09-22 04:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] toft-froggy.livejournal.com
Then I will be a horrible person with you! It's super hot, oh my god. Me and T'wings have been flailing to each other in IM going, "WHERE HAS THIS FANDOM BEEN ALL OUR LIVES?!" All the Rorschach misery and angst hits my kinks so hard.

Date: 2010-12-09 06:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] k0m1sch.livejournal.com
UGH THIS IS SO PERFECT UGH

UUGGHHH
<3<3<3

Date: 2010-12-09 10:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
THANK YOU <3 <3

Date: 2010-12-18 02:52 pm (UTC)
fififolle: (Watchmen - Rorschach rips)
From: [personal profile] fififolle
Oh wow. That was beautiful. Rrrrr.

Date: 2011-03-22 03:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Thank you. This is one of my favorite of the KB bunch. :D

Date: 2011-05-17 03:46 am (UTC)
axiom_of_stripe: DC Comics: Kory cries "X'Hal!" (Default)
From: [personal profile] axiom_of_stripe (from livejournal.com)
oh, that is beautiful. it is.

Date: 2011-05-18 04:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] etherati.livejournal.com
Thank you so much :D

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etherati: B&W Dan and Ror in front of Owlship, from GN (Default)
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