O Prolong Now the Sorrow (3/3), Watchmen (2009)
Saturday, 16 January 2021 14:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
derwent_fFandom: Watchmen (2009)
Pairing: Brief Dan Dreiberg/Laurie Juspeczyk, Gen or Pre-slash Dan Dreiberg/Adrian Veidt
Rating: T
Summary: April 1986. Dan Dreiberg is preparing to move when the phone rings and brings Adrian Veidt back into his life.
The bright May sun illuminated the swirling dust in the air. Even six months later there was still so much debris to clear away.
Dan stayed in the background as he watched Adrian and Sophie inspecting the recovery progress. Despite being uncomfortable with the attention it might attract, he’d decided to accompany Adrian on his first appearance in public anyway, delaying for a couple of days his plan to go home.
It was absurd, certainly. There was no apparent threat. Since he got out of the car, Adrian had been swamped by the fawning public. Their sparring sessions each morning told Dan that even amnesiac, Adrian still fought better than Dan ever could. Nor was Adrian in any danger of becoming overwhelmed – the man took to public appearances the same way he took to any other venture: with a winning grace.
He stepped closer to Greene, Adrian’s security, who used his intimidating form to keep people from getting too close to Adrian. “I’m gonna take a walk around,” he informed the bald man.
“Noted, Sir,” Greene nodded.
Dan slipped quickly away, thankful for the many years of practice as Nite Owl. His feet took him to what remained of the park. Even so there were people around, those either unaware or uncaring of Adrian’s presence nearby. It was a beautiful spring day, all things considered: the sun was bright but warm, the breeze carrying the fresh smell of flowers and grass mixed with the inviting aroma from the surrounding food carts.
There was an empty bench facing a pond farther down the path. Dan plopped down, closed his eyes and basked like one of the lizards crawling around on the ground. With all the amenities in the Veidt Tower, complete with its indoor gardens, it was easy to fall into seclusion, especially for someone like him who had no outside commitment anchoring him.
Soon they would have to return to their old lives. Dan still hadn’t found any of the answers he was looking for when he decided to stay with Adrian, but he probably never would. Surprisingly, he no longer found the idea upsetting.
Eyes still closed, he felt Adrian’s presence approaching. Sometimes Dan used to wonder why Adrian never bothered with stealth around him. He used to believe it was because they got along well, with none of the antagonistic undercurrent poisoning their interaction like with the Comedian, thus Adrian didn’t feel the need to sneak up on him. After Karnak, though, he realized that maybe Adrian just never bothered because it was so obvious Dan was no threat to him.
Adrian sat down beside him. Dan could hear children laughing and shrieking, faint murmurs of people talking and walking around, the splashing ducks on the pond – but there were none of the buzzing of the press or star-struck onlookers.
“Thank you.”
“I needed to get some fresh air anyway.” Dan opened his eyes.
Adrian let out a chuckle. “Not for this visit, although yes, thank you for coming along. What I meant was thank you for taking care of me. Just because I appointed you, didn’t mean you were under any obligation. You could’ve refused and let my lawyers handle it, but you stepped up instead.” Adrian’s expression was something similar to that Saturday night’s, open and warm and grateful.
“Yeah, well … I should thank you in return.” Adrian raised an eyebrow. “I was going to move. Wipe the slate clean, you know? Start afresh somewhere else. But staying here with you made me realized that it would’ve been a mistake.”
“It wasn’t for me, Adrian. I learned that after Keene Act. I can’t start over as someone new. And besides, I’m tired. Tired of running away, of hiding, of being afraid.” The realization had danced around on the edge of his mind, always too fast to catch. Until this moment, where it finally took the definite shape of clarity. It was true: he spent years being afraid – and as he said to Laurie that night (that seemed like a lifetime ago now), he was tired of being afraid.
There was nothing to be afraid of anymore now. The worst had already happened. From now on, there was only one way forward: to accept the part he played in the destruction, and to do whatever he could to help make something good come out of it.
Dan took in a deep purifying breath, enjoying the unexpected but welcome lightness in his soul brought by the realization. Adrian’s lips curled upward into a small genuine smile, and Dan returned it with his own.
They sat there, two men enjoying life’s little joys.
Head blessedly empty after a long session tinkering with Archie, Dan climbed up the stairs whistling. His eyes caught the stylish coat hanging on the rack, definitely not one of his. He locked the front door – old habits die hard, even in this supposedly safer time – and there was no sign of break-in, so whoever it was had a key.
Oh. Adrian. Dan left a spare set of keys in the penthouse, just in case something come up. He didn’t expect Adrian to actually visit him here. Though Dan did remember Adrian saying something about going downtown to check in on the recovery effort again.
And yes, Adrian was standing in his living room, his back to Dan. Some of the boxes were still strewn around on the floor, Dan not having enough time to unpack between aborting his move with Laurie and moving to Adrian’s place. There was dust on the boxes, on the couch, on the coffee table – everywhere. It’d been a few days since he got back, but he still didn’t have the energy to do more than the bare minimum cleaning needed. He cringed inside.
“Adrian, been here long? Sorry, I was in the basement with Archie. Always have a problem keeping track of time down there.”
Adrian remained still as a statue. Something cold, like premonition, crept into Dan’s stomach.
“Adrian?”
The other man finally turned around. Rorschach’s journal was spread open between his bloodless fingers.
The world shrunk and faded away. Dan could hear nothing but the loud insistent pounding of his heart. His limbs felt suddenly weightless. Was this how Adrian felt when he crossed the line and activated the device? When he made himself feel every death? Bile rose to his throat.
He’d taken the journal upstairs, last night; its presence downstairs proved too distracting. He’d been meaning to reread it again, masochistic though the act would be.
“It’s quite a coincidence, you know,” Adrian began. His voice was the one familiar to Dan from countless TV interviews. Adrian had never used that voice with him before. “It was just yesterday I read in the archive about the whole furor over the so-called Rorschach’s journal. Every reputable publication denounced it as either fraudulent narrative concocted by a notorious conspiracy peddler, or, if it indeed belonged to him, the paranoid ramblings of a madman. Given what we know about Rorschach from his arrest and brief incarceration, the latter does seem to be the most plausible explanation. In any case, with the newspaper’s office burnt down, everyone agreed that there’d be no opportunity to prove anything.”
Adrian’s hazel eyes bore down on him. “Why do you have it, Dan?”
Dan closed his eyes. Took off his glasses, realizing his shirt was too dirty to wipe them, put them back on. “He was my partner, Adrian.”
“So this was indeed his.”
“Yes,” Dan admitted.
“And the content?”
God. Dan wanted to grab the journal, shout at Adrian to leave it alone, to turn around and be glad for the blissful ignorance of amnesia.
But perhaps some truths just can’t stay buried. After every omission, every lie, here they were anyway.
“It’s true,” barely a whisper, but it cracked across them with the force of a whip. “It’s true, Adrian. You killed the Comedian. You gave Jon’s old friends cancer. And the attack … Jon didn’t do it – you did.”
A grotesque twitch twisted Adrian’s expression into what Dan would call horrified on anyone else’s. It was gone in a second, quick as a flash of lightning.
“So you lied to me.”
Dan nodded in defeat. The betrayed look in Adrian’s eyes was a deserved punishment.
Adrian glanced down at the journal. Then he looked with cold, distant eyes at Dan again. “You do realize I need more than that.”
“… Alright,” Dan yielded. He threw Adrian’s coat towards him. “Put it on and come downstairs.”
He was putting on his cowl when Adrian’s footsteps clanged down the stairs. He looked up to find Adrian faltering, eyes drinking in his first sight of Nite Owl. Then his eyes shifted towards Archie. Suddenly Dan remembered his offer, that day when they went home from the hospital, to take Adrian to see his ship. Well, turned out Dan did get to keep his words.
He put on his goggles, jerked his head towards Archie, machine all warmed up.
“Come on.”
Archie made a smoother landing, closer to the building, than he did the first time around, although just barely. Equipping him with the tools necessary to survive another flight to Antarctica had been the first upgrade Dan made after repairing the damage. God knows why, he certainly never intended to return to this damned place.
Winter had descended on the continent, bringing darkness and cruel wind with it. Archie’s lamps barely illuminated the path towards the gate.
He changed into the Snow Owl suit. If Adrian felt the cold, he didn’t show it. Dan handed him the white cloak anyway, which he accepted in silence.
No words passed between them as they made the trek to the gate. A few feet away from the door, Dan stopped. “This is where Jon killed Rorschach because he refused to compromise and was going to tell the world what you did. That part wasn’t a lie.” Which turned out to be futile – people wouldn’t have believed Rorschach anyway, just as they didn’t believe his journal now.
Or maybe not. Maybe Rorschach would’ve dragged him and Laurie into his crusade, and maybe they could add some credibility to his words.
Oh, who was he deluding. Whatever scenarios he considered, Adrian’s words would always weigh more than theirs.
Without looking aside to see Adrian’s reaction, he began walking again.
The first thing he noticed was that the roof had been repaired. The wall of television, though, remained broken. “I ran inside, and you … you let took my anger out on you.” A mirthless chuckle escaped from his lips. A shiver ran through him. Was the temperature really so cold, or did the chill engulfing him had more to do with the memory of this place? The high ceiling, instead of providing an open, breathing space, seemed to bear down oppressively upon them. He wondered if Jon knew what happened the past few months. Could he, with his powers, restore Adrian’s memory?
He turned and looked up the stairs. His feet felt leaden, but he climbed the stairs anyway, Adrian a faithful shadow behind him. He paused in front of a hallway.
Now it was Adrian’s turn to lead, his slow, tentative steps betraying his uncertainty. Two panels facing each other stopped them in their track.
“The intrinsic field subtractor,” Adrian spoke quietly. Dan narrowed his eyes. It was returned with a faint humorless smile. “There’s a blueprint hidden among the files in my desk.”
The reactor loomed behind the wall of glass at the end of the path. “There’s a blueprint of that, too,” Adrian whispered. He advanced as if pulled by magnet. Dan followed, and to his death he’d never admit the sliver of fascination he felt on seeing that calamitous device.
“I wondered,” Adrian said, voice tight. “I couldn’t figure out why I had them built, or where they were. I made some discreet inquiries, but no one had any idea they even existed. I thought maybe I hadn’t built them after all – that they were just some plan for future project.” He sounded breathless by the end of it. The blue glow emanating from the reactor cast a sickly, strange parlor on his face.
They stood, transfixed, for how long Dan couldn’t tell. Maybe hours, maybe minutes.
Finally, Dan shifted his gaze. Adrian’s bloodless face was reflected in the glass. Dan couldn’t look away.
Neither of them spoke a word on the long flight home. Adrian stared straight ahead, eyes unseeing. His fingers left dented half-moons on the armrests.
Back in the Nest, Adrian shrugged off the white cloak, and was gone in a flash.
Dan chased after him, almost tripping over the cloak on the floor, heart beating so frantically he was afraid it would burst. “Adrian?” he called out. It came out a plea.
The sight of his car speeding away was the only answer he got.
The night passed with the agonizing slowness of a decade. He left the TV on the whole time, desperate for any mention of Adrian. He was drained of energy, and yet he couldn’t sit still.
He couldn’t make up his mind. One moment he was convinced that it was best to leave Adrian alone, give him time to come to terms with the revelation. A small voice whispered that it was only just. What comfort did Adrian deserve? His victims didn’t get any, so why should he?
And yeah, once Dan would have gladly left Adrian alone in his guilt. But that was before the other man lost his memory. This Adrian, the one he spent the last month with, was a different person in this regard. Whatever conviction, whatever darkness, whatever delusion that convinced the past Adrian that he had the right to make that decision, this Adrian didn’t share it. Of this Dan was certain.
And what if going to Karnak was the key that finally unlocked the vault of his memory? Laurie told him, one sleepless night, of what finding out the truth about her father felt like. How she curled up in pain and wept on the red surface of Mars as the truth came crashing down upon her. Such agony, even with her lover beside her.
Even the Comedian had Moloch to witness his breakdown.
Dan stopped pacing. He made up his mind.
He found Adrian standing on the rooftop of the Veidt building, standing close to the edge. Cautiously, he made his way to Adrian’s side, taking care to telegraph his movement and giving him his space.
Adrian made no movement to show he was aware of Dan’s presence. His eyes remained fixed on Ground Zero, brightly illuminated by artificial lights for nighttime work. Against the black sky barely any stars could be seen. The wind rushed and swooshed around them.
In the end, it was Adrian who broke the silence.
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
“I couldn’t make up my mind,” Dan admitted. “When I thought about that day, in anger, I wanted to tell you. But when I thought about what a different person you are now … I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. And anyway, I didn’t think you’d believe me. You’ve read what happened to the New Frontiersman.”
“I knew I hurt you in some way.” Startled, Dan turned to look at the other man. The ghost of a self-deprecating smile played on Adrian’s lips. “If I had to guess, I’d say you were an ex-lover and things ended badly between us. Turns out I was right about the latter.”
“Then you moved in to help me recuperate and introduced yourself as Nite Owl. I changed my hypothesis. The most reasonable explanation seemed to be that we were colleagues, friends even perhaps, grown distant through the years. That would explain the hostility as well. Who wouldn’t get caught off guard when entrusted with caring for an acquaintance who never even asked your permission?”
“I was so wrong, wasn’t I?” Adrian closed his eyes, face crunched up. Dan’s fingers itched with the desire to reach out and smooth those lines. “Why, Dan?”
“You said … that it was the only way to prevent a nuclear war. That you’d kill fifteen millions –” Adrian flinched, “– but you’d save billions.”
“You know what the worst part is?” Without waiting for an answer, Adrian went on. “I understand his logic. If you look at it from a purely rational angle, it makes sense. But what I don’t understand is why that Adrian thought he had the right to decide for everyone else.”
“No, I don’t understand why either, Adrian. That’s partly why I moved in; I wanted to see if I could find answers. From somewhere in your past, perhaps.” Then he added, desperately, because Adrian needed to understand this: that even then, he wasn’t so far gone, so far removed from humanity, “You made yourself feel every death.” Adrian looked at him with shock written all over his pale face, “That’s what you told me that day. Yes, you thought the result was worth the sacrifice, but you mourned your decision even before you executed it. You made it your cross to bear.”
Adrian blinked. He looked so lost that Dan wanted to reach out and do something, anything, to comfort him.
But then Adrian let out a slow, pained breath, and his expression turned into a defeated resignation.
“I called Lindsay a couple days ago. He hedged around and tried to offer reassurances, but … I think we both know that the probability of my ever regaining my memory is close to zero.” His smile broke Dan’s heart.
“I’m afraid the answers are lost, and we’ll never find them back.”
Dan slowly nodded. He’d suspected as much after weeks going through the blond man’s past together. He’d thought, once, that he’d find them in the mementos from Adrian’s past, but he’d come to realize that Adrian had done such a fine job burying them even from his own self.
“Dan, I –” Adrian swallowed. “I don’t know how to go on.”
There was a time when Dan wouldn’t believe his ears hearing those words coming out of Adrian’s mouth. Now he didn’t even bat an eyelash. His life had been turned upside down by so many revelations and changes that nothing would faze him anymore.
Only the sound of the wind was heard for some time. Dan stared at the remains of destruction before him. One day future generations would look at them and see only the promise of hope and determination and rebirth, with none of the despairing memory of the toll and sacrifice it took. One day November 2 would be just another date in history textbook to be memorized, not a day of horror that must be lived through every year.
He thought about Laurie, in the California repairing her relationship with her mother. He thought about the Uptons, unafraid to reach out even after so many years. He thought about the other survivors, volunteering with the recovery effort and doggedly carrying on with their lives, even after losing so much.
He reached out and took one of Adrian’s hands in his. “We’ll rebuild,” he answered. The open surprise and wonder in Adrian’s face tugged at something inside him.
“We’ll rebuild, and hope that will be enough,” Dan smiled suddenly, though it was more tinged with melancholy than with genuine joy. “Just like once we put on our costumes and went patrolling at night and hoped that it’d make some difference, however little.”
For a long moment, Adrian regarded him quietly. Then finally, slowly, he smiled. Just a small, barely-there one, with none of the self-assurance that once was ever-present.
For a start, it was good enough.
