2014.03.24 - Legendary Madness

Joker. Somehow, Rorschach had never crossed him. Despite years sharing a place of legend in the same city, it was like the elusive madman was impossible to pin down. Clues were always a step behind. Leads were always dead ends. It was the Batman and his affiliates that he engaged, with usually violent, brutal results ending in death and mayhem. As if it was his psychotic whim which decided who he encountered, or who he did not. But criminal scum is criminal scum; the three men who were accosting a young lady in an alley would have been lucky if it had been any other vigilante they had run into. Breaking people is a routine by now. Only one strange thing. Sticking out of the corner of the pocket of one of the thugs -- running didn't work, of course -- is the corner of a white, embossed card. It seems to have a fancy pink border. Unusual. Pristine. There's no reason for trash to carry something like that around. A clue?

He stands still and lets his breathing quiet. Louder now than it used to be. Getting older. Nothing for it. Still, he makes no outward show of it, his hands thrust in his pockets. He draws one free at last and kneels, reaching out and drawing the card slowly from the thug's pocket. There's a slight cough and gurgle as another one sputters nearby, his ruined throat struggling to draw breath, making thick, mucusy noises. Rorschach casually flicks out his foot as he rises, clipping the point of his chin. "Quiet."

He knows the card, of course. The Joker has always been tempting prey, obviously, but Rorschach has made a point of staying clear of the Bat. It's not a matter of respect, just practical. Batman had friends. Batman got territorial. Stupid. Pointless. Plenty of scum to go around. But Joker...he closes his eyes for a moment, trying to see the pattern. A flicker. Rain on the pavement. The angle of the card. His mother's legs in the bath (OUT, YOU LITTLE-), a smiling, clownish face. The gurgles of the thug in the drain. The flames. Always there.

He lifts his head. Cocks it. Hurm.

"Come out." he says aloud, his voice a husky, raw creak, like dry leather.

The demand echoes into the air, falling on deaf ears. For what Rorschach is gazing at might not be what's expected. It's a birthday invitation; well-crafted, pink trim, and with the most elaborate embossed writing on the front. 'Come celebrate Tank's 35th Birthday!' A picture of the Joker's face is to the right, grinning with those red lips, green hair, and wild eyes. There's an address on it, with the time starting... about seventeen minutes ago. It's only a few blocks off. An old bar, still in service. Lots of the seedy use it, and it has a back room that has been known to be rented out on many occasions. O'Flannigans. The bartender's not a bad guy, as they come, forced to do business in an environment he doesn't like. That's life, sometimes, isn't it?

Walking. Trudging. He does have a car, a 79 Beetle. Barely runs and parked about thirty miles away. Not an option. So, he walks. Might cost a few lives. BUt, then, Rorschach isn't really about saving lives. Not anymore. Once he was, a young man in a strange mask, swinging from ropes and flipping from rooftops. Derring do. Adventure. Comrades in arms.

That was before. Before the bones. The meat. The screams.

He reaches the bar and makes his way around to the back door. Typical fire exist, not meant to be opened from outside. Kick it in. That's better.

There's the sound of cheering and party-blowers within the room, right before Rorschach kicks it inwards. It's bolted shut, but the wood is weaker than the metal. It bursts inwards, revealing a somewhat peculiar setting. The back room of the bar, about thirty by thirty feet, has been decked out to the nines. There's banners on the wall reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY TANK!, balloons of all shapes and sizes around, and a pile of unopened presents in one corner, immaculately wrapped with a bow-tie. In the middle is a gigantic cake, almost six feet tall; white frosting, with exactly 35 large candles flickering listlessly. The frosting job on it is done with the finest hand.

Adjacent to it is a huge figure, over seven feet with shoulders broad as a barn. Big as most any man Rorschach has encountered. He has a laughably tiny pointed hat on, which reads 'Birthday Boy' surrounded by rainbows and stars. He's facing Rorschach, but doesn't move. Doesn't blink. His body is stiffed, and he's breathing, but appears catatonic. A male and female restroom door are against a wall.

Flanking either side of the cake are four men dressed in the traditional Joker wear on leather couches, blowing streamers, spinning wheely-boppers, and whistling cheers. They all stop immediately and look towards Rorschach, expressions showing annoyance. "We're having a party!" "Get outta here!"

And settled cross-legged upon the counter, adjacent to the door leading to the main bar, is the Joker himself. He's clapping his gloved hands slowly together, rictus grin nearly ear to ear. Rorschach is slowly glanced at. "Welcome! Do you have an invitation? You can only *be* here if you have an invitation. Manners!"

Rorschach takes in the scene with a long, slow glance. His head swivels, as if on a pivot. There's no reaction, no jump, no sound. His hands remain in his pocket, the remnants of the door around his feet. On his face, however, the mask writhes, inky shadows squirming, swallowing one another, dividing and subdividing. He takes in the massive man, the cake, the variety of thugs dressed garishly in imitation of their master.

And, of course, the Joker himself. Almost strange to actually see him in the flesh after so long. Horrifying, yes. Twisted and wrong. Colorful. Mad. But also just a man. Bloodshot eyes. Teeth going a little yellow in spots. A few stray hairs on his shoulders. Getting older. Weren't they all?

Saying nothing, Rorschach turns to the side and does something unexpected. He goes into the men's room. The wooden door opens and swings shut in his wake as he goes inside.

There's silence. The entire time that Rorschach is in the room, after the initial outburst, everyone was just staring at him. The Joker's hands were mid-clap, and his grin never falted. Like some horrible statue, nothing moved beyond his eyes, trailing like some haunted painting as the legendary vigilante pushes within the door. It closes. And a few seconds later, the sounds of the party return. Cheering, whirrs, blown horns, laughing. Almost like something out of a twisted dream. Nobody follows him in. There's a small window in it, but not big enough to get out of, if Rorschach decided this madness was beneath him. It's dirty, too. One stall, no door, gloryhole regardless. And a plugged urinal. The mirror's missing, and the sink stained yellow. The concrete floor is sticky enough to drive lesser men mad.

Rorschach, of course, had no intention of leaving. But he has no interest in playing Joker's game or exchanging barbed quips with the clown either. Whatever's going on out there is clearly organized and planned entirely by Joker for some purpose. Probably his own amusement. The cake would contain dead bodies or a bomb. Potentially both. But Rorschach doesn' t play. Not other people's games and not even his own. He's a killjoy.

A killjoy who knows that, when you have a dive bar like this, that men hae a habit of wandering in to take a drunken piss with their beer still in hand. Sure enough, he finds two in the trash, idly shoving aside a puke-drenched paper towel and some used condoms. Rorschach's sorted through far worse. He places the bottles on the sink and and unwraps his cravate, casually ripping two long strips from the end of each. And then he gets out a homemade squirt bottle with a special mix of his. The container used to be a mustard squirter from a diner near his house. It's all about timing. But this isn't the first time Rorschach's played this game.

All of which explains how, approximately a minute and a half later, Rorschach exits with a bottle in each hand, both full. One aflame. He lights the second with the first and then hurls that initial cocktail straight at the Joker and the bar. "Invitation." he grunts as he throws, pivoting and throwing the second one right at big, dumb and ugly.

When Rorschach arrives once more, molotovs in hand, the four other gang members all push to their feet. They aren't so insane they want to be roasted alive. Only the huge figure makes no motion, the bottle crashing into him and igniting him from chest to legs. He blinks a few times, looking down into the lapping fire and blackening his face. Eventually he falls over, thumping into the cake face-first, half-melted hat askew. He never said a single word.

Joker almost playfully ducks. That bottle explodes behind, burning liquid splashing to either side of the Harlequin. Somehow, not a speck of napalm landed on him. The Joker is framed by the whirling hellish inferno, and it only amplifies his madness.

He finishes the clap.

In a rush, four men are coming at Rorschach. They move well. And they are on drugs; PCP, he'd sense. Stronger. More pain tolerance. Better than expected. One has a shiv, another brass knuckles, and the mob tactics they use are remarkably effective. The Joker employs only the finest manipulated goons in certain situations; who have even taken down proteges of the Batman when underestimated.

Rorschach is always underestimated.

Legend or not, they see the man and they just notice the stains on the trenchcoat. Maybe that he smells like sweat and mildew, along with that natural musk of an unwashed human. They expect something flashier. A cape. A utility belt. An emblem. Not a slouching hobo in a freaky, squirming mask. Sure, he might've caught them a bit off guard with that fire trick, but he's obviously out of his league.

He mumbles to himself as they charge. "Hurm. Burn. Hell. Freak. Hate. Mother."

And then the war begins. The trick is to not dodge everything. You have to be willing to take your shots, to walk away bruised and cracked and bleeding. You have to not give a shit if you hear one of your ribs fracture or if you feel a pair of brass knuckles drive into your back and leave a mark on your kidney. You have to take all of that and still think about how to hurt them, how to maim them, how to make them scream.

You have to be crazy.

Even as they give, Rorschach makes sure they get and far worse than anything they dish out. He takes the shiv first, recognizing it as the most dangerous, redirecting it into Knuckles as they get in close quarters, the thin blade sliding right up into the hairy goon's armpit, eyeshadowed lids bulging out with the shock of it. Rorschach's head drives into another's face, hitting a nose with a crunch of bone. A leg lashes out, clipping the front of a knee, the sweet snap of a tendon pushed beyond its limits reaching his maddened ears.

Tomorrow, for certain, Rorschach will be laying in a bathtub full of ice. He'll be makeshift bracing his ribs back together for the hundredth time and trying to figure out if he's pissing enough blood to require buying a bottle of Jameson's for the homeless abortionist sleeping three blocks over. Even if he needs a little surgery, he's got the tools, though. None of which matters now.

Now. Now he's the one laughing. A sick sound, half coughed, like someone emptying leaves from a gutter stuffed with rodent corpses. It's foul and wrong and barely human. An eyeball bursts around Rorschach's finger as the lats of the four falls at his feet. He wipes the fluid off on the lapel of his coat. And swivels his head towards the Joker.

They go down remarkably hard.

These are fanatics. Failure can be worse than death. Rorschach ending them is a mercy, compared to the whims of Joker; especially as he sits on that flaming bartop, looking like the Devil himself ready to cast their souls down to hell. Furious, desperate, people who have been brawling on the streets for months, and come out ahead more than most. The last one, missing an eye, clutches feebly at Rorschach as he slides down, leaving a new stain of blood on the front of his coat. Twitching figures surround him. The Joker's yet to make a single move, still sitting prim and proper.

"You ruined my party."

It sounds genuinely offended. The tone of a reasonable person, who has had some injustice done to him. The flames are close now. Close enough that it's near igniting the Joker's clothing. The pain has to be unbearable. But he does not flinch. Does not move. Hands still pressed together from that final clap, looking like some mockery of a prayer.

Rorschach just walks. He steps over the bodies of his prey and marches towards the Joker, towards those prayerful hands, straight towards the flames. Will this be the day he burns? Will he take the clown in his arms and walk, clutched together, into the mouth of Hell? Even Rorschach himself doesn't know. Whatever sick fantasy Joker was living out, Rorschach fully intends to end it here and now.

The heat makes his mask skitter, like grease in a pan, the ink growing hot against his skin, sure to leave a few blotches as it boils in his mask. All it will take is a push. A shove. And maybe a long, lingering glance to watch the white skin melt off and show whiter bone beneath.

"Hurm."

Rorschach's hands grasp the lapels of the Joker tight. His own gloved hands shift up, and then grasp Rorschach's forearms tightly in return. He'd feel a very sharp sting. Like a needle, puncturing through his trenchcoat. Somehow, the Joker is strong. Stronger than he looks. It's a struggle to get him back into those flames, where he belongs. Is that the power of madness? Or is the legendary vigilante just getting old, worn down from taking out the trash to reach the madman at the front of it? "Do you know what I see?" the Joker whispers, smell of burning hair whisping into the air, shoulders blackening. Wild eyes looking directly into Rorschach's mask. "Do you know what I see in those whirling, chaotic blobs?" Whatever chemical he used is fast working. Turning muscles to lead. Nerves to numb. "I see... myself. A constant, pointless dance of formless shapes, sometimes becoming something almost coherent. Almost meaningful. What do you see, when you look in the mirror...?!"

Rorschach doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't mind anything the Joker says to him. Meaningless. Babble. The vomiting froth of a rabid dog. Dogs. Dogs biting at bones. Her bones, crunching marrow rich and surely salty. A scrap of dress there, bloodstained. Focus. Focus. His veins burn and that will rises, that damnable, hellish will, that madness that pushes Rorschach, that drives him like hell's own engine and he tries to thrust himself forward one last time, attempting to lunge the Joker back and over into the flames even as he feels his face starting to spasm and rictus.

No time. The damned, the damned are bleeding and the sky is black and the devil's laughter is at his back. Ha ha. Ha ha. He's sprawled and falling backwards, hitting the cake, and hell smells like buttercream.

"Rorschach. Rorschach. Rorschach." he says to himself, over and over. Not Walter. Rorschach.

Slowly the Joker pushes himself off the counter. His right shoulder is on fire, but it's patted out as if not a concern. Slowly Joker moves to stand over the fallen vigilante, and for once, his face is a genuine frown. "I knew it." he states, sounding almost sane. "I knew you were no fun. Because from the start... you get the joke. You know the punchline. ...It's life." Joker crouches down, peering into Rorschach's mask. "Life. Life!! It's all so pointless, random, insane!! And you GET IT!!" He grasps Rorschach and shakes him by the shoulders, before laughing. Deep, long, genuine. "Hooo... This is nice." He turns around and sits, leaning back into the cake with his arms crossed. "...So when did you see the punchline? Do you even remember? Do you even care?"

The toxin's so thick in his veins. It's like he's made out of syrup, like honey is coated all over his skin, and there are ants, ants biting and burning on him. And he looks up and sees the Joker. Blurry and wrong and at sharp angles, like he's made of origami. Paper man. Still, he slowly pushes himself up. He can feel the bones in his hands, each of them, every damned carpal scraping together. He grits his teeth. Not done. Not finished.

"Get it." he murmurs, tongue thick. Get it. But, of course, Joker's wrong. Rorschach doesn't think life is random or pointless or insane. He just thinks it isn't about being happy. It isn't about us. It's all part of some massive plan and we're just the cogs getting ground down. But he isn't raging against the machine or laughing at it. He's a part of it. He's embraced his function. His function is punishment. His function is hate.

Hate. If there's a power inside Rorschach, something superhuman, it is his hate, that burning thing, that raw, savage, almost feral despisal of everything that's wicked and wrong and sick and different. And it's what fuels him now as he pushes himself up, up, mouth snarling through his mask as he lurches up to his feet. An ember lands on his shoulder, surely burning flesh.

"Hurm." is all he says. A/nd he's coming again, like some sort of zombie. Slow, yes, but stronger, stronger than even before the drug, hate alone pushing his muscles until they'll scream and snap if they have to. Joker can choose. Run. Or burn. Rorschach doesn't care which right now.

"Everyone sees madness in their own way. A way that lets them function. But you're a kindred soul. Something BROKE you. A bad day, maybe. Or maybe seeing what the world is really like." He pats Rorschach on the thigh as he maneuvers to get up, as if someone was hitting the slow button on a VCR. "What is your madness? Is it rainbows? Is it voices? Is it God?" He gets up slowly, and steps away just in time to be missed by a groping hand. The fire's beginning to catch the building now, although Tank has burned out into a blackened husk atop the frosting. Joker slowly circles the cake, arms behind his back, staring at Rorschach. "Do you think it fate? Destiny? That it's not your choice? That it's all pointless? Am I getting closer?!" Smoke is filling the room now, open door from being kicked down offering minimal filtration. Nobody is coming in from the main bar, and no alarm goes off.

Rorschach keeps lurching, almost oozing, forcing himself to lift one foot and then the other. His body is soaked in sweat, his limbs burning and throbbing. Joker knows the dosage well enough to know almost any man would be unconscious at this point or utterly paralyzed. Rorschach keeps pushing. It must be agonizing, like being frozen and breaking parts of yourself off, as if someone were pushing shards of glass into every muscle at once.

He keeps going.

"Madness. Is. Rorschach." he says and then he manages to move suddenly and actually cuffs Joker. There's barely any strength in the blow, but it's probably a shock. He might be fighting through it. He's just a little faster now. Why isn't he screaming?

There's a blink of surprise, when that fist suddenly moves with earnest speed. Joker backsteps away, dabbing his lip with a gloved hand. Blood. But he knows. This isn't the power of hatred. This is the power of lunacy. Everyone has it. The furnace they deny. For the Batman, it is Justice. "I wonder what kept you on this side. Snapping the necks of the vile, instead of the good. Oh well." He adjusts his suit, smoothing back his hair. "It was a pleasure finally meeting you." A bow is done, likely just in time to avoid another of those vicious swings. He has peculiar timing in that way. "I don't think there's any point in us meeting again..." Arms behind his back, he strides out of the broken door and into the alley, whistling softly amidst the cracks and shudders of the building being engulfed. Like a furnace; a furnace full of bodies, and burnt bones. Somewhere, the sound of an angry dog barking into the air.

By the time Rorschach makes it outside, the building's an utter loss. The interior inferno has utterly consumed the place. There are burns on his shoulders and arms, the backs of his legs. Maybe more than he's been hurt before, or, at the very least, in a long, long time. He's crawled into an alley and pulled the trash over him as the paramedics and firemen come. He passes out for a while, the pain finally kicking in as his adrenaline eases and the drug passes from his system, its paralytic effect having actually numbed some of the agony.

It will take quite a while to recover from this. Not that it will keep him out of the field. Too much work. Too many freaks. Too much punishment.

Point. Yes. Joker doesn't want to meet him. Not again. But he will.

Next time, Rorschach's going to be dealing the cards.