anactoria

Title: Solidarity
Author:

anactoria
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairing: Dan/Adrian
Rating: R overall, PG-13 for this part.
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own them.
Summary: It's 1992 and this isn't Utopia.
Notes: Beta --

muse_of_graphia. Thanks!
Chapter 1 Chapter 4
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

April 1992

Dan's been waiting for eleven minutes. Nine safe minutes left. He taps his fingers nervously on the arm of his pilot's seat.

The city is eerily quiet after curfew, and he can't hear much except the lapping of the water and the rapid thud of his own heartbeat. He isn't as stressed out as he could be, though. He keeps getting distracted, thinking about this afternoon. The awfulness, and the yelling, and the hugging, and the unsure sideways look Adrian gave him after Judith burst into the kitchen and dragged them both off to talk strategy, like he honestly didn't know what to say. That was almost frightening.

He almost jumps out of his skin at the quiet knock on Archie's right windscreen. There are eight figures standing inside the tunnel mouth. The six from New York, Maria, and Adrian, pale as a ghost in the dark. He's at the back of the group. Keeping lookout, Dan guesses. His face is visible, just about, but Dan can discern nothing from his expression; it's as carefully, serenely neutral as ever.

Still, no time to think about that right now. Dan fires up the engines in readiness, hovering a couple of feet above the tunnel floor, and opens the side doors. "Okay, get in. We don't have much time."

The refugees pile on board. Then a thought strikes him, and he jumps out of his seat, sticking his head around the door.

"Hey, I could probably use an extra person here. I know it's all extra weight, but this shoulder's still a little painful, and if we run into any trouble -- well, I can't fly with one arm." It's not entirely true, and pretty transparent. Dan thinks Adrian raises an eyebrow, but he stays quiet.

"Sure," Maria says. "You want me or -- Adrian, you've been in this thing before, right?"

"Makes sense," Dan agrees, without giving Adrian time to answer. "We need to hurry."

Adrian frowns. "Maria -- will you be okay returning to HQ alone?"

She grins. "I've been living on the wrong side of the tracks here longer than you have. Know this place like the back of my hand."

"Come on." Dan holds out his uninjured arm. It's a useless gesture -- even an ordinary person could make the jump without assistance -- but after a half-second's hesitation, Adrian nods, and takes his hand anyway.

August 1991

He's working on Archie when the call comes. The phone rings and, five minutes later, Laurie appears at the top of the stairs, white-faced.

It's Sally. Her bank account's been frozen. Some kind of hitherto unheard-of legal trouble. She's not scared so much as embarrassed and outraged at not having been able to pay for her Martini, or at least that's what she claims. Dan and Laurie don't need to check to know that the same thing will have happened to them, too. It was bound to reach them eventually.

The Party doesn't exactly view masks as a major threat, but it's not fond of them, either. They're the sort of people any incipient resistance movement might rally round, try to claim as figureheads. They could be an inconvenience.

They set up aliases, and backup-aliases, years ago. Those will safeguard them for a while, but they'll be tracked down eventually. And when that happens... well, they've got radio parts and ammo stockpiled in the basement, things they can use as currency if they have to, but those won't last forever. There has been talk of roadblocks, too, extra checks, travel restrictions. If they want to escape they have weeks, maybe days.

By the time Dan's finished up and headed upstairs, Laurie's already packing.

"C'mon. We shouldn't waste any time."

She's right, of course. It'd be safest to get out now, before they're trapped. But everything in Dan revolts at the thought of running and doing nothing, of standing by and letting it all happen again.

"There's another suitcase under the bed. You should get packing."

He takes a step, stops, frozen.

"Hurry up. What're you just standing there for?"

"I-- "

"You are coming?" she says. "Dan?"

He looks down; cleans an imaginary smudge off his glasses.

"Dan?"

April 1992

They get back two hours before dawn, with a quarter-tank of fuel and enough cloud cover to keep them relatively invisible from the harbor. Out over Massachusetts Bay, Dan kills the forward motion and just hovers, looking down over the city, the slumbering blackness, the occasional white slice of a searchlight in the dark.

Beside him, Adrian's looking straight ahead. He's been quiet on the journey, smiling pleasantly but not saying much, sort of folded in on himself. Dan looks sideways at him, the paper-lantern luminosity he has in the darkness, like something lit up from within, the quick, animal movements of his hands.

Dan thinks he'd like to take hold of them again, still them with his own and mumble something stupid and soothing, but the frustration that propelled him earlier has dissipated now, and he feels like the moment has passed.

"Well, I'd say that was a success," he says, instead.

"Indeed," Adrian says, and turns sideways in the chair to face him. "Though I must say, you hardly appeared to need my help."

"Hey, not true. You got those people to the ship."

"I was simply there for safety in numbers. I'm sure Maria could have managed perfectly well by herself."

That's not what Dan's talking about, and they both know it. Silence draws out between them.

"I'm sorry," Dan sighs, finally. "About this afternoon. Yelling at you, I mean."

"I'm sure it was deserved," Adrian says, too lightly, and Dan knows he can just leave it there, if he wants, just not mention anything else, and they'll go back to talking trivialities, never speak of it again. He also knows he'd never forgive himself if he let that happen.

"Not really," he says.

Adrian blinks at him, and turns to look back out through the windscreen. His expression is unreadable. "I had the opportunity to help," he says, after a moment. "To save lives, perhaps. I couldn't do nothing. I know you understand that."

"Yeah," Dan nods. "Yeah. Of course." And sure, put like that, it does sound perfectly reasonable. He just wishes it were really that simple.

It's not, of course. Dan was a crime-fighter himself, once. He knows that doing nothing isn't always an option, and he was partnered up with Rorschach long enough to know that that attitude sometimes turned pathological. But he can't ever remember being so calmly accepting of personal suffering, he never sought it out the way Adrian seems to. There's something almost childlike in his determination, Dan thinks. It's as though he's trying to restore some kind of balance, as though the world will be somehow set to rights if only he hurts enough, if only he's sorry enough.

And Dan wishes he could say or do something to change that, but he can't think of anything to say that could possibly be convincing, and Adrian's staring out at the black sea so impassively Dan doesn't quite dare to touch him.

"That's why -- me and Laurie," he says, instead, and Adrian turns to glance at him in surprise.

"Yes?"

"That's sort of why we -- we're not. Together, anymore."

"Dan -- I'm sorry. I hadn't realized."

"It had been coming for a while, I guess." He's not sure what's compelling him to share, except that maybe it's a relief to talk about it to someone who knew them both before, and that maybe, just maybe, the small intimacy will make Adrian feel that he can reciprocate. Not likely, but it's worth a try. "After '85... well, I guess she was done with worrying about the whole wide world. Wanted a normal life. I thought that was what I wanted, too."

"And wasn't it?"

He shrugs. "If things had been different, I guess. But when it came down to it -- I knew I could help, if I stayed. I couldn't run away."

"Of course not. You're a thoroughly good man, Dan."

"So are you."

Adrian looks away. He goes moments without speaking, but when he finally does, he's pulled himself together and the inscrutable mask is back on. "It's getting late," he says. "Shall we?"

"Sure. Judith's probably dying to interrogate us about how it went."

"Actually, I believe I'll return to my apartment. I -- I've been imposing on you too much, lately."

Dan frowns. "Are you sure that's wise? There's at least an hour before curfew lifts. Besides, it's not as if I mind, or anything."

Then it dawns on him that that's not really the issue. It's not as if Adrian's ever seemed worried about abusing his hospitality -- if you can call a patch of floor and some spare bedding hospitality -- before now, after all. But after what's happened, well, it's pretty understandable if he doesn't feel like putting on his charming face and answering a bunch of questions from half of HQ. Dan can't imagine what he'd want to do in the same situation, except that it would probably involve taking a shower and hiding out somewhere for a while. But the idea of leaving Adrian alone to beat himself up, or pretend everything's fine, or whatever, isn't right either. His brain absolutely refuses to entertain the possibility.

"Look," he says, finally. "If you don't want to speak to everyone -- " He sees Adrian's eyes widen a fraction. " -- you can just go and crash out straight away. You can have my bunk. I'll just tell the others you've, I dunno, got a migraine or something. Besides, I'm pretty sure half your clothes are in my room, anyway."

"Since you insist." Adrian rolls his eyes as though he's humoring Dan, but there's something grateful in the way he leans back into his seat, and after a moment he closes his eyes. Dan fires up the engines, and heads for home.

August 1991

Laurie's eyelashes are coated with mascara, more thickly than usual. It's something she does when she's determined not to cry. She's got a hollow, determined look in her eyes, staring straight ahead. Sally, too, even though she's smiling, her fur hat jammed on defiantly against the wind.

First call for their flight. They've got false passports, which Dan's pretty sure should pass muster. Safer to get out through legitimate channels, while they can, if they can, than to try and sneak out like refugees. Dan dreads to think what might happen if they got caught doing that.

"Call me," he says. "If you can. Write. Something. Let me know you're safe."

Laurie nods, bites her lip. Her hair flies into her face. He can't see her eyes. "What will you do?" she asks him.

Dan glances at the security guard stationed by the boarding gate, and lowers his voice. "I know there are resistance groups springing up. I'll find one of them, I guess, see if they want my help. Archie could be useful."

"I -- I." Laurie shakes her head, then looks up at him, and smiles briefly. "We ought to go. Be careful, okay?"

She places a hand on his shoulder and moves in towards him, but aims her kiss at his cheek, not his mouth. He's surprised when he doesn't mind.

April 1992

The water pressure is weak, but the shower is flayingly cold, cold enough to erase, almost, the still-felt traces of the afternoon's... episode. Transaction.

That is all it was; that is how he will compartmentalize it. It is completed now. Over. He will not indulge in self-pity.

Adrian stares down his reflection in the bathroom mirror, daring it to argue. His own eyes look back at him tiredly.

There is a single bite-mark turning purple where neck meets shoulder. It stands out violently in the light from the naked bulb, that and the healing scabs on his knuckles the only spots of color on his skin. His fingers flex involuntarily, the nerve-memory of Dan's touch, perhaps the most tender he has felt since childhood, clinging like gossamer.

No. Adrian shakes himself; regards himself sternly in the mirror. It will not do to think about that.

The door opens behind him. "Serk insisted that I bring you some aspirin. He's quite concerned about your migraine. Better not tell him it's imaginary."

Dan stops just inside the door and lets it swing closed. In the mirror, Adrian sees him catch sight of the bite-mark, sees the concerned expression, the way he inclines his head, the incipient question in his eyes.

Adrian turns to face him, and forces a smile. "It's nothing," he says, levelly. This is not a lie, he insists to himself. In days, the mark will have faded. The skin is not even broken.

"It doesn't look like nothing."

"I'm not a child, Dan. I knew what I was doing."

"That's what worries me." Dan takes a step closer, looking up at him imploringly. "Look. I know you did this to help people. I know it worked. But no more. Please."

"Dan--"

"I know you can't seem to manage to care about yourself. So do it for me. I can't stand seeing you hurt yourself. I really can't."

"I'm not hurt," Adrian protests, and then stops as, eyes fastened on his, Dan reaches up and touches his cheek. Just barely, light as a breath of air.

He blinks and stills, not with nervousness or surprise but because he has no right to kindness, to stand here and let himself be gentled, touched like something precious, someone deserving of comfort. The thought makes him feel like an intruder, like a thief. He has no right.

"I can't understand why," he says, when he can trust himself to speak again, "You have no reason to pity me."

Dan's hand drops back to his side. "It's not pity."

"What, then?" Adrian asks, but his voice dies on the words. It is not like him, to be afraid of knowing.

It does not matter, since he gets no answer anyway. Dan just looks at him, very gently, and says, "Get some rest."

He has no strength to argue.

Chapter 6