crack_van | Remember Me As A Time of Day by anon (R)

Fandom: WATCHMEN
Pairing: Dan/Rorschach
Length: ~12k
Author on LJ: n/a
Author's website: n/a
Why this must be read:

It's mysterious, not in that it's driven by the characters solving mysteries, but because they understand basic things about their world that are never made explicit to the reader. It's set in an alternate future after some unknown catastrophe, where Dan and Rorschach are two survivors carrying out a meager existence among ruins. Rorschach's lost his memory - we don't know how - and Dan keeps him just barely in touch with reality.

As a Dan/Rorschach story, the fic is both understated and intensely poignant. The characters are divided by Rorschach's loss of identity, as in the canon, and their interaction is full of an unspoken sense of bereavement. There's a great volume of emotion conveyed with economy, and I think that takes a lot of skill.

This fic is also hugely enjoyable as a post-apocalyptic story: it's wonderfully spooky, with a strong atmosphere of emptiness and foreboding. We get the sense of the bereavement of the world as well as of the primary characters, and also occasional chilling hints that whatever did the bereaving has not gone away:

The sky is darkening outside, dark grey hush falling over the horizon. There is something wrong with this place, streets only in shadow when the lights come on, red pools of light scattered as far as the eyes can see.

Remember Me As A Time Of Day, parts 1-9
Remember Me As A Time Of Day, parts 10-11