Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Int. Some concert venue, Dunwall - Late night/early morning.

The sound of the bass shook the floor under his feet, and Daud was more than a little grateful for his earplugs. 

It was a perfectly average Saturday night. Daud - “The Boss”, as most people chose to call him, much to his dismay - would have been on the couch by now. Preferably with a good book and his scratchy old records to keep him company. 

His days of working late nights had been numbered since he founded Whalers Security. But if a friend in need calls you, you answer. Especially if that friend is Lizzy Stride, as in Lizzy Stride and the Dead Eels. Daud still owed her multiple favours and this was one of them.

So here he was - guarding the door to the backstage area with the usual stone-cold expression plastered across his face. He was desperately craving a cup of black coffee. 

Billie - his second, on the other side of the room - threw him a glance that undoubtedly conveyed the same wish. 

Tonight had been a last-minute endeavor. Most of Lizzy’s personal security detail had come down with some sort of stomach flu. Daud had been forced to scrape together the few of his employees who weren’t already out at concerts of their own. And now here he was, filling the last spot himself, because Rinaldo just had to spend the evening (and the night, and the morning) at some rave in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Rudshore.

It was alright. Truthfully, a part of him always missed this - the buzzing excitement permeating the room, the too-loud music, the smell of sweat and beer. Inside the grizzly middle-aged man with the perpetual frown and the facial scar, a younger version of Daud was making his presence known: brash and abrasive, with a predilection for cheap liquor, nicotine and blood.

Only one of those three habits had survived over the years. (Void, how he wished this was a smoking establishment.)

That being said, the guy with the stupid mutton chops who kept bumping into him was basically begging for it. 

Daud took a deep breath - a breath that probably would have come easier if not for the half pack of cigarettes he went through every day - and forced himself to unclench his fists. He wasn’t twenty anymore, and he also wasn’t the piss-drunk concertgoer this time around, but the annoying security guy who didn’t know how to have fun.

(Daud had long since made peace with the fact that his younger self would have found him depressingly boring.)

He shoved his hands into his pockets and let his gaze wander around the room.

There were more than a few familiar faces in the crowd - nothing to make the aging relics of Dunwall’s rowdier crowd come together like a Dead Eels gig. Thankfully, most of them seemed disinclined to pursue small talk in light of the sheer volume of both the music (literally) and Daud’s facial expression (figuratively).

Daud’s eyes fixed on a fresh stain of undefined something on the wall, which was subsequently covered by someone leaning against it. Shame, that flannel was nice. Daud searched for its owner’s face through the moving lights and found it too empty for his own liking. The guy, who looked half there and half not, let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes. One of his hands toyed with the seam of his washed-out band tee, the other was wrapped firmly around a bottle.

Very drunk and very alone, Daud concluded mentally. He didn't love the look of Flannel Guy, not one bit.

What Daud didn’t know was that the man under his scrutiny was none other than Corvo Attano, whose father had been an avid reader of fantasy literature and thus bestowed upon him both the name of a nineteenth-century royal and the subsequent teasing that came with it. He’d also had the gall to go on and die when Corvo was seven. Both of these things Corvo was still rather bothered by.

There are painful memories inside of me, his brain would have said if it had been able to speak. Technically, it was - by using Corvo’s mouth, but that mouth was currently busy chugging down the fifth beer of the night.

Of course, Daud wasn’t aware of any of that. He probably could have guessed it if he had felt like psychoanalyzing a total stranger, but he was far too tired and also not a fucking weirdo. 

He simply made a mental note to keep an eye on Flannel Guy, looked away for one second, and then looked back just in time to see Flannel Guy forcefully shove another man to the ground.

Looking the way Daud did had its advantage - the crowd automatically parted around him as he made his way toward the brawl. He didn’t need to check to know Billie was doing the same. 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” the man on the floor growled. He had taken a bar table with him. Broken glass and the contents of an ashtray were scattered across the floor.

“Don’t act all surprised now, perv-” was as far as Flannel Guy got before Daud wrestled his arm behind his back, getting an indignant yelp in return.

“I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” Daud said. “Both of you.”

Billie, knowing her cue, made to grab the other one - a bald man, broad-shouldered and dressed in a too-fancy wine red coat. 

“I can walk myself out, darling,” Baldie barked.

She responded by tightening her grip on his shoulder, no doubt digging into some pressure point. He shut his mouth after that.

“This is a misunderstanding!” Flannel Guy yelled loudly enough to turn heads as Daud tried his best not to make a show of walking him to the exit. 

“Don’t care,” Daud responded, voice strained with effort (the man was strong and twisted in his grip like his life depended on it). “You’re going home.”

“You need to listen to me, dickhead! He was harassing that girl!”

“Which is why I’m not calling the cops on you,” Daud muttered, shoved Flannel Guy out of the door and closed it behind him.  

Int. Daud’s bedroom - Day.

Daud woke up late the next day. Well - technically, he woke up just on time, he had simply been in bed at five in the morning and fucked over his sleep schedule accordingly. 

He rolled over on his side. The bedframe and his back creaked in unison, and he seriously wondered if his mother had lied to him about his birth year. There was no way these bones were only 42.

This was much more bearable when we were younger, his aching joints said. Daud found himself inclined to agree.

His back probably wouldn’t be hurting like this if Baldie hadn’t decided to go on and cause even more trouble. Enough trouble, in fact, to warrant both Billie and Daud wrestling him to the ground and keeping him there until the actual fucking cops arrived. It had been a total shitshow. 

Daud decided that he did not want to think about Baldie any longer and struggled out of bed.

At this hour on a Saturday, the gym was too crowded for his liking. Daud rushed through his workout and left quickly. 

When he was younger, there had been no need for a gym. He’d kept himself in fine shape clawing his way through Dunwall’s underbelly. Once again, he imagined twenty-year-old Daud staring at his current self in bewilderment, and suppressed a smile as he strolled across the gym’s parking lot.

There were a few clear benefits that came with the lifestyle he led these days. One of them was the ability to walk around in public without worrying about running into one of the previous night’s violent encounters. The gas station next to the gym wasn’t the most glamorous spot for breakfast, but their coffee was good (read: strong enough to raise the dead), and Daud had never been much for glamor anyway. He walked past an incredibly rusty old sedan, wondering who in their right mind would continue driving a car that had undoubtedly failed multiple inspections, and entered the gas station. 

The cashier - a bored-to-death teenager, around the same age as his youngest employees - took his order. Daud’s gaze wandered over the various knickknacks on the counter and stuck to the display of cheap lighters. Thomas collected those things, for whatever reason - he didn’t even smoke. The sillier, the better. 

“I still don’t think you should have thrown me out,” a voice said right next to his ear. Daud whipped around and just barely didn’t throw a punch at the person standing too close for comfort.

It took him a second to recognize the face, but once he did, he had to force his throat shut around an annoyed groan. 

Fucking Flannel Guy was standing behind him - no more flannel, though. He had probably noticed the mystery stain when he got home, thrown it in the wash, and replaced it with that ratty old denim jacket in the morning. Daud was trying to come up with a new nickname - Ratty Old Denim Jacket Guy just didn’t quite have the same ring - when the man extended his hand.

“Corvo. Sorry for the trouble last night.”

Corvo. Quite a name, Daud thought as he stared at the guy it belonged to, who in turn seemed to have no issue staring back. Corvo’s dark hair was still as messy as last night - something told Daud that the mess was perpetual and (mostly) intentional. His eyes were adorned by impressive eye bags, there was unshaven stubble on his chin, and unfortunately, he wore it quite well. 

Daud disliked people who made hangovers look cool, mostly because he had never been one of them. He also disliked people that required him to crane his neck to properly scowl at them (which, to be fair, was about half of the adult population).

Daud ignored the extended hand and nodded in the direction of the bottle in the other one. “Not hungover enough?”

“Hair of the dog, you know how it is,” Corvo replied. “Look, I don’t mean to ruin your morning-”

It’s afternoon, Daud interjected mentally. 

Corvo continued, probably still under the impression that it was somewhere around 10 A.M. “-I just recognized you from the gig last night, and wanted to apologize for making your job harder than it needed to be.”

“Right,” Daud said eloquently, watching with relief as the cashier set his coffee down on the counter. 

Behind him, Corvo was still talking. “That’s not who I normally am,” he said. “And I’d like to make it up to you.”

“No need for that,” Daud replied as he took the paper cup and placed some change on the counter.

“I’m serious,” Corvo said, grabbing a napkin from the counter and a pen from the lottery booth next to it. He scribbled a string of numbers onto it and pressed it into Daud’s hand. “At least let me buy you a beer sometime.”

“I don’t drink,” Daud declared, stuffing the napkin in the pocket of his hoodie and turning to leave.

“Call anyway,” Corvo shouted after Daud before the door slammed shut behind him.

Int. Whalers Security - Day.

Billie did not let the subject rest for three whole days.

“I can’t believe you didn’t realize he was hitting on you,” she said - with no small dose of mockery - when Daud first told her of the strange encounter. He immediately regretted mentioning it at all. “So, are you calling him?”

“I’m not-” Daud stammered. “You know I don’t-”

She laughed, then. She was getting older, Daud realized. She wouldn’t have dared to laugh at him when he took her in some ten years ago. He liked today’s version better, even if it scared him sometimes. Time had the unfortunate habit of passing too quickly. 

Daud told himself he wouldn’t call Corvo for four more days, and relented on the fifth. Not for a date, he told himself. It wasn’t a date, he was just getting old and lonely and the number on the napkin bore the prospect of socializing with someone who wasn’t his direct subordinate. 

Int. The Hound Pits Pub - Night.

It seriously wasn’t a date. Corvo just… was that way with people, apparently. That’s what Daud learned when he let Corvo buy him a pear soda at a moderately dingy pub by the Wren. A bright blue neon sign above the door designated the pub as The Hound Pits, and its inside contained a strange crossover between stained glass ceilings and graffitied walls. Judging by the way they greeted each other, Corvo knew the owner.

About halfway through his drink, Daud was hit with the surprising realization that he was having fun. Sober(ish) Corvo was not nearly as loud, obnoxious, or foul-mouthed as drunk Corvo. Void, Daud might have even considered him nice. 

Or maybe he was just getting lonely. People his age didn’t make new friends easily, especially not if they had his looks - tattoos, scar, all that. The fact that he had destroyed most of his friendships in the terrible years between 20 and 30 probably didn’t help, either.

He really hoped that Corvo wasn’t just playing nice in order to get off Daud‘s blacklist. (Corvo wasn’t. In fact, he had completely forgotten about said blacklist. He was just also a little sick of lonely nights.)

Later that night, they stumbled out of the pub - Corvo drunk, Daud high on nicotine and his neverending zest for life. The cold night air was doing nothing to sober either of them up.

“Fuck,” Corvo said as soon as the door fell shut behind them. “Oh Void, I’m a dumbass.”

“Hm?” Daud asked, still fiddling with the zipper of his padded leather jacket.

“I drove here,” Corvo whined, running a hand across his face. "And then I got drunk and forgot that I did that, and now there's no more bus for another two hours."

“I’ll drive you,” Daud’s mouth said before its owner could decide otherwise.

“You don’t have to,” Corvo said, meaning you absolutely do but I’m not quite impolite enough to tell you that. 

“What are you gonna do, drive drunk?” Daud sighed.

“I can walk,” Corvo slurred with the confidence of a man eight drinks deep. He took a few steps, pointedly setting one foot in front of the other as if on an imaginary tightrope. “See?” 

He then proceeded to fall off the tightrope.

Daud mentally waved goodbye to the idea of driving Corvo home on the motorcycle - he hadn’t brought the second helmet, anyway, and in his state, Corvo wouldn’t even make it through the first turn.

He held out a hand. “Keys.”

Corvo, still on the ground, wrapped his fingers around the hand before Daud could pull it back. “Help me up.”

This is why I stopped drinking, Daud thought as he forcefully hauled nearly two meters of thoroughly-hammered man back to standing.

“Car’s over there,” Corvo mumbled, swaying on his feet and clinging to Daud’s jacket like his life depended on it.

And because Daud’s life was a big practical joke, Corvo’s car was the the stupidly rusty sedan from the morning at the gas station. (What had he thought then? I would rather eat a live rat than get into that thing?) 

No use in that now. Daud got behind the wheel, moved the seat forward by what felt like a kilometer, and thanked the Void for the fact that the motor actually started - on the third try, that was.

The car drove as it looked.

Corvo had Daud drop him off at some nondescript street corner in Swingtown. Daud decided not to pry.

Chapter Text

Int. Dunwall's hipsterest corner - Day.

Daud didn’t think of himself as a particularly interesting person, so he didn’t really understand why Corvo kept choosing to spend time with him (once he dropped the blackout-induced accusation that Daud had stolen his car, that was).

He went nonetheless, letting Corvo drag him around pubs and shops and, on this particular day, a record store.

“I can’t believe you think the Brigmore Witches are better than The Loyalists”, Corvo said, appalled. His fingers were flicking through the vinyls at record (ha) speed. They had nowhere else to be, but Corvo did everything too quickly. Like he was running away. 

“I didn’t say they were better,“ Daud said. “I said their respective genres were too different for any sort of comparison-”

“-and that is precisely what people like you say when they’re looking for a polite way of asserting their favorite’s superiority,“ Corvo interjected.

Daud opened his mouth to present an incredibly eloquent counterargument - likely something along the lines of Fuck off, then - but Corvo cut him off by pressing a record to Daud’s chest.

“Listen to that one,“ he said, a cheerful glint in his eyes. “Listen to it on your stupid expensive record player that you won’t shut up about, and then we can resume this conversation.”

Daud eyed the record cover cautiously. On it, a lighthouse and the stormy sea. In it, Corvo’s soul. Maybe.

He bought it. He would not have given Corvo the satisfaction, but the man was already outside answering a phone call, so Daud bought the damn record and did his best to hide it behind his back before stepping out of the store.

“Shit, really- Okay, alright, I’ll be right there.” Corvo always sounded stressed, but this was bordering on panic. “Void. Give me ten.” It took him three tries to hang up the phone.

“What is it?“ Daud asked.

“My daughter,” Corvo replied, rifling through his pockets. “She keeps getting in fights in school, and now she broke some kid’s tooth-”

“Wonder who she gets it from,” Daud muttered under his breath, omitting the I didn’t know you had a daughter.

“-and she’ll only talk to me, and where are my fucking keys?”

“On your belt,“ Daud pointed out.

“Shit. Thanks.” Corvo grabbed the keys from their thievery-inviting carabiner and ran off towards the parking lot.

Daud tucked the record under his arm and lit a cigarette.

He had just stubbed out the cigarette and was about to leave when Corvo returned, out of breath and clearly on the verge of tears.

“My ex-wife is going to kill me. Please tell me you know how to jumpstart a car.”

I also didn’t know you had an ex-wife, Daud thought as he added another mark to his ever-growing tally of resigned sighs.

Int. Some dingy grocery store in southeast Dunwall - Late afternoon.

“Thank you for today,” Corvo muttered down the phone while tossing a frozen pizza into his shopping cart. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“No problem,” Daud’s voice rumbled through colossal amounts of static (where was he, in the fucking sewers?). “Did you manage to bail your daughter out?”

“Yeah,” Corvo answered. “She’s at her mom’s.”

“You never mentioned your family,” Daud said.

Corvo considered dodging the implicit question. It had been easy enough to avoid the topic thus far, and he had been content to keep the mess that was his (former) family life to himself. Not that he felt like he couldn’t tell Daud. It just… it felt good to have one relationship in his life that didn’t carry the baggage of the divorce.

“It’s not the easiest story to tell,” is what he settled on. 

There was a bout of silence on the other end. Then, Daud cleared his throat. “I bought the record, you know.”

“Did you now,” Corvo grinned. 

“I think you should come over tonight,” Daud said, gracefully ignoring Corvo’s gloating. “We can listen to it together, and after, we can tell each other not-so-easy stories.”

Corvo’s throat suddenly felt tight. “Uh,” he said. “Alright.”

He took the metro - Dunwall traffic was horrible in the evening (in the morning, too, and at lunchtime, and at all other times). 

The train came to a stop in Rudshore. Corvo let himself be carried out of the subway station by the flow of commuters, sucking in a relieved breath once the air stopped smelling like piss.

Hard to believe this used to be Dunwall’s financial district, he thought as he wormed his way through crowds of bargoers in outlandish outfits. (He suddenly felt boring.) Rudshore had never regained its upscale reputation after being flooded and used as a mass grave during the plague times. Instead, its dark history had attracted the darker types - artists, punks, revolutionaries, criminals. People like his new acquaintance, apparently. Corvo just wasn’t sure which category Daud fit into yet.

The lampposts were covered in stickers and the walls in graffiti, and the smell of weed was nearly strong enough to drown out the sharp aroma of impending gentrification. Nearly, Corvo thought as he walked past a freshly-flipped homeless shelter turned overpriced cafe.

Back when Corvo was young enough to be among those partying here, Rudshore had been different. Precarious, some would call it. Risky, dangerous, with the spirit of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll alive and well. To him - eighteen, fresh meat from Serkonos - it had seemed like the whole wide world reduced to a few streets. Some of his best nights had taken place in Rudshore. Some of his worst, too.

Had Daud been here, back then? Maybe he got his scar in a good ol’ Rudshore alley brawl. Maybe Corvo gave it to him. 

Corvo walked past a bar he would rather not admit he had ever been in, turned a corner and found himself in a relatively calm part of the district. Right above a small corner store was the flat Corvo’s new(ish) friend seemed to call his home.

The doorbell sign simply said “Daud”, and Corvo began to wonder whether Daud’s joke about having forgotten his last name hadn’t been a joke after all. He rang the bell, then rang again when no one opened. The buzzer went off, and Corvo let himself in, climbed the stairs and found himself in front of the haphazardly-dressed, wet-haired man in question.

“Sorry,” Daud said. He was wearing a bathrobe and a pair of fluffy pink bunny slippers. “I was on the way home from the gym when you called. Thought I’d be quicker in the shower.”

“No worries,” Corvo muttered, staring at the bunnies on Daud’s feet. Their little googly eyes seemed to have no qualms about staring back.

“Make yourself at home,” Daud said as he retreated to what Corvo assumed was the bathroom, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints. “I’ll be back in a second.”

The bathroom door fell shut, leaving Corvo to his own devices. 

He took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack. There were three other jackets on it: Daud’s work bomber, his flashy wine-coloured motorcycle jacket and some coat Corvo had never seen him in. 

Something clattered loudly behind the bathroom door, followed by a quiet but colourful string of curses.

Corvo decided to let Daud have some privacy and stepped into what he presumed was the living room.

This is not what I expected from a man who wears red moto jackets and bunny slippers, he thought as he let his gaze drift across the room. 

It was… cool. Daud owned a black leather couch, a ton of plants and the aforementioned record player. The exposed brick walls were adorned with band posters - good ones, even. A small desk, overflowing with pages upon pages of Daud’s messy handwriting, was shoved in a corner by the window. Next to it stood a similarly overfilled bookshelf. 

Corvo stepped closer, squinting at a photograph on the shelf. Daud was younger in it, no grey at his temples and less wrinkles around his eyes. Still unmistakably him, though, if not for the scar, then for the way he was scowling at the camera. There was a bright pink party hat on his head. The girl on Daud's right had dark skin, curly hair and a bright smile. Corvo vaguely recognized her as the same woman who had helped dragging him out of the Dead Eels gig. In this picture, she was holding a cake with sparklers on it. 

“My 35th birthday,” a voice said right next to his ear, and he whipped around, almost knocking down the frame. Daud, having exchanged the bathrobe and bunny slippers for black jeans and a comparatively boring sweater, was frowning a little less than usual. “Billie was 17, I think.”

Corvo suddenly felt like he was intruding. “Didn’t know you went this far back with your employees.”

“Some of them,” Daud said quietly, righting the picture on the shelf. “You do what you can to keep the kids off the damn streets, right?”

Corvo didn’t quite know how to respond.

“Anyway,” Daud said, gesturing towards the couch. He smelled like sandalwood. “Sit. Let’s listen to your stupid record on my stupid record player.”

And so, my friends, they did.

Corvo had planted himself on the floor next to the speakers, while Daud remained on the couch like the boring old man he was. Corvo was vaguely aware of his hands twitching in time with the guitar strums. He knew every song by heart. 

After the third song, he dared to throw a glance at Daud. “So? Did I promise too much?”

“You didn’t,” Daud admitted, crossing his arms with an appropriately dramatic sigh.

Sweet, sweet triumph. The next song started, and Corvo let his head fall back onto the carpet. 

Eventually, the album ended, and he picked himself up from the floor to rifle through Daud’s record collection (not the worst taste he’d ever seen, honestly). Daud went to the kitchen to grab a ginger ale for the both of them, and when he returned, Corvo had long since started air-guitaring around the living room to Dunwall Calling.

Under Daud’s neverending frown, he felt a bit awkward to be the only one dancing. But, y‘know, easy fix for that, Corvo thought as he deployed The Lasso. 

Daud let himself be mock-roped in - much to Corvo‘s delight - and, surprisingly enough, the old man had moves and was not afraid to use them. Stone-cold sober. Corvo could never, except when he could, which was right now.

Three songs later, they were both sweaty and out of breath - a far cry from the full nights danced away in their youths. The feeling remained. Daud let himself fall back on the couch as Corvo grabbed one of the bottles from the table and chugged about half of it. Not quite fresh beer, but he was parched enough not to care.

Daud sat up and stripped off his sweater, and Corvo choked on the last sip of ginger ale. 

The arms that had emerged were a) nearly as thick as Corvo’s legs, and b) absolutely covered in tattoos. The man in ownership of the arms at least had the grace to look vaguely concerned as Corvo nearly hacked up a lung.

“Fucking Void,” he got out between coughs, “you have to have a sick thing for pain.”

Daud stared at him in confusion. Then he looked down, apparently remembered he had gotten inked once or twice in his life, and looked back up. “Have you never seen me in a t-shirt before?”

“It’s winter,” Corvo replied when he was done coughing. He sat down on the couch next to Daud, poking a finger at the skull on his tricep. “What’s this one mean?”

A Look flashed across Daud’s face. “It’s supposed to be a wolf skull,” he sighed.

“Supposed to be?” Corvo’s lip quirked up. There was a story here, and he was determined to hear it. 

“One of my guys is into taxidermy,” Daud replied quietly. “Turns out it’s a chihuahua.”

There was no holding back the laughter that erupted from Corvo’s chest, so he didn’t even try. “I’m sorry,” he choked out between wheezes, “I promise I’m not laughing at you, it’s just- you’re short and angry-“

Daud threw a pillow at his head. 

Chapter Text

Int. Still in Daud’s living room - Midnight.

Both of their bottles were nearly empty, and the album had progressed until Pear Soda. Daud felt good. It felt good to spend time with Corvo. 

“And that one?” Corvo asked, pointing at the switchblade in the crook of Daud’s arm. The ink had faded and spread out under his skin.

“Youthful folly,” Daud replied truthfully. Not just the tattoo itself, but also his reasons for getting it. “You got any?”

“Youthful follies? Plenty,” Corvo muttered, then suddenly leaned in closer. “Wait, no fucking way.” 

“Huh?” Daud asked eloquently. 

Corvo leaned in even closer, and pulled up Daud’s sleeve. 

“No fucking way,” he repeated emphatically and began taking off his shirt.

Daud, already flustered enough by the sudden closeness, mentally struggled through a speech along the lines of Corvo, I’m flattered, but we should probably talk about this first, and also the curtains are open- 

Then he saw it. Smack dab on the center of Corvo’s left pectoral, marked in bold black ink, sat the same exact symbol as on Daud’s shoulder. Bold black, tribal, like a circle with spikes. It looked new-ish.

That motherfucker.

“Shop looked cool,” Corvo said. “The guy was weird. Tattooed eyeballs.”

“I’m familiar,” Daud muttered, which was correct, if “familiar” meant used to be his drug mule to pay off for a tattoo I would end up regretting anyway. “Not surprised he repeats his designs.”

“He told me it was custom,” Corvo said with more than a hint of disappointment in his voice. “Guess not.”

“Definitely not,” Daud responded. He had been told the same, and mere weeks later, there would be another person sitting in the chair getting the same tattoo. Back then, it had stung. Now, he was glad for it. Glad, and unwilling to ask whether Corvo’s tattoo was just a tattoo or came with the same deal Daud’s had. Not here, not tonight. 

“Yours looks old,” Corvo remarked while putting his shirt back on. 

Daud’s face cooled down a bit. “Going on twenty years,” he said. “A different lifetime.”

“Tell me about it,” Corvo probed.

“You go first,” Daud shot back. 

For a moment, Corvo quietly held his gaze. In his pupils, Daud could see his own distorted reflection. Something in the air shifted, made Daud’s stomach do a weird thing and then vanished again when Corvo leaned back and took another sip of ginger ale. 

“I know you’re Serkonan, too,” he said. “But you never talk about it. Why?”

“Neither do you,” Daud said. “I don’t even know which city you’re from.”

“Karnaca,” Corvo answered immediately. “You?”

“Grew up all over the island,” Daud said, silently overthinking how to dodge the worst parts of whatever the fuck his childhood had been. “Bastillian, then a few smaller cities. Also lived in Karnaca for a bit.”

“No way,” Corvo grinned. “We might have met, where did you live?”

“Here and there,” Daud tried, knowing it was pointless. Corvo was already breaking through any walls he could have built around the topic. He cleared his throat. “I was sleeping rough.”

“Oh.” Corvo’s smile faltered only slightly. They were quiet for a bit. Then, Corvo set down his bottle and said: “If it’s any consolation, I once crashed in a brothel for two months.”

Daud chuckled, then laughed - half because Corvo was funny and half from relief. And when Daud had almost gotten himself together again, Corvo followed it up with a "...right after the divorce, too."

“I’m sure your lawyer loved you,” Daud said, and now Corvo was laughing. 

“You’re just as bad as I am,” he said. 

They sat there for another while, in one of those silences that isn’t exactly uncomfortable but still has you racking your brain for something to say. The air was stuffy. Daud’s hands had been toying with his lighter for a while now, and his brain had just cought up with them. 

“Care for a smoke?” Daud asked, somewhat creakily rising from the couch. Corvo nodded, then wordlessly followed him out onto the balcony. There was only one chair, because Daud didn’t have a ton of people to smoke cigarettes with, especially not in the middle of the night. They both hovered awkwardly in the doorway, trying to catch some of its warmth as Daud lit his cigarette, then Corvo’s.

The flame of the lighter illuminated Corvo’s features like a flash in the night - stubbled chin, thin mouth, aquiline nose, dark eyes meeting Daud’s. Daud forbade himself from making any comparisons, they weren’t obsidian or the night sky, they were simply Corvo’s eyes and that made them all the more interesting. The eyes stopped blinking. Seconds came and went slowly. Then, someone down on the street howled a string of profanity, and the moment went as quickly as it had appeared. Daud finally lit the cigarette and looked away. 

“High-class quarter, this,” Corvo remarked as another distant voice returned the insults in kind. “Almost as posh as my neighbourhood.”

“Hm,” Daud replied. The Debs (terrible nickname, by the way, but no one called it The Debris District anymore) were a tough place to live in, even in post-slum days. Lots of people, little space and even less money to go around. Apartment block meets apartment block meets gas station meets apartment block. It was the kind of place that brought people together, if only by forced proximity. It was also the kind of place where, as a security advisor, you’d be called after a break-in, not to prevent one. Daud had happened upon a few of his employees there.

“First flat alone after twelve years of having a family,” Corvo continued. “And it’s not even a nice one.” He paused, took a long drag of his cigarette, and sighed out the smoke. “I miss my daughter. I miss the life I had before I fucked it all up.”

“How did you?” Daud asked before common decency could get the better of him. “Fuck it up?”

“Just couldn’t take it anymore,” Corvo said quietly.

Daud took another drag of his cigarette. “Elaborate.” He’d be damned if he let Corvo be the only one to break down walls tonight.

Corvo sighed. Took another drag. Relented. “Truth is, there was nothing wrong with us. There was just a lot wrong with the circumstances.” He exhaled as if it hurt. “My ex-wife’s family is of the rich conservative sort. They have this fuckoff big fancy company, and I worked personal security for them.”

Daud’s eyebrow raised on its own. “And you still didn’t know better back at the Dead Eels gig?”

“Not the same work in the slightest,” Corvo said. He flicked away some ashes. Their orange glow disappeared in the dark. He continued. “Jessamine was different, too. Of course she was, wouldn’t have married a Serk otherwise. She was magnetic, incredibly ambitious, the kindest person I had ever met. But in many ways, she remained a product of the people who raised her.”

He took a step forward, leaning on the balcony’s railing. Daud watched his shape, sharp angles backlighted by the glow of a nearby streetlight. It came together like a mosaic. He could see the fighter behind it, could see the mosaic shift to evade a punch, intentionally off-balance, shadowy, harsh. The night they met stopped making sense, and then started again when a voice in Daud’s ear whispered: You throwing him out on the street was the first human touch he felt in months. 

“It was never just the three of us,” Corvo continued. “We didn’t get to be our own family, just a part of something larger, something more important. I don’t blame Jess for it, she was the first woman to join the family business, and she worked hard to earn that place. I guess she thought I could do the same. But that wasn’t my birthright. I didn’t look like them. I spoke with an accent. I was a foreigner before I was anything else, Daud, you know how it is.”

Of course Daud knew, he know twice and thrice over. He stepped forward and leaned against the railing next to Corvo, who took another drag of his cigarette. As he exhaled, the secondhand smoke hit Daud in the face. Without thinking twice, he sucked in a deep breath.

“I should have left right after we got married, when they found a way to pin a break-in on me. I’ve never felt so powerless.” His voice sounded distant, half of him was inside the memory. “They almost got away with it. Never found the guy, but Jess got injured when it happened, and I know it sounds bad, but that saved me. She could testify to the attacker not looking like me. That was the one time she really stood up for me.”

“They tried to frame you? That’s bizarre.” Daud held back a bitter laugh. More than bizarre, really, this was some imperial era political intrigue level bullshit. 

“Tell me about it,” Corvo muttered. “Either way, I couldn’t forgive myself for not protecting Jess. Still haven’t.”

Daud remained silent. He knew guilt. No matter what he said now, it wouldn’t be of help.

“Years later, we both understood we weren’t working, so I left,” Corvo said. 

“And Emily?” Daud asked. “Isn’t she also half Serkonan? How does she fit into all this?”

Corvo silently stubbed out his cigarette, then slowly went back inside. 

After Corvo had gone home, and the two drunk people on the street finally stopped yelling at each other, Daud silently sat on the sofa for a long time. The evening hadn’t quite left him sleepless, but it was definitely prolonging his night. Rain was pattering on the windows, and on the table stood two empty bottles of soda, only one of them his. Proof of social life. Trophies on a shelf: congrats, you talked to someone. He left them there and went to bed.

He can’t really be blamed for taking a while, since it was a long time ago, but it’s still rather surprising it took Daud until three in the morning to remember time he broke into Kaldwin Shipments Ltd.

At four, he had decided that Corvo would never hear another word about it. Daud went to bed and didn’t sleep. 

Int. Corvo’s apartment - Morning, surprisingly.

The next morning, on what could perhaps be counted as the last day of the awkward part of spring, if you were very optimistic, Corvo Attano awoke in his paper-walled one-room flat, and he didn’t even feel like complete garbage. 

He felt great, actually. He wasn’t hungover, he had slept like a baby, and nobody’s life was in his hands the second he woke up - the latter being a fact his nervous system usually forgot. His body shook him awake most mornings, even if his mind told it not to. Especially then. 

He continued to not feel like complete garbage while having breakfast (dry cereal), cleaning his kitchen and - I am not joking - filling out a job application. 

Last night had been nicer than expected. Easier. He’s been kind of worried about a serious conversation with a man he’d believed to be emotionally constipated. That worry had been completely unfounded. Corvo liked talking to Daud. A lot. A concerning amount, really, but that was an issue for another day. Today, things were finally looking up.

He pulled out his phone, and before his brain could get the better of him, his fingers had started typing. 

Gooood morning D-man-

Void. Delete. 

Morning. Coffee later?

Send. 

What was morning for Corvo was lunchtime for Daud, and lunchtime for Daud meant almost time to pick up Emily from school. Daud’s office was somewhat on the way, somewhat, and- Wait. Corvo didn’t need to justify himself, actually, it was perfectly normal to want to hang out with this guy two days in a row. They’d done it before. Nothing new here. 

Daud didn’t reply on time, but then again he never did. Only in the evening did he send a sorry was busy x, and the text and that little x made their way from Daud’s home to some satellite to Corvo’s kitchen, where Corvo was boiling pasta and almost dropped his phone in the pot. 

“You almost dropped your phone in the pot,” Emily observed astutely. 

“You’re right, I almost did,” Corvo said. “Get the plates, please?”

Emily went and got the plates, dragging her feet only a little. “Why did you almost drop your phone in the pot?”

“Uh,” Corvo said, tossing pasta on the plates. “I don’t know. Got surprised by a text.”

“From who?” Emily asked, sliding all the way to the back of the kitchen bench and putting up her sock-striped feet. 

“A friend.”

“Since when do you have friends?”

“Emily,” Corvo said a bit more sharply than he would have liked. 

“Sorry,” she said. She clearly wasn’t, she was curious, burningly so. 

Corvo relented. “We met at a concert. You remember the one I told you about, with the band mom doesn’t like?”

Behind a forkful of pasta, Emily’s face lit up. “The dead squids?”

“Something like that.” Corvo bit back a laugh.

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Daud,” he said, “and I think he’s cool.”

“I have a new friend too,” Emily said. “His parents are divorced too, but he’s trying to bring them back together. He said that there’s always a chance.” She decidedly kept her eyes on her plate this time. 

Corvo sighed, debated dropping the subject, then thought better of it. “I think your mother and I are both much happier now,” he said softly. 

“You don’t look happier,” Emily replied quietly, then quickly added: “He was the one I punched in the face.”

She didn’t wait for an answer and went to fill up her plate a second time. 

was busy sorry x

was busy sorry x

was busy sorry x

The letter x is a part of a lot of words. Exit, for example, a word that’s written many times in most buildings and on most highways. Or taxi, a very public word, read by millions of people every day. Mailbox. Annex. Ex-wife. If you were to take all of these x’s and count all the times they’re read in one day, that number would still not surpass the amount of times Corvo’s eyes had since landed on that little kissy x footing Daud’s message. 

“Are you even watching the movie?” Emily asked, not angry but maybe a little frustrated, and Corvo vowed to really put his phone away this time. 

Then it chimed again. 

coffee tomorrow? 

It wasn’t just the x, really. Daud also never apologized. This message was more like him, more palatable, a simple offer to reschedule. 

Sure.

Corvo hit send, and the mental fog lifted. Something had shifted since last night, and he wasn’t sure what. It could be closeness. It could be pity. If it was pity, he didn’t want any part of it.