AVE.

By Corvo’s count a decade and change passes before the visits resume. Long since his dear Jessamine had been taken from him. As though, once that saga had been laid to rest, he no longer held any intrigue for the enigmatic God of the Void.

Yet with a new empress lost, it appears for all the world as though the Outsider is attempting to make up for lost time.

In his own way, of course.

Something about the Outsider seems to pulse with a fervour he hadn’t in previous years. Gone is the being who once hung mysteriously in front of Corvo, content to monologue without response, eerie montone giving away little of his opinion on any given situation.

Now staying still appears to be a struggle.

Even the wisps of void smoke at his back writhe and twist restlessly alongside his newfound gesticulating and pacing. Their short and to the point conversations very much a thing of the past, the Outsider meanders between tangents, posing his thoughts on whichever facets of Corvo’s recent exploits have caught his attention. More bafflingly for Corvo are the pauses left purposely for Corvo to fill. Questions no longer rhetorical, or strictly posed to needle him about the sins of an empire he had a hand in upholding.

Corvo, one part intrigued and two parts distrustful, can only take so much before he snaps.

*****

Having helped Dr. Hypatia get settled in to recuperate aboard the Dreadful Wale, Corvo drags his bone-tired body to his own bunk. Longing to turn in for a night of dreamless sleep. Which is why, when he finds himself once again drawn into the chthonic bleakness of the Void, he fails to summon the wherewithal to entertain the sole inhabitant, and what little niceties he does retain slip away the longer the dissection of his actions at Addermire drags on.

“Am I boring you, Corvo?” Questions the Outsider, when he elicits little more than one word answers and grunts for the majority of their discussion.

"What do you want?” Corvo returns with a question of his own. Patience having long since eroded paper thin, “I've grown tired of whatever game this is,"

“Game? Come now my dear Corvo, what game is it you think I'm playing?" The Outsider muses, head cocked askew, expectant for Corvo’s response.

“The peacocking, the intensity, all of it. If you were anyone else I'd say you wanted my attention, but you can get that whether I like it or not, so what in the seven devils are you playing at?” Corvo replies tersely. His creeping distrust for this new side of the Outsider no longer able to remain contained.

Upon his response, the Outsider appears retreat from Corvo’s space to stand a little straighter, face blank and eyes as inscrutable as ever; the void flickering restlessly beyond him the only tell that anything is amiss. If Corvo didn’t know him better he’d be tempted to argue he’s being purposely oblique.

Well, more so than usual.

Corvo refuses to be cowed. He stares down the Outsider’s abyssal eyes, ignoring the loss of equilibrium caused by doing such, with the intensity of a man diffusing an arc pylon. Attempting to decipher which part of his accusation has caught the Ousider's attention.

“Well?” He urges, intent on dragging whatever machinations the Outsider is withholding out into the light.

“Can it not just be for the sake of conversation?” The Outsider finally relents.

“No,” Corvo scoffs, “Not when it’s you,”

“Oh Corvo… Then there is nothing I can say which will appease you,” His response hangs awkwardly in the air between them. A suspended moment, tense with Corvo’s frustration and all the unspoken emotions clinging to what’s been left unsaid.

There’s something so achingly human in the way the Outsider sighs his name. Corvo dare not begin to unpick the meaning woven into it. Aware enough to understand that something at his expense is afoot, but with a mind currently pulled in too many directions to have the patience to interrogate a being with thousands of years at his back with which to perfect the arts of vaguity and patience.

Finally the oppressive silence grows to be too much. There’s a force behind the Ousider's expression that leaves Corvo’s jaw tense and his hands flexing at his sides. There’s something so familiar in the Outsider's withholding that Corvo recognises from selfsame behaviours of his own past. Something he doesn't feel presently able to confront.

Corvo turns, walking away and refusing to engage any further, the only way he knows to leave without having to outright ask. Too fearful of what accusations might come out of Corvo's own mouth should he stay. And what he'll have to reckon with on the slim chance he may be proven right.

The heart gives a single sympathetic throb in his chest pocket.

*****

Each and every following conversation seems to run parallel to a secondary unspoken conversation. As though Corvo's entered into a game of chess he never agreed to, and there's a rust to his skillset he can't shake off. Fighters instincts forever sensing he's a step or two behind his opponent.

The tension inevitably follows him into his waking life, settling at the back of Corvo's mind much akin to a stone in his boot that refuses to be shaken out. On several occasions he finds himself more short with Meagan than appropriate, given how much she's put on the line by helping him. That his apologies get waved off 'given the circumstances', serves only to leave an acrid taste at the back of his throat. A taste suspiciously too close to self pity for Corvo's liking.

The third time Corvo takes Meagan aside to apologise for his poor manners as of late, is the straw that buckles the whales back. This unspoken game can go no further if Corvo refuses to play blind to his role in proceedings. The interrogation, argument, call it what you will, that he intends to incite when he next speaks with the Outsider, does not quite follow the pre-prepared script Corvo has in mind.

“You are a… Distraction, that I can no longer hope to simply ignore,” Corvo is taken aback by the honesty offered up when he comes before the Outsider to demand answers. Having expected a greater amount of initial resistance, given their previous experience with the topic at hand.

“But what does that actually mean?” He presses, an idea forming in his mind. However, there’s a level of reassurance and certainty he must first ascertain, lest he misattribute one of the most human of all experiences to an unfathomably old, borderline omniscient being, ahead of bullishly confronting this shadowed game of doublespeak he’s been ignoring far too long. Certain he could never look the Outsider, let alone himself, in the eye ever again if he’s incorrect.

“Corvo, what do you want to hear? That I am consumed by thoughts of you? That when you are not with me I crave your return? And when you are, the knowledge of your imminent departure aches like a physical wound? I watch you, out there in the world, incessantly. There are others out there marked as you are, yet I no longer care to keep up with them while you are away from me. Does this satisfy you?” There’s a minute tightness to the corners of the Outsider’s eyes as he speaks, though he does not break eye contact with Corvo once, even as he chews at the words, releasing each syllable as if it were a nail that must first be physically torn from the roof of his mouth.

“That would do it,” Corvo croaks, a sudden parching of his throat causing the tirade he planned to mete out to shrivel up along with his vocal cords.

“My preoccupation with you, bothers me deeply,” The Outsider continues, a barely there frown finally surfacing to overtake his default placidity. The expression is simultaneously the most disturbed Corvo’s ever seem him and the closest he’s ever appeared to truly human, “I… want things, when I think about you. Things I once considered trivial,”

“What things?” Corvo blurts, curiosity forcing the words up and around the tense lump in his throat, present thoughts drifting toward acts of the physical variety.

“To-,” There’s an uncharacteristic pause, as though admitting his most private thoughts has sapped some of the Outsider’s ridged poise and he requires a moment to regather his words, nevertheless for Corvo’s benefit he presses on, “To call you mine, and have you do the same in turn. To know you, deeper than anyone else because you have chosen to let me. To just sit with you even, perhaps we would not even need to talk. Yes, there other things. They’ve already crossed your mind, physical acts, but that’s of lesser interest if it isn’t something you concern yourself with anymore,”

“And you want all of that, with me?” Corvo replies, incredulous, hands coming up to grip his own elbows in an effort to prevent himself fidgeting. Struck all at once by the thought that this must be much how a butterfly pinned beneath glass feels. Raw, exposed, and noticed to a degree as to be painful.

“I’ve made you uncomfortable” The Outsider states, eying him, expression sliding back into neutral placidity once again.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Corvo admits, clearing his throat to try and dispel some of tension mounting in his chest.

“I can leave you be, if you would prefer?” The loss of eye contact is all the more striking for how resolutely the Outsider has maintained it throughout the brunt of their emotionally weighted talk thus far. Corvo rocks back on his heels at the loss, as though the Outsider had been holding him in place up to this point with the force of his gaze alone. Suppressing the smile threatening to break onto his face, Corvo finds himself touched at being offered such when the Outsider would so evidently dislike nothing more.

“No,” The ferocity of his reply shocks Corvo, he blinks, waiting for the words to ring hollow only to find the opposite to be true, “No, I don’t want that,”

“Then what do you want, Corvo?” The Outsider tilts his head that manner Corvo’s always found endearing, a fact the Outsider is no doubt is aware of. Corvo however, cannot find it within himself to be mad at the subtle manipulation when he’s just been handed the shears and given final say over whether or not this flower has a chance to bloom, “I know there are many that consider me to be a cruel being, but whatever you decide know that I will respect it,”

“I want-“ Corvo falls silent, frowning down at himself. The choice that lay before him sits heavy as a crown of thorns across his brow. He’s unable to deny in the privacy of his mind that he’s flattered, there’s something heady in knowing exactly who’s attention he’s caught. That the Outsider - a God for lack of more apt descriptor, could be so enraptured by him, by Corvo, already arguably passed his prime, sparks a pride in himself that he hasn’t felt since the glory days of Jessamine’s reign. A hesitant acceptant settles as Corvo finally speaks up, “Okay, we can try to make this work. It’s been a while since I’ve had any experience with suitors, so I’m rusty with… all this,” Corvo waves a hand vis-à-vis them, “You’ll have to be patient while I- well readjust,”

“Of course, Corvo. Time is something I have aeons of, and granting you a moment will be no struggle,” The Outsider’s tone is flat as Corvo’s come to expect from him, however, a fleeting lightness glances across his features, there and gone in less time than it takes to blink. Easily missed, were it not for Corvo’s not insubstantial amount of time spent in the God’s presence.

Comparable to the first day of clear skies following rainy season, in that grants Corvo hope for the days to follow.

*****

Corvo’s known love before, many different kinds, true love, fleeting love, brotherly, fawning, familial even. This is something else entirely. The love of someone who never had a blueprint to go off of, it’s possessing, claiming, a child holding onto a toy so very tightly - unable to fathom a day when they willingly let go.

And damn Corvo, but it’s been so long since he’s felt wanted to such a degree, so long since he locked his heart away, all too aware what could happen if he entrusted such a fragile organ to another person. How debilitating the separation can be for the one left behind.

The Outsider isn’t a person though. In the traditional sense. Or so Corvo elects to tell himself, to justify whatever is happening between them to his wary heart.

When he first allows the Outsider to touch him, Corvo’s skin alights both as though he's been struck by lightning and punched solidly in the jaw. His very soul feels as if it jumps several centimeters sideways and right out of his skin. It's a sensation at its core similar to when he activates the mark, yet markedly different in its intensity.

Which is to say the Outsider's touch takes some getting used to.

But oh, to have someone lay hands nonviolently on him again. That's not something he's willing to give up now he's getting a second chance. And thrice damn him, Corvo couldn't withhold the sighs such contact elicits were someone to hold a sword to his throat and order him to do such.

“Please,” He begs, shucking his coat and gloves as he speaks, unsure what he’s actually asking for.

Nevertheless, he’s acquiesced. A hand coasts along the curve of his jaw, coming to rest as a cradle for him to gentle his face against. A ring endowed finger making slow sweeps of his cheekbone. Corvo leans into the delicate attention with a pleased hum and a kiss pressed to the Outsider’s palm.

“You are unspeakably beautiful, Corvo,” The Outsider whispers, so close to Corvo’s face each word sets a staticky charge racing across his skin.

And that's all it takes for the dam to break.

He drags the Outsider in for a kiss, the heat of which deepens until Corvo isn’t sure where he begins and the Outsider ends. When they finally remember Corvo needs to breathe and part the scantest of centimetres for him to do so, a laugh of pure awed joy bursts free from his chest without Corvo’s say so. His chest heaving as he drags in lungful after lungful of air. Intermittently he reels the Outsider back in to continue where they left off, only for the cycle to repeat over again.

“Come here,” He demands, the need to have the Outsider’s hands on him again, and Corvo’s in kind urging itself to the forefront of his mind. One of the few demands Corvo has ever made of him, the Outsider sees to the task with fervent curiosity, his hands moving to action with the eagerness of a starving man set free amidst a feast.

Were it not for the fact Corvo is still wearing the majority of his clothes, he would already consider himself utterly explored. Even so, the hands gentle on his face, in his hair, running the length of his still clothed chest are reverent. And Corvo is undone by the near worship of it. A God worshipping a man. Just a man. Just Corvo.

Briefly he wonders what the Abbey would have to say about such a thought. Blasphemy? Heresy? There'd be a tall price to pay no doubt.

Though he can think of no more apt a descriptor than worship.

“Corvo, my dear, of all the sights I’ve had the privilege to witness over my many years, nothing compares to having you before me, in this moment,” The Outsider murmurs into the crease where Corvo’s neck meets his shoulder. The whine Corvo looses at the compliment is long and unapologetically laden with desire.

Needing to lay his hands back on the object of his affection lest he become completely untethered from reality, Corvo brings his hands up, from where they were previously gripping at the roughened stone at his back, to parse through the Outsider’s thick dark hair. The strands run damp between his fingers, almost bringing to mind sealskin. He tightens his grip until he feels rather than hears an answering sound from the Outsider, where it dances across the stubbled line of Corvo’s jaw with a frissive hum he’s swiftly become accustom too.

Corvo groans into the continued exploratory attention. Sounds uttered entirely without his concious will. Teased from him by clever fingers and the addition of a curious mouth. Seeking to recarve the paths those pale hands previously wandered along the column of his neck.

And when Corvo finds himself laid gently upon the ground, he ceases to think at all.

*****

With the heart no longer lending comfort, and Corvo's departure for Dunwall imminent, he seeks out a shrine. Sending a silent apology out to the universe for needing time to halt its unceasing march forward, for but a moment, just until the sweat stops slipping rivers down his temples and Corvo relearns how to catch his breath.

He falls to his knees the moment the room around him darkens and slide-pulls the fabric of reality into the all too familiar shapes of the Void. Trusting the freshly warped ground to rush up and meet his knees. It does. Of course it does. Everything here obeys the whims of a God who's decided Corvo is a worthy centre for the universe.

The scent of Ichor is an old balm, the sensation of his hair standing on end as palms cup his face grounding, the hiss-whisper of void that accompanies the Outsiders movement a calming ambience. Corvo relaxes incrementally as his mind sighs the word 'home'.

"That's probably not a good thing, is it?" He questions idly, hands coming up to take the Outsider's in his own. Kissing the back of each in greeting.

"Perhaps. But everyone ends up here sooner or later. You are simply... Better prepared than most," He suggests, uptick to one corner of his thin mouth clueing Corvo in to the humour otherwise absent from the flat tone.

When it becomes clear Corvo’s in no hurry to move the Outsider brings himself to Corvo’s level, without the blinking that usually hails his movements. To have a God kneel before him is a visual that still undoes Corvo each and every time he’s granted witness to it. When the Outsider leans in, Corvo’s body mirrors the action gladly. Their foreheads kiss in prologue to their mouths chaste greeting.

“Breath, Corvo,” The Outsider states plainly, and Corvo releases a sigh that’s been trapped at the height of his chest since the nightmare of hunting Delilah’s missing piece and saying his final goodbyes to Jessamine.

They remain like this for several drawn out moments, neither in a hurry to move the other on, forehead to forehead, hand in hand. Allowing Corvo to simply breathe and come back to himself ahead of the final push to save his daughter and neutralise Delilah.

“Will you kill her?” Asks the Outsider, no judgement in his flat tone, as they finally part. Corvo shifts to rest with his elbows braced on his crossed legs, the Outsider resting against one hip, legs neatly tucked beneath him.

“Not if I don’t have too,” Corvo shakes his head, grimacing as he considers his options where Delilah is concerned, “Not if I can find a way to trap her, like Daud did. There’s been enough death already, I have no plans to start adding to it now,”

“Hm,” The Outsider glances out at the Void as a whale glides by with her calf, lost in thought, “She’s found a way back before, and she’s… Crafty enough to try again if she gets the chance,”

“My decision is just that,” Corvo shrugs, before answering definitively, “If it does come to that, I’ll reckon with the consequences,”

“So very forthright,” Corvo snorts inelegantly in reply, shrugging out of his coat so he can lay somewhat comfortably on the ground. He reaches for the Outsider, still poised above him, who follows easily.

Before his head can hit the floor Corvo’s consciousness is already threatening to flee, the exhaustion that’s been steadily leeching into his very bones catching up with him now body and mind both feel safe enough to no longer hold it at bay. Wearily he blinks his eyes in rapid succession, looking to the Outsider intent on dragging him into conversation long enough for the fatigue to recede.

“Rest, Corvo,” He hears instead, as a cool hand is placed over Corvo’s eyes and the scent of sea salt fills his nose. A tired smile graces his lips at the Outsider once again preempting his needs, “I’ll wake you in time,”

“You just want to watch me sleep,” Corvo yawns by way of a response, and lazily cracks an eye open to peek at the Outsider when he doesn’t receive a verbal reply. The look the Outsider grants him suggests Corvo’s statement is too obvious to deserve such. With that his eyes slip shut, and Corvo falls into the darkness of a blessedly dreamless sleep.

"And when you finally get bored of me?" Corvo queries later, his coat and weapons adorned once more. He has enough tact to leave the 'again' unsaid. Years of royal court allow the easy schooling of his features into neutrality, the uptick of his heartbeat however belies how much unease the question truly wrought.

“My dear Corvo, that’s not something you ever need to worry about,” The Outsider replies blithely. His gaze far off, lingering somewhere over Corvo’s right shoulder, though seeing much further, much deeper, into whatever Corvo’s many branching futures have to offer.

And when the Outsider's fathomless eyes finally settle once more upon Corvo’s, Corvo understands that this is as close to an ‘I love you’ as the Outsider knows how to express.