The first time Corvo touches him, really touches him, it’s not with a blade.
It’s months after Coldridge. Jessamine’s blood is a ghost stain beneath his fingernails, no matter how many times he scrubs his hands raw. Emily’s gone— and the city feels hollow, like a carcass with its ribs split open to the wind.
Daud is still here, impossible, unwanted, necessary.
A creaking bed in the Flooded District, reeking of salt and mildew. The mattress is thin, the walls whisper with rats.
Corvo’s hands shake when he undoes the buttons of his coat. He doesn’t know why he came here tonight. Maybe to kill Daud. Maybe to crumble apart where no one can see.
Daud watches from the corner, half-shadow, arms folded like he’s holding himself together.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Daud mutters, voice like grit scraping stone.
Corvo steps closer anyway.
His fingers graze Daud’s wrist— the barest slip of knuckles over scarred skin. It’s electric, nauseating, necessary. Daud flinches like the contact burns, but he doesn’t pull away.
Neither of them speaks of it again.
The sheets are damp with river fog, moonlight silvering the ruined floorboards. Corvo curls beside Daud like instinct, like sickness. Their shoulders brush.
Daud stiffens. Keeps his hands to himself like he’s afraid they’ll betray him, like touch is a language he forgot.
But Corvo’s starving.
Fingers twitch, drifting over Daud’s chest— a cautious mapping of ribs beneath threadbare cloth. His palm lingers, savoring the steady thud of a heartbeat that shouldn’t comfort him but does.
“Stop,” Daud rasps, eyes hard, voice brittle.
Corvo doesn’t.
Because he needs this— someone— before the cold cracks him apart entirely.
A Moment Half-Dreamt.
Corvo wakes, breath hitching on a nightmare’s edge— Emily’s laugh turned to a scream, Jessamine’s eyes wide, glassy.
It’s Daud’s back he clutches in the dark.
Daud lies still, rigid, like a wolf tolerating the hand at his throat.
But he lets Corvo press against him, fingers clutching fabric, seeking warmth through threadbare resistance.
Minutes pass. Hours. Neither sleeps.
Daud never reaches back.
It Builds.
A storm outside, glass rattling, the river gnawing at the stone.
Corvo mouths at Daud’s throat, featherlight, desperate. His hand skates under Daud’s shirt, palm splaying across ribs, scars, faded tattoos inked with old guilt.
Daud exhales, sharp and restrained. His knuckles dig into the mattress, white with tension.
“You want this to be punishment,” Daud says, low, accusing.
Corvo’s voice is rough, broken with salt: “No… I want to feel something that doesn’t bleed.”
Daud’s hand, finally, curling over Corvo’s wrist. Stopping him. Holding him there.
A pause in the ache.
They lie tangled, breath hitching with memory, with loss, with the unbearable weight of wanting. The city groans outside, soaked in rot and consequence.
But here— in the cold dim— skin meets skin, and neither pulls away.
