#daudxcorvo

 A lot of their songs fit Dishonored so well.

---

If so royal is my name A blessing in disguise No more suffering, no pain, these days Waiting for my own golden crown I can't feel a difference This low life ends without a tear Don't say goodbye

All I longed for feels like nothing Of any meaning in my life When the night falls My graceful heart shows What it tried to hide from you Fears of breakdown, safe appearance And I will never lose my faith I'll rise even higher

No more count in this cold land, they're gone Austrian empire they named, this reign of men Bloodline will stay alive, my heir I'm leaving someday No reason to turn down this emotion of misery

All I longed for feels like nothing Of any meaning in my life When the night falls My graceful heart shows What it tried to hide from you Fears of breakdown, safe appearance And I will never lose my faith I'll rise even higher

I belong to a historic reign My legacy will be recalled By all the people in this world I live on

All I wanted feels like nothing of worth

All I longed for feels like nothing

He weeps for you.

Daud knows the voice. He heard it in the recordings played when the plague was just beginning to rise. Heard it last, raised in defense of her daughter.

He’s wept for the boy you were.  

Daud rises from Corvo’s bed, makes his way to the chest in the corner, finds it unlocked. Inside might be keepsakes: handkerchiefs from admirers, pieces of dresses and suits once worn by the Empress. Daud doesn’t know. Nor does he care. Because the most important thing, he knows, rests on top. A heart. A human heart, threaded with wire and mechanical parts.

Do you ever weep? For the time you stole? The world you changed? For him?

He reaches out, draws his thumb along one of the chambers. The muscle shudders against his skin. Smooth, wet. An electric shock streaks through his arm and into his body and for a moment, he can see.

There is Corvo, looking so very young as he takes his place at the young Empress’s side for the first time. There is baby Emily, wailing and wet from birth. The Empress and Corvo in the garden with Emily. Emily’s 16th birthday, the Empress smiling on. Emily’s coronation as the former Empress steps down to let her daughter rule. Things that will not be. Time that will not come.

Daud jerks his hand away, half expects his thumb to come away slick with blood. It doesn’t.

When Corvo comes in, emergency summons from the young Empress taken care of, Daud is at the window, staring out at the sea.

Corvo stands next to him, looking first at Daud, then out into the distance.

If Daud’s eyes shine or his face is damp, Corvo makes no mention of it.

“Do you want me to stay?” Billie asks. The question is simple. The weight behind it is not. Billie has a debt to pay. Daud had forgiven her years before, but her own conscience won’t give her respite. Not yet.

“No. You won’t do any good for me here. Go. You know what you need to do.”

With a rictus set to her mouth and a nod, Billie turns, Void-strange arm flashing in the setting sunlight, and disappears over the side of the boat.

It’s the last time he’ll see her.

He feels himself grow weaker, as the breeze off the sea turns cold. He can feel the void pulling at his flesh, his spirit, can see the black eyed bastard in the fog that’s spreading onto the shore.

32 years since receiving the Outsider’s mark and this is what becomes of him. A man elderly before his time. Infected with the death and the wounds he’s inflicted upon a city with little care as to anything but his own pocket. His blade brought coin. His name brought fear. But here, at the end of all things, none of it matters. He will die. Billie will die. Thomas will die. And all that’s left of him – their memories – will vanish from the world.  

The glass falls from his fingers. The horizon grows hazy. His last breath is a shuddering gasp.

His legacy, his legend, drifts away like silver dust.

# # #

Daud opens his eyes. The ceiling above him is the same one he’s seen for the last year, pock marked and water stained.  The air rich with the stink of mold and river water.

________

They are not gentle men, the Royal Protector and the new Spymaster. They’ve learned to be. Where necessary. Trading the clenched fist with holding the hand of a lost child, the wielding of a blade for the touch of fingers to a lover’s skin.

But they don’t have to be gentle with each other. And they aren’t.

In training, Corvo and Daud refrain from permanent injury, but bruises and cuts are plentiful.

In the bedroom—or in the study, or the hidden room that once belonged to the Empress, or up against the wall in the shadows of the training yard—fingers and mouths track the sparring wounds, overlap them with half-moon marks from short nails, the imprint of teeth, so deep it seems as though the biter was trying to reach bone.

And if, occasionally, those marks are left high enough for others in the Tower to see, no one comments.

______________

He kisses Daud or Daud kisses him, in the midst of a sparring match: Royal Protector versus the new Spymaster. They have to keep their skills sharp and what opponents are better matched?

The kiss is not a soft thing. It does not speak or taste of love. It is harsh and rough as winter ocean winds and they brace themselves against each other when it threatens to topple them. They pull away enough to size the other up, as they’ve done countless times before, but never have they been this close and never with the burn of this particular anticipation coursing through them.

Corvo watches Daud’s eyes.

They’re fucking in Daud’s bed when the Outsider appears.

“I have to say, it has been a most unexpected ending. Or is it a beginning?”

Corvo flinches with his whole body, clenching hard around Daud’s cock. Daud, in turn, mutters a curse and holds Corvo’s hands tighter behind his back as he turns his head to glare at the black eyed bastard.

“There’s no need to stop on my account,” the Outsider says. “You know I enjoy a good show.” As if to emphasize his interest, the Outsider floats on shadows like a plush theatre chair, legs crossed, chin perched on his fist.

Daud glances from the creature floating in the dark hollows of his bedroom to Corvo, above him, flushed and looking well teased, cock flagging a little, but still leaking. His eyes are closed, his lips moving. Praying? Cursing the Outsider’s name?

Daud gives Corvo’s cock a perfunctory stroke, grinning as it makes the man twitch and moan. Months after they’ve started this dance and Daud’s still taken by surprise at his responsiveness.

“Turn around,” Daud says.

Corvo blinks at him, wariness and confusion giving way to surprise as Daud bodily lifts him, turning him until he’s facing the Outsider. Daud spits on his hand, strokes his cock and pulls Corvo back down, slipping inside him as if he’s meant to be there. The guttural groan that escapes Corvo is nearly enough to undo him but he hangs on, sets a steady, gliding pace. Daud holds Corvo’s hip with one hand, reaches around to keep stroking his cock with the other.

He watches the Outsider detaches from the shadows, pale hands reaching for Corvo and he should have known. There was something about Corvo that was fascinating. It only stood to reason the black eyed bastard would see that as well.

“Corvo.” The Outsider’s voice is crashing waves and whale song, sonorous and somber, reverberating throughout the room and rattling inside Daud’s bones.

When the Outsider’s hands touch Corvo’s face, Corvo shudders, gasps and comes over Daud’s fingers, his orgasm pulling Daud right along with him.

The room is quiet save for their harsh breathing, the tremulously whispered “Gods” that comes out of Corvo and the warmly discordant chuckle of the Outsider as he brushes his lips across Corvo’s forehead.

The Outsider runs cold fingers along Daud’s side and for a moment it feels as though they slip beneath his skin, trace the thick ropes of muscle and the fine white curve of rib bone. Daud’s softening cock twitches inside Corvo with every cool caress.

it's Fugue Feast in July time! Title: Things That Should Be Prompter: #46 - plexusbrachialis  Prompt: #3 - Daud the Lord Protector and Corvo the Knife of Dunwall. Summary: Corvo and Daud meet at Lady Boyle's party. Things are not as they should be. a/n: I hope you don't mind smut, oh lovely prompter!