Chapter Text
When Corvo first woke up he was a little confused. He wasn’t in his bed, instead he had fallen asleep at his desk. Last night’s homework papers were scattered and a few of the papers were crinkled from his impromptu sleep. He stretched his arms and cracked his neck, shaking away the sleep from his body.
He glanced at his watch and when he saw the time his heart skipped a beat. It was already half past seven and school started in fifteen minutes. Muttering a curse he grabbed his bag and dumped all of his papers into it.
He went into his bedroom and quickly stripped down grabbing a shirt from his closet and pulling it over his head. He reached into his dresser and pulled out a clean pair of jeans. As he was putting those on, he went into his small bathroom and began to brush his teeth. He looked at his reflection and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get rid of any signs of sleep.
Two minutes later he was out the door taking the steps down two at a time. He jogged down the street trying not to think about how he probably only had about five minute to get to class. While he could go through the school’s front entrance it would be much quicker to hop a few fences and sneak in through the back entrance of the school. On the other hand, however, there was no guarantee the back entrance would be unlocked and there was a chance he would be caught trying to sneak in.
A glance to his watch again showed Corvo that unless he magically acquired the speed of Usain Bolt he was going to be late if he went in the front way. Taking a deep breath, Corvo took a left and sprinted, his bag thumping against his back.
There were two main obstacles that blocked the way to the back entrance, the first on being a wall that surrounded the entire school. Slipping his bag off of his back, Corvo chucked it over the wall. Once he heard it land on the ground, he ran over to the side and hauled himself onto a nearby dumpster. He jumped on an old AC unit and pulled himself up. He then took a small step back before leaping towards the edge of the wall.
The breath was knocked out of him as soon as he collided with the wall and after inhaling sharply he finished climbing the wall. He stayed low as he made his way to the drainage pipe that was on the side of the wall. He tucked his hands inside his jacket before grabbing onto the pipe and sliding down.
He grabbed his bag before sprinting to the next obstacle, though it was a rather small fence. Again, he tossed his bag over the fence before climbing. This one took a smaller amount of time than the last.
Once he was over the fence all Corvo had to do was get inside school and hopefully make it to his class before his first period teacher noticed he was late. He landed in the grass with a small thump. He quickly regained his balance and looped his bag around his shoulders before he continued sprinting.
With the back entrance in sight Corvo began to speed walk towards the door. Trying not to draw attention to himself now that there was a possibility one of the teachers seeing him, he ducked past the dumpsters and crouched down.
He let himself breathe for a moment before heading towards the side door, giving a silent prayer to whatever gods were listening. Thankfully, someone up there was looking out for him, as the door was open and there seemed to be no other students or teachers around.
He went inside the building quickly checking the time as he started to head to class. He was so focused on getting to class the he completely missed the other person in front of him, and the two ended up crashing together.
Due to Corvo’s quick reflexes, he managed to stay on his feet but also grab the other man before he could fall. He couldn’t save the books that clattered to the floor, however.
“How unexpected to run into you like this, Corvo,” A familiar voice said. Of course he would run into the Outsider. Not like it could just be some random student who he would never see again. It was then that Corvo realized he still had an arm around the Outsider’s slim waist.
He quickly removed his arm and ducked down, picking up the books to hide his slightly red cheeks. Once he had all of the books in hand, he held them out for the Outsider to take, As he did this, the final bell alerting everyone that school was now officially starting rang. Corvo wanted to bang his head against the wall.
He was so close yet so far.
He was about to go back down to the attendance office and sign in, when the Outsider grabbed his hand. He turned it so the palm was facing upwards.
“This is my Mark, use it well, Corvo,” The Outsider said gently placing a small piece of paper in his hand. Before Corvo could ask anything, the Outsider was already walking down the halls.
The oddest thing about that encounter was that Corvo almost expected something weird like that to happen. It would have been weird if the Outsider hadn’t talked about some cryptic thing.
Corvo took the time to examine the card he was given. There was some kind of design on the back, it actually looked pretty cool. When he flipped it over he saw scrawling cursive script written.
As he scanned what was written, Corvo realized that it was like a late pass, stating he had been held back by theater. Three things immediately came to Corvo’s mind.
One, bless the Outsider for giving him this. Two, why did the Outsider give him this? And three, does the Outsider just carry and give these out?
Deciding to leave these questions for later, Corvo walked up the stairs to his first period class. He flashed the pass at his teacher who merely nodded and makes him present in the attendance book. Taking his seat, Corvo pulled out his notebook and prepared himself for the lesson.
XxX
It wasn’t until his lunch time rolled around that the day took another sharp turn for the worse. It apparently wasn’t enough to whatever gods might be watching that he had a pretty bad start to the day, they just had to force an extremely unpleasant interaction with Esma Boyle.
Corvo just wanted to grab himself a lunch from the cafeteria and then head to Ms. Kaldwin’s office. But as he was walking past the rows of tables he found himself being yanked down into a seat by Esma.
Corvo’s first thought was damn this woman is strong.
“Isn’t that right, you won’t mess up my performance, will you?” She asked, still gripping his arm. Corvo looked around the table and saw a group of girls, Esma’s friends most likely, giggling.
He shrugged. Well, tried to anyways, but the grip on his arm was like steel. Did Esma bench press in her free time? The grip on his arm was released for a second and Corvo took the opportunity to stand up, only to be yanked right back down.
“Don’t you want to sit with me? We are staring in the musical together,” Esma said in a hurt tone. He got that she was in theater, but did she really need to be this dramatic off stage.
Deciding to stop any more unnecessary drama that would come from saying no he set down his tray and began to eat.
“So, Cory, why did you decide to audition?” One of Esma’s friends asked him. There were two reasons Corvo did not answer. Number one being he almost didn’t realize the question was being aimed at him because his name was Corvo, not Cory. The second reason was because Esma felt the need to answer for him.
“Because he knew he would be staring with me. All the reason anyone would ever need,” She loudly declared.
Holy shit, how egotistical could one person be?
The girls loved this answer however and broke out into whispers and giggles. Corvo was really wishing he skipped school entirely today. Walking up late should have been a sign for him to just stay home.
To add to all the chaos that was going on, it was then the Corvo spotted him. The Outsider was sitting on one of the adjacent tables. He apparently was never taught how to use chairs. He seems to be watching Corvo’s predicament with glee. Well, the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned in what could possibly be classified as a smile.
Corvo felt like getting up and walking away, drama be damned. But they he remembered that he would probably have to deal with a very pissed of Esma at rehearsal, and he did not feel like giving himself another headache.
So he endured the gossip and chatter from the ladies as he ate his lunch, trying not to care about how the Outsider was watching him, probably already coming up with some cryptic shit to do to him later today.
Corvo was really starting to feel like he murdered a lot of people in a past life for the world to hate him this much.
XxX
After the incident at lunch, everything went pretty smoothly. His classes were boring and nobody really paid any attention, but that was fine. And yes, Esma talked his ear off during the class they shared, but that was also okay because in the short time he had known her he had already learned how to tune her out without her catching on. The trick was when she shut up you turned towards the and nodded.
The day seemed to go by quicker and the time inched closer to rehearsal. It was then that Corvo realized he forgot to ask Peiro for a shift change. As if he wasn’t stressed enough, now he still had to try and work out his schedule.
Okay, so do rehearsal, sprint to his job, work things out with Peiro, yes, he could do this. It would be killer on his legs but Corvo could probably do it.
When the final bell rang, Corvo gathered his stuff and headed to his locker. Thankfully it wasn’t too far from the theater, which meant he was not forced to rush around for once. Well, by not forced to rush around that more meant he could speed walk instead of running to his locker.
When Corvo arrived at his locker and began to twist in his combination, he was not shocked by the Outsider standing directly next to his locker.
“So Corvo, I see my mark served you well,” The Outsider said leaning against the locker next to Corvo’s. Seeing this made Corvo wonder if all theater people were this dramatic, or if it was just those who attended high school in Dunwall.
“Yeah, thanks, it saved me from detention,” Corvo replied, beginning to walk towards the theater. The Outsider followed behind him, taking larger strides than he normally did to catch up to Corvo.
The Outsider gave a thoughtful ‘hmm’ in response. The two continued to the theater in silence that was only slightly awkward. The Outsider had walked a few paces in front of Corvo by the time they reached the theater door was was about ready to open it when Corvo saw the handle quickly turn.
Thinking on impulse, he grabbed the Outsider by the wrist and pulled him away from the opening door. He heard the Outsider sharply inhale as he was roughly pulled away. In a twisted sense of déjà vu, Esma Boyle had thrown open the door and was glaring daggers at the two that just happened to be in her way.
“You’re late Corvo,” She said through clenched teeth. Okay, so maybe he didn’t have as much time as he thought in between final bell and the start of rehearsal, but he honestly didn’t think he was that late.
Corvo opened his mouth to reply, but the Boyle sister was already storming off, probably to go cry in a bathroom if Corvo had to guess, it would be dramatic enough.
“My, Corvo, learned you lesson from yesterday, did we?” The Outsider asked, grinning. Actually grinning this time, teeth and everything.
Corvo felt his face heat up, only this time there were no dropped books to hide it. How could one person manage to make him feel such a wide range of emotions from hatred to embarrassment? Letting go of the Outsider’s wrist, Corvo awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. Times like these made him wish he had the luxury in childhood that was having friends and gaining adequate social skills.
“Well Corvo, good luck at rehearsal today. I’ll be watching with interest,” The Outsider said, before smoothly opening the door ad stepping inside, leaving Corvo standing there, flushed.
If those were meant to be words of encouragement, Corvo didn’t feel very encouraged. In fact he felt something that could be equated to the day before a major test he didn’t study for.
Taking a few deep breaths and hoping the red had faded from his face, he headed into the theater. He didn’t seem to be late at all. Most of the other students were lounging around, flipping through scripts and practicing lines to each other.
Grabbing one of the large script packets from the front of the room, Corvo flipped through it, finding that he not only had the majority of songs, but he also had a few good chunks of dialog. Of course he should have expected this, he was one of the leads after all.
He saw some of the other students going through and highlighting the parts they had, and actually that wasn’t too bad of an idea. So, he pulled out one of the highlighters he always kept in his bag, but almost never used, and began going over his parts.
It was at that moment that Sokolov chose to come into the theater room. A hush fell over the students as they anticipated what the man had to say.
“I expect everyone has picked up their scripts?” He asked the crowd. As few students gave half-hearted responses.
“Good. Today was more of a day to get the script and do a simple run through. However it seems as if we are missing one of the leads. Does anyone know where Miss Boyle has run off too?”
“She ran out a minute ago,” Someone said.
“I can’t believe I actually cast her,” Sokolov muttered to himself as he walked towards his office that was tucked away past the backstage.
The other students, including Corvo were silent until Sokolov said, “Well, what are you all waiting for. Practice your lines,” Before slamming shut the door to his office.
Everyone took this as their queue to resume what they were doing. Corvo focused on highlighting his script, saying his lines in his head. Perhaps tomorrow would be better, and they could actually do a rehearsal without someone running off.
From the way some of these people behaved you would think it was some kind of trashy reality TV drama. That, or some kind of morbid sitcom that revolved about making Corvo’s life harder than it needed to be. To be fair, about one-third of his problems could probably be avoided if he just learned how to say no.
Why did he have to make things so complicated?