Work Text:
There is a rat.
Corvo runs. He runs long and hard and far, and when he speaks it’s not to spit curses but to ask, ever so sweetly, if Emily will be safe. If he’s run far enough to keep her safe. If she’ll be safe in the days to come. Even, wryly, if this is still interesting.
He falls asleep on a flea ridden mattress, hands so tight around a bone charm that it leaves marks in his skin.
The first few days, Corvo doesn’t seem much different. His skin pales, and he loses weight, but only slowly. He steals what food he can, but the sickness and the stress turn his stomach. Already he coughs up black bile. Already he weakens.
But as long as Emily is safe, he doesn’t seem to care.
When the cough comes, Corvo runs from the abandoned house he’s been hiding in. Already it stinks of rot and death, and Corvo will not make it worse. He takes to sleeping on roofs, though it becomes ever more dangerous for him to climb that high. All it would take is one slip-
In the day, he stares across the grand ruined spires and blood starts to drip from his eyes.
Corvo keeps to the shadows, flinches back from the light. He hides himself away, seeking those drowned and forgotten corners of Dunwall. In his lucid moments, he steals whale oil lanterns, and bright purple fabric. Sometimes he sits and blinks away the blood, hands fumbling with needle and thread as he tries to weave gold into purple.
Dear Corvo.
It takes longer to progress. His body fights harder, and sometimes he falls to the floor and spasms and kicks, and his eyes shed blood and tears in equal measure. Blood drips on his clothes, and later, Corvo will crouch near the cleanest water he can find and try to wash the stains away. It doesn’t work – as soon as one mark is gone, blood falls from his cheek and leaves another in its place.
It doesn’t stop Corvo from trying.
He avoids the others. Flees from them as best he can, but the sickness takes its toll, and soon Corvo’s not as strong as he once was. He runs until he’s sick, and then he runs some more. If he’s not careful, he’ll use what little strength he has left. When the weakness becomes too much for him, he kills rats, or slips into the streets and steals what little food he can. People throw stones at him, or worse.
Once, he’s caught by patrolling Overseers, and they have one of their music boxes. It makes Corvo scream; the sound comes out raw and broken, and Corvo falls to his knees to vomit. The Overseers flee, and at least they take the music with them.
Corvo limps back down to his new domain, and he huddles down, crouched beneath torn purple fabric and whale oil lamps.
He sits beside the shrine, surrounded by bone charms and runes alike, and he stares at the lamps. He rocks back and forth, shaking and flinching at every stray noise. Sometimes he crawls away and coughs up thick black sludge; sometimes he cries, big stinging tears of blood and salt, and he wipes his face and stares at his hands as if he doesn’t understand.
Perhaps he doesn’t.
Corvo’s coat is stained and filthy now, the once rich blue fabric marred with blood and bile and everything in between. Corvo’s hair hangs thin and ragged around his face, and his hands are stained with blood.
He staggers to his feet, though surely he can hardly see, and tilts his face upwards with a smile.
“I knew you’d come,” he says, his voice a shadow of what it was before. “Thank you.”
Corvo trembles at the touch of the cold lips on his skin. He leans into the press of gentle fingers; reaches out to touch. His hand hangs still in the air, and his blood drips from his fingers. He blinks, and a tear of blood slips down his cheek. It’s caught on a fingertip, and a kiss is left at the corner of Corvo’s mouth.
Soon, Corvo will be gone.
But for now, Corvo folds in on himself. He falls to the stained floor, and his head is carefully picked up and laid in a comforting lap. A cool hand strokes absently through his hair, gentle and soothing. He closes his tired eyes. A drop of blood falls from his eyelashes, and splashes red upon the floor.
He falls asleep to the sound of whalesong.