Work Text:
The Flooded District was always quiet. Empty as it was, for the most part. It was something one had to grow accustomed to, but for some it was a comfort. Hard for someone to go unnoticed in a place so devoid of life.
Daud was used to the quiet. He knew the differences between each silence, which one meant he was truly alone, and which meant his Whalers were doing patrols on the roof overhead with footsteps like cat's feet.
He knew the silences of the Flooded District better than anyone, and so when the quiet set his teeth on edge, when the prickling all along his spine set the hairs on the back of his neck to rise, he knew it was not one of his Whalers creeping up behind him.
Papers rustled as he set them down, spread across the surface of his desk. Filtered light from overhead windows cast long shadows across the floor. He watched dust float in the air before his eyes. Looked aside to faces on paper pinned to a board and marked in red. But when he turned, sharp and sudden, it was all gaping jaws and wire teeth and glass eyes that showed only his own reflection.
Corvo hit the desk hard enough to unseat Daud's audio recorder, and likely hard enough to knock all the air from his lungs, but he made no sound. He twisted up and Daud wrestled him back, grip on that sword arm hard enough to make his own hand ache. Corvo lashed out and Daud narrowly avoided a punch that would have set his head spinning, lunged forward and closed his hand around the front of that mask, a horror of glass and metal. His gloved hand obscured staring eyes.
The mask was strapped in place. Corvo clawed his arm, thrashed where he was pinned, and Daud flexed his fingers and lifted.
The sound of Corvo's head slamming back into the desk was almost louder than the tiny, startled noise that came from behind the mask. His hand twitched where it had fisted in the sleeve of Daud's coat and for half a second he was very, very still. Then his sword reversed in his pinned hand, so quick he managed to cut straight through Daud's sleeve and into his arm, and Daud let slip a snarl, lifted Corvo head and shoulders off the desk and slammed him down so hard that wood rattled.
Corvo's hand spasmed; his sword fell from his grasp, clattered when it overbalanced and fell to the floor. His fingers twitched after it, a little lurch in the arm Daud held pinned, but one more sharp drive of skull into wood took that last shred of fight out of him.
Thick silence followed, broken only by Daud's measured breathing, the pounding in his ears. The tinny rasp of Corvo's breath behind the mask. Nothing else. Daud found himself waiting in stillness for the sound of transversals, of boots pounding in the hall outside, but none came and he hadn't truly expected it anyway. Not if he'd made it this far.
Corvo did not struggle when Daud loosened his grip on mask and hood, did not move when fabric was yanked back and straps pulled free. He twitched when the mask was lifted, an abortive motion that Daud read as reflex, and then metal clattered and rolled across the floor and Daud's gloved hand closed around Corvo's throat.
Staring up at him, Corvo's eyes were glassy and fever-bright. A gash across the bridge of his nose spilled blood that fell in red tracks beneath his eyes, into his hair.
Daud inhaled slowly, exhaled the fear that had settled somewhere behind his ribs, and willed his hands to loosen where he pinned Corvo by throat and wrist.
"Are they dead?" His own voice sounded too loud, too harsh to his ears, though he'd spoken barely above a whisper. Corvo said nothing, stared up at him in a way that made Daud wonder if he was really seeing anything at all. Daud counted heartbeats in the pulse beneath his fingers.
"My men," he said, not quite through his teeth. "Are they dead?"
He could feel the rasp in Corvo's throat each time he drew breath, felt him swallow, felt his throat work when he tried to speak. His fingers tightened and he wasn't sure why, and Corvo coughed against his grip but he didn't ease at all.
"No," Corvo said, choking and barely audible, and the knot in Daud's chest tightened.
"None of them?" he asked, because he had to be certain, even if he wasn't sure exactly why, and it would be so easy to just squeeze until Corvo stopped struggling, until he stopped looking at Daud like he saw everything.
"None," Corvo grated, and his fingers were digging into Daud's wrist, painful and grounding.
Daud nodded, held, and then muttered, "Good," and carefully relaxed his fingers. Corvo drew a shuddering breath and did not try to get up. Daud wasn't sure if he could just yet.
"If you're lying," he said, holding steady where he met Corvo's gaze, "you'll never leave this place. I can go without the reward for turning you in. I'll take you apart myself, and by the time the hagfish finish, there won't be anything left to find."
It wasn't meant to scare. Less a threat than a promise, and Corvo regarded him levelly, held his silence, simply nodded. Slowly, Daud pried his fingers from their death grip, withdrew his hands, stood back to let Corvo cough and get the breath back in his lungs.
Daud crossed the space between his desk and bookshelves, drew his sword on some reflex and studied it in the low light. He watched Corvo move from the corner of his eye, the careful shift, his wince as he levered himself into a sitting position, his unsteadiness when he finally got his feet back on the floor. How he'd come this far was a mystery. Daud's hand flexed around the hilt of his sword.
"You wash up here like a corpse from the river," he commented sidelong, pointedly ignoring the way Corvo leaned against the desk as if standing was a great effort. "Poisoned, by the looks of it. Wearing that mask."
Daud did not look in the direction of the item in question. Instead, he watched Corvo's eyes dart to the dark shape on the floor, its lurid grin aimed at the ceiling.
"You escaped. Incapacitated my men. Retrieved your gear from the muck at the bottom of a warehouse infested with weepers, and then..." He turned then, narrowed his eyes at Corvo who stood motionless not two paces from where his sword lay at the foot of Daud's desk. "You came here," he said, and for all that he maintained composure, voice controlled, his suspicion was audible. "Why?"
Corvo was silent for the span of seconds. Daud watched him for cues, watched his hand flex where he had a vise grip on the edge of the desk. Watched the mark stretch over his skin. Corvo was looking at the floor. At his mask but not his sword, and Daud noted that he seemed discomfitted for the lack of the shield.
"I needed your key," Corvo said at last, and he was so quiet, and the response so unexpected that Daud did not immediately understand.
"My key?" he repeated, incredulity bleeding into his tone, and Corvo's throat worked as he swallowed. He did not look away from the mask on the floor.
"I overheard your men," Corvo explained, weight shifting. "One of them said the only way out was barred, and that to leave, one required a key."
"My key," Daud said again, and it wasn't a response, just a repetition. His sword felt heavy in his hands.
Corvo said nothing. Didn't move, not even to wipe at the blood that left a trail from nose to chin. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he did not look up, would not meet Daud's gaze again.
Daud realized his teeth were grinding only when the ache set into his jaw, and it took will to make himself relax. "You didn't come here to kill me," he said. Not a question, and he received no answer. Something in him hurt, something that used to have claws and teeth, and he wanted nothing more than to have Corvo out of his sight. Or was it to be out of Corvo's sight?
The dull sound of metal striking wood startled Corvo into looking away from his mask. Shining gold where it lay on the floor, Daud's key was not quite a peace offering. Ultimatum, apology, surrender. When Corvo finally looked up at him, Daud looked aside.
"Go," he grated, shoving his sword into its place at his belt with unnecessary force. "Before they wake up." Because he wouldn't change his mind.
He could hear Corvo breathing, harsh like something in his chest was broken, and then the quiet sound of his footsteps as he gathered first sword, then key, then mask. There were no thanks and Daud did not move as Corvo passed him, did not look up. Corvo moved at the edges of his vision like a thing cut from shadow and then he was gone, and Daud was glad for his gloves that he could not see his knuckles turn white when his hands fisted.
If Corvo made it out of the Flooded District it would be a miracle, or something less. If he made it to whatever end he sought, well. They were neither of them blessed, were they?
It was a long time before Daud willed the tension from his hands, and longer still before he moved. Eventually Thomas found him, more questions than explanations. Daud dismissed both. His Whalers were returning now, slowly, recovering themselves, each of them baffled and concerned. His silence stopped their questions; his direction got them moving.
Corvo was gone, and night was coming. There would be no forgiveness here, but somewhere in his chest, a knot was untying.
Daud did not think of retribution when he put his back to the city of Dunwall. He had no more time for that. After all, they had a boat to catch.