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The Flooded District remained a miserable place.
Some part of Corvo that he didn’t like to admit to had thought that once Burrows was taken down, followed by his own traitorous “friends”, and Emily’s position was restored there would be a turnaround in the plague zones. He’d become too immersed in magic, he supposed, if anything within him had truly believed that placing the rightful queen back on her throne would make any lick of difference.
The rightful queen had been on her throne when the plague first spread. It had done nothing to stop half of Dunwall from dying. What they had to set their hopes on was not a good and gentle queen, but the two madmen still toiling away at the Hound’s Pit—too intent on their work to even accept Emily’s offer to provide them with a better laboratory--on a cure that appeared closer to completion each time he saw the results of one of their tests. Magic, on the other hand, could not even successfully remove the plague rats from the city. Corvo had tried to figure out the trick to controlling them beyond simply calling in a swarm as Granny Rags had seemed able to, but it seemed to be a gift beyond him unless he truly wanted to possess them one at a time and walk their bodies to their deaths.
Which was why he was instead in the Flooded District with a bag of poisoned grain on his back, leaping between buildings in search of spots which the rats could reach but hungry weepers would be unable to find. It was becoming less of an issue as word started to spread about the regular food deliveries Emily had begun passing through the wall, those who still had enough of their minds left to understand what was happening moving in to camp down in the areas of the drop-offs and their movements catching the attention of those more far gone to send them shuffling after. Sokolov and Piero both claimed this would be a good thing once their cure was completed, the less hunting through the district for the infected needed the better.
For Corvo the main difference it made was that it was much simpler to make his way through the district, he only rarely needed to take a sudden detour or make a fast escape from a building when he suddenly found his path blocked by a group of weepers. Since he didn’t need to be ready to use one of the Outsider’s gifts at a moment’s notice he instead did his best to make his way through the district by his own innate abilities.
Peace could never last for long, in Corvo’s experience. He couldn’t allow his skills as a man, the powers found in his own muscles and through his own agility, to deteriorate in favor of those external powers he’d needed to rely on to save Emily. The Outsider could always choose another, after all, and if anything he seemed to delight in seeing how Corvo would clash with others baring his mark.
He grew too cocky, perhaps, as he made easy progress through the district. Each leap was judged well, each ledge that he landed on steady beneath his feet, he made his way halfway through the district depositing his poisonous caches with hardly a pause between them. When he landed on a slimy patch of moss and his feet went out from under him it caught him entirely unprepared as he began plummeting in the ground far below. It took too long, far too long, for Corvo’s mind to catch up with what was happening enough for him to seek out a spot that looked wide enough for him to Blink to.
The magic caught too late, his head cracking against pavement even as he was whisked away.
He woke with hands in his hair, a lap beneath his head, and for just a moment he thought that he had dozed off during a quiet moment with Jessamine and all was well. Then he realized that the hands were too cold, the lap bonier than hers had ever been, and the truth came flooding back into his mind.
“Really, Corvo, it is a good thing that you remembered the gifts I gave you before it was too late,” a familiar amused voice said above him, sending Corvo shooting upright and whipping around to face it. The Outsider’s hand was all-over blood where it had been in Corvo’s hair, his lap where Corvo’s head had rested a mess of red, yet Corvo felt no pain and the Outsider showed no worry. If he even cared enough to do so. “The rats would have smelled you out by now and be ravaging your body as we speak if you hadn’t taken a step into my realm just in time for me to retrieve you.”
“Body?” Corvo repeated, raising a hand towards his head before hesitating without making contact. Painless or no, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to feel the extent of a wound that would cause so much bloodshed.
“Oh yes,” the Outsider said, the same slight smile he always had not leaving his face for a moment as he went on, “You would be dead the moment you left the Void, had I not intervened.”
Emily’s face flashed across Corvo’s mind but he didn’t allow the sudden clench of fear he felt in his gut at the thought of leaving her when it was still so soon after Jessamine’s death and all the trauma that had followed to show. A matter of pride more than anything, he was sure the Outsider knew it existed regardless. “I’m trapped here, then?”
“I never said that, my dear Corvo. The Void is not a place where humans are meant to stay long. No, I will see you well before you leave.” He reached out to Corvo once more, taking his arm and turning it to reveal a deep laceration that Corvo hadn’t even noticed, just as painless as whatever had become of his head. “I could hardly watch the only person to ever bear my mark and remain entertaining for long in doing so die an ignominious death from slipping on a slick stone. I’m sure that you still have so much more of interest to show me, Corvo, so long as you have that chance. Would you lend me a knife just a moment?”
“I don’t usually put a weapon into anyone’s hands when I’m at a disadvantage,” Corvo said, even as he slid one from his sleeve and held the hilt outward. If the Outsider’s goal were ever to harm him it would hardly be through means as conventional as a knife.
“Ah, but if one cannot trust their dear friends than the world is truly beyond hope, is it not? Have no fear, this isn’t meant for you.” He took the knife and, so quickly that Corvo couldn’t have stopped him if he tried, slashed it across his own palm. Corvo hissed and snatched up that hand, putting pressure on the wound and cataloging what he had on him that might be clean enough to use as a bandage on instinct before he even realized that it wasn’t blood seeping from the wound. It wasn’t even the black ichor he might have guessed at looking at the Outsider’s eyes, but something gray as shadow and shimmering like starlight. The Outsider’s smile grew slightly, only enough that Corvo could now say that it definitely was one and not simply his resting expression seeming faintly amused. “I am certainly glad to see our friendship goes both ways, Corvo, but I will need that hand.”
He pulled it gently free from Corvo’s grasp, then slid his dripping fingers along the cut on Corvo’s arm before he could flinch away. Even as Corvo watched the gray blood seemed to sink into his skin and join the injury together like glue, a wide gleaming line sealing together the two edges of flesh. “What did you do?” he asked, his throat dry as he stared down at it; somehow it seemed even more unnatural than the mark on his hand, which could at least be mistaken as an ordinary tattoo when he wasn’t actively using the powers it brought him.
“I’m sure you’ve realized by now that healing isn’t one of my gifts, we need to get creative. What’s part of me will always heal.” His hand darted in again, sliding up a slash on his thigh. “That was all that reached your front, Corvo, now turn so I can get at the worst of it.”
Corvo still wasn’t sure how he felt about this, about having any of his body, even the gaps left in it by an injury, considered part of the Outsider. But if the alternative was dying a fool’s death and abandoning Emily to the wolves who sought to turn her into a puppet queen than there was no question about whether he should allow it.
The Outsider’s hand was gentle in his hair once more, but this time instead of simply stroking through the strands it pressed in, fingers scratching lightly across his scalp. Corvo did his best to surpress a shudder that had little to do with the way that he could feel those fingers press in deeper than his skull should allow if it were still whole. Jessamine had always been the only person allowed in such an intimate position with him, a display of trust that no other person had ever earned. The associations those feelings brought were still there, even if the fingers carding through his hair were now attached to an abomination wearing the form of a man.
His body only seemed interested in the ‘form of a man’ part of that description as the caresses continued, innocent though their actual purpose might be.
Once again the Outside took up his knife and slid it through his own skin to keep it from sealing, then he hooked it up beneath Corvo’s shirt and sliced through both it and his jacket at once. And that itself brought a certain unexpected pleasure, the trust of allowing anyone to bring a knife so close to his back for all that he knew little trust was needed; if the Outsider wanted him dead he would hardly choose a method as boring as a knife in the back. “You could have just asked me to remove them,” he said, his voice gruffer than usual to his own ear.
“There’s hardly a point, dear Corvo, believe me when I say they were unsalvageable.” Corvo didn’t need to take it on faith, when the fabric fell away from his body he could see how bloody it was, and how it was in tatters around the one smooth slice the Outsider had made. The Outsider’s hand slid along his back, a gentle stroke up and down, then the other came up to join it and he began massaging more firmly. “We’ll see if I can work out any more pain than the surface wounds, this is new territory for me as well so I’m not entirely sure how deeply I can work in. You use yourself too poorly, Corvo.”
Corvo wasn’t sure how well something like the Outside could even understand the pain that was well-set in his back after a lifetime of fighting and tension and training himself to move in a way that few others could, but the way his hands pressed into Corvo’s back made him wonder if maybe he’d made more study of the human body than Corvo would have expected. Or maybe, more likely perhaps, he was simply plucking what felt good—or at least stung in a way that felt like healing--from Corvo’s mind. His hands moved smoothly, slick like oil, never going tacky, never building friction.
Then suddenly those thoughts clicked together in Corvo’s head and his whipped around and grabbed the Outsider’s hand once more. “Enough,” he growled, his free hand fumbling through the remains of his jacket for a handkerchief in his inner pocket that was likely the only clean scrap of cloth left on him. “Any life-threatening wounds should be taken care of by now, I’ll not have anyone bleed themselves out over me.”
“Oh, my dear friend,” the Outsider said gently, eyebrows raised as he watched Corvo neatly bind his hand, “do you really think I’m the type of creature that would be harmed by losing any amount of blood? You could drain enough to bathe in if you wish, and I’ll still abide.”
“Perhaps so,” Corvo agreed, “I still won’t allow it. You’ve done more than enough good by me, don’t think I forget.” Then, knowing it was perhaps the most foolish thing he’d ever done, he raised the monster’s hand to his mouth and kissed his palm where he had bound it.
Corvo was meant to be dead and eaten by rats at that moment. Meant to be dead in Campbell’s Abbey, meant to be dead at the Loyalist’s hands, meant to be dead a thousand times over and owed the fact that he was not to the Outsider every time. This time it was simply more hands-on than usual. He could show him gratitude.
He could want to show him gratitude. He could desire it. There was no shame in that.
For the only time apart from when he’d spared Daud Corvo actually saw the Outsider startled, his eyes gone wide and staring, his jaw actually slack. Somehow seeing an expression so nearly human on his face if only you ignored the blackness of his eyes made Corvo feel bolder, brushing another kiss across his wrist where he could actually touch skin. It was cooled than he’d expect from a living being, but otherwise felt perfectly normal beneath his lips.
“Corvo, did the head injury do more damage than I thought?” the Outsider asked, an actual shake to his voice. “This hardly seems like you.”
“And saving anyone personally hardly seems like you,” Corvo replied, carefully reaching out to take the Outsider’s face in his hands, “Tell me to stop if you’d like. Otherwise, I’d be glad to show my gratitude.”
There was only a moment’s hesitation before the Outsider’s expression relaxed back into its usually small smile. “Well. I never have been the type to tell those who bear my Mark what to do. Let me watch whatever choices you choose to make, dear Corvo, they’re always such a delight.”
The Outsider’s mouth tasted like the sea. Somehow, Corvo thought, it seemed appropriate, and the salt on his tongue not unpleasant at all.