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Your name is Thomas, and you've been one of Daud’s Whalers for years now. He picked you up from scraps. A grimace had twisted his lips when he'd offered you a hand to steady yourself after you'd been knocked on your ass by Overseer's. They'd taken your sister and you tried to fight. You didn't know how to, back then.
When he'd told you that you could learn, you'd accepted, the injustice of the city boiling hot in your veins. Your first traversal made you vomit, and your mentor laughed.
“Don't worry kid, it happens to the best of us. You'll get used to it.”
You made friends within the group, and felt as though you were finally back on your feet. Then, though you were not present for it, the Empress was assassinated by Daud's hand, and everything shifted. The days blurred together, and Daud grew distant. You still patrolled, you still went on scouting missions here and there. A second shift, and Daud was reinvigorated, but his mission made no sense to you.
Billie Lurk's betrayal followed soon after, and you watched your new family fall beneath more Overseers’ blades. It stung, but you moved on. Daud called for you, needed you. You took up the space she left behind like a toddler trying to fill its father's boots. He came back from Brigmore Manor more haunted than ever, and all you could do was watch.
Just as you can only watch him lock blades with Corvo Attano, former Royal Protector. Daud had ordered you to keep out— ordered you to not interfere. You had seen the defeat in the slump of his shoulders, the regret. He did not intend to win, but he would not go out without a fight. The clash of steel rings out in the Commerce Building, and you hold your breath.
Daud has always been a man of speed and finesse despite his build being one that could contain such brute force. Attano is a wild animal, slamming his sword down with remarkable skill, but with the strength of a man untethered. It makes Daud stumble backwards.
You want to step in, want to shoot a dart through the back of his assailant's neck and end it. Daud’s blade is knocked from his hands, and he trips, falling onto his ass with Corvo looming above him. There is a moment that you nearly transverse in, nearly slide your knife from its sheath and beg to run the Royal Protector through.
Words are exchanged, things you can't hear. A long silence follows. Then, Corvo is gone, and you rush to your leader's side, anxiously checking him over. His wounds are survivable, as they always are. He dismisses you after he's patched up, and you stand a lonely watch outside his door. The injuries on his skin are shallow compared to the ones beneath. You hope those ones will heal as well.
_
Daud talks about leaving. You watch him make a half-assed attempt at packing, and then empty it all out again several days later. You wonder if he means it. You hope he doesn't.
Despite the grim work you do, it has felt liberating. Most of your targets are people who have too much money, spending coin to get rid of someone else with too much money. You never mind taking out the aristocracy, especially those whose abusive habits you're riding the world of.
It's after a scouting you've done in preparation of taking out a rather skeevey seamstress who's been blackmailing her workers, that you wander into something you cannot find the words to describe. You knock on Daud’s bedroom door— you've moved from the Commerce building, and everyone has been able to have more private quarters here. He doesn't answer, so you loudly swing it open, hoping he isn’t sleeping, but wanting to make sure you don’t surprise him if he is (you've been at the end of his blade a handful of times because of this and you do not care to repeat it.) A quick scan shows that he is not in the main area, but the bathroom door is closed. You call out. He, oddly, calls you in.
There are several reactions that fire off rapidly in your mind, but all of them trying to start at once just makes you stumble slightly, and then freeze in indecision. Daud is in the bathtub, and you nearly panic and feel the color burst in your cheeks for the idea that he might be very naked during your briefing, but then you realize he is, in fact, fully clothed. Not only that, but he is not alone. There, atop your boss, is the Royal Protector himself, also fully clothed, and draped over Daud like a blanket. Attano's face is hidden in the crook of Daud’s neck, left hand clenched deadly tight in the lapel of his signature red coat, and he seems to be... asleep? At least, he doesn't move when you enter the room.
Neither of them are wet. There is no water in the tub. You are confounded, a mix of unease and the want to protect your leader from the man who nearly killed him only a few months ago prickling your spine. You are extremely grateful for the Whaler’s mask that hides your rapidly shifting expression. You want to ask why, how, when, but Daud's withering look kills all questions on your tongue. You're pretty sure he'll cut your vocal cords out if you so much as acknowledge the situation.
So you don't.
You stand straight, hands clasped behind your back, and give your full report. Daud thanks you, and waves you off, giving further instructions to meet with him again in two hours to discuss strategy. You nod, and give an awkward salute (something you've never done before) and scamper back out of the room.
You wonder if you’ve been drugged.
_
The answer to that was, no, not at all.
In the coming weeks you find the Royal Protector in the Whaler's base in increasingly odd situations. Tucked atop a bookshelf in the briefing room, eyes narrowed down at the gathered assassins as Daud goes over a plan. Everyone but your boss seems to shift uncomfortably under that watchful stare, but when someone tries to point it out they are given a testing look that clicks their jaw shut.
Once, when you are in the makeshift library, where Daud is seated in the large armchair by the fireplace, you hear a strange noise from under the nearby desk. Daud doesn't seem disturbed, but it makes sense when you catch a glimpse of the Royal Protector’s hand that darts out to snatch a pillow that Daud kicks in his direction.
Corvo Attano is often in Daud's bathtub, or in the rafters, or curled up in some dark corner of whatever room your boss is pacing around in. It’s befuddling, and makes you question everything you could have known about your leader. Over and over, you have the beginnings of a question form before they are shot down with a threatening glare. Eventually, you settle into whatever strange routine they have developed, and no longer question the Royal Protectors presence in your life.
Daud finds you on the rooftops, scanning the city's skyline. He pulls a cigarette from his case, and offers one to you. You decline. He shrugs.
The acrid smell would be filtered by your mask if you were wearing it, but you had wanted to catch some fresh air before the sun setting sent you back indoors. He puffs his way through the joint, and then seats himself next to you as he puts it out on the tiles.
“I know you're confused, but I appreciate your discretion,” he finally says. “I don't understand it either, if it helps. He just showed up one day and said I owed him something. Didn't specify what, but...”
You keep your gaze focused carefully on the blur of the distant black rooftops outlined with orange and pink. Daud, seemingly unbothered by your silence, weighs his next words carefully. “He doesn't sleep well... The Outsider can do that to a man.”
The mention of the black-eyed bastard sends a shiver down your spine. You've never met it yourself, but you had stood in the room once when Daud touched the runes left on some ramshackle shrine. The world tilted, and air singed by the sting of coal and whale oil filled your lungs. Time seemed to bend and warp around Daud's frame for several agonizing seconds before everything righted. You'd decided you didn't want to meet it.
“I'm helping. Somehow... supposedly. Though, I don't think it should be me.” Daud fishes out another cigarette and lights it.
His fingers tremble ever so slightly. You pretend you don't notice.
“I'm planning to stay, for now. We'll see where this all goes,” he concludes as he takes a drag. At least this is a relief. You let that tether unwind its anxious self from your heart.
You keep encountering the Royal Protector in increasing frequencies, and you don't bother to comment. When the Whalers are moved again, closer to the palace, and are given the task to correspond with more important officials, you take it in stride. When there is a small ceremony to name Daud the new Spymaster? Well, you figure that it’s better than the execution you had always expected. Finding the Royal Protector swaddled in Daud's blankets when you enter his quarters is no longer a surprise— you simply nod, and knock on the bathroom door.
Daud tells you to come in. His new bathtub remains empty of any new surprises or inhabitants. You're at least thankful for that.