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Samuel was soft and rough in equal measure, that went for body and spirit. Rough, the feel of a large puckered scar on his shoulder, an unlucky hit from a river krust unseen til it was heard which means until it was too late. Rough, hands callused and cracked from years of work and years of the sea. Soft, the area on his lower stomach gathering weight and washing away the hard earned muscles of youth.Soft, the pressure of his hand briefly on Corvo’s shoulder as they would part ways after another exhausting day.
Rough, the words coming from his mouth when not in polite company, a sailor through and through. Soft, the care with which he handled Emily. Soft, the fond way he carefully named the anatomy of boats she had drawn in lieu of doing her math studies. Rough, the self deprecating way he spoke of his place in the Conspiracy or his worth to a small empress.
In what was seemingly the end, Samuel ferried Corvo and Emily from Kingsparrow Island back to the Hound Pits Pub. They would spend a last night in a place that was both familiar and newly painful, but safe. Sokolov and Piero have yet to leave and their invention guaranteed a night of full rest before Corvo would have to find a way to deliver Emily safely to her coronation.
Emily currently slept in a booth, tucked between Callista and the window out looking an empty street. His daughter, so strong, had held off tears since he plucked her from the lighthouse until the moment she saw Callista. Her grip on Corvo’s hand tightened and he looked down to discover liquid already pouring down to her chin. She buried her face in Callista’s apron within seconds, the woman’s arms around her shoulder as she whispered into Emily’s ear.
Losing another person would have been too much and Emily flits between Corvo and Callista all night. Tomorrow she’d be back to complaining and hiding from things that need done, but tonight she was a child who has been through too much and needed comfort. Tonight the bad people are gone and she felt safe enough to say with her actions ‘I was so scared.’
Behind the bar Samuel poured drinks for all. Toast after toast followed, though Samuel and Corvo drank less than the rest. Cecelia had come down from her hidden apartment followed by survivors from the neighborhood who had been hidden even before the Conspiracy made Hound Pits home. Each free of signs of the plague, each having heard of the safety from the brave young woman so many had overlooked.
When the singing broke out even Corvo cracks a smile, but it’s not until he looked behind the bar and saw Samuel’s quiet grin that his shoulders relaxed for the first time since he woke up in the Flooded District. There were great allies in the bar, people who might come together to solve a plague, a woman who would take part in raising an empress, a young woman who had unknowingly saved them all by giving Corvo the key to her apartment. And yet, between them, Corvo would choose Samuel to watch his back again and again.
“He respects you.” Jessamine had said, that faraway voice that was her and not her - that spoke truths through the fog.
“He cares for you,” she did not say, but when the thought came to Corvo’s head after catching another deep contemplative stare from Samuel, it seemed to be in her voice anyways. He wondered briefly if her voice would always be in his mind now, an inseparable part of him.
Samuel Beechworth had a face roughened by the breeze and eyes that were in contrast quite soft if you caught them at the right moment. If you caught them looking at Corvo as he stared across the water towards Dunwall Tower with his own wistful look. If you caught them looking at Corvo as he indulged Emily (and truthfully himself) with a game of hide and seek. If you caught him looking at Corvo.
And Corvo, so attuned and used to feeling watched had caught him many times.
"Samuel Beechworth went to sea to forget a hopeless love. He succeeded." Jessamine had whispered that to Corvo once.
Corvo could imagine now what such a hopeless love had been. Two men being together in such a way was not unheard of thing but less popular in Samuel’s youth certainly than it would be considered now. So he had succeeded in forgetting a hopeless love, and had at some point gotten and then lost a wife whose temper he cared for as fondly as the river it reminded him of. Maybe other loves had come and gone, but by the time they met Samuel only had the water.
Now, across the bar from each other while he sipped on watered down wine, Corvo finally had a moment to contemplate. He had loved Jessamine fiercely and fully. It was a love that didn’t come quick but refused to leave once it had set in. Even know it would never leave.
And yet he ached less in Samuel’s presence than he had at any moment in the last six months. He had found himself seeking out Samuel’s company above others, choosing to sit outside Samuel’s makeshift shack and share the last can of questionable meat over listening to Havelock and Martin speak more strategy. The storm of anger and grief inside of him quieted as he watched Emily draw sea monsters by lantern light while listening to more stories of the sea she had coaxed out of Samuel.
There would be no time for a boatman in the life of a busy royal and her father, Samuel seemed so sure when he said it. But Corvo didn’t much care for the busy life that wouldn’t include him. Like watching the sunset over the tower with Jessamine, spending the dusk in silence as Samuel whittled wood into simple art seemed the natural way for a day to end.
Corvo felt a warmth inside that had come quick, low and steady. It was the opposite perhaps in every way from what he had had with Jessamine. Likely few would call it love, but he felt the desire to hold onto it nonetheless.
“You all right there, Corvo?” Samuel’s voice, and Corvo realized he must have been staring. He felt no embarrassment over the matter and met Samuel’s eyes.
Just a few days before Samuel had offhandedly commented that he might like to go back to sea, if Havelock could manage that for him. Everything about him seemed temporary, as if he were to float away without something to anchor him down. Corvo had the feeling he might be gone by morning if he were to go to sleep with things as they were.
"Samuel Beechworth went to sea to forget a hopeless love. He succeeded." Jessamine had whispered that to Corvo once.
He would not need to do so again.
There’s twenty years between them but Corvo is no young man himself. He doesn’t lust after the sailor nor can he sense anything of the like in return. But there is trust and respect and loneliness inside both of them, and somehow over the course of an empire saving plot that had blossomed into its own sort of love.
And so his answer to ‘are you alright’ came out as “Stay.”
If anyone had been listening (or sober) it would have been confusing indeed. But Corvo met Samuel’s eyes, face and body relaxed and open and the person who needed to know was not confused.
It’s Samuel’s cot, not Corvo’s bed, that Corvo leads him too after a last glance to assure Emily was safe and sound. Samuel was more comfortable outdoors and after the last time he had been in that room, so was Corvo. Soft touches were shared and perhaps a light kiss, but there was no dire drive behind the movement. In the real end, Corvo falls asleep with his chest against Samuel’s back, smelling the salt water in his gray hair.
The real end is two old men surprised that they don’t feel foolish curled together after so long alone. It’s something like friendship, but more, like something adjacent to love but no less important. It’s Corvo’s mind or Jessamine’s voice or both whispering, “He’s a good man. Take happiness where you can.”