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The blade slides out, Corvo watches the flesh cling to it as it pulls out, decorated by a lattice of slick, glistening blood. The murdered man tilts forward like a chopped tree before he tumbles, his bald head hitting the feet of the flayed corpse; the legs dangle like a morbid chime and the shadows match their spiraling waltz.
Corvo about-faces and regards the shrine, his coat swishing in a slow arc; a thunderous rhythm pounds in his chest and he pulls mask from chin up, his brown, grimey hair falls down in a single tumble and his hood slips back into a tattered, blue tumble. The purple fabric takes on the glow from the eerie whale-oil lamps that do not burn blue, as if the fabric is cut from the fabric of the Void itself, where everything glows unless you look at it directly and everything is possessed of something real and dreamlike. The rune sits neatly on top of the waist high table, balanced impossibly on two thick legs while two long planks spread in a V, parallel to the drapes. The rune, too, glows the color of racing blood in veins.
He extends his marked hand out, overlays the Mark on flesh over the Mark on whalebone, and hooks his fingers and drags it off, its shackles leaving scratches on the stool’s surface.
Yet the pounding does not stop. The Heart continues to thrum frantically, tucked away in his chest, submerges his eardrums in waves and waves of beats. He turns the rune over and over in his hand, playing with the why’s, considering the how’s, and does not notice that the space he shares with a corpse and a dead man now welcomes another, a man, in the loosest definition of the word.
“It’s your own heart,” answers the Outsider, from lips Corvo knows to be pale; his words barely disturb the air near Corvo’s left ear. Corvo knows that the Outsider keeps his hands clasped behind him, almost like a child waiting to share the things he has discovered (even though he knows everything, even questions).
Softly, so his breath only tickles the smallest part of Corvo’s ear, he continues, “I can see all the threads of your life after this moment. Three are the most promising.”
“One, you will ignore me and walk out of here and encounter a maid in a place you least expect. You will spare her, and that will be your mistake, as she will bite your hand then scream as you try to choke her out. You are then overwhelmed, and will die, lying on a lovely rug imported from Tyvia, as your blood seeps out of here-”
The Outsider lightly presses two fingers under his right shoulder blade.
“...here,” he drags his fingers to somewhere in the center, in the dip of his spine.
“...and here,” he finishes, two fingers that barely touch at the small of his back (but oh does Corvo feel it through layers of twill and shirt and skin and he knows shadows will cling to the ghost of his fingers and cling to the fibers).
That hand then slides slowly under Corvo’s right arm and up the right side of Corvo’s face. It does not warm, the only hint of it ever being there is the gravity of touch. He’s turned further into Corvo’s ear, and now each word hits with a gust of air. His breath is not warm.
“Two, you and I will exchange a few words, and you will go into the deepest part of the tower, no one will ever see you, not even the Lord Regent, as you slip away with the words that will wash over Dunwall like a cleansing wave and leave only the battered, stripped creature called truth. No blood on expensive Tyvian carpets, or screaming maids to mark that you were even here at all.”
The silence that follows is heavy with expectations. Waiting with possibilities. And full of Corvo’s heart drumming on his ribs like a musician struggling to be heard above the din.
Corvo swallows nothing at all, and indulges the deity, “And the third?”
“It ends with the Lord Regent smiling red from ear to ear,” he whispers from somewhere far too close.
“How does it start?” Corvo asks, the first word vibrates from the shuddering in his breaths.
“Would you like me to play the part of your Heart, and tell you what you think?” Corvo does not so much as hear the Outsider say those words then feel them as he speaks them against his ear lobe, lips that brush and open into O’s or purse into P’s and so on.
Corvo’s head fills drop by drop of scenes that spread like blood through a delta of veins. Of dying on the floor, of sparing a wretched, pathetic husk of a man, of making a mess of events and people and his self, of slipping through Dunwall Tower like an afterthought, like a boring human life to a eternal, ambiguous being. Of watching the man who took everything, everything away from him walking away with his life, of allowing a faceless, nameless executioner to take away that which should belong to him, is owed to him.
And besides, there is no way he can ignore the lips on his ear, the fingers that lingered on his back, the hands that linger now on the side of his face. The shade with the feel of flesh and bone pressed into the curve of his back, filling the void between them like how Corvo fills the time between shrine visits with trying not to think about the being at his back, on his ear, on his face. No, Corvo cannot even carry out a calm, stealthy approach, not with the pounding in his chest clamoring to be heard by the guards, by the maids, by the Lord Regent himself.
The Outsider smiles into Corvo’s ear lobe, he can feel the lips pull away from grinning teeth. He’s smiling at the path Corvo will take, the decision he has made without saying a word. Corvo is certain the Outsider can see just how it unfolds painted on the eternity of his black eyes.
Corvo swivels his head to the left, his mouth opening as he catches the Outsider lips with his own and there is not a hint of surprise etched in either of their faces and the rune slips out of his fingers.
No, Corvo finds himself unsurprised that the Outsider tastes of salt. And not just in the wet cavern of his mouth, but his lips and the pale, cool skin around his lips and he imagines that he can taste salt on every inch of his skin, on the inside of his elbow, under his angular chin, just under the gentle curve of his ribs, everywhere and anywhere.
(“All in due time, perhaps,” replies the Outsider as Corvo lingers on the corner of his mouth and Corvo hears but he will not remember, it dissolves like rain falling into an ocean.)
The pale hand on Corvo’s cheek slides gently away to the metal buckle on his waist, and the other pale hand floats to his left hip and his blue twill coat loosens as the effects of murder clatter to the cold ground in a jumble of peeling leather and metal edged with rust and rust colors. Corvo’s hands go to his lapels of their own accord, his shoulders bend back as he peels the coat away and it waterfalls and covers the tangled jumble of belts incompletely.
There is nothing but salt and chill in Corvo’s mouth and the Outsider’s tongue presses into all the little indents in the roof of his mouth, rolls over his teeth, drags itself across both his cheeks and spirals and chases his tongue, always leading. Corvo opens his mouth as wide as he can, his breaths are short and small in the impossibly small space between their mouths and there is not even room to moan softly.
Fingers curl around the jut of Corvo’s hipbones and slide up his shirt and his vest and they trace all the places that muscles meet each other and they drag nails across all the places that have slivers of scar tissue. The Outsider’s nails dig into all the places that are still red and the pain is bright hot and Corvo gasps somewhere between their lips and his shoulders gently curve back.
The Outsider’s still has his hands on Corvo’s chest as the buttons on Corvo’s trousers slip themselves out of the buttonholes and the zipper drags itself down as if pulled by an anchor. With perfect symmetry, the Outsider’s wide hands angle down, and Corvo can feel the press of his palms into his stomach as they dive down, under, and there.
Corvo chokes on gasps and falls from the Outsider’s mouth, his forearms tense, hands catch his torso from falling completely forward, fingertips pressing themselves into the wood grain of the table. The deity delicately wraps his fingers around and works Corvo’s erection like a sculptor, pressing here and there and letting his fingers overlay each other and Corvo cannot even feel the chill of his hands through the heat his body is giving off.
The hem of his pants slip further and further still with every desperate press of his hips, the edge of the shrine’s table presses a red line to Corvo’s lower stomach. The time between sheets and in private spaces with Jessamine seems a far-gone, distant life (and even the purgatorial Coldridge seems now a barely remembered nightmare) and this, this overwhelms like new and burns blue and terrible and Corvo only remembers to stifle his moans when they have half escaped from his mouth.
“The Lord Regent and all his dolls and toy soldiers could not bear the sounds from this place, they will not hear you. They did not hear the dying and already dead. I want to hear you, and I will,” whispers the Outsider, his tone even, with only colors of amusement tinting his words.
His cold hands leave Corvo’s heat and the Outsider’s left hand slides to Corvo’s Mark and he overlays his fingers with Corvo’s and presses. The Mark burns blue like ignited whale oil and Corvo jerks up from the bright flash of pain that lances through his whole being. Thin fingers thread themselves in Corvo’s overlong hair and yank him back, leaving just enough neck for the Outsider to twist his head to taste (and he bites instead, and it does not bleed). Corvo’s jaw slackens open and a unrestrained moan evaporates from it a moment later as the Outsider gently and steadily inches himself in between trembling thighs teetering on weakening knees.
Corvo finds he cannot form a single thought, even letters can barely stay afloat. There’s hurt everywhere and it quickens his heart and sucks all the air out of his lungs and his head is too much of a mess to realize the how depraved he is for wanting it all to hurt more, for his hand to burn deeper, for that dense, torturous rhythm on his cock, for his neck to be torn apart by teeth, for the Outsider to shove himself in deep and fast and full.
(“If you wish,” replies the Outsider.)
The Outsider slides his right hand out of Corvo’s hair and he uses three fingers to shove Corvo’s torso forward and down he goes bent at the waist, his forearms slide out to touch purple fabric and all Corvo can see is the worn grain of the wood table of the shrine framed by his swinging hair strands. And he grabs two handfuls of purple when the Outsider retreats all the way only to slam forward, cruel in his lack of urgency. The purple drapes strain from its precariously nailed points as Corvo pulls it forward toward him with every push of the Outsider’s hips into his own.
The shrine’s table clatters and groans as Corvo’s legs lose strength with each thrust and he holds more of his weight on its tiny surface. And when the Outsider angles himself to hit somewhere unfamiliar and shocking, his shouts are dampened by the drapes and pale fingers fly to his waist to hold him up with strength that does not come from flesh and he continues to drive himself into that point, over and over. Corvo’s moans and gasps come unhindered by duty or revenge and they dry his lips as they evaporate from his mouth.
Heat and pain densifies to a fine, fine point and Corvo’s entire body tightens and clenches and he can feel the fullness in him plunge deeper as he sputters into a scream and he comes all white and liquid unto the table’s legs and they drip trails on the lanterns on the floor. His body twitches each drop out and the Outsider leans forward and Corvo turns his flushed, spent face and a cold, wet tongue slides along his lower lip, over each hairline crack.
Corvo’s insides flood with the Outsider as he shoots himself dry inside and trails of white seep out and down the insides of his thighs and he shivers as the Outsider slides out. Corvo starts to slip, his legs done, and is blacked out before he hits the ground (but gently because the Outsider is not uncaring).
The assassin wakes a short time later next to the dead torturer, decked out in mask and belts and coat and buttoned up trousers with only an ache between his legs and the rune in his hand. He finds his lips go dry when he thinks to all the shrines he will need to find (for it’s only a matter of when). He has a mind the Outsider can see all Corvo’s visits to his shrines unfold in his head and he shivers at the inevitability of it all.
And so Corvo goes upstairs (and up more stairs) to draw a grin on the Lord Regent’s neck.
But he does not.
He slips like a silver fish in water and splashes a wave of revelatory truths that thunder into a giant tsunami and overwhelms Dunwall and drowns only some of its lies. He watches the Lord Regent’s bald head shrink away from him between two guards, every muscle in his body twitching with the urge to fly at him and take off his head (and perhaps the heads of those two guards for just existing). He tries to satisfy himself with picturing a dagger embedded in that wrinkled neck. It is not successful and Corvo stalks his way back to Samuel, the high road weighs like melancholy on his heart.
All the shrines of the Outsider, for a moment, vibrate its lavender glows and cause runes and bones and candles and lanterns to clatter softly. All his admirers and practitioners and lovers in denial will quake in fear at his show of anger.
But they do not know him. The Outsider is not angry. He is laughing.