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Teague Martin was feeling good, all things considered.
Some mornings he still awoke expecting to feel iron clamps around his throat and arms. Other mornings he found himself clawing out of fitful sleep fully convinced he was back in prison, locked in that rancid, freezing cell that could have easily become his grave.
And past the mornings things hadn't been all sunshine and rainbows either. He'd had his doubts about the situation he'd found himself in - the situation he'd made for himself. Maybe the entire plan, start to finish, had been a terrible mistake. One big miscalculation. Not just breaking the Royal Protector out of Coldridge and trying to put Emily back on the throne. Further back than that - maybe he never should've gotten involved with the Conspiracy at all. Scratch that, maybe he should never have come to Dunwall in the first place. They were hiding like rats in a district full of rotting corpses, for Void's sake, and this "they" he found himself in consisted of less than a dozen men poised to fight against the ruler of an entire Empire. Waking up in a room with windows barred up to avoid detection, checking yourself for signs of Plague in a cracked mirror every morning, waiting anxiously to hear if the servants or Samuel had managed to score supplies or if they'd all have to go hungry that day - not even the most conviction-filled man could've withstood that life without eventually fearing he'd made a terrible, terrible mistake.
Thankfully Corvo had a way of clearing his doubts. The man was good. No two ways about it. There'd been that moment in Holger Square - instead of making Jasper taste steel, Martin's masked rescuer had sent the man off to dreamland with a quick sleep dart, and for a gut-wrenching moment Martin had thought "this guy is too soft for this job". If Corvo hadn't even been willing to kill a simple Overseer, how was he ever going to be able to deal with someone like the Lord Regent?
But Corvo had managed perfectly. Had branded Campbell, what a move. Martin wouldn't have minded to have been there for it himself, to get to see the quicklime work its magic on Campbell's ugly mug. Would've served Campbell well. Served him for all the shit he'd called Martin on that first night after Martin's arrest, and all the shit he'd done to him, trying to get him to talk. How beautifully the tables could turn. While Campbell had become persona non grata, forced to make a life among the rejects of society, soon downtrodden, outcast, imprisoned Martin would lean back in his velvet chair, look out the tall windows of the Office of the High Overseer, and he would laugh. Void would he laugh.
Yes, all things considered, he was feeling good about the future.
He was so close now. If he stretched his hand out he could almost touch it. The future was coming - the future he'd dreamed of all these years. All he needed to do was to stay well out of its way and wait. By the time the year was be over he knew he'd be High Overseer. He knew it. It might take a few more weeks or it might take months, but truthfully it didn't really matter. He'd worked towards this since he'd joined the Abbey. He could handle waiting a bit longer. The High Overseer's cushy office was about to be his. He could make do with the Hound Pits' Pub for now.
Making do it really was, though. There was running water at least, that was good. Not a luxury many in this quarantined district could boast of - not one many in the non-quarantined districts could, either. Hot water, too, thanks to the boilers and broilers and whatever else was going on in the back rooms and basement of the Pub. And the roof held fast and the ground floor pub hadn't completely fallen apart on them yet, either.
But food was an issue. The Pub's stores had long run out of anything of the non-alcoholic variety, and now they were living off of whatever Samuel could smuggle in on his boat or what the servants could barter for with the few contacts still alive in the district. Every new member meant another mouth to fill. And space was getting sparse, too. Messieurs Havelock and Pendleton were taking up the only available single rooms, Corvo had understandably gotten the loft and little Emily had been assigned to the crumbling tower by the riverside. Everybody else had been delegated to the bunks. If the Conspiracy grew any more though they'd have to look for other lodging - maybe drag some mattresses into the pub proper, or make the blocked-off third floor habitable again. But at that point they'd really be in for some trouble with the food situation. And the sanitary situation, too, even though that wasn't something Martin wanted to think about. One bathtub to over half a dozen people didn't make for a great ratio. The Pub's facilities had never been meant to house people long-term, had been built in a time in which public baths had been perfectly accessible to anyone who needed more than a quick rinse. It'd just get worse if Corvo managed to bring in anyone else. Especially when filling and draining the tub had to be done by hand, with a bucket, every time, because the tub was just a wooden bucket itself and had no in- or outlets for water.
And when one of your members made a habit of crawling through sewers, garbage, and Outsider only knew what, baths were a necessity multiple times a week.
Of course His Noble Lordship Lord Pendleton insisted on having his very own bathwater drawn every time - used to be, apparently, that they could share the water back when it was just Havelock and two or three others, but no longer, and certainly not with blue blood amongst their ranks. With their numbers approaching double digits, every bath day meant the servants were practically begging for death.
Maybe their requests to be able to stop bucketing bathwater could've been ignored. They weren't going to have to stay at the Pits for all that much longer anyway. But then Emily had refused to give Corvo a kiss or even a hug on account of just how disgusting he'd gotten, and that had immediately been deemed an untenable state of affairs by the Lord Protector. No, by all of them. Truthfully they'd all fallen for Emily. If it made her happy, so be it.
Piero had rigged up an improvised shower for them all, out by the big boiler, where in happier times carts would have arrived on the daily to top up the Pub's stock of wines and spirits. Not the ideal way to go about things - Dunwall wasn't known for its warm and sunny days nor were its streets known for being particularly clean. Showering outside was much better than ending up with rotting floorboards, though. And the Plague and the quarantine had cleared out the houses around the Pits so at least they didn't need to worry about privacy. The servants had even been nice enough to give the landing area a good rinse beforehand so the street underfoot wasn't absolutely filthy.
Martin got to learn all this just before the sun had reached its zenith. He'd been out meeting with a contact in the early morning hours, long before Emily had woken up and the plan to build themselves a shower had been put into motion. By the time he'd gotten back to the Pub to discover their new contraption, Piero was already complaining that he needed the tubing and the pump back if he wanted to keep his whale oil port running, without which the lights in the place weren't going to stay operative for very long.
Meanwhile Corvo had been busy in the sewers beneath the Pub, putting the Admiral's mind at ease about some worrying noises he'd been hearing coming from down there. Piero was very unhappy with this entire situation. He really needed the tubing back, and besides the boiler could only produce so much hot water before it needed to refill and sit for a while, and- fine, fine, Martin got the message, it was no bother at all, him and Corvo would just have to share. Callista and Cecelia had shared, too, to save on water, and they had done just fine. (Martin would have paid a fair amount of coin to have been there to witness that event in person, Strictures be damned.) Not like Martin hadn't shared showers with other men before. It took him some effort, in fact, to remember the last time he'd taken a fully private shower. (Fraeport, fancy hotel, stolen identity, stolen wallet.)
The army, the Abbey, more than one stint in prison and plenty on the streets - he'd long learned how to live in close quarters. Eyes down, attention focused on himself. Get in, get out. Avoid drawing attention to yourself, avoid paying anyone else attention since many men in a crowded space meant any attention led to tension led to conflicts. Led to fights, strife, all the ways two men looking at each other could turn sour. And despite his failing and his occasional flagrant disregard for the Strictures he was still an Abbey man. He was an Overseer. He may not have been the most diligent at following the Strictures - the First, the Second, the Sixth, just to count the ones that were all too easy to break when naked among others just as nude as yourself - but even he knew to avoid wandering into the Outsider's open arms.
Undressing on the street, with what felt like a hundred windows staring down at him - unpleasant no matter how you looked at it. The Royal Protector similarly stripping off his clothes in the corner of his eye didn't help much, either. The weather was nice, at least. Comparatively warm. And the sun was out. Really as good a weather as one could get in Dunwall.
When the first drops of hot water hit him, everything dissolved.
Void, what a feeling. All the worries, all the stresses and pains suddenly and completely melting away. Not even the High Overseer himself could ever have felt a joy quite as great - only after years of deprivation culminating in a week of beatings, humiliation, prison and terror and the stocks, could you truly appreciate the rapturous pleasure of hot water running over your body.
Someone crowded against him. Somewhat begrudgingly, Martin pulled himself out of his state of pure bliss. Right, Corvo. And the hot water - they didn't have forever.
Outsider's guts, that Corvo, though.
Martin had known many strong men, had known soldiers, killers even. Corvo was in an entirely different class. Even angled away from Martin - Martin surmised the Royal Protector had had very similar instincts trained into him during his stint in prison - he was something to behold.
What must this man have looked like when he was at his prime, when he hadn't just gotten out of jail and then been thrown into the gutter to scrounge for scraps and fight for the survival of the Empire? Martin had never really looked at Corvo before, not like this, anyway. He'd seen him from a distance, like pretty much everyone in Dunwall had - the Empress's shadow, there at every parade and ceremony, never paid any mind, never truly perceived. There'd been more important things to look at, like the Empress and her young child, and Corvo had naturally faded into the background noise, the mind paying him about as much attention as it did the Empress's coachman.
Martin soaped himself down somewhat awkwardly, the stream of water not quite wide enough for two grown men to share comfortably. It was- hard not to take glances at Corvo, not when they were so close they were almost touching.
But, really, where was the harm in a glance? Or even in two, or three? A quick glance was just the exception that proved that your gaze was usually perfectly steadfast. And there was just so much of Corvo. It was almost impossible not to look. Every Overseer was expected to be able to hold their own even in an outmatched fight, and Martin was no exception, but Corvo clearly would've had zero issue besting him in one-on-one combat. Corvo had been honed and trained to perfection, built over years to excel in both strength and speed, trained for defense just as much as offense. Martin had been a soldier once. Corvo had been supplied by the biggest budget, nursed by the best medical care - and if rumors were true, sleeping in the softest bed in all the Isles.
Despite his years of training and optimal living, Corvo was still human, however, and it showed on his body. You couldn't miss the fresh bruises and wounds if he so much as rolled up his sleeves - Martin now realized he'd never seen him do that with Emily around. Long sleeves only around the child. He couldn't say he blamed him.
He watched Corvo ladle water over a large abrasion on his shin with his hands. He was no ghost, and he was no creature of the Void, even though that mark on his hand certainly spoke of his dalliance with it. He was a man of flesh and blood. And they, the Conspiracy, were throwing him, violently, against all the forces of an Empire. Some bruising and the occasional nasty wound were to be expected. Not that all of the marks on his body where the Conspiracy's fault, far from it. There were scars on him going back many years. The oldest ones, now that Martin took a moment to listen, told silent stories of good care, clean hands, diligent medical attention. The newer healed ones, not so much. Some, in fact, looked like they'd been reopened on purpose or otherwise had their healing process tampered with - this had to be the record of Corvo's stay in Coldridge. The deep burn marks, the strips of flesh torn from his back by whip or flail or whatever instruments of terror they wielded in the bowels of that monument of terror - they'd done quite the number on him. Martin had received his share of marks while he'd been in Abbey custody, but compared to Corvo he felt pretty certain he'd gotten off easy. Anything newer than that, well... they didn't exactly have a doctor in the Pub. Havelock, used to having to improvise to keep his crew alive on the uncaring sea, had reportedly cleaned and sewn shut a gash on Corvo's midriff himself when Samuel had first brought him in. But at least nobody was purposefully sticking dirty fingers into his wounds anymore.
There was something strangely compelling about the thought. Corvo having to sit there and take it. What kind of sounds did he make when they did that? What kind of sounds could be drawn out of that powerful chest when you really put your mind to it?
Thankfully, there was one more mark on Corvo that Martin could turn his mind to instead. That mark on his hand - it bothered Martin, he couldn't deny it. He knew what it was. He was no simpleton. Years ago - lifetimes ago - lives ago - Martin had walked the shrouded depths of the Void, and even though he'd thought the offer he'd been made then preposterous he'd carried the image of the mark in his mind ever since. It wasn't a symbol you encountered often - but when you did, you knew you had something real on your hands. No cheap parlor tricks here. This was, as the Abbey would say, real heresy. So real, in fact, that not even Martin, who could excuse a lot and who was by no means the most fanatical man amongst his Brothers, felt his stomach twist at the sight. It was witchcraft of the rankest proportions. It was against everything Martin stood for as an Overseer.
It was also a necessary evil. Without Corvo, they were just a couple of fools talking a big game. Without Corvo, they had absolutely no chance at taking back the throne. And without the Outsider, Corvo was, at the end of the day, just another soldier. Once they'd done what they needed to do - once Martin had his backside firmly planted on the High Overseer's chair - they could figure out what to do about Corvo's faith. For now he'd just have to watch Corvo carefully.
Watch him quite carefully indeed.
Corvo stretched and rolled his shoulders. The water running down the both of them had slowed to a trickle. Mark or no, Corvo looked powerful. Not just capable of barely surviving, not just lucky (like Pendleton. Like Martin, even, at more than a few moments of his life). Corvo looked like he'd get what he wanted or die trying. Yet he was... graceful, in a way. Not just some mindless brute. He was held back. Reserved, calculated. A single sleep dart for Jasper - sharp steel for others, but no slaughters. None so far, at least. No wonder he'd managed to keep the royal family safe so many years. No wonder he'd been making it into and out of some of the most heavily guarded locations in the Isles.
Corvo clearly wasn't thriving, he was as happy to be stuck in this rotting pub as the rest of them, and there was no denying he'd been dealt a shitawful hand by the Cosmos. But he'd muscled through it, and with any luck he'd continue to do so. And, Void, he certainly had the muscles to show for it. With him as a weapon Martin was sure to have no issue cutting his way straight into High Overseer's Office.
Oh, the things Martin would be able to do when he'd finally have gotten there. In the seat of the High Overseer, in full control of the Abbey, with Corvo in the palm of his hand, acting as his sword - or his crossbow stocked with sleep darts, whatever he preferred. None would dare oppose him. Not with this man - this man - Martin's eyes were back on him, tracing the curve of his spine past powerful shoulders and flexible waist. It made him feel hot inside. It made him hungry. The thrill of the power he'd get to wield when he was High Overseer purred in the back of his mind like a content cat. The sheer power in Corvo's body. Corvo's body - he just couldn't help it, he kept coming back to it. The physicality of him, it was just- unavoidable. Even in the nude. Especially in the nude. It was him, and it was the intensity of the times they were living in, and all the power that was just one step ahead, the power that would be Martin's so tantalizingly soon. It made Martin's fingers itch. It made him want to act. It made him want to sit in the High Overseer's office and watch Corvo execute Campbell right in front of him.
Void, what was he doing? He raised his face into the stream of water, trying to rinse the thoughts out of his mind. He'd looked too much. He'd thought too much. He needed to wrap up getting the rest of this soap off his body before the water fully ran out. The Outsider's magic truly was strong around Corvo. Taking every opportunity to draw the eyes and the mind (and, oh, if only, the hands- the flesh- no, enough of that, enough) away from what was righteous and good. Martin tried to focus on the hot water trickling over his face, over his shoulders, and not on the feeling of Corvo scrubbing himself down a hand's breadth away. What was it with him today? Daydreaming like that - and letting the rush travel down, letting it pool in the bottom of his stomach, pool below the navel, like a pleasant, building fire-
There was a tap on Martin's shoulder. Martin startled. He turned around - Corvo, of course. A sharp pang of embarrassment shot through Martin - he flushed - did Corvo- had he been able to tell- but no, Corvo looked like he always did, just considerably more nude and slightly more wet. He was motioning towards his back. There was a small bottle in his other hand.
For a moment, some obscene part of Martin broke free to dare to imagine it was oil, the kind you could use to- he stomped that part of himself out like a stray ember, like a scurrying cockroach quickly crushed under the heel of his boot. It was just some kind of wound care treatment, some salve or tincture. There were wounds on Corvo's back - where were there no wounds on Corvo, really? - and Corvo wasn't able to take care of them on his own. Simple. Martin needed to get his Void-damned mind under control.
"Could you-" Corvo rasped, his voice barely getting over a whisper. It was all he managed to get out. Even those two words alone visibly caused him pain. Whatever had been done to Corvo in Coldridge, Martin thought as he looked down to examine the label, he- Void he jerked his hand up and his gaze with it. Fuck, he'd been getting hard? Really? Really? Over, what, the thought of some slightly more comfortable place of work and some scrapes on another man's skin? Outsider's balls he had to get a grip on himself.
He held the bottle at eye level, making sure to look as calm and casual as he could. Ignore it. Give it a moment. It'd go away. The important thing was that Corvo hadn't noticed. Corvo had not noticed. Corvo had not noticed. Martin stared at the label intensely. Salve. Black market. Clearly repurposed bottle with a handwritten label hastily glued on. "Massage into fresh bruises and old scars alike. Cover open wounds with a thin layer and let sit". He read the sparse words a dozen times, willing himself to think of nothing but wounds and scars and the woes of living on scrounged medical supplies. Infection, gangrene, teeth being pulled with dirty pliers. Rotting legs, festering sores, Void, the weepers and the rats and starvation and insanity and finally he felt like he'd gotten himself mostly back together.
Corvo had asked if he could help. Martin would have to. For their sake. For his own sake, damn it all to the Void.
Corvo's back was hard as rock. Martin's fingertips touched it gingerly. The salve had a strange slimy quality to it and carried a smell that was not unlike the Wrenhaven on its worst days. At least it stuck to Corvo's skin well enough, and the disgusting smell was helping Martin's hammering heart slow down.
He started vaguely around the middle of Corvo's back. In the indistinct no man's land between the small of the back (too close, to personal) and the rise of the shoulder blades (too powerful, too active). Neutral territory, or as close as he could get. Picking a random bruise out of the lot to start with. This one was thin but long, purple and yellows staining Corvo's skin like he'd been thrown against a ledge, had been hit with some blunt object maybe, perhaps a pole or a cane. Martin rubbed against it, taking great care to only let his fingertips touch it. Nothing more - only touch him as far as absolutely necessary, no further. He didn't know much about anatomy past whatever improvised first aid he'd picked up over the years (which did tell him that pressing on a bruise was probably not the best idea, but if that's what the salvemaker wanted he just had to take their word for it) but Corvo's stiffening shoulders and clenching fists told even a layman like him that the bruise hurt. A cane - there were a few Overseers who carried them. Less power and status than a sword let alone than a gun, but still a weapon that could be used to kill. He thought about an Overseer standing over Corvo. Kicking him over on his side with the left foot while the right arm swung in a powerful arc, the cane whistling through the air, just about to collide with Corvo's back.
Thought about himself as that Overseer. Corvo looking up at him - the mask was gone, he could see his face - feverish, flushed. His eyelids heavy. Some hint of a smile on his lips.
Martin jerked his hand back from Corvo's skin. He gripped the bottle tight. Corvo let out a small sigh of relief and stretched a bit, cracked his neck. Looked undisturbed. Cussing himself out in his thoughts Martin let some more salve drip out of the bottle onto his fingers. He was being ridiculous. He'd just- he'd have to spend some time alone that night, that was all. Been too long, that was it. Void, he had sexual desires like any other man, it was only natural. And he hadn't had much of a chance to deal with them recently, with the Plague, prison, now the impending retaking of Dunwall Tower. Built up energies trying to bubble over. If he let them interfere with him now - let them stop him from performing this task, this important task, keeping Corvo's body alive and safe and in tip-top shape - that would be the worst kind of sin. Fully caving in to the whims of the flesh, the Wanton Flesh. Having his judgement so clouded by the lusts of his body that he'd raise the need to fulfill them over the importance of keeping them all alive.
He hesitated, his fingers back on Corvo's skin. He should tell Corvo to go to someone else, Callista maybe (lucky Corvo) or even blasted Havelock, literally anybody but him. He should stop thinking with his prick and just do what Corvo asked him to. He should stop letting the Outsider win. He pushed his palm forward. His fingers slid easily over Corvo's skin, their tips coated with salve. His palm made contact with Corvo's back. He held his breath. Then he realized that he was holding his breath, chastised himself for doing so, and used his palm to massage the salve deeper into Corvo's skin. The Cosmos kept on spinning. The Wrenhaven, just out of sight beyond the Pub, lapped at its shores. Everything continued as it always had. His hand felt a bit steadier now.
It had been a long time since he'd touched another man like this, hadn't it? Or a woman for that matter - his last excursion to a brothel had been before the Plague, before things went all to hell in Dunwall. Was he that base a creature, that fettered to the whims of his flesh that simply not getting enough skin-to-skin contact with another was enough to make him lose all control over himself? Sure, Corvo was a prime specimen of manhood but Martin was an Overseer. He was supposed to be above this.
Spreading some salve on the palm, too, and massaging it in. Corvo grunted a bit when he did it to the deeper bruises but he held steady. Occasionally he let out a hiss when there was more than a bruise under Martin's fingers. Martin was relieved to find no signs of major infection anywhere, despite how often Corvo had returned to the Pub covered in filth in recent times. Maybe that was luck, maybe it was that heretic mark on his hand.
That mark - he didn't go near it. He wanted to. But he didn't. He had no intention of going back there- to go there, to give in. But he did want to.
It felt good to touch someone - that base physicality. And to feel Corvo relax under his touch, feel Corvo let his guard down slowly and steadily, despite the occasional spikes of tension that Martin felt stab through him when he touched a particularly sore spot.
There were knots in Corvo's muscles, Martin's fingers kept finding them without meaning to. He pushed a thumb against the rise of Corvo's shoulder, the heady warmth of the water still trickling over them emboldening him. No, not emboldening, this was purely rational. If Corvo kept letting himself get sore and stiff like this one day it'd get him killed, and that would get Martin killed, too. Corvo made a low and whistling sound in response.
"Corvo," Martin said and felt a hot rush of embarrassment at just how cracked and dry his voice sounded. He cleared his throat. "I know your time is precious -" he was happy to hear he sounded much better now. Quite normal. Quite casual. Just a casual chat. That's all this was. Yes. "But I take it Samuel won't be back until nightfall, so neither of us have anywhere to be. Your muscles seem rather tight -" yes, casual conversation, normal, he was helping a friend, he was taking care of equipment, he was polishing a sword. He pressed his thumb deeper into the muscle to demonstrate, digging into the knot. Corvo groaned. The sound did nothing to Martin. Nothing. Nothing. "Would you like me to release some of that tension? I'm no-" he'd been about to say "no Golden Cat girl", and only bit the words back at the last second. Instead, he said: "I'm no masseuse - but it might still be better than nothing." Corvo threw a glance back at him, nodded.
And Martin- Martin felt relieved. Martin wanted to keep touching Corvo.
No he didn't.
He shouldn't have been doing this.
He kept doing it.
What would it feel like to reach around and feel for Corvo's chest?
What would this scarred back feel like pressed against Martin's chest?
For a moment, his thoughts turned back to the Golden Cat - he should find a way to pay the place another visit some time soon. It'd do him good. He needed to see that one girl again, what was her name, the one with the long, brown hair - had Corvo seen her when he'd visited the Cat? Had he seen her up close and personal? Touched her? Corvo's hands, hands strong enough to kill, on her beautiful tits. Her smiling at Corvo, inviting him - and then looking over, looking at Martin, beckoning him to join them...
A shiver ran though Martin. The sun had moved on and had left them in shadow. And the hot water had finally run out for good. Corvo shuddered, too, at the breeze that was starting to pick up. The skin of his back was flushed from Martin's fingers kneading it. Martin couldn't deny he liked the look.
Corvo turned around, gave him a raspy whisper of a "thanks". Martin was about to reply when Corvo's hand landed on his shoulder and derailed his train of thought violently. Corvo's heavy, calloused hand, strong, touching Martin's bare skin, the tips of his fingers so close to the tender flesh where Martin's heartbeat hammered in his veins, his grip squeezing Martin's shoulder just so, just enough that it made Martin want to lean into his grip, want to feel how strong it could get and see what it felt like grasping all those other places on a man's body that hands can grip. Corvo was looking him the eyes and he was looking back but nothing on Corvo's face, whether relief, comradery or flirtation, registered in his mind. Just the feeling of skin and pressure and a voice in his mind desperately trying to recall Holger's litany against the perils of the Wanton Flesh, trying desperately and failing.
When Corvo's hand finally left his shoulder Martin almost gasped. He felt dizzy. He looked around. Their surroundings - he suddenly became aware of them for what felt like the first time in hours. Void, the Pub had so many windows, and they were all staring down at them. Had anybody been watching them? He let out a breath. No, of course not. They'd just been taking a shower. Nothing to watch, nothing noteworthy at all. The Pub was quiet. Havelock and Pendleton, both out. The girls keeping busy. Piero probably in his workshop. He remembered the salve. He looked down (- caught sight of his dick and then his eyes brushed over the outline of Corvo's dick half in profile for less than the fraction of a second and he groaned a curse at himself in his mind -), gripped the bottle tight. Hissed out another breath. Forced his body to relax. The shoulders, the jaw. A breath in, good and steady. Pulled his arm up, keeping the muscles nice and soft. Body language calm. Hands relaxed. Corvo mouthed another "thank you" when he took the bottle back. Martin smiled back, smooth as ever, "anything for the Royal Protector". Not a hint of innuendo in his voice, not a hint of stress.
He chastised himself afterwards, really, like a blushing maid, like he was so desperate to-, and so on and so forth. Maybe it was Corvo's fault, or rather the Outsider's, channeling his seductive witchcraft through the mark on Corvo's hand. And yet it was the Outsider Martin thanked for at least granting him an usually quiet, private moment in the normally so busy Pub as he went straight to the only bathroom, one hand already undoing his belt before the other had even fully turned the key in the lock behind him. A few hard strokes were all it took - he clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle a groan and came hard into his fist.
The Outsider really was insidious.