The Tailor
Summary: You're Corvo Attano's tailor, but you find yourself wanting more
Warnings: Slight blood
Note(s): This is mainly to see if I can write for Dishonored, and what the feedback for this will be! If people want it, there will be a part two :)
The bell above your shop door doesn’t ring when he enters. It never does.
You fixed that yourself- threading a narrow strip of worn felt into the hinge, pressing it in with the careful patience you usually reserve for lining seams and hiding stitches. It had taken three interruptions before you bothered: three instances of Corvo Attano appearing behind you without so much as a courtesy noise, like a thought arriving fully formed, already halfway through itself. The fourth time, you decided the door didn’t need to announce him. It never suited him anyway.
Now, when he comes and goes, the world adjusts rather than reacts.
The latch settles into place with a softened click, muted down to something almost imagined. The wood meets the frame with a quiet, cushioned sigh.
It would be easy to miss.
Someone else would miss it.
But you’ve learned the language of small things- the tension in a room when it gains another presence, the way silence bends ever so slightly under the weight of someone who carries it with them. So you don’t turn immediately. You don’t startle. You just feel it: that familiar, almost imperceptible change, like the pause between heartbeats stretching a fraction too long.
He’s there.
You don’t look up right away.
The needle in your hand continues its quiet work, gliding through the dense, dark fabric with a kind of practiced certainty that borders on instinct. It slips in, disappears, emerges again: each motion clean, economical, deliberate. The thread follows in a soft pull, tightening the seam with a faint whisper, drawing two layers together until they sit flush, as if they had always belonged that way.
The garment spread across your worktable is unmistakably his- black, layered, reinforced in ways no nobleman would ever request and no honest guard would ever need. There are hidden channels stitched between the lining and outer shell, small, deliberate pockets nested inside other pockets, each one placed exactly where a hand might reach without looking.
“The door's fixed,” you say, your voice cutting softly through the room, casual in a way that suggests you’re not asking for acknowledgement, only stating fact. “You’re welcome.”
Silence answers you first. Then, movement.
Bootsteps, quiet as breath, cross the wooden floor behind you. Measured. Controlled. Each one placed with the same careful intention you put into your stitches. Even without turning, you can follow him, tracing his path through sound alone. A shift of weight here, a slight pause there; he moves like someone who expects the world to notice him and has learned, meticulously, how to deny it that chance.
There’s a board near the back wall that always gives- a soft, traitorous creak if stepped on wrong.
You never mentioned it.
He avoids it anyway.
“That wasn’t the problem,” Corvo says.
He stands at the edge of the lamplight, where the glow thins and begins to lose its authority, and the room gives way to softer, more uncertain shadow. It catches on him unevenly- spilling across one shoulder, tracing the line of his jaw, then falling away before it can fully claim him. The rest of him lingers just beyond it, half-defined, like something the light hasn’t quite decided how to hold.
The mask isn’t on tonight, but its absence doesn’t make him easier to read. If anything, it’s worse. The scars, the tiredness around his eyes, the way he holds himself like a drawn blade- it all replaces the anonymity with something sharper.
“You’re tracking mud,” you say, almost absently, your gaze flicking past him toward the floorboards.
The mark is subtle, a dull smear against the worn grain of the wood, darker where the damp has settled into the grooves. He follows your line of sight, glancing down as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him until you gave it shape. There’s no irritation in the motion, no defensiveness- just a brief acknowledgment, quiet and efficient.
Then he steps back.
It’s a small adjustment, precise as everything else about him. His weight shifts, his boot lifts, and he places himself just outside the lamplight’s reach.
He watches you for a moment longer before his gaze shifts to the garment on the table.
“You changed the shoulders,” he says.
“Reinforced them,” you correct. “You keep catching on things. Brick edges, window frames, whatever you’re climbing these days.” You tap the fabric. “It’ll slide instead of snagging now. Less noise. Less… falling to your death.”
“I don’t fall.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You almost don’t fall.”
That earns you the faintest shift in his expression. Not quite a smile- Corvo doesn’t really do those- but something close enough that you count it.
You turn the garment so he can see the interior lining. “Also added more storage.”
“You already added more storage.”
“And then I added more.” You slip your hand into a seam along the side, then press inward. The fabric parts just enough to reveal a hidden compartment. “Flat pockets. Won’t bulge. Good for thin blades, notes, whatever secrets you’re carrying this week.”
His eyes track the motion, sharp and attentive. He steps closer, and the air seems to tighten slightly with him there- not threatening, exactly, but focused. Intent.
“You’re encouraging bad habits,” he says.
“You’re a professional bad habit,” you reply. “I’m just making you better at it.”
That almost-smile flickers again, gone as quickly as it came.
He reaches out, testing the fabric between his fingers. His touch is careful, but not gentle, he’s assessing, measuring resistance, flexibility, the way it might move under strain. You’ve seen him do the same with blades, with locks, with anything that might fail him at the wrong moment.
“It’s lighter,” he notes.
“Different weave. Stronger, too.” You lean back against the table, folding your arms. “You won’t feel it when you’re moving, but it’ll hold if someone grabs you. Or if you have to… drop from somewhere stupid.”
“I don’t-”
“-fall, yes, I remember,” you cut in. “You just descend aggressively.”
That does it. A quiet breath leaves him- almost a laugh, if you tilt your head and listen for it.
Corvo Attano sets the garment back onto the worktable with a deliberation that feels almost reverent.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he says.
His voice is low, even, stripped of anything unnecessary. It isn't an accusation. It isn’t gratitude either. It sits somewhere in between, like a fact he’s turning over slowly, trying to decide where it belongs.
You give a small shrug, barely more than a ripple through your shoulders.
“I know,” you say.
Outside, Dunwall murmurs in its usual way- distant wheels over cobblestone, the faint echo of voices, the ever-present hum of a city that never quite sleeps. Inside, it’s just the two of you and the soft glow of lamplight catching on dark fabric and sharper edges.
You pick up the garment and hold it out to him.
“Try it on, then. If you’re going to sneak around restoring empires or whatever it is you do, you might as well look good doing it.”
He takes it without hesitation.
As he slips it on, the fabric seems to belong to him immediately- settling into place like it was always meant to be there. The weight distributes evenly, the seams flex without resistance, every hidden pocket aligning with instinct rather than thought.
You watch closely, adjusting a collar here, smoothing a fold there.
“There,” you say finally, “Now you’re impossible to catch and well-dressed.”
Corvo looks down at himself slowly, as if assessing not just the clothing but what it has become under your hands. Then he looks back at you.
“Dangerous combination,” he says.
There’s the faintest edge of dry acknowledgment in it, something almost like amusement, but restrained the way everything about him is restrained- kept close, never allowed to spill too far into the open.
“You were already dangerous,” you say. “This just makes it efficient.”
“Thank you.”
It’s rare enough that you don’t waste it by reacting too much. You only nod once, subtle and unceremonious, as if acknowledging a seam well-finished.
The door closes behind him like a secret kept.
You stand there a moment longer than you need to, fingers still hovering where the fabric had been, as if the shape of him might linger in the air if you don’t disturb it too quickly. It doesn’t, of course. It never does. Corvo leaves the way he enters- clean, precise, without residue.
You exhale, slow.
Then you turn back to the worktable and start cleaning up things that don’t need cleaning.
The thread spool is already aligned. The scissors are already where they belong. The chalk markings are faint enough to be ignored. None of it matters, but your hands move anyway, restless in a way you don’t let yourself name.
Because naming it would make it real. And real things- especially this kind of real- have a way of demanding more than you’re willing to give.
You’ve seen the way people look at him.
They speak his name in lowered voices, in corners where hope and fear blur together until they’re indistinguishable. To them, Corvo Attano is less a man and more an answer- sharp, inevitable, something that cuts through injustice simply by existing.
A blade.
A shadow.
A story people tell when the lights go low and the world feels just uncertain enough to believe in something like him.
You know better.
You know the way he pauses before he speaks- not out of hesitation, but precision. Like every word is measured against something unseen, weighed not just for meaning but for impact, for consequence, for what it might set into motion once it leaves him. You’ve watched those silences stretch, felt the quiet calculation behind them.
You know his hands.
Not the legend of them, not the things people say they’ve done, but the reality. The steadiness when he reaches for something small. The careful, almost meticulous way he tests a seam, running his fingers along the stitching with a sensitivity that has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with trust.
And that’s the problem.
Because it would be easier, so much easier, if he were only what everyone else sees. If he were just the blade, the shadow, the distant, dangerous thing people whisper about when they think no one’s listening. Something untouchable. Something simple in its sharpness.
Something you didn’t have to understand.
Something that didn’t stand in your shop, in the quiet lamplight, and trust you enough to soften- just a fraction- where no one else is allowed to see.
You set the scissors down a little too hard.
The metal strikes the table with a sharp, decisive click- clean, cutting through the layered quiet of the room like a misplaced note. It doesn’t belong to the soft language of thread and fabric, to the hush of careful work and measured movement. It lingers a second too long, that sound, echoing faintly off wood and walls before settling into silence again.
“Stupid,” you mutter under your breath.
Not about him. About you.
You turn away before the thought can root any deeper, moving toward the rack along the wall with more purpose than you strictly need. Your fingers trail across the garments hanging there, brushing over them one by one- finished pieces first, their seams clean and certain, their shapes resolved. Then the half-finished ones, where pins still catch the light and loose threads whisper against your skin. Then the scraps: odd cuts of fabric, fragments of ideas not yet decided, waiting for a purpose they may or may not ever find.
Your shop holds its own kind of order.
It smells faintly of oil and fabric dye, of iron warmed by handling and the dry, familiar scent of worn wood. It’s a layered scent, built up over time, steady in a way that doesn’t shift from day to day. Everything here has a place. A function. Even the unfinished things belong to a process you understand.
It’s predictable.
Safe.
Nothing like him.
Corvo Attano exists in edges.
Not just physically- though you’ve seen that too, the way he favors rooftops over streets, shadowed alleyways over open paths- but in the way his entire life seems balanced on narrow margins. His world is built on decisions that don’t leave room for hesitation, and you’ve watched enough of it from the sidelines to understand one simple truth: There isn’t space in that life for something soft.
You let out a quiet huff of breath, the sound dry, almost self-correcting, and shake your head as if you can physically dislodge the thought before it settles.
You’re a tailor.
That’s the shape of it. The boundary. The definition that makes everything else make sense.
A good one, sure. Better than most. Good enough that he comes back, that he stands in your doorway without knocking, that he lets you measure, adjust, alter things meant to keep him alive. Good enough that he trusts your work where he trusts very little else.
But that’s where it ends.
It has to.
Not… this.
Not the way your chest tightens- just slightly, just enough to notice- when he steps fully into the light and becomes something more solid than shadow. Not the way your mind holds onto the sound of his voice when it drops lower, quieter, meant only for you and no one else. Not the way you catch details you shouldn’t be cataloging at all: how the exhaustion sits heavier on him some nights, how the lines at the corners of his eyes deepen when whatever he’s carrying goes beyond physical weight.
Things you have no business noticing.
Things that don’t fit anywhere they’re supposed to.
Your hand comes up, dragging down your face, fingers pressing briefly at your eyes as if you can ground yourself back into something simpler. Something cleaner. Something that doesn’t blur the edges you’ve worked so carefully to keep intact.
“Get a grip,” you tell yourself.
The words come out quieter this time, less sharp than before, worn down at the edges by repetition. They don’t echo like the scissors did. They settle instead- heavy, familiar- like something you’ve said often enough that it’s lost the illusion of being temporary advice and started sounding more like a rule.
You press your palm briefly against the edge of the worktable, grounding yourself in something solid. The wood is worn smooth beneath your skin, nicked in places, marked by years of careful work and the occasional slip of a blade. It’s real. It’s steady. It doesn’t shift under you.
Unlike the thought you’re trying to pin down.
Because what would you even do with it, if it were returned?
Ask him to stay?
The thought lands, and immediately feels wrong.
Not unrealistic- worse than that.
Misunderstood.
Corvo Attano doesn’t stay.
You’ve known that from the beginning, long before it ever had the chance to matter like this. He doesn’t linger in places once they’ve served their purpose. Doesn’t settle into moments long enough for them to take hold. Even here- your shop, your carefully ordered space- he occupies it temporarily, like a passing shadow that happens to pause before moving on again.
There’s always something ahead of him.
Another task. Another threat. Another decision waiting just out of sight that will demand everything he has the moment he reaches it.
He moves forward.
Always forward.
Toward whatever needs doing next, whether it costs him something or not.
And you, you’re not part of that motion.
You’re the constant he passes through. The fixed point that doesn’t follow, doesn’t chase, doesn’t change its position to keep him within reach. Your world is built differently: on repetition, on patience, on things that take time to become what they’re meant to be.
You’re here.
In the quiet weight of your shop. In the steady rhythm of needle and thread. In the certainty of work that begins, progresses, and ends exactly where you expect it to.
Your needle finds its rhythm again.
The motion settles back into your hands like it never left, muscle memory reclaiming its place with quiet authority. The thread follows in smooth, obedient lines, drawing the fabric together stitch by stitch, each one identical to the last. Controlled. Predictable. Safe in its repetition.
Steady.
That’s what you’re good at.
Not the flash of inspiration, not the bold risks or dramatic flourishes- no, it’s this. The discipline of it. The ability to take something loose, something vulnerable, and bind it into shape so cleanly no one ever sees where it might have come apart.
Your fingers slip.
It’s small. Barely there. A fraction of a second where your focus fractures, where the rhythm falters just enough to matter. But that’s all it takes.
The needle bites into your skin.
A clean, precise puncture, almost identical to the ones you’ve been making in fabric all this time, except this one answers back. The sting flares quick and bright, a pinpoint of sensation that cuts through everything else, dragging your attention down to it whether you want it or not.
You still.
A bead of blood wells up at the tip of your finger, slow at first, then fuller- rounding out into a small, perfect sphere. It catches the lamplight, brighter than it should be in a room this dim, a contrast against your skin.
“Right,” you murmur, voice low, almost thoughtful despite yourself. “Fitting.”
