Daud goes to Addermire AU

Tagged as Daud, Alexandria Hypatia, Bartholomeus Vasco, Grim Alex

Creator: Hiaen

Description:

AU where Daud goes to therapy.

He tries just exiling himself but he's having the opposite of a good time. So after a few years he goes to therapy. Maybe he tried studying medicine again and heard of progress in the field so he thought might as well try it.. So he goes to the Addermire Institute. And guess who's his therapist?

It's the good Doctor, Alexandria Hypatia herself.

I'm thinking he first goes roughly 5 years after DH1? I'm gonna go on the assumption that 5 years after Jessamine's death, in Serkonos, Daud's face and name is starting to fade from memories but. Not quite that much. Daud uses a fake name, grew a beard and let his hair long (hehehe floof). And fortunately for him Hypatia is not the most well-informed in terms of politics so she takes some time connecting the dots.

In the meantime: Hypatia tries to get Daud to actually talk about his problems good fucking luck girl.

So yeah. Tough at first. But Hypatia's patience rivalizes Daud's pig-headedness, so she's like alright you obviously don't wanna unpack your life story so how about you tell me about your daily life.

And like. It works. Daud has decades of issues and unspeakable crimes piled up but the last few years are... possible to tell. He can't tell how without the perpetual urgency and life-and death situations, being alone with his thoughts have been hell. But he can tell about how he lives in a small town on the shore out of Karnaca. He can tell about the odd job he's been taking to break the monotony and get a bit of spare money. He can tell about how he'd picked up wood carving for the first time in years.

And Hypatia is the exact right person to pull Daud out of his shell. She's nice. The kind of nice Daud is pretty sure he's never seen in any person ever. Even the Empress - the very thought of her makes his stomach churn in guilt - had some steel in her demeanor, the potential for cruelty that came with her position. Hypatia? If Daud hadn't conducted a very thorough investigation before even stepping foot in Addermire, he'd be pretty sure that level of kindness would hide a secret tendency for cannibalism. Or at least some tax evasion. But he found nothing.

Hypatia meanwhile perfectly sees that This Man Is Shady As Fuck but he's here for help and she's gonna help him. It's for people like him that she studied medicine and is working in Addermire.

The guy obviously hasn't seen a doctor in his life (or at least not a licensed one), nevermind a therapist. Or a barber, for that matter. In fact, she's not sure he's exchanged more than two sentences in a row with another human being in the past years (herself excluded). The scars on his face are old but seem to have healed in all the wrong ways. It's a wonder he doesn't have any difficulty walking, no apparent back or leg pain. People this age, with a life that rough, never move that fluidly.

(His steps are scarily silent. He startled Hypatia several times before she got used to it.)

Hypatia would be lying if she said she wasn't also dying with curiosity. The man obviously have a story to tell. She never had the same level of morbid curiosity some of her fellow Academy students displayed, but you don't become a researcher in infectious disease without a modicum of taste for the exceptional. And there is nothing normal about that man.

She can feel him getting more comfortable talking to her, he mentions a few of his problems. Nightmares. Sleeping issues, for all that he has anything resembling a sleeping schedule. Suspicion bordering on paranoïa. He clams up as soon as he realizes he's speaking of them, not giving any detail. Not yet.

Daud keeps tabs on Hypatia. On her other patients. He knows he's not the only criminal among her patients, though he's certainly the most high-profile. He's read her notes on them. Some have confessed to some pretty terrible things. She's never said a word to the Guard. Her methods are interesting, too. None of the judgemental or haughty comments that he saw in some other psychiatry specialists' notes.

(He carefully avoids looking at her notes on himself.)

Eventually, he gives out a bit about his life before his return to Serkonos. There's barely any of it that isn't steeped in crimes. He doesn't give any detail. Mentions being in a gang. Being an important member of it. A leader.

He mentions killing, blackmailing, kidnapping. He mentions the coin flowing. The feeling of freedom. Of superiority. Of running above everyone else, untouchable.

He mentions it all crashing down under him. And skips directly to fucking off to Serkonos in the first ship that would take him.

He gives no name, no place, no precise date. He doesn't mention the Whalers or Billie. He carefully avoids mentionning the plague. Doesn't even precise the island he was in, and prays that he has lost enough of the Gristolian accent he's spent three decades forcing on himself.

Hypatia never looks anything other than attentive. Barely a surprised twitch. She tries pressing a bit more about his men, about his downfall, sensing key topics here. He doesn't relent.

Not yet.

(I love how I said "Daud is Hypatia's most high-profile criminal patient" when he's just the most high-profile criminal. Period.)

Hypatia has long made the deduction that her patient's self-esteem is somewhere in the DH equivalent of the Mariana Trench. She has also understood that his social isolation and lack of stable occupation don't help any, leaving him alone with his failures and giving him no opportunity to find anything good about himself.

The why of the thing is a bit harder to work out, though the recent confessions help tremendously. The man is obviously ridden with guilt, possibly afraid of his own skill for cruelty, and certainly blind to any of his potential for goodness. His self-imposed exile seems to be a way to punish himself as well as a necessity to avoid the authorities.

In the past few weeks, Hypatia had to make an effort to avoid letting her eyes trail on the wanted posters she sees on her commute.

She tries to drag some more information about the man's life. Specifically, about the good things. She knows, both from her patients and her personal experience, that even the most miserable people have some highlights in their lives.

The man seems to have a surprising number a good memories from his gang years. Though getting details out of him feels a lot like pulling teeth out. He seems to have been fond of his colleagues (subordinates? she hasn't worked out his exact standing quite yet), more than seems advisable in that kind of environment. He seems to have genuinely enjoyed some aspects of his work - he insists he took no pleasure in murder, but the hunt, the mystery, the investigation, the strategizing... and also, she suspects, the addictive feeling of lording powers over people who saw him as scum.

There's far more skills in here than he suspects, she knows. The man is smart, far more than one could suspect at first glance. Educated too, though not in any official fashion. Has experience in various useful fields. But he persists in refusing to take any stable occupation, arguing about risks of getting caught and how nobody would hire him anyway.

Vasco chokes on his drink when she suggests hiring the man. She's pretty sure she can find a use for him at Addermire, he won't be able to use his usual excuses to stay secluded, and she knows with absolute certainty that a stable occupation would improve his mental state. She's also vibrating at the excuse to poke around his resume and practical skills.

Vasco stammers about ethics and doctor-patient-boss-employee relationships and Addermire's budget, eyes blown wide like every time his soft-spoken mentor suggests doing something wildly unethical, which happens more often than most people think. And as alway, he eventually relents when faced with Hypatia's passionate defense of her idea and determination in helping her patient.

The man in question doesn't have a drink to choke on when she makes the job offer, but he does squint at her with obvious suspicion, the expression twisting his scar next to his eye. The questions he asks are surprisingly similar to Vasco's - he has more knowledge about medical ethics than Hypatia expected, and isn't that a whole other topic she wants to poke around. But she gives him the same answers she gave her assistant, if maybe with a tone that aims less at reassurance and more at self-confidence.

While she's defending her idea, she can see the corner of his lip twitch at how blatantly she disregards common rules if it means helping her people. It reminds her of how he'd sometimes let a grin escape for a second when letting slip a figment of details about his old crew.

He takes the job.

Hypatia interviews Daud, finds out he has some medical knowledge (mostly from the field, but a bit from the Academy and personal studies). It's beyond anything she had expected so she takes him as assistant to Vasco and herself. Vasco is a bit mmm about having him around because the man looks like a tyvian bear stuffed in a linen shirt but he's too polite to say anything, and eventually he warms up to him.

It's harder to say if Daud warms up to Vasco, but he seems to not actively avoid either him or Hypatia, so Hypatia counts that as a win.

Daud's actual work is not always in the lab; sometimes he helps moving unconscious patients since he's built like a brick wall, sometimes he helps setting up the nurses' shifts or keeping medication sorted since he seems to have a knack for organizing. On time Vasco approaches him and timidly asks him to "stand in the corner of the waiting room and look scary", because a wounded woman has been taken into care and her suspiciously angry husband seems ready to assault the nurses.

Daud is very good at standing in the corner and looking scary.

If Vasco figured out who Daud is before Hypatia does would that be fucked up or what. poor man has to go through horrible realizations about his coworkers on two different occasions. "is everyone around here secretly a serial killer or". his brick shithouse “not an assassin” assistant and cannibal balls to the wall boss how will this man make it out alive

So turns out having a stable occupation and human contact other than Hypatia DOES improve Daud's mood. He's no longer alone with his own thoughts 24/7, and he's... actually helping people? This feels good for real?

He slowly admits to himself that there's more to him than a bringer of death, and although he knows the blood he's spilt will never be wiped, he feels differently about himself. Not about what he did, but about what he is. The guilt stays - he's pretty sure it's a part of him as much as the mark on his hand or the scar on his face - but the self-hatred abates somewhat.

There are still bad days. There are still dark thoughts. Nightmares. Nights spent lying wide awake considering the what ifs, the paths he could have taken. Times where the song of dying whales when he passes the harbor makes him want to retch. Times where the sight of teenagers running in the street makes his chest ache awfully.

But it's less often.

He still goes to therapy with Hypatia, even though their relationship has shifted a bit. He's absolutely sure it's unethical to psychoanalize your employee - but he has a full file on Hypatia's life, profile, and credentials tucked neatly under a floorboard in his flat, so he doesn't have much to say about ethics. In addition to the mountain of other unethical things about him.

He lets slip some details about the Whalers - probably too much, though he carefully keeps any name or date out of the conversation. He decribes a few of them in a few words - Thomas, Rulfio, Rinaldo, Galia, Vladko, Killian. He tells a few stories. He remembers more than he thought.

He talks about Billie. It's hard. He drip-feeds Hypatia his memories and feelings about her. It's a testament to the doctor's skill that she manages to piece together a good image of his relationship with his former lieutenant.

something something the seventh anniversary of Jessamine's death comes up and so they put a new layer of wanted posters of Daud on the notice boards, Vasco's walking home when he see one and goes 8| as he recognizes Daud.

Poor guys doesn't sleep much that night not gonna lie.

I don't have the details set up but rough timeline

- 1842: Daud starts going to Addermire for therapy

- 1843: Daud starts working here

- 1844 (now): Daud gets recognized (they sort things out eventually and it makes it actually easier for Daud to open up on some things, since the cat's out of the bag anyway). Also I'm thinking Hypatia convinces him to try contacting some of the former Whalers, to get closure if nothing else. He starts keeping contact with a few of them, including Thomas, Rulfio and Rinaldo (Billie, he's not ready to try yet)

- 1847: Sokolov is in retirement in Karnaca and wouldn't it be fun if he went to see his former sudent Dr. Hypatia and ran into Daud there

- 1849: Grim Alex time, then Delilah time, it's gonna be a right mess but they'll sort things out a bit better than in canon because Daud's a paranoid bastard who Notices Things and also probably feels the Void disturbance at Delilah's return, so he'll snoop around

Thinks abt the fuckn. daud-at-addermire-getting-hunted thing again and how that can tie in to hiaen's daud-gets-some-fuckin-therapy au.

I had in mind that Daud would get tangled up in the whole Gralex situation some way or another. Had no precise idea but, definitely would start investigating the murders. But something something would also feel the disturbance in the force when Delilah returns, goes to investigate *that* too, and gets too distracted by that to really put his mind on the Crown Killer investigation. Probably sends a letter to Corvo at some point too, when he realizes that between Delilah, the Crown Killer and the Coup brewing, he's in over his head.

But on Grim Alex at first Daud would notice some things off at Addermire, but gets distracted enough by the Delilah issue that things fester and Alex keeps going for *a while*.

Also in this AU Alex would be aware of everything Daud told Hypatia during therapy so there's some juicy psychological manipulation to do there. I have to review my timeline but she'd have a solid five years of therapy + subsequent friendship to go through there so... lots of dark secrets.

Play on his regret, his guilt, about Jess's murder; about raising Billie as an assassin, about Billie betraying him; play on Corvo haunting his nightmares as death following him, as the executioner, as one of the men he's made most suffer, as the man who proved himself *so much better* than him; play on Emily screaming as he took her from her mother, play on his ancient, rotten trauma about his own abduction; play on *how could he think he could do better? a man who's killed hundreds, what has he done to deserve peace? this is not change, it's flight*; play on his friendship with Hypatia and Vasco, on his deplorable self-esteem, that they're not really his friends, that they're just sticking with him out of fear or pity; play on his relationship with the Outsider, how he had potential but wasted it to the point his god forsook him, discarded him like a boring toy-.

Also additionally to things she could just taunt him with, she'd also have a solid few months between her creation and him realizing what's going on, where she can do what she wants but he's not even aware of her existence. The damage she could do...'d leave wanted posters with his face in places in Addermire, at the pub where he sometimes go for a drink with Vasco and Hypatia. She sees that he's fond of one of the younger patients - she reminds him of Billie - and she makes sure she doesn't recover from the sickness that brought her here. Every morning she leaves a newspaper open on an article about the Imperial Family. She leaves whaling swords lying around. She hides bonecharms around the place so he'd be taunted by the runesong.

maybe he thinks it's a patient or prankster staff member at first once he does. the long slow unravelling,, At first he things it's his mind playing tricks on him - it's not unusual for him to see reminders of his old life where there isn't one. Then sometimes he has a feeling that he's being watched, a presence, but whenever he turns around... it's just Hypatia. And he keeps tabs on the whole staff of Addermire, he knows nobody here is a serial killer, or a former witch, or a bounty hunter, or someone he's slighted in the past. He's also sure Hypatia and Vasco are the only ones aware of who he is.

A patient maybe? Someone after him who's infiltrated the institute that way? It's a weird way to go though, no direct attack, and they seem to know a lot about him- no. His mind must be playing tricks on him, nobody would have the knowledge to pull half these pranks- unless- the Outsider? It's been a while since Daud's had more than a flash of the Void in his dreams. But it's been a while since anything happened, and the entity has been known to be a little shit when bored, not really stopped at who might get hurt... Which leads to Delilah. She's back from the dead, she's pissed, and she's more powerful than ever, but as far as he knows she doesn't know where he is. But it's her methods, a slow takeover of the mind, if a bit subdued compared to her usual style.

And then he goes home after a long day and finds the body of his nice neighbor eviscerated in his flat, and suddenly the stakes have gone up by several levels and he realizes he's been very, very wrong about what this person wants with him.

Daud ends up getting rid of the body himself, because he can't call the Guard and he can't leave it here, and he thought he'd left all of this behind him but here he is throwing a corpse to the hagfishs and scrubbing blood off his carpet. And the next day he goes to work, having spent hours of the night cleaning up and not finding sleep even afterward as the stench of blood filled his flat still. And Hypatia greets her in her meek voice, tells him he looks tired, and asks if his neighbor was noisy again last night? She knows Daud's a light sleeper.

Gralex keeps targeting people around Daud, neighbors, colleagues, shopkeepers he knows. Daud goes home to find his own clothes stained with blood and shoved under his bed. Once he opens his pantry and finds a human heart on his shelf.

The next day he's sipping a glass of water when something feels off - and he must be getting rusty if it took him that long to recognize the taste of drug in his drink. It won't do anything to him, and in his defense the drug is nearly tasteless, so his poisoner must have dumped a serious dose in there if he can detect it. It's an amnesia-inducing drug, meant to make the person lose time, and suddenly it makes sense - he was supposed to question his sanity, think he was slipping back into crime, but his stalker hadn't counted on his toxin resistance and had been upping the dose of drug when the previous attempts hadn't worked, until it got detectable.Hypatia handed him that glass.

It can't be - he's triple-checked her, she's a genuinely nice person, if a bit lenient on lab safety if she thinks it's for the greater cause. But he trusts her and it's been a while since he last investigated her, caught as he's been in hunting down Delilah and keeping an eye on the Crown Killer cases, and so much could have happened in the meantime- he's let his guard down.

i don't have the details here but he snoops around, narrows down on Gralex, starts talking to Vasco who also has some Doubts (especially since he know about the failed serum). Gralex feels that he's getting closer, leaves a mangled body in his flat and calls the Guard on him.

From then on he's on the run and probably around this point he sends a letter to Corvo because `haha no I'm not the Crown killer I swear <3 also there's a witch planning a Coup and I'm on the run so I can't take care of that on my own so I think you should look into it while I may have to kill my boss`

Also I just realized that since Gralex called the cops on Daud it means that Delilah will realize that That Bitch Daud Was Right Under My Nose and 1) she's not gonna be happy that Gralex didn't mention that. Gralex doesn't care it's so fun toying with Daud he's hers now. 2) Delilah is definitely gonna go after him (but it ain't that easy since Daud's already gone underground by this point). It will make his life more difficult though. Local senior citizen is chased by the cops, the Crown, a coven of witches and a serial killer, the *one time in his life* he didn't do anything to deserve that.

i love the mental image of alex calling the cops. She's clever enough to know she doesn't have good odds in a 1-on-1 against Daud, she needs more time to exhaust him and level the playing field, but he was closing in on her so she had to do something, preferably without direct confrontation. Plus she's not done with him, there's still a lot she can do to poke at him, and it'll be so interesting to see how he reacts to being hunted and exhausted and desperate...

But yeah I like the idea of Alex taking over just for a few minutes, not going full-transformation but controlling the body just long enough to leave a newspaper open on a table. Or ask someone about their neighbor. Or hand them a glass of water. Or make a phone call. you go you funky little flesh puppeteer.

in canon alex would usually be excluded from the Coup meetings due to Handling Difficulties. I don't think she's interested in the whole Coup Planning part. Luca just sends her notes and audiographs so,

They probably just deal with her to set up the Crown Killer murders. It'd go beyond just pointing at targets, I imagine they'd be facilitating her travels and stuff, maybe handing her resources, giving her a couple acceptable restrictions, but overall it's very far from the politics the rest of the group is getting into.

Though I can imagine Delilah striking up conversations with her. First because I can see Delilah having a morbid interest in Alex's existence and behavior. Second because she'd want to be aware of what she's up to, to make sure to keep control. she painted her and gave her the painting so evidently they’ve got some interaction. delilah being Fine around alex cause she’s immortal and none of what alex could possibly do would affect her

Anyway my thought was he's still going to therapy by the time Grim Alex appears - though he's made progress. But yeah he finds himself in the middle of all that shit.

addermire gets closed down and guarded, but he Still goes to therapy. Guards arent gonna stop him.

Also does he get somewhat close to vasco enough to where vasco tells him he thinks something is going on with hypatia. you get to addermire and find that daud already dealt w it. Either Corvo or Emily get there and they find none other than fucking Daud sitting there talking to hypatia

vasco and daud heal Hypatia and realize there’s a coup, so hypatia pretends to still be Involved to get information. Daud pretends to be the crown killer (he doesn’t kill, just stages deaths and gets the targets out of Dunwall serkonos whatever). Now, when Emily goes to find sokolov, where they kept him instead of bringing him to jindosh, they have an in with the crew and know the locations and shit. She doesn’t like working with daud, but realizes that he does actually have the empires best interests at heart.

Hypatia works with Billie and they give daud and emiky targets, maybe they work together but I don’t see that happening so maybe they each go after different targets. Through all of this it’s just, so funny to imagine hypatia trying time pretend to be Alex

Archives:

Daud: I'm here for therapy

Hypatia: Very nice can you tell me about yourself

Daud: Absolutely not what the fuck

daud: yes looking scary i can do that puffs up like a porcipine

Vasco now: Oh no the new guy is the Knife of Dunwall

Vasco in a couple years: Oh no my boss is the Crown Killer- wait again

"have you tried tearing your problems limb from limb and feasting upon their entrails?" "what" "what"

"have you tried tearing your problems limb from limb and feasting upon their entrails?" "yeah didn't work"

“I ALSO have the urge to murder people, how crazy”

“Are. Are you qualified for this position?”

“Probably not”

“Oh yeah sokolov? He’s in the next room painting smt I guess, you can go say hi”

“Daud?!?!”

“Uh yeah? Couldn’t you tell?”

“Ah yes. Meat. Man give me a target I can eat!”

“Alex are you okay”

“ILL RIP YOUR LIMBS OFF sorry sorry”

“WOAH okay fucking hell”

Delilah, at a coup meeting: and what have you been doing

Alex: messing with someone.

Delilah: oh? who?

Alex: some former assassin, old man with a scar, yea high, and-

Delilah: WHAT.

Alex: So you're immortal

Delilah: Yes

Alex: So that means I can't kill you?

Delilah: You can't

Alex: What if I tear you apart

Delilah: I can put myself back together

Alex: If you're torn in half do both parts move or only the part with the head? What if I decapitate you, how do you get back to your body? What if I take you apart and put each limb in a box and mail them to different places? What if I burn you? Or flatten you with one of Jindosh's hydraulic press? What if I eat you, will you crawl out of my throat?

Delilah: I. I don't know?

Alex: Would you like to?