Charon!Samuel AU

Tagged as Samuel Beechworth, Corvo Attano, The Outsider

Creator: Eels

Description:

What if Samuel actually... has some of that charon/boatman across the river of the dead stuff in a more literal sense?

The night after Corvo takes out Campbell he has a dream where he's out in his boat in the twilight before dawn, but the light is just.... ever so slightly wrong and there's whisps of fog curling around and Campbell is sitting across from him, just dead silent. Looking at him. And there's two overseers, too, equally motionless

and he has this sense that he needs to do something, but he doesn't know what it is until he finds his hand on the engine and he knows he needs to turn it on and bring them across the river.

maybe they flicker a bit, just in the corner of his eye as they're sitting there and show signs of wounds, but no blood or anything?

and then he wakes up. And he thinks he brought them to the other side and they... left? vanished? disembarked? but he isn't sure what exactly was on the shore there, it's in that foggy dream-space where you don't quite remember it

it keeps happening for the other missions too and Sam's like, super unsettled? maybe even gets a little more active in trying to keep Corvo from killing, pushing him to go fully nonlethal instead of just lc with some necessity kills, but corvo still kills the targets

Do some of them talk to Sam. that would be super cool, but maybe like... disjointed like the heart or Daud in DOTO. he very quickly realizes that These People Are Dead, since he's such a practical guy but also i imagine isn't dismissive of the occult given running around with corvo and stuff. He isn't sure why it's happening, but he's gotta deal with it so he will. maybe tries to strike up conversations, if he can, but they rarely go anywhere actually coherent

After the loyalists force him to poison Corvo, he falls asleep that night and finds himself on the boat and is like, what? shit. Because Corvo did actually spare Burrows, preferring to have him go to Coldridge and suffer like he did as the mastermind behind it all, and he was expecting a quiet night

but guess who shows up instead?

Corvo

because dosing poison is extremely difficult, and he fucked it up, even though he tried to lower the dose. And he feels that pull and he turns on the engine but goes nope! hey corvo, it's alright, we'll get you back where you need to be. I'm so sorry. and he turns the boat around and goes in the opposite direction from where he'd brought all the others, because if there's one shore, there's got to be another. He knows the wrenhaven like the back of his hand, after all

Corvo's that same kind of half-there that all the other ghosts have been, and doesn't remember it at all when he makes it back to the Hound Pits from the flooded district. Or maybe he's actually more lucid? being marked would probably help him with that, and sam could probably snap him out of it like billie could for DOTO daud. that would be really cool for a conversation in the boat

anyway so like, after he drops him off at Kingsparrow and is motoring away, the world shifts subtly and he realizes he's back on the other river but he did NOT go to sleep and suddenly the Outsider is sitting on the bench

and Sider is like, yo sam and he's like uh. hi. oh god what? and Sider is doin' his thing and being cryptic and stuff but eventually comes around to telling him that he's got one more trip to make. Two passengers already have tickets, but how many more? That's up to Corvo to decide

Here we're low chaos, i'd imagine that he'd push more actively for corvo to not kill unnecessarily because he's like hough this is very unsettling and i do not like this, necessarily, but i'm dealing with it like i handle everything. HOWEVER god a HC version of this would be tasty. he never gets rest, because he's ferrying load after load after load of the people corvo's killed each night

Imagine how deeply unsettling it'd be if he realises a lot of the people he's ferrying were just doing their jobs, or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, just people who absolutely had no reason to die

Sam probably puts two and two together VERY fast for what's happening and who these people are, if not necessarily why it's happening and why him

Ok so for LC, Sider shows up, right, and I imagine that Sam does eventually get the nerve up to ask him why this is happening, since he's the calmest person literally ever under stress. And they end up having a conversation about responsibility and blame, and how Corvo's choices are his own, but they're never truly in isolation. In a sideways fashion, Corvo's blame, then, becomes his own. If he brings Death to the shores of Dunwall, then he also must carry the dead away. (which is why pendleton and martin have already earned their tickets - knowing Corvo was coming in sam's boat caused their deaths, though Corvo never touched them himself. He only carries those for whom he may carry part of the blame, not anyone who dies of far-removed consequences in Dunwall, which is a lot of people)

Eventually the Outsider poofs away, and Sam waits until it's time for his pickup, and then motors back to the lighthouse.

After that night, he doesn't dream again.

if it was HC and Corvo also falls with Havelock and Em, he takes all five of them across but Corvo is the last to leave the boat, still hanging on more coherently bc of being marked and stuff, AND he suddenly remembers their previous convo after the poisoning, being back in this transitional place

(maybe sam returned him to the living the first time more out of obligation, or gave him a stern talking to in the boat to change his ways otherwise you will be dead, and i'm not doing this for you for free but Corvo forgets, and doesn't change his behavior)

And Corvo orders Sam to take him and Emily back and Sam just looks at him with steel in his eyes and says "No. Not this time, Corvo."

Thinking abt all the interactions... comforting the shades of servants and civilians, giving the cold shoulder to those he disapproves of or maybe even a single pointed line of judgement that makes their shades flicker and want to crumble into the void just a little faster. For the innocent ones, providing the kindest transition into non-existence he can after a brutal death

Daud being ferried away...he has so much guilt and regret that he goes so easily, and the conversation between him and Sam is bound to be an interesting one. Daud only seems to recount the murdering of the empress, and all of his regrets afterwards, like a broken record. He's just so full of guilt he can't think of anything else, even once he leaves the boat.

Custis being so, idk, fighting? He's in such denial of being dead he simply can't accept it. But Samuel tells him the truth and keeps telling him that he is, and Custis's shade just flickers faster as he continues to be in denial. He's so hesitant on leaving the boat, Samuel almost has to kick him out, he's so desperate to cling onto living.

the idea that non-marked people can't stay lucid but marked ones are able to hang on a bit better. Or like, they're licit butbthen quickly cycle back to their initial state of incoherence/forgetting

I feel like it would depend on the non-marked person? Those with a more stubborn or set mind are kind of lucid sometimes? but quickly fade back into vague incoherence, while those who are honestly more open to being taken by the void and just wanting to leave the mortal realm is just absolute nonsense as they fade away idk

what happens when Samuel himself has to cross the river? What happens? In this little au, his ferrying people is specifically linked to his role alongside corvo and the consequences of that, and after dh1 he stops having the dreams.

But man, how poignant would it be if when he passes peacefully away he finds himself back on the river, alone this time, but with the same sense of purpose. He spends a long moment looking for his passenger before he looks down at his hands and catches the slightest of hint of flicker, and goes, oh. That same old sense of purpose from years and years ago is still there. And so he turns on the engine with that familiar flick of his wrist even though he's been bedridden for the last year, and makes his final delivery.

What if it's the most relaxed he's ever felt while making those trips? Like he finally feels like his job is finally done, with that final journey? He takes his time making the trip, because he's just... enjoying it, enjoying the peace, the gentle sound of the engine purring and the water lapping against the wood of his little boat as he trundles along

His first and last love has always been the water and along it he'll return... He knows the void doesn't need a ferryman, and so what a gift that he can make this final trip for himself at all, alone, no passengers, his duty finally lifted. He imagines that passing over will be just like waking up from his dreams, a soft fading that happens before you're really even aware of it as the vague idea of a shoreline materializes through the mist, peaceful in the true sleep it brings you to. And he's right.

Fic:

The Ferryman (written by Eels)