Disembodied hand AU

TW: dismemberment

Description:

On the topic of severed Marked hands - what if in the case of the hands owner still being alive (e.g. corvo, daud) - that a connection between them still exists??

You probably had something less extreme in mind but consider: Corvo cutting Daud's hand off and keeps it, and Daud wants to just pack and leave to Serkonos but he has the compulsion to reunite with his hand and can't leave Dunwall... Ends up sleepwalking to Dunwall Tower...

See my brain went total opposite to slapstick comedy of "my hand is loose and I need to find it before rats eat it or it escapes" but yes......

or that daud DOES leave to serkonos - but hes restless, cant sleep, even if he does hes still tired,,, all he KNOWS,, all he feels is this need to go back to dunwall... and he doesnt know why

Man Corvo just keepinh Daud's hand in like a cage or something for display where it lays dormant and lifeless, until one day it starts to flinch. ALSO CONSIDER dauds hand sensing its owner is near........................ its kept in a glass jar. one night, it breaks free itself. corvo hears glass smash, runs into the oficce he keeps it. its gone, tehres glass on the floor. and it looks like the glass was broken from the inside

Corvo hears scratching on the walls... Fucked up and evil Daud hand moments is Daud's hand crawling onto the ceiling before dropping on Corvo's face. emily wakes up to something scattering across her floor. just rats, she thinks. but , the sound is harsher and faster. and like theres more than 4 legs. dauds hand strangling corvo as he sleeps.

The hand keeps trying to find a knife or a blade on instinct. it cant even use a knife it just flops around uselessly but it Wants them. pros: you have knife. cons: you are now holding the knife. with your fingers. that you walk with.

Additionally: the hand may not be able to hold a knife, but it can pull a grenade's pin or activate a springrazor. Corvo has to be wary of his own weapon stock

Also Danny had some hcs a while ago about powers of severed Marked hands and settled on slowing time for Daud's hand so... what if when the hand is loose time goes all glitchy. Not in any controlled manner but it makes Corvo nauseous, and non-marked seeing the hand think that it's teleporting by a few dozens centimeters at a time

The hand gravitating certain objects towards it like a black hole to sort of represent Pull? Daud's hand fucking up time and space

Daud gets phantom sensations of what his hand is doing too, through the connection. OOOO daud able to like,,, see what the hand is up to? when hes sleeping,, he thinks its nightmares but something tells him its not.

Like when Daud's hand grabs the hilt of a blade, Daud himself FEELS a phantom sense of holding a knife. Doesnt realize what it is at first, but then realizes its WAY more than the phantom limb loss he's coached people through. He starts feeling pain, or like hes holding a - yes

Something something "his hands do violence" taken lkterally. his hands do war crimes and commit tax evasion. Daud's right hand doing taxes while his left hand is doing slight horror haunting in Dunwall Tower.

what if, the hand - it doesnt have an agenda of its own - but what if it still channels the anger daud felt when it was severed - a brief flash of anger but anger none the less at corvo for doing that. and while daud may accept his fate, his hand doesnt have the capacity to and continues with what it knows - violence, and fuck u corvo

I love the line this straddles between the potentials for sheer unsettling body horror and slapstick comedy. On one hand, Daud's hand being such a horrific thing of creatint paranoia and being a menace, on the other hand, Daud flipping Corvo off from 500 miles away.corvo catches dauds hand laying deadly traps. cue slapstick montage of corvo chasing a hand throhgouth the tower, as it trips up maids, knocks over books - corvo has to let out quick apologies as he chases after the hand many are assuming is a rat (they dont get a good look)

Also I'm still not familiar with blood and how that works, but if Daud's hand is still SENTIENT that infers that although it has a nervous system of its own, it would still need circulation, basically what if Daud's hand occasionally BLED from where his hand was severed. yeah im just going on w magic and stuff - magic to keep the blood pumping, perhaps tho the vessels etc are sealed off

At some point Corvo can't take it anymore and tries to get rid of the hand, but it's surprisingly good at escaping destruction, so he goes on a trip to Serkonos to slap Daud's own hand in his face. Uses the hand as a Daud Compass.

maybe this like. a while after dh1 (like 1yr plus) - it took a while for the hand to be hehe ho. and idk maybe daud is settled with his mum and corvo is like. wow

Okay but one time an asshole noble or some Regenter even comes into Corvo's office and is being an asshole and Daud's hand just sees it as free real estate and just jumps on the guy's back to creep him out. Corvo gives him a hi-five for it. the ONE thing dauds hand remembers distincly is a hatred for nobility

Corvo is the main target mostly because he's the one who spends most time with the hand. It's actually much more agressive towards the nobility. I was thinking too about how Corvo technically IS nobility too, Daud's hand being like "damn bitch you live like this??"

Corvo carrying the hand on missions because he doesn't want to leave it in the Tower with Emily, and the hand is much more cooperative out there in the field when Corvo is doing spy stuff, than in the Tower surrounded by luxury

Corvo gains so grudging tolerance for the hand and maybe even finds stuff humorous after a while, but when daud shows up again he's like oh right, you. I mean the hand is okay but you?? Eesh

but since between dh1 and 2 corvo loses the heart... what if he can use dauds hand instead??? to find runes etc. It makes desperate grabby hand motions in the direction of runes. But if it touches it before corvo it absorbs the rune instead and corvo's there like >:V.

Daud in Serkonos getting a sudden power increase and being like ?????? Maybe daud suddenly feels a rush of power when that happens?? And is very confused, since he hasn't figured out stuff yet?? He's just sitting there like ahahahaha what the fuck.

HMMM YEAH daud feels the power, and it activiates some part of him - he starts to be able to tune into that feeling and access his own powers once more. Would it be in the case that he still has his powers just can't use them/has to not use his hand, or would it be that he literally physically feels more powerful, ie more stamina, stronger, etc. i like 2 thing he can use them just obvs not by clenching his hands. but poss w regards to the runes themselves, poss just an overall power thing. I feel like he'd keep some of the passive powers, and would feel the increase in that?

when daud first loses his hand, he loses like. All his powers - partially from the shock. Some of the passive ones remain at a lower intensity (eg stamina, some agility) but much lessened. Nd over time, he eventually manages to tune into another wya to use active powers like traversing and stuff. But when his hand ateals runes, he feels a MASSIVE boost in what hes able to do if u follow??

The compulsion to go back to dunwall is strong, since he feels the pull of being separated from his hand, but he's been able to resist it for years because he is not fucking with that. but once it starts stealing runes, the sheer agony of not knowing what the FUCK is happening is what finally pushes him over the edge to return because he still can't abide a mystery

Ajdhfhjsdjfhfhf sidenote but the hand eating a rune before corvo can and the outsider showing up like ah! A visitor! How nice! I bet it is corvo :) and then it's just a fucking hand sitting there on his little void island making threatening gesures. meanwhile daud, sunning on a karnacan balcony, feels a wave of hatred for some reason. In his 4000 years of life, the Outsider had never seen a disembodied hand be passive-aggressive, but this one sure as fuck is.

ok but what if daud's hand brings HIM into the void. Ahdhsjhfhfhfh if it does he's still an equivalent distance away from it just floating in blank space like >:( for five minutes while the outsider is puzzled by his hand elsewhere

esp since leaving dunwall daud woulda stopped looking for runes and shrines and stuff, elaing that part of his life behind. and suddenly he gets drawn in like WHAT I WAS READING MY BOOK!! Mfer didn't even let me bring my book 2 the void can't have shit in serkonos either, apparently

ok but what if corvo touches the shrine same time as the hand and then it transports all three (well, all two and a 1/10 of them) and there's a very awkward chat

ok but if you have this alongside any kind of mute or just knows sign language corvo au, the hand trying and failing to sign language him bc there's only one hand and no body. or making its own sign language. corvo and teh Hand come up with a way to communicate

I love the idea that the hand also has limited sensory abilities but can still mostly sense what's going on around it

ohohohoh adding Lunar's headcanon....... At some point Corvo finds the hand plucking on the strings of a violin. one would THINK this was due to daud playing the violin, however it's actually the hand's sarcastic way of saying "boo how sad, im lichrally just a hand" when corvo mentions daud killing jessamine

OH SO TO BRING THIS TO DH2 NAD CORVO STILL HAS THE HAND (and a corvo dh2 au) - corvo uses the hand to escape dunwall and shit, and also this is a team up au now xx. the hand sees delilah and tries to throttle her

Dh2 team-up but they're also fighting for the custody right of a disembodied hand. On top of their usual bicker. The hand starts to like being independent.... lake a chaotic 2 year old

u get corvo, having the otusider mention daud coulda warned u, and corvo is like FUCK bc he cut off that dudes hand?? what sorta state would he be in?? How useful would hr be? and corvo maybe, as he travels 2 karnaca, lowkey regretting doing that bc what if it is a detriment to saving emily - daud not having a hand - that would be a sick joke of the outsider. nd then when he finds daud daud is like eh its alroght i figured out how to traverse and stuff

it's chill, they find duct tape in the clockwockmansion and stick daud's hand back on

Archives:

Corvo: If I cut off this man's hand I will be rid of him for good

Corvo, woken up at 3AM by Daud deliriously breaking into his room to fetch his hand: I was Wrong

there's a HAND loose in a HOSPITAL

corvo: imma cut off dauds hand so he wont kill so much

daud: :(

dauds disembodied hand: >:)

daud: (:

someone: why are you smiling?

daud: my hand is flipping the lord protector off right now

someone: sure thing, one-hand david [quietly] what kind of crack is this man on

dauds mum: ARE YOU THE BITCH WHO CUT MY SONS HAND OFF!!

corvo: ;u; im sorry i brought it back!!

Emily: I got a new pet!! It's in this box I taped shut very very carefully :)

Corvo, expecting a rat: oh can I see him?

Emily: sure!!!

Corvo:

Daud's hand:

Daud's hand: :) *yeets and does the facehugger thing*

Corvo: AUGH

Corvo: Your disembodied hand is ok company apart from the strangling attempts, you however I can't stand you

Daud: ?????????????????

"I can excuse a disembodied hand but I draw the line at the man who assassinated my late wife"

"You can excuse a disembodied hand?"

"daud are you gay or something because your hand keeps grabbing my ass"

"THAT'S AS HIGH AS IT CAN LAUNCH ITSELF OKAY"

"fetch! [throws hand]"

A noble: You wouldn't throw hands with me, Lord [pompous name]!?

Corvo: throws Daud's disembodied hand on his face

Daud, wondering why he can run at the speed of cheetah all of the sudden due to heightened agility:

daud: what the FUCK i was reaidng my book about pirates an-

corvo: daud?

daud: what - attano? why the fuck am i here!? waIT IS THAT MY HAND??

dauds hand: *thumb up*

Daud: Soooooooooo if it's annoying you and still moving can I have my hand back

Corvo:

Daud:

Corvo: No <3 *leaves the void*