non-canon character exploration

The harbormaster’s office was a fortress of petty bureaucracy, but Daud’s intelligence had, as always, been perfect. The ledger they needed was in a strongbox, and the strongbox was in a room with a single, unpickable lock. The only way past it, Daud had explained with a look of profound, weary disdain, was through a small, forgotten maintenance shaft designed to regulate the building’s humidity.

Now, standing before the entrance to that shaft, Somerset understood the true, exquisite nature of their problem. The opening was a dark, vertical rectangle of absolute, unapologetic smallness, barely wider than his own shoulders.

“You have got to be joking,” Somerset breathed, a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.

“The Netzekali believe an object’s security is proportional to the indignity required to bypass it,” Daud stated, his voice a dry, flat rasp from the shadows. “This is considered the height of their artistry.”

The shaft was a tight, vertical passage, slick with a century of delta humidity. The only way to ascend was via a series of maintenance rungs set into the opposing walls, requiring a climber to brace their back against one side and their feet against the other. A task simple enough for one man.

“The pressure plate at the top requires a sustained, combined weight of at least three hundred pounds to keep the access panel unlocked,” Daud continued, his tone that of a man delivering a deeply insulting eulogy. “One of us must go first and hold the panel. The other must follow, brace them to maintain pressure, and work the lock from below. It is a… two-man operation.”

Somerset stared at the impossibly narrow opening, then at Daud’s severe, elegant form. A slow, dangerous, and utterly delighted smile began to spread across his face. “Throne’s Mercy,” he purred. “Daud, are you propositioning me?”

Daud’s winter-grey eyes narrowed, a flicker of pure, cold fury in their depths. “I am outlining the parameters of an inefficient but necessary tactical insertion, Captain.”

“Of course you are,” Somerset said, the grin not leaving his face. He began to shrug off his heavy uniform coat. “Well, I’m the heavier of the two. I’ll take the lead. Try to keep your hands to yourself.”

The ascent was a grim, awkward affair of scraped knuckles and muttered curses. The real horror began at the top. Somerset, his back pressed hard against the slick wall, his feet braced on the rungs opposite, reached up and pushed the heavy pressure plate. The panel beside it slid open with a well-oiled hiss.

“Alright,” Somerset grunted, the strain already beginning to tell in his shoulders. “Your turn. And be gentle.”

Daud ascended with a silent, serpentine grace, a creature utterly out of its element but determined to master it. He moved into the space beneath Somerset, and the world collapsed into a universe of claustrophobic, immediate, and profoundly awkward intimacy.

They were now pressed together in the dark, a single, six-limbed creature of groaning leather and strained wool. Daud’s back was braced against Somerset’s chest, the hard, practical lines of his Befraren vest a stark contrast to the fine linen of Somerset’s shirt. Daud’s feet found the rungs just below Somerset’s, and he pushed up, adding his weight to the pressure plate.

“Is that… your knife?” Somerset asked, his voice a strained, amused whisper as something hard and unforgiving pressed into his gut.

“It is one of them,” Daud replied through clenched teeth, his entire focus on the lock mechanism he was now beginning to work on, his hands moving with a surgeon’s precision in the cramped space. “Do try to remain still.”

“I’m doing my best,” Somerset countered, shifting his hips a fraction of an inch to alleviate the pressure. The movement was a mistake. It brought the front of his thighs into direct, undeniable contact with the back of Daud’s. He felt Daud flinch, a small, violent tremor that was a profound betrayal of his iron control.

The air, which had been merely close, became electric. Every small, necessary movement was now a negotiation. The scrape of their boots on the rungs, the rustle of their clothing, the sound of their own ragged breathing—it was all amplified in the tight, dark space.

“You know,” Somerset began, his voice a low, conspiratorial murmur, a deliberate piece of psychological warfare, “for a man who so values his personal space, you do seem to find yourself in some remarkably compromising positions with me.”

Daud’s hands stilled for a fraction of a second. “I find myself,” he bit out, his voice a low, dangerous growl, “in a state of temporary, tactical necessity. A means to an end.”

“Of course,” Somerset purred. “And what a means it is.”

He could feel the heat radiating from Daud’s body now, a furnace of pure, repressed fury and something else, something he had not expected. He could feel the fine, almost imperceptible tremor in the man’s shoulders, the way his own breathing had hitched. The analyst was losing his grip on the data.

“Almost there,” Daud hissed, his focus absolute, a desperate retreat into the cold, clean logic of the lock. He gave a final, precise twist. A loud click echoed in the shaft. The strongbox door on the other side of the wall was open.

The pressure plate was released. The panel slammed shut. And in the sudden, absolute darkness, the tension did not dissipate. It crested.

Daud did not immediately move to descend. He remained pressed against Somerset, his body a single, taut line. The mission was over. The tactical necessity was concluded. And they were still there, chest to back, in the dark.

Somerset felt the shift, the moment the analyst finally, catastrophically, failed. He felt Daud’s head tilt back almost imperceptibly, his hair brushing against Somerset’s chin. It was not a movement of strategy. It was a movement of pure, unwilling, and absolute surrender.

The rakish, charming performer in Somerset fell silent. What remained was the man who had seen the abyss in a fellow captain’s eyes and had not looked away. His own hands, which had been braced against the wall, moved. He did not grab. He did not restrain. He simply placed them on Daud’s hips, a gesture of profound, quiet, and absolute possession.
He leaned in, his mouth close to Daud’s ear, his own voice no longer a playful taunt, but a low, rough whisper that was a promise and a conclusion all in one.

“The end,” he breathed, “was worth the means, wouldn’t you agree?”

He felt Daud’s shudder, a final, silent, and undeniable answer.