Passives were the eyes and ears of Brunnhold, and Ernst liked to think his had grown ever more refined after years of servitude. He studied the long stone corridor that he crept along, sheathed in the shadows like an overcoat very carefully. Class had let out and there was nothing but a sparse procession of passives to stare at when he coud have gazed at galdori students, books in their arms pressed against pressed and loose hair tickling the backs of their necks. Substandard mopping greated his eye like a sting from a jellyfish. Streaks in the floor, murky ground, not at all the polished shine he would have liked.

Ernst had done his job in the laundry with care today, made those other bleeders sweat and stink while the uniforms where bright white, clinical and green. His payment- his prize for today, aside from exhausted passives and the sound of backs breaking and grunts of effort ,was hidden in his pocket.

It didn’t matter who she was, never did. Dark haired, red haired or a tow head, fat or thin, smart or dumb. It was always what she was. He fingered lace in his pocket, shivering imagining that he had slipped the lingerie from bare legs himself and of what they had contained. Unwashed, as they had been when he’d ghosted them from the laundry basket they still felt like her, still smelt like her. And that field, that wonderful prickling field that she would have, he could almost touch a sticky residue of the mona!

He kept his prize secret and safe in his immaculate uniform. It was almost unnatural how well Ernst kept it, through garden work, kitchen duties and spilling passive blood- his hands always dry and clean, as though he had been born without sweat glands. Sub-human creature that he was. He could enjoy her later, at night while his roomate snored through a nose that had been broken once…but even as the students broke from classes there was more work to be done. No rest for the wicked.

Keys jangled in his hand as he went about doing his business of changing waste paper baskets, refuse bins and waste from the kitchens. He dragged bags of slop through Brunnhold, hearing whispers from other passives about Ernst and his body bags before he snarled at them that passives should barely be seen, let alone heard and to get on with their jobs.

This floor however, this floor was terrible. It made him wince. Clouded his head with anger when he had a pocket full of galdori knickers and should have been happy. But an ill mopped floor, it would keep him tossing and turning even in the darkest depths of his imagination where the golly ladies danced seductively. Even now they morphed into streaks of mud on marble and laughing scrap places.These passives…awful creatures…why were they so determined to ruin his pleasure?

As far as horrible floors went, Joseph thought his latest masterpiece was a downright bang-up job. The idea of leaving too much soap with a mixture of filth from his own heels had been pure genius on his part, really. He should do it more often. He'd even considered leaving in more soap as it would make the floors very slippery and very good watching when the next dumb clocker came down the hall, walking with the quick efficiency of a galdori who has all their own time to worry about five hundred things Joseph would love to worry about and who are obviously dumb enough to trust their passive workers. Like they were clocking wind-up toys.

At the present, he was standing at the end of the hall, leaning against his mop, observing his work with the fond eye of a person who might be watching their first born son play merrily on the carpet. Good floors, they were.

The tapping of shoes caught Joseph's attention and he looked up just in time to see Ernst coming his way. The younger passive's eyes sparked, but his expression remained more or less the same--a twitched up grin, augmented by the scar through his lip. If anything would make Ernst angry, Joseph had just done it. Poorly done work seemed to be the bane of that little basket-case's life.

Today was looking better already.

Thin lips thinning further with displeasure, Ernst cast his gaze over towards the perpetrator of such a gods awful job and groaned inwardly. He might have known. Joseph Abernathy, the bane of any sensible Patron’s existence. This was another in a long line of Abernathy’s little games he guessed, chopping the heads off of flowers, mopping the floors with either an abhorrent amount of lacklustre or purposefully doing a terrible job. Passives should have tired of games not long after they hit ten years old- Ernst had.

And he couldn’t hit him. Well, he couldn’t be obvious about it at least- not since the Headmistress, in her own infinite wisdom of course, Alioe forbid Ernst would disagree of the opinion of such a wonderful intelligent woman, had made it verboten to beat the living snot out of a passive. All because some scrap had tripped and gotten himself killed. Ernst didn’t get it, of course, knowing Pascual and his attitude- his death had been a mercy killing from a galdori. He hadn’t been all that useful alive either.

So there would be no broken nose for Abernathy. But that’s what dark cupboards and latrine duty and gardening in the depths of the rainy season were for after all. Ernst really did miss his whip. The swish as it move through the air and the crack against a back accompanied with a delicious howl. He’d whipped Abernathy before, remembered his reactions, quieter and quieter as he got older and pictured it in his head- bare back arched, spine poking through skin which ripped to reveal crimson underneath.

It kept him anchored, made his breath slow slightly and sent his hand into his pocket stroking the lace detail of the underwear within.

“Abernathy…this mopping is pathetic,” he said in a low, dangerous voice- staring at Joe very carefully with unblinking, unsettling beetle black eyes. “Funny, I’d never realised you were an irredeemable imbecile. Do it again.” He leaned against the wall, making it clear he had no intention of leaving until he had watched Abernathy go over the corridor in its entirety.

Maybe she could go to the Stacks. She had some free time tomorrow, didn't she? Her slippers were starting to wear out, maybe she could get some that didn't come from a bin. Immediately she discarded the idea as preposterous. She couldn't go alone, and Triston was hardly up for being a shopping companion. Besides, what would she even purchase them with? Last Aurelie checked, Brunnhold paid no wages to their passives. Unless Ophelia wanted to change that, too. Aurelie couldn't honestly say she would mind such an event, but there was no toffin golly erse who'd put up with such an idea.

As she was thinking of imaginary wages and slippers that needed fixing, she lifted her head from her feet for just a moment. Expression switched to sour when she drank in the hallway. Filthy floor, and-- Oh Alioe preserve, Ernst. The last person Aura ever wanted to see, for the rest of her days if she could manage it. Abernathy, well. She and Jo weren't precisely fast friends, but Aurelie never would forget when Jo had stood up for her, all those years ago. Out of the lot of them, only Jo'd stood up for her. No matter his strange nature now, she remembered that best.

Not to say she wanted to be around while he was obviously antagonizing Ernst. Maybe if she just stayed very, very quiet, neither of them would notice her.

Joseph’s blink in response to Ernst was that of a lizard—slow, deliberate, and cold-blooded. “Well why? Ernie?” he inquired, his voice a bit too resonant in the hallway for a passive. He purposely mangled the other passive’s name. “If I’m so pathetic at it, why do you expect me to do it right the second time?” Joseph even continued on, more antagonizing ideas popping into his head like they were impudent weeds. His grin became cheeky. “Or maybe you want a demonstration? Oh, you do?” Joseph’s eyes brightened with false cheer. “You do!”

Swiftly, and with the expert efficiency of long years of practice, Joseph kicked over the water bucket at his feet, sending soapy, sudsy water splashing across grungy floors that already shone with discolored and sticky sheen. Joseph slapped the mop down in the water, toeing the bucket aside, and he scrubbed. Not in solid, long strokes conducive to good mopping, but a hap-hazard slew of skids and swirls that were guaranteed to leave any floor covered in hideous smudges. The dark-haired passive’s heels squelching through the mess of it all only added to the grime.

“With the heels, Ernie? Ernie, are you watching carefully? Good, good. With the heels, you drag it all together. And remember to make swirls. Lots of swirls. Like a paintbrush, or a stirring spoon, or, or…. Oh help me, Ernie, I’m running out of poetic similes. But! Remember the loose motion of it, of a job well failed, one less shiny pin in Brunnhold’s hat.” Joseph looked back at Ernst, his eyes a little wild, his sharp-toothed grin having spread across the span of his well-bred features. “Got it? You should. Those swirls are what make it all fun. Hell,” Joseph’s laugh was without humor—dry as a summer wasteland. “Hell, Ernie, give me a minute and I’ll write your name in it! Ha! Won’t your little mona friends be happy then, eh? Eh? Your name on my masterpiece?” Joseph laughed again as he stopped his ‘demonstration’. He turned fully back to Ernst, arms wide in a grand mocking showcase. His next words were whispered dramatically. “And…you’re done!”

The next sound was a splat. The splat of the soggy mop-head on Ernst’s shoes.

Joseph looked crazed. “Care to have a go?”

Ernst had long stopped asking himself just what Abernathy was trying to prove by all of his subversion. It had long been his opinion that the boy obviously thought himself something special. How funny, the way he fucks everything up! Ha-ha. Make him swallow shards of his own teeth and spit blood.

“I take it you aren’t planning to eat this month ,” said Ernst, tipping his head to the side and watching Abernathy bounce about like some kind of piikii . How he longed to take Joseph’s head and dash it against something hard, mash his brain into mush and burn something into his arm. This was what happened when you took away corporal punishment for the passives. How long before others turned to this pathetic rebellion with no one to crush their fingers?

He looked up sharply at the sight of a red head, some coy little passive whore slinking in the shadows. “You there, girly!” he barked to the nervous looking girl. “It seems Abernathy is struggling with the basic concepts of cleaning a floor. Come over here and show him how it’s done…unless you want a month without food too.”

Ernst smiled at Abernathy suddenly, as though the two were sharing a wryly amusing joke. “When you do your job without care, it’s other passives that have to pick up your slack…but I don’t think you mind that one jolt do you Abernathy?”

Grinning wider, Ernst fished into his pocket- not the one with the lace panties, another pocket and smiled. Like a gun from a holster, he withdrew a toothbrush from his pants and held it in front of Joseph.

“Either you can wash this entire corridor properly- and I do mean properly- with a mop, or we can both watch girly here do all the corridors on the ground floor with a toothbrush...I’m sure she’ll be more than willing to pick up your slack…and don’t worry Abernathy if she isn’t, I can have her locked in the coal shed until she is. Your choice there Jo.”

Ernst didn't care either way who did it. Abernathy or the girl, this corridor would be clean by the night's end. Although some deep, dark stirring within him hoped it was the girl. On her hands and knees scrubbing so hard her body shook....he gripped the panties again. Passive whores, trying to tempt him.

Stopped short, breath catching. He'd spotted her, and oh not only had he spotted her-- he'd tacked her on with Abernathy's mess. Aura felt torn. Did she pretend she couldn't hear Ernst and walk away? She felt mildly safer ever since Headmistress Ophelia had put the ban on beatings, but she didn't trust Ernst not to do it anyway. After all, who would report him? He was a personal passive, a pocket-pet. They never got in trouble with anyone.

For once in your life, Joseph Abernathy, just do what he says. Green eyes nearly screamed it, but she had no faith that he would. It just wasn't Jo's nature to obey, she supposed. And now she'd have to pay for it. A quiet huff of annoyance escaped her, but she was mostly afraid. While she didn't turn to face either of them, she didn't keep walking down the corridor either.

Joseph wanted Ernst dead. That was no secret among passives. The dark-headed frosty eyed lad who kept a dagger as his tongue wanted to see the bald bastard with his head smashed open like a hammered watermellon. Split with a juicy splat. With Ernst's attempt at breaking Joseph back in line, the younger passive's features hardened back into cold stone.

Aura, why Aura, damnit? Not that he held her in any special position above the other passive girls, or above anyone else in the sea of faces, for that matter. But that girl was fragile, it seemed. And geting breakable things broke were not always profitable. She was getting in the way. Again. A seething sigh escaped Joseph's nose.

"Well, hell, Ernie, I don't know." Josph leaned lazily on his mop-handle and cast a look at Aura. You have the worst timing, my dear. I nearly had the bastard for you in a basket. Giftwraped and pretty. The passive looked back at Ernst. Well, maybe not so pretty. "Ernie, you seem to think of the oddest things. Toothbrushes? Really? It's almost as absurd an idea as of passives makeing Brunnhold glorious and such trite. What sane person would really want to make their prison glorious? You're insane, Ernie. That's what. You are not sane."

Having her mop the floors with a toothbrush, would that be profitable? Probably not. Certainly not for her. Would it be for him? He wasn't sure. If she did get thrown in the coal shed....

"And what's stopping the both of us from walking away, Ernie? Not you. That's for certain. The Headmistris wouldn't hear of that. No sir-ee...." Joesph's eyes were as dangerous as his low voice. Not even the great hall managed to make it echo.

Gritting his teeth Ernst sneered, oh he wasn’t the sane one. He, who had devoted his life to the galdori and accepted their judgement of him with humility and tried to better himself. How insane! And these scraps who screamed like loons in an asylum and danced about Brunnhold cutting the heads from plants and mopped floors with their feet- yes they were the sane ones in Brunnhold.

However his humor was improved sightly by the Abernathy boy’s threat to simply walk away, his eyes narrowing as if to say ‘You think this is the way things work do you, by now you should have learnt better.”

“Joseph Abernathy, if you walked away- I would suggest that you and the girl walked right of Brunnhold and never came back,” Ernst’s lip twisted in to a grin. These scraps, not an inch of foresight! Rest assured, if Joseph did see fit to leave and took the girl with him Ernst would have them taken from their beds and locked in the coal shed- arms bound in rope, gag stuffed into that girl’s pretty little mouth. So he couldn’t hurt the passives anymore physically, that didn’t mean he’d lost his power. "But I suppose if you could do that, you already would...staying here and making your tiny little messes, all the while complaining you're some poor helpless prisoner. Others have escaped before, and others will do it again. But not you Joseph...you like to pretend you're so brave...but you don't have the guts. You aren't a man..you're just some little passive boy. "

“Now since you’ve done nothing to the contrary and you’ve certainly not picked up that mop I’m assuming the girl is going to be covering your erse because once again you aren't man enough” he smiled again, mouth stretched wide over his face, “outstanding choice there Jo.”

Ernst,tooth brush in hand, walked the few paces towards Aura and from behind her placed a hand on her shoulder,two of his fingers pressing into her clavicle with an unpleasant amount of pressure feeling the expanse of skin where her uniform did not touch.

Using his long pale fingers- an inheritance from his pianist mother- he manipulated her body the way his mother would do the keys of a piano, attempting to turn her around.

He pressed his body close to hers, his was flat as a board and almost as hard as one while she was soft, soft as lace detailing. One hand still on her shoulder, he snaked his other down her arm and closed his palm over hers pressing the toothbush in to her fist. It would strike Aura how cold that palm was, as though Ernst were more reptile than mammal.

“You won’t walk away will you?” he bent over to hiss into her ear, her hair brushing against his nose- her scent tickling in his nostrils. Passive whore. Letting his finger stroke her clavicle slightly he felt her smoothness beneath rough finger tips and also, below her breast bone, the beginnings of a scar. It was her. Ernst grinned wider; passive whores blurred and contorted together in to one being when Ernst wasn't careful to remember trouble makers but that scar...the scar set her apart. He let his hand wander further into her uniform to admire his handiwork.

"Aurelie Steerpike," he breathed, the taste of her name dancing anew on his tongue. Oh, she would come to regret him remembering her name after all these years.

Looking up, he spoke to both her and Jo, “You should know that I don’t have to beat a passive to punish them. There are other ways I can effectively teach my lesson.” He raised the hand around Aurelie's fist to stroke her hair gently. Perhaps Professor Mulch needed a girl to work for him as well as his butler, though two passives was a little excessive- none the less, Ernst could use this one- when Mulch needed his laundry done, starched and pressed with care, to make those late night snacks he was so fond of. Aurelie Steerpike. "I just have to be more creative is all."

And then it struck him how just close he was to this awful passive creature- what a galdori teacher would think if they passed by now, they wouldn’t care that this was all her fault. Pushing her away from him with force and snarling, he looked over at Aurelie with unparralled revulsion, as though she were less than dog shit, as though the mere existence of her made Ernst feel disgust. “On your hands and knees girl! Get that toothbrush nice and soapy and start srubbing!” he barked. “That’s a direct order and I want it done NOW.”

Lizard-cold hands, lizard skin touching her-- Aurelie's breath stuck in her throat. He remembered. She remembered, too, how could she forget? Even if she tried, that wide webbing of thick tissue would remind her. Couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't move, just stood there and his hands were on her hair. She wanted to run away and be sick, was frozen into place.

Never in her life had she been so grateful to be shoved, to be looked at like that. As long as he never touched her again, oh Alioe preserve. Never, ever again. Her hands shook. What did he even mean, other ways? At this moment it struck Aurelie that taking away beatings from a man like Ernst might not have been a beneficial thing for the passive population. Her hands shook as she gripped the toothbrush tighter. Insane was apt. Ernst was sick, sick and wrong. Jo, blustery thing-- Jo didn't care, Jo didn't mind, so of course it didn't matter much to him. But Aura? Aura didn't want to be on her hands and knees scrubbing at Joseph Abernathy's mess with a toothbrush. The humiliation alone was too much to bear.

"I-- I won't." She took a step back as she said it, and another. Why should she be punished for Jo's carelessness? She-- He-- Ernst was no Patron, he didn't have that kind of power. Right? Her stomach felt too full and too hollow at once, thinking of just what Ernst might do. She tried not to. There were worst things in this world than Ernst Quilp.

She just couldn't think of what they might be right now.

Joseph's eyebrows rose. The defiant little tilt to Aura's chin and the sheer fact that words of defiance came from her had Joseph's eyes uncharacteristically wide. Had she just said no? Had the little fragile, breakable thing said no? The one that always seemed to get in the way and mess with his attempts at striking a decisive blow to the enemy? Well, she wasn't the only one, of course, but she had shown up several time to muss things up rather badly. The breakable passive was acting like one made of far sterner stuff.

Cooks and talks back.

Soon, the only sound left in the hall was the echoing ring of Joseph's laugh. An unkind though purely amused sound; it was deep and frigid as some black northern ocean. "Did you hear her, Ernie? Did you?" Joseph broke out into more laughter. "She said no! No! Not quite what you wanted to hear, eh? I would expect not. No, not at all. My dear! My dear sweet, Aurelie! Why, you've just made my day, I dare say." Joseph looked at her with truly mirth-filled eyes. What a little passive. He held out a hand to her and motioned with it.

"Now then, I do believe this is where we make our grand exit, eh? Do me the honors of a grand exit, my fair lady, so we can leave Ernie to his stewing." Joseph looked back to Ernst with a sneer. "And his mopping."

Everybody hated being made a fool of. And that was what was happening to Ernst. But he wasn’t just anyone either. He didn’t just hate, he boiled, bubbling and steaming. His anger runneth over and spilled onto surfaces, scalding, scarring, disfiguring.

That grinning face of Abernathy’s filled him with a revulsion like no other and he longed to smash it to pulp. That girl, the first one with the mangled face would just be a warm up compared to these two. Beneath his fists they would crush and cave into slush. He gritted his teeth together and clenched a fist, raised towards the girl and swung forcefully.

But he stopped, mere inches from her face, breath heavy. The beast was back but caged, it paced an enclosure impatiently, tried to find another release. He could do it, oh yes, Ernst was almost sure now. The girl might complain but who would punish Ernst? Ernst who worked late hours and kept passive productivity high, would the matrons take dinner from him? Mulch would never stand for that.

But all the same, if he broke the rules he was no better than the rest of them.

He snarled at Aurelie through breath like jagged knives. These fool passives. He felt his control waning, felt himself slipping as though covered in bacon grease and sweat and blood. This would never have happened had he a whip in his hand.

“An interesting experiment there,” he said coolly, looking into the sops within the bucket. He seemed to calm as he gazed within, as though scrying some far off authority.

And then, without warning, before she could take Jo's hand, he seized the collar of Aurelies dress. She was a small, bitty little thing beneath his hands and he made to yank her forwards. “I told you what would happen. What did you think I would do?” he barked, shaking her. It was not corporal punishment, he told himself, not against the rules. Just detainment. These passives were dangerous and subversive, needed to be contained. And contained they would be. “Do I not look like a man of my word?” His shaking became more and more violent, “DO I LOOK LIKE A LIAR YOU LITTLE BITCH?”

He brought his face to Aurelie’s hissing, “I would give you the choice to walk or be dragged to the coalshed, but I am done with giving you choices. Done with showing kindness.”

Hand still on Aurelie's collar he sneered at Jo, "You fucker," he hissed, "I'm going to make you wish you were dead."

Joseph would be harder to catch. But the little shit had to sleep sometime. And there were still passives who knew better than to disobey Ernst. He’d find him and have him carried to the coal shed to join his whore.

Better tie them both up too, nothing worse than having two passives rutting in the dark. They were more like animals than anything.

Ernst always scared Aurelie. It shamed her to admit it, even to herself, because she did always try to be brave. In the face of such things, one struggled to bear it as best one could and move on with your back straight. But Ernst was violent, and Ernst was cruel, and he'd hurt her more than once. The cry that escaped her when Ernst grabbed her collar (just in time to kill the little swell of pride) couldn't be helped.

"Let-- Let me go!" She struggled and twisted in Ernst's grip on her collar. "You can't-- you're not allowed--"

He was, though, he absolutely was allowed. So he couldn't beat her, what did that matter? Who would look out for them, the scraps? Not the faculty, not the staff, not anyone with any sort of freedom at all.

Well, clocks. Abernathy sighed mentally. Certainly made of sterner stuff than he thought, but even still, there was not much one such as she could do when a pocket-passive got pissy. When that particular pocket-passive got pissy.

Dead. Hmm. Joseph stared back at Ernst coldly. Make me wish for death. He nearly felt like shrugging, still leaned against his mop handle. "I doubt you've got any new tricks, Ernie. Death, indeed. You haven't shown anything new since the Headmistress yanked your whip," Joseph huffed.

Still, Ernst seemed downright determined to haul Aurelie off to the coal shed and the dark-haired passive watched them struggle off down the hall a ways. He sighed heavily, annoyed. This was messy. Things had gotten just a little out of hand. Ernie's demise would just have to wait another day and Joseph would have to get more...inventive. So, he, picking up the mop and balancing it over his shoulder, followed Ernst and his captive down the hall at a short distance, whistling some human drinking tune another passive had taught him.

Aurelie needed a witness just in case Ernie got a little gung-ho with those fists. Besides, he didn't have anything else to do.

The keys at Ernst’s hip jangled as he dragged the girl out into the rain. One of the privileges Ernst had afforded himself over the years, Mulch did like his coals, and they trusted Ernst. It was a trust that the passive…no the man, did not take lightly. He felt sure, so sure, that when that old man died Patronhood would be in his grasp, had felt the light brush of that title for many years. Especially given the nature of some Patrons caught with their pants down. They knew Ernst wouldn’t do that. Never Ernst.

The rain water ran off Ernst’s bald head like blood ran from a pane of glass, cold and smooth to the touch but soaked into his uniform, her uniform, her thick red hair. The paving was wet and so was the grass, glistening slightly with beads of rainbow colored water almost reflecting those red bricks of Brunnhold. And so the rivers ran crimson. Those were the days.

Joe’s conciliatory movements pleased him, shame about the subordinate little whistle. Fuck whistling while you worked. Passives are not to be seen, not to be heard, but are to work softly and swiftly. But it was a triumphant Ernst who dragged the girl, twisting and turning her collar, with whitening knuckles that would scrape across her neck. That could close around skin and wring and wring till there were red welts and she gasped for breath.

The coal shed was dark, dusty and black charcoal hang in the air like a death shroud. The right key found entrance and Ernst’s flung Aurelie inside before following.

It was obvious from the set up that this was not the first time Ernst had brought someone here. Some disobedient scrap lucky enough to act out after the ban on corporal punishment. Or unlucky depending on how you saw it. Though not apparent at first, the further he brought Aurelie into the coal shed the more the dank smell of ammonia and feces wafted through his nose. But Ernst had been sorting bins all day. What did he care?

There were a few supports holding up the little coal shed, already with ropes around them secured fast. Passive men knew how to tie knots of course. Or at least Ernst did. And how useful they had become. Arms were tied behind Aurelie's back before Ernst pushed her forcefully onto the ground, back sliding down a wooden support. Feet too.

Ernst was really very fond of his job. He placed an already present bowl of water at Aurelie's side. Ernst wasn’t a total monster. The water was tepid and mildewy and the bowl looked like it had once belonged to a dog.

“Maybe you’ll think twice before disobeying me again,” said Ernst standing up and giving Aurelie a sly, nauseating little wink. He didn’t do it often and his movements were wrong, mechanical as if these parts of human interaction evaded him. Mean little clockwork man.

“You’ll come out when you’ve learnt the meaning of respect. For school property, for the galdori.” For the galdori. Ernst liked that. His own little proverb to add to that wonderful list. "Of course," at this point he looked down at Aurelie, "I might come back, check in on you. Can't have our passives getting..." he patted her head, skimmed a knuckle against her cheek, "lonely at all."

Straightening up, he called out to Joe; "Care to join the party Abernathy? Got a nice little place all set out for you too. Can't leave little Aurelie on her own now can we?"

Aurelie would have been rather sorry to say she flinched when Ernst's knuckle brushed her cheek, were she ever to tell this story to anyone at all. So this was how it was, was it? Tied in the coal shed with nothing but tepid water and her own nightmares to keep her company? Oh no, that wasn't entirely accurate. Ernst had promised he would be back, to keep her company. Aurelie choked back a sob. Bastard, clocking bastard, rotten, soulless, horrible-- good the mona had cursed that one, wasn't it? More than the rest of him, he deserved it. Horrible lizard-man, lizard skin and lizard blood. Lizard heart, too.

Experimentally she tugged at her bonds, knowing it was futile and that Ernst was still, cursedly still, standing right there. They held, and she grit her back teeth in frustration. Clocking Joseph Abernathy, if she never laid eyes on him again it would be too soon. Alioe take the lot of them, she wanted nothing to do with any of them anymore. She closed her eyes, her head settling against the support beam. How was Triston doing, anyway? Aurelie barely saw her anymore. Sharing a bunk, it seemed, didn't always include sharing a life. She hoped she was alright. What with the-- the baby (oh, and Aurelie still couldn't bear to think on it) and everything else... She just hoped Triston was okay.

Not that she'd be able to find out, tied up here like this. Clocking Joseph Abernathy! She'd cursed him a thousand times over to no avail, though it did make her feel slightly better. Smug bastard, following along like this was naught to do with him at all. Oh yes, great and rebellious Joseph Abernathy, leaving his messes to be cleaned up by unsuspecting bystanders. Pathetic excuse for a man, that Abernathy, standing around outside while she was in here. At this minute, she hated him, though it faded quickly. What was the point? It didn't matter to Jo if she hated him or not. She sincerely doubted he even knew her name. One small girl in a sea of small girls, what did Aurelie Steerpike matter to-- anyone, really? Ernst she didn't hate, of course. Ernst was something else entirely, not close enough to a person to hate.

Aurelie fidgeted in the rope, already cross with her inactivity. She wanted to be back in her kitchen, making cinnamon rolls or soup or dumplings. Bells and chimes, she'd take potato peeling duty rather than be here. Gods damn you, Joseph Abernathy!

Joseph was out in the rain, outside the coal shed, getting soaked through his uniform, still leaning against that mop. He considered that he should have ditched it--chucked it in the hallway, dropped it in a flowerbed, left it in the grass--but he'd become familiar with the thing by now and it had almost become a means of expression, what with the way he still leaned against it. A nice expression of arrogance that he was not entirely opposed to.

He blinked long lashes against the drips from his hair, ran his tongue over wet lips out of reflex. Come in? That creature was off his rocker.

"I think I'm rather fine out here, Ernie. Thanks, though. Really...." His tone was as dismissive as his posture and expression. "In fact, I think I hear something more important calling my name."

(( sfsp ))

Ernst smiled again, through those cold thin lips. “More important? There’s nothing more important than work for a scrap,” he appeared at the door of the coalshed, emerging from the darkness and into the rain. His heart ached for corporal punishment again, wished he could make Ophelia see what he had to deal with. He’d watched her sometimes, she was very pretty for a woman of her years, powerful too. Ernst used to be powerful. Years of beating and manual labor had built up his strength, seen him learn how to use his knuckles in a way that no golly young man would have ever done, it had seen him grow practiced at gouging and kicking and inspiring fear. But it was all for naught now. What use were words as weapons? When scraps spoke to him like this.

Time was when he would beat them into mush, make them piss their pants, make them vomit teeth and blood. He remembered those days like a grandmother fondly remembers the birth of her children.

“Dear little bird,” he said with a sneer to Joseph, speaking of Aurelie. “Got to keep them safe and locked away where they can’t do themselves any harm.”

He ran a hand over his bald head thinking, you know I’m putting you in there don’t you? You have to know that.

Grabbing Joseph by his neck, holding it in both hands, nails digging into the flesh, his fingers clawing and savage he yanked the young man forwards making to pull him forcibly into the coal shed.

Heat bulged against the back of Joseph's eyes and brain. He'd never been grabbed around the throat before, mostly the Patrons and Matrons grabbed for an arm or an ear or the back of one's collar. Rarely was anyone so vicious to make a grab for the neck.

Joseph remembered hearing somewhere that man was the only creature to ever try to kill by strangulation. The wild mountain cats of Gior would crush the windpipe, but to stop the flow of blood to the brain was something only man had done yet.

The defiant passive wasn't sure if Ernst constituted as a "man" though.

There was no such thing as a fair fight, so Joseph didn't have any qualms about trying to smash the toe of his shoe into the fork of Ernst's legs.

(( Sorry I took so long, I had to go out of state, where I had no internet. ))

Ernst was in control-- he thought. There was no way he could expect the passive in his hands to retaliate so brutally. The solid toe connected solidly with the softness between his legs, sending shockwaves of pain through his body.

Ernst let out a howl like a wounded animal as Joe made contact with the goods, hissing and spitting as he doubled over- obvious he needed to take a minute out.

"You fucker," spat Ernst through clenched teeth, "Clocking...clocking, clocks."

Ernst was mad. No, he was more than mad, he was livid, seething and spitting. He wanted to destroy Joe, more emotion than he had felt in a long time, more blind hate than his usual intense levels of hatred towards passives coursed through his system, bubbling blood and poison swimming through his veins.

"I'll kill you," he roared, straightening up like a flash and leaping at Joe. The scary part was, he probably did mean it, charging at the younger passive, making to grab him by the throat again. And with the speed and strength of a practised passive beater he raised his fist to Joe in order to beat the kid repeatedly. Beat that stupid smirk off his face. Beat out all that defiance and all that arrogance.

I'll kill you.

Just the words he'd been longing to hear for so clocking long. So many years he'd wanted someone between them to say it aloud to the other. He felt himself pull a tight, mirthless, but strangely satisfied smile. So it was said. Said and reciprocated from seven ago in the kitchen with the knives and Harold and Carmine. That girl had been there, too. Joseph had refrained from saying it between them because it wasn't always profitable to be first.

Though in the next clash, Joseph strove to be first.

Joseph raised his weapon, his mop, like a thunderbolt in his hand, aiming for the soft spot on the side of all men’s' heads. He powered his swing with cold wrath and steel-hard eyes.

All giftwrapped and pretty for you, Aurelie. In a basket.

Ernst's recovery was swift, as was his wrath. His hand collided with Joseph's collarbone, his thumb catching the skin on one side of his neck.

Joseph's mop collided with Ernst's shoulder, bouncing off ineffectually.

Feeling the mop on his shoulder, Ernst didn't need to think twice about working the kid's face over, he drew back his fist once more making to punch Joseph in the face several times repeatedly. Eyes, nose, mouth, not that it mattered- it was all passive and lower and unworthy and scum.

Tiring of punches, Ernst once again took Joe by the throat and drew his face close to the younger passive's, smashing it forwards in order to deliver a fun little headbutt and not a moment later attempting to send a nice healthy kick to the shins in Joseph's direction.

She could hear Jo taunting Ernst from his position of relative safety out there in the rain. She almost swore, but held it in. No sense in losing her head. She could say whatever she wanted mentally, however, and the euphemisms only seemed to get more colorful the longer she was tied up. Clocking boys and their clocking masculine bravado. Where did it ever get anyone? Why Jo couldn't just bow his stupid head, just say "yes Ernst" and be on his idiot way--

For a moment, then, it was quiet outside. Still, maybe? What that sort of silence signified she wasn't sure. Couldn't be that Ernst and Jo had just-- just walked away, gone their separate paths. No, no, that wasn't much like them at all. For a moment, she was afraid that something awful had happened to Jo to make it all so quiet. She wasn't precisely pleased with him, but she still liked him a far sight better than she liked Ernst. At least Jo was a living creature.

Then she could hear Ernst yelling, and it was quiet again. A fight, then, it had to be. Clocking--! For not the first nor last time that day Aura cursed the both of them. She hoped Ernst split open Jo's lip, just a little. It would be perfectly fine by her if they both knocked each other out and just left it to someone else to come by while they were unconscious and save her. That would suit her, yes it would.

Though if only one of them could win, she did hope it would be Jo.