“...’arry?”

It didn’t sound like Harold’s name much at all. Some tattered piece of that name, scraped off the roof of his mouth. Cold hands slipped through the cold water and hot sick. It was probably time to close the damn window when he started being almost okay with the puke on his cheek, his mouth – at least it was hot.

His hand wavered up to the other boy, hand hovering expectantly for those tattered palms he liked so much. He wanted to tangled mess of scars. He wanted to lick Harry’s scabs. But Carmine was left clutching at air until his arm got too tired and flopped down.

He wobbled up onto his hands just enough to roll over onto his back. He pried his eyes open just enough to see Harry’s silhouette moving about, the warm edges of his voice floating around in the black air above him. Carmine slid down the thread of Harry’s voice, into his throat. It would be warm and damp and dark there, and he would be completely surrounded by Harry. None of these things sounded bad at all. Not with all these terrified impulses jetting through him like ice water, his whole body shivering for reasons so different than cold.

I’ll fix you, fucktoy.

All of him clenched together, curling up tight like a hard shelled snail around its pink pulp, around the warm core of his belly. Whatever fishing wire they had left over from sewing the bits of his face back on, he’d use it to sew his thighs together. Sew his mouth closed.

What else could he think, from being under the Patron’s hands for long? Hearing that searing description of fucking, having his face forced against Ernst’s crotch like that? A watery keen forced its way through his broken teeth. Drool was dribbling around all his little sounds, the thrashy death squeaks of a cornered little creature.

Carmine knew whippings. Other prospects, however, were far more terrifying.

He felt bad for the little ones. He really did. Especially that girl – another pitiful squeak pierced the air – but he couldn’t think and his words were reduced to a squelching slaw in the wreck of his mouth. His blood looked black in the absence of light. The plush of his pretty rosebud lips smeared in a black scraggle all across his cheeks and his chin. A damp hand shot up and clutched his mouth, trying to hide it, willing the pieces back together – there was probably piss on that hand so he snapped it away again.

So instead, that hand fluttered over to Harry’s trouser leg. Clutching, clutching with all his wibbly strength, he hauled himself up into a sit. His fingers carved into the fabric almost enough to tear. Impossibly blue eyes slitted through their ever-swelling bruises up at the three of them. Please forgive what I have done, he wanted to say. His voice would be wrought with so much conviction and it would flow like honey even though he was so broken; prove that he was still so pretty in spite of how things might look right now.

He wanted to tell them that it would be quite a shock to discover pain for the first time, but that they shouldn’t be too scared, because it got easier every time. The skin on their back would grow tough as leather soon enough. It would be okay. Wanted shake them and tell them to please not do everything that he had done. Say that if he asks them to open their legs, they should try kicking him instead.

But all he managed was to splutter “...’arry.” again, a pained twinge of urgency there; twine his arm around Harry’s calf, nuzzle his filthy face against Harry’s thigh.

“I’ll kill him,” Joseph hissed, blue eyes on fire, tiny nose huffing tiny rage, “One of these days he’ll meet an end. Meet the ground. And they’ll say he jumped, too. But I’ll know different. I’ll kill the godsdamned bastered." Joseph snapped his gaze back to Harold and held it there. Punctuating his words.

Carefully, he looked down at Carmine, not really wanting to see what he looked like now. So hideous and beaten up. At least when you got your back whipped, you couldn't see it. At least you could only feel it. Wounds seemed more like war medals when they crossed your back. Carmine's face was a squashed pulp. Like a pomegranate ground beneath someone's heel.

His eyes then snapped to Auralie. He held them there even longer, watching the little frightened twitches and shivers she made. Joseph's hands tightened around the handles of his knives. She probably needed to leave here. If Ernst came back and she was still here.... That idea made Joseph all the angrier, and his features became steel. His voice was a dull thud, like the sound of a hammer hitting a warm body. "Girl...you should leave here and go to bed."

Joseph frowned and glanced at the knives he still held. They were mismatched. How had he not noticed that? One was a big thing, cleaver type affair, while the second in his left was a slim boning knife, sharp as a cruel Matron's whip and quick as her biting tongue. He liked the boning knife much better and he laid the cleaver on the counter, clutching the other handle all the tighter. When he realized Aura was still present, he blinked and sighed to himself. There was no way he was going back to bed, even if it meant he had to hide in the bushes of the garden all night. Hang the weather. This girl wasn't the type to brave the gardens, though. Joseph strode over to the shivering girl and grabbed her arm with his free hand.

"C'mon."

Jo's grip on her arm wasn't precisely comforting, wasn't precisely what she needed just at that moment, but it'd do. She just didn't want to walk back in the long, dark corridors alone. The sweet from Harold she tucked into a pocket, taking comfort in their small, strange kindnesses even if she couldn't forgive them for getting her involved in the first place. That was the best she was going to get, and she'd take it. Not for her was a heart so hardened it wouldn't reach out and grasp what little things it could.

"Okay." She was a little proud her voice only broke a little. To bed, then, and to dream frightened dreams. But she straightened, held her spine so high and stiff. It'd be okay. Probably.

Maybe if Jo really did kill him.

He watched the others go, and wished somewhere in his soul that he had the fire Abernathy seemed to burn with. He was a brand, constantly consuming and exploding with energy, a lightning bolt even. Harold was a mop, or a broom, something homey and usable, easily replaced but also missed in absence. So he hoped, anyway. Nevertheless he was gone now, taking the small one with him, and so Harold was left with his bunk-mate. It was an uncomfortable realization that all the things he’d never wanted to say were fighting their way out through his throat, and he had to forcibly stop them with his teeth. Goddess how he hated Carmine. Goddess, how he pitied him.

What was he supposed to say? Carmine clung to his leg, a kicked puppy, whimpering. It was enough to sicken anyone, but it just made Harold’s heart feel diseased. A friend is there forever, Adalare promised, it was just the way things worked. He remembered her in moments like these, when his bitterness battled with innate sympathy. Her voice was dulled through the years. Carmine had gone with Petros on his own, and every beating Harold took for his friend was in vain, so much work, so many beatings—

A Friend is there forever, Harold. He felt the words on his lips, and instead of saying them, lifted Carmine by his underarms, ignoring the vomit and soaked uniform. “Car…” Words dashed off like frightened rabbits, and he sighed. Picking the boy up easily (so easily), he placed him on the counter, watching the shivers. “I’ll shut the window. You take off the dirty clothes, I’ll wash them after the dishes.” It was easier taking care of it here, where they were in the open, where he had his familiar chores to occupy him while he nursed Carmine back to something passing as alive and sent him to bed.

The window creaked as it closed, and Harold forced himself to stare out into the darkness, keeping bitter vitriol inside like bile. Tonight was no night for sharing, not with Abernathy and the girl, not with Carmine, not with the lingering sense of Petros’ ghost that haunted them all. It was no night to sleep, for anyone, especially Harolds.

All so tentative, Carmine's fingers worked down the ladder of clasps holding his shirt together. Hazy motions, fumbling hands, he bumbled through the motion slow and slack-jawed as if he was hypnotized. Was Harry so big, or was Carmine so small? He wanted nothing more than for Harry to just pick up easy as a ragdoll and carry him through life, but he guessed that's what Harry been doing since always.

It was how they worked. Harry was mute mouthed and unobtrusive and cared too much about every stupid thing to ever do something risky. Carmine was his voice and anger in all those shriller, louder ways Harry was just to Harry to ever express. Carmine was action and experience; Carmine smoked opium so Harry could know what it tasted like. Carmine had sex so he could tell Harry what it felt like. Harry pieced him back together when these adventures went awry. Carmine's entire existence within these red, red walls was like a proceed with caution manual for everyone else.

Don't be lazy. Don't talk back. Don't fight back. Don't lie. Don't be sneaky. Don't complain. Don't be a stupid little whore.

Don't be Carmine.

Perhaps Ernst was fixing to make an example of him. The thought filled him fear. The emotion ballooned in his chest and strained at the bindings of his ribs, squeezed his heart against his chest wall, pressed thick against his throat. Another strangled squeak squeezed through his teeth.

The wet trousers were shucked off and dropped into the water and sick puddling at the base of the counter with a splat. Miserable little thing perched on the counter in his underbritches. He paused there, fingertips perched on the rim of soaked underwear, fixing his baleful gaze on Harry across the room. Ghosts, and Ernst, and all the other boys. He didn't want any one of them seeing him naked. He didn't mind so much with Harry. Harry had seen plenty of things.

"...'arry. If you...you..." slurred, a slick slaw of words. "If y-you see him pokin' 'round 'ere, you sh-should. Ah." Paused, pondering, thinking about sitting up straight. "Flay his prick open like a f-f-fish. I ent -- I d-don't want 'im t-to..." That funny noise, watery and distant. Frightened little creature.

He eased the sticky underwear off, aching legs curling up awkwardly on the counter as he negotiated them off. He set them on the counter beside him, too nervous to quite let them hide on the floor.

Pale thing perched naked on the counter, skin watery blue and flickering with the phosphor lamps. The whole form of him was a bit different than most other boys -- other boys this age had thickened darkened, muscle forming in scraggly knots of dainty golly bones, lean muscle making them look drawn and sinewy as strips of jerky. Carmine looked more like a student who'd had a nasty fall than a passive. He was still delicate and slim and pale as the day he arrived some six years ago. A faint smattering of freckles on his cheeks sprinkled the rest of him, a galaxy of freckles dusting a bleak white canvas. Not a boy in pain at all, just a forgiving artist's watercolor rendering of pain. Slick with blood and puke and ice water, Carmine was frustratingly pretty.

...and he couldn't imagine a reality where he wasn't. He dreaded the thought, because to be completely honest, really Carmine wasn't much beyond 'pretty'. Pale, long fingers walked up over the smashed contours of his face. It felt like ground meat. The tiny wedge of his nose was swollen with blood under his fingers. Blood and mucus flowed freely down his mouth.

Carmine wished he could be missing Petros right now, or clawing for Harry, or crying over how miserable he'd made everyone. But instead Carmine was crying and palming his face desperately, even though the slightest pressure hurt like mad. He wanted to be saintly and lovely and torture himself over the all the hurt he'd brought so many people, but the white noise of panic rose up and drowned it all out with a cry of my face, my face, oh Alioe my face. He didn't want to be Christine. If he was Christine, he would jump off the tower too.

Trembling hands cranked on the sink again. Tiny body bowed over the sink, damp curtains of crimson waves shielding him as he drenched his face with water. He spat pink and red and teeth. The contents of his mouth swirled around the drain. Stained hands worked water through his hair, rinsing out the clinging strands of vomit.

"...'arry?" he ventured again, cracked voice poking meekly about the dark kitchen. "Ya don' hafta. Do these things. I." Speaking made him so sleepy.

"I am o-kay."

And then:

"Don't shut tha' window. He can't come in you...yeah."

The click of the window spoke for Harry, because he couldn't find words. He never could, words and speaking weren't his strong suit. Somehow he had managed to say as little as possible for all the years he'd been in Brunnhold, and now he was starting to regret his inexpertise with them. His anger evaporated in the sound of Carmine's quiet words, the redheads forced attempts to seem whole broke the building fire that Harold fought to control, like a bucket of soapy water. The last breath of cold on his face was enough to remind him of the outside world, where Petros was dead and where children would take his beatings. Yet he couldn't stay angry at Carmine.

"If Ernst wants to do more than he's done, he'll get more than he's gotten." Harold didn't quite turn around yet, thick, calloused fingers having difficulty taking off his overshirt. He knew Carmine's only partially spoken fears, they both knew why Harold knew it and it wouldn't be spoken of. His workshirt was longer than most, having been modified from a gardener's outercoat, and it was warm. Slipping it off his shoulders, he folded it and placed it on a dry counter. unbuttoning his undershirt was quicker, it was barely holding together as it was. Soon, his pale chest was exposed, dark tan lines on his arms acting like graduations of burntness; hands the color of leather, shoulders like ivory, and the hues between. And on that pale back, the lines of scars were few and fading, streets and crossroads of ancient maps. Muscles, overworked and underfed, twitched as he finally faced his friend.

Harold's face was always more open than he figured, and his grey eyes were soft when he addressed Carmine. He crossed the distance as though it wasn't much, to see his bunkmate naked perched on a counter, stinking of piss, vomit, fear and cold. "Stopit, you'll only mess up the cuts worse. Lemme look at ya." He gently pushed Carmine away from the sink, hands warm and brown again Carmine's snowy flesh. Harold grabbed a clean washrag from the stack and wet it, instinctively turning the taps to neither hot nor cold, but right in the middle. No soap, he just wrung out most of the water, unplugged the drain and let the tap run.

With infinite tenderness, Harold swabbed Carmine's face, outlining each bruise, dabbing at the crusted blood and vomit around his broken lips. He didn't say anything, just wiped away the grime from Carmine's lovely face. Memories flashed, of a distant mother, warmth of a nanny, Adalare's soft, always cold hands. The first man to make him stand back up after pain. If Harold had ever had a brother, he would hope he would be nothing like Carmine but this fuckup of a passive was the closest he'd ever have to family. Family is not of choosing but of chance, his tester had said to his disgusted parents so many years ago. Carmine was ill chance indeed, but he was as much like a brother to Harold as anything he'd known. Words were useless to Harold, so as the warm water made the air less hard, he gently swathed Carmine's skin, making it fresh and bright again.

Warm water in the sink heated the air, bit by bit. Or maybe it was just Harry. He didn't deserve aching tenderness, almost flinched away from the gentle drag of the cloth. But it was momentary. Like wax under flame, Carmine melted into the little touches.

"...innit gonna -- 'arry..." he managed to splutter.

He felt so spinny and hot, a lot like wanting to throw up again but not quite. Soft cat noises, mewls of sound that were barely existent bubbled up from his throat. His stupid eyes wouldn't quit with all of their stupid streaming. Trembly ragdoll boy.

"If'n he comes back again you -- you..." His sticky fingers slipped up Harry pale shoulders, fingertips leaving red smears. He didn't want to be out here in this frigid kitchen, crawling with shadows of shadows, shadows of hands. Harry was warm, warm-ish, like the water. He wasn't a shadow of anything at all.

And Harry wasn't flinching or balking at the sight of his face. Just smoke eyes smoothed with the milk of tenderness, slipping over his ruined features in silence. The pressure hurt, coaxed tiny growls from the base of his throat. Tiny growls caught and morphed into hitches of breath. Little lungs hauling full of air, little shoulders hitching up up up. Shuddering exhale, they fall down down down. Repeat. He was sobbing. It was a very quiet and very dry affair.

Instead of working for the past two years, Carmine's hands had been up to other things. They were still smooth and soft as new sheets. His hands flowed from Harry's shoulders down his arms, luxuriating in the strange fade from white to brown, the twisted bundles of muscle skipping beneath the skin. And he was warm. "Ya...ya look like a half burned piece a bread."

His touch smoothed up Harry's nut brown forearms, wrists, and engulfed his wet hands. Pearly ropes of scars swallowed them, gnarled and hard as tree roots. He tugged the free hand, the rag-less hand, up to his ruined mouth and pressed a kiss to those scabbed knuckles. Touch slipping up again, thumbpad smoothing over the dark welt, the ridged indention of teeth, at the inside of Harry's elbow.

Carmine bowed his sopping head against Harry's shoulder.

"I wan' --" murmured, nigh incomprehensible through his slick slur. "I wan' Petros."

“He isn’t going to come after you, Car. He’s got more sense than to fuck with the same loose cannons twice.” He managed a smile, taking the rag off Carmine’s skin, rinsing it with the warm water and going back to the cleaning. Harold had owned an stray cat, once. She was hard and lean and wouldn’t come to anyone elses' hand but his. She had gotten herself with kittens and she’d cleaned them like Harold was cleaning his bunkmate now, and he wondered if the human servants had drowned her like they’d drowned the squirming, mewling babes. Oh he’d cried, but no one saw it. He’d been hiding in shadows far before he was ever a passive. His face darkened, lines appearing across the youthful countenance that should have been smooth. His voice got thick and he closed his eyes. “I’m not gonna fail ya again, Car.” He worked on his friend’s shoulders and chest now, wiping away the vomit and the piss as he moved to Carmine’s legs.

He let Carmine touch what he wanted, hold what he wanted. They’d been friends for too long to deny him comfort. For Alioe’s sake, fever and illness were shared and so was the comforting. Harold had caught some sort of pox from Carmine, because during the night shivers Harry couldn’t let Car sleep miserable and alone. They’d suffered together, until puberty. Then… they’d suffered alone. Harold grew out, wide shoulders and long limbs. Carmine had grow soft, like a girl grows soft, and his eyes wandered like his hands over Harold’s skin in the last bastions of innocence, the darkest nights that they shared as boys. Harold’s failures began the day Carmine first worked with Petros, and goddess be blessed he was dead now.

It was the last thing Harold had expected, the whimpered admission of longing. He didn’t drop the rag from years of practice, but his hand clenched and dirt pinky water ran over the knots of his knuckles. The gouged scar of his inner arm was sensitive, more than it should have been, and his body shook at the feather soft touch. Rage, shame, everything suppressed that he’d dealt with, his own failures as a friend and as a man, enveloped him. “Fucker did the right thing, jumpin off. Didn’t have a right to live.” Under it, beneath the bubbling hate, there was a whimper of a drowning kitten. I don’t deserve to live, either, but I don’t want to die. He turned away from Carmine, wringing the rag. “Gods damn him.”