Chapter Text
The drawing room smelled faintly of lemon polish and something darker: old paper, the kind that remembers secrets. Alois Trancy sat perched on the arm of a chaise, knees bouncing, a grin that was all teeth and mischief. He had been told the house would be quiet tonight; the servants had been sent to their corners like chess pieces. He liked it that way. It made the world feel smaller and, therefore, easier to bend. Claude Faustus stood by the window, hands folded, the lamplight catching the precise angles of his face. He had the look of someone who had been carved from ice and then learned to smile. He never hurried unless Alois commanded it; he never spoke unless it served a purpose. Tonight, his voice was the same soft instrument it always was.
“Alois,” Claude said, and the single name was a summons. “A letter arrived this afternoon. It bears the seal of the Phantomhive household.”
Alois’s grin sharpened. “Phantomhive? That old dog? Tell me everything, Claude. Every delicious little thing.”
Claude inclined his head and produced the letter with the same deliberate calm he used to pour tea. The paper was thick, the handwriting formal and small, an aristocrat’s hand, practiced and cold. Alois snatched it, eyes skimming, then stopped. For a moment he was still, which was rare.
“Ciel Phantomhive,” he said slowly, tasting the name like a new flavour. “The Queen’s watchdog. The boy who runs the underworld’s errands. He’s… thirteen, isn’t he?”
Claude’s expression did not change. “Fourteen, by the calendar used in London. He is the head of the Phantomhive estate and holds the title of Earl. He is known for his… uncompromising methods.”
Alois laughed, a sound that was equal parts delight and challenge. “Uncompromising. How quaint. I like boys who are stubborn. They make better toys.”
There it was, the word that always made Claude’s eyes narrow, just a fraction. He had learned to read the small shifts in Alois’s moods like a map. Toys, trophies, rivals; they all blurred into the same bright object of attention. Claude’s voice was silk over steel. “You wish to meet him?”
Alois’s fingers drummed on the chaise. “No. I want him to be mine.”
Claude’s head tilted, the smallest motion. “Yours in what sense?”
Alois’s grin widened until it threatened to split his face. “Make him mine, Claude. Bring him to me. Make him kneel. Make him understand that the Trancy name is not to be ignored.”
Claude’s silence stretched. The lamplight painted him in gold and shadow. He had been with Alois through storms and schemes, through the boy’s laughter and his darker appetites. He had seen Alois’s cruelty and his loneliness braided together. He had also seen the way Alois’s commands were not always born of whim; sometimes they were a way to stake a claim on a world that had taken everything from him.
“You understand the Phantomhive household is not a trivial matter,” Claude said at last. “They are guarded, and their alliances are complex. The boy himself is not without… defences.”
Alois’s eyes flashed. “Defences are for the weak. I am not weak. I am Alois Trancy. I will have him.”
Claude’s reply was a whisper that carried the weight of inevitability. “Very well. I will arrange it.”
Alois clapped his hands once, delighted. “Excellent. Do it quickly. And Claude, do not fail me.”
Claude’s glare was a blade sheathed in velvet. “I do not fail.”
He turned away, the hem of his coat whispering across the floor, and Alois watched him go with the hungry, childish intensity of someone who had decided on a new game. The letter lay forgotten in Alois’s lap, the Phantomhive seal glinting like a dare. Outside, the night pressed against the windows like a patient thing. Inside, the house hummed with the quiet machinery of obedience. Alois imagined the moment, Ciel’s face when he realized he had been summoned, the way the boy would try to hold his composure, the small, brittle pride that would make him resist. Resistance was the most interesting part. It made the eventual surrender sweeter.
Claude paused at the doorway, hand on the knob. He did not look back, but his voice followed him, low and precise. “You will have him, Alois. But understand this: making someone yours is not the same as owning them. There are consequences to binding wills.”
Alois’s laugh was bright and sharp. “Consequences are for cheap people.”
Claude closed the door. The sound was final. For a long moment, Alois sat very still, the grin settling into something like a plan. He folded the letter and tucked it into his pocket as if it were a talisman. The idea of Ciel, of the Phantomhive boy, standing in his drawing room, of watching that cool, aristocratic mask crack even a little, made his pulse quicken. He imagined the first words he would say. He imagined the look on Claude’s face when the plan unfurled exactly as he wanted. He imagined the world bending, just a little, to the will of a boy who refused to be small.
The house seemed to lean in, listening.
The front doors opened with a sound like a verdict. Alois, who had been rehearsing a dozen cruel welcomes in his head, sprang from his seat as if the house itself had announced a new toy. He wore his grin like shelter; the grin faltered the instant he saw who stepped across the threshold. Ciel Phantomhive stood smaller than Alois had imagined. The Earl’s posture was impeccable, the same brittle composure that had made him a legend in drawing rooms and back alleys alike, but the coat hung a little too large at the shoulders and the dark eye-patch made his face look younger, more fragile, than the rumours had allowed. There was a tiredness at the corners of his mouth that no one spoke of in polite gossip.
Behind him, a man in a black tailcoat moved with the quiet certainty of a blade. Sebastian Michaelis’s smile was the same courteous thing it always was: polished, patient, and lethal. He did not look like a guardian so much as a shadow that had learned to mimic civility.
Alois’s hands trembled just enough to betray him. He had wanted a rival, a prize, a mirror to reflect his own importance. He had not wanted a child.
“Well, well,” Alois said, voice pitched high and bright to hide the sudden, unfamiliar ache. “So this is Ciel Phantomhive. The Queen’s little watchdog. How… Adorable.”
Ciel’s gaze did not waver. He measured Alois with the same cool appraisal he used on adults who thought themselves clever. “Alois Trancy,” he said, voice small but precise. “I did not expect an invitation.”
Alois laughed, too loud. “Invitation? Oh, darling, you misunderstand. You were brought here. Claude did the fetching. Isn’t that right, Claude?” He turned to his butler as if to punctuate the moment with triumph.
Claude Faustus inclined his head, expression unreadable. “As you commanded, Your Highness.”
Alois’s grin returned, but it was a thinner thing now, edged with something like worry. He stepped forward, circling Ciel as if inspecting a specimen. Up close, the boy smelled faintly of smoke and old paper, of libraries and late nights. Alois’s fingers twitched with the urge to touch, to claim.
“You’re smaller than I thought,” Alois said, and the words came out softer than he intended. He tried to make them sharp. “Not that small. Still, you look like you could break if someone handled you wrong.”
Ciel’s eyes flicked to Alois’s hand and away. “I am not fragile.”
“Of course not.” Alois’s voice brightened into mockery, then curdled into something else; pity, perhaps, or recognition. “You wear your pride like armour. How very like me.”
Sebastian’s smile did not change, but his posture shifted, the faintest tightening at his side. “Master Ciel, if you would care for my word-”
“No.” Ciel’s reply was immediate. He did not want to be coddled, and he did not want to be patronized. “I am here on business.”
Alois’s laugh cracked. “Business. Right. You and I both know what business means when boys like us meet.” He leaned in, lowering his voice until it was conspiratorial. “Do you know what I wanted when I asked for you?”
Ciel’s expression remained composed, but his fingers curled around the handle of his cane with a little more force. “You wanted to see if I would bend.”
Alois blinked, then smiled with a ferocity that was almost tender. “And do you think you will?”
Ciel’s answer was a single, measured word. “No.”
For a heartbeat the room held its breath. Alois’s face shifted, hurt, amusement, hunger, so quickly it was almost a blur. He had expected defiance; he had not expected the small, stubborn refusal that sounded so much like his own.
“You’re just a child,” Alois said suddenly, the accusation more to himself than to Ciel. The words landed with a weight that surprised him. He had meant them as a weapon; instead they felt like a confession.
Ciel’s jaw tightened. “I am the Earl of Phantomhive.”
“And I am Alois Trancy,” Alois shot back, but the edge had dulled. He looked at Ciel and, for the first time since he could remember, saw not a rival but a reflection of the same loneliness, someone who had been forced to grow up too fast, who had learned to make the world small so it would not swallow them whole.
Claude watched them both with the same stillness he always wore. “Your Highness,” he said softly, “how would you like to proceed?”
Alois’s laugh this time was hollow. He had wanted to make Ciel his as a demonstration of power; now the idea felt complicated, like a game whose rules he no longer understood. He wanted to hurt the boy, to prove himself superior, but he also felt an odd, protective flare that made his chest ache.
“Bring him to the drawing room,” Alois said at last, voice steadying into command. “We’ll play a little longer.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “As you wish.”
As they moved, Alois kept his eyes on Ciel. The boy’s composure never broke, but there was a tremor in the way he held himself that Alois could not ignore. It made Alois want to laugh and to cry at the same time. When the door closed behind them, Claude’s whisper brushed Alois’s ear. “You asked for him because you wanted to be seen. You must decide what you will do when you are seen.”
Alois’s reply was almost inaudible. “I don’t know if I want to be seen.”
Claude’s hand was cool on the doorknob. “Then be careful who you let look.”
Alois watched the closed door as if it were a promise and a threat both. He had summoned a rival and found a child; he had wanted to possess power and instead discovered a mirror. The realization did not make him gentler. It made him more dangerous. The night pressed against the manor like a patient thing. Inside, two boys who had been taught to hide their hurt behind crowns and cruelty sat across from one another and pretended the game was simple.
The board sat between them like a small, civilized battlefield. Candles guttered in crystal sconces, throwing the room into a wash of gold and shadow. Alois lounged with a careless elegance, one booted foot on the edge of the table, fingers drumming a rhythm that had nothing to do with the pieces. Claude and Sebastian stood a respectful distance away, statues in black, watching the two boys as if they were fragile curiosities. Ciel arranged his pieces with the same economy of motion he used for every other task: precise, efficient, practiced. His face was a mask, pale, composed, the single dark eye beneath the patch cold and unreadable. He did not smile. He did not look away.
Alois watched him for a long, slow breath, then grinned as if he’d been given permission to be dangerous. “You play like you mean it,” he said, voice syrupy and sharp. “Do you always stare at things until they obey?”
Ciel’s reply was a single, clipped move: pawn to e4. “I do not stare. I calculate.”
“Calculate,” Alois echoed, leaning forward until his elbows nearly touched the board. He moved a knight with theatrical slowness. “How dull. I prefer to make things happen.” He tapped the knight against the square, eyes glittering. “Do you know why I wanted you here, Ciel?”
Ciel’s jaw tightened, but his hand did not falter. “You summoned me. That is reason enough.”
Alois laughed, a sound that was equal parts delight and something sharper. “You’re so proper. So very…earnest.” He slid a bishop across the board, watching Ciel’s face for the smallest crack. “I wanted to see if you were as cold as they say. I wanted to see if you would break when someone pulled at the right string.”
Ciel’s gaze did not waver. “I do not break.”
“Of course not.” Alois’s smile thinned into something almost tender. “You’re a little lord. You have to be strong. You have to be alone.” He watched the way Ciel’s fingers curled around the stem of his glass, the way his shoulders held themselves like a shield. “Do you ever get tired of being alone, Ciel?”
The question landed like a stone. Ciel’s hand stilled. For a moment, no more than a blink, something like fatigue crossed his features. He replaced it with the practiced chill of command. “Loneliness is a tool.”
Alois’s laugh was softer now, almost a whisper. “A tool. How sensible. I used to think the same.” He moved a rook, capturing a pawn with a flourish. “But sometimes tools are all you have left, and you forget how to be anything else.”
Sebastian’s presence was a quiet pressure at Ciel’s back; Claude’s was a cool, assessing shadow at Alois’s side. Neither spoke. The game continued, pieces trading ground like soldiers in a polite war.
Alois toyed with his pieces as if they were puppets, but his eyes kept returning to Ciel’s face. He delighted in the boy’s stubbornness, how it flared like a small, dangerous flame. He delighted in the way Ciel refused to look surprised, refused to show fear. Yet beneath the delight there was something else: a small, sharp ache that Alois did not know how to name. He had wanted to make Ciel his because possession felt like proof that the world still answered to him. Now that Ciel sat across from him, unbowed and unbroken, Alois felt the proof slipping into something more complicated.
Ciel, for his part, played as if the board were a map of obligations and threats. Each move was a calculation: a defence here, a sacrifice there. He kept his face like a shuttered window, but his thoughts were a quiet storm. He had been taught to be ruthless, to swallow hurt and turn it into power. Yet the way Alois laughed, so loud, so unguarded, stirred something he had long buried. It was not pity. It was not warmth. It was a recognition that two children had been taught to wear cruelty like armour because the world had taught them to expect nothing gentler.
Alois leaned in, voice low and conspiratorial. “If you lose, you must tell me one truth.”
Ciel’s eyes flicked up, sharp. “And if I win?”
“Then I will tell you one truth.” Alois’s grin was almost feral. “Fair.”
They played on. Moves became confessions in miniature: a queen sacrificed to save a king, a pawn promoted to a new identity. The room shrank until it contained only the board and the two boys, and the servants outside the door seemed to fade into the wallpaper. At one point, Ciel captured Alois’s knight and did not look triumphant. He looked tired. Alois’s hand hovered over the piece he would lose next, and for a heartbeat he considered letting the game slide into a draw, letting the boy keep his dignity. Instead he pushed forward, taking the piece and the small, private victory that came with it.
“You’re cruel,” Ciel said finally, voice low.
Alois’s smile softened into something almost like apology. “So are you.”
They both said it as if it were a fact, not an accusation. The words hung between them, fragile and true. When the endgame came, it was not a dramatic checkmate but a slow, inevitable narrowing of options. Ciel’s king was cornered; his face remained composed, but the single eye beneath the patch was bright. Alois watched him, pulse quickening with a mixture of triumph and something that felt dangerously like sorrow.
“Tell me your truth,” Alois said, not unkindly.
Ciel’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table. He looked at Alois as if measuring the distance between them, between two boys who had learned to be monsters because the world demanded it. “I am not what you think,” he said. “I am not merely a tool.”
Alois’s laugh was small. “Neither am I.”
They both knew the game was more than a contest of pieces. It was a way to test whether the other would reach across the gulf they both guarded. It was a way to see if cruelty could be a language for something softer. When Ciel finally tipped his king, it was with the same quiet dignity he wore to every defeat. Alois’s victory was a bright, sharp thing. He reached across the board and, for a moment that felt like a promise and a threat, touched Ciel’s hand.
“Mine,” Alois said, not as a command but as a claim.
Ciel did not pull away. He felt as though he should, as though he should draw his hand back sharp enough that it was like a burn, or maybe ice, the first sharp spike of pain before you accept it and lay your hand back down, but that, he did not do. He did not yield either. He let the contact be what it was: a small, human thing in a room full of masks. Outside, the manor hummed with its usual obedient quiet. Inside, two boys who had been taught to hide their hunger behind cruelty sat very close to one another and pretended the game had been only about chess.
By now, the candles had burned low enough that the wax pooled like small moons on the board’s edges. The room smelled of smoke and lemon polish and something softer, old paper and the faint, metallic tang of tension. Alois sat back, fingers still warm from the brief contact across the board. He watched Ciel as if the boy were a new constellation he’d only just learned to name. Alois’s grin had faded into something less performative, less sharp. He folded his hands in his lap and, for once, let silence do the work he usually filled with noise. “You played well,” he said, voice small in the way it became when he tried not to sound like a child.
Ciel’s expression remained composed, but the single visible eye was not entirely unreadable. “You were careless,” he replied. “You left openings.”
Alois laughed, but it was a laugh that trembled. “Careless. Right. I suppose I was.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and for a moment the malicious playfulness that usually defended him, softened into something rawer. “Do you know why I wanted you here, Ciel?”
Ciel’s jaw tightened. “You told me before.”
“No.” Alois’s fingers found the hem of his sleeve and twisted it, a small, nervous motion. “Not that. I wanted to see you. I wanted to see if you were real. If you were…if you were like me.”
Ciel’s gaze flicked up, sharp and immediate. “Like you how?”
Alois’s smile was a crooked thing, half confession, half dare. “Lonely. Angry. Tired of being told to be strong.” He swallowed. “I thought if I could make you mine... If I could make you look at me... Then maybe I wouldn’t feel so small.”
The words landed between them, fragile and honest. Ciel’s face did not change, but the air around him shifted. He had been taught to read people like maps; he catalogued Alois’s tremor, the way his voice had lost its usual theatrical edge, the way his fingers had stopped drumming. He understood the language of need even when it was wrapped in cruelty.
“You want to be seen,” Ciel said quietly, not unkindly. “You want someone to know you exist without you having to shout.”
Alois’s laugh was a whisper. “Isn’t that what everyone wants? Even you.”
Ciel’s reply was measured, the armour slipping just enough to show the seam. “I do not ask for pity.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Alois said, surprising himself with the gentleness in his tone. “I-” He stopped, then tried again, words tumbling out in a rush. “I like you, Ciel. Not like a rival. Not like a prize. I-” He flinched at the confession, as if the sound of it might shatter him. “I think about you. I want you to laugh at my stupid jokes. I want you to be angry at me when I’m mean. I want you to stay.”
Ciel’s face remained composed, but the single eye softened in a way Alois had not expected. The boy’s voice, when it came, was low and careful. “You are reckless with words.”
Alois’s grin returned, small and sheepish. “I am reckless with everything.”
There was a beat of silence. Sebastian’s presence at Ciel’s shoulder was a steady, protective weight; Claude’s at Alois’s side was a cool, watchful shadow. Neither moved. The servants beyond the door were a distant hum. In the hush, the two boys: both taught to hide hunger behind barbed wit, sat very close to one another and did not pretend the ache did not exist.
Ciel’s answer was not a refusal and not an acceptance. It was a truth wrapped in the same brittle dignity he wore to every negotiation. “I do not know how to stay.”
Alois’s hand, impulsive and small, reached out and brushed the back of Ciel’s fingers. It was a touch that asked for permission and offered a promise at once. Ciel did not pull away. He did not close his hand around Alois’s either. He let the contact be a thing that existed for a moment, neither claimed nor surrendered.
“You can learn,” Alois said, voice barely audible. “I can teach you. Or we can teach each other. I don’t know. I just-” He stopped, cheeks flushing with a heat that had nothing to do with the candles. “I like you, Ciel. I think I like you.”
The confession hung in the air, startling in its childishness and its bravery. Ciel’s single eye widened the faintest fraction, then narrowed with a look that was almost like amusement. Alois’s grin returned, bright and ridiculous. “Yes. Don’t laugh.”
“I am not laughing,” Ciel said, and there was a softness in his voice that made Alois’s heart stutter. “You are foolish.”
“Good foolish,” Alois said, as if that clarified everything.
They both laughed then: short, surprised, a little shaky. It was not the cruel, performative laughter Alois used to slice through rooms; it was the kind that leaks out when defences drop for a second too long. The sound filled the space between them like a small, fragile truce. Sebastian cleared his throat, the smallest, most polite interruption. “Master, shall we take our leave? When you are ready.”
Ciel inclined his head, composed once more. “Yes. We will go.”
Alois’s hand lingered on the table, where Ciel’s fingers had been. He watched the Earl and his butler move toward the door, the familiar, practiced distance between them. When the door closed, Alois felt the room shrink in a way that made his chest ache.
Claude’s voice was soft at his ear. “You have said something dangerous.”
Alois’s reply was immediate and stubborn. “Dangerous things are the only ones worth saying.”
Claude’s eyes were unreadable. “Very well. Then be careful with what you teach him.”
Alois’s grin returned, fierce and childish. “I will.”
For a long time after the candles guttered and the house settled, Alois sat with the echo of Ciel’s presence in the room. The confession had been clumsy and honest and utterly his. It did not change the world. It did not make the loneliness vanish. But it was a beginning. A small, dangerous opening in the armour both boys wore.
Outside, the night pressed against the manor like a patient thing. Inside, two children who had learned to survive by being monsters had found, for a moment, the courage to be something else.
Ciel closed the door with the quiet of someone who had practiced silence until it became a skill. The corridor swallowed the sound; the room felt smaller for the absence of Alois’s laughter. He moved to the window and stood with his back to the glass, the city lights a distant, indifferent scatter. Sebastian remained by the doorway, composed as ever, the faint scent of smoke and polish following him like a shadow. Ciel did not speak at once. He folded his hands behind his back and let the confession sit in the air between them, as if testing whether it would evaporate on its own. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and measured. “Alois said he likes me,” he reported, the words precise and oddly clinical.
Sebastian’s expression did not change, but his posture shifted in the smallest way, an almost imperceptible tightening at the shoulders. “He confessed,” Sebastian repeated, as if cataloguing the fact. “And you returned without incident.”
Ciel’s single visible eye was steady. “Yes.” He turned, meeting Sebastian’s gaze.
Sebastian crossed the room and closed the distance between them with the economy of motion he always used. He did not sit; he remained a presence, a line of black between Ciel and the window. “Alois Trancy is dangerous in ways that are not always obvious,” he said, voice soft but edged. “He is impulsive, theatrical, and he uses attention like a weapon.”
Ciel’s jaw tightened. “So do you think I should be afraid?”
Sebastian’s smile was the faintest thing, polite and unreadable. “Fear is useful when it keeps you alive. But panic is not. You must decide what this confession means for you strategically.” He paused, then added with a tone that was almost private, “He is a child who learned cruelty to survive. That does not make him harmless.”
Ciel considered the words. He had been taught to translate every human gesture into advantage or threat; Sebastian’s counsel was another set of coordinates on that map. “He wanted me to be his,” Ciel said. “He touched my hand.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed fractionally, not in judgment but in calculation. “Physical contact is a claim in his language. It can be a test, a provocation, or an attempt at intimacy. You must decide whether to accept the claim, to refuse it, or to use it.”
Ciel’s face did not betray the turmoil beneath the calm. “I do not know how to accept.”
Sebastian’s hand hovered near Ciel’s shoulder, not touching, an offer of steadiness rather than comfort. “You do not have to learn alone.” His voice was quiet, almost conspiratorial. “If you wish, I will observe Alois. I will learn his patterns. If he becomes a threat, I will remove it.” There was no flourish in the promise, no grand vow, only the simple, absolute competence that had kept Ciel alive. Ciel’s shoulders eased a fraction. “You will not tell the Queen,” he said, testing the boundary.
“I will tell only what endangers you or the household,” Sebastian replied. “Alois’s feelings are not a matter for Her Majesty unless they become a weapon against you.”
Ciel let out a breath that might have been a laugh if it had been louder. “You are always practical.”
“Practicality keeps us breathing,” Sebastian said. “And sometimes it keeps us human.”
For a long moment they stood like that, master and butler, the roles as familiar as the furniture. The confession Alois had made sat between them like a new variable in an equation. It did not change the rules of their world, but it altered the calculations. Ciel’s voice, when it came, was quieter than before. “If he tries anything foolish, I will not be so patient.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “Then I will be less patient than you.”
The promise was not romantic, not sentimental. It was a shield and a plan. It was the kind of protection Ciel had always been given: precise, efficient, and absolute. The city moved on, indifferent. Inside, a boy who had been taught to be a weapon and the man who kept the blade polished considered the new variable Alois represented. Neither of them pretended the problem was simple. Both of them, in their own ways, felt the small, dangerous tug of something that was not merely strategy: an ache for connection that had been taught to hide behind orders and iron.