bakerstreet | the singlebed meme

[He may or may not have a knife under the pillow, and he may or may not be contemplating using it to slit your throat, Alois.

The edge of the bed is close enough that an inch's worth of budge would send him tumbling off into the floor--that is how far over and out of reach he is. Faced away, naturally.]

Keep your feet to yourself.

Edited (already fucking up) 2014-11-13 03:18 (UTC)

[ Well, how had they ended up in this predicament? Oh, yes. Alois had been himself: taunting and teasing and luring Ciel to follow. Ciel had been himself: too prideful not to, and now, they were cooped in a dilapidated little cottage in the middle of the woods. Claude is surely taking his time, and Alois is upset, but hardly surprised by this fact, but Sebastian? What's keeping that leech?

Ciel should be thankful there's a beam of moonlight slashing through the crumbling rooftop. Alois still hasn't returned his ring. It's tucked safely in a pocket at his hipbone, and he can feel the metal press through fabric against his cloths. He wriggles his knees under the blanket they're sharing. ]

What if they get cold? [ his voice is smiling in the violet dark, lilting. ]

[The question only irritates Ciel more. For a long while, he says nothing, almost like he is trying his damnest to pretend to be asleep so he's not accidentally humoring Alois. But faking sleep, he realizes, will probably just incite greater touchy-feely attempts.

The air he expels is a short whuff of exasperation.] That's not my problem. Don't touch me with them.

[And as if it's the most logical thing in the world (minus the fact he is technically helping):] Put them under the blanket if they're cold. [This is the only obvious solution. So smart and helpful he is.]

[ I don't like them touched, anyway, is what he doesn't say.

Instead, he lies for a lengthy period of silence, and Ciel will have no trouble detecting he isn't asleep because he squirms a lot. A fidgeting child. Finally, he rolls onto his side, chin meeting Ciel's shoulder. ]

They say you'll survive a cold night better if you share warmth, Ciel.

[ But at least he hasn't embraced him. Not yet. ]

[Either the touch to his shoulder or the airy voice by his ear makes his skin crawl, and Ciel thinks maybe both had been the cause. He's not sure what to do; he has run out of bed to keep rolling away, and nothing short of desperation will make him roll back. Honestly, he doesn't even want to touch Alois with his elbow in a last ditch effort to get the boy away from him.

If he could just restrain being cowardly enough to scream for Sebastian to come retrieve him....] They say thieves and murderers are never able to get warm again. [The smirk that comes to him in the shadows is something he can't keep out of his voice.] Don't you think that's true?

[Just don't touch him.]

[ He hears the smirk in his inflection. Ciel should be able to feel the way Alois' heart cramps, excited and nervous. Ciel might be small, but the threat is still real, still something that can't be ignored.

Thieves and murderers. What's he going on about? No, wait. He must mean them. Alois hasn't killed anyone, but he's definitely stolen. And Ciel... Well, from what Claude gathered in his investigating, Alois can only imagine he means the two of them. Is Ciel really resistant to the idea of keeping warm through the night? Does he think he doesn't deserve it? If this is the case, it only further instills Alois' belief that they're exactly the same.

Demons and people alike will never understand children like them, and Alois is lonely enough that he wants to forgive Ciel for averting Claude's gaze. Though, all the same, Ciel still wrenched it away in the first place. The one thing Alois truly wants. How can forgive that? ]

Maybe it's warm in a demon's stomach. [ Then murderers and thieves would still find that unwarranted warmth, wouldn't they? ]

[Despite how pointless it is worrying over the outcome of his existence, the idea does tickle his mind from time to time. Like now after Alois' words. In the end, humans, even pampered Victorian children, can't ignore thoughts concerning death. Ciel has seen enough of it in his short life to occasionally be forced to entertain a lot of thoughts.

When all is said and done, a demon would have his soul, would eat it alive like a bowl of pristine and expensive chocolate confectionery. It's infuriating.

But it wouldn't happen until he was finished being a Phantomhive, dammit.] I don't intend to find out any time soon. [He'll be damned if he gives Sebastian the satisfaction of a quickly caught soul. He's not some sleaze off the street who begged for a worthless wish. He's not an idiot who will just roll over and die, not with this kind of power at his fingertips. Not with the Phantomhive duty on his shoulders.

He'll sleep when he's dead, and he'll be warm when he's in Hell.]

No, [ it's a murmur. ] I don't either.

[ After all, he wants Claude to go mad with hunger. That would really be something to behold.

Alois still doesn't wrap arms around him, but he nestles closer. Once, he was accustom to this kind of chill, but now that he's had a few years of being well-taken care of and swaddled in warm downy comforters, he can hardly bare it. He's shivering. ]

You've a lot planned, don't you, Ciel? [ And his condition. Isn't it more logical for the two of them to keep close? Ciel doesn't have to like him, but he shouldn't be stupid. ] Don't be angry.

[The proclamation gets his head to turn just enough that he can cut his completely normal, every day little boy eye back over his shoulder. Alois is such a sad state of affairs, he thinks. Perhaps a very tiny sliver of him feels sorry for the boy. Maybe. He'd strangle himself first before he ever admitted it, but they are quite similar in a few ways.

Unfortunately, Alois is barking up the wrong tree for comfort. Ciel has a hard enough time trying to comfort Elizabeth much less someone he swears he loathes.] Mm. [It's enough confirmation for now, and he turns his head away again. The huddling isn't as bad as being man-handled, so even though he feels like bathing profusely, he will allow it for the time being.

Warm and alive is better than being dead and soulless.]

It's a mistake to get in my way. Nothing can stop me from doing what needs to be done. No matter what I have to do, I will do it.

[ What's it like, Alois wonders while staring into the shadow of Ciel's back, to have that kind of conviction? Alois has plans, too. Things he thinks he's positive over. Torment Sebastian forever; give himself and Ciel to Claude so Claude will come as close as a demon can to loving him; never be alone again. But does he have the sort of certainty he can hear in Ciel's voice? It's unlikely. The only idea he's positive over is finding love, but who's ideas were the others? His?

It's mixed up; it's confusing.

He's quiet, though, because as chatty as he likes to be, these aren't things he wants to reveal to Ciel. I need more love, how weak, even Alois himself knows it. He wants Ciel to suffer a little bit, just a little, so he knows what he's done; and he doesn't want Ciel to suffer at all. He wants Ciel to know he's admired, has been for so long now, and that Alois could be such a good friend to him, if only he'd allow it.

The swinging pendulum heart of an insecure boy.

Finally: ] I believe you.

[ Because he does, but it won't stop Alois from trying to interfere. It isn't Ciel's plans he really wants to disrupt, anyway, only Sebastian's. ]

[Alois believes him.

He very nearly laughs, and it would have been a biting and scathing thing. Ciel doesn't think Alois understands at all. Does the other boy know what he is capable of? To what lengths he will go? Does Alois know of the apathy constricting his small heart, the one that should never truly know the suffering it does? Does Alois know?

Maybe Alois does.

Can Ciel ever accept this? It takes something to contract a demon--or does it? Alois surely was one of the few who wasted their breath. A soul... for what? Where is the revenge? Where is the perseverance? Where is the higher cause? (Don't wallow, push forward, complete what needs to be completed, honor.)

But no, it's love.

Ciel would probably laugh if he knew it, if Alois told him the truth. Love is such a petty thing to ask from a demon. He knows demons do not love. He knows Sebastian doesn't care what happens to him, only what happens to his soul. Love would never even think to enter the equation at all, not any kind of love: sensual, familial, platonic. Sebastian is a void of trickery and gluttony. Ciel knows this.

And that hurts only sometimes.] Do you also believe you're going to die cold and alone? Because that is what's going to happen. [He knows it isn't what Alois wants to hear at all, and that's precisely why he says it.]

There's not going to be anyone [He smiles hollowly in the dark.] but you and a hungry demon.

[ Behind Ciel, Alois is stricken by his words, mortified, then furious because he's mortified by Ciel's words. Fucking Ciel Phantomhive who Claude looks at. He and a hungry demon is satisfactory. He's already been alone, but he supposes Ciel wouldn't know that, prefers that he didn't, after all, Alois is just like Ciel.

A cold, little noble, with nothing left to lose.

The air in that one room is too silent, too thick, and then there are fingers digging only long enough to Ciel's shoulder for Alois to push him hard off the bed. The thud doesn't make him flinch, but it does make his heart stutter. Not even decisive enough to be sure of his own sadistic tendencies. Ciel will still find him scowling down his nose from the bed, sitting up now. ]

If I were you, I'd be careful about the words you let run out of your mouth.

[The instance he feels the small fingers curling into his shoulder, he knows he is going to be pushed. The shove jars him, and he scrambles to grab at the sheets of the bed, but doing so half-assedly does little. Meeting the ground is a rougher experience on his pride than it is on his body. The drop hurts, and a grunt of pain escapes his throat, one that makes his hands fist on the floor.

How dare he. How dare Alois push him on the ground much less even think to touch him with those filthy fingers? No one throws down a Phantomhive and gets away with it so easily.

Anger begins boiling up through his chest, bringing heat into his cheeks--shame, too, but mostly pure and unbridled rage. When he looks up from the floor at Alois, both eyes are visible, staring, penetrating the other boy through the dark with ice and darkness. But the sigil isn't glowing, so he hasn't summoned Sebastian, hasn't given a command, an order. No, this is too personal now. Payback is something he will have to give himself.

There is something distinctly more terrifying in how slow he gets up than if he had flung himself on Alois in blind wrath. He doesn't bother to adjust his clothes, or get rid of the dirt. He turns to face Alois fully, breath not so much labored as it is just deep, controlled. He pierces the other boy with a hellish gaze.

And then he reaches back quickly and slaps Alois across the face as hard as he can.] Uncivilized animals should be careful who they put their dirty hands on.

Edited (a word) 2014-11-19 13:09 (UTC)

[ There's a terror in those measured movements that Alois doesn't expect from someone so small. Sebastian scares him, Claude really scares him, Hannah - the worst of all, Ciel... He never thought it possible, but in this moment, in this moment of watching him lift himself from the floor to stand before him, Alois is sent on edge. He doesn't even think to duck from the hand coming toward him, and there's a deliberate bite to it that has him crying out once and pressing his hand to his cheek as if to stave off the sting.

Crying out is so foreign. Jim never cried out, he endured in silence. What has Claude Faustus molded Alois into? A baby, an infant, small and very helpless. Dependent on a creature of hell, of all things.

Alois lacks Ciel's self-control. He's terrified and practically manic when he stands on the bed this time and shoves him again. ]

You're really asking for it, Ciel! [ He shrieks, and because he shrieks the threat likely dies with it. He'll easily bruise and batter him, but he can't kill Ciel, and Ciel must know it. Must feel it somehow, even peripherally. Ciel must know how valuable he is. ]

Edited (A DEMON. whoops.) 2014-11-21 05:45 (UTC)

[A steely wall has taken the shape of Ciel. He is immovable, unflinching. Even with the second shove, he does little more than waver, and he only does that because his body is small, a child's. The mania that flows out of Alois like water is absent in Ciel. True, there is something there, some rage, some twisted excitement, but it is locked away deep inside of him. Victorian grooming has given him a grand poker face.

And he knows. He knows that Alois cannot kill him, and not only because he's valuable, but because of who he is, because of who, of what he commands. Sebastian. The name alone will summon the most terrifying force Alois has ever seen, and Ciel is well aware of this.

But it would be a waste. As much as Ciel would love to see it, would love to do it, he knows, in the end, Alois isn't even worth the parting of lips. He also knows fighting is a waste. The energy it requires to shut Alois down when they are stuck in this shithole in this shit room in this shit bed is bothersome. He's cold, getting colder, and if he doesn't get back into place, he will be coughing, and then he will be crippled by childhood illness.] Sit down before I lay you down. [The threat in his too-quiet, too-controlled voice is very real.

He means what he says.] You are acting like a child.

[ That he doesn't fall back is somehow newly upsetting, causing teeth to set. Had his hands faltered? It's not unlikely. His method of damage, while trimmed in fickle, childish sadism and very violent, is too human, too unsure, too desperate at times. A hand landing on a demon's face is a child crying out for the demon he's just struck. This has been, only recently, instilled in him, and of course, he's no clear grasp of it. He thinks his motives are his own, not driven or influenced by darkened murmurs.

Even before Ciel speaks, when he sees how poised he stands, he wants to shrink, but doesn't. It's disbelief that he wears on his face, at Ciel's composure, at his unflinchingness, and at the command, reluctantly, does the other boy settle back on his calves. To be sure, the fear that he could call for Sebastian is present, and that Claude wouldn't show up to help him, but Ciel—few inches tinier than him little Ciel—has his own authority that demands one's compliance, and an unconfident child like Alois submits almost too easily.

The surge of energy leaves him breathing more extraneously than if he had kept himself as together as well as Ciel has, foggy and heavy, the sound of tears brewing. They don't come. By some miracle, he keeps them back. It would make this so much worse. It feels like he should say something, but he isn't about to apologize. Ciel was cruel; Alois has every right to defend himself.

He moves back to his small space next to the wall—a fitting, and feminine place; guarded from the empty the dark holds between Ciel and wooden paneling—and lies down, facing his back to him this time. ]

[That's what he thought.

Mildly, Ciel is relieved. Now he doesn't have to exert himself by getting physical with Alois over the truth. The last thing he wanted was to be exhausted and dirty trying to violently babysit a jealous brat. So this is good, the compliance is good, but he continues to stand there, straight-faced and serious and threatening, until he's absolutely certain Alois is tucked in the hole that is the back corner of the bed and behaving.

Satisfied, Ciel reaches out to gather the blanket to the side, opening a space for him to enter once more. The thought of getting into bed after being on the floor makes him cringe, leaves a terrible taste in his mouth. Disgusting. The level of an inbred savage. Unfortunately, he has little choice in the matter, so he bites the inside of his cheek and climbs back under the covers as he had been previously.

This time, he faces Alois.

In the dark, through the sliver of light that splits the bed between them, he watches Alois' back with the blue eye of a boy and the purple eye of a demon. It's not that he doesn't trust Alois--he doesn't--but that he is looking to create an air of unease, a continued warning that tittybaby behavior won't be tolerated.

You can slap around your demon if you want, Alois, but Ciel isn't going to be playing that game.]

[ Alois endures for what feels like endless minutes. Easily, it could be three or thirty, but eventually, the eyes cutting into him are too much. ]

Quit, [ his voice is hoarse, from the shrill tone it took earlier and its immediate disuse. ]

[The eyes don't move or falter, and he doesn't bother turning to his back or turning in the opposite direction. The thought doesn't even cross his mind at all.]

I'm not doing anything.

[Except boring some serious holes in Alois' backside.]

[ WHO'S BEING THE CHILD NOW UH-HUH.

Ciel's eyes drill holes into Alois; Alois' eyes drill holes into the wall, and then he forces himself to turn over to face Ciel and stare back. It's fine. He'll play this game. ]

[NOT HIM.

Fine.

He will also play this game. And win. Staring at Alois isn't a problem. Ciel has the best poker face around London. All he has to do is imagine slitting Alois' throat. No--no. He can't.

That will just make him smile.]

Go to sleep. [So he can win, and then he doesn't have to look at your face.]

[ Go to sleep. Okay. Nope, sorry, he's not. But a brow is rising, and he is half-smiling himself. This has the potential to be a lot of fun. ]

You go to sleep. You're delicate, Ciel, you need your rest.

[He looks suddenly irritable. He wants to change the subject, but that would be giving up in a way, and he doesn't give up.]

I'll go to sleep when you go to sleep.

Oh, Ciel. I'll go to sleep, when you go to sleep, [ on a giggle. ]

I'll go to sleep...

[His pale and slim hand and wrist appear like an apparition into the slice of light dividing them, lying against the bed, palm up and open.]

...if you give it back to me.

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