tell me i'm adored

     No, he expected him to quiver, to cry, to give Ciel a second to collect himself and perhaps drive a finishing blow. However, the boy stood up with no look of fear in his eyes; not even with the blood dripping from his broken nose. Instead, the fire-poker was back in his hands and he was charging forward with an adrenaline burst that Ciel hadn’t the strength to keep up with. Within a few seconds, the distance was broken between them and the weapon was lifted over him. There was no pause, no falter, no mercy – the object was slammed down on him with all the weight the blonde could muscle.

     The first whack was on his collarbone, just where he had already been wounded. He let out a cry and tried to turn himself away from the stick, only to be hit on the opposite shoulder instead. Every little inch he moved, Alois would still find him and crash the weapon down on him over, and over again. The pain bubbled in every place touched by the fire-stick, with wounds that stained his skin a nasty red that would later turn into the ugliest of bruises. His body was fragile—too fragile for this. If his collarbone wasn’t broken, there was certainly something wrong with it, because lifting it to move himself away even an inch hurt more than every other whack given to him.

     He managed to spin himself onto his stomach, his eyes wide and desperate as he attempted to get on his knees to crawl away, only to be slammed down on the back by Alois. He hit the ground hard, wheezing to inhale more air. He couldn’t continue like this. His bones could only take so much.

     Glancing up with wide eyes, he saw the fire-poker lift again and plummet down, aiming straight for his head. A blow like that could render him unconscious or knock his brain around enough to deal permanent damage, even death. His mouth was left agape and his body flipped with his hand outstretched in front of him as the least his body could do to secure him from such a blow.

                                              [ KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL ! ]

     It had only been a second, but Alois’ crazed, angry gaze bearing down on him warped into a masked and psychopathic man; the knife—the knife was tearing down on him. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t—that child, the sacrifice—

     The blade stopped right in front of him, his unblinking gaze halted as it seemingly paused right then and there. His breathing was hitched and his hands were shaking, but he couldn’t… move.

     “Good heavens, I can’t leave you unattended at all, Young Master,” said a voice that ripped him back to reality. The fire-poker was just over his head, but not touching him. A gloved hand was holding it back, it seemingly weightless in his hand. In a slight daze, Ciel watched Alois for a moment, registering the reality of what had just happened. His throat felt dry, as if he had let out the most painful of sounds, but he could have sworn there was only silence.

     The fire-poker was ripped out of Alois’ grip and slammed back into him in an unforgiving manner. Ciel watched as the boy slammed into the ground with the weapon lodged in his middle, then kicked into the debris like vermin. “Sebastian,” Ciel mumbled, glancing up momentarily at his butler before settling again on the Trancy earl.

     Anger settled in him, and as Sebastian scooped him up into his hold, an order barked out of him like venom from a snake. “Destroy him! Now! Get rid of this vermin!”

     At first he struggled, not quite registering that something-- or someone-- was holding him back, but moments later he was snapped back to reality by the velvety sound of a man's voice, somehow vaguely familiar, and he froze. Blue eyes widened as anger subsided, making way for an icy terror that settled somewhere in his gut. He knew that voice, and the fact that he was hearing it now meant only one thing: his servants had failed.

     Everything from that moment on happened in a blur. He didn't even have a chance to try and escape before Sebastian ripped the weapon from his grip like the blond's hands were made of putty. Alois was nothing more than a weak and pitiful human. A child. There was no hope of getting out of the way when his attacker was a monster who moved like lightening. All he could do was scream when the sharpened metal pierced his flesh, dug into him as if that were its intended purpose. And then he was coughing, the taste of iron on his tongue, as Sebastian kicked him aside like he weighed nothing at all.

     I'm going to die.

     He'd never been so sure of anything in his entire life. This was it. He was going to die there, lying in a pile of crumbled marble and plaster, screaming and crying and choking on his own blood. This wasn't how things were supposed to end. Where was Claude? Why wasn't he there? Wasn't it his job to protect Alois? How could he abandon the boy at a time like this? Perhaps his beloved servant never truly cared at all. That thought in itself was almost as painful as the wound in his abdomen, but his fear upon catching sight of Sebastian slowly moving toward him was far more intense.

     "W-wait--!" Let the pleading begin. He'd say anything to keep that demon away from him because regardless of his suffering, Alois didn't want to die. Who knew what would become of him? "P-please don't! I d-didn't.. d-didn't mean t-to do that--!"

     The blond made a feeble attempt to push himself up from the floor, but it hurt. Dear God did it hurt. Getting out of there on his own would be completely impossible, and all the while Ciel and his butler showed no sign of mercy. Apparently, the younger boy's orders were final, though really Alois shouldn't be surprised. He should have expected this from the second he heard Sebastian's voice-- and perhaps he did, somewhere in his mind-- but still he continued to plead, to beg, until suddenly something landed gracefully in front of him, blocking out the fuzzy image of Ciel and Sebastian. Something dark and familiar that towered over him and blocked him from their line of sight like a shield.

         His eyes widened as the weapon came toward him, ripping immediately through the cloth and piercing through his skin. Blood found its way out of the wound fast and slipped out a few seconds after the cut was made. Ciel’s eyes were wide and his mouth left agape, a ‘huc’ sound escaping him from trying to hold in a scream. His mouth slowly closed and his gaze became half-lidded as he looked up at Alois Trancy, the boy’s face warping from one person to the next. Unwanted memories flooded his brain like a hurricane; but he needed to keep it together.

         Taking in a shaky breath, he pushed himself backwards and tore the fire-poker away from him, unintentionally letting out a pained cry as the weapon ripped out of his flesh. Doing so caused him to fall completely backwards, to which he recoiled and sat back up as soon as he could manage, quickly reaching his hand for the fire poker and gripping the near-edge, just before the part that stabbed him, and began pulling on it despite the near-screeching protests of his open wound.

         Never will he let his pride be tainted by the likes of another.

         Ciel didn’t entirely register just what he was doing as he was tugging the fire-poker from Alois with all of his strength; which wasn’t much, especially after that blow. He also didn’t know what he would do afterward should he ever obtain it from the other’s grip, which didn’t seem likely. What he did know was that he needed to stay alive—at least for now. Alois pulling the fire-poker toward him, with Ciel on the end, helped him stand again although it left a nasty cut on his palm.

         Another shake of the manor – a larger blow – caused a bunch of debris to scatter in clumps in random places. A larger, rock-like piece of the manor a tad bigger than Ciel’s fist caught his eye on the ground, and in a sudden last-bit effort, he shoved Alois back by pushing the fire-poker rather than pulling it, and nearly fell to the ground from the unstableness of the manor and his own injuries as he made way toward the particular piece of the Trancy manor. He picked it up in his hands, stumbling as he righted himself, and turned toward Alois. His expression was slightly crazed now. Disoriented, exhausted, aggravated.

     Yet another blast, from somewhere to the right this time, sent the manor into another fit of tremors, and as the floor beneath them shook, Ciel pushed the fire poker forward. Alois, who was still trying to pull the thing out of his opponent's hands, lost his balance immediately, stumbling back in a most ungraceful manner and landing hard on his backside.

     The good news was the fire poker was back in his possession. The bad news was his concentration had been lost in the process.

     Alois was too dazed, too surprised, to notice when Ciel's hand closed around a rather large chunk of debris from his crumbling mansion. By the time he'd caught sight of the rock hard piece of marble in the other boy's hand, it was too late. Ciel was already throwing it at him; and from only a few feet away. Alois didn't even have time to duck.

     -- C R U N C H .

     The hunk of marble hit him square in the nose with a disgusting crackling, squelching sound, and not a second later Alois was howling in pain, dropping the fire poker in favor of burying his face in his hands. His nose both ached and burned at the same time, eyes stinging and vision going blurry no thanks to the tears welling in the corners. Blood trickled between his fingers, running down his arms and dripping onto his clothes, onto the dusty, debris covered floor.

     "It's broken! It's broken!" Alois wailed, clawing at his bleeding face as though doing so would fix it. He was never very good at dealing with pain. "You broke my bloody nose, you filthy little wretch!"

     All at once, the faux earl pushed himself back to his feet, grabbing hold of the discarded fire poker and smearing the handle with red. There was no longer any kind of amusement in his eyes. Instead his teary, azure hues turned dark with rage. Playtime was over, and in that moment, Alois made it all too obvious. He charged at Ciel, weighted metal at the ready, and brought the object down on the smaller boy once, twice, three times. Over, and over, anywhere he could reach.

         Instinctively, Ciel leaned away from Alois as he came closer, his eyes slightly narrowing as the boy spoke in a very uncomfortable proximity.  He felt himself press closer to the maid that held him down, but he was done with struggling for the time being. They could sit there as the building crumbled but any and all debris would not touch him. Any drop of Alois’ blood would sit in a pool below him, not even staining his feet. Sebastian was good at his “job”, per say, and Ciel knew his soul was too golden for Sebastian to give up or for a simple human boy to take his life. If they were both going to die, Ciel wasn’t going to let it be at the hands of someone less vulgar than the scum of the earth itself – a demon. He promised an eternity in Hell, and he’d get just that.

         Alois didn’t understand what Ciel was trying to do. He didn’t understand the explosions or the fire, he didn’t understand that this place just became a beacon and his plan to kill Ciel was completely ruined. Ciel’s mouth curled in disgust as Alois touched his face, but there was no true fear in his gaze. Ciel put up with far more than this little Earl, and he’d go through more than that once this charade was over. Another loud boom echoed from the outside and made the walls quiver, the dust and paint sprinkling off the walls and the ceiling from the vibration.

         The order was made that caused Ciel to roughly hit the floor, and he scrambled for a moment before sitting up straight, with a hand on his back to hold onto the area where another bruise was sure to form.  He glanced up at the Earl Trancy, contemplating again how long it would take for his plan to measure out. If Alois was going to torment him, his only real concern was how long he’d drag it out for. Ciel could handle pain, he could handle torture; if he was killed immediately, that would mean his secret plan happening outside of the manor was useless.

         Ciel had to convince Alois to drag it out. He flashed back to when Alois was pinning him against the door, and the smirk he donned as he made Ciel’s walls break down, made him weaker. Had Ciel stayed in place, he figured he would have been tortured until he was nothing but a weak child before he was finally executed. If Alois wanted to pick apart at his pride, he’d have to remind him that it was still standing. Fortunately for the Phantomhive, his pride was thicker than any knife Alois could slash him with.

     He sent Hannah away with a wave of his hand and a muttered "do something about this" before turning his attention back to his apparently unfazed victim. That uppity attitude of his simply wouldn't do. Not at all. Alois wanted him broken.

     "What are you on about now?" The blond tapped his cheek, looking thoughtful. In reality he was anything but. "Did you hit your head when that useless bitch dropped you? Poor, delicate, little Ciel. Clearly you're confused. I haven't lost a thing. But you on the other hand--"

     A blast from the other side of the wall to Alois' left interrupted him mid-sentence, sending shock waves of vibration throughout the manor. It was enough to silence him for a short while, that is, until something thin and metallic rolled across the floor and bumped against the toe of his shoe. Blue eyes caught sight of it, and the grin that stretched across his visage was nothing short of diabolical. A fire poker glinted up at him through the dim light of a torch mounted on the wall.

     "I suppose if you're really as disoriented as you seem--" The blond's smirk grew ever wider as he leaned down, lifting the weighted metal into his hands. It was perfect. Exactly what he needed. "I could refresh your memory a little."

     He stepped toward the smaller boy, towering over him with a menacing gleam in his eyes. Oh, yes. This was most definitely his chance to prove Ciel wrong. Alois was no loser, and he was going to make that fact very, very clear.