Title: Just Be Friends

Main Pairing: Alois/Claude

Other Pairing: Ciel/Claude

Warnings: Adult Content, OOC

Genre: AU, Hurt/Comfort, Romance

Chapter: 1

Completed: No

Summary: Things in Alois Trancy's were always changing as he grew up. The only one constant, the very rock of Alois' life, is Claude Faustus.

AN: Okay guys so this is my first time writing for the Kuroshitsuji fandom so go easy on me. This will be multi-chaptered (I just haven't figured out how many yet) and yes there will be smut later on. Hope you enjoy. I also hope I've finally managed to format this right.

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Alois is eighteen years old when he tells Claude he hates him

It is raining outside.

It is raining outside as a blonde haired boy in a graduation gown runs across an empty college campus. Most of the population is indoors for such weather or attending the graduation that had to be moved inside. Alois Trancy is the blonde haired boy foolish enough to be out in such weather. Lightening cracks overhead and while Alois is scared, his feet continue running to a destination that even he is unsure about.

All Alois can think about is that he needs to get out of there. All Alois can think about is how much his pride has been hurt. All Alois can think about is damn Claude Faustus.

Alois steps in a puddle that causes a large amount of water to stain his regal blue gown. Lightening cracks again overhead and Alois' graduation cap falls off as a voice calls after him.

"Alois!" The faint voice of Claude Faustus calls after him. Alois is panting from exertion now, but his pace dies not slow even when his legs burn.

"Alois!" Claude calls again and Alois sobs. The rain had done a good job of hiding his tears up to this point.

"Fuck off!" Alois' scream echoes throughout the stone buildings of the campus. Still the pounding of feet on pavement pursues Alois and only seems to pick up with speed.

The front part of Alois' shoe catches on an uneven cobblestone and he is spent falling. He lands in a huge puddle, totally soaking his gown now, when Claude finally catches up to him.

"Alois." Claude says again putting a hand on the blonde's shoulder, which is quickly slapped away.

"Get away from me." Alois mutters staring down at his reflection in the puddle in which he kneels.

"Alois." Claude says simply again and it annoys the blonde to no end.

"Fuck off! You shouldn't be here! You shouldn't have come! How dare you!" Alois grits his teeth together before standing up on his own.

He tips his chin up so that he can stare at the other down the bridge of his nose.

"Claude Faustus, I hate you!"

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Alois is ten years old when he first likes a boy

Alois bits his lip and looks down at his hands. Mrs. Durless has just divided the class up into groups of two for a project when Alois is pared with Ciel Phantomhive.

Ciel has been in every one of Alois' classes since kindergarten and the blonde had never thought much of him. That was until Ciel had chased off some bullies that were picking on Alois one day. It was after that Alois' hands started to sweat whenever Ciel was around or his stomach would flutter uncomfortably.

"You cut the paper into squares." Ciel instructs getting right down to business the moment he sits down. Alois blinks at the raven-haired boy for a moment, mind rudely awakened from daydreaming about the rare moments Ciel smiles.

"W-what?" Alois shakes his head looking to the glue sticks and scissors that have been placed before them.

"If we divide the work up we should be able to finish before recess." Ciel sounds slightly annoyed as he whittles away at the colorful construction paper, "After that we should have enough squares to make a checkerboard. It's common sense."

"Well of course." Alois blushed profusely, slightly insulted by Ciel's words, "You'd have to be thick not to know that."

Ciel glances slightly at him through his peripheral vision but Alois makes a point of seeming entranced with cutting the paper. Ciel really did have the most beautiful eyes, they were like two blue orbs reminiscent of the sea, and Alois found himself slightly obsessed with their color. A few moments pass before Ciel makes a small noise of amusement before returning to the task at hand.

It was in that moment that Alois just wants to die of embarrassment. Alois was awfully shy as a young child and it would only be until after he met a certain person that Alois would truly come out of his shell. But for now, Alois dutifully cut up the paper into squares meanwhile the whole time floating that he was sitting next to Ciel Phantomhive.

Alois went to recess that day thinking over his strange feelings when around Ciel. The other boys and girls of the class were already quickly discovering that cooties did not exists and were developing little crushes on one another. Alois could not even think of a single person in the class that he took a particular liking to except for Ciel.

Yes, Alois decides, he did rather like Ciel. Then young Alois Trancy went home that day, all the while thinking happy childish thoughts of the boy with the blue eyes like that of the sea.

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Alois is eleven years old when he meets Claude Faustus

The front door of the Trancy household opened with a loud bang as Alois was startled from his homework. Fifth grade was proving to be a lot harder than elementary school accompanied by new loads of homework that Alois despised. In the past year Alois was also starting to undergo different changes as well. Alois had grown three inches resulting in a new wardrobe purchased from the 'pre-teen' section in the mall that made Alois feel very grown up. He'd also grown his hair out longer with a considerable amount of fringe in the front rather than the short close-shaven cut Alois' mother had always insisted on.

"Hey squirt!" The sounds of multiple sneakers on the hardwood floors of the foyer are heard, "I'm home!"

"Luka!" Alois drops his pencil immediately and rushes towards the door prepared to engulf his older brother in hug. Alois rounds the corner of the living room, arms extended, when he slams into a much taller and much more firm figure. Alois is knocked to the ground on his behind when he looks up to see a total stranger.

There are two boys with Luka that Alois has never seen before. Both of which have ghastly white complexions and dark hair. However the particular person that Alois has slammed into is the one of the two wearing glasses. The teenage boy stares down at Alois with tawny golden eyes and Alois' heart skips a beat.

"Who are you?" Alois frowns looking to the other dark haired boy who sends Alois that smile. It's the smile that the elderly give young children even when the children are not so young anymore and Alois sends the boy a scowl.

"Eh," Luka scratches at his brown hair, "This is Sebastian Michaelis and Claude Faustus. We've gotta do a chemistry report that's due on Monday so they might be hanging around here for the next few days."

Alois turns away from the one called Sebastian and looks to his older brother. The Trancy family had moved to Barnegat, New Jersey mid summer two years ago, making it initially difficult for the Trancy boys to make friends. However after the first day of elementary school Alois was already pretty settled in, Luka on the hand seemed to have trouble making friends in high school. Alois was a lot brighter than he led others to believe and he immediately understood Luka's hidden meaning in those words.

I want to be friends with these people. Please don't mess this up.

Alois' eyes round in understand as he quickly stands up off the ground and dusts himself off. He then flashes a smile at his older brother before turning to leave.

"Well I have homework to do," Alois says, "So I'll be leaving you guys alone now."

"Homework?" The one called Claude has spoken and it startles Alois for some strange reason, "At such a young age?"

"I'm eleven!" Alois huffs, stamping his foot on the floor in a manner that only reiterates Claude's assumption.

"Alois." Luka says eyes wide, "Mom told you to have all of your homework done by the time I got home. Go. Now."

"Fine." Alois grumbles sneaking one last glance at the dark haired teenage boy with the glasses before storming off to his room.

It is a quarter past six o'clock when Alois realizes that neither of his parents has returned home from work yet. Alois had finished his homework hours ago and now his poor little stomach was rumbling with hunger. The sky has turned dark outside already and Alois frowns dropping the magazine he'd been reading.

"Luka!" Alois calls hoping off his bed and venturing towards the stairs, "Luka!"

The house is quite and Alois bits his lip in worry. In all of the horror movies that Alois had watched, when he was supposed to be asleep in bed, the house always gets quite before the murder kills someone.

"Luka!" Alois screams louder this time slowly walking down the stairs. Luka and his friends are not in the living room, or the dining room, or the kitchen for that matter.

Alois' heart begins to pump in his chest now and he whines quietly in fear. The Trancy household is no manner scary but to an eleven year old wandering around in the pitch black of night with no knowledge of where anyone has gone, it's worse than being in a haunted house. At least in a haunted house Alois has Luka's arm to hold on to. At least in the haunted house Alois knows that nothing is real.

"Luka this isn't funny!" Alois is close to tears now, "Luka! Where are you?"

A noise creaks throughout the house just then and Alois jumps with fright gripping onto a nearby chair. He listens for a few moments in total silence when there is another creak, the sound of pressure on wood, coming from the upstairs. Alois is not in the house alone and he pales.

"Oh." Alois whispers to the darkness sinking down so that he may crawl on the floor.

Then carefully and silently, Alois crawls towards the kitchen in hopes of telephoning for help. The ceiling creaks overhead again and Alois squeezes his eyes shut but forces himself to keep moving.

Then an unsettling silence falls over the house.

The silence Alois stops in his tracks and looks towards the back door in the kitchen. There is the silhouette of a person standing in front of the door and Alois can even summon up the courage to scream for help. The person jiggles the door handle repeatedly as they try to enter the house. Fear has paralyzed Alois now as his arms quake and his legs feel numb. This is just like in the slasher movies and any moment now a crazy man in a hockey mask is going to bust through that door and kill Alois with a chainsaw.

The person jiggles the door handle once more before the faulty lock clicks open. The door begins to open as the person moves inside of the house. Alois opens his mouth, just about to scream when…

"AHHHHH!"

A large figure jumps at Alois from the side hallway screaming like some sort of monster and little Alois screams in fear at the top of his lungs.

"What are you boys doing?"

The light flicks on in the kitchen to reveal Mrs. Trancy standing in the doorway with a bag of groceries and a very confused expression. The giant monster tugs off the blanket that had been covering it to reveal Luka, Sebastian, and Claude. And poor Alois, poor Alois, has wet his pants cowering on the floor.

"I swear to God," Mrs. Trancy shakes her head looking amongst the odd scene, "You boys are going to go blind walking around the house like this in the dark."

"Mommy." Alois whimpers close to tears as the attention of the room his shifted to him. Sebastian takes in the sight of Alois before bursting out in laughter.

"Oh my god!" Sebastian tugs on Luka's sleeve pointing at the younger brother, "He's wet his pants."

Luka and Claude now look at Alois and the noticeable wet spot on his jeans before Luka too is laughing. His own brother! Alois really does begin to cry now as he looks to his mother who still has no idea what exactly just happened to the laughing face of his brother.

"It's not funny." Alois says tears streaming down his face.

The older boys continue to laugh.

"It's not funny!" Alois repeats again only to be drowned out by the laughter.

Hurt and anger build inside of Alois as he jumps to his feet and shrieks at the top of his lungs.

"You can just die!" Alois' shriek silences the boys, "Die! All of you! You can all just die!"

"Alois!" Mrs. Trancy bawks in scandal but young Alois is already running up to his room sobbing.

Alois runs right up the very stairs that he'd been terrified to walk down earlier and slams the door to his room closed behind him. He then throws himself onto his bed and starts to cry. Alois fists the sheets unleashing his sobs into the thick layers of blankets beneath him so that his cries will be muffled. The last thing Alois needs right now is for Luka to call him a crybaby.

A knock is sounded at the door as Luka speaks through the door.

"Alois?"

"Go away!" Alois picks up his head to scream before dropping it back down onto the bed.

"Alois come on. We weren't trying to be mean. I mean we didn't know you were going to cry." Luka sighs tapping softly at the door, "Alois?"

"Go away! I never want to see you again! Ever!"

Luka can be heard sighing on the other side of the door before his footsteps retreat back downstairs. Alois catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and he frowns in disgust. Alois' eyes are red and his cheeks are splotchy. Alois rubs at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt when he remembers that his pants are still soiled. He is changing out of them and putting on a new pair when someone knocks at the door again.

"Luka I told you to go away!" Alois barks furiously rubbing at his eyes willing the tears to stop.

"It's not Luka." A male voice says calmly and Alois freezes up looking to the door. He only hesitates for a moment before scrambling across the room to stand before the door. The hallway light casts the shadows of a set of feet standing directly in the opposite side and Alois stares at them in wonder.

"Alois." The voice says still calm and composed, "Open the door."

The last sentence has an authoritative tone that has Alois opening the door before he can even really process what he was doing. Standing in the doorway, towering over Alois, is Claude Faustus. He looks down at Alois expectantly with a face void of emotion.

"What do you want?" Alois sniffs rubbing at his eyes once more when both of his wrists are grabbed. A sharp shock of electricity shoots up Alois' arms as a strange feeling overcomes Alois. It is similar to that of what Alois feels around Ciel but only ten times stronger.

"You shouldn't rub at your eyes anymore like that." Claude says releasing Alois' wrists who stares up at Claude in wonder, "You might scratch your cornea."

"My what?" Alois says rather sassily and Claude pushes up his glasses on the bridge of hi nose.

"You'll hurt your eyes and then you'll have to wear glasses like me."

Alois' hands shoot to his mouth in shock as he stares at Claude in fear. Claude face twitches into something that resembles a smile before he ruffles Alois' blonde locks.

"Your mother sent me up here to try and convince you to come down for dinner. She says that it's your favorite or something." Claude looks at the ceiling as if trying to remember. Alois' face lights up like a Christmas tree as he grabs onto Claude's sleeve and tugs it viciously.

"Fish and chips?" The eleven-year-old squeals and Claude looks caught off guard at the explosive reaction.

"Yes. I think she may have said that it was fish and chips."

"Well then let's go! Fish and chips are the best!" Alois cheers grabbing Claude by the hand and leading him down the stairs.

Claude's eyes trail down his arm to where Alois' hand grasps him. Alois has impossibly small yet slender fingers that grip Claude's tightly as if he were going to run away. A few stray locks from Alois' fringe bounced as the two descend down the stairs and enter the kitchen. Then time seems to slow as Claude observes the Trancy household, as this moment becomes one of the most vivid moments of Claude's life.

Mrs. Trancy is setting the steaming plates down on the table as Mr. Trancy finally comes home from work. Luka is teasing Alois in means of an apology as Sebastian is staring meticulously at a drop of malt vinegar that sits on the plate's rim. Mr. Trancy kisses Mrs. Trancy on the cheek as he tells her about today's work. Claude takes this whole scene in with silence as Alois' happy voice talks a million miles a minute.

Meanwhile under the table, Alois seems to have forgotten that he's still holding Claude's hand.