Takes place in the same universe as Rainwater and There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, after the events of the latter, so reading those might clarify some things. Trigger warning for domestic abuse and violence.
You hit me once.
A loud crash echoed through the bedroom as the side table in the corner near the large windows clattered to the wooden floor. Ciel caught his balance before tumbling with it as he had been the cause of its downfall. His stance widened as he gripped his sore arm in the place where the blonde approaching him now had punched him.
Alois' fists were still clenched tightly at his sides as he stalked towards the younger of the two. His shoulders were hunched and led the eye up to his bared and clenched teeth, while wisps of blonde locks fell messily in front of steel blue eyes.
"Alois, what the hell?!" Ciel shouted at him. Alois had been aiming for his face, a sure sign that was legitimately angry with him. Ciel had just barely ducked out of the way.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" he screamed back as he swung again.
Ciel dodged it quickly and darted around him while Alois' momentum carried him into the wall. He crashed into it and whipped his face around. Ciel readied himself as he came charging back at him once more. They crashed into the plush rug below them.
I hit you back.
Ciel's knuckles collided with the other's cheekbone and sent him tumbling off of him to the right. Alois rolled and stopped a few feet away, a bit stunned by the impact. Ciel took advantage of the pause to sit up and catch his breath.
"Alois, what is wrong?!" he demanded of the other boy. Alois' breath came in ragged, shaking gusts as he got to his feet. His entire body was trembling visibly, and Ciel wasn't sure what had happened. They had merely been talking about plans.
The Queen wished for Ciel to go to France in a week's time to investigate something having to do with the English nobility and a series of kidnappings, and it was a mission he needed Alois for. When he had insisted, with threat of revealing his secret, that Alois accompany him despite his request to remain in England, the blonde had flown into his current state.
"Do you have any regard for anyone other than yourself?!" he hissed as he approached, "I told you, I can't go! It's important, so stop threatening me!"
"You have to!" Ciel barked back, "The Queen commanded it, so we must obey! That's what it means to be-"
You gave a kick.
He was cut short by a sharp, precise kick to the stomach. The pain was local and bright, and there was sure to be a bruise later. He struggled to breathe at the sudden exhale of air from his lungs and instinctively curled up around the pain.
Alois stooped down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him to his feet and into his face. His sporadic breaths fanned out across the blonde's face, sweeping wisps of corn silk hair out of his eyes like boiling rainwater.
"I. Don't. Care," he growled through bared and gritted teeth. Ciel frowned at him and grabbed at the hand around his throat.
"It is your duty," Ciel spat back. The flames in Alois' eyes only grew higher at this comment, and he shoved Ciel away from him. Turning his back to the other, Alois clenched his fists.
"You don't understand!" he screamed, and Ciel could hear the tightness in his throat. He approached the other and grabbed his shoulder to spin him about. Tears were streaming down his face, but he continued to glare at Ciel with a look of pure rage that creased the smooth planes of his face.
I gave a slap.
The palm of Ciel's hand collided with Alois' cheek in a resounding clap that echoed in both their ears. His white knuckles gripped the taller boys' shoulders and he braced himself against him as his snarl ripped through the air. "Get a hold of yourself!"
Alois' face slowly turned on him once more, but the creases of anger that had marred it were replaced by disbelief and a profound brand of pain. The pools of rainwater that made up his eyes were no longer boiling but freezing over.
"You don't understand…" he whispered as if he had just seen a sun set over the hills. He pushed Ciel away as he stumbled backwards. His brow was creased in confusion as he glanced over at the bedside table next to the bed he was by.
Ciel approached calmly with stone-cold eyes. "You're being unreasonable, Alois," he said, his voice like a heavy shadow over Alois' face. He could see the heat rising once more in the other boy, and he braced himself for another attack that was so plainly visible in the other's shoulders.
What he did not see was Alois grabbing the tea saucer and raising it above his head.
You smashed a plate over my head.
"FUCK YOU!"
The plate collided with the side of Ciel's head with a magnificent shattering. Bullets of china flew through the air, the whiteness of their bone surfaces tinted with scarlet not their own. The impact sent Ciel reeling through the air with only the bed to catch him against his sore stomach. He retched upon impact with tears prickling the corners of his eyes. The blossoms of Alois' breath were the only sound that filled the silence.
Ciel's vision swam as he pressed his face into the duvet, sinking to his knees and clutching at the bed's edge. His legs trembled like a newborn calf, and acid bit at the back of his throat with every ragged breath.
"It's his birthday." Alois' whisper bloomed against Ciel's ear. Warm droplets trickled down the back of his neck as a rosy pink mixture of his blood and Alois' tears. Two arms slipped gently around his middle in a tender embrace, and the soft plane of the other's forehead pressed against his shoulder to move back and forth slowly and gently.
"It's Luka's birthday. I can't leave him alone on his birthday." He planted a kiss on the side of Ciel's neck.
Then I set fire to our bed.
Ciel responded with silence. He turned around, dizzy and weakened by the blow that still stung his head, to sit in the blonde boy's lap. Alois looked at him with eyes full of sorrow and regret, with waterfalls of tears cascading over his face. A purple flower was beginning to bloom across his right cheek, and Ciel raised a trembling thumb to stroke it tenderly and wipe away the tears.
His other hand wove into the back of his head and pulled him down into a kiss.
Their lips shifted against each other like one squeezes through stranger pressed together on the sidewalk in the rain. Alois sucked at his upper lip as mud sucks at a boot, just as he always did. They did not bare their fangs for each other.
Slowly, quietly, Ciel pulled Alois away by his hair. The blonde ducked down to bury his tear-wet face into the hollow of Ciel's throat, slicking the pale surface with saltwater. "I'm so sorry," he squeaked out through the cracks in his voice. He clung to Ciel, one hand tenderly feeling through his bloody black locks.
"This doesn't change anything," he croaked back. Alois sobbed gratefully into him and nodded.
