Menace was, to be quite frank, pissed the fuck off when he woke up.

When he fell from that chandelier, he had thought for certain that he'd died at last- with the things he saw during his time comatose he surely had. The blinding bright light in the otherwise dark plane of existence, the lovely white and cream interior decor of the palace he arrived in once he had swum through the aforementioned glow, the sweet man with the red horns and sleek goatee whispering sweet nothings into his ear and... Well, it was all so tranquil and soothing, Alois thought it was just about the best experience he'd ever had the pleasure of receiving.

Looking back on it now, plummeting to his death was quite nice as well, actually. In that moment he was so thankful, so very grateful that this mess of a life he had lived was finally coming to an end! And so quickly! He didn't feel even a small twinge of pain when his body at last kissed the ground so sloppily, and maybe that was due to the fact that he had thrown himself a ways away from all of the jagged glass that had been so eager to impale him, or maybe it was that he was in so serene a headspace that nothing really registered to him. Regardless of the reason, it was an absolutely heavenly trip. Not a complaint was to be had about his descent.

Wait, wrong.

There was only one complaint- his heart was still beating. Fucking bobbies. Nearly killing him and yet they were incapable of doing even that job correctly! It was definitely time for new men, because these ones were bloody rubbish.

The memories of the night before now a blur, Alois tried to reconnect himself with reality. He had been lying flat on his back on a metal table for some time now, unbeknownst to him, so the shooting pain that rocketed through his spine as he sat up came as a shock to him. With a small yelp, soft and calloused hands gently kneaded his back while wandering eyes searched the room for any clue as to where he could possibly be.

The room itself was about the width of a bathroom, yet it lacked any sort of toilet or sink. The floor beneath him a gross grey-green of sandy concrete, the walls around him were a sturdy white with chips of paint flaking off at nearly every edge- it was hardly suitable for his taste.

About a hundred feet in front of him were twenty-one long metal bars, raising vertically from the ground to the water-damaged ceiling. So it was prison, then. If the blond didn't wish he was dead before, he certainly did now.

The bars kept him from the outside of his quarterly chambers, and because of their bothersome existence Alois had to focus very hard to see the room outside.

Once his eyes had adjusted, he could see that the walls were tan, lined with mahogany wood that started from the center of the wall and continued its way down. Aging blue carpet resided on the ground, with a pair of black loafers resting atop it while they lay beneath a small orangey-brown desk. The desk had a black office-style computer on its top, a silvery filing cabinet on its righthand side that contained three- no, four? Mm, it was definitely three- drawers.

It appeared to be after hours, as the lighting in the hallway was unusually low and no one was around. But even a three year old could make that kind of observation. Stupid, Alois shook his head, chastising himself inside his dumb little head. That doesn't help me. Well, maybe it could... But only if I get out of this cell. So, how am I going to make my grand escape...?

He turned that question over in his head a few times, scouring his line of sight for anything that could possibly be of use to his getaway...

Aha! There it was, an air vent on the side of the wall there, silvery and rusting with the age of it. The towhead jumped from his bed- if you could even call it such a thing- and marched over to his saving grace. He pried the grate off with such ease that it was clear how old his surroundings were, dust that had collected in the vent over the years- decades?- flying everyplace and into his lungs. Alois coughed, waving the rest of the particles away from his lips and turning his head away from the cause of his respiratory discomfort, the grate in his other hand.

Once the air had quite literally been cleared, he took a look back at his escape route. Though it wasn't the flawless, neat and nifty endeavor he'd desired, he supposed it would have to do. Filling his lungs to the brim with air and shutting his lips so that it all stayed inside, he set the grate down and artfully threw a leg up to reach the vent. It was a little difficult to arrive his foot, as it turned out the hole in the wall was quite a bit higher than he anticipated. No matter, though. Soon he'd be up, up, and away, out of there and Bob's your uncle, he'd be holding more cash in his hand than the wife of a recently departed millionaire!

"Ahem."

Oh, isn't this just pear-shaped.

The blond must have been a funny sight: one of his lower limbs trying to hoist his body up to a Lilliputian chute in the wall, his arms high above his head and clutching the wall, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, eyes all screwed up in a worry.

"Would you kindly get down from there," Ciel's tone made it sound more like a command than a request, "I'd like to speak with you if you're not too busy doing... whatever this is." The bluenet gestured dismissively at the scene before him, drawing his arms back to cross them in front of his chest and scowl at his idiotic prisoner.

Alois stood frozen in time for a few moments more before he sighed, setting free the air in his lungs, which had been in a little prison of its own. His expression soured and turned into a babyish pout, his posture deflated like a cartoonish balloon. He still hadn't moved the rest of his body.

The two stared at one another for a while, maintaining a silent and unofficial competition of who-could-out-stink-eye-who. The stakes were high in such a game. See, the winner would have their way, and the loser would be forced to comply. In Alois' corner, he wanted Ciel to have to watch him climb through that tiny wall hole to salvation. And in Ciel's, he desired an interrogative session in which the cause of his inner turmoil shut his mouth, spoke only when spoken to, and gave away the information needed to lock him up for a long time.

They went on like this for quite some time, and it was clear that neither wanted the other to get their just deserts. But then Alois' arse started to cramp up.

"Ah fuck," he swore, his body giving out as if he were a rag doll, crashing into the hard and dirty floor.

Ciel couldn't help but snicker evilly, having won their little game and having watched his rival collapse to the floor so unattractively. He slept with this sorry excuse for a human being? Were his standards really so low? Oh, look at how he writhed in such a pitiable, disgusting manner! Truly exquisite. But nevertheless, he had a job to do, so he snapped back into reality.

"C'mon now, get up," the detective clicked his tongue as if he were speaking to a dog, "I really don't have time for much more dawdling."

"Nn. Jus'- gimme- a minute-" Alois' face and arms were against the concrete, one leg sweeping backwards while the other stayed at his stomach, then alternating positions with the former and continuing this little pattern. It was making his bum move in a knowingly provocative way, but he played it off as if he was innocently trying to get on his feet again.

Ciel wasn't amused, though. In fact, he was quite put out by the display. "Seduction won't work on me twice, Trancy. Really, you just look hopeless. Now quit squirming and get up, you're making a spectacle of yourself."

Alois looked up at him with the most bratty and peeved expression he could possibly muster, furious with the blunet for foiling not one, but two of his plots for a better life. With an angst-ridden groan, the assassin used his arms to propel himself to his feet. He rubbed his lips together and created a big POP! before beginning his strut toward the detective.

"I am not hopeless," he spat in passing, "in fact I was quite on my way before you showed up."

Ciel had to laugh. "That air vent leads to a dead end, you know."

"Shit."

~oOo~

The room that the pair ended up in wasn't fit to Alois' liking either, although it was a considerable step up from the previous dingy holding cell he had been in only moments ago.

This time the walls were what appeared to be stucco, covered in a desaturated olive green paint. Mahogany wood made up the lower portion of the wall once more, and the convict made note of the similarity between this room and the hallway outside.

Truthfully, Alois didn't know why he liked to analyze rooms so much. He wasn't sure if he even liked doing it or if it was a habit he had picked up from his "employer." It'd make sense either way. But why rooms? Of all things, rooms were quite boring. Why not people? The way people acted? Thought patterns? Oh, that was a good one. Alois decided then and there he was going to stop scrutinizing rooms and start examining thought patterns, as it would be much more entertaining.

Ciel, however, had long known about the wonders of psychology. Ever since he was a child he'd been fascinated by the human brain and the way it worked. Because of that, interrogation was probably his favorite part about his job. He found it remarkably interesting, using different tactics to evoke certain feelings in a person that would make them give up valuable information. It was almost sensual to him, he found the task so intimate.

He would get inside the inner workings of someone's mind with the smallest little clue hinting at an insecurity. It could be something small, like a scratch behind the ear, or maybe something verbal, a vocal stagger of some sort. It was those little things, those little flaws, that really helped you know a person; Ciel swore that you could predict with near complete accuracy a person's true intentions if you looked at their cheeks when they spoke. An odd philosophy, he knew, but he was full of plenty.

The detective was curious as to what kinds of philosophies his subject had. He wondered if he even had philosophies. Or even morals. Most likely not, but still, he wanted to test this theory, push the limits of the man who had pushed his over the edge that fateful night.

"Sooo," Alois finally got gutsy enough to speak after a whole three minutes of sitting, "how do interrogations work, exactly? I've seen plenty of them in films, but I've never experienced one in real life; I'd be willing to venture it's quite different. What's my job here, to sit and look pretty and answer questions? Because I don't really feel like doing that at the moment. And I'm sure you don't like to ask such boring questions, especially if you're getting no response- after all, it would get quite cumbersome after a while. What kinds of questions do you ask? Do you think them boring? How do..."

It was then that Ciel noticed something- his voice was different. No longer the perfect and precise speech he had heard before, no, his words were much sloppier and more rushed. Choppy, if you please. Attributing to this discovery was yet another one, his accent was also not the same. Before, it had been a crisp Queen's English; it was Cockney at this point. And yet, it still held the same sultry tone of prowess and mischief, butter and salt, papyrus and pen.

The detective's very soul grew dark at how easily he was fooled, how easy it was for this man to transform himself into the peak of desire without a second thought, when really he was nothing but a slimy nobody, a rat, scum of-

"Jesus fuck, why do I have to try so hard for your damned attention all the time?! Hellooo? Is your head screwed loose, heh? What've ya got stuck in your ears, a massive pile of shit?-"

"Can it," he snapped, "As I recall, I'm the one asking the questions here."

That shut him up. Too easy. All he had to do was bring up an insignificant but memorable part of their past conversation and his murderer was silenced.

His reaction, on the other hand, brought into light the notion that Alois could perhaps have suffered some sort of emotional trauma long ago. Any normal person would merely have been irked by such a satirical comment. But his subject was rendered silent, eyes gaping wide to suck the life out of anything that dared look back at them, Ciel their unwilling victim. His lack of resilience in such a situation suggested a weakness that was shrouded in deep history. Then again, it was more than likely he was a psychopath, so of course he would behave in ways out of the ordinary. But even so, one would never pause for more than eight seconds between sentences unless they were saying or being told something of great magnitude.

Good. I can use this.

Alois' lips groveled their way into a smirk, his venomous eyes now shut. With a light chuckle, he began again. "I thought I told you not to pull such folderol on me. Very amusing. You're very crafty, Ciel."

"Oh, yes, I'm the crafty one."

"Indeed. Setting me up the way you did must have taken a lot of time and effort. I'm impressed."

"I never set you up. I did nothing of the sort, I showed up to a scene, you were there, I took you into custody. That's the lengthy explanation of it all."

"Wrong," the blond cut him off. "From the moment you took your aim you had a plan to take me out, and now you're watching it unfold with the utmost satisfaction. Aren't you, detective?"

"I am," he admitted, "but it was never a setup. I do believe I was quite clear about what I was going to do in that moment and you took the liberty to respond accordingly. So whose fault is it that you're in here, really?"

Thee fire in Alois' belly burnt out. He'd been defeated in their little spat once again. "Tch."

He leaned back in his chair, propping his elbow on the armrest and aiming his head only a few degrees away from his humiliator- just enough so that he could evade Ciel's gaze. "Fine. When do you intend to stop toying with me, then?"

"Whenever you decide to stop making a toy out of yourself," the bluenet explained, finally pulling the pen from behind his ear and clicking it. He pressed it to the paper that was set on the table and began to write down his notes, the sound of the ink flowing from the pen and scratching the paper irritating and yet calming to Alois' ears.

"Full name."

"I'm not yet done making a toy of myself, thanks."

Ciel just about lost his mind, his eye twitching. "Apologies, let me reiterate-" his tone grew grave and menacing, "Answer the fucking question, lest you want someone much less understanding than me asking it."

Alois had to scoff at such buffoonery. "You call yourself understanding? I quite beg to differ."

Ciel just eyeballed him, his stare cold and blank. He let his eyes do the talking for him, countering that icy force with a fire of his own. He'd never felt this way, so infuriated and yet so calm, ready to strangle someone and yet willing to hear them plead their case. He would make Alois listen. He would. There was no way around it, he would simply win as he always did. He had to.

Snow lost out to the flames in the end.

Heaving yet another of his heavy sighs, the blond sat back in his chair. "Alois Trancy. That's it."

"Nicknames and or aliases."

"Jim Macken, Menace, The Menace, Assassin Extraordinaire, Your Highness-"

"I'd appreciate some sincerity."

"Hmph. Fine, just the first two then."

Egotistical, cocky- possible narcissism.

"Height."

"Five-ten."

"Weight."

"Why am I not handcuffed right now?"

"Weight."

"Ugh. One hundred twenty one pounds."

Underweight for height. Likely result of strict diet.

"Age."

"Dunno. Probably 24? It's around there I think."

"Birthday."

"Why would I know my birthday if I don't know my age?"

Dementia/amnesia likely, get diagnosis.

"Race."

"Caucasian. Obviously, duh."

"Sex."

This time Alois glared at Ciel, and that familiar feeling of being impaled returned to his chest.

"Male."

Ciel recollected himself.

Prone to caprices. Bipolar?

"Any mental illnesses?"

"None." He said that while examining his nails.

Somehow Ciel didn't believe him. Nonetheless, he scratched out some of his notes to adjust his findings.

"Right then, now that we've got the basics out of the way," he straightened out his stack of papers by tapping it against the table, "what were you doing the night of September 21st?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Alois drawled, "I was killing people."

Ciel supposed that answer was satisfactory. "And why?"

"I'm an assassin for hire. Someone hired me. I assassinated the targets. And I was going to get paid a large sum of money for it.

"How much?"

"Fifteen hundred grand."

Good lord.

"A large sum," Ciel began. Alois simply nodded. "Likely because this was such a high-profile job. One of the victims," he slid a picture over to the questioned, "was Aleistor Chambers. He was quite a well known actor, as I'm sure you know."

"Was he?" The blond took a gander at the picture. "I actually didn't know that."

"You don't know, or you don't remember?"

"No, I didn't know. I don't lie about shit like this," Alois swore, a sense of genuineness surrounding his words.

"Really? And why is that?" The detective, clasping his fingers and leaning back in his chair, had to ask.

"You can't lie about circumstances. If you do, sooner or later you'll be caught, no matter what you do to avoid it. No use in lying if you'll just be found out," he explained. "Emotions, however, are much easier to fib about. Nobody cares about how you feel for more than a few minutes because it's so trivial, and nobody ever asks you how you feel anyway. But still, I'd need a reason to lie about my feelings."

And there they were, the first two philosophies of Alois Trancy. Ciel was pleased with himself, allowing a little smile to snake its way onto his lips. He'd backed the blond into a corner. Now that he felt comfortable and trusted him enough, it would be much easier to extract more personal details from him. Then it was only a matter of betraying his trust and locking him away forever. Simple. That bumbling idiot didn't realize what he'd given away.

"How interesting. How did you come to these conclusions?" Ciel struck again, a boa constrictor who was certain that his hold on his prey was only tightening by the second.

His counterpart refused the bait. "That," he started, "is personal information! I'm not just gonna go 'round telling an almost-complete stranger my inner turmoil, I catch your drift here, Phantomhive."

Ciel had been foiled, and now his attitude became something foul. He no longer had the upper hand, and that really pissed him off. "Are you fucking serious? Strangers?! How are we strangers, we've literally been insi-"

"Ahpapapapap! Nope! Nope nope nope, no arguing today! I'm not in the mood to argue!" Alois gestured with his hand to shut up, two fingers jumping down onto his thumb. He sighed gallantly, sitting back in his chair once again. "For cripes sake, you would think a detective would be more professional..."

If Ciel were a stew, and anger was the fire that cooked him, the stove would be on maximum heat and he would be boiling out of the pot.

"Now then, as I was saying; That's the kind of information you have to earn, you can't just outright try to manipulate me like that! It makes you seem very untrustworthy, and you wouldn't want to be untrustworthy, would you detective?"

With a groan, the man set his head in his hands, elbow on the table like some kind of improper animal. But he was too frizzled out to care. "And what would I have to do to earn it?"

"Be my friend," he said without any hesitance. "I don't know what it's like to have friends. I've never had them. Or maybe I have and I just don't remember. But sometimes I see my targets, all happy and conversing with someone who's just as giddy- and well, then I kill them, so they're not too happy then," Alois chuckled, "but still. They had someone to lean on and tell all their deep dark secrets to without fear of judgement, someone who'd laugh with them and make them feel good. I want that."

Ciel was quiet, stunned into silence by the blond's rambling. He sat blinking at him, and he stared right back. He'd really put a lot of thought into this, hadn't he? He knew what he wanted. That was what he craved, intimacy with someone. He wanted closeness and friendship, after supposedly having not been shown those things for some time.

He found the sentiment rather obtuse.

"Will not happen," Ciel refused. "It doesn't matter anyway, I already have more than enough evidence to convict you. I've got a confession on tape, multiple witnesses, and DNA matches. You'll stand trial, and if you should see fit to plead Not Guilty, you'll undeniably lose and be sentenced to life without parole, and then you'll rot in a prison cell until the day you die."

"You act as if that's supposed to scare me," Alois couldn't help but laugh at his companion's attempt, "no, no, I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't care. I don't. I'm not afraid to die anymore."

"Really," the bluenet was unimpressed. He'd heard that excuse before, and every single time the felons who'd once been so brave ate their words and shriveled up to cry when they heard they weren't leaving prison.

"Really. And I'll prove it once I'm in that courtroom."

"I'll be eager to see that."

It was quiet again after that. Not much time passed, Ciel only had time to reshuffle his papers and prepare to leave before Alois spoke again.

"It does matter, though." He said.

"What? What does?"

"Me not giving you what you want," he stated plainly. "You want to hear what I have to say. You want to know everything about me and figure me out so you can strip me down to nothing and make a fool out of me. I'm telling you now it won't work. But still, it matters to you. It matters to you to know all of that because it makes you feel superior to the other person and gives you the power. And you do love power, don't you?"

"Shut up," he spat.

"You know I'm right. What you've got right now doesn't please you. You want to know everything so you can keep climbing your way to the top and have the power over everyone, you selfish son of a bitch."

An enraged Ciel slammed his hand on the table and stood up, gathered his things and started for the door.

"An overdeveloped ego! How attractive," Alois used Ciel's own tactic against him, bringing up their past conversation yet again.

"Shut up." He kept walking and reached the door, grabbing it by the handle.

"And can I get a better cell next time?"

The door slammed shut.