"Did I just say 'kisses'?" Alois asked himself while putting his phone away. "I'm reaching new levels every single day."
"If I ever get married and start doing that shit, I wonder if it's best to just be put down." Kristopherson stated as the two sat in the backroom at Andrea's. Alois had come for his weekly visit and Kristopherson was more than happy to take a break.
"It's not that embarrassing. He'll probably just think I'm being weird on purpose." shrugged the menace. "It's nice. You'll like it, if you get there."
"Think I will?"
"Why not? I feel like you'd be that one gay couple in the neighbourhood who appears to have all their shit together and has the perfect house, perfect car, and are the ency of your neighbours."
"Hell yeah, I will." chuckled the wolfman. "So is Ciel having trouble with the nerds or what?"
"He has no idea what to make of them yet. He is worried that they're underestimating how hard this is gonna get. Like, they had their heads and neckbeards shaved and sat in a lecture so far. After lunch, they're going to start excercising."
"Dear God, they're doomed… Knowing Ciel, I think he'd find it funny."
"Oh, he does." answered the menace. "It's always funny when people who are arrogant or ignorant get hit with a healthy dose of reality. It'll probably take a lot in him to not laugh. Like? Being a HELLSING agent at any rank isn't easy? What are they expecting?"
"Probably that they're going to be a one-man zombie-killing machine like in their videogames." Kristopherson suggested. "They'll figure it out soon enough. I haven't been there, but after seeing you guys do it? I really, really don't want to."
"How exactly do they think that's gonna happen? It doesn't make any sense! They're just going to magically build practical muscle out of nowhere and immediately be good at everything? Part of me wants to go visit so I can see this trainwreck with my own eyes."
"Why don't you? I'm sure Ciel would love to show off for you."
"Yeah, but visiting on the first day will make me seem eager. I am, but I don't want to look like it." Alois replied, earning a laugh from his friend as the wolfman shook his head. "I feel fine, now, but I know that in a few days, I'm going to start getting bored on my own. Something tells me that you don't want me here bothering you everyday, either."
"Sorry, but I've gotta work sometime, too." the other lamented. "On the bright side, you can get some practise at becoming a housewife."
"How dare you?" jested Alois. "House husband. I'll make him from tea when he gets home, but I am one-hundred percent man, my friend."
"True. Probably the manliest man Ciel will see all day."
"Don't you know it?"
Meanwhile, Ciel was just about to get started on the cadet's physical training. He had quite the nefarious ideas in mind and was not going to go easy on them. Seeing them all lined up, he paced back and forth, watching them. He felt as though they were too comfortable up until now, so he was waiting for the first signs of discomfort. One recruit foolishly gave him what he was looking for.
"Sir, shouldn't we go inside to exercise?" asked one man. Unfortunately, Ciel had been inside going over all of their files and memorising their names and faces, so he was perfectly equipped to pounce.
"Why is that, Henderson?" the demon asked, briskly making his way over to the offending cadet and getting right in his face. "Do you have a problem with the way I am doing things?"
"It's really cold out here, sir." Henderson stated.
"Sweet merciful mother Mary, I do believe you are correct, given how it is a week until October." Ciel observed. "If you were cold, why didn't you sign up for a class in the summer, Henderson?"
"I didn't think about it."
"You didn't think about it?"
"I didn't think about it, sir!"
"Well, you should consider these things from now on!" the demon said without a shred of sympathy. "Don't worry, though, I won't let you freeze to death. Get out of line and stand at the front."
Hesitantly, the man moved to the front, closely followed by the Phantomhive. Once he was there, he realised what the demon was doing. "Now, run in place." Ciel ordered. "Move!"
With that, Henderson started running in place. "Go on! Knees up high! Move it! Keep running!" It didn't take long for the man to start breathing heavily and his face to get red. "Now, drop to your stomach!" Ciel said, prompting the cadet to do so. "Now, stand back up! Drop to the ground! Stand back up! Run in place! Drop to the ground! Get back up!"
This went on for a while until Ciel was satisfied with this punishment. "Now stop!" he ordered. Poor Henderson was relieved that this was over with. "Are you warm, now?"
"Yes, sir..." the cadet breathlessly huffed.
"I can't hear you!"
"Sir, yes, sir!" Henderson shouted with all of the air he could muster.
"Get back in line." the demon ordered, thinking it might be the end of it, but alas, it wasn't to be. Hearing laughter, he whipped his head around to see two recruits laughing. Now he had to take care of them.
"What, pray tell, is so humourous?" he demanded in a loud, booming voice. "Do you think I'm funny?"
"Sir, no sir!" both recruits replied, although they still grinned.
"Do I look like a clown?!"
"Sir, no sir!"
"Then why the bloody hell are you two smiling!"
"I don't know, sir!" one of the men said
"I'm sorry, sir!" said Bryce.
"Get out of line." the Phantomhive instructed, watching as their cheerful smiles immediately fell. "Go stand against the wall and squat down like you're sitting in a chair."
The pair did just that, grunting as the man told them to press their backs completely against the wall. "Don't put your hands on your knees. Hold them straight out! Now, repeat after me: 'I must not laugh on parade.'"
"I must not laugh on parade!" the pair shouted.
"Keep repeating it!"
"I must not laugh on parade! I must not laugh on parade!"
"Keep that up until I choose to allow you to join the others." the bluenette said before going back up to the front so he could finally get things going.
"Now that that nonsense is out of the way, we can finally start." the demon said, addressing the crowd. "During out time together, I will teach you many things. I will teach you how to take care of yourself. I will teach you how to work with others. I will teach you how to be a respectable gentleman. Most importantly, however, I will teach you how to kill. Hopefully, you'll also learn how to survive. That said, I cannot do that with the weak, squishy, pathetic bodies that you have now. You need to be able run while carrying gear. You need to be able to handle the recoil of you gun. If you get tired from running in place for half a minute, then you cannot hope to live through a mission. That is why before I can teach you to do anything, I must first mold you into a workable substance. Am I understood?"
"Sir, yes sir!" the group roared.
"I will teach you! I will train you! You will not recognise yourselves by the time we're through! But for this to happen, you must work hard! Are you going to give it everything you have, or are you going to half-ass it like a lazy sack of shit?"
"Everything, sir!" shouted the recruits, or some variation of it.
"Alright! Let's get started then!" Ciel declared before turning his attention to the men who laughed. "Withers! Maddigan! Get back in line!"
The next few hours were perhaps the worst hours of their entire lives thus far. While Ciel wasn't going to take things easy on them, he backed off when he thought they might injure themselves, so they only left with soreness that radiated throughout their entire bodies. Their arms ached, their legs were on fire, and the palms of their hands were red and burning from pressing against concrete. Their skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat that caused their overheating bodies to freeze as soon as they stayed still for a few moments and the cold air caused their lungs to feel as though they had been inhaling shards of glass. This wasn't fun anymore. This was hard work.
The worst part was how the Phantomhive seemed unsympathetic to their suffering. They hated it. They hated him for it, too. They knew he was hardcore from the beginning, as they saw glimpses of his cruelty beforehand. This, however, was a whole other level. The amused expression on the Phantomhive's face as he watched them push their bodies to the limit was not lost on him. Was he a madman? For someone who was supposed to teach them to fight monsters, it seemed to them that the monster was the one giving them instructions.
"Good work out there, gentlemen." the Phantomhive stated once they were back inside the barracks. Everyone was dead on their feet, yet still somehow willing themselves to stand at attention while he spoke. The moment they relaxed, they would collapse. All of them knew it. "I will not be treating you with kid gloves. I am going to push you to your limit, mind, body, and soul. When I am done with you, each and every one of you will be a killing machine and I will not let you go until you do. Is that understood."
"Sir, yes, sir!" the group weakly replied, but Ciel didn't ask them to repeat themselves like he normally would.
"Good." he said. "You will have thirty minutes to catch your breath and then Corporal Connolly will come in here and teach you how to take care of the barracks and your kits. You will take care of these things. They will be spotless and pristine when I come back tomorrow morning. You will wake up on time and I will inspect both the barracks and you at that time. If I see a pillow out of place, or a single scruffy face, you will face my wrath. Is that clear?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
"Excellent. Then with that, I bid you good evening, gentlemen. I will see you tomorrow morning." the demon said, before turning toward the door and making his exit. As soon as he left, people fell onto their beds or onto the floor if they couldn't make it. There was not a single man left standing as they all caved in.
"Fuck..." gurgled Wallace. "He's evil… he's bloody evil…"
"What the fuck is his fucking problem?" demanded Bryce.
"He's a prick, that's what!" answered Carl. "I wanna wring his fucking neck!"
"What did we really think was going to happen?" asked Clancy. "The real deal was always going to be hard. Knowing and doing are still two different things, though…"
"He's trying to kill us." stated Ryan. "He's going to kill us and there's nothing we can do to stop him. Is he even human?"
"Well, I doubt an organisation that hunts literal monsters would hire one." said Wallace. Grunting, he tried to pull himself on top of his bed. "But what if one was just crafty enough to pull it off?"
"Fuck… Didn't think about that..." Mister Braumfeld answered. "Maybe it could happen..."
"I think he's just an arsehole." Bryce stated. "Probably gonna go home to his missus, eat a lovely meal, and then talk all about his stupid students and how bloody weak we are..."
"Gonna have to give he one, with the stiffy he got from torturing us." jested Carl, causing everyone else to groan.
They weren't completely right, but they weren't completely wrong, either. Ciel ventured home, surprisingly drained from the day he just had. Never before had he been an instructor at boot camp and he was surprised to see how much work it was. He had surprised himself today. It had been a long time since he shouted at someone for seemingly no reason, and he hadn't swore this much in ages. Still, he could go home and rest easily, while his cadets had to sleep in the barracks after getting eveything sorted for the next day. Opening the front door to the Phantomhive mansion, Ciel took off his hat and hung it up.
"I'm home!" he called out, putting his riding crop in the umbrella holder. When he stood back upright, he was practically tackled by a man only a few inches shorter than him before he could think. All he saw was a flash of blonde hair before the menace had his arms around him.
"Hello, my sexy sergeant~!" Alois greeted in a sing-song voice. Pulling away, he and his beau mutually pecked each other's lips. "How was your first day?"
"It seemed alright. I'm not entirely sure about the new recruits, but things went smoother than I expected." the bluenette replied. "How was your day, darling?"
"Uneventful, really. I visited Kris and we chatted, then I went to bother Dan, but that's about it." the blonde replied. Slouching his shoulders, he sighed slightly. "I really need a hobby..."
"Maybe you could sign up for a class in the meantime?" suggested the bluenette as the pair headed up the stairs. "Is thee anything you've always wanted to do?"
"I don't know… All I kinda do is work, shoot things, and play with you. I should read a book. I should go do things. Wanna help me look for things to do?"
"Sure. Let me get changed, first."
While Ciel disappeared into the dressing room, Alois sat in the front room and browsed around on his phone. "There's lots of martial arts classes, but I don't wanna be in a room with a bunch of kung-fu numpties who don't do anything but dance around..."
"I cannot hear you." the Watchdog called back from two rooms away. "Give me a minute."
"There's also pottery classes." Alois pointed out, not registering what the bluenette was saying. "Don't think I'd have any room for any of the crap I make, though."
"Either wait until I come out there, or come in here to talk to me, Jim."
"What's with the yoga trend? Why are so many people doing yoga?" the menace carried on, prompting the other Phantomhive to roll his eye.
When Ciel came out of the dressing room, he was wearing a maroon sweater and a pair of jeans, much to the blonde's surprise. It would appear that after wearing a uniform all day, he wasn't up to dressing in his usual formal fashion at home. Coming up behind his beau, Ciel bent over at the waist to wrap his arms around the blonde's shoulders and kiss the top of his head.
"There's cooking classes, but Kristopherson already called me a housewife once today." Alois stated. "I don't need to give him an actual reason. You'd enjoy that, though, wouldn't you?"
"I mean, I like food and things given to me by my husband, so it's sort of a winning combination for me." the other man replied. "No pressure, though. You're doing this for you, not for me. You should do something that you think is fun."
"Maybe I'll try a few different things to see which ones I like. Experiment a little." The blonde exited out of that search and started browsing through the news while his spouse looked over his shoulder. "You can come 'round here to see, if you want."
"Mm-hm." hummed Ciel while releasing the menace. He moved to sit on the couch next to him, resting an arm on the back of the sofa directly behind his husband, prompting Alois to scoot closer and lean into him. "Sorry if I'm not particularly talkative, by the way. I can't even remember a time when I've had to shout that much."
"It's okay. Just relax for a bit. We can chat later. Being in the same room is good enough."
"Okay." After placing another quick kiss to his husband's head, the bluenette leaned back and rested his eyes for a bit, allowing himself to relax and be vulnerable for a moment. It was much needed after a long day of yelling at soldiers. Thus, the pair simply sat in silence and enjoyed each other's mere prescence.
A while passed before Alois abruptly sat up from his comfortable position, startling the bluenette. Brow furrowed and a deep frown on his face, he stared at his phone for a moment before turning around and tapping the bluenette on the shoulder. "Did you see this?" he asked, gesturing to the device. "What the fuck is this bullshit?"
Taking the phone from his beau, Ciel looked at it and read the article aloud. "'Pomeroy family challenges Queen in claim for ancestral land. Was the Trancy Estate stolen?'" When he finished, he scoffed at the idea. "That lot doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. The Trancy Estate was taken away from the family a long time ago."
"That lot's mafia! The human trafficking bit fits the Trancy stain, that's for sure." growled the menace. "What business do they have arguing with her majesty over shit that was taken away from them about a century ago?!"
"Remember when Krampus and his gang took over the place? They restored it, so it's nicer and not run down. These mobster types love extravagance, so it's right up their alley. They don't have a chance in hell, though. In the article, they're just denying that history exists and has been documented. All the evidence they have is them saying 'that never happened because we don't remember it happening,' and well, that's not going to cut it."
"Still, what if, y'know? Nobody with Trancy blood in them is gonna live in that house ever again, you hear me? I'll make bloody well certain of it." Alois declared with a rather serious look on his face. "They'll just keep more slaves there and it'll all start over again."
"What are you going to do?" questioned the other demon. He was immensely curious as to what his beau was going to do and was willing to help him in any way possible. "Curse their household?"
"I curse the house and the entire bloodline!" the menace stated. Ciel believed him. It was hard not to. "I'll destroy them, one day. Every last one of them. I don't know why I ever thought it would end with the first, because the extended family is involved in the same shit. It's the same shit and it's still happening today, even at this very fucking moment. They shouldn't be allowed to exist at all. I was too nice. But for today, I'll just keep the house away from them. Do you happen to know anybody whose interested in studying shady places from the Victorian era? Anybody willing to do a little excavating?"
"No, but I can certainly find some." Ciel said with a devious smile.
"Good." his husband said, playfully poking his nose with a sinister grin. "Because it would appear that I have found a new hobby."
A/N: Is it too soon to introduce a possible subplot? Maybe so, maybe so. I don't like the idea of Alois waiting around for Ciel to come home, though. He's not the type at all.
Probably going to get into trouble, somehow. Alois is like a cat. He goes out, gets into trouble, and then comes home eventually. You can't control him.
I do like Ciel's punishments, though. I'm gonna have to get creative with those... I also need to describe what these assholes look like, don't I? I'll do it in the next chapter... I hope...
I'm glad responses to this have been positive, so far. I was really worried! A lot of people said that the Boot Camp arc in DLTD was their favourite, so I REALLY don't want to screw this up. I need to figure out what exactly it was that made it work, though? I read it and it was VERY short, but it had quite a few gags that were pretty funny and worked well with Alois' rejection of authority. I'm trying my best.
This arc is going to be a lot longer with more detail. It needs more funny shit, though... Hmmm... I'll try harder...
Until the next chapter, my duckies~!
