Back in the human world, Alois Trancy was getting rather worried and upset. The group that had left to go rescue Sebastian had left a very long time ago and they still weren't back yet. Sulking in his oversized chair, the blond boy pouted, swinging his feet slightly as he waited and waited.
He'd already eaten lunch today; it had been at least twenty hours since they'd gone to the demon world. Alois knew that even if Ciel had returned and gone back to his estate with Sebastian, Claude would have come here since this was where he was; Alois was Claude's master, after all. The fact that Claude wasn't here proved that none of them had come back yet.
If he'd known it was going to take this long, he would have gone with them instead of staying here. There was no Claude around if he got scared, nor was Ciel here to tease and play with. As such, Alois was feeling grumpier and grumpier as the hours passed by. With nothing else to do, he was watching the clock ticking off time so slowly it was downright aggravating.
At least he would have had Ciel's company if he'd traveled to the demon world with all of them. Hopefully Grell wouldn't be a hindrance and would actually do some good being there; if the weird Shinigami with gender issues was the reason that neither Claude nor Ciel were back yet, Alois would be well beyond annoyance.
He could have entertained himself by punishing Timber and Canterbury, but those two hadn't been seen since he'd ordered them to quit running through the halls like idiots. Claude's story of what had befallen Sebastian had certainly explained why Timber was not wearing his pants when Alois saw him with his brother. He definitely hadn't forgotten that they needed to be punished, but at the moment, there was no one here who could carry it out.
Claude was the strongest demon that served him, or so Alois believed; whether or not it was actually true remained to be seen. He didn't want to force Thompson to punish his own brothers, either; that wasn't fair to him. They were his family, after all. Hannah was a female and incapable of giving Canterbury and Timber exactly what they deserved, those evil demons that were no better than the previous Lord Trancy.
If the nature of their crime hadn't been rape and attempted rape, Alois wouldn't have been so bothered by it. Rape was one of the worst things one person could do to another, he knew, pressing himself against the back of the chair he sat in and drawing his knees up to his chest. A slight shudder went through his small frame as he remembered Lord Trancy and the awful things he'd done.
Hearing what Timber and Canterbury had been up to were stirring all of those old memories back up, something he really didn't want. He didn't want to remember the pain; he didn't want to remember what it had felt like, each and every time; Alois rocked himself, squeezing his eyes closed as if that could block out those images from him. He really hadn't wanted to cry then but he hadn't been able to keep the tears from falling down his face.
Alois certainly didn't want to remember the faces of those who had died, all hope gone with only despair left. He had survived but the other children had not. The way he'd survived, though, Alois sometimes secretly wondered if scarring his soul had been worth it. Perhaps they, the ones who had died, were the lucky ones, because they didn't have the memories he did, knowing the things he'd had to do just to survive.
That was one reason he liked being around Ciel so much, because he felt that Ciel might understand more than most humans would. Ciel had been tortured in his past as well, though Alois was not certain if he, too, had been brutalized. But he could see the darkness in Ciel, just as he knew that his own could be seen by the other boy. It was because they each knew the darkest part of humans, the evil that could hide behind a smile or even beauty.
Ciel, though, was still more upset over what he had seen between Sebastian and Claude. It had been a few hours since he'd come back to the room and sat down; there was no way he was going in there to interrupt them. His pain, though, had not diminished at all as he ran through his memories of what he had seen yet again.
