#it's a little bit boring and possibly transphobic! couldn't fully tell yet!

[pain-in-the-butler]

the fire never happened and the twins go to Weston HCs

R! is in the Red House, O! is of course in Blue ---

In their first shared class, the teacher calls out “Phantomhive” and they both say at the same time “Which one?” and the teacher just stares ---

From then on, teachers will just call them by full name if it’s not otherwise clear who they’re addressing ---

The different neckties are obviously the easiest way to identify which twin is which, but people in the Violet and Green houses still struggle with it ---

When O!Ciel gets hit in the eye by a rogue cricket ball from some practicing seniors and has to wear an eye patch for a couple weeks, literally everyone tells him “We wish it was always this easy to tell you two apart” ---

R!Ciel likes to have the other students guess who is who without their jackets or ties. Some people catch on to the direction of the hair swirl, but even that can be manipulated and almost no one can remember which one’s hair hangs left vs. right anyway ---

Macmillan can tell the twins apart with scary accuracy, though. He can’t even be fooled. When people ask how he does it, he only says, “Isn’t it obvious?” No one’s really sure what to do with that ---

O! never flat-out pretends to be R! though. R! would absolutely love to trick people for sport, but O! isn’t confident he could do a good enough job at pretending to be his brother (I know, I know. I’m even oofing myself with this one, but I really think O! would feel this way) ---

Because of his bouts with asthma, O!Ciel has special privileges awarded by the school to cross the lawn like the prefects. However, O! hates special treatment and undo attention, so if you see a twin sprinting over the lawn, it’s almost definitely R!Ciel pretending to be O! when he’s running late for class ---

R!Ciel is a very reliable fag and is very concerned with the social hierarchy. He would 100% be rivals with Maurice Cole vying to get Redmond’s attention ---

O!Ciel is a reliable fag, too, but he’s Normal about it. When Bluewer requests O! to be his fag, R! gets so indignant. It’s not fairrrr how could his little brother be a prefect’s fag first??? ---

O!’s best subject is French/language. R!’s best subjects are classical studies and antiquities (anything history-related really) ---

The twins are pretty competitive about their test results. When R!Ciel does worse than O!, he gets really worked up and spends all his free time studying until the next test. When O! does worse, he congratulates R! and tells R! that he earned it for working so hard. It makes R! so frustrated (O! knows this, that’s why he does it. Secretly, O! always wants to be the best academically and will study his ass off for the next test) ---

O!Ciel writes letters to his parents and Tanaka twice a month. R!Ciel writes home maybe twice a semester ---

R!’s letters are like “Dear mother and father. I am well. I have perfect grades. I don’t need anything. See you for Christmas/Summer Break” ---

O!s letters are much more enthusiastic and personal and are usually a page or two long. Tanaka looks forward to them immensely and keeps every single one ---

O!Ciel is really surprised at how easily he makes friends on his own. He misses his brother, but starts to discover who he is and builds confidence ---

R!Ciel is very upset about this at first. He tries to make O! feel guilty for not spending all their free time together and acts rather possessive. When O! gets mad and tells R! to be nice to his new friends in the Blue House, R! doesn’t talk to his brother for three entire days ---

That all changes with Maurice Cole. In fact, everything in the Red House changes when Cole and R! become rivals. It’s like living a full-time Mean Girls movie and half the school is terrified of R!Ciel simply because he knows Everything about Everyone ---

With all these new friends, enemies, and frenemies accrued over a mere week, R! takes the mob boss approach and decides its time to forgive his brother. O! is like “Forgive what?? I didn’t even do anything wrong” but they’re still mostly good after that ---

People assume O! is just as dangerous as R! until they get to know him. However, those who get to know O! even more realize his power level might actually be higher than R!’s ---

When the brothers are fighting everybody knows it including the professors ---

Most of the time the boys don’t fight though. They actually live pretty separate lives, only meeting during afternoon breaks or in class and otherwise spending their time in their own way..... ---

At least until they go home for the summer, in which they spend all their time together and are total hellions without enough to occupy them: stealing snacks from the kitchen, playing tricks on the staff, challenging guests to weird debates, disappearing for hours to ride horses or go hunting without telling anybody, pestering Vincent literally every other second ---

“Father did you know this obscure history fact? you didn’t? wow I can’t believe it, and you’re supposed to be the Earl.... how cringe father” “father I can cuss at you in three languages now haha check it out” “father look at all your new wrinkles, you are such an old man, better lean on that cane a little more, don’t fall down the stairs now, wouldn’t want a thirteen-year-old taking your place as lord” Everyone was so excited for the boys to be home again but wow August really can’t get here fast enough can it...... ---

But then August is here and everyone at the manor cries because they’re going to miss the twins so much ---

Meanwhile the Weston faculty are at their first staff meeting like “We’re about to enter year two of Vincent’s twins attending. Brace yourselves lads: they’ll only get worse”