afineseamstress: (Sneaking.)
"Sir, you don't seem to understand - "

"No, you don't understand!" cries Aramis, standing before the customer service desk. "They can't be discontinued! Magical Cheesy Star Puffs are the only thing my Lucie will eat before daycare!"

"They're not discontinued, sir," the woman - a patient saint, not that Aramis is in a state to notice - tells him. "They're simply out of stock. Apparently - " She eyes him suspiciously over her clipboard, "Someone bought out our entire stock three days ago."

"Yes, she ate them!" Aramis admits, "But that is only a testament to their deliciousness. I ought to be rewarded for my patronage, not punished! I'm going to - "

But Aramis stops, unable to remember the name of the other store that carries Lucie's favorite flavor. He turns and his eyes catch on a tall, blond man. "You, sir! What is the other natural food store?"
afineseamstress: (Come again?)
He isn't here as often as Marcus, but she still recognizes the man. Because they haven't spoken, though, his accent -- the familiarity of it -- catches Eponine a bit off guard.

She doesn't think, because he's not here all the time, that it could be the volunteer or his companion that could be causing all this trouble, and he seems unhesitant to mention her newest decoration, but she's also learned not to count anything out.

Still, she's been caught out, so no sense continuing to hide. "All the churches at home were so elaborate," she says, "but I don't think it helped anyone any better that they were pretty."

He'd not been expecting the accent, and Aramis turns with a pleased smile, slipping into his native tongue. "Better that the gold be used for food and clothing for the poor, I agree," he says. "But the Church does love its fineries."

He pulls his own crucifix from beneath his shirt. It is very fine, given to him by the Queen. "Lest you think me a hypocrite," he says. "It was a gift."

She smiles when he transitions back into French; besides with Cosette and Elio, it's rare that Eponine has a chance to speak the language fully. Though Darrow has strangely granted her fluency in English, at least to some degree, it still feels more natural to speak French.

She takes a breath, too, when he pulls a crucifix out himself. That settles that, at least. It is very beautiful, and she smiles. "It must have been a gift from someone very important," she says, leaning in to see. She raises a crafty eyebrow. "Or who cared to spend quite a bit for you."

"It's good that you have one about you, monsieur," she adds. "Do you know Marcus, who helps here as well? He suspects there is an evil in this place. And so do I, to be honest." It might sound crazy, but what of it; at least they are speaking of religion already.

"I do," says Aramis, a bit surprised. They were quite friendly as acquaintances went, but Marcus had never mentioned a presence in the children's home. "We are in a similar line of work," he continues, stepping closer so that they may speak in lowered tones.

"What sort of evil?"
afineseamstress: (Pleased.)
edit: I'll be out of town all next week and moving after that, does anyone want to do any new threads plsssss? :E

A rare State of the Pups :0


Aramis


Toying with a fairytale plot for him, but I'm not sure what. In general, I'd like to tag him around more, he's by far my happiest, most social pup but I don't put him out there b/c I'm some kind of asshole?? He's enjoying his baby, and for future plots will be balancing time with her, the other Musketeers, his EMT duties and his Kingsman duties and general adventuring.
Expandet all )
afineseamstress: (Hat.)
Aramis never dreamed that they might be near the throes of a blizzard when they finally took their belated anniversary trip to Kagura, but now that they're safe within its walls, he has to admit he's rather enjoying it. The wind hammers the windows as the drifts pile up against them, but inside they're safe and warm, with the roar of the huge fires in every hearth crackling in counter to the howling winds outside.

Aramis is currently draped half across a couch and half across Porthos, a huge mug of rum spiked cocoa in his hands. He sighs and tilts his head back against Porthos' shoulder. "Well, if we were afraid we might miss Lucie too much to enjoy ourselves, at least our path home has been removed," he muses. "We are well and truly stuck, cariño."
afineseamstress: (Urgent.)
The journey home from the hospital is a fraught one in which very little happens.

They stop promptly at all lights and signs. No other car gets within a yard of their taxi. No sound is louder than a few murmured words from the pair of them, or another tremulous yawn from Lucie, yet Aramis' heart is pounding by the time they arrive at the Bramford. Has he truly never noticed how unsafe the world is? How has it taken this long to understand?

Exiting the cab, Aramis holds Lucie's bassinette with great care, inspecting every step before he puts his foot down lest he trip and fall with his precious cargo. Through it all, Lucie hardly stirs, and Aramis heaves a great sigh of relief when they are finally at their door. His mouth opens to call for Athos, but he shuts it. It will wake the baby, and he's not yet prepared himself for the first time she's upset.

"After you," Aramis whispers to Porthos.
afineseamstress: (Up and hopeful.)
They've had a pleasant day, lounging and reading and lazing about. Aramis even managed to get Porthos to watch an episode of Space Hospital with him, but suppertime is fast approaching, and Aramis can't help but notice that it's been several days since Athos joined them.

"I am soon to lose you to dinner preparations," he says, shifting his head in Porthos' lap. "Shall I get the table and the wine in order?" Aramis gazes up at Porthos with his most innocent expression. "When shall I fetch Athos?"
afineseamstress: (Walking with Athos.)
The hour is later than he expects when Aramis finally hears the lock of Athos' apartments turn, but he has been patient this long. He doesn't intend to stop, even if Aramis does spare a moment to be glad that he's correctly guessed that Athos' first stop would not be to the quarters they all share downstairs.

Rising from Athos' table, Aramis leaves his medicinal kit behind and comes to examine the man himself. An assortment of bruises are already rising handsomely on his face and exposed throat, along with knots and bumps and scrapes and, if Aramis eyes him correctly, a bruised or even broken rib below. That will need tending first.

"Let me help you," he tells Athos, offering his shoulder. "You have journeyed alone with these long enough, I think."
afineseamstress: (Over shoulder.)
Ordinarily, Aramis enjoys their hunts. He has taken on new responsibilities in Darrow, but there is nothing he loves quite as much as being with his brothers, the three of them united in a single, thrilling purpose. Tonight, their quarry is a new band of particularly murderous vampires, but as they walk through the shadows, Aramis finds he cannot quite concentrate.

Each time one of their phones rings, his heart leaps and pounds, only to sink when the voice on the other end is not their surrogate. Aramis has never been terribly good at being patient, and apart from his wedding day and giving Athos that locket, Aramis has never wanted anything this much. It eats at him, and it is growing more difficult every day to keep smiling. He knows a bit of violence will do him some good, so Aramis tries to square his shoulders, turning his head to again survey the alleys as they pass.

"Hang on," he says, stopping all at once. "Where is Porthos?"
afineseamstress: (Happy.)
"I like your muscles any way I can get them," Aramis tells him with a grin. He goes to the desk and speaks with the woman there, exchanging his coin card for a door key. Opening his phone, he texts Porthos a quick message.

Wait fifteen minutes, then come to room 223.

With a little wave, Aramis heads for their room, intent on getting the fire going, the bath filled, and himself nude well before Porthos arrives.

Porthos is on his feet to follow after Aramis when he gets the message on the phone, frowning because his patience really doesn't benefit him at any time and worst now. He forces himself to wait patiently and at minute fifteen, he heads upstairs and knocks on the door, practically jittering in his skin at having to wait so long. "Aramis?" he calls. "Are you ready for me?"

The fire is small but growing, and the bath nearly done filling, the air in the bathroom thick with aromatic soaps. Aramis' clothes are on the bed, and he opens the door wrapped in a fluffy white Kagura robe. "Just about," he murmurs, fisting a hand in Porthos' shirt to pull him inside.
afineseamstress: (Modern - askance.)
Aramis is no longer in the mood to celebrate Halloween. After the trials of the strange, gray nightmare world he and those he loves dearest had found themselves in, after watching the people he loves hurt again and again, it's not for the purpose of celebration that Aramis outfits himself into costume.

The motorcycle is newly purchased, the license newer still, and Aramis swings a leg over it, leathers creaking as he settles. He rides quickly across town to where Porthos will be waiting for him, and as the wind whips through his hair, he lets Aramis fall away.

He doesn't have to be that man for a few hours. He doesn't have to wonder if the city that has given him so much will try to hurt him again, hurt Athos or Porthos, or their future family. He doesn't have to pretend that he's been sleeping when he has not, or that everything is alright when it certainly isn't. Just for an evening, he doesn't have to be himself, worrying incessantly about the things he can't control.

Pulling up in front of the shelter, he lets the motorcycle engine roar once before he sets the engine to idle. He breathes deep, exhaling with an almost bored sound as he waits for his charge.
afineseamstress: (Sideways.)
Frowning down at the pages scattered across the tabletop, Aramis pushes the heel of his hand against his lower back, hoping for a pop. It doesn't quite come, but he expects that - these days only Porthos can crack his back to satisfaction, and he'll be home soon enough.

Aramis passes his fingers through the gray at his temples, shaking his curls out of habit to hide it and plucking the glasses from his nose. "I'm going crosseyed," he mutters to himself, so absorbed he does not notice the turn of the lock at the front door. "I should have left this to Athos."
afineseamstress: (Doorways.)
Aramis stares at the closed door for a very long time.

Porthos has promised to return, but Aramis cannot help but feel that he will not, that he will be lost as d'Artagnan and Constance were, or even worse - that he will discover he is happier elsewhere - in some other home, some other life, free of the burdens Aramis' own heavy heart places on them.

He stares, but the door does not reopen. He is alone, and all at once their bright living room is a darkened basement, and Aramis cannot bear it a moment longer. Standing, he looks down at himself and does not wonder that Porthos left. He is a mess, in day old clothes and with an unshorn beard, but Aramis does not pause to sort himself before he ascends the stairs that lead to Athos' apartments.

Aramis opens the door and peers inside, calling in a voice he wishes were stronger. "Athos?"
afineseamstress: (Brooding.)
He truly hates this.

As glad to be in his own bed as he is, as soft the new sheets and fluffed the pillows, Aramis hates the need that makes him lie here, all but useless. His body is meant to be used, to carry him out of doors, to grab and to hold Porthos and Athos, yet it seems all Aramis' body wants to do is sleep.

The only thing more humiliating than the weakness in his limbs must surely be the daily medicines he must take, or the telephone reports to the hospital about how often he is urinating. It is all a trial, one that Aramis should be happy to sleep through, yet he clings to consciousness as much as he can.

In concession to his neediness, Porthos has left open the bedroom door, and Aramis listens to him bustle about the living room and kitchen, tending to what Aramis cannot. The sound is reassuring, a promise that despite being alone in this room, Aramis is not alone, and the door can be traveled through at any time.

He is not trapped. He is home.

And he's rather damnably bored.
afineseamstress: (Drifting.)
He loses track of time again.

The room is well lit, loud beyond the door and bustling with activity when doctors or nurses enter, but Aramis drifts. In that damnable basement, his only knowledge of passing minutes was the degree of his own thirst, and here in his bed, he can only count the continued ease of his breaths, and the pass of familiar calloused fingers over his own knuckles where his hands lie in the sheets.

There is some sort of brace on one of his wrists. Aramis has not yet recovered the nerve to ask if his hand can still pull a trigger, even if he could speak without effort. His head is too heavy to turn away from the sight, and Aramis shifts his eyes, fighting sleep to discern the new shape in the door.

He hopes it belongs to someone without a clipboard.

[open post if the spirit moves you]
afineseamstress: (Doorways.)
He is weary. More weary than he can remember being in some time, and it is not the fatigue of battle, nor of sitting in the saddle or at watch for days. This is a weariness that comes from a heavy heart, and no matter how much of the truth Aramis parcels out, the well remains deep, with new hardships waiting to be remembered at any moment.

Earlier today, Aramis dropped a glass and woke up on the floor, certain he'd just come from a window.

It doesn't make what he needs to tell Athos now any easier, but the sensation of falling is almost a welcome respite from the way the truth keeps rising up to smack him. Curling his hands around the stairway banister, Aramis sighs, rubbing a forearm over his eyes before he tries Athos' door.

"Athos?" he calls, poking his head inside. "It's me."
afineseamstress: (Hesitant.)
In the end, Aramis does not wait long.

In the time that follows their own terrible discoveries, Aramis hangs onto his nerve as best he can, and Athos prevents his descent into despair with touches and a few well placed words. Despite his best efforts, Aramis still feels restlessly caught between wishing to see Porthos and never facing him with this. He excuses himself to the shower in the hope that it will make him feel right again, but the warm water sluicing down his body is too reminiscent of tears, and Aramis hurries lest he finally break and begin weeping. If he does, he may never stop, and Aramis dries and dresses quickly to return to Athos.

He has only just stepped from the bedroom door when he hears a key in the lock outside, Porthos' heavy steps settling just long enough to work it open.

The blood drains from Aramis' cheeks like a stopper pulled, and he eyes Athos in near panic, but they both know what must come next. He's sick with exhaustion and heavy with grief, but Aramis is a soldier. Not a one of them will be any better for it if he balks from this, and he fights against the way his body wants to curl in to protect his middle, his heart, the way his arms itch to reach for Porthos the moment he passes through the door.

Drawing an unsteady breath, Aramis lets his eyes pass over Porthos for what might be their last moment of peace, and locks the image away inside of him.
afineseamstress: (Upset.)
It's startling to realize how much he used to think of her.

For more than a year now, Aramis' world has been Porthos, then Porthos and Athos, it's been d'Artagnan and Constance and the friends they've made here, it's been a wedding and the plans for a new home and the hope for a child. It hasn't been her, and when Aramis did think of the Queen, it was as Her Majesty.

Never Anna.

He doesn't love her. Aramis admires her, certainly, he finds her beautiful, but this memory that lives in his heart of her now doesn't match what he remembers. He'd never experienced an ache this sharp for her at home, but now in his dreams it haunts him, a yearning for a woman who is impossible to hold, and a child that's forever removed from him.

The first time it happens, Aramis thinks the infant he dreams of must be Isabelle's.

By the third, Aramis knows it isn't.

As he sits in the kitchen alone, Porthos shooed away for fresh air and a fresh cup of coffee before him, Aramis peers blearily past it to the brandy. He's never found drink particularly soothing, not even after Savoy, but at the moment he will accept anything to calm the turmoil within him.

These dreams he has bleed further past fantasy into memory the more he resists them. Porthos had suggested a doctor when they began, and Aramis is not certain which he prefers - madness, or the certainty that's begun to coalesce. Aramis passes a hand over his eyes, but the image of a child with blue eyes does not fade.

It's certainly not Isabelle's. The boy is Anna's.

And Aramis loves him far too much.
afineseamstress: (pic#9131011)
Sleep has always come easily to Aramis. A soldier finds it when he can, and barring times of great distress, Aramis has never had trouble finding rest, all the moreso now that he can sleep wrapped around his husband.

Yet the last few nights have been fitful, and as Aramis twitches against the sheets, this night proves to be even worse. He wakes gasping, his thoughts a tangled blur he can barely understand, but his heart seems to. There is love for a child in it, but not the child he has come to hope for. The infant is a boy, with blue eyes and fair hair, and even as the dream begins to fade, Aramis knows he will not forget this longing, so visceral he spreads fingers against his heart to test for blood.

Shaking his head, Aramis looks down, fighting off another half-remembered dream of a face he hasn't seen in years, nor has he wanted to, and slips from bed before he can disturb Porthos with thoughts of Rochefort. His feet carry him into the living room, but their normal nimble step has abandoned him as surely as sleep, for he knocks against the coffee table with his knees and goes down with a startled groan.
afineseamstress: (Not sure.)
He doesn't intend to look this time.

Even with Porthos' newfound fortune, the idea of children seems insurmountable from the legal side, and Aramis has dragged himself to the library yet again in an attempt to make sense of things. He sees the crowd around the orb as is usual, but Aramis ignores it, instead devouring one woman's private struggle made paperbook.

It must be an hour later when Aramis finally resurfaces, and when he looks, the people milling about the orb are gone. Aramis rubs at scratchy eyes and rises, intent on shelving his book for another when a familiar voice catches his ears.

He hasn't heard it in ages. It is strange to think he ever wished to, that he could have spent years waiting to hear it again, when all Aramis wants now is to let the man rest. But the dead come to Darrow, he knows it. On the train or on the streets, more than one who should have passed this life long ago still walks among them, and today one calls to him from a tiny orb.

Aramis turns, watching the scene despite himself. Porthos is older, but not by much, alone when he meets Marsac on the streets. It is amicable enough, given how things could have been. No shots are fired, and when they part, Aramis knows each go in search of him. He frowns, and as if by wishing it, sees the days move forward. He is alone with Marsac now, seated at a cafe to speak, and Marsac understands, his eyes on Aramis' wedding ring. Things are different here - Aramis and Porthos and even Athos may be together. It is not like it was at home.

Not for the first time, Aramis thinks that he's received something more than he deserves, something that Marsac could have had, too, should have had, but he was always a beat too slow. He turns from the orb, but not before the scene shifts again.

This time Marsac is wild. His dark blue eyes seem to burn, fury and jealousy that Aramis hates himself for understanding, even as he watches a version of himself lift his hands, putting his body between the tiny girl on the changing table and Marsac's gun.

Aramis closes his eyes, and he doesn't open them again until he's passed beyond the book stacks, blind to anything but a sudden wish for home when he pushes through the library doors and into the cool spring air outside.
afineseamstress: (Urgent.)
As with the ride to the hospital, the ride home again feels interminable, and the cabbie's constant chatter grates on Aramis' nerves. All he wants is for the three of them to be together, but to reach that point, he must first collect Porthos' requested items and, far more distressingly, break the news to Athos. Aramis would dearly love to take a moment and weep as well, but there is no time, and when at last the taxi pulls up to the curb, Aramis all but throws his money and launches himself from the vehicle.

He arrives back at his own door much as he left it, hair wild when he throws it open to stare with red eyes at the scene he'd abandoned. Papers and child rearing magazines he would like to tear from existence still lie askew on the table, the path he'd charged half over, half around the chairs still in place. Aramis cannot take the time to right things now, however, and he drags his hands through his hair, looking around with red rimmed eyes. "Athos?" he calls. Now that he is home again, he recalls that he'd put his phone down to grab his coat. Kneeling, Aramis checks and yes, there it is beneath the chaise. Tucking it safely away again, Aramis rises.

"Athos? Are you home?"

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René d'Herblay, alias Aramis

July 2018

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