(no subject)

[afineseamstress]

They hadn't really meant to have a lazy afternoon, but this is where they've ended up. With nowhere pressing to be, and their stomachs filled with leftovers from last night's fine dinner, Aramis and Porthos swiftly finds themselves sharing the long chaise. Sprawled lengthwise, Aramis' head fits comfortably in Porthos' lap, a wedding magazine in his hands and Porthos' thick fingers in his hair.

From time to time, Aramis lifts the book to show Porthos a glossy page, but for the most part they are silent, and as the light shifts outside to late afternoon, Aramis feels his eyelids growing heavy. Above him, Porthos is already snoring lightly, his hand stilled in Aramis' hair, and between that hand and the cat curled into the crook of Porthos' elbow, Aramis hasn't the heart to wake him.

So he reads on, lifting the book when the pages droop, and doesn't notice when it settles against his chest, his own eyes closed in slumber.

Comments

[somepoorsoul]

Had he landed in this city all alone, Athos would have easily slipped into a dangerous routine of brandy, and bed, and food only when he remembered it. Thank God for Aramis and Porthos, then, who insist he come to dinner, and drag him on tours of the city, and had handed him a key with the insistence that he should see their home as his own - and an implied threat that there would be costs if he did not check in now and again. Over these first few days, Athos has accepted their attentions with his usual long-suffering eye rolls, secretly glad in his heart that they have not entirely forgotten him.

As the afternoon turns towards evening, he leaves his apartment for their rooms, as he had promised. Nevermind that they are no longer in Paris, or that Athos has consumed little besides wine, he still looks every bit the musketeer as he knocks on their door. When no response comes, he tries that little key.

The scene that greets him is innocent in its own way, the two men clothed, and gently curled together, and blissfully happy - and perhaps it is that easy, simple intimacy that startles Athos the most. Like the lock he just opened, the tumblers in his mind line together, this scene meeting with a thousand other little moments - not only here, but reaching back for years. What a fool he has been. What great fools they are.

He thinks he hears Aramis stir, and before Athos can turn away, their eyes have met. Athos doesn’t linger, stalking out of the apartment.

The door doesn’t exactly close gently behind him.

[afineseamstress]

It's not the lock, but the turning of the key that wakes him. Within seconds, Aramis is thrown from his drowse into full wakefulness, that tiny click enough to send his every nerve on edge with foreboding, but it's not until his eyes meet Athos' startled blue that Aramis' mind catches up with his body's responses.

Even so, he finds he can't move, transfixed by dread until Athos' sudden departure. The door shuts, and Aramis leaps with grace despite his heart's racing, extracting himself from Porthos to follow. It's an odd feeling that takes hold of him then - as if he's lived this before, but though he's been discovered in trysts many times before, it has never been by Athos.

Shutting the door silently behind him, Aramis takes the path Athos has likely gone in his stocking feet and finds him by the stairs. "Athos," he calls, and though this could be many things - Athos granting them privacy, Athos merely fleeing - the thought that holds Aramis in a near stupor of fear is that Athos is turning his back.

"For God's sake, wait."

[somepoorsoul]

Athos isn’t sure where he is going, or why, he only knows that he shouldn’t be in that room, that what he has seen shouldn’t be. And so he goes, fury and shock bubbling inside him, quickening his step.

He almost does not stop, but he cannot ignore the desperation in Aramis voice; they have been friends too long for that. Athos still, and he tenses, and he does not turn around.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” It is a question that he has asked a thousand times before - in jest, in anger, in frustration. But never has it come out so close to a growl as this.

[afineseamstress]

Aramis lowers his hands to his sides, pulls them down from there they are stuck, idiotically, reaching despite their distance. "Perhaps," he says, and he does not come closer.

Even now, with rings exchanged, he's not certain that he's worthy of Porthos. Aramis has no low opinion of himself, but for all that he loves each of his brothers, he has long suspected that resilient Porthos with his huge, unblemished heart might be the best of them. But lofty heights have never dissuaded Aramis from climbing, just as he still has hope that despite his anger and his shock, Athos can be calmed.

"I cannot be unhappy for it if I have. Athos." Aramis drags an anxious hand through his hair. "It is different here. Things like this between two men, they are accepted in Darrow."

[somepoorsoul]

“No, you are never unhappy.” If Aramis can only be haunted by a faint sense of deja vu, Athos is quite aware of how familiar this scene is, and why. His fury now rests upon the anger of that moment when he discovered that this man he trusted was fool enough even to bed the queen, to put them all in danger for the sake of his lusts.

And now this. Now a tryst that makes a mockery of everything honorable in their brotherhood. He did not think that Aramis could be more foolish. And Porthos - he cannot even understand Porthos.

“We are not from here. We are musketeers."

[afineseamstress]

Aramis takes Athos' meaning quite plainly, bristling for only a moment before he decides that perhaps it might be better this way. He has a reputation, however much he might argue with its underlying cause - if he can use it to deflect derision from Porthos, Aramis absolutely will.

"Many that I know and you will come to know are not from Darrow," he returns. "And in any case, we are here." Shifting on his feet before Athos, Aramis finds he can no longer bear the back of him and bursts out, "Will you face me? This is not some tryst, Athos, he is not a lover. It goes far deeper than that."

[somepoorsoul]

Athos shakes his head, but he turns round to face Aramis, eyes cool as he looks him up and down. “But we are musketeers,” he hisses, wondering again if both of them have forgotten what that means, what their duty means. He has put up with his share of poor behavior, of skirting the line between honor and shame, but this is one step too far.

"So you claim this is what? Romance?"

[afineseamstress]

"For a start." Aramis draws himself up, facing Athos with a straight back if he cannot face him in his boots. "It is a life, our lives, as we have discovered ourselves happy to live them. Do you think we wear these rings for decoration?" he asks, briefly lifting his hand, for if Athos has put together so much from a mere tangle on a chaise, he surely understands these now.

"I have made him a promise. I am a Musketeer, Athos. Without a King or a country, without even a Captain. There is nothing, no one here to stand between Porthos and I if we do not wish to let them."

[du_vallon]

The commotion had woken the cat up before Porthos. He's been a deep sleeper for most of his adult life, as if catching up on all the years in which he couldn't afford to sleep deeply. It's little Athos' claws in his arm that force him to rouse and when he does, he can hear sharp noises down the hall that push him to his feet. Groggy, Porthos rubs at tired eyes and tries to fix his hair as he gets closer to the door and picks out both Aramis and Athos' voice, hissed demands, and sharp returns. He draws open the door and stands within the frame looming as large as he can, though his glare is mainly fixed on Athos when he finds the both of them.

"Inside," he says sharply. "You'll make the neighbours think we're brutes," he points out. "Including d'Artagnan and Constance," he says sharply. "Get inside, we'll talk here."

[somepoorsoul]

Athos tightens his jaw and lifts his chin, his cold and unflinching gaze settling on Porthos. Still, he cannot argue with the demand, not even on principle. He steps by both men with gaze straight ahead, looking at neither of them, and coming to stand in their living room with ramrod-straight posture and a stony expression.

[afineseamstress]

Aramis turns to watch Athos' progression past him, watching him disappear through their door with a helpless expression he soon turns on Porthos. This was never going to go over well - it remains to be discovered just how awfully it may go, and Aramis follows more slowly, catching a hand in Porthos' sleeve. Drawing a breath, he musters his will to face this.

"Courage," he says, voice pitched very low. "We are still his brothers. That does not end with France. He will remember."

[du_vallon]

Porthos fists his hand in Aramis' shirt, keeping him in the hall briefly for a slow kiss that wakes him up from the drowsiness like a fairy tale, stepping back and into their apartment and closing the door behind Aramis as he ushers him inside. He crosses his arms over his chest, the look on his face far from angry, but settled in displeasure. "I heard you both shouting in the halls like maniacs. There was an awful lot about being a musketeer in there," he notes calmly. "I'd like to know why you think we're shirking our oath by protecting the citizens of this place by day and night, taking care of our brothers, and ensuring we do good by the community while we're stuck here."

"Please," he encourages sharply. "Athos, please, tell me where our fault lies."

[somepoorsoul]

“Your oath was to your king!” Athos shouts in a sudden burst of unbridled anger. “And to the brotherhood that you have now soiled.” He hisses through his teeth and looks away from both men, breathing hard. Athos has buried the fear of that first day in Darrow, set into his bones by Aramis’ warnings that finding a way home might be impossible, and by Porthos’ insistence that he had no intention to return, anyway. Now that gut-wrenching terror that he has lost both his home and his brothers resurfaces. Had they even forgotten simple decency? Basic honor?

He grits his teeth. “How long has this been going on?"

[du_vallon]

When he shuts the door gently behind Athos, Porthos has to stay a moment with his palm flush to the wood to contain himself and his emotions. There's a terribly frightful moment in which he wants to punch through it, but he'll end up having to fix it anyway and there's no sense in that. He sags forward more, forehead hitting the wood as he debates going out for a run, but he doesn't really want to spend any more time apart from Aramis than he has to. It's been strained enough as it is. Swallowing, Porthos pushes away from the door to head to the kitchen, keeping his focus bowed and intent on dinner.

"Suppose we won't need the second bottle tonight. Or the extra portions," is what he has to say, staring at the food he'd laid out.

[afineseamstress]

"Won't we?" asks Aramis for the bottles, staring after Porthos as he moves into the kitchen. His gaze passes dully over the beginnings of dinner, the places they'd laid out after lunch for three, not two, and finds he has no appetite at all.

He sits at the table instead, pulling a stray magazine to him, but there is no joy in the thought of a wedding at the present moment. "Perhaps the worst is over now. It was never going to be easy, Porthos."

[du_vallon]

He knows that. He knows that there was bound to be something like a hiccup of this magnitude, but it isn't stopping Porthos from feeling more miserable than he has in ages. He sets the casserole in the oven and closes the door, quick to make his way across the room to straddle Aramis' lap, testing the mettle of the chair. The truth is that he needs the touch, the closeness, and the reassurance that while Athos might not be okay, that they're fine.

"I didn't expect it to go that badly," is what he admits, running his hands up and down Aramis' shoulders as he lets the warmth of his body calm his aching heart.

[afineseamstress]

"Oh Porthos," sighs Aramis, fond for all that his heart aches as much as Porthos' in that moment. The man has so much faith in people, even when the odds are impossible. Aramis believes that Athos might still come round, but he had never expected it to be immediate.

"He has not forsworn us," says Aramis, smoothing his hands down Porthos' chest to rest against his heart. "Many at home would have. Most, even. Give him time - in one week his world has disappeared, and now the version of his brothers he has always relied on."

[du_vallon]

Porthos inhales deeply and presses his forehead to Aramis' as hard as he can, leaning on him even though he knows the weight might grow to be too much to bear. "I know," he agrees, though it's soft. "I know," he sighs again, as if to convince himself as much as Aramis. "It's only..."

"I never expected Athos to turn those words on me," he admits. "I've never heard them cut at me like that before."

[afineseamstress]

"A measure of how much he has been hurt," Aramis replies, lifting his chin to kiss Porthos' scar. "He is scared, and he is confused, and that we had abandoned our duty is the only thing that makes sense to him. Do you know I felt the same?" he asks, looking up at Porthos. "When I thought you would leave us for Alice?"

[du_vallon]

Porthos' eyes fall slowly shut as Aramis presses the kiss to his eye, feeling a bit drunk and dependent. He opens his eyes and gives Aramis a confused look when he makes the remark about Alice. "What do you mean?" he asks, heart beating faster as he begins to worry that Aramis had hated him just as much as Athos seems to, now.

[afineseamstress]

"I mean that I was frightened," says Aramis, rubbing at Porthos' chest where he can feel his heart racing against his palm. "I mean that I had not considered being a Musketeer if you were not beside me. But even as I steeled myself to bear it, I knew that I still had Athos."

Aramis runs his free hand down Porthos' back, as worried for Athos as he is for Porthos' suffering. "But Athos fears he will have no one."

[du_vallon]

Porthos tangles his fingers in Aramis' hair, closing his eyes as he debates the merit of those words. "It's not true, though," he insists sharply, practically determined to live through those vicarious and fierce words. "He has us, he'll always have us, there's no way we'd ever let him be alone." His eyes flash wild as they open, wondering why Athos can't see something so clear.

"Thing is, I love you," Porthos says. "And he's going to have to come to terms with the fact that I want to spend my life with you."

[afineseamstress]

"He must," Aramis agrees, letting the pressure of Porthos' fingers tilt back his head, his own eyes soft. "I will not give you up. And we will not abandon him, either, but you must prepare yourself. Athos was born to finer blood than either of us - there may be more cruel words to come before all those long traditions are undone."

Dragging his hands up Porthos' arms, Aramis holds his gaze. "Please do not take them to heart. Athos knows your worth as surely as I do, even if he has forgotten in his shock. I have known no better man than you, Porthos. With all my heart, I mean that."

[du_vallon]

Porthos takes the opportunity to ease in and begin a row of slow kisses up Aramis' exposed neck, each one finer than any kiss he's had in weeks, it feels. It's as if the deprivation has turned them sweeter. "You don't think he's right, do you?" he can't help asking quietly, chin resting on Aramis' shoulder as he draws in a slow, deep breath. "You don't think we've ruined the brotherhood we share by taking steps to strengthen it, to deepen our oaths?" There's doubt in him that wouldn't exist, but it's Athos.

Athos can always make him doubt things.

Porthos sighs and shifts, knowing he must be pressing too much weight on Aramis, but the oven timer is going off -- a fortuitous coincidence. He climbs off Aramis slowly, though he hates to leave him, and pulls dinner from the oven, pouring them each glasses of wine that are twice as full as they might usually be.

[afineseamstress]

"Ruined? No," says Aramis, discretely rubbing the feeling back into his legs when Porthos moves away, already missing him despite the discomfort. "But we have changed it. Perhaps into something that would be untenable at home."

Aramis has always fought to keep his brothers alive, has held it as important as any mission, yet he knows he could not risk Porthos' death for duty now, not if he could not be there to help him face it. "You are important to me now in a way you were not before."