(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.

[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.