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[afineseamstress]

The box is there when he wakes, settled at the edge of the bed and almost hidden by Aramis' kicked up sheets. He stares down at it for a long moment, listening to Porthos move about in the kitchen, and when he is awake enough, Aramis drags the box to him to open.

Looking down at its surprising contents, Aramis smiles.

"Washing up!" he calls, exiting the bed with box in hand straight to the bathroom, where he wastes no time, fingers busy with more than the work of slipping the silk up and over his legs. If he is surprised, Aramis is equal parts impressed, stunned, and more warm than he's ever been in his life.

When at last he is set to rights, Aramis gives the corset a last tug and opens the bathroom door, walking the short distance to linger in the bedroom doorway. He gazes at Porthos' back as he rummages in the pantry and smiles, leaning his hip against the frame. "I believe I'll need some help with the string."

Comments

[du_vallon]

He stares down at their hands, swallowing to try and lose the lump in his throat. "You didn't know," he says vehemently, trying to remind himself that he's here and he's happy and he's not lingering in the past. He offers the briefest of smiles along with a shrug. "It's not your fault. I was a kid, my memory wasn't always very good."

"I always liked to think it was something pretty. Brigitte or Caroline or Eleonore." He had a lot of time to think of what it might have been, but not what it had actually been. "I'm still not sure if she even named me what I am," he admits. "Or if that's just what they call me, like we did Flea."

[afineseamstress]

"Whoever named you," says Aramis, bending his head to kiss Porthos' palm, "Did it excellent job. Porthos suits you marvelously." He shifts closer on the chaise, though they are already all but folded together. "I have always like Eleonore," he admits. "Like Aliénor d'Aquitaine - there was a spirited woman if ever history knew one."

[du_vallon]

Porthos is happy to let Aramis crush him, holding him possessively tight as he watches the princess on the screen falling prey to her sleeping spell. "I always liked Lucie, too," he admits. "For a name, in general." It's a name that he can see himself playfully calling out, and is still girlish and beautiful.

"I picked du Vallon," he says, but he's leading somewhere else with this, tracing the pad of his thumb over Aramis' brow and the line of his jaw. "And I'm picking d'Herblay, too, if you'll gift it to me."

[afineseamstress]

"Everything I have and will ever have is yours, Porthos," says Aramis, filled with quiet joy at the thought of their joining in yet another way. "Naming is a powerful thing, and I know you have chosen yours with care. Du Vallon, for the man you wished to be and made yourself, and now d'Herblay. No one could be more honored than I to know that you have chosen my own, as well."

Aramis swallows, finding his voice has gone a touch unsteady. "Perhaps Ana Lucia if it is a girl. Our Lucie."

[du_vallon]

Porthos' smile is tender and soft, slow to grow, but broad and meant when it shows on his face. "I like that," he murmurs fondly. "Ana Lucia," he breathes, thinking that it's different enough from everything they're in contact with. For the first time since they began this, Porthos begins to imagine this girl as an actual being with Aramis' hair and eyes, his wit and charm.

Rather than fear, he feels excitement in the smallest of sparks, but it's enough to make his heart beat a little faster. "And I'll show her the valiant prince battling a dragon," he murmurs fondly, for what's passing on the screen.

[afineseamstress]

Aramis watches Porthos' face change and feels new happiness bloom in his heart, the softest he's yet to experience, yet somehow the most powerful. "You can see her, can't you?" he asks, squeezing Porthos' hand. "How she will love sitting with you, watching these stories, listening to you read them to her. She will grow up loving adventure and desiring to do good, just like her fathers."

[du_vallon]

He nods, as if shocked that he can see such a thing in his mind. "Yeah," he breathes out, holding onto Aramis' hand as he curls the blanket tighter around their shoulders, knowing Aramis might feel a chill in the lack of clothes he's sporting. "Looks just like you, in my head. Long brown hair that I'll braid, like my bandanna," he vows, closing his eyes to imagine it. "Probably get into trouble more often than we can keep track of," he adds ruefully.

"Neither of us set good examples in that respect."

[afineseamstress]

"And no less than we deserve with our record," says Aramis, moved to a laugh that pushes his head against Porthos' shoulder. "I was a torment to my own parents. She will be a terror, but all the best people are, I feel. Good that we will have our farmhouse and all that countryside to wear her out in."

He grins at Porthos. "And with our tutelage, she may even insinuate herself into Athos' affections."

[du_vallon]

Porthos barks out a laugh that has his eyes open, grinning right back down at Aramis. "Uncle Athos," he says, as if he's sharing a private joke of wonder with Aramis. "Someone's going to have to teach her swords and seeing as you've got shooting, I've got wrestling, we might as well press him into service somehow." He rubs his hand slowly up and down Aramis' back.

"What'd you do?" he wonders. "As a kid, to drive your parents batty?"

[afineseamstress]

"Apart from chase every beautiful young girl in town from the tender age of eleven?" asks Aramis with another laugh. "It was not only my interest in God that had them itching to send me to seminary. But mostly other things most lads get up to - falling from trees and rooftops, stealing sweets, kisses, never being where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there."

He raises a brow. "I learned charm purely to survive my village's wrath."

[du_vallon]

Porthos groans. "Oh, she'll be a terror," he says, thinking of all the horror that a young Aramis might get up to. "Almost makes me want a son of yours, too, thinking of you at that age," he says with a low rumbling laugh, Aramis' body vibrating slightly for Porthos' joy. "Thin little charming thing stealing the kisses of the girls in town. I'm glad to give them heartbreak, taking you, though," he says, running his hand over his hair as he sprawls.

"Now I catch you from rooftops, bake you sweets, and kiss you wherever you like," he says. "No charm required."