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[afineseamstress]

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?"

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[du_vallon]

Porthos grunts as he flips through the cookbook, noting a few pages and recipes that he means to try. "If he'll join us," he says absently. "Last I looked upstairs, he was fairly intent on studying his papers." And he had looked. He hadn't said anything and hadn't dared spark another fight, but he'd checked to make sure he was still alive and kicking.

He gives Aramis a curious look as he peers back at him. "What's that face for?"

[afineseamstress]

"What face?" asks Aramis, his expression unchanged. He pulls Porthos' cookbook from his fingers so he can peer at him more openly. "Perhaps you ought to do a duck, see if we can't tempt him down." Aramis frowns. "He's in one of his moods, isn't he? What's set him off?"

[du_vallon]

Porthos sighs as the cookbook goes. "I can roast a duck, but don't be disappointed if he doesn't come downstairs to eat," he warns, sitting up slightly as he pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to figure out the best way to talk about all of this. "We got in a fight. Well, a fight or two. I wasn't exactly very pleased that he went to fight club. Things got worse, next morning."

[afineseamstress]

Aramis sits up, turning on the cushions with a scandalized look. "You didn't tell me that," he says with a quick look at the stairs. "Neither of you did."

The pair of them, fighting and not speaking, and with days now to tangle the knot. Aramis resists a deep sigh. "What happened?"

[du_vallon]

"Yeah, well, it's sort of a weird fight," Porthos admits, staring up at the ceiling with a look filled with sadness and pity. "I mean, I was upset with him going to fight because he chose to do that instead of talk to us. And someone there could've really hurt him, so I tried to give him what he wanted without lasting damage."

"Only, when I got back the next morning, I was still tipsy and I told him about the memories. And I told him about the last thing I remembered after you leaving me. Which is Athos leaving me," he says quietly.

[afineseamstress]

"What do you mean?" asks Aramis. "Leaving you like I left you?" That cannot be the case. There had been a finality to Aramis leaving for the monastery, one he cannot imagine from Athos. "That is impossible."

[du_vallon]

"I don't know why he went, but I have suspicions," he admits. "We were at the garrison, after the wedding. He just got this look on his face and he bolted out of there without telling me anything. He left. I think, I sort of think, that maybe he went after Milady."

[afineseamstress]

"That is quite an assumption, Porthos," says Aramis, wishing quite desperately that he had been there to see it, too, to decipher whatever had happened and come to a less mad conclusion. "He might have gone anywhere. You did not tell him that's what he was doing, surely?"

[du_vallon]

"I know he might've gone anywhere, but he did it without telling me or Treville, so I doubt it was for the war." He stares at his lap, a sad look on his face. "And yeah, I told him my suspicions. I told you this was a weird fight. I'm not mad at him for being upset or anything, I just..."

He shrugs, clamming up. "S'nothing."

[afineseamstress]

Aramis gets to his feet, wide eyed where he looks down at Porthos. The man looks miserable, yes, but so must the man upstairs, he is sure. "That is not the reason he has stayed away, Porthos," says Aramis. "You must know that. You told him he deserted."

[du_vallon]

Porthos gives him a knowing look. "Yeah, I know, okay? I don't know where he went or if he came back. I don't care that he went and deserted, I told him as much," he says, but he knows that it's not as if Athos would've taken it well. He sighs and shakes his head. "He wouldn't even stay to talk. Look, I know that this isn't an easy thing for him. I know he feels like he deserted, but he refuses to let us help."

The real hurt and worry for Porthos, beneath that part of him tired of being abandoned and put second, is the fear that he and Athos might not have a future like this, not if this is how things go.

[afineseamstress]

"How could we?" asks Aramis, feeling a rise of desperation. "He rebuilt himself after Milady. He made a new life with honor that he earned, instead of the honor he was born with, and he thinks he's thrown it all away, just as he threw his old life away when he was taken in by her a first time. He thinks he's a fool twiceover, Porthos."

Aramis balls his hands, rubbing them at his eyes in frustration. "We don't know what happened when he left. In speculating so, you could not have cut him more deeply."

[du_vallon]

"Aramis, I know," Porthos says heavily, closing the cookbook in his lap. "He's away from where he wants to serve, just like here. And the thought met with panic and desertion, just like here," he says, putting emphasis on those words. "He's not a fool. I kept trying to tell him that. He's not a fool or a deserter or anything less than honourable, no more than you were for leaving. He isn't sitting around saying you deserted," he points out.

"And no, I don't know what happened. It's not like anybody ever really stops to tell me why they're leaving me."

[afineseamstress]

"I did," says Aramis, sinking back onto the chaise. "I no longer felt worthy of the life I had, nor the people in it. That is why Athos did not call me a deserter." And Athos now thinks he left to be with a murderer.

Aramis sighs, pulling Porthos' hand between his own. "And we are not there, and we have not truly lived those lives, Porthos. You must stop pitting those remembered men against the men before you now. I am not the Aramis who left you. Neither is he."

[du_vallon]

"Yeah, I know," he says, staring down at their hands. "But he's still the man who doesn't want to talk to us when something is wrong. Goes to a fight club instead of deals with us," he points out quietly. "Aramis, I don't know if I can keep a relationship going without communication," he admits.

"I love him. I just don't know if I can do this much more," he says. "And that's not the man at home. It's that one upstairs, hurting, and not letting me soothe that hurt."

[afineseamstress]

"Would you truly give up on him so easily?" asks Aramis, his expression sad. "You shocked him, and with the worst scenario he could imagine. You must be more patient than this," says Aramis, "With all of us. You left me, you know. When I was home from the hospital, and aching for my son, so agonized with it I could hardly rise in the morning - you left."

"Would you have had me give up on you then?" he asks. "I know that you love us, Porthos, but there are times when you can be awfully unforgiving. And I know it is because you are hurt," Aramis adds. "But it does not make balancing the hearts of three people any easier."

[du_vallon]

"No," he admits quietly, and maybe that's the trouble. He doesn't ever, ever want to give Athos up, but he knows that what's happening now isn't healthy. He gives Aramis a sad look, understanding that he also can't flip the tables now when he had done that. "And no, I wouldn't have wanted you to do that, either," he murmurs. "I suppose I should think about it like that, shouldn't I? That he's avoiding us to avoid making things work."

"I don't like these memories," he says bluntly. "I don't like what they make me feel. I went to that fight club and I didn't pick a fight with anyone but Athos, only to try and save his face and body." He slowly rises, cookbook in hand, aiming to make that duck to see if it can't tempt Athos down. "He still doesn't know the rest. Not about my father, not what I found out."

[afineseamstress]

"He knows some," replies Aramis. "I pieced together quite a lot when I received my own memories, you must have told him then. There will be time to tell him the rest, Porthos, but it isn't now."

Aramis looks up the stairs. "Not while we are like this. You must make this right. There is so much generosity in you, and so much love - you need to let go of these hurts and accusations. It isn't fair to either of you."

[du_vallon]

"I told him I knew who it was, that was about it," he says quietly. He's not sure why he feels like he wants to bottle this all up and keep it to himself, but maybe it's because now he doesn't know what to say around Athos. He leans against the fridge to fetch out the duck, some syrup in his other hand. "Aramis, I mean it. I'm not mad at him," he says. "I'm not even upset. I don't think he deserted, I don't think he's awful. I'm even giving him space," he points out, a touch heated.

"I can't control feeling hurt, but I'm not up there shoving it in his face," he points out. "But it isn't even just this. Did he tell you why he was at that fight club? Because I still don't know. Because he won't tell me. I'm frustrated," he admits. "And the memories didn't help."

[afineseamstress]

"I know you are frustrated," says Aramis, watching him from the chaise. "We are all frustrated, and each of us persecuted in our own way by these wretched memories of people we will never become."

Aramis drags his hands through his hair, pulling it back to tie at the base. "He fears our separating. That is why he went to the fight club. He was distressed at my becoming an EMT, and your distance from the agency, and though he did not say, I know our child plays into it. He has it in his mind that somehow, we will drift away and leave him when she is born. He is convinced that somehow, we simply don't know it yet. I know that that is madness," says Aramis, "And so do you. But Athos' heart is more tender than both of ours combined. He's frightened, Porthos."

[du_vallon]

Porthos' gaze slides to the way Aramis ties up his hair, a spark of true, heated interest leaping up from beyond the frustration because he does so love the way it looks, knotted back like that. It's a dizzying thing in the middle of such heightened emotions and he tries to focus on the preparation. "I don't want him to be frightened," he says softly. "I want to soothe those fears away without fists and take him in our arms and have him know it'll be fine. I want him to know that."

"I'm even staying at the agency more than I'd like, just to keep him from feeling the pain of us easing back," he confesses.

[afineseamstress]

"I know," says Aramis, coming to stand at Porthos' side. Frustrated though he is, he can't bear to see Porthos unhappy anymore than he ever can, and he slides his hands up Porthos' arms. "Forgive me, I do not mean to lay it all on you. He is a difficult man. I have never known any soul less disposed to allowing itself to be loved than that wretch upstairs."

Aramis cups Porthos' cheeks. "But we are two against one, now that I know the battle. It will be alright."

[du_vallon]

"You know me. I lack patience and I'm stubborn," he points out, reaching out to let his thumb trace over Aramis' temple, making its way over the hair until he can stroke the little tuft sticking out the ponytail. "I want us to work, but it feels broken," he says, leaning into the touch. "And I hate seeing it that way, not when I feel like we can fix it."

Sighing, he leans forward and kisses Aramis slow and longing, an echo of all their kisses lately with his memories. "I love him and I love you and I just want to take that and use it to make everyone happy."

[afineseamstress]

"I know," says Aramis softly, smoothing his hands through Porthos' curls. "You are the loveliest, kindest, most damnably impatient man I know." He smiles and kisses Porthos' cheek. "You must stop trying to fit him into your mold, even if he might be happier. Athos cannot be forced."

Aramis takes Porthos' hands. "Prepare the duck. I will see if I can coax him down."

[du_vallon]

"One day, I'm gonna throw him over my shoulder and show him happy," Porthos warns with a growl that's only half-mocking. He reaches back to give Aramis' little ponytail a tweak and a tug with a smirk, leaning that hand down to goose him before he turns back to the oven to start preparing the duck, glancing hopefully towards the ceiling.

"Tell him I'll even make dessert."

[afineseamstress]

Aramis jumps at the pinch, laughing and rubbing at his arse after. He circles his arms around Porthos from behind and pushes his nose against his neck, breathing in deeply to fortify himself for what's to come.

"I'll see you soon, cariño," he says with a last squeeze.

[du_vallon]

Porthos glances up from where he's sucking a bit of maple syrup from off his thumb, as if he needs to give Aramis one last little incentive. "Oh, and if you do manage to rally him to come downstairs, there's a blowjob in it for you," he informs him. "That, or I'll fuck you against the wall, never letting your feet hit the ground."