Chapter Text
Once On The Run (Part 2)
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Bowed low over the horse’s neck, Aramis kept one arm wrapped protectively around his torso while the fingers of his freehand clung tightly to the pommel, muscles flexing convulsively as their procession stumbled swiftly through the gloom. His whole body straining as they whisked through spindly underbrush and jolted over logs.
The inside surface of his knee joints burned, raw from reflexively gripping whenever the horse canted in ways his shaky balance couldn’t anticipate. His hips ached. And fire -- fire was flaring along his left side, stealing his breath as it flared and quelled, flared, and quelled again.
Abruptly, their procession jerked right, a white haze temporarily washing out his vision. He swallowed around the sound that wanted to dash out of him, and thought he’d muted it sufficiently well, but when his vision returned enough to let him focus on the dark muck below his mount’s front hoof, a hand was clutched against his leg and Athos and Porthos were mumbling to each other in dark tones. Saying things like slower... much longer... fall... bleeding...
They were still moving, though -- just not fast enough.
The reality that Aramis had sensed descending upon them a few leagues back was becoming truer all the time. Like a tangible entity saturating the air. Like thickening smoke, for the way it burned into Aramis’s lungs.
They weren’t going to make it.
They weren’t creating distance in the dark.
Horse or not, he was slowing them down.
They were going to be overtaken.
“Athos,” he mumbled, trying to shove off the pommel and get himself upright.
It didn't work, and Athos ignored him, tugging on the reins as they hazarded a misstep and then lurched up an incline. Grimacing and panting, Aramis squeezed his eyes shut, hiding his face in the horse’s withers as he worked to catch his breath.
Unbidden, the image of d’Artagnan -- kneeling with his throat slit -- sparked to life behind his eyelids. Despite himself, he exhaled sharply through his nose. It was like a tired joke, the way he kept picturing masked men materializing from the trees.
“Athos,” he tried again.
They marched onward, twigs and saplings snapping below the horse’s hooves.
“Athos!”
“Quiet!” Athos hissed without even turning around, using a tone Aramis had a honed instinct to obey.
They fell to silence, plodding along over gnarled ground. The far-off rustling behind them dull, but there, like an unsettling wind.
Another lurch and misstep. Aramis wobbled, an eruption of fire coiling his muscles.
Porthos’s hand clenched around his thigh. A warm presence, if not particularly balancing. “Athos. Aramis is right,” he said, something thick in his voice that made it sound as bold as it was resigned. “He’s not going to make it, and we can’t outrun them. Not like this. They’re using dogs. We both know it.”
Without turning around, Athos took a breath, laced with tension and hardly above the sound of butterfly’s wings, but Aramis heard it and bit his lips together.
Even then, he was unprepared for the way the blood in his head flooded dizzyingly through his ears when the horse abruptly stopped. Collectively, his muscles locked and loosened, sending a prickly sensation running hotly over his skin as he pressed his forehead to his wrist. The horse's mane itched under his palm. The beast's patient breathing a clear counterpoint his own uneven hitch.
For a long moment, there was nothing but that, then somewhere to the left, d’Artagnan shuffled uncomfortably in the silence.
Sniffing deeply, Aramis pried his head up to catch Athos and Porthos exchanging a long look -- stoic and undecipherable to any who didn’t know them, but Aramis did. Knew them like his own skin. And he waited. Watching as the discomforting quiet between them stretched far and long.
“They’re using dogs,” Athos finally agreed, a flat steadiness to his voice. “We won’t outrun them.”
Aramis felt his ribs expand and he closed his eyes, some bastardized emotion overtaking him. Something like relief, but painful. Like a lodged bullet finally freed from coarse muscle.
“I didn’t hear dogs,” d’Artagnan murmured hesitantly. “I didn’t see dogs.”
“Tracking in the dark,” Porthos breathed, moving his hand to Aramis’s hip and digging his fingers tightly around the crest of his hipbone. Too tightly. “They’re catching up. It’s the only way they could.”
Aramis blinked at him, wondering if the pressured grip was a sign that Porthos was dizzy. A sign of him needing balance and care for his own wound.
“Athos,” Aramis murmured, lifting his head in his attempt to leverage off the pommel.
“Quiet,” Athos ordered all over again.
But being motionless had given Aramis energy enough for fractiousness. “Am I not allowed to say anything at all?”
Athos drew closer. “I know what you’re going to say and I have no desire to hear it. Besides, I’m still angry with you.” Reaching up as Porthos stepped back, he braced his hands at Aramis’s sides, gentler where he knew the wound to be. “Hold onto me,” he whispered.
Aramis did, letting Athos take his weight and ease him off the saddle. Porthos catching him as he slid -- steadying him when his feet touched ground and he stumbled, arms still around Athos’s neck. He was dizzy. More so even than he thought he'd be. Parting his lips, he felt the skin below his chin catch on leather. “If I surrender, they’ll hardly shoot me on sight," he breathed into Athos's ear. "Surely they've now guessed that our own reinforcements are on their way. I’ll be useful as a hostage and of no use to them dead until they have all of us.”
Athos’s arm flexed uncomfortably around his torso, his gloved other hand bracing over Aramis’s hair. “I told you to be quiet,” he reminded, walking Aramis backwards and easing him down against a tree.
Swallowing thickly, Aramis tipped the crown of his head to the bark to catch Athos’s eye when he drew back. “There are brave battles and foolish ones,” he reminded seriously.
Releasing his shoulders, Athos gripped the lapels of Aramis’s doublet roughly. “Enough of this, Aramis. Hear me now. Under no circumstances. Do you understand? None.” Pulling up on the leather, he yanked him closer with as much true and genuine anger as Aramis had ever seen from him. “Would you have me forget the oath between us so easily?”
All for one and one for all.
All for one.
One for all.
At cross purposes sometimes.
“You would not be abandoning me. Do you think I would ever ask you to do that?” Aramis tried, tangling his own fist into Athos’s lapel and clutching until his fingers turned white. “This is not the same. Think, Athos. I surrender -- a distraction and a delay. As missions go, I’ve accepted assignments far more dangerous. We all have.”
“Aramis. Stop. Talking.”
“It’s worth the risk,” Aramis growled.
“He’s delirious from blood loss, Athos. Ignore him.”
Aramis glanced over at the intrusion, expecting to see Porthos glowering down at him, but he wasn’t. His back was to them. He’d paced aways into the sparse clearing and was staring up, around at the trees, a stillness about him that felt unusual. Aramis watched him blankly, breathing harshly until he felt a new hand settle over his, peeling it from Athos’s collar.
“I’ve got him, Athos. I’ve got him.”
Leveling a flat glare, Athos released him, pushing him pointedly into the cradle of the tree trunk as he stood, letting d'Artagnan come between them.
“Here. Drink something,” d’Artagnan encouraged softly, kneeling in Athos’s place to further separate them, then bringing the water up and steadying his hand.
Aramis closed his eyes to swallow, having no desire to see the reassurance in d’Artagnan’s eyes -- nor to see, close-up, the specter of him with his blood already spilt.
The water was cold and a good enough distraction. It made his throat thrum. But as it slipped past his larynx, d'Artagnan spoke. “You’re smart enough to know not to talk to him that way,” he chastised quietly.
Finally looking, Aramis found d’Artagnan’s eyes were warm but clear. Wherever d’Artagnan might still play at naiveté, it wasn’t here, and a small part of Aramis ached to know it. Swallowing once more, he let his trembling hand drop and passed the water back. “And he’s smart enough to recognize the reason in what I’m saying,” he countered wearily.
“What was it you told me once? You and Marsac—you knew you were going to die, but you fought, side by side, like soldiers.” D’Artagnan’s voice was pitched low. One part cautious affection, one part gentle mockery.
Dark and pointed as it was -- this chastisement, this all for one -- Aramis appreciated d'Artagnan's recognition that now was not the time to pull punches. And though there was a cavern of replies he could return, he was tired, and not currently given to pulling punches of his own. He sniffed in the smell of crumpled leaves and let his eyes close. “And I wished to God there had been another way,” he said.
In the distance, he could hear the stray sounds of their pursuers. More distinct now. Less possible to be dismissed as imaginary.
“Athos,” mumbled Porthos, turning around with a steady gaze to face all of them. “You said we would have to go until we were able to outrun them or defend ourselves.”
“Till we found a defensible position,” corrected d’Artagnan, clearing his throat and standing. “We need a defensible position. We don’t have one. We have nothing.”
Porthos stared, first at Athos, then down at Aramis, an expression Aramis couldn't read locked upon his face. “Yes. Nothing,” Porthos agreed. "We have nothing."
-
Athos spent too much time -- time they didn't have -- fussing with the makeshift bandage and getting him settled. A new spot against a downed tree trunk. More in the open. More obvious.
“I’m all right,” assured Aramis, speaking to the top of Athos’s head, then grunting as the sash was pulled tighter. “This is the right thing.”
Athos ignored him -- finished loading his pistol, then double checked it before passing it stock-first into his hands. “Don’t let any of the dogs even close to you," he ordered. "Do you understand?”
Aramis nodded, making a show of examining the flitlock. “I understand,” he promised. “And just in case they do… I’m set.” He held up his parrying dagger with his other hand. Just long enough to let them both ignore how much it trembled. Though they’d both seen.
Lowering it to the ground, he turned his chin away.
Athos's hand dropped to his shoulder. “There should be a better way,” he murmured, speaking to the ground.
“There isn’t.” Aramis caught his eye. "This is it. This is the one. I can do this."
Athos’s face was nearly expressionless as he contemplated him, staring just a beat too long. As if to pass a test, Aramis held his gaze steadily and tried not to fold when Athos's hand moved to the back of his neck and squeezed, bending into his space until Aramis's chin touched his shoulder.
Aramis closed his eyes, breathing in the functional scent of wine and leather -- swallowing the lump that rose in his throat when Athos pressed a dry kiss to the hair above his ear and released him.
Rocking back on his heels with a purposeful sniff, Athos rested his hand pointedly over Aramis’s heart, and then Porthos was there, and d’Artagnan, resting their hands there too. Nodding solemnly, Aramis folded his own palm over the top, inhaling to feel the solid pressure against his sternum.
“All for one,” d’Artagnan intoned seriously.
“And one for all.”
All too soon, a smattering of barks and howls echoed up towards the starlight.
It was time.
With a final look, they separated.
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to be continued... (I solemnly swear...)