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Ninon rides away on the small cart, and Athos stands and watches, rain pattering softly onto his coat and his head, the drops small, but the sounds that they make ring in his ears, thunder, canon fire, musket shot too close to his face. He raises a hand, expecting to find blown powder coating his skin; instead, he finds more rain and a frown that has etched itself permanently onto his mouth.
It’s his frown, and he owns it, and doesn’t care.
He mounts his horse and rides aimlessly back towards Paris and its environs; night is close and he debates briefly internally whether he should go back to the garrison or to –
The tavern he passes is ramshackle and old and one he’s familiar with although he’d not been in an age – he’d been thrown out ass over boot the last time, he thinks – but the rain is coming down harder now and hell with it.
The fire is warm and if the owner recognizes him, the man doesn’t say. Athos is sure the greasy, ill kempt bartender will take his money regardless of what’s happened before. And this time, he’s wearing his uniform, not the ratty clothing of a drunk that can’t do anything better with his life.
Athos almost laughs.
He swallows down the first two goblets rather quickly, despite the wine being cheap and slightly sour; his gut is used to it, even though the wine he has in his apartments is better. He’s here now, so he’ll stay here, and not have to think, which he’s rather more thankful for than he’d like to let on.
I could love a man like you.
He drinks more. He thinks about Ninon’s face – her eyes, sparkling with mirth, flirting shamelessly with him in front of too many women (he’d flushed, unfortunately), the detailing of her clothing, the necklace she’d worn –
He reaches for the one he wears, and instead of seeing Ninon’s lovely, lost to him face, he sees
her face, sees her mocking eyes, her tightly laced bodice, her bosom heaving and white, tiny veins that show through her skin, translucent and thin enough for him to see her heartbeat. Almost. He can still see it, her heart under her skin, can see his own finger tracing the outline of where it was, where it beat for him, for their love, and he squeezes the necklace, hard, feeling the edges of it through his gloves and his jacket is too hot suddenly and he calls for more wine.
This woman is a liar!
She is a criminal!
You made her one.
His eyebrows descend and he looks up; he’d heard the voice almost directly over his shoulder, but no one is there. The tavern is almost empty, come to think of it, and he stands, staggering a bit, but regains his footing I’m a bloody musketeer and he touches the hilt of his rapier, sheathed at his side, hanging comfortably on his left, the pommel smooth and the basket just right for his hand and he calms some, two fingers resting on his weapon. He is a soldier and it’s what he’s best at now.
He makes his way outside and the rain has stopped, but the chill is invasive and he squints up at the sky as he mounts his horse and clicks to him. Dizziness comes over him in waves and he manages to stay upright but –
Who is that woman, Athos?
Did you know her?
In another time.
Another life.
He does laugh this time, and scares a stray dog that’s foraging for food in the trash near the street corner; it shoots off, barking, and he slaps the reins against his animal’s neck.
Another life. Can he even remember what that was? And why would he want to?
It seems to take way longer to find his apartments than normal; the moon is more than halfway across the sky and he’s cold and it’s been too long since he’s had any drink and his stables his horse and stumbles up the stairs, knocking his head against the door jam as he fumbles to enter, cursing colorfully as he fails to get his flint lit the first few times.
Jacket over a chair, boots on the floor (in the corner; he needs to polish them anyway, so they can just rest in the dust for now), pistol, dagger and lastly rapier safely put away in the wardrobe (he does respect them more than he does all else) and he flops to his bed.
He leans and fishes under the mattress and almost sobs in relief when the clink of glass hits his nails.
*
He wakes.
One eye open, then the other.
The floor creaks oddly – he sits and scrubs a hand over his face, through his unruly, too long hair, over his beard that probably does need a trim now. Sunlight is bright although new and he stands, his feet freezing on the wooden floor –
“Who was that woman?”
He closes his eyes, and stands at the window, hand poised to reach for his water bucket.
“I thought you said ‘whoever she was, she can wait.’” He draws the bucket inside, and retreats to the bed, sitting heavily, hands hanging between his knees. He accepts the flagon of – ale, not his first choice – that Aramis hands him and drinks, then cracks the skin of ice over the bucket with the metal edge of it.
The other man sits next to him, wearing only his trousers and shirt, non-fancy boots covering his feet. “Porthos said that. Not me.”
Athos stares down at the water, and finally scoops some into his hands, splashing it on his face, into his hair, down the back of his shirt, chilly, shiver-inducing water that is his best friend on these mornings. On every morning, really.
He rubs his face again, sluicing the water through his hair and beard, and turns to look at Aramis, who seems almost naked without his coat and sash and guns –
“Where is your hat?”
“At the garrison,” Aramis twists his mouth wryly. “I rode here quickly.”
“I’m sure,” Athos, slicking his hair back from his white forehead, cocks an eyebrow, ignoring the familiar pounding drumbeat that has begun behind his left eye socket, the one that goes thump thump thump good morning thump thump thump I’m never leaving you, and makes to stand after taking another sip of the vile ale.
The hand on his arm is insistent and warm. He looks at the window, open now, the morning sounds beginning to invade his dark escape and then down at Aramis’ hand, taking odd note of the finely shaped fingernails – they are bitten. He pulls a face and goes to touch one.
Aramis squeezes his forearm.
“Tell me.”
“Aramis. Don’t ask that of me.”
Athos tries to undo the other man’s grip, but it is like a steel trap – a rabbit trap he can’t free his already dead hide from – and after a moment of minute struggle, gives up and collapses back against the wall, no matter that it’s morning and they need to be going or they’ll miss role call.
The sun is brighter and higher now and the stink from the freshly tossed house trash is rising and he can hear horse-hooves and merchants shouting and he can smell bread and he can hear the breathing of his brother next to him.
“Athos.”
He bites his lip, and searches for the necklace – automatic, out of habit, a trying, cloying pattern that makes his skin crawl when he locates it.
“I loved her, once.”
He waits for Aramis to say something, anything, but the other man merely holds his arm and breathes. The sun crosses a little higher outside his window.
“I loved her, and she lied to me, and I had to kill her for it.”
Aramis squeezes his arm again, but doesn’t ask why the woman is still alive, then.
Athos can smell the musk from Aramis – it’s a combination of horse and leather and sweat and some sort of spicy oil that makes him want to laugh at the thought of Aramis using it – but he would, and that’s Aramis even more and Athos feels his eyes prick and burn and he swallows heavily, hard and dry and Aramis raises his hand off Athos’ arm and threads his fingers through the wet hair at the base of Athos’ neck. He cups his hand and Athos slumps.
“Porthos loves you too, you know. But he respects your privacy, and I don’t,” Aramis says, and Athos smiles then, and it’s broad and real and he leans into the other man’s touch and they sit that way, Aramis’ hand on his back and fingers touching his neck, Athos’ skin gradually drying, the bucket at his feet and wine bottles under his bed and a single spiderweb in the corner, blowing with the morning breeze that’s coming into his rooms.
“Her name isn’t Madame de la Chapelle, is it?”
“No. It’s Anne. Was Anne. Or at least, that’s what she told me. A long time ago.” Athos sucks in air and clutches for the necklace and suddenly everything is too close, too hot, and he rises, shedding Aramis like a cloak, taking the bucket and kneeling and he plunges his head into it, staying for longer than normal –
he gasps, a fish flopping on land, dying at the touch of air, and slides hands through his hair, squeezing water out, and he stands and returns the bucket to where it belongs. He tucks his shirt into his breeches and removes his rapier from where he’d put it in the wardrobe the night before.
He meets Aramis’ eyes. The other musketeer is standing also, a bit taller than Athos, but strangely diminished without his accoutrements and heavy turn down boots. A bird calls outside, its cry rising to a sky-splitting squawk as a neighborhood cat takes care of it too quickly. Athos stretches; pulling on his gloves, he cracks his neck and swings his blade and watches Aramis.
“You do deserve us, Athos. You deserve friendship and happiness and I want you to tell me what I can do to help with this. With her.”
“You can never repeat what I told you.”
“Not what I wanted to hear.”
“I don’t care, Aramis. You are my brother, both of you are, but I cannot do this right now.”
“Athos,” Aramis steps closer to him, and Athos grits his teeth, his rapier slung over his shoulders, his glove covered hands resting on either end of it. “You know me well enough by now I won’t let this be the end of it.” He puts his hand on Athos’ chest, and it’s still warm through the cloth of Athos’ shirt. “I can’t see you disappear into this. I don’t want to see you swallowed by pain when we’re right here.”
“I’ve hidden this for years. Why now?”
Athos swallows but he’ll be blunt; Aramis is his brother and the closest thing he’s had to a best friend in his whole life. He lets the sword drop to his side, gloves hiding the slight tremor in his fingers.
“Because. Things have changed – for all of us,” Aramis leans forward suddenly and grips the back of Athos’ neck and brings their foreheads together. His dark eyes swallow Athos’s field of view and he stills, waiting –
“I lost everything in Savoy. I thought I’d lost it again recently. I may be a fine shot and a good lover – great lover,” he smiles, “and a damn good musketeer, but I’m not any of those things without Porthos, or without you. And brothers don’t hide things, and they don’t crawl into the bottom of a bottle when we’re here to keep you from doing that. I won’t let you. I respect and love you too much for that – and fuck’s sake, man, but something has been going on since we left that old villa I had no idea you owned and I will worm the rest of it out of you if I have to apply every cheap, cheating skill I know in the whole world. I need you to be all right.” He smiles again, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and Athos’ knows he’s thinking of Marsac and the fact he’d had to bury his friend – and Aramis is the last one left from that awful event and Athos is struck with –
Aramis needs him, as well, and he needs to know because he needs to know and needs Athos to be all right because he can’t stand it any other way – he can’t lose someone again, not like he had, and Athos lets his rapier clatter to the ground and he grips at the other man’s shoulders.
“I can’t promise,” he whispers. “But I can try.”
“Please.”
Athos keeps his eyes open at the dry brush of Aramis’ lips on his forehead, a gift, a benediction, affection and love and his body isn’t cold anymore.
He lets go of Aramis’ shirt and shoves back, picking up his weapon and slipping his boots and jacket on, buckling everything into place, belt, dagger, pistol, pauldron.
It’s day and they’re going to be late.
Aramis waits for him outside, their mounts ready, and Athos slides his hat on, cocking it to shield his bright green, slightly bloodshot eyes from the sun, and peers at Aramis from under the curled brim as his brother mounts his own horse, Aramis’ wild curly hair red and brown and blond in the light of day.
“You cannot borrow my hat, though.”
Aramis’ ringing laugh is more beautiful than any church bell, than any new bottle of red wine, than any field of blue, blue flowers.
He thinks of Ninon and the odd pain at her sudden and unexpected loss is still there –
It’s a pity neither of us is the marrying kind.
and he can see Milady’s (Anne’s, remember) eyes too, but he follows Aramis out of his street and the other man looks back at him, and the adjunct pain he always lets himself feel about anything is lessened and he thinks tonight, perhaps, he might not have to stop at the corner tavern after all.