Warnings: Sexual Content; Canon Typical Violence; Light Masochism; Light Bondage.
Notes: This fic has been censored to comply with the rating policy of this site. The uncensored version is available on AO3. The title is a reference to the Nietzsche quote: "Invisible threads are the strongest ties." The quote is also incorporated into one of the ending paragraphs.
The Strongest Tie
"I don't like this plan."
"Porthos."
"No."
"Porthos."
"No."
Aramis tilted his head, both brows raised toward his hairline. "The Spanish spy we caught is meant to rendezvous with his contact in the king's court this evening at their camp. We have the spy's uniform. I can take the brigand's place, but I can't apprehend the traitor and fight my way out without you." He smirked. "I'm good, but not that good."
Porthos sighed, his shoulders hunching in a way that meant he was on the verge of giving in. "Why can't I wear the Spaniard's uniform?"
Aramis scoffed. "Can you speak Spanish?"
"Sí. Estoy aquí para ver al perro," Porthos answered. His accent wasn't bad, though he was far from being convincing as a native speaker.
"You just said that you're here to see the dog," Aramis told him, already shucking his cloak and undoing his weapons belts so that he could change into the Spanish uniform.
Porthos grinned. "That's what I meant to say."
It being Porthos, Aramis wasn't sure whether or not to believe him.
"Help me with these buttons, will you?" he said instead, pulling the heavy black wool coat over his shoulders and shrugging his arms through the sleeves. He started buttoning from the top and Porthos from the bottom, until they met in the middle. Without being asked, Porthos attended to Aramis' cuffs, fastening them around the wrist.
"Not very imaginative, the Spanish, are they?" Aramis mused, looking down at himself and then reaching for the Spaniard's hat. "I don't care for this hat at all."
"The color doesn't suit your complexion," Porthos agreed. "Makes your skin look like curdled milk."
Aramis made a show of sneering, but bore the insult with good humor. He knew what had put Porthos in such a foul mood.
Porthos hated having his hands bound. He'd never said why, but Aramis could guess. Porthos' mother had been a slave once, after all. And even Aramis didn't know the whole of what had befallen Porthos during the early years of his life, fending for himself on the streets of Paris while most boys were still wearing short pants. Porthos did not speak of it, and Aramis did not ask.
Porthos hated having his hands bound, and Aramis was about to tie him hand and foot and take him into an enemy camp, presenting himself as the Spanish spy and Porthos as his prisoner. It was a good ruse, and they would do it because they were Musketeers first, last, and always, but Porthos would be tense up until the moment he was released and Aramis hated the bleak look in his eyes.
"You could hide beyond the camp," Aramis offered, laying his hands on Porthos' shoulders.
A ghost of a smile touched Porthos' lips, turning them up at the corners. "And leave you to fend for yourself? No. Taking me into the camp as your prisoner is the best way."
Aramis nodded, saying no more about it. He cupped the back of Porthos' neck with one hand and gave it a squeeze. "You rig the ropes. I'll get the horse."
Porthos had spent some years as a sailor – or rather, a pirate, if you believed his drunken tales. Whichever was true, he could tie more knots than Aramis could put a name to. Porthos would be able to come up with something that he'd be able to easily free himself from, yet still looked convincing.
-l-
By the time Aramis had fetched the Spaniard's horse, Porthos had rigged a figure eight of rope. He put his hands behind his back, and Aramis slid the bonds in place around Porthos' wrists, pulling them tight. There was an almost imperceptible hitch in Porthos' breathing, and it made Aramis want to lean in and press a kiss to the back of Porthos' neck. He would do it right at the line where curly black hair gave way to rich brown skin.
Blinking, Aramis squelched the desire and settled for running his fingers over the backs of Porthos' hands, then circled to stand in front of the man, surveying him. "Only a fool would take you prisoner without removing your weapons."
Porthos gave one of his vicious leers, a mask of joviality falling over the discomfort in his eyes. "Good thing for me that you're a fool then," he said dryly.
Giving a gasp of outrage that was ruined by breathless laughter, Aramis snatched Porthos' hat and bandana off his head, tossing the hat to rest with Aramis' abandoned clothes, and unknotting the bandana. He pulled it taut between his hands, favoring Porthos with the devil's own grin.
"That's enough out of you, Musketeer," he said in his best Spanish, stalking Porthos as a cat would a mouse.
"Don't. You. Dare," Porthos growled.
Aramis pounced when Porthos' teeth parted on the word dare. In an instant he was in Porthos' space, pressed body to body, the fabric of the bandana between Porthos' lips, gagging him. Porthos writhed, and Aramis could feel every inch of Porthos' chest against his, Porthos' breath on his skin, stirring the hairs of his beard. He wrapped his arms around Porthos' neck so that he could tie the bandana in place.
Even after it was secure, he didn't step back. He could feel his face flushing, his pulse thrumming in his veins. His heart beat a triptych and he had to stop himself from panting. Somehow, in some way, without intent or design, the atmosphere between them changed from the camaraderie of brothers to something else entirely. It happened in less than an instant, the suddenness of it lashing at him, leaving Aramis feeling that if he checked, surely he would find a whip weal on his forehead.
"Too foolish to take your weapons, but not so foolish as to let you run your mouth," Aramis whispered into the charged air. They were running even as they stood still, and when Aramis raised his eyes to meet Porthos' gaze, he knew that Porthos felt it too, this passion that was wrapping them round, binding them to each other as surely as Porthos' hands.
Porthos jerked forward, shocking Aramis into even greater stillness when he pressed their mouths together through the gag made from his bandana. Aramis' lips parted of their own volition, and he caught the taste of cloth and felt the warmth of Porthos' tongue. He moaned without meaning to, unable to stop himself, then staggered back, reeling.
Pupils dilated, eyes wide in his face, he looked at Porthos for a moment that was balanced on a sword point. The world grew quiet and still and seemed to slow down, just as it did in the beat before Aramis fired a pistol and knew he was going to hit the target.
It was not unheard of for soldiers to take pleasure with one another when there were no women to be had. Porthos was a sailor before he was a Musketeer, and Aramis had partaken of male flesh a time or two himself. But this… This felt different.
Aramis did not want Porthos for lack of a woman to lose himself in. He wanted Porthos because of his grin and his temper and the way he cheated at cards. He wanted Porthos because of his courage and prowess and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he was truly happy.
He wanted Porthos because Porthos trusted Aramis enough to let his hands be bound. Because he was watching Aramis over the gag Aramis had put in his mouth like a man in love.
Aramis stepped forward, bringing their bodies flush once more. He moaned, and this time it was with purpose, with intent. It was a decision he made.
He was going to love this man in every way he knew how.
Porthos kissed him through the gag again, and Aramis wrapped his arms around Porthos' shoulders, holding him tight, pulling him closer. How they had never arrived at this place before, he didn't know. It was enormous and immediate, the realization that he wanted this for as long as he could keep it, and so obvious he couldn't believe he hadn't seen it coming.
Porthos rocked his hips and growled through the gag, squirming, and Aramis abruptly remembered that Porthos' hands were tied. He turned his face, smiling into the scruff on Porthos' cheek. Impatient, Porthos surged forward as soon as Aramis had lowered his hands, his hot tongue pushing at the material of the bandana, trying to move it out of the way. Thoughts swirling into a frenzy of want and taste and heat, Aramis obliged, ripping the gag away from Porthos' face.
Porthos groaned and slid his tongue into Aramis' mouth, their teeth clacking with the force of it. Aramis pushed his fingers into Porthos' hair, almost quaking with excitement at the mere thought of exploring Porthos' zeal for life in this new way. So eager was he that he feared he would show himself to be more boy than man with the speed of his undoing, and so tried to pull back and collect himself.
Porthos did not allow it. He bit at Aramis' lips and rubbed his nose along Aramis' jaw, dragging their beards together with a delightful rasp. "Aramis," Porthos breathed into the sweat slicked skin of Aramis' throat, just as a dozen lovers had done before him. But Porthos was the first to follow the name with a sucking kiss and a bite hard enough to leave a bruise.
[scene redacted]
Weak in the knees, he sank to rest on the forest floor in a heap, Porthos beside him, a wet patch on the front of Porthos' trousers assuring Aramis that he had also found his release.
All was silent save for the harshness of their breath.
This was the moment when Aramis' women usually draped themselves across his chest, their flesh keeping his from cooling too quickly. He wished that Porthos would lie closer, but could not quite bring himself to suggest it.
"We need to wash and get to the rendezvous point," Porthos said after an interminable length of time.
Aramis made a face. His breeches were beginning to stick to him. He didn't look at Porthos. "I'll need to tie your hands again."
Porthos rested his fingers on Aramis' wrist, a simple touch that was anything but. "I don't mind so much, when it's you."
Aramis turned his head to find that Porthos was watching him. Tentatively, he suggested, "Perhaps next time I will be the one bound and gagged."
Porthos grinned, his eyes crinkling with a true expression of happiness for the first time since they had concocted this scheme of ropes and disguises. "You speak of the mission, of course," he said.
"Oh, of course," Aramis echoed, his tone emphatically contradicting his words.
He returned Porthos' wide smile, next time ringing in his ears. Between them stretched an invisible thread, the strongest tie, one made of hope and promise that would not be so easy to slip as the knots of physical bonds, should they even want to try. But Aramis knew they would not fight this coil. They would love and duel and drink and ride and bleed and die, and it would all start here and stretch out until they were buried in the communal graveyard behind the Musketeer barracks.
But in the meantime, they had a traitor to catch.