WARNING: This story centres around the subject of suicide. If you're in a vulnerable place, please give it a pass. I write fanfiction for my own mental health, and I would never want to jeopardise anyone else's heath for that reason.
If you want to know the details, please check out the end of this chapter for a slightly spoilery summery.
Reach Out Your Hand
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One: Blood, Spilled
"Can he hear me?"
Athos hated that voice. It made him feel sick inside, sending shivers up his spine and his flesh creeping.
"Of that I'm not quite sure, Monsieur. I've never had a chance to ask."
He hadn't realised his eyes were closed until someone pried one of them open. The face before him was a blur of pulsing light, an incomprehensible mix of flesh-tones and shadow.
"Pretty eyes. They're too soft for a man." A thumb feathered across his eyelashes, and Athos felt a tear escape to run down his cheek. "I'd always thought they were blue, but now they look green, don't they?"
He wasn't quite as repulsed by the second voice, either because he didn't know it, or because there was comfort in the fact that it came from further away. At the moment, Athos couldn't think of a sensation more distressing than the hot breath ghosting across the side of his face, but he seemed unable to move away.
"Do you think he'd undress himself?" asked the far-away voice.
"Mmm. Perhaps his doublet. Leave his boots on. Let's say he never got that far."
Touch was intensely overstimulating. A hand on his wrist sent him into a tailspin of prickling pain, and Athos lost time when his body was tipped forward, plunging into a flood of misfiring signals.
He came back to some semblance of awareness when a bolt of icy coldness splashed across one thigh. The intense shock and pain drove his eyes half-way open and moulded the smears around him into a vague sense of his own apartment.
"Are those bruises going to be visible post-mortem?"
Now the far-away voice was closer. "Possibly. He has very pale skin. They don't usually fight back that hard."
"I told you he was a musketeer."
"Pardon, Monsieur, but I've come across musketeers before, and they weren't this hard to subdue."
"Are his eyes open again?"
Someone gripped him by the hair and pulled his head back. The pain tore a gasp from Athos' throat.
The far-away voice swore heartily. "I've never seen such a determined bastard! I almost admire the poor sod."
"Be careful what you 'almost'."
"Of course, Monsieur. It was just a figure of speech. This will only take a moment now."
Athos could make out his arms stretched in front of him, held in someone else's grip. Then there was only icy coldness and his world shrunk to the driving pain shooting up his arms and swamping his senses.
"Why the bucket of water?"
"Stops the wounds from clotting. He'll bleed out twice as fast. Do you want to watch?"
Fingers wove into his hair, and Athos found himself blinking at the ceiling, his neck stretched to its limit.
"As much as I'd enjoy it, I think this one fears dying alone."
Hot fingers cupped his jaw, and then ghosted up his cheek to wipe another tear from his eye.
"I think we'll leave him here to his disreputable end. All his effort, all his loyalty washed away in a little blood."
Athos could feel the heat of another face cheek to cheek with his own and his mind shied away when damp lips pressed against his temple.
"Goodnight, Athos. Know that you are betraying your friends with your last breath. They will never forgive you. This will be the end of the Musketeers."
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Summery with Spoilers:
Athos is assumed to have cut his own wrists after a night of drinking alone. Various characters struggle with guilt and questions as to who they should blame. Some people see the suicide attempt as the result of an illness, some as an act of betrayal. Eventually it becomes clear that Athos was drugged, and the injury was inflicted by someone else with the intent to deceive.
(Feel free to PM me if you have further questions or worries about the content)