With wild dances of gratitude to CreepingMuse, who lovingly betaed this chapter TWICE, and who suspected immediately that Aramis is the one whose mind we'd rather inhabit. Oh, how right she was!

Let him hang himself

According to d'Artagnan, love was torture. A cruel mistress. No, it was a fragile blossom. Really, an entire garden of delights. No, it was the treacherous sea, drowning every last sailor. Love was a fierce hound and he was a bloody rat delivered in its jaws.

Aramis couldn't leave him like this.

"How can she end it when she loves me?" D'Artagnan slumped over the unbalanced table, setting the wine in Aramis' glass sloshing. "Tell me, Aramis, how?"

Tireless, circling agony, born of inexperience and wine. Two bottles, at last count.

Aramis began the interminable session countering with reason. He explained, gently, that Constance might instead be honored for holding her marriage sacred. He suggested that Bonacieux's move, infuriating as it was, demonstrated how very much he cherished his bride, and isn't that what d'Artagnan would want for her? He tallied the number of lovely ladies in Paris who would likely make a happy substitute for Constance, then extrapolated from that the total number of willing women in the whole of France. Nothing cracked d'Artagnan's determined misery.

These several hours later, the best he could do was sympathize. "It's a tragedy," he said in place of an answer.

Aramis could easily recall his own despair when his beloved Isabelle was snatched away. The pain of it was weaker now, so many years hence and with the revelation that it had been her choice to leave him. But the ache remained, as much a part of him as his right arm. If only there had been a wise, experienced friend beside him when he drank himself sick and railed at the heavens.

And so he stayed as d'Artagnan retraced his woe.

"And if she loves me, and I her – and I do, Aramis, you know I do -"

"I know," Aramis assured him.

"Then we must be together," d'Artagnan said, smacking his leg when he missed the edge of the table.

If he had had a wise friend beside him amid the delirious sorrow of those first lonely days, perhaps Aramis would have left off to sleep once in a while instead of passing out in the mud. "You should get to bed," Aramis suggested, standing. "And so should I. You'll feel better in the morning."

D'Artagnan lurched in his seat, grabbing a handful of leather and, beneath it, linen at Aramis' waist. "How will I live without her?"

With a sad smile, Aramis untangled d'Artagnan's fist from his clothes, then lifted him to his feet. Only when d'Artagnan's balance was assured did Aramis slide his palm up onto the young man's shoulder. "You'll live," he promised, dropping a few coins on the table before steering him toward the door. "Believe me."

The very next morning d'Artagnan burst into the garrison's courtyard, thrumming with a new energy, and marched right up to Aramis. "I've written her a letter," he announced, slamming a folded page onto Aramis' chest. "I'll win her back. She'll change her mind."

The young man had missed the point completely. Somehow, from last night's swamp of despair and wine, d'Artagnan had twisted Aramis' wise counsel to move on into a suggestion that he redouble his efforts with Constance. Aramis plucked the letter from d'Artagnan's fingers.

"It's good," d'Artagnan promised.

It was possible. After all, d'Artagnan was a strong, if dangerously impulsive, swordsman. He had been carefully trained. Perhaps his father had given similar attention to his education as well. Aramis squinted at his proud jaw, his eyes blazing with determination, scrutinizing his features as if he could see the man's expertise scrawled upon them.

Porthos and Athos lifted skeptical faces to watch as, finally, Aramis unfolded the paper. "My dearest, perfect, beautiful flower Constance," he read aloud.

Porthos snorted. "Quite a start."

"She is all of that and more," d'Artagnan argued.

Holding fast to hope, Aramis read the rest of the note to the gathered men. "We must be together. Your husband's life be damned – I am your love. Let him hang himself! The better for us both and I will prove my love to you. You know where to find me."

"Romantic," Athos commented, dry as sand, below Porthos' guffaws.

"That's the end?" Aramis asked, as gently as he could. He turned the paper over and back again, longing for even one salvageable sentence.

"It is," d'Artagnan answered. "Sweet and to the point. Now I just have to figure out how to deliver it. Bonacieux will have my head if I show my face there again."

"Deliver that? No, it's pure shit," Athos told him.

But d'Artagnan was doggedly entrenched. "Every word I wrote is true," d'Artagnan insisted. "If she loves me, she'll come running."

"If she loves you, that letter is the quickest way to make her stop," Porthos volleyed.

D'Artagnan's hand fell to his sword. "Stand and tell me that."

But Aramis braced him with a steady arm. The young man had to accept the truth, as painful as it might be. "D'Artagnan, they're right. You can't give this letter to Constance."

"But I must be with her, Aramis." He could see d'Artagnan's proud facade threatening to wilt under the exhausting strain of heartbreak. "I can't go to her, I can't imagine a day without her. I thought – a letter – it's a chance, maybe my only chance."

Aramis hated to deny him. If nothing else, a mission would distract him from his pain and might even buoy d'Artagnan's spirits. There was even a faint possibility that, if composed with the right combination of charm and desire, a well-written missive could convince her to resume their dalliance in secret.

But this letter was not up to the challenge. "Constance is an accomplished woman, intelligent and literate. If you want to woo her away from Bonacieux, you must tempt her with artful words, not passive murder and the vague promise of a clumsy thrust."

Porthos slapped the table in enthusiastic support of his old friend.

D'Artagnan lunged at Porthos. "You could do better?"

"Me? Nah," Porthos said, deflating the escalation with a wave of his hand. "More a man of action, if you know what I mean."

Athos darted a knowing look at Aramis. How many times had Porthos won a woman's company after a street skirmish with nothing but a wink? Too bad d'Artagnan hadn't the same gift.

D'Artagnan didn't miss their unspoken comment. "And when was the last time you sent a love letter, Athos?" he taunted.

"Never. More of a reader, really. It's Aramis you want," Athos grumbled. "Impertinent little shit."

D'Artagnan swung back to face Aramis. "What, honestly, is wrong with it? It would be better for us both if Bonacieux was out of the way. I will prove my love to her. Honorably. I can't say so?"

"Not so blatantly, no." Aramis scanned the letter again, deliberately stifling the cringe that threatened to overtake his features. He folded and stuffed it into d'Artagnan's belt, then began what he hoped would be a quick, gentle lesson. "If you want to draw her out, then you can't say we must be together. You have to show her. Describe your woe, the torture of her absence, the ache that steals over you without her arms wrapped around your waist. Recount the memory of your last embrace, how her lips yielded beneath yours, how your heart leapt in your chest as she pressed herself against you, the bliss that spread like fire through your veins when she confessed her desire."

"Yeah, like that," Porthos agreed.

D'Artagnan's shoulders went soft. He was listening.

"And you can't suggest that Bonacieux hang himself," Aramis continued, beginning to enjoy the exercise. "If she's staying to protect him, it will make her all the more defensive. Remind her instead of what she could have were her life disentangled from his. Imagine for her a home in Gascony, your farm rebuilt, the sweet air scented with wheat and lavender. Give her what she wants most there. Fat babies, happy children climbing ancient, knobby trees. A picnic in the afternoon, laying her gently back onto the blanket, pressing a fervent kiss into the hollow of her neck, the curve of her luscious bosom. Tempt her with the luxury of time alone together under the wide blue sky."

Eyes wide and dark, d'Artagnan nodded once, then again. "That's good. That's – yes, that's perfect."

"That's the idea, anyway," Aramis hedged, pretending humility. "Just keep all that in mind when you try again."

"You have to write it for me."

Write the letter for him? Impossible. A wretched plan. Entirely out of the question. Folly in any outcome.

Porthos laughed. Athos leaned back with a lazy, entertained grin. Aramis glared at the both of them who, by the look of it, saw this coming when he had not. "You see? This is why I don't help people. They get the wrong idea and then three weeks later, I'm lying in the street with a sword in my gut."

But d'Artagnan persevered, stepping in close enough for Aramis to realize, for the first time, that the young man was actually an inch or two taller. "But you know what I want to say. What I must say. You know better than I do myself and the way you say it – you'll win her for me."

Aramis might be prone to ill-conceived acts of heroism for a pretty face, but he knew a recipe for disaster when he saw one. "I won't win her for you because I won't write any such letter."

This is where a smart, well-reared young man would yield. D'Artagnan, proving himself no such man, stood nearly chest to chest with Aramis now, as his intensity transformed into something like charm. "Aramis, please." He ripped his letter in two, then four. "If you are my friend, you will do this for me. I love her, Aramis."

D'Artagnan was a miserable writer but he was staunchly persistent when there was something he wanted.

At morning exercises, d'Artagnan never seemed to let Aramis out of his sight. At afternoon drills, the young man trained beside him, silently expectant. The entire day, Aramis couldn't take a piss without d'Artagnan tagging along.

Supper done and no work waiting, d'Artagnan was still at his heels as Aramis headed back to his quarters. "I appear to have acquired a new puppy," Aramis finally teased, spinning in his doorway to face d'Artagnan.

"Will you do it?" d'Artagnan spurted, as if an entire day had not elapsed since they'd last spoken of the letter.

There was something so worn, so vulnerable around his eyes. Aramis couldn't bring himself to order him out. He would have to make another attempt at logic, then. "Say I did it. Say I wrote a love letter and you signed it. You would be lying. To Constance. Your beautiful tulip of desire."

"Dearest perfect beautiful flower," d'Artagnan corrected, rolling his eyes at the words he had, just that morning, believed ideal. "It wouldn't be a lie. I would call it… relying upon assistance."

"You can call a dog a cock but it doesn't make it so." Aramis folded his arms and leaned against his threshold. He knew he shouldn't tease, but d'Artagnan's dark-eyed intensity brought out his playful side. "Certainly Constance is fair, and I do admire her spirit. But she is not my dearest love. How can I seduce someone I don't desire?"

And now, buoyed perhaps by the absence of a definitive refusal, d'Artagnan's earnest expression slid toward a smirk. "But you've loved often and well," he reasoned, "if your reputation has any truth to it. Couldn't you find inspiration in your desire for another?"

Bold flattery. His own tactic turned against him, and by one so sweetly dashing. It was difficult not to be swayed. But more than that, the patter between them was too delicious to cease with the definitive nay he was growing less and less convinced of. "But d'Artagnan," Aramis continued, "what if she were to realize the words were mine, not yours? If I'm as good as you imply, she might very well fall in love with the real author and abandon both you and her dreary husband."

D'Artagnan wouldn't be dissuaded. "I know she loves me."

"Of course she does," Aramis sighed, letting his gaze drift exhaustedly over the young man. Dusty boots, new scratches in his leather, shoulders that would eventually define a much stronger man. He was all potential and heart. "How could she help it?"

"I will kneel at your feet if I must. Just get me Constance."

Aramis realized as d'Artagnan lowered himself on bent knee that the man had, somehow, dismantled his refusal.

"Stop, stop, I'll do it," Aramis finally agreed, surrendering. He lifted d'Artagnan by the elbow as he had the night before, patting him on the chest once he had his feet under him. "We'll both regret this, I'm sure of it."