A/N: this one is for the Fete des Mousquetaires competition January prompt 'Hostage'; please check the forum for details. Thank you KarriNeves for managing the competition.
Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable here nor making any money.
Oddly enough I didn't know it was going anywhere until it did.
Happy reading.
The chain rattles as he brings his hands up to his chest and pulls, twists around to face away and pulls harder. Metal bites into his skin, rips into his flesh and threatens to saw his bones. He pulls harder still, grits his teeth against the burning in his shoulders and snarls under his breath. Boots slipping in the snow he leans back as far as it's possible, puts all his weight into pulling free and feels the manacles scrapping away the skin at the back of his hands.
A give under his heels and he falls forwards; lands on his knees and hands that smear red streaks on the snow. Fingers curling into fists he pushes into the powdery white and forces himself to sit up. Head hanging between his shoulders he pulls in a slow breath.
Somewhere a raven calls.
The scent hits him first, before fingers in his hair wrench his head up and a blade presses to his throat.
It stings.
"A waste," she says, "complete waste of time. Mine and yours, don't you think so?"
The pressure increases, slowly the blade cuts deeper and thin warm trails make their way down his front.
She laughs and tugs at his hair, "but not yours," she says, "not wasted for you was it my dear Aramis?"
"I'm sorry," he says.
Knows it won't be heard, won't matter, it never does.
The blade shifts, slides up until the point is resting against the flesh below his ear.
How many had he dispatched this way he wonders, how many fell to a silent death by his hands that the crown commanded. Her knee presses into his back, the blade lifts and pain suddenly flares from his shoulder. She twists the dagger she had buried there and pulls out.
His gasp is drowned out by her chuckles.
The world slants and he braces his hands in the snow to keep from rolling with it. He shudders whether from pain or the sweat that makes his thin shirt cling to his skin he doesn't know.
"Maybe I should have done this sooner," she says, "after all you love violence in a woman,"
He flinches.
"I'm sorry," he breathes out, "I'm sorry,"
"But you wouldn't change it if you could," she says like she knows the answer already.
He hangs his head because no, he likely will not change what he did; amend it maybe, calculate it more thoroughly absolutely and look for a better result undeniably. But if he was there again with the same risks and options and limits and need, he knows himself enough to not lie about changing the path he took.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry for what happened to you,"
Because that is a truth too.
"But the truth won't set you free," she says.
He feels the sickness roil in his gut and it's not from the pain searing from his shoulder down his back and into his torn wrist. His chest feels too tight for his lungs to pull in a proper breath and his throat threatens to stick close as he swallows to keep the bile in check. The heat behind his eyes rises and blurs his sight, merges the red and white that he had been staring at with his head bowed.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"That's all he ever says," the other woman comes over, "it gets boring after a while,"
Slim cool hand cups the side of his face, lifts it from where his chin has come to rest on his chest.
"You were never boring Aramis," she says, "where's the excitement? The adventure? The poetry?"
His breath hitches.
She slaps him; hard.
"You didn't believe in me," she says, "but I did in you. To the very end."
"I –"
"Yes, yes we all know you're sorry," the man sounds annoyed, "but do you think it'll matter to us?"
"No," he tells the ground.
"What did you say?"
"It won't matter to you,"
"Say that to my face,"
He looks up.
And gets a musket butt to the head.
The pain explodes bright and blinding and heavy and familiar. Very, very familiar. Black wings against a white sky, their flap, flap, flap grates against his headache. He blinks slowly, eyelashes sticking together with the wetness in his eyes that escapes from the corners and rolls down the side of his head.
"I'm sorry," he whispers to the sky.
Squints at the faces peering down at him; grey skin, blue lips and milky eyes. He recognizes each one, doesn't need a head count to mark them twenty.
Numb fingers claw at the shackles and he uses the tautness of the chain to sit up. Gathers his breath and wits and wills the world to still the rocking it has taken to. The men around him move back, they leave no footprints on the snow around him as they sift until he can see the three again.
Marguerite, Adele and Marsac.
His eyes lower as Marsac moves closer and crouches down before him. The hand on his injured shoulder comes to rests like it had for a lifetime; warm, sure and steady. His heart stutters.
I'm sorry old friend.
He really is. He didn't want to have to do that. He is sorry that it happened.
"We were brothers once," Marsac says, "didn't that matter either?"
"It did," he looks up to him, swallows the salty lump in his throat, "it does, it always will."
"Then why?"
"You were going to shoot the Captain,"
"He betrayed us,"
"He was following orders,"
"And of course that's what you've always held in the highest regard isn't it?" comes the sharp voice pitched in irony, "never one to disregard them our romantic hero type," Treville scowls as he trudges through the snow covered ground, walks past the women and stands over him.
"Always had an excuse didn't you Aramis?" he asks.
If Rochefort's advances to the Queen are treason, what does that make yours?
"Love," he says, "I love her,"
"And that's her death sentence," Treville shakes his head, "should have had you court-martialed years ago."
"Would've saved a lot of lives," Marsac shrugs.
His grasp tightening as he grins, fingers digging into the wound and Aramis clenches his eyes shut. A cry slips past his lips as someone yanks the chain and tugs him sideways, Marsac's thumb ripping deeper into the wound. He hears the man laugh, feels his hand wiping clean on his trembling back and Aramis looks to the figure holding the chain.
He is suddenly near.
Too close.
One blank blue eye staring down at him.
No Aramis. Not for him.
Rochefort smiles.
"You'll never be free of the seeds I sowed," he says, "You'll get them killed. Both of them,"
He shakes his head and tries to stand; the shackles growing heavier and the snow softer under his boots. He is sinking.
"No," he grounds out, the snow hardens, firms enough for him to stand, "I will protect them and soon you will be nothing than a distant memory."
Red curls fill his vision and Adele places a hand on either side of his face, her smile knowing.
"Oh my dear Aramis," she says, fingers stroking his face, "always scarred and always surviving. Don't you know death is in love with you," she beams at him and tips her head to the side, "she can't stand anyone being near you and snatches them away."
"No, no please,"
"How else can you explain this?" Isabelle steps out from behind Adele, "how are you alive and we are not?"
She stand before him with a bundle wrapped in a pale blue blanket held carefully in her arms. He cannot look her in the eyes. He cannot look at the one she holds close, he cannot move, cannot breathe. His gaze shifts to Marguerite who offers Isabelle her bloodied dagger.
"Isabelle I –"
"Was the pain you caused me at sixteen not enough?" she cuts off his words and moves closer, "I left Aramis; I escaped the curse you brought with you. Or so I thought. Because in the end you found me and you brought death with you,"
She looks down at the bundle in her arms then back at him.
"You will destroy everything you claim to love," she says.
The dagger pierces his heart.
His eyes fly open.
Sharp short breaths scrape against his dry throat, hands clutch at silken sheets and he stares at the underside of the panel above his bed. The shadows flicker; he licks his cracked lips and glances at the lantern on his bedside table. There are various dark vials cluttering the tabletop and a bowl half full of water with a cloth left in it.
Coughing, fever, ache in old wounds.
He remembers.
Sitting up slowly he untangles the covers twisted about him, slides his legs off the edge and brings his feet down onto the cold stone floor. Presses his elbows onto his knees and rubs at his face, pushes his hands into his hair and breathes. The familiar nightmare still lingers, a weight between his shoulders and a band around lungs.
He had never gotten back to sleep after it.
Pulling on his robe he takes a moment to steady himself as he stands. When he is sure that his legs wouldn't fold under him Aramis pads out of the room. It's early in the night the Musketeer in him notes as he moves down the corridor and to the nearest terrace. Warm air chills on his sweat soaked skin, the darkness breathes in the open flames of the torches and he leans against the stone balustrade, soaks in the quiet and finds his eyes prickling.
He wants Athos' reassuring smirk, he wants Porthos' boisterous encouragement.
"Stay safe, stay happy my brothers," he murmurs.
Dips his head over where he had crossed his arms on the balustrade and tries to ease the turmoil churning within. The sound of little feet have him turning before the king appears in the arched doorway.
"Your Majesty," he can't help the smile.
"Aramis!" the boy stops short of rushing to him, clasps his hands before him instead, "you are here!"
The big eyes look him up and down with something close to apprehension.
"You are well?" the king asks.
"I am well thank you, your majesty,"
"Good," says the boy and wipes a hand over his eyes, "good. I don't like you being ill."
And there's a hollow cutting ache in his chest begging him to gather the boy to himself. He wants to hold and sooth him, to kiss his brow and thank him for the worry.
"Louis you shouldn't –" the Queen stops short, eyes going wide as they see him.
"Minister,"
He bows his head.
"What are you doing outside? You shouldn't be out of bed," she says.
"He is well now Maman," the king sounds triumphant, "I told you he would be,"
She smooths his hair and smiles.
"You did," she says, "and I'm sure Aramis appreciates your confidence,"
"Always your majesty," he agrees.
Louis grins but it falls as soon as his mother reminds him of the hour. As Anne coaxes the boy to get to bed Aramis bids them goodnight and heads back to his own room. He won't sleep but he will go over the reports Porthos sent from the front, he will revise the requisition list for the garrison that he had drawn for d'Artagnan and call for the lad in the morning, and he will finish that letter he started writing to Athos before this illness cut him off at the knees.
Because this night and more to come belonged to his captors, his keepers, his faults and mistakes, his fears and doubts. And him their willing hostage as long as it kept those under his protection safe.
"I am my own worst enemy. This, more than any other trait, proves my fundamental humanity."
― Dean Koontz, [Seize The Night]
END