AN: Just a silly, little story while I get stuff ready to start the next big one. Many thanks to Jackfan2 for checking this out for me! Any remaining mistakes and language poops are my fault ;)

The day was just starting to warm up, finally chasing off the chill of the night that had clung to the early hours of the morning like a sleepy lover who refused to leave. The forest canopy, covering most of the sky above their heads, did little to keep the men riding underneath its trees any warmer. For that, they had each other's company and thoughts of home.

Their mission accomplished, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan had set off at first light, a joint sentiment of longing to return to Paris spreading through their hearts like wildfire. After a whole week of delivering royal missives to the lords of the neighboring lands, they were more than eager for home.

Despite their tiredness, D'Artagnan was growing more and more jittery with unspent energy the closer they got to Paris. The Gascon had made no secret that he was keen to return to the Bonacieux household as soon as humanly possible. Jacques was due for a business journey that very week and the prospect of having the house just for himself and Constance was enough to put wings on his feet... or rather his horse's hooves.

Aramis, likewise, blamed his heart for his restlessness. Although not as fortunate as their young friend in his pursuit of love and happiness -despite the fact that both courted the proverbial forbidden fruit-, the mere thought of walking the palace grounds and chance an encounter with the Queen or the Dauphin was enough to lift his spirits and chase his weariness away. Out here, in the middle of the dusty road, so many miles away from the Louvre, chance encounters had hardly any chance of taking place.

For Porthos, the call was quite different, even if just as demanding. Rather than his heart, it was his purse that called the tall Musketeer back to Paris, with as must haste as they could muster. For days now, he had not once shut up about the game that had been arranged earlier that month, set for that very evening, one that promised too much coin to be gained for him to miss it. Unless the world was ending in the next few hours, the night would find Porthos seated at a table at the Lone Duck and, by the grace of God, by sunrise he planned to a much richer man.

And Athos...well, he had simply emptied his last bottle the previous night. The appalling fact that there was absolutely no decent place to acquire more in between that dreadful place and Paris was enough reason to get them home with haste. A civilized man without wine was like a well without water... pointless and dry.

They took the path across the open field simply because it was the shortest one. However, as so often happens in these situations, soon after that choice was made it all started going terribly wrong.

Despite their hurry, Aramis paused for a moment, letting the beauty of the Spring-kissed, flowery tapestry at their feet to soak his senses. The vast space in front of them was covered in white and yellow daisies, sprinkled here and there by the intense blue of sweet violets and the reds and pinks of snapdragon flowers. It was...breathtaking.

His nose started itching almost immediately.

By the time they had crossed half the field, Aramis' eyes were puffed and leaking, like a waterskin too full, ready to burst. His nose, which had not stopped itching, felt twice its normal size, sitting like a dead weight between his eyes, pulling his face down.

"If it causes you this much distress," Athos said out of nowhere, his horse riding alongside Aramis'. "We can stop here and delay our return to Paris."

The pounding that had started consuming the space behind his eyeballs made it oddly hard to listen to anything but the drum inside his head, but Aramis made an effort to understand the logic behind Athos' odd question. "Humm?" he asked rather eloquently.

"You seemed to be..." the other man said, averting his eyes down. For some reason, their leader looked almost too embarrassed to look at him. "...distraught."

Aramis followed Athos' gaze down, hoping to find the answer to his friend's nonsense somewhere between his knee and the horse's stirrups. There was, however, no sense to be found there. "Distress? Distraught? What do you speak of?" he finally managed to voice, even if the voice that came out of his mouth did not sound like his at all. In fact, it had sounded closer to a frog's croak than a man's voice, he concluded with a wet sniff.

"Is there something the matter?" d'Artagnan asked, intrigued by the two whispering men. Looking up at Aramis, the young man's face crumpled into misery and pity almost immediately. "Oh, Aramis...I had no idea you were this upset. Why didn't you say something? Was it my comment earlier on the white whiskers in your beard? Or perhaps Athos harsh words in the night over your snoring, which I assure you, isn't nearly as bad as Por-"

"I'm not upset," Aramis cut in with a frown, resisting the urge to scream. He nearly groaned out loud as the motion of his eyebrows set off sparkles of pain across his whole face and even more water running down his cheeks. He could only imagine how much worse it would have been had he actually raised his voice. "Why in the Heavens' name would I be upset about any of that?" he whispered.

"Is this something we can help with?" d'Artagnan went on, as if all of Aramis' words had been nothing but gusts of wind. "Surely there is something we can do."

Aramis pushed his horse to gain some distance from the young man. His vehemence to render aid was, quite honestly, starting to frighten him a bit.

"Wha's this now?" Porthos asked, spurring his horse to stand beside the others. "Somethin' t' matter?"

"Aramis is upset."

"Everything's fine."

Aramis stared daggers at the youngster's face, as both answered Porthos' question is simultaneous and opposite directions.

"Aramis, please, do not deny your pain," Athos pointed out, his voice firm as he stared at him. "We stand right here, we can see you...crying," he added, the last word all but a whisper.

Very self-consciously, Aramis wiped his sleeve across his face, hoping to erase all traces of water from his eyes and cheeks. "I'm not crying," he felt the need to state, even as more water fell down from his eyes. "I never cry," he added with a childish pout. It was untrue, he knew as much, but that was not the point he was trying to make.

The point was that he wasn't crying in that very moment. His eyes had just decided to spring an annoying leak for some unfathomable reason and, despite his most heroic efforts, showed no signs of ceasing such bothersome action.

"Tha's not true," Porthos chipped in, thoughtfully. "There was tha' time, after yer first horse got hit by a canon ball. Montauban, was it?"

Aramis gave him a pointed look, urging him to stop talking. However, the promise of violence in his eyes was severely washed out by the presence of streaming water which made all the more easier for Porthos to ignore him.

"Yea... that bloody siege in Montauban. Fine animal tha' was too, all white with a pair of black stockings in his front legs... had t' knock this one out, I did, to stop 'im from storming the enemy side in search of revenge, angry tears runin' down his face," Porthos went on, a gentle smile on his face. "Wanted t' charge in, firing canons and all."

"The smoke," Aramis muttered, not meeting anyone's eyes. Nuage, his horse back when Aramis had served in the cavalry, had been more than his mount, he had been his first friend in the capital. The loss of that horse had hit him hard and at a time and place where he had lost a lot more than his ride. The battlefield had been ripe with the bodies of his comrades as Aramis was forced to end the poor animal's suffering by placing a ball in his head. After that, he had no real recollection of what had happened, until he'd woken by Porthos' side in their camp. "There had been too much gunpowder in the air," he explained. "It was impossible to keep an eye dry."

"And I saw you crying too," d'Artagnan joined in, apparently all too happy to prove Porthos' point. "Right after we sent the Duke of Savoy and his spying wife away. You disappeared on us afterwards. I remember it was pouring raining that day, but I could still see the tears in your eyes when you returned to the garrison," he added, a sad look in his eyes.

Aramis took a deep breath that didn't quite reach his lungs. It still hurt to think about Marsac, about the life he had led after surviving Savoy, after saving Aramis' life. To be reminded of how the former Musketeer had died by a friend's hand, by his hand, hurt no less than a dagger through the chest. "Forgot my hat," Aramis offered, his heart not really into it, the lie flat and colorless. "The rain kept hitting my eyes..."

"And then there was that time, not so long ago, at the convent," Athos cut in, deciding to give his contribution to the impromptu heartfelt, back-stabbing moment that they seemed to be sharing. "I had no idea that you and sister Hélène had been so close, having met only a few hours before..."

Aramis blinked, managing to dislodge more water from his eyes but having no effect over the crushing heat that had come over them as real tears threatened to fall. "The spilled brandy... fumes," he tried to justify himself, his voice trembling.

Isabelle... of course Athos knew nothing about who she truly was, mainly because the matter had been too painful at the time for Aramis to discuss it with his friend. That she had died because of the killers that he had led straight into her life... she too had lost her life by his hand, or as close as it got without getting blood on his fingers.

God... how many good friends and lovers had died because of him?

Aramis tried not to think about Adele and her fate after the Cardinal had discovered their affair. She too had parted this world because of Aramis' foolish actions, because her heart had been tainted by his touch. Looking down at his hands, the Musketeer almost expected to find blood in there.

"Aramis?" Porthos called out, laying a hand over his shoulder.

Somehow they had all stopped in the middle of the flowery field and he had taken no notice. "The flowers," Aramis suddenly realized, albeit too late. "I'm not crying, 'tis the damn flowers..."

But that was no longer true. Even though he had heard many stories about people who had stopped breathing and died after smelling certain types of flowers, Aramis knew that such was no longer the cause of his ailment. For all that he wished to blame the flowers for his reaction, Aramis knew that rather than their surroundings, it was the memories his friends had managed to dredge up in their effort to aid him that were having such an effect on his eyes. The fact that he had already been feeling miserable before had not helped matters.

Now, all that Aramis wanted to do was find a dark place and pour all of his sorrows and loss through his eyes. Which some might have called of 'crying'.

"Ah, of course, the flowers!" d'Artagnan let out with a relieved laugh. "We call it the spring affliction, back in Gascony," he explained, motioning to the colorful blooms at their feet. "Silly us, thinking that you were actually crying, when all you did was react to the flowers."

The relief spread amongst the others like a spilled bucket of water, all three suddenly free of an uncomfortable situation and being faced with Aramis' pain.

It was not a reaction that Aramis could hold against them, for what did they know of his suffering when he hid so much?

While all were aware that Adele had been murdered on the Cardinal's orders, none knew about Isabelle or how important both women had been in his life, each in her own way.

And Marsac...in the others' eyes, he had been nothing more than a traitor who had abandoned an injured friend, his duty and his honor on a whim. Only Aramis knew better, for only he had seen the acts of bravery that the former Musketeer had performed, for only he had been there when they had both fought against the attacking party at Savoy. Of the four of them, only Aramis called Marsac a friend and mourned his loss.

And while Athos knew of his indiscretion with the Queen -and of the consequences of such deed- he also seemed to believe that what had happened had been nothing more than a passing fancy, an impulse that should have been suppressed but, in lieu of that, should be forgotten.

Aramis wiped his face clean once more, offering a tired and forced smile. In his mind, he fought off images of Athos, Porthos and d'Artagnan dying by his hands as Marsac had, of any of his brothers stepping in front of a deadly bolt meant for him, as Isabelle had done. Cursed as he seemed to be, those images were less of a product of an imaginative mind and more of a matter of inescapable reality.

"Flowers can do tha'?" Porthos asked, still looking at his friend suspiciously.

Aramis forced himself to control his emotions. Fate was God's to control and his to mold the best he could. He had the past to learn from his mistakes and not repeat them again, even if he had to deny every single friendship and connection in his life to do so. "Yes, my friend," he voiced with a wet sniff. "Flowers can do that."

"No wonder bees have no nose," the big man muttered, spurring his horse forward.