Revolution and Paying the Rent

This idea has been playing on me for a long time, and is the product of my love of Musketeers and musical theatre. The main pairing is Porthos and Aramis, with a little Constance and d'Artagnan in there of course. I would adore feedback, and i hope you enjoy it!

These characters are sadly not mine.

It's amazing how quickly a morning can turn sour.

The day had started out relatively terribly as soon as he awoke: the heating had gone off during the night and through his hung over daze he could vaguely see his Grindr date sat playing on his phone with a bored expression. It had been fun last night, but as his date shuffled out all he had to show for it was a memory of his skin and a hairspray the man had apparently left behind.

Then, of course, Ms. Lockerby the landlady had called him down. She just 'needed the week's rent' and 'couldn't put up with the loud behaviour from last night again' and 'hadn't slept a wink' because of him, and when she stuck out her hand for the money he just didn't have it.

If it had been a more luxurious part of London, she would have been required to give him thirty day's notice. Here, she just told him to be gone by tomorrow or she'd called the police.

And thus, Aramis' terrible day turned into an awful one. He packed his dismal belongings into a big suitcase and left without a second look, onto the cold streets without a penny to his name or anywhere to stay the night.

This was not what he had imagined being an actor would be like.

His legs worked but his mind was numb. He had nowhere to stay. So he should be looking for a homeless shelter, or be desperately ringing his friends to plead for a place to stay. He was homeless. He was helpless.

With a sudden deafening intensity it dawned on him, how far he had sunk. He collapsed onto a bench in a bus shelter as it started to sleet, and let himself break. He cried and he sobbed and he buried his head in his shaking hands and he prayed. In the bus shelter in the middle of nowhere, with icy sleet hammering down around him, Aramis let himself shatter into a million tiny pieces. He had nothing, and couldn't summon the strength to call his friends and ask for help. He didn't want to, he couldn't beg and plead. Though his pride was wounded, he wouldn't sink that low.

At some point he stood up, and became a haggard figure walking the cold streets of London alone.

When Treville called, his mind was too miserable and hung over to pick up the words. Barely conscious of it, he spent his last few coins on a tube ticket and made his way to the outskirts of London. At some point it would have been the middle of an industrial revolution, and the huge warehouses would have churned out products. Workers marched their way in and out, a colony of ants going about their day-to-day business. It was a life Aramis had fought so hard to fight against, and had fought so hard to become an actor to rebel against. Look how far that got him. Now, though, it was desolate, each warehouse an empty chamber of musty air.

Treville waited in the entrance of one, nodding to him when he arrived. The warehouse was big and barren, with huge lights that lit up the ground like a football stadium. Aramis dropped his suitcase and buried his head in his hands, trying desperately to breathe and stop the threat of tears welling in his eyes. A weight sat down beside him, and he dumbly took the painkiller Athos offered him.

His friend looked terrible. He was unshaven, with bags under his eyes and his shoulders slumped forward like the weight on his shoulders had permanently made them that way. "You look terrible." Some days Aramis was subtle. Today was not one of those days.

"So do you." Athos looked up to the as yet silent Treville, a question already forming before he was cut off with a wave of a hand.

"I'm waiting for Constance."

"You don't have to wait anymore." The new voice from the door belonged to a beautiful redhead with a nice smile, one hand already firmly on her hip. He offered her a smile, but considering how terrible he looked it probably looked with ghostly than gorgeous. She smiled back anyway. "So why are we here?"

"I've written… something."

"Should we be worried?" Athos looked bad, but his voice was as smooth as ever.

"It's a musical. Set during the French revolution." That made even Aramis look up.

"You wrote a musical?" His voice sounded far too hoarse for eleven o'clock in the morning.

"Yes, I did. That's why I brought you here: this place belongs to a friend of mine. It's ours to rehearse in as long as we want it. The musical's about a group of four men, from all different backgrounds during the French revolution. They are totally inseparable, but during the revolution two choose to revolt and two choose to fight on the king's side." There was a silence.

"I don't suppose you want me to play one of the men?"

"No Constance. Sorry. If you all could read it… it wouldn't stop bugging me until I wrote it down. I want you in it." Constance nodded as Athos shrugged, and they each took the sheets of paper offered to them. Maybe this could be his way out. He desperately needed the cash for somewhere to stay, and work had been impossible to find.

"There's just one problem." God, his voice sounded hoarse. And it ached even worse than the rest of him did. "There are three people here. And considering the lovely Constance isn't playing one of the men, we're missing at least two." Treville nodded.

"I have struggled to find anyone who would agree to work without being paid. There's no money until we get somewhere to perform it and people buying tickets." That was that plan out of the window.

"Can we meet at the Crown's Horse tonight? So you can tell me what you think."

They nodded and shuffled out, Constance leading the way. Athos and Aramis must have looked like a few stray dogs behind her.

"What happened?"

"I ran out of money. Haven't paid the rent for a while now, and my landlady kicked me out. Haven't got anywhere to stay," He dragged a hand over his face, "and my date last night was more interested in his reflection than me. Other than that, I'm just great. You?"

Athos looked at him for a long time. "I'm trying to forget." He didn't need to specify what. It was the Thing Athos was running from, had been running from ever since they'd met on an acting job four years ago. Back then Aramis had been alive and full of enthusiasm, certain he was on the edge of something great. The years had done what they did best, and had passed by without a backwards glance.

"You managed yet?"

Athos looked at him for a long time as they neared the train station. "You can stay at mine for as long as you need to. You should have asked immediately. And if you will find all your dates on Grindr…" Aramis shot him a sharp glare, but he only smirked in return. They got on a train, and soon enough they were back at Athos' apartment.

The apartment was grey and worn, with plain walls and a single sofa with only three legs sat contently in the middle of the room. There were no paintings on the wall, though there were shadows where something might have hung once, and the cream carpet was stained occasionally with red stains that probably came out of a bottle. Athos had money, but you never would have guessed. The block itself stood stoutly, worn with time but not unpleasant. Glass skyscrapers touched the sky all around it, but Aramis had no doubt that this little building would probably be the last one standing. His mind drifted absently to some flowers maybe, and a new sofa in a bright colour. New curtains and a freshly painted kitchen would probably do the place a world of good.

For now though, Aramis dramatically collapsed on the sofa, and decided to sleep as long as he possibly could.

Unfortunately, the evening did come, and Athos forced Aramis to get into clean clothes before walking to the Crown's Horse. As they walked Athos recapped him on the play, and even seemed quite enthusiastic about it, which was especially rare for him. By the time they got there, Treville and Constance were already sat in the corner. As they got closer they saw another two people sat with them.

One was young and pretty, with long dark hair and a nervous look on his face. When they got closer he saw that the man was gripping his beer tightly, and was sitting as close to Constance as physically possibly. The other man was half in the shadows, and seemed the exact opposite of the other man. Broad and muscled, his toothy grin showed off his gorgeous jawline as he polished off his pint with another just beside it. He had a faint scar over his left eye, and a blackening bruise over his right. He was gorgeous. He was action movie, one liner fighter with something to prove kind of gorgeous. Crap.

They pulled up seats, and the pounding in his head started up again. The gorgeous one pushed over a pint to him with a grin. "There's no need." He said it weakly, but the man just chuckled.

"You look like you need it more than me." Was he flirting? He probably wasn't flirting. He was being nice was all. Aramis looks terrible, and he was being nice. (Or he could have been flirting.) It turned out Constance had read the play and immediately thought of her best friend – he didn't miss the envious look on Pretty Boy's face when she said it – and her lodger. They agreed to help, and here they were.

"Well, I read the play and I loved it. So count me in." Athos nodded in agreement, as did the other two men. Suddenly everyone was looking at him, and he tried not to choke on his beer when trying to reply.
"Sure. I haven't got anything better to do." Treville nodded, and he had been anyone else he maybe would have smiled.

"Another drink?" Constance suggested, and Aramis looked at the ground. He could barely afford another pint.

"And it's Treville's round. Considering we're all working for free and all." Athos's words were a weight off his shoulders, and he finally relaxed.

When Treville returned he looked at the two new blokes for a long time. "So, what's your experience?"

He admitted he leant in slightly to listen into Gorgeous' answer. "I mainly do musicals, but I've been known to dabble in Shakespeare. I've done work in theatre before, and I got a scholarship to the King's School of Theatre and Music."

"Scholarships aren't easy to get." He sounded even more impressed than he'd planned to. "I'm still working off my debts."

"Yeah. They're not easy." Gorgeous was smug, but he made it look sexy.

They turned their gaze to Constance and d'Artagnan. "I've done work in the theatre before, and I've finished a stint as Fantine in Les Miserables. After you've done a production like that you want something that's totally different."

"Uh, I went to Yorkshire School of the Arts. Then I came here." There was a silence, and d'Artagnan stared down into his drink. Treville stood up heavily.

"I'm going to go and get another drink."

The pub smelt like old liquor and smoke, and the pretty waitress with smudged red lipstick kept visibly checking him out. Another day he would have pursued her, but Treville was talking about rehearsal and he needed some sleep if he was going to try to act, let alone sing, tomorrow. When he made his farewells – dimly realising he didn't know either Nervous or Gorgeous' names – the air outside was bitterly cold. The type that cut to your core and woke you up and put you to sleep all at once. He kept his head down as he walked back to Athos', and finally allowed himself to think.

He hadn't read the play. He didn't even know what he had signed up for. He knew Treville was a natural writer, and Athos a good critic, but that was all. There was no money coming in, and none for the foreseeable future, and tomorrow he would have to start to rehearse. But for once, there might actually be hope in his step.

When he arrived back at Athos' apartment, he settled down on the wine stained sofa and started to read. All he could hear were the whispers of the pages and the regular cars going past the grey apartment. Soon enough he was lost in the words in front of him, and the whispers of the words became a thunderous roar that wouldn't let him go. Characters swirled around his brain, and the songs Treville had messily inscribed came instantly to life. Athos' arrival went unnoticed as he read and read, so he didn't notice the slight smirk on the other man's lips. More hours ticked by, and when he finally finished it he lay down exhausted. Daring swordfights, chivalrous soldiers and a revolution made of blood and anger and bravery filled his dreams.