A/N: Thanks for all the sweet feedback! Glad you're enjoying this so far! TBH, not too sure where I'm going with this yet...let's find out together, shall we? :-)
oooooooooooooo
More than three years had passed since they met and Gaston had watched out for Aramis. To be honest, the lad had saved his life a number of times too.
They had lost Michel in a bloody skirmish about a year ago, but had gained another three men to their campfire, though two of them had been killed a few months back. But that was life on the battlefield. It was easier not to grow too close to anyone.
Aramis was by now a formidable soldier in his own right – something that brought him all kinds of attention, and not always positive. The men in charge quickly learned of Aramis' skill with a rifle – a talent he had said he had acquired shooting nuts from the trees of his father's property. This had Aramis often sent out on marksman assignments. Gaston was glad of this because it meant that in those cases, Aramis was often a little removed from the bedlam, even if only for the start of the battle. It also meant though that he was often alone or with only one other - practically defenceless if the enemy wised up to his location.
Their General, Marchand, a pompous and noble-bred moron of a general, had taken a strong dislike to the young marksman. He was a man who held the highest opinion of himself and his own abilities and played at war as if the lives of his men were expendable. Mostly, he was immature, impatient and jealous, and the young, brave, handsome and talented common-born marksman pushed all his wrong buttons. He took a grim pleasure in placing Aramis in the most dangerous sharpshooter positions, when he wasn't embroiled in attacks with the other members of the army, and he seemed slightly disappointed each time Aramis returned alive.
In one such instance, Gaston and Javier waited for hours for their Kitten to return until a call to sortie had them routing a surprise attack by the enemy. After that battle the two men searched every medical tent for the lad. They had been sitting morosely by their fire, each lost in their own grief at the death of the buoyant and affable young man, when he flung himself down on his bedroll and brightly asked if there was anything good served for supper that night. Gaston shook the lad and Javier beamed at him.
He explained to them about what had happened – Marchand had sent a few of them into an ambush of sorts where they were outnumbered. Aramis survived and was able to learn of the pending attack. He laughingly admitted to collapsing into the arms of a Captain named Treville.
He gushed about the Captain – his stern command and the bright mind that was rare in most officers. How the Captain seemed to be loved by his men and how he had a way of issuing orders but not speaking down to his men – how he commanded respect and returned it.
"He says he may have a role for me after this war is over," he said.
"Looks like our Kitten has taken a fancy to someone new. Fickle, ain't he," said Javier with a wink.
"Don't be jealous," said Aramis with a grin as he lay back and covered his face with his hat and drifted immediately to sleep.
oOo
Aramis' cavalier attitude and zest for life seemed almost out of place among the trenches of battle, but it won him friends, and brightened the spirits of others. If he was to come into his own in and amongst this desolation and death, Gaston was glad that the lad had chosen life, and not the despair that strangled so many.
Of course, Aramis wasn't all smiles and winks and laughter. Violence overtook him on the battlefield. He was a weapon, a machine. He killed with deadly accuracy, both with his rifle and without. He was never cruel, and did not take pleasure in it, but it was his job and he was good at it. Very good at it.
Aramis knew it was strange to the other men in his regiment, but he liked spending time at the medics' tent. He watched the medics stitch other men back together, treat fever, splint bones, or just offer company to those whose injuries were beyond their control. A few of the more patient medics had taken an interest in the young man and had gone so far as to teach him to stitch flesh, splint limbs and in one grizzly incident, taught him how to remove a musket ball – true, the man was already dead, but the physician swore the practice was the same, and if it saved a life one day, what was the harm in teaching the lad?
After battle he would slip off and help where he could – stitching and binding wounds, though more often than not, Gaston would find him closing the eyes of the deceased in the medical tent, saying a prayer over their bodies or clutching their hands and whispering words of comfort to those who would not live to see another day.
After the first few times Gaston had caught him at this, he sat the young man down and asked him why he did it.
"Why take on more grief when we are surrounded by death every day?" he asked.
Aramis looked at him blankly. "It's what I hope someone may do for me one day," he said simply. He rubbed the back of his neck and pulled out a cross and a set of rosary beads from his pocket. "This is all I have left from my mother," he said. "I believe that when we die, God will judge us by our deeds in this world."
"Even though we kill people," Gaston said bluntly.
Aramis smiled softly. "I believe that God has made me a soldier. We kill people, yes, but we don't murder. I do my duty for my country, with no malice, in defence of my own life or the lives of others. I believe that when called before God, if my heart is good, he may be able to forgive me. That is what my faith tells me."
oOo
It was the end of another grim and grizzly day. Gaston was returning to his friends at the campfire. His expression was dark.
Aramis and Javier looked up at the man as he towered over them.
"Everything alright, mon ami?" asked Javier with a grin from his bedroll.
Gaston shook his head. "General Marchand wants to see you both," he said.
Aramis and Javier exchanged surprised glances. They understood Gaston's worry.
"Maybe he'd like to congratulate us for something?" said Aramis with a grin as he leapt to his feet.
"Unless we've secretly won a beauty pageant, I can't imagine what he'd congratulate us for," said Javier also rising.
"Come now, Javier. If there was a beauty pageant, why would he want to see you too?" quipped Aramis as he grinned at the other's laughter. His dark eyes sparkled with humour and mischief as the older man grinned.
"One day, all the charm that your silver tongue can muster won't be enough to save you," he said with a laugh.
Aramis clapped Gaston on the shoulder and gave him a grin as he and Javier made their way towards the General's tent.
oOo
A/N: Thanks for reading! I make a reference to this meeting with Treville in my other story, Orders. It takes place years after this one and tells of Athos' inclusion in the Musketeers. Thanks for being so awesome and supportive!
