A/N: Here's the third installment of The Musketeers v. the fanfic writers, or rather Aramis v. the fanfic writers. It's Constance's turn this time and she, predictably, has a different approach to the whole situation. It's not quite as humorous as the others, but the men are sure to provide a laugh or two. I might have one or two more ideas for this, but they won't be finished for a bit. I'm working on some shorter pieces and one longer work. Please read, relax, and enjoy.
"Fools!"
Constance heard them before she saw them. They were arguing, but it didn't sound angry. If anything, it was exasperation that filled every man's voice. She looked out the window to see the four familiar men standing in the street. Aramis stood facing the other three, with his back to her. Still, she could see the slight wobble in his stance. She knew they'd been sent on a mission and must've just returned, not arriving at the garrison yet, even. Something must've happened to have made them stop here and argue. Stepping out to investigate, the first voice she heard was Aramis.
"D'Artagnan, surely you believe me, especially after this last mission. Don't be as obtuse as these two." Aramis threw a hand in the direction of Porthos and Athos, turning to face the younger man as he did so, a movement that easily unsettled his apparently precarious balance. D'Artagnan sighed, but didn't respond. Constance could see that he wanted to, but was forcing himself to be silent. What was going on? None of them had taken notice of her, not even the three who faced her.
When she was nearly upon them, Aramis turned, the frustration evident in his posture. It was then she saw the bloody bandage wrapped around his right shoulder. There was a dagger still there, if she saw correctly and she always did. Why they hadn't removed it was beyond her. Instinct said to trust in, Aramis' medical knowledge, but she knew when it came to his own health he seemed to forget key details.
"Honestly," she muttered quietly as she walked towards he still oblivious men, "can't they ever stay out of trouble."
"Ah, Constance," Aramis said. He was cheerful and she wanted nothing more than to smack him across the face. The man took an unsteady step towards her.
"Constance," D'Artagnan said. "What are you doing here?" He was beside her before she knew it and she was just feet from the others.
"What's going on here?" She ignored him, pointing to Aramis instead.
"You are rather forward thinking unlike these uncouth brutes." He gave the three a slightly disgusted look, though it held no real bite, not in voice or action, not with the way he was listing from side to side like a mast on a windy day.
"Nothing," D'Artagnan quickly answered.
"They have very narrow minds. Perhaps you'll believe me," Aramis began.
"Don't," D'Artagnan warned, giving Aramis a firm look. "Believe nothing of what he says." He turned back to Constance. "He's delusional, took a fall from his horse after fainting and must've hit his head.
"How many times must I repeat myself, I'm not delusional. They're real and they're out to get me, hurt me in whatever ways please them."
"They're just a figment of your imagination, Aramis," Porthos said.
"So, you're all just going to stand around arguing until he passes out," Constance asked.
Athos shrugged his shoulders.
"Usually works," Porthos said.
"Did last time," D'Artagnan added.
Constance looked at the three men, then again at Aramis, who was still standing, but more unsteady on his feet. Blood was soaking the bandage around his shoulder, dribbling down in long streak on his doublet and now she could see the blood trickling down the side of his face, collecting in and matting down his beard. She looked back at the others to see if they were taking note of any of this.
Apparently not. And they were only causing a ruckus by standing out here, blocking the way and arguing. She couldn't imagine the Captain nor the King would be terribly pleased to know of the spectacle the men were causing and how many prying eyes they were attracting.
She huffed and gave Aramis a gentle shove to get him moving toward her house. He took a step forwards, or perhaps it was more of a stumble before planting his feet.
"No, I have to go after them and if none of you are going to believe me, I'm going alone." He moved towards his horse, but Constance caught him before he got far, using his momentum to direct him towards the house. He stumbled once more, but regained his footing. She was sure now that there was a leg injury, right leg from the looks of it.
"Constance, stop," he said. She ignored him, keeping up her gentle, but constant pushing of him towards the door, now held open by a smirking D'Artagnan. Through the leather, she could feel long stretches of raised skin, possibly welts, and did he really think she couldn't hear the small gasps in his breathing. Just before he took a step past the threshold of her house, he put out a bloodied hand, holding firmly onto the doorframe as he pivoted around to face the four of them. Where had he been hiding that hand, she wondered. They couldn't've missed it.
"I don't need to be here. I need to get out there before this happens again. It seems to be getting worse." His eyes were glossy, with fever or pain, she'd find out soon enough.
"And how do you expect to get them when you're spilling blood from more places than I can count," Constance asked. D'Artagnan knew that tone. They all knew it. It was the tone that meant she was at least five steps ahead of you and was just waiting for you to realize it. He'd heard her take that tone with him all too much in the last couple months. No one was immune, probably not even Athos or Treville.
"There might be a cut or two. I did fall off my horse, after all," Aramis countered with an easy smile. If he wasn't wounded, she thought.
"That fall must've damaged your sight as well." She sighed. "You're injured, now get in there before you pass out I have to drag you." When he appeared ready to protest again, she turned him around roughly, ignoring his grunts of pain, and pushed him into the house, through the living room, lest he get blood on anything in there and gave him one final shove into the kitchen. He, for his part, stumbled at the sudden movement, gasped at her shove, and stumbled into the table that was fortunately there. Every movement lacked his usual grace, though he was too shocked at her to protest.
"Are you trying to help them?" The words slipped out of his mouth before he had much of a chance to fully, let alone half, ponder them. His voice was rough and low as he tried to recover from his sudden appointment with the table.
"Of course not," she answered. Though the words were quietly spoken, she still heard them from other side of the room, where she was gathering the needed supplies. "One of you," she called out to the other three, who hovered lost at the kitchen doorway, "get some water."
Constance turned back to look at Aramis. She felt some guilt that he'd ran into the table stomach first and was still hunched over, gasping and clutching at his ribs. He'd moved away from the table, though he was still heavily leaning on it, but made no other movements to rest.
"Someone help him out. Get his weapons off so we can get to his wounds."
"I'm fine. I have to go get them," Aramis protested even as D'Artagnan and Athos helped him to sit in a chair. Constance watched as the two men removed him of his weapons, belt, and sash. The doublet was left on in deference to the dagger in the shoulder.
"The boots too," she said. Maybe then he'd be less inclined to go galavanting off to where ever his delusions wanted to take him. This really should be done down at the garrison, but she knew they'd not make it there for hours at the rate they'd been arguing. She was sure too, looking at the right boot, that the leg injury was that foot, probably ankle. Hopefully they wouldn't have to cut the boots off. The man was worse than a woman with how he cared for his clothes. The last doublet he'd lost to too much wear and, well, mostly tearing from injury, he didn't stop moaning about for weeks. She set her supplies next to him on the table while each man took a boot. "The dagger wound is obvious, as is the head wound and cut to your hand. What other injuries are you hiding?"
"All minor, I assure you," Aramis answered, pushing himself to his stocking feet. He hissed as his right foot took his full weight. Definitely injured, then. Because it didn't give out right away, probably a sprain, but then again it could be broken. He was waltzing around with a dagger in his shoulder.
"Sit down, you fool." Constance made to push him back down, but he managed to squirm out of her reach and started a pacing pattern which was all too familiar to the men. She observed as he completed a complete circuit of his pacing. The movement was doing the dagger wound no good as even more blood was leaking down the coat and likely soaking the shirt underneath. She knew his back was injured, but seeing him walking now, she was certain he'd managed to also injure his ribs. She hadn't gotten close enough to see if he had a fever but with the constant rambling about needing to go get some people, he had to have one. And the others, his friends were doing nothing. Porthos was back with the water, but he hadn't done much more to help. How many times could she huff in a day before it became unreasonable?
"I know that you need to go get them," she started, trying to hold back a sigh, "but you won't get far with that dagger in your shoulder."
Behind her D'Artagnan poorly smothered a laugh. She didn't dare glare at him as she now had Aramis' attention. The man had stopped and was giving her his full attention.
"I'd forgotten all about that. I get one every month I think. Sometimes they shake it up with a gunshot wound. They alternate though, the shoulder that is," Aramis explained. As he continued to detail the different dagger wounds, Constance moved in to untie the bandage around this wound. There was no way, unfortunately, to get to the wound without removing the doublet and to do that the dagger had to come out.
"Why don't you sit over here," she said. "You must be tired from riding all day and you'll want to be rested before going out."
"Hmm?" He looked at her surprised. "You're not listening, are you? You're just playing along like D'Artagnan did."
"Of course, you were telling me about the fifth time you were stabbed in the shoulder. It was the left one this time and you were in a bar fight after Porthos got caught cheating, but he wasn't cheating. Not then, anyway. He had been earlier." As she talked, she'd managed to move him back to where she could easily push him into sitting back in the chair.
"The sixth time was also the seventh time because they got me in both shoulders. Knocked me clean off my feet faster than any of Porthos' punches. I think I hit my head on a rock after that. Next thing I remember is being chained up next to a grumpy Athos. He gets grumpy when he can't get his wine." Aramis whispered the last bit, or thought he whispered. Athos glared at him, but the marksman was too unfocused on the world around him to notice.
"And then what happened?" Constance tried to keep him going as she worked. The dagger was out and now came the task of getting the doublet off. Wordlessly, she motioned for Porthos to come over. She was going to need some help getting it off of him without him noticing.
"And then and what's going on." Aramis put his hands up, stopping both Constance and Porthos as they moved to remove his doublet.
"Now, stop it. I'm trying to get to this dagger wound," Constance explained. She shooed Porthos away, but kept going at getting his doublet off.
"There's nothing wrong with the wound. Just a simple bandage and I'll be ready to go." He took the doublet off himself, unconsciously struggling as it seemed his hands had stiffened some and the right elbow didn't want to bend easily. Halfway through undressing, Constance caught the wince and gasp the indicated some other hidden wound. The doublet off, he couldn't do much more than that, not even lift it away. She picked it up, seeing lines of blood seeping through the shirt on his back.
"What happened to you?" She couldn't help asking.
"Them, I already told you and if you're done gawking, I need to go." He made to stand up. Constance kept him down with a hand to his shoulder. It was the wounded one, but she wasn't sure that he could feel anything. With the number of wounds he had and the amount of blood that was coming from him, he really shouldn't be moving, let alone conscious and talking.
"Do you really think that whoever it is that you're insistent on seeing wants to see you faint the second you see them," Constance asked, a hand on her hip, staring down at Aramis.
"Yes." His voice was sharp and clear. "They'd delight in it. They're sick and twisted. In desperate need of some divine intervention, I'm sure. I won't turn them over to the Cardinal, but I must do something. Something to turn their creative inclinations towards something more productive. Something that doesn't involve ensuring that I spend more time acquainted with my bed than with my horse! Do you know the women are starting to ask about all of these scars? There's one that delights in drawing lines between them each night to see what images she can conjure up on my body."
"I thought you'd like that sort of thing," D'Artagnan said with a smile.
"It tickles," Aramis said quietly.
"What?" D'Artagnan wasn't sure that he'd heard right.
"He's ticklish, all over really, but the worst is his chest and back. Doesn't take much," Porthos explained and then demonstrated with a quick poke to the marksman's wounded side. Aramis let out a rather feminine giggle, batted the hand away as well as he could with his wounded arms, and glared at Porthos.
Constance sighed, loudly. She tried not to, but these men were playing games while one bled out before them and rambled on about delusions.
Wordlessly, she picked up a knife and cut from top to bottom the front of Aramis' shirt. He squawked, but the shirt was already ruined. There was too much blood and too many holes to think about repairing. Bare from the waist up, Aramis's wounds were now in full view. The dagger wound was bleeding freely down his chest. His stomach bore a long cut. It was shallow from what she could see, but with each movement of his kept up a steady trickle of blood. On his back were welts, not from a whip, but he was definitely hit with something. Some were bloodied and all had an angry red shade to them.
The room was silent as she worked on cleaning, stitching, and bandaging the many wounds. She knew that the three were still just standing there, as if waiting orders. It was best that they did that, she thought, stand there while she took care of the man they considered a brother. Aramis, for his part, was mostly silent, making groans and hisses as she prodded the aches and pains. Once he called out to his brothers to stop Constance from hurting him. Their reply was silence.
By the time she was done, the marksman was paler than he was when she first found them arguing outside her house, but he hadn't uttered another word about them, whoever they were. Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan were in shock over the ease at which she handled their brother.
"Now I don't see what the problem was," she said, washing her hands in the basin of water on the counter.
"Well, he normally goes on much more," Porthos tried to explain. Constance gave a huff at the pathetic attempt.
"He's usually quite obstinate when he gets in this mindset," Athos said.
"Really. He seemed quite easy to manage to me, a simple housewife, not a few strong, fearless Musketeers."
"He's usually going on about those fanfic writers, always wanting to go after them," Porthos said.
"Well, you've just got to get tougher with him, ignore these ramblings. It's certainly doing him no good and I doubt the Captain is pleased with it either. I mean what if this gets back to the king or the Cardinal? Now, help me get him up to D'Artagnan's room. He can stay there until he's more mobile."
"Where am I to sleep then," D'Artagnan asked as he stepped in with the others to move Aramis.
"There's enough room in that bed, both of you can fit. Anyway, I expect that tonight none of you'll be getting much sleep with the fever and all his aches and pains."
The three men looked at each other and then at their unconscious brother in their arms. They knew him all too well to know that she was indeed speaking the truth. Sleep would be a rare commodity tonight and likely for several more nights.
"Those damn fanfic writers," the three muttered in near unison as they carefully took their fourth up the stairs.
