This one is meant to be a small tag to series 1, episode 3: "Commodities"
Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
Chesty Puller, USMC
May 1630
Porthos couldn't sleep.
That is to say, he had been sleeping for some time, and was now mercilessly awake. The wound on his back ached fiercely, refusing to give him even a moment's respite. Searching for distraction, he looked around the dim room, lit only by the glow from the fire.
D'Artagnan was asleep in a chair. Bonaire was tied, hand and foot, to another, ensuring he didn't escape. But Aramis was awake, even if he didn't immediately appear so.
Porthos watched as his brother shifted in his own chair, seemingly unable to find a comfortable position. Then, abruptly, he stood. He hefted the chair up and shifted it closer to the fire, then put it down with a pained huff of air bursting from his previously clenched teeth.
Aramis moving closer to a fire was no surprise. He'd not stopped being cold since Savoy.
What surprised Porthos was the stiffness in his brother's back and the obvious discomfort in what little Porthos could see of his face. Aramis wasn't one to let pain show. He'd been brought up to think such a thing was a sign of weakness – a cruel lesson from a hard father.
"You alright, 'Mis?" Porthos asked before he could stop himself.
Aramis jumped, whirling so fast he almost unbalanced himself. He blinked with wide, tired eyes at Porthos as if shocked to see him there despite the fact that Porthos hadn't moved in hours.
"Porthos! You're awake!" Aramis whispered in surprise.
Porthos arched an eyebrow, eyeing his brother more carefully.
"You alright?" he asked again, very deliberately.
"What? Fine." Aramis replied with a confused shake of his head, as if Porthos were a fool for asking. Porthos narrowed his eyes.
His memory of the battle wasn't the clearest and there came a point where everything was shrouded in pain. But as he thought over the skirmish, he remembered something about a chain.
"Saw you take a hit," he pointed out to the marksman, who had drifted closer to check Porthos' wound.
Aramis hummed noncommittally and stepped back.
"Nothing to worry over, mon frere. An annoyance, nothing more."
Porthos frowned, recognizing he was in no position to challenge him.
"Where's Athos?"
Aramis had moved near to the fire again and glanced around over his shoulder.
"Facing his demons through the bottom of a bottle."
Porthos grimaced. No help there then. He looked over at d'Artagnan, but the boy let out a soft snore.
"You sure you're alright?" Porthos asked once more.
Aramis shot him an amused glance.
"Fine and fit, brother."
At the moment, too weak and tired to get off the sofa, Porthos had no choice but to believe him.
When Porthos woke again an hour later, Aramis was gone.
An instinct pulled at him, some hidden string that bound him to his brother and let him know when something was wrong.
He glanced at d'Artagnan, but the boy was still peacefully sleeping. Porthos chewed his lower lip and then painstakingly levered himself up. It wasn't easy, and once he was standing he nearly fell right back down. but through stubborn willpower, he kept his feet.
Then he began his slow search.
Through some divine mercy, Aramis had not gone far.
Porthos found him curled over a bucket, shoulders shaking with dry heaves as it seemed he'd already emptied his stomach of whatever it'd held. Porthos dropped heavily to his knees next to him, reaching out with his good arm to touch his brother's neck.
The heat surprised him.
"Aramis, you're burning up."
"'S nothing…" Aramis insisted, but he kept his head pressed into his forearm where it rested along the rim of the bucket. "You shouldn't be up."
Porthos squeezed his neck, mostly to get his attention.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Aramis."
"It's nothing," the marksman insisted. As if to prove his point, he stubbornly uncurled from around the bucket and sat up straight.
Porthos watched him go positively ghostly white. Then to Porthos' horror, his eyes rolled back and he folded in on himself, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Aramis collapsed away from him, and in his own weakened state, Porthos wasn't quick enough to catch him and pull him back. Instead, he was left to clumsily scramble around the bucket to get a hand on Aramis' neck, feeling – as Aramis had taught him – for a pulse. It was there, but brought little comfort when Aramis' skin still felt hot and he remained unmoving.
Porthos cursed in frustration and worry. Then he turned, bellowing as loud as he could despite his own weakness.
"ATHOS!"
Aramis came around to find something soft beneath his head. His back still throbbed mercilessly, but in his reclined position on his side, he found some relief. He felt the soothing properties of a liniment he kept in his saddle bags settling in across the worst of the assuredly impressive bruising across his lower back.
He realized abruptly it was not just his head that was resting on something soft, but his entire body.
He was in a bed.
It was a drastic change from what he last remembered and it sent a spark of adrenaline through him as his eyes snapped open, entire body tightening and igniting new pains throughout his back.
A hand landed heavily on the side of his neck even as he registered the blurry face in front of him.
"Don't," Porthos warned. "You'll regret it if you do."
Aramis let out a sharp breath through his nose, melting back into the bed with relief.
"Porthos," he realized.
His brother was stretched out next to him on the bed, both of them facing towards the center. They'd likely been positioned in such a way to prevent the exact adrenaline-fueled reaction that had nearly sent Aramis vaulting from the bed.
"You should be resting," Aramis stated, breaths a bit stilted as he sifted through the pain in his back. He reigned it in, forced it into submission and locked it away, just as his father had taught him.
"Apparently I'm not the only one. Your back is a mess," Porthos replied. "And I am resting."
Aramis quirked a brow in submission to that point and wrestled more of the pain into compliance.
"Don't do that. I hate it when you do that."
The soft admission drew Aramis' attention back to Porthos' face.
"What?" he asked, blinking in bewildered confusion.
"Pretend it doesn't hurt. You're allowed to feel pain, you know."
Aramis flinched, another voice rolling through his mind with a less forgiving opinion on the matter.
Pain is merely weakness. It can and should be overcome. Are you weak, Rene?
"Hey. Hey." The hand on his neck tightened. "Don't go there."
"Go where?" he asked in a strangled whisper.
"To him."
Aramis frowned.
"How did you-"
"You get a look," Porthos interrupted with a sigh. "Your eyes go dark and your face goes cold."
Aramis was the one who sighed now. He twisted his neck out of Porthos' hold and rolled carefully onto his back. Porthos let him go with a frown.
"Why do you still let him in your head?" Porthos asked.
"I don't," Aramis defended sharply. But it was a lie. There were some lessons not so easily unlearned.
Are you weak, Rene?
"You do," Porthos said lowly. "But you shouldn't."
Aramis closed his eyes, drawing in and then letting out a slow deep breath.
"He hated weakness," he finally murmured.
"You were never weak, Aramis," Porthos stated flatly.
Aramis hummed noncommittally, eyes still closed as memories played out across his mind's eye. Years of learning to channel pain, to push through it and ignore it. There was no place for the weak in his father's world.
"It's been so long… I don't even realize I'm doing it. It's just instinct."
"That's not instinct, Aramis. Your sixth sense about danger? That's instinct. Lockin' away pain and injury as if they weren't there? That's conditioning. He made you that way."
"It's not always a bad thing," Aramis reminded, rolling his head to regard his brother. "It's saved my life a few times. Yours too."
"I still hate it," Porthos stated.
Aramis turned his head away again, looking up instead.
They were both quiet for a moment and then Aramis whispered to the ceiling,
"I hate him."
Porthos sighed.
"Yeah… Me too."
End of Chapter 3
See you later today with chapter 4
If you have a moment, let me know what you think!
