AN/ A bit of a short one... but answers will start coming through soon.
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC's The Musketeers.
The fever burned bright and fierce throughout the night.
Athos sat beside his brother feeling helpless as the lad's body burnt up from the inside out. His breathing came out in short wheezing gasps, and sweat glistened on his forehead and soaked through his sheets. Porthos and Athos had long ago pulled the sheet away from d'Artagnan so as to let the cool air get to his furnace of a body.
Desperately, Athos tried wiping him down with cool cloths, but the act seemed to have no effect, and d'Artagnan moved restlessly in his plagued sleep. Occasionally, Athos had thought his younger brother was awakening but was greeted with eyelids that only fluttered half-mast, showing the whites of d'Artagnan's eyes, before drifting back closed.
While d'Artagnan slept in turmoil, noisily gasping for breath and shifting his body restlessly and chaotically, Aramis slept like the dead.
Porthos was sharing his time between helping Athos care for d'Artagnan, and sitting beside the still and silent Aramis.
As yet, neither knew what had gone on. They knew not what had befallen either of their friends, and while they feared for d'Artagnan's life, their worry for Aramis, for the unknown attached to his curious condition, ate away at them slowly.
Porthos was sitting with Aramis as the first light of dawn started to break through the infirmary windows. He was watching the sun lift in the sky when he suddenly became aware of the silence in the room. It gave him pause because the last few hours had been permeated by d'Artagnan's frenetic movement and harsh breathing.
The implication of this silence struck him, and Porthos bolted from his chair. Besides d'Artagnan, Athos had fallen asleep; the older man's head had dropped to his chest, and his legs were stretched outwards. In the stripped down bed, d'Artagnan lay completely still.
"D'Artagnan?" Porthos voiced his concern. The sound of Porthos' rumbling voice startled Athos awake, and he, too, was immediately leaning over his younger brother.
"D'Artagnan?" Athos called to the boy worriedly.
The body was still covered in a sheen of sweat, and Porthos feared, for one dreadful, terrible moment, that the d'Artagnan had left them. However, a whistling keening breath was released through gritted teeth and Porthos sighed with relief before turning his gaze to check the Gascon over. Athos rested his hand on the lad's forehead.
"I think his fever's broken," Athos commented, the relief in his voice plainly evident.
Porthos nodded as he checked the bandages wrapped around d'Artagnan's chest, and then moved to look up, only to find the dark orbs of his younger brother gazing back at him. They were watering and filled with pain and the bright vestiges of the fever.
"Hello brother," Porthos said softly.
Athos startled on the other side of the bed and also turned to find d'Artagnan's feverish look.
"'Mis?" d'Artagnan breathed out on a sigh.
"He's here," Porthos reassured his brother. "He sleepin'."
D'Artagnan's eyes clouded and he looked as if he were going to drift back off to sleep only to gasp and wheeze as the pain seemed to take hold.
"Hush," Athos soothed. "We've got you."
Athos gently ran his calloused hand through the lad's hair before retrieving the pain draft that Fabien had left them. He carefully coaxed it down d'Artagnan's throat and the two men watched as their brother's body visibly relaxed under the thrall of the medicine.
Athos glanced at Porthos and they shared a brief smile before d'Artagnan's drowsy and rasping voice filtered up to them.
"'Mis' gun…"
"What was that whelp?" Porthos asked the boy inquisitively.
"Ch… t' gun," he whispered breathlessly before finally succumbing to the effects of the draft.
Now Porthos looked at Athos inquisitively.
Athos shrugged, and checked d'Artagnan's breathing carefully before leaving the bedside. He crossed the room and went to check Aramis' belongings, eventually locating his pistol.
Athos pulled it free and lifted it to examine it more closely.
He checked the charge and smelt it.
"It's been fired recently," Athos said.
Porthos walked over the join him.
"So they were attacked?" Porthos asked. "Or Aramis was attacked earlier, and d'Artagnan came across him, and they were attacked again… It makes no sense. There's not a mark on Aramis, and if he had the mind to fire his weapon at an attacker, then that doesn't explain how he ended up like…" Porthos faded off, gesturing in Aramis' direction vaguely and in frustration.
"Aramis was being pursued," Athos reasoned. "Perhaps both the pursuer and d'Artagnan caught him up at the same time."
"But if Aramis fired a shot, then where was the body?" Porthos asked.
"That is a question we will have to wait for," Athos sighed. "Or perhaps we could go hunting?"
"Find the pursuer?" Porthos asked.
"You should stay with Aramis, but I want answers, and now that d'Artagnan is out of the woods, I'm ready to go and find them."
"Take Etienne with you," Porthos said. "You need someone to watch your back if I can't be there."
"I'll be careful," Athos said. "Watch over them while I'm away. Hopefully we'll get answers soon."
"Be careful brother."
"You know me," Athos shrugged, he glanced towards both his bedridden brothers with concern and love in his eyes before assuming a stony expression and leaving the infirmary.
Porthos watched him go and went to wipe the sweat from d'Artagnan's brow before sitting beside Aramis' still form.
"What happened out there?" he asked the empty space.