Notes:

Chapter warnings: Purple Prose. So much purple.

Chapter Text

"This plan of yours," began Porthos, a low rumble over the hoofbeats.

"The Musketeer regiment," Athos started to reply.

"The Trojan war," Milady said at the same time, then she gave a silver laugh."Without Athos and Treville to curb their rowdy behaviour, they have been brawling and drunk. The more truculent are cooling their heels in prison. A few more by now, I imagine, once I met with them."

The silence was palpable, powerful, and ripe with respect. Athos felt warm with a rush of pride.

"Rochefort has them right where they are needed!" d'Artagnan breathed, hope kindling in his voice.

"We break in, free the first cells, they will release the rest and we can locate Aramis. They are not held for anything corporal, and Aramis is well loved by all the regiment." It was the truth, down to the bones, and Athos held their skeletal plan like a talisman. So much to go wrong, and so little to stop it, he could only look forwards. They would probably be slain before even gaining entry to the prison. But he would never say as much.

"It's not enough." d'Artagnan again, and Athos would have punched him if he could reach, of course it wasn't enough but Aramis was out of time and they were out of options. He must have snarled, because d'Artagnan held up a hand to him placatingly.

"We may gain the prison easily enough but leaving it so burdened will be another tale. Even if half the Musketeer regiment are imprisoned, Rochefort will have enough Red Guard nearby to overwhelm us. He will be expecting something. We need to secure the exit, and if Rochefort has had Aramis moved? We have to secure the route to...the route he'll be taken."

The boy couldn't say 'execution' and Athos understood. Another surge of pride pushed through him and though he thought he could see the turns his protégés agile mind had taken he still asked "What do you propose?" His answer was a grin in his dark face, white and fierce.

"Leave that to me. Just get him out."

The moon was a silver scar, hung low in the sky. The stars were scattered teeth or chips of bone and the first of the new day was bruising the horizon as they parted ways and Athos cast aside the thought that it was a sign.

His wife's wiles got them through the gate. The man just saw beauty in the fading night and died for it. Athos wondered if he would always be as helpless around her. In the guard room Porthos let free his awesome rage and broke heads upon the stone walls and Milady relieved them of their keys.

The first passages of the prison was lined with open-faced cells barred with iron grates, and held faces they knew. They were all angry, young and quarrelsome, and they were all ready to aid them. Porthos tossed them a set of keys whilst Athos briefed them of their plan, and a few nodded respectfully towards Milady, and Athos wondered if anything was possible in this strange new world he's found himself in before shaking free of such thoughts and leading down the smokey-torched passages, deeper into the prison.

Only one door was guarded, and at last they had found him. Porthos made short and silent work of the unprepared man and Milady twisted the key in the lock and let him pass.

Athos felt pieces of his soul tear loose at the vision of horror before him. He pressed a hand without looking to Porthos' broad chest, a warning, or to spare him for but a moment, or to borrow strength from his most stalwart comrade for himself, or to ground them both - any and all.

A questioning rumble "Is he alive?" under his fingertips and he swallowed against the fury that reared feral in his throat and he stepped forward into hell, pulling Porthos with him.

Aramis was a broken bird in white and scarlet, wings outstretched above and behind him tipped with claws, black head hung low.

"What's wrong with his hands?" They shared a thrill of horror. Of course Porthos asked. Porthos who had won small fortunes gambling on the surety of those hands in shooting competitions, who had placed his love and life and laughter in those clever fingers in wine and fruit soaked evenings and battlefield surgery, perhaps more often than Athos. It was his wife that answered from her stance at the doorway.

"The nerves have been damaged. Get him down now."

'Now' meaning 'it might be too late' and 'he may never use his hands again' and Athos was grateful she had not said as such out loud. She pressed the keys to Porthos' hands.

A ripple of awareness passed through his fallen brother as the torchlight touched him but he was too weak to raise up, his proud head bowed low and body folded, kneeling, surrendered, yet suspended from his arms at an impossible angle, unable to fall, unable to rise.

The chill flagstones around him scattered over with smudged footprints, the marks red and black in the torchlight, a bloody dance. Porthos staggered against him and he knew he had seen it too.

He knelt and took Aramis' face with infinite gentleness, confused when his fingers closed over metal, then shaking as rage rose snapping as comprehension dawned, here his brother, muzzled like a dangerous beast, enforced silence a singularly personal punishment for Aramis, a man of song and soft prose, wit and words, poetry and prayer and to take that away in his darkest hours? The cruel device a precision blow against his humanity, reduced to wordless screams like a base animal and denied even to beg for mercy.

They had come for their stolen brother, but here was a vision in blood and iron. He was not recognisable as his dashing comrade, and Athos was sure he didn't recognise them with one eye swollen near shut and the other so thick with drying blood the lashes could not part.

"My brother, what have they done to you?" He eased the pads of his thumbs over that beaten brow, mindful of the split in his temple, and was sure his heart broke when Aramis flinched. He tugged briefly at the awful gag but Aramis choked and twisted weakly.

"Nearly there," Porthos croaked. "Brace him." The big mans voice was improbably calm.

"Rochefort will suffer for this," he responded.

"Later," was the reply, a brittle calm poured over terrible grief. Together, they lowered Aramis' twisted arms back through their natural rotation, fearful of what damage might be there. He collapsed against Athos, who caught him tenderly, cradling him to his breast as if he could ease the tremors in that freezing flesh, body as cold as the stone they knelt on.

Porthos' scarred hand eased gently into those dark curls, matted now with blood, and snagged the back of the iron band, seeking the lock. Aramis keened at the movement, a broken whimper, and Athos saw tears glisten in Porthos eyes.

"Bastard!" he swore. "There's no key for this. And the light is poor." He was fumbling for his lock picks anyway.

"We don't have time." His wife at the doorway still, voice clear and sharp, a pistol in each hand for their defence.

"Are you so heartless?" Porthos snapped at her.

"If you'd rather free his voice than save his life, by all means, but I'll not die with you." Her stance was changing, as if to leave them.

Her voice gentled "It's been there over a day. An hour more won't make a difference. Let us leave, give him a chance at life."

She was right, they both knew it, there was shouting in the halls, but his heart remonstrated at knowingly letting his brother suffer on, and he swore viciously. And regretted it instantly as Aramis cringed helplessly in his arms.

"She's not wrong. We must leave. Help me get him up." Together they raised him to his bloody feet, and were sickened by the sound he made, a bitter parody of laughter stretched tight and thin over agony before he staggered a pace and the agony broke through and he fell senseless against them.

The formidable strength of Porthos saved them, though their brother was a man grown he lifted him as if he were a sickly child, great hands fisted in his own doublet to brace the precious burden in his arms.

Athos caught his brothers bloodied head as it lolled senseless back and positioned it carefully against Porthos' shoulder, hateful metal gleaming in the torchlight where there had been joyous smile.

His wife still in the doorway, impatience sparked off her skin, her scant humanity stretched thin (he did that to her) he recognised, another guilty blow. He and Anne, husband and wife, coursed the way, senses primed and keen, them against the enmity their stone surrounding symbolised, and something feral sang glorious in his veins at his own wife that he had killed was standing firm and fierce to defend his family.

Porthos, faithful Porthos, followed them, the vengeance in his skin suppressed, entrusted to he and the devil in his wife, and then at last, the resistance he should have feared all along. Whatever fearsome rage his brother had was carefully gentled to tend their fallen comrade, and Athos would never mention the gleaming tears that tracked into Porthos' beard.

Opposition, at last, and rationally he feared it, feared that they would not succeed in their rescue but the primal rage he held barely tethered revelled in it, gloried in the opportunity to spill the blood of those who had drawn his brothers. A pistol reported and another, two enemies lay dying for their duty and his wife was black hair and silver dirk beside him, ferocious and so alive.

Porthos behind him laid their brother down, standing tall over him, and Athos had never seen a man look so much like a bear guarding its den, ruination promised in his voice and in his eyes. Like wolves they fought, he and his deadly wife, quick and silent with steel teeth.

Porthos was fighting three but they were outnumbered and men slipped past him and his fearsome wife, and a balding brute had slipped under Porthos to grip Aramis by the hair to drag him out from their protection.

A mistake on his part.

There was a roar behind them and the tide turned, the disgraced company of musketeers sprung from their prisons had arrived and turned the fight. Porthos took down his opponents one after the other and closed his hands over man who had dared touch Aramis. Porthos lifted him, lifted him high then smashing him down with a roar across his bended knee, spine snapping at the impact. A cheer rang from the throats of their comrades, Porthos smile was white and awful as he reclaimed his brothers senseless form, as Milady's steel fangs ripped out the throat of their last foe.

They tumbled out into the first light of dawn as it haemorrhaged against the Parisian sky.

Men were waiting for them, but not foes. Men from the garrison, and they had a dappled pony waiting with a cart. Porthos did not hesitate, laying Aramis down so carefully on the wooden slats and hoisting himself in to crouch low and dangerous over his injured friend.

Athos and his wife mounted their horses and he took the pony's reins, they turned and they were leaving, leaving, they had made it this far against all expectations but aligned with every desperate hope and he couldn't quite believe how their luck had held, although his mind now turned ahead to the difficulties of traversing the city unmolested.

"All for one," he found himself saying, reverently, quietly, but some heard him and cried back "And one for all!"

It wasn't long before the Red Guard tried to stop them. They had only made it a few streets when cries to halt came from behind them. Athos turned in his saddle, sighting down his pistol when suddenly a strangely early tavern brawl spilled out into the streets between them and their pursuers. Men in commoners clothes yet displaying skill in combat blocked the path, posturing and shouting at each other, colliding into each other and staggering on the rebound into their red-garbed foe.

A delighted laugh from Porthos, d'Artagnan's plan sprung perfectly and they made their escape.

Their smiles burned away though, at the sound Aramis made. He was stirring weakly, one arm motionless, the other pushing hopelessly against the iron band around his face, and oh God the noise he made would haunt Athos through his dreams.

"Aramis, hey, hey, you're safe. We got you out." Porthos voice was low and gentle but grief was cresting through its waves. Aramis was too far gone to understand, pawing clumsily at the device, his fingers clawing weakly with no dexterity, a desperate whine chasing the fresh blood from his mouth.

"Stop him, Porthos," he heard himself bark, watching helplessly from his horse, even as the big mans hand closed gently over Aramis' torn knuckles, a flush of pride that he had fought back as long as he were able.

"Please be calm, Aramis. We can't stop yet and we can't get it off until we stop. Please, just wait."

The touch ignited a new desperation in their stricken friend, he fought Porthos weakly, his strength all burned up long before yet he still tried to twist away, their clever brother mindless with fear, a thin and desperate whimper threading the air and he had to dash tears from his eyes to scan for enemies.

Porthos did what he could, lifting him gently but Aramis had been bound for too long and he was choking with terror, bloody screams tearing their hearts to ribbons and people were staring, pointing, and Athos knew they were discovered and he would NOT let the damage Rochefort had done to them be their undoing at this stage of the rescue.

He spurred his horse and dragged on the pony's reins and a ruckus erupted behind them, a musket ball tore through his hat but there was a clash of swords and how many traps had their cunning Gascon laid?

Aramis' screams had changed, airless choking now, and Athos saw that Porthos had enfolded him in his great arms, his forearm a band against their brothers throat, a living noose, Aramis flailed helplessly, leaving trails of blood, his own body refusing to help him tear away the arm strangling him, and Porthos had wrestled stronger children.

It seemed like hours but it could have been no more than a minute before Aramis at last stilled, and Porthos took his arm from his throat as if it burned, checked him for breath, then carefully enfolded him again, pressed a kiss to that stricken brow, and bent over him weeping.