Hi lovely readers,
What a long time it took me to finish this tale :'( I think I was a little disappointed at the second-last chapter - a pasting error slipped through (Porthos' rescue of Aramis and D'Artagnan should have included the completed code phrase - 'All for one - and every man for himself' - now fixed), and I believe the structure and tone of the chapter made the climax of the tale confusing (the chapter has now been restructured which I hope will help a little).
Nevertheless, we come to the very final chapter. Thank you for joining me on this journey and for all your kind words of encouragement!
Enjoy!
Or do you hope, when sing the violins,
And the pale candle-flame lights up our sins,
To drive some mocking nightmare far apart,
And cool the flame hell lighted in your heart?
The Dance of Death ~ Charles Baudelaire
They reach the foot of the abbey stair just as the sun crests the horizon. The deep crimson light is a welcome sight, shining through shattered walls and bare leaved trees.
Having found their descent more difficult than anticipated, with Athos leaning on him more heavily by the moment, D'Artagnan pauses to tip his head back and bask in the feeling of sun upon his face. There is no warmth in its rays, but his imagination can supply the lack. He takes an audible breath of relief.
"What is it?" he asks Athos when he finds the man watching him.
Athos' weary features pull together. "You, my friend."
D'Artagnan braces himself, recalling his lapse on the abbey tower. Upon seeing Athos in danger, he had called out, alerting the Marquis to their presence and nearly damning them all.
"Your verve for life - for the smallest of things."
"It is written all over my face," D'Artagnan finishes glumly, resolving once more to better restrain his impulses.
"Yes," Athos says softly, "and today I would have it no other way."
Glancing sideways through strands of damp hair, D'Artagnan can see from the older man's expression that the sentiment is genuine. Self-recrimination rapidly dissolving, he opens his mouth to speak, then reconsiders, replying instead with a contented nod.
Ahead, the Marquis lies broken on the stones - partially obscured by the cloak which had unfurled like bat wings during the fall. With gritted teeth, D'Artagnan determinedly takes a step closer, wishing to conceal his hesitation. Upon sensing a corresponding rigidity in Athos' arm, D'Artagnan's thoughts return to the abbey tower. The Gascon would never forget that look of quiet resolve on his mentor's face - how the tip of the knife against his own chest had not wavered... However, reliving that moment would give him no peace, and for now he can take comfort in the simple knowledge that the grip on his arm is real.
Aramis glances up from his crouch beside the body, his gaze finding D'Artagnan. Perhaps, like the Gascon, the marksman is recalling the body in that ruined house - how its eyes had sprung open...
"This belongs to you, I think." Rising stiffly, Aramis proffers Athos' sword.
"It is tempting to let it lie here," Athos says, the corners of his lips curving down in bitter contemplation. "I cannot but feel that some taint will remain."
"You are not usually one for superstition," Aramis mocks lightly.
The night's events had gone far beyond superstition. As Aramis searches his friend's stormy expression, D'Artagnan feels a little apart from the exchange - providing a supporting shoulder as the bonds of an older friendship are reaffirmed.
"It will take time to reconcile," Aramis continues, "and it pains me that we could not prevent it coming to this end." The marksman waves a hand in explanation. "We had a chance - and we failed."
"Tell me," Athos requests, "if it does not pain you to do so."
D'Artagnan feels a twinge in his neck, where the Marquis had touched him with ice cold fingers - had sliced slowly into his flesh.
Recognising his friend's sudden parlour, Aramis defers to the younger man's decision. "D'Artagnan?"
"Of course," the Gascon responds at once, though continues to balk at the recollection. There is something still more wretched in having others, even his closest friends, know how easily they had been rendered defenceless. His heart suddenly racing with an unfounded fear, D'Artagnan peers through the bare trees, hoping to catch sight of Porthos' familiar cloak amid the branches.
"He'll find her," Aramis assures him with a comforting hand on the shoulder. "He'll return. Let's rest here while we wait."
D'Artagnan licks dry lips, forcing his breathing to slow, and gives the marksman a grateful nod.
Before they recount their tale, they settle on the rock wall to wait - backs pressed up against uncomfortable stone. Thirst is ever-present, but more bearable now that an end is in sight. Aramis fusses, propping up Athos' leg, and checking D'Artagnan's neck - lamenting once again at their lack of supplies.
"The trail took us through the marsh…" As Aramis begins to speak, words alone do not recall the fearful trepidation with which he and D'Artagnan had entered the shack - the fluttering sounds- and the stench.
For the most part, Athos listens to their story in stony silence. However, as Aramis describes the body on the kitchen floor - how the old man, axe in hand, appeared to have cleaved his own leg in some bout of madness - the swordsman pales and turns aside.
D'Artagnan himself stiffens at the remembrance of the pale eyes springing open, the light failing, and that terrible groping fear in the dark.
"And then we pursued the creature," Aramis continues, his words pushing them steadily onwards. "Out of the town, up a steep rise."
D'Artagnan holds his breath.
"And I took the chance." Aramis hesitates, hand running through his hair in frustrated recollection. "It was foolhardy. If I had waited for a better opportunity..."
"Go on," Athos prompts.
"The landscape fell away-" D'Artagnan adds, sensing it to be his turn to speak. "As though the trees had never been there at all. Suddenly we fought on the side of a precipice, and Aramis was no longer in sight."
Athos looks sharply to the Marksman.
"D'Artagnan did not let me fall," Aramis says with fervour. He holds out his bandaged hands to Athos, the cloth soaked through with blood. "Through it all - he held on."
D'Artagnan ducks his head. Aramis makes it sound heroic - like any other musketeer would not have done the same.
"I do not doubt it," Athos says with grim acknowledgement, watching Aramis for what had been left unsaid. The fear. The pain. "And the Marquis?"
D'Artagnan finds himself unconsciously rubbing his neck, again plagued by the sensation of ghostly fingers.
"He offered us a choice," Aramis says darkly.
Athos' face closed over, concealing whatever emotion the words inspired. "What choice?"
"Call out or he'd cut my throat." The words spill bluntly from D'Artagnan's lips. He wants them out - wants to purge the memory from his mind.
"Needless to say," Aramis admits, "we acquiesced to his demand."
Athos' gaze traces the wound on D'Artagnan's neck and he frowns, clearly questioning the Marquis' motivations as the two Musketeers had before him. "We heard you. We did not know at the time whether the calls were genuine."
"Porthos came out of the dark," D'Artagnan says, his breathing slowing. "Just as I was slipping -"
"I did not think I had ever been so happy to see him," Aramis adds, lips twisting into a grim smile.
"He conquered his own fears just in time to haul us to safe ground," D'Artagnan finishes. Their tale complete, he looks to Athos - not knowing whether he he will find praise or censure, but wishing for some acknowledgement from the older man.
Head tipped back against the stone wall, Athos' eyes have slipped closed. Jaw slack, his fingers curl lightly where they rest on his lap.
D'Artagnan offers Aramis a half smile.
Dappled light through the trees, along with the chirp of birds waking with the dawn, fills the contented silence. D'Artagnan's his own eyelids grow heavy, his breath becoming shallow and regular.
However, before he has the opportunity to follow his mentor in sleep, a voice echoes from outside the convent walls. "I have her!"
Striding towards them is Porthos, the little girl Luce mounted on his broad shoulders. He is grinning - an expression D'Artagnan has sorely missed.
D'Artagnan shakes himself, reaching across a steadying hand to Athos who had jerked awake in alarm at the sound.
"I think we caught them napping," Porthos winks at Luce conspiratorially. Tear tracks stripe Luce's face, but her eyes are dry as Porthos lowers her down.
"Luce." Aramis greets the child first with a relieved smile. He throws Porthos a meaningful look, chin tilting towards the body.
"Aramis!" Luce cries. "Where is your hat?"
Porthos takes the opportunity to discreetly unclasp his cloak and sweep it in an arc to fully obscure the Marquis' body.
"Sadly lost," Aramis replies, crouching down stiffly to enfold the child in a comforting embrace.
At her look of continuing concern, Aramis pats the top of her head. "But you don't need a hat to be a musketeer." Aramis winks up at D'Artagnan, and the youngest musketeer salutes the sentiment.
"I hid very well," she tells Athos next, reaching up her arms expectantly.
"You certainly did," the swordsman responds, though seems to hold himself back from her approach.
D'Artagnan throws a quizzical look sideways, before taking it upon himself to lift the girl up to sit beside them upon the wall. His muscles strain at the effort, but he is rewarded by her face lighting up.
Luce holds out her hand, D'Artagnan's wooden carving resting upon her palm. "I kept her safe," she tells him.
D'Artagnan looks down fondly at the carving, the night seeming so long that he barely remembered crafting the small figurine. "Her name is Constance," he tells Luce, folding her small fingers over the wood. "She's yours now."
Luce looks up, surprised by D'Artagnan's gift. She reaches out to show Athos.
"Athos..." D'Artagnan prompts, thinking it best to indulge the child until they had the opportunity to return her to her family.
"A moment alone?" his friend requests, a look of grim determination darkening his features.
"Of course," D'Artagnan agrees, feeling his brow crease in concern. Before leaving, he shrugs out of his own cloak, wrapping it around the child so that she is comfortably ensconced. The thick material is a little damp, but warm enough inside.
D'Artagnan rejoins Porthos and Aramis, nudging the larger man's uninjured arm in welcome.
Gesturing with his chin to where Athos spoke solemnly with Luce, Porthos asks, "What's that about?" Arms crossed, he shifts uncomfortably when Athos gestures for the child to look towards the Marquis' body.
"I suppose she should know how it ended," D'Artagnan murmurs, "that the creature will no longer trouble her village."
"That's not all," Porthos says, watching D'Artagnan carefully. "What happened up there?"
The Gascon runs his tongue over dry lips, feigning an ignorance that neither of his friends will find convincing.
"Perhaps we will know in time?" Aramis suggests.
D'Artagnan shrugs glumly, the likelihood of Athos divulging his concerns being something none of them could predict.
Porthos sighs, letting the subject drop. "If we stay here any longer, I'll die of thirst. The body - do we leave it here to rot?"
"Can we trust that it has been destroyed?" Athos comes up behind D'Artagnan with a silent step that makes the Gascon jump.
"Luce?" Porthos asks.
"Asleep," Athos says with a half smile. "I have to admit to a little jealousy on that front."
"Talked her to sleep, did you?" Porthos prompts.
Athos gives him a quelling glare. "No child should have witnessed the things Luce has seen - and of all burdens she did not deserve to endure mine."
At Aramis' expectant look, Athos deflects. "Later. Let us first decide on our course."
Aramis bends stiffly and peels back the corner of Porthos' cloak, revealing the Marquis' body once more. It seems pale and inoffensive in the daylight, but nonetheless D'Artagnan feels his brothers draw back as one.
"We have no reason to suspect further deception," Aramis says. "There's no breath. No heartbeat."
The sun is rising," D'Artagnan adds.
"The mists are in retreat." Porthos nods towards the trees. "That's gotta be a good sign."
"In any case, I suppose we have little choice," Athos admits with reluctance. "We do not have the strength remaining between us to bear such a burden. And we would be foolhardy to try."
"What is it that you fear?" Aramis asks, letting the corner of the cloak fall back over the Marquis' features.
Athos raises his eyes skyward and lets out a long breath. "Waking."
Comfortable at last, D'Artagnan shifts his boot a little closer to the fire and tips his chin towards Athos. "You did not truly think the creature's death another illusion?"
The late afternoon sun slants down through grimy tavern windows as the four revel in the warmth of their corner seat. D'Artagnan's leathers have began to dry, becoming stiff with their proximity to the tavern fire. Apparently the only establishment in these parts with food, drink and gossip, the place is bustling. The news of the demise of the creature that had wreaked such destruction over the last weeks had reached the villagers, and they had come together in celebration.
Athos, leg propped securely on a stool, opens half-closed eyes in response to D'Artagnan's question. "Even now, the shadow of the place remains." The swordsman takes a long breath, pausing to drain his glass, then pierces D'Artagnan with an accusing glare. "Do you so easily feel free of it?"
D'Artagnan frowns, not taking the tone to heart, but saddened by the growing melancholia he can detect in his friend's tone.
"Take care," Aramis warns. "Too much food and drink on an empty stomach will do more harm than good."
"We'll need to drink more than this to wipe away the memory of this night," Porthos says, downing his third ale. To D'Artagnan's incredulity, the man remains unaffected - his hand steady. "Though my coin purse is feelin' a little light."
Despite his own advice, Aramis too had wolfed down the meal provided by the friendly innkeeper's wife, barely allowing it to touch the sides.
D'Artagnan sank back into the chair, eyes closed in brief, sleepy contentment at the feeling of a full belly. His various aches and pains, constant companions since their first encounter with the Marquis, had become dull with the alcohol, and he knew sleep was within his reach.
Their trek back to the road had been laborious. Athos had leant on D'Artagnan, attempting to avoid putting pressure on the fresh claw marks along the Gascon's arms, but without much success. Porthos had taken Luce on his shoulders once more, and Aramis, still suffering from bouts of dizziness and a faint ringing in his ears, led the way. Luck had triumphed, and instead of circling back to that accursed abbey, their course revealed the road.
With drowsy contentment, D'Artagnan now watches Luce reunited with her family. The little girl is speaking animatedly to her younger brother, Paul, and seeing the youngest musketeer watching, she waves, proud to acknowledge her new friends.
D'Artagnan had wondered how they would locate Luce's family, but as luck would have it, the moment the five of them had staggered into the tavern courtyard, the innkeeper had recognised the child. Suspicious looks had given way to activity when the man understood that they had destroyed the creature that had plagued their village for long weeks. Sending a boy to summon Luce's family, settling them inside with drink to quench their torturous thirsts, and preparing two rooms upstairs for their use.
Now, Luce's father places his empty tankard on the nearby table and pushes back his chair.
"I'm in your debt," he says humbly, approaching the musketeers with hat in hand, "for bringing our little Luce home."
"No debt, Monsieur," Athos says sincerely, shifting as if to stand. "Your daughter showed great courage."
Luce's father motions for Athos and D'Artagnan, who are seated awkwardly against the wall, to remain seated. "We knew something was out there," he tells them. "Some wild beast. We lost seven good townspeople to it - and then - when Luce disappeared…" The man pales.
"She's safe now," Porthos says, clapping a hand on his back.
Luce's father holds out a coin purse. "It's not much, but will you accept..?"
Four heads shake.
Aramis presses the man's hands away. "No recompense necessary. Seeing Luce reunited with her family is our reward."
"A round of drinks, at the very least?"
Porthos grins. D'Artagnan can see from the man's clothes that he could I'll afford the generosity, but a drink would ease the man's sense of honour, and further quench their thirst.
"And I will spread praise for the King's musketeers," the man says in farewell, waving to the tavern owner to indicate his order.
Reluctantly resuming his seat, Aramis drums his fingers on the table top. "And after this round, will you allow me to do my duty?"
D'Artagnan smiles, amused by the conflict between the marksman's desire to ensure their well being and Athos and Porthos' lackadaisical neglect. D'Artagnan himself is inclined to the later - feeling pleasantly heavy, with the alcohol having taken the edge off his remaining uneasiness, and the thick inn door closing out the cold.
"Not yet," Athos shakes his head.
"A few more drinks," Porthos agrees.
Aramis thumps his fist on the table, wincing. "You are both fools," he says, gaze travelling worriedly from Athos' knee to Porthos' bandaged arm, "and should your neglect result in infection, you will deserve it."
"A few moments will make no difference," Athos assures him leisurely.
Aramis lets out a long, sceptical breath, then his gaze becomes calculating. "If you are determined to ignore your physical hurts, you will at least allow us to ease your mind."
Athos' eyes fix on the marksman's face, from drowsy to dangerous in a moment. The claw marks on his jaw, like those on D'Artagnan's forearms, stand out darkly in the candlelight.
"You promised you'd tell us what happened up there," Porthos pressed, and nods up to the innkeeper as the man places fresh tankards on the table.
"I made no such promise," Athos protests, jaw set. His gaze shifts accusingly to D'Artagnan, but the Gascon shakes his head slightly, indicating he has said nothing of what he had seen.
Something softens in the older man, and he leans back in his chair.
"Set our minds at rest," Aramis begs softly, reaching out to grasp his friend's forearm, "If not for your own sake, then for ours."
Athos smiles bitterly. Aramis always knew how to appeal to their better natures.
Athos drains his tankard before eyeing Luce's family. "Perhaps we should continue this upstairs."
Aramis nods his eager assent, drawing back his chair at once. Taking the time to drain his own glass, Porthos follows, reaching an arm out to draw Athos from the bench.
D'Artagnan finds himself a little light headed, his belly full and the alcohol rushing to his head as he stands.
"Up the stairs and to the left." The innkeeper nods as they pass. "You'll find the supplies you requested in the smaller room. Enjoy your rest - looks like you've earned it."
"We shall," Aramis returns with sincerity. "Your hospitality is appreciated."
Athos sags against the corridor wall as Aramis fiddles with the key to the first room, his teeth set on edge by the shriek of the old lock.
Breathless and grateful for Porthos' steady grip, he lets the larger man draw him into the warm chamber, barely acknowledging its plain but comfortable arrangement and the fire already set in the grate. The bed is their destination, and it takes Athos' remaining determination to reach it.
"A bit higher," Porthos encourages.
Athos closes his eyes against the discomfort of the other man manoeuvring his leg to rest upon the blankets. The solid wood of the headboard proves to be a comfort against his back, and he relaxes against it, determined to regain his breath.
Through slitted eyes, he contemplates his brothers moving quietly about the room, their actions practiced and efficient. In the firelight, the three familiar figures give him comfort - weary and sore - but blessedly alive.
While Aramis had gathered the medical supplies and transferred them to a stocky table by the bed, D'Artagnan had moved to the window and now stood peering down into the tavern courtyard. Mist swirls beyond the frame, and feeling a sudden chill, Athos' fingers unconsciously twitch atop the coverlet.
As though similarly affected, D'Artagnan visibly shivers and draws the shutters closed with a bang, putting the sturdy wood between them and the growing dark. The Gascon offers Athos a knowing grimace as he shrugs off his jacket and sinks down into a nearby chair. A slight twitch of his muscles indicates the desire to unlace his boots, but it appears that even that small action is beyond him.
"Athos first?" Aramis asks, "unless someone is concealing an injury."
"Just my arm," Porthos confirms, rolling his shoulder as though testing its usefulness. "And a few scratches and bumps."
D'Artagnan nods wearily. "Nothing you don't know about." The boy flexes the fingers of his right hand and winces in discomfort. It will be some time before a sword or pistol can sit comfortably there.
Aramis nods, running a hand through his hair as he turns to scrutinise Athos' pallor. "Perhaps we'll give your knee a moment to rest. The stairs were a trial?"
Athos nods, shifting a little to find a more comfortable angle for his knee.
The light from the flickering lamp is low. Aramis shifts it a little nearer with one hand, wringing out a cloth with the other. "Let's start with these."
But as the marksman moves to gently grasp Athos' jaw to clean the claw marks, Athos flinches back, a spike of panic stealing his composure.
"Athos?" Aramis draws back slowly, carefully loosening his hold on the older man's shoulder.
Gaze fixed to the candle flame, Athos holds deathly still - the sudden, shrinking horror stalling any explanation. Heart pounding, he can feel his brother's concern like a heavy ache - can sense Porthos' and D'Artagnan's silent perturbation. Self-recrimination rising, he works at the paralysis like a stubborn knot, forcing through it before succeeding in huffing a breath out through his nose. Clenching his fists in the coverlet, he looks up to find Aramis' gaze, holding it even as all his senses scream at him to flee. "The creature had your face."
Aramis recoils a little, understanding dawning, and quickly loosens his hold as Athos continues.
"Your face and your voice. He claimed that all was lost - that D'Artagnan…" Athos sucks in a slow breath. The words are coming easier now - though the recollection of the Marquis' false claims is somehow no less disquieting in retrospect. "Regardless, I prompted him with our sign - and he failed the test."
Sitting straight-backed and tense on his chair, D'Artagnan raises a hand to his neck, scrubbing blindly as if seeking to relieve an itch. It is not the first time, and the movement is beginning to make Athos' own skin crawl.
"Would you prefer if-" Aramis moves to withdraw, but Athos reaches up and traps the other man's hand on his shoulder. He disregards the cold trickle from the washcloth onto his leathers, and simply grips Aramis' wrist. The creature will not take this from him.
Where before the cosy room offered comfort, safety, it now seemed to be closing in around them. Attempting to speak as if he does see the shadow of the creature in Aramis' features, he shakes his head. "No. Only... have patience with me."
He finds understanding in Aramis' expression, and recalls when the situation had been reversed - when the Marquis had deceived them with Athos' face. The marksman squeezes Athos' shoulder in understanding. "Tell me if you need me to stop."
"Where was Luce through all this?" Porthos asks, leaning back in his chair to indicate he is content to wait for an answer.
"I bid her run and hide," Athos admits after a time. "I was plagued by visions - I knew not what I did."
"Visions?" The question appears to stick in D'Artagnan's throat.
Athos recognises his turmoil - yearning to understand and offer comfort, while simultaneously wishing to shut eyes and ears and never again speak of it.
He turns aside as Aramis goes to work on unlacing his boot, clenching his teeth and grasping the edge of the headboard with white knuckles. "Three visions," he grits out. "At first I mistakenly believed myself asleep. The house at Pinon visits my dreams often enough, but this time Thomas' portrait was somehow wrong - wolf-like…"
As though the smoke from the fire is suddenly stifling, Porthos shifts, pacing from his place by the blaze to lean upon the desk. Aramis' hand stills, while D'Artagnan grips the arms of his chair.
All too aware of his friends' discomfort, Athos hesitates, face closing over in sudden determination to bear his own trials.
"Let us help you bear the burden," the marksman says after a long pause, looking to Porthos and D'Artagnan for support. "What troubles one of us concerns us all."
D'Artagnan looks up in agreement, shame briefly crossing his features as he reaches for his waterskin.
Aramis and Porthos are firm believers that a burden shared is a burden eased. If their recent encounter with Anne had taught him anything, it was the truth in that - though old habits died hard. He nods in gratitude, throat tightening in anticipation.
"What came next?" Porthos' face is screwed up in bitter contemplation, though he will not leave his friend to suffer in silence.
"The night off Rue de l'Echelle." Athos prevents emotion from colouring his words, anticipating his friends' reaction.
Porthos swears while Aramis stills, letting the bandage he had been winding fall slack.
"What happened?" D'Artagnan asks.
"Men set upon revenge for a hanging," Aramis says cautiously, watching Athos.
Unfamiliar with their shared trials, D'Artagnan's brow creases as he attempts to reconcile his alienation. "You do not need to tell me," he offers, clearly yearning to understand, but also wishing to spare his mentor further grief.
"I was disgracefully drunk - more so than usual -" Athos admits.
"Those men were the disgrace," Porthos cut in.
"They believed an injustice to have taken place," Athos says diplomatically, the words veiling his racing heartbeat and creeping nausea.
It is an old argument between them, and Athos finds his hand drifting unconsciously to the leg that had been injured that night years before.
"No," Porthos shook his head. "They knew justice had been done, but wanted to take out their -"
"Regardless," Athos cuts in, resolved that D'Artagnan not know the worst of it - and praying the boy be spared any such encounter of his own, "When I woke from the vision, the knife was in my hand, and Luce close by..."
Porthos jerks, eyes moving down as if he could see the child in the tavern below.
Athos turns bloodshot eyes on him. "After that I could not trust myself - I told her to run."
"The right choice, I think," Aramis says reassuringly.
"And the third?" D'Artagnan asks, clearly fearful but wishing the tale over with.
"Rougemont."
D'Artagnan flinches at the name, tongue unconsciously tracing his bottom lip as though he can taste the ghostly tang of blood in his mouth. After the debacle with Vadim, taking down Rougemont's operation had been the next where the boy had been sorely tested. Athos felt pride at D'Artagnan's endurance, but knew from their proximity on recent missions that the Gascon still woke in a cold sweat on occasion, having bitten through his lip in a dream attempt not to impart information.
"You thought you were back there?" D'Artagnan asked now, the break in his voice betraying his calm.
Aramis and Porthos' eyes are dark. They recalled rescuing their friends from that place - having never expected to find them alive.
"Yes," Athos says. "However, all was not right. The Marquis was there. He convinced me -"
"What?" Porthos prompts.
"That if I survived the encounter I would live out my days in Hôpital de la Pitié*."
"A place for mad men," Aramis explains for D'Artagnan's benefit. "Poor souls. But it's little wonder you believed this was a dream, my friend."
Athos nods, spent, and leans back against the headboard.
Porthos endures Aramis' ministrations with less stoicism than Athos, though the practiced complaints and insults are as much a tradition between them as any true expression of discontent.
"Done?" Porthos asks as Aramis ties off the fresh bandage.
The marksman steps back and nods, now rather pale himself. It has been many hours since Porthos had received the gunshot wound, and fear of infection always made Aramis particularly vigilant.
"Lucky," Porthos grunts. "I was considering shootin' someone else to distract you."
"Don't you dare," Aramis threatens, but there is no sting in the words, and he leans heavily on the armrest as he speaks.
"Now you," Porthos declares, rising and pushing his friend towards the vacated chair.
Aramis resists. "D'Artagnan-"
"Is content to wait his turn," the Gascon puts in, rising stiffly to his feet to change the water.
"It's only a little dizziness," Aramis protests. "It will pass."
Porthos' steady grip prevents Aramis from rising, but the marksman points to D'Artagnan's bandaged palm. "That hand-"
"Aramis," Athos warns, and the marksman subsides, feeling his three friends ranged against him.
Seeing Aramis begin to reluctantly comply with Porthos' instructions, Athos rests his heavy eyes, a half-amused smile on his lips.
A chill breeze across his sweat-dampened forehead draws D'Artagnan from slumber. He knows he has been dreaming - some disconcerting memory still pulling at his consciousness - but squints through narrowed eyelids to find the source of the cold. At the end of the chamber, the window is open, and the silhouette of Athos clear against the grey sky beyond.
Groaning slightly, he drags himself upright, shivering at the sight of the cooling embers in the once blazing fireplace.
"Athos?"
His friend does not respond, expression fixed into bitter contemplation, and D'Artagnan hesitates, finding the eerie stillness unsettling. But the cold boards beneath his feet, combined with the realisation that Athos is only in his shirtsleeves, decides his course.
He approaches and places a tentative hand on Athos' stiff shoulder, then reaches beyond and pulls the shutters closed, hoping the sound will not wake Aramis and Porthos next door.
"D'Artagnan?" Athos asks, expression now unreadable in the darkness.
"I'm here," he says, heart aching to see his friend in this quiet distress but unsure how to lend comfort.
Athos pulls the younger man to him with one arm, as he had on the tower, and D'Artagnan relaxes into the hold, feeling the swordsman's thunderous heartbeat between their bodies.
"The fear will pass," D'Artagnan begins, the words as much a question as a statement. "Together we've endured much - and always come through it." The truth of the words lends him surety, and he grips Athos' arm. "This will be no different."
D'Artagnan thinks he feels his friend smiling in the dark, though he cannot be sure.
"Back to bed?" Athos suggests, and they turn away from the window together.
A soft tapping on the door draws D'Artagnan from slumber for the second time.
Moonlight shards through the break in the shutters, softly lighting the side of Athos' face as he sleeps. Porthos' sword gleams from where it leans against the wall by his bed, but Aramis' chair is empty. D'Artagnan does not know how much time has passed since he last woke.
The tapping on the door comes again, more insistent. D'Artagnan hesitates, unwilling to leave the comfort of his bed.
One more knock and he drags off the coverlet to climb to his feet. Stiff and sore, with a dry mouth, he pads across the cold floorboards and gently draws open the heavy door.
Aramis' familiar silhouette is standing in the doorway, backlit by moonlight from a window at the end of the hall. From his slouched stance, D'Artagnan can see that his friend is heavily fatigued.
"It was unlatched," D'Artagnan says, a little more tersely than necessary, as he stands aside to let the marksman pass into the room.
"There is something I hoped we might discuss." Aramis gestures to the corridor. "Could we -"
D'Artagnan hesitates, sure that his friend wishes discuss his guilt over what had transpired in the abbey. The Gascon is bone weary, and hesitates, sagging against the lintel.
"Please, my friend."
It is always difficult to deny Aramis.
Swiping a hand over his tired eyes, D'Artagnan glances back to ensure Athos is sleeping, then softly pulls the door to.
When he turns, he starts to find Aramis standing closer than before. The marksman is smiling, but not his familiar roguish smile.
"Aramis -"
Aramis raises a finger to his lips for silence, moonlight glinting off his sharp teeth.
-
The end.
I'll leave the reader to interpret the ending - read it how you will :p
Hope you enjoyed this last installment ^_^
