A tally.
No matter how hard he tried to deny it, ignore it, to do anything other than acknowledge its existence, it was still there.
That damned tally.
Etched into his skin in lines that he could always feel, regardless of whether he was touching them or not, etched in the same way that his love for their owners was etched into his heart.
The saying, that he wore his heart on his sleeve was more literal than it had any right to be, as every heartbreak, every requited love and abandonment, was tattooed eternally onto the skin of his forearm.
It was no wonder he always chose to wear long sleeves to cover up such a vivid reminder of his past, to hide his shame.
He had so many.
He traces a gentle finger down his arm, brushing over each tally mark in a parody of a lovers caress, pressing butterfly kisses to each one with his fingertips.
Isabelle.
Jacques.
Olivier.
Marsac.
Adele.
He whispered each name reverently, never being able to forget their touches branded on his soul, breath hitching as he came to Marsac, and that sharp pain of abandonment like a knife to the gut punched through his body.
With an air of frustration he wrenched his sleeve down violently, and tied the strings of his cuff together viciously.
Hiding the marks of his love.
If Porthos was here now he would laugh, ask what his conquest of the night before was like and subtly pull his broken pieces back together, wrap a gentle hand around his marked wrist and make everything okay.
But Porthos wasn't here. Never would be again.
Last month, Porthos had met the lovely widow Alice Clerbaux, and Aramis had known the minute he saw that awestruck expression on his friends face.
Known when his hand had twitched involuntarily towards his own forearm.
The final tell was that brilliant, unguarded, cheeky smile full of dimples that he had aimed at her, and Aramis had known.
Life would never be the same again because Porthos had found his black tally, the very thing he had yearned for since he had first left the streets and joined the Musketeers, watching all the other couples together and wanting that love for himself.
Rolling onto his back he lay spread eagled in his bed, arm bent and resting across his eyes to block out the sun filtering through his partially open shutters. Maybe if he didn't see the sun then he could pretend that the day hadn't started yet, remain happily oblivious in his room, ignore his duties and the hours of enduring the constant heartache that was ahead of him.
Tears rolled unheeded down his cheeks, onto the rumpled linen bed sheets beneath him and dampening his pillow. He just couldn't face it, pretending he didn't see all the sideways looks aimed at him, the muttering, the laughter.
He was just so tired of it all.
A sharp rapping at the door had him surging to his feet, swaying slightly as he reached his full height and being forced to steady himself on the nearest piece of furniture. He used his sleeve to futilely scrub his face clean of tears and attempted to at least slightly straighten his wrinkled clothes before tugging the door open to reveal...
"Athos?"
"Aramis" his friend returned evenly with a small nod of acknowledgement, taking the time to look the smaller man up and down.
To put it plainly he looked like crap.
Actually, that was insulting to the crap, he looked much worse.
There were bruises so deeply entrenched beneath his eyes, that one would be forgiven for thinking he had been on the receiving end of a couple of vicious punches to the face, and his skin had an unhealthy yellow tinge. His usually immaculately turned out hair was hanging limp and lifeless, strands sticking to patches of sweat and his clothes were wrinkled, looking like they had seen better days.
All in all for his usual suave self it was unusual and concerning.
"What are you doing here?"
"You're late for morning muster, Treville sent me to find you"
Aramis' heart sank just a little at that, his already upset stomach lurching and curling itself up into tighter and tighter knots. For just a minute like the foolish man he was, he had allowed himself to hope that Athos had come looking for him of his own volition, just because. Just because he cared.
Of course he was sent by Treville, why would anyone care why he was not there, just that he wasn't.
Athos watched with mounting concern as Aramis' eyes darkened, countenance shadowed with an unreadable emotion. His arms curled themselves around his abdomen, forehead and eyes creased with pain. He reached out and gripped him by the elbow to steady him as he swayed.
"Aramis are you alright?"
The Spaniard gazed blearily past Athos for a while before finally meeting his eyes and smiling weakly, a poor imitation of his usual cheeky smirk. That settled it for Athos, that trademark smirk was what let them know Aramis was okay and the absence of it was damning, so he slowly herded him back into the blessedly dim interior of the room.
Back inside out of the bright sunshine, the creases eased slightly and his whole body visibly relaxed and he allowed Athos to press him down onto his bed. Having succeeded in his mission of getting Aramis off his feet, he was suddenly at a loss of what to do, he did not deal well with other human beings.
Especially not ill ones.
"I am fine my silent friend, merely lacking a little sleep"
Aramis assured him with a gentle smile, flopping spread-eagled back onto the bed. Now that he was back inside, any motivation that had forced him up had been lost, and all he wanted was to go back to sleep.
"Forgive me if I don't believe you, but I distinctly remember the last time you were fine. I believe you had been shot in the leg and had a concussion, correct me if i'm wrong."
Athos had cocked a hip and was leaning casually against the dresser, one eyebrow raised at a jaunty angle in clear expression of his disbelief.
Aramis agreed that he had no response to that because indeed he had protested that he was fine, and proceeded to collapse in the middle of the street not five minutes later.
"That was one time!"
"Yes, the other times you only had influenza, a broken collarbone, or worst of all a dislocated knee!"
"Fine" Aramis pouted folding his arms and turning away.
"Get some sleep you fool" a fond smile creased his face and he approached, pressing carefully on his brothers shoulders so he would finally lie down and relax.
The easy cooperation of the usually stubborn man was worrying to say the least, but he pushed it to the back of his mind in lieu of draping a blanket over the already senseless man, and dragging a chair over. He kicked his feet up and rested them on the edge of the bed, leaning back and placing his hat over his head and attempting to follow Aramis into rest.
Treville would know where to find him.
He crept up the stairs as silently as he possibly could, precisely avoiding the second and fifth step that creaked obnoxiously whenever you put any weight on them, the wood so old it was beginning to give up on life.
It had been so long since he had made this particular trip but he could still do it blindfolded, every inch ingrained in his memory from having travelled it so many times, in various states of inebriation obviously.
Excitement welled up inside him like a helium balloon as he came face to face with the wood panelled door that guarded Aramis' quarters from the rest of the world, the familiar brass number attached with four brass screws that were beginning to rust. He tugged at the leather cord hanging round his neck and withdrew it from his shirt collar, a gold talisman hung next to a small brass key that he knew would fit the keyhole of the door in front of him.
Aramis had become fed up with him picking the lock after the first few times he had been forced to call the locksmith and replace it, an unfortunate side effect being the creation of scratches and the destruction of the tumblers. He had presented the little key to him in a box and claimed it had cost him less money than perpetually replacing his lock, and since then he had an all access guaranteed pass whenever he wanted.
He hadn't wasted a single opportunity to use that little key, and had become an almost permanent feature in the little room.
He was happy in his newly married life but the separation from his best friend, his brother was more than he could bear, he had already left one life behind, he couldn't do it again. So, his lovely wife had agreed to him returning to Paris for a few weeks to reconnoitre some houses for them to live in, and if this had the fortunate side effect of letting him spend time with not only Aramis, but Athos as well, then who was he to complain.
The key turned in the lock with a beautifully satisfying click and he pushed the door open, only the minimal amount of creaking disturbing the mid afternoon silence. How odd he mused, Aramis must have finally gotten around to oiling those hinges.
His heart gave a strange lurch within his chest, a strange mixture of delight and jealousy as he took a step inside and saw his brothers sleeping peacefully beside one another. Aramis had somehow managed to end up sleeping upside down in his bed, arms wrapped tightly about Athos legs where they were resting on the bed and Athos resting a hand on Aramis' ankle in turn.
"Well that answers that question" he muttered as he made his way into the room, he had been concerned about leaving his brothers alone, particularly Aramis.
He had first met Aramis when Treville asked him to join the ranks of the Musketeers, assigned Aramis as his so called 'mentor' and charged him with showing him the ropes. Their relationship had inevitably gotten off to a rocky start, Porthos bristling at being told what to do and not knowing how to respond to such an unfailingly cheerful and genial man.
He still remembers the first day he had stepped through that great arched entranceway to the Garrison, the tunnel to his new life, and had been met by a considerably smaller man with a ridiculous moustache and the most chaotic hair he had ever seen, standing before him in Musketeer leathers and holding two swords.
He also remembered walking straight past him as if the man was invisible, and proceeding to ignore him for two hours straight until he could no longer ignore the incessant rambling from the man, about 'Cindy this and Odette that'. When he finally caved and told the man to shove off somewhere and find someone who cared.
The fool had such an affronted look on his face that it sort of endeared him to Porthos, as much as he tried to deny it, and their relationship began to flourish after that, taking every opportunity to goad one another with insults and humour.
Despite the front that Aramis put on every minute of every day, he was a terribly tortured soul.
In their downtime when they would spend all night in a tavern drinking way too many mugs of wine so that by the time they were getting up to go home, the table they clung to in order to stay upright was the only part of the room not spinning in disorienting blurry circles, they would invariably end up spilling their souls to one another.
The night when Aramis admitted to being cripplingly lonely and incredibly depressed for most of his life was burned into his memory like a brand. The tears slipping down his cheeks and the agonised expression on his face, as he told him everything about his lost loves and the shame of his, what some would call whorish behaviour, but worst of all was the physical evidence on his wrist that he could never escape.
Most of what Aramis told him that night had been lost in a haze of alcohol but he remembered this much and from that moment forth they had become truly inseparable. Porthos the solid rock that Aramis could cling to, when the raging storm of his emotions threatened to pull him under and sweep him away to the depths of despair. He took this job very seriously and had been beyond angry when the Captain had assigned Aramis, and Aramis only, to the training exercise at Savoy.
Savoy.
No he wouldn't think about what had happened then, lest he find himself slumped on the floor and bawling like an infant.
It had merely served to confirm his self assigned duty of never leaving Aramis on his own... ever, but over the years there had been times when it wasn't possible. The arrival of Athos only a few weeks after Savoy, made it much more manageable with an extra pair of hands.
This time was different though, he had essentially abandoned his friend, done the one thing that he had promised never to do... he had left.
The inseparables was missing one of its members because he had found the other half to himself, the woman who made him smile helplessly at the smallest thing she did, the one he found himself imagining rounded with his child and it made him feel complete.
Didn't he feel like a complete bastard.
He had known Aramis would be messed up about it, but he had promised that once they had become settled in their new house - a small cottage on the outskirts of Paris, enveloped in warm hug by creeping trails of roses and ivy - that he would be back on duty.
The crippling guilt hadn't left him though, he had become fed up of the sickness swirling in his stomach, and had decided that a quick visit to check on his friend would do no harm. He hadn't known what he expected to find but him curled up on the bed with Athos definitely wasn't it!
He had imagined that he would be in a right state by now, moping about his room, skipping work and just generally miserable.
It hit home to him then that Aramis didn't need him anymore, he had Athos and that was evidently enough.
It hadn't occurred to him that it would hurt this much to know that his friend had replaced him in his life, he was sure the tearing pain in his chest was worse than any gunshot wound or slice from a sword.
The pain gradually transformed into anger as he stood there and stared at his friends sleeping soundly, eyes narrowing into a harsh glare and an inferno building in his gut turning his vision red.
Grabbing the key that he had replaced around his neck, he yanked and the rope split with a quiet click, he slammed it down on the wooden cabinet beside the bed and smirked when neither man stirred, confirming his theory that they were very comfortable just the two of them.
If Aramis didn't need him then he didn't need Aramis, and ignoring the logical part of his brain that was telling him that the pain was getting worse and not better, he spun on his booted heel and marched determinedly away from Aramis' rooms and back towards his home, where his wife was waiting for him.