Summary: Aramis works himself to exhaustion tending the wounded. It is his penance for choosing the life of a soldier. And Athos's penance is to watch, helpless, until his brother crashes.
A/N: Vetcadet asked for some exhausted Aramis. However, this ended up horribly angsty and somewhat depressing when I suspect you wanted fluff, so I will keep your prompt on my list to try again later, lol.
This takes place in an alternate timeline where Aramis did go to war with the others.
"Penance"
Athos stands outside the infirmary tent, one flap folded up to allow a fresh breeze to waft through the cloying stench of sickness and death. The moans of the wounded filter out. It is a sound that plagues Athos's dreams as surely as cannon fire and the barrage of guns does. But he doesn't move away. He waits and watches.
Within the tent, Aramis moves from pallet to pallet, tending the wounded. He's the best field medic they have, certainly more experienced than the official medic attached to their troop. But the casualties from this recent campaign are heavy and both men have been working tirelessly, fighting infection and fever with the same fervor needed on a field of battle. A field of battle Aramis himself fought on not two days ago.
Athos watches him stumble almost drunkenly to his next patient. D'Artagnan took a musket ball to the shoulder, but it went all the way through and the wound hasn't become infected. Aramis still lays a hand across the sleeping man's brow to check. After a prolonged moment, he moves away, shuffling to the next sickbed, and the next.
Porthos shivers in the throes of fever. He'd been hit with shrapnel when a cannon ball tore through the battlement. It had taken hours for Aramis to debride the wounds and it is no surprise some of them have become infected. Aramis checks the poultices packed down Porthos's side, lingers for another moment, and then retreats.
Footsteps come up quietly behind Athos. "I thought you were going to order him to rest?" Girart says.
"He needs this," Athos responds quietly.
Aramis's paradox is that he is a soldier whose faith demands respect for the sanctity of life. He kills in service to his country and sovereign, and then when the consequences of violence fall upon his brethren or the innocent, Aramis does everything within his power to help them. It is his penance for the life he's chosen.
And Athos's penance is to let him.
He is the captain and the battle plan was his call. The lives of his men and two of his dearest brothers lie like broken fodder for his failure. The third is steadily heading toward a collapse.
And that is what Athos waits for. He will let Aramis work himself to exhaustion—and then be there to catch him. It is all he can do.
Aramis stumbles and shoots out a hand to brace himself against a support post, closing his eyes for a moment as though to stop the room from spinning. Athos finally moves, ducking into the tent and heading straight for him. Aramis doesn't react to his footsteps, doesn't even startle when Athos gently takes his elbow. It's a sign of how far gone he is.
"Come," Athos says softly, giving him a light tug.
Aramis opens his eyes and blinks at him dazedly, then turns his head toward his patients. "But…"
"You've done everything you can, Aramis. Those who will live have survived thus far and those whose injuries were too severe have already passed. And I am making it an order."
Were Aramis any more lucid, there would be a quip about his penchant for interpreting orders as they suited him. He is not.
Athos tugs again and Aramis tenses.
"I can't leave them," he pleads, naked vulnerability wavering in sunken eyes framed by dark circles. Athos hears the fear for what it means: Aramis is terrified Porthos or d'Artagnan will leave him while he sleeps, having slipped away due to an injury he could not cure. Athos's fear is the same, though the mechanism different.
"They are strong," he says with complete conviction. "And you've tended them well. But if you do not rest, how do you expect to see them to full recovery?"
Aramis wavers and Athos waits him out. He knows he'll be victorious in the end.
When Aramis slumps in defeat and exhaustion, Athos wraps an arm around his waist and guides him out of the tent. Aramis's boots shuffle through the dirt, his weight growing heavier against Athos's side with each step. Athos half carries him into his own tent and eases him down on the cot.
Aramis jerks his head up and blinks rapidly at his surroundings. "No," he says and tries to rise.
Athos easily pushes him back down. "Yes."
He is not camping in luxury but as captain he is afforded a few more comforts than the infantrymen: a straw mattress instead of a bedroll, thicker blankets. A pillow.
Athos takes Aramis by the shoulders and lowers him down. The man is beyond the point of resistance. Athos grabs his legs and swings them up onto the mattress to straighten him out. Aramis is still mumbling incoherent protests but his eyes are closed, unable to keep them open any longer.
Athos unfolds a blanket and drapes it over him. Then he lowers himself to the ground, back propped up against the cot, and lifts one arm to rest his hand over Aramis's, a tactile reminder during his sleep that the marksman is not alone.
Aramis has already seen more battlefields and horrors than Athos, but he came back anyway when Athos and the others went to Douai and asked him to ride to war with them. They dragged him from the safety of a monastery to trudge head first into blood and death.
On most days Athos doesn't regret it. They are brothers and they have always fought side by side. But then there are some times, when the hardships of war exact a heavy toll, when Aramis stares at crimson stained hands steeped in the blood of his comrades and brothers and Athos sees the self-recrimination clear on his friend's face that he wonders at the cost.
And so he sits on the cold hard ground and keeps watch all night as Aramis sleeps and fights yet more battles in his dreams that Athos can't banish.
Because that, too, is his penance.