A/N: A commenter correctly pointed out that I did not issue an appropriate content warning. That was my oversight, as this fic is crossposted and I tagged it correctly there, but not here. So this message is going on both chapters: CW/TW for self-injurious behavior and very Catholic ideas of guilt/penance. I have tried my best to not make the self harm graphic, but please note that it is an integral part to the fic.
Aramis places the newly-finished bottle of wine down on the table, a few degrees shy of delicately, earning a snicker from his two friends. "What you said, Athos," Aramis murmurs, pointing an almost-steady finger at the man in question, "reminds me of a bit of exciting news I had almost forgotten to share with you."
"You've been transferred to serve at the court at Bretagne," Athos says flatly, before sucking the last of his wine from his tankard. "Please, tell me I'm right."
"Not quite so exciting," Aramis says, smiling when Athos sighs in mock-disappointment. "I will be remaining here, though I am commissioning a breathtaking new cabinet for my room at the garrison."
"Breathtaking," Athos mutters into his empty vessel, rolling his eyes.
"With what money?" Porthos asks, grabbing Athos's tankard. The man relaxes when Porthos pours a bit more wine from his own cup into it, and hands it back. "Cabinets are quite expensive, so I hear."
Aramis blushes a bit. "I may be asking Treville next week for a few months pay in advance…"
Athos scoffs and Porthos whistles lowly. "Oh boy." Porthos shakes his head. "And what are you going to do when he sends you away with nothing but a paddle to the ass, eh?"
Aramis laughs. The door to the tavern swings open, and he hardly pays it any mind, but for the fact that the man who has just entered stops in the arched doorway. "Which one of you gentlemen is Aramis? I have a message to deliver for him."
The raucous chatter in the tavern dims, but does not disappear. Aramis casts a brief look at his two friends and shrugs. The man looks respectable enough, likely a merchant of middling renown if his clothes, finely made but ill-tailored, are anything to go by.
"I am," Aramis says, giving a wave of his hand. He lowers his voice, leaning closer to Porthos. "You don't think Treville has gotten word already–"
The rest of the words are lost in a choked grunt as Aramis finds himself hauled to his feet and punched squarely in the gut. Black spots twinkle across his vision for a moment, the impact having stolen the air from his lungs, but as he becomes reacquainted with breathing he finds he has to give it to the man: that was prime placement, as well as an absolutely spectacular method of sobering him up.
Athos and Porthos are on their feet as instantly, hands at their swords. Aramis coughs drily, clutching a moment at his abdomen, before raising a hand to them, urging their patience. Porthos snarls, and Aramis hears his sword rattle in its sheath. Truly nothing like the promise of a fight to chase wine from heads.
Aramis turns to the merchant and tilts his chin. The man's hair has come loose of its ribboned queue and it sticks at his pink cheeks as he pants wildly. "Now, sir," Aramis says mildly. "That is not exactly what we in Paris call a message."
Aramis cannot say the second punch is quite as unexpected as the first, though it certainly hurts no less. This time the blow glances his ribs, and he swallows back a garbled cry. A few surprised tears prick at his eyes, and Aramis blinks, steadying himself, now panting almost as hard as his assailant.
"If you could be so kind as to inform me why you are hitting me, I would be much obliged," he gasps. He adds, feeling the simmering heat of his fellow Musketeer's rising ire, "And I think it would be in your best interest as well. My friends are magnificent fighters, and I can only hold them back for so long."
The merchant grabs Aramis by the collar, pulling him closer with shaky fingers. Aramis can count every one of his teeth, bared and gleaming in the glow of the candlelit tavern. "It's for sleeping with my wife, you mongrel dog." He tightens his grasp and Aramis makes a noise as the pressure begins to choke him. "Monsieur Gauthier. Does that ring a bell in that pretty little head of yours?"
"Now that you say so," Aramis whispers raggedly, writhing slightly to alleviate the strain on his throat, "I suppose she may have mentioned a husband once or twice."
In one quick motion, Gauthier pulls something from his belt, and suddenly Aramis's eyes are level with the glinting blade of a dagger. "I'll kill you."
In a scuffle of flailing arms and scintillating blades, Porthos pushes Aramis out of the way and engages Gauthier head-on. Aramis can tell Porthos is sizing him up, considering the best way to disarm and subdue him without doing injury to the man, but the swipe Gauthier takes at Porthos's shoulder renders this consideration of rather secondary importance. Aramis springs on Gauthier from one side, Athos from the other, and Gauthier lands a lucky hit on Athos's face, sending the man reeling for a moment, before he and Aramis can wrestle the merchant into submission.
Athos kicks Gauthier's shin. The man howls in pain and drops the dagger to the ground with a clatter, and Aramis retrieves the weapon and slips into his own boot. Athos presses his bloody lips close to Gauthier's ear and growls, "It is an offense against the King for a common man to attack His Musketeers and make unfounded accusations against them. If you would not like to hang, I suggest you never speak of this night again."
Gauthier nods, wide-eyed fear replacing any previous bravado. Aramis feels the man tremble beneath his hands as Athos adds, "If you do decide to speak, I will not hesitate to bring charges against you. Do you understand?"
The man nods again, spluttering apologies like a scolded boy, and Athos shoves him unceremoniously toward the door. As Gauthier stumbles out, casting a fearful glance backward, the tavern chatter, which had dimmed during the altercation, rises again. Aramis is grateful for its hum as he turns back to his friends, feeling a spot of shame burn in his throat at being the center of such a spectacle.
He frowns. "Athos, my friend, you are bleeding."
Athos sinks heavily into a chair. "Yes, that is typically what happens when you get punched by a man wearing rings."
"Let me see to it," Aramis says, producing the handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing carefully with it at Athos's lip. The man takes the cloth, speckled with blood, from Aramis's hand to continue the ministrations. Aramis turns. "And Porthos, your shirt…"
He reaches for Porthos's shoulder to investigate the long slash in the fabric, thanking the Lord he sees no blood amidst the light gray cambric, but Porthos jerks away. "Leave off."
Aramis ignores the sharp stab of hurt as he retracts his hand. Neither Athos nor Porthos will look at him, it seems; Athos is staring resolutely into the distance as he mops away the trickle of blood, while Porthos is angrily sipping at the dregs of his cup. The sight turns Aramis's stomach.
"I'm sorry, my friends," he says quietly. "You do not deserve to be battered and bloodied for my sake."
Porthos laughs, but the sound is anything but jovial. Aramis swallows another jolt of pain; after all the man has every right to be upset with him.
"Porthos?"
The man laughs again, quieter this time but no less stingingly cutting. "How many times can a man say he's sorry before it loses its meaning, eh?" He looks up from the cup, glancing everywhere but at Aramis, and the hurt needles at Aramis further. "It's starting to ring a little hollow when it seems like every month there's a new jealous man hunting you down because you've stuck your prick where it doesn't belong."
"I'll be more careful next time, my brother," Aramis says gravely, desperately, willing Porthos to look his way and see the watery promise in his eyes. "I swear to you."
"That's it? You'll be more careful next time?"
Finally, Porthos turns his gaze upon him, and just as instantly Aramis wishes he hadn't, wishes he could look away now and forget forever the savage heat blazing in Porthos's eyes, directed at him. "How about learning to keep it in your pants so there doesn't have to be a next time? So that Athos and I don't have to save your sorry skin again and again. How does that sound?"
It feels as though Aramis has been punched again. The words ring in his ears like a dizzying church bell, and though the noise of the tavern picked up again just as soon as the fight was over, the whole world feels muffled and distant. The sensation unbalances him; Aramis trips his way over to his chair to gather his coat, his fingers fumbling. His breathing quickens and he swallows convulsively, feeling hot and nauseated all at once as though he has come down with a terrible flu.
"You're right, of course," Aramis says, tucking the coat protectively to his chest, as though it could cover the gnawing hole opening within it. "I… I will take my leave and allow you both the rest of the evening to yourselves, hopefully free of any more disturbances." He turns, wondering if his voice sounds as hollow as it feels in his own ears. "Athos, keep pressure on that wound and it should stop bleeding soon."
In a daze, Aramis stumbles out to the street just as the bells of Saint-Sulpice usher in a quarter past midnight. The air outside is no cooler than in the tavern, the stuffy humidity of mid-June sitting like a lead weight within his lungs and drowning him. Aramis clutches at his throat, willing his breathing and his stomach under control lest he stumble to the alleyway like a common drunk and lose himself there against the slick cobblestones.
For a moment as the bells ring out in the thick air, Aramis thinks of following their song to its source and slipping inside the church for confession. But as quickly as the idea comes he dismisses it; though he could wake a priest to hear him, the hour is late and Aramis has been a burden on enough good men tonight. He heads back to the garrison, to his room, instead.
As soon as he shuts the door behind him, Aramis undresses down to his smallclothes with clumsy fingers, sending his belt and his boots slumping in heaps on the floor. He removes even his flimsy linen shirt when the night air remains stifling, desperate for anything to stop the hot flush which burns beneath his skin like a fever.
Aramis drops into the chair at his desk and pulls open the drawer so forcefully the whole piece of furniture wobbles. He takes out the Bible and flops it open with a shaking hand, nearly ripping the hair-thin pages. He reads the first passage his watery eyes alight upon. The words swim across the page and Aramis whispers the words aloud in a minute, trembling voice.
"And he said, 'What comes out of a man is what defiles a man." Aramis shudders, his mouth dry and cracking. "'For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.''
His gaze slides to the still-open drawer, and to the thing which lurks in the shadowy corner, the apparatus which he keeps tucked away in case he should need it again. Aramis reaches for it, feels the distant and yet familiar press of the handle against his palm. In a way, Aramis supposes he knew he would use it again tonight as soon as he stepped out from the tavern, supposes the Lord knew he would require it as well, for that is doubtless why He guided Aramis to the passage from Mark to strengthen his resolve.
Aramis takes a deep, shivering breath. He raises the discipline cord, and sends it crashing down upon his skin, wincing as it strikes the tender flesh where the neck joins the shoulder. He lashes himself again and again, feeling the cord's long snakelike fingers rake across his back, grasping him tightly in a biting, slithering embrace.
He strikes himself until he is gasping for breath, at which point he drops the cord unceremoniously on the ground, buries his head in his hands, and begins to sob almost hysterically. He thanks the Lord for Porthos, whose words were only so caustic because they were necessary, to draw Aramis from his haze of licentiousness and force himself to realize that he has allowed his wicked nature to be unchecked for far too long, such that it is now seeping outward from him, the way blood weeps from a wound. Defiling him. Defiling those around him.
"No more," Aramis whispers brokenly. "No more." It is enough that he himself is defiled; it is in Man's nature, after all, to be drawn to the Devil, but as the Cistercian brothers reminded him in his youth, Aramis is more drawn to sin than many. Because that is Aramis's nature, he will fight against his temptations alone–this is his penance, his Cross, and he must bear it alone lest he drag others into sin as well. No, he will not be the Devil for Porthos nor Athos, and so Aramis swears he will regain his focus and renew his battle against evil once more.
Aramis draws the shutters against the moonlight which streams into his room and kneels beside his bed to pray a decade of the rosary before he sleeps. He pulls on a nightshirt and winces when the fabric first brushes against his raw skin, but then he relaxes into it, welcoming the pain as it sharpens his mind. Once he can remain in this state of clarity without the use of pain as an aid, Aramis will place the discipline cord back in the shadows, but until then he must endure it, as God and his brothers endure him.