Third prompt: A Musketeer being carried after being incapacitated. For the purposes of this fic – being Aramis-Centric Prompt Fills as labeled – this is Aramis being carried after being incapacitated.

A/N: I've long since lost the exact location page this prompt was found on. I'd sketched it out loosely so long ago, I think it was a round one prompt. All I really know is that in this version, it becomes sort of a blanket covering for the tropiest tropes of all tropes.

Moveable

-o-

"Have you got him?"

"I've got him."

Athos eyed the steps and rebalanced. Aramis was more muscle than one might predict at first turn – seeing him standing next to Porthos as he normally was. And it wasn't often that Athos had cause to carry him in this manner to remind himself.

"Athos," mumbled Aramis. As usual, coming awake at the worst of times, sounding disconcertingly like a lost child. His head rolled with a worried whimper – chin digging heavily into Athos's kidney.

"Don't move, Aramis," Athos ordered. "I've got you. All right? I've got you."

"Athos," Aramis mumbled again, losing distinction.

Athos listened, waiting to see if he would wake further or drop back into unconsciousness.

His head rolled again. "Athos, should I… should I be walking?" The words came out slurred together with a strange, softly sounding innocence. He remained limp and heavy.

"No," Athos answered gently, nearly finding a smile at the absurdity. "No, you shouldn't be walking."

He waited again, adjusting Aramis on his shoulder and looking at the steps.

"He's out again," informed Porthos.

Nodding, Athos started up, Porthos coming up behind with an unhappy grunt. "I could've carried him."

"Not with those stitches."

Turning at the corner of the balcony, Athos braced one hand to Aramis's hip to keep him from sliding off his shoulder and found himself with the contradictory thought that Aramis had grown rather boney.

"Watch his head."

"I've got it. Get the door."

Porthos did, shoving a chair out of the way that was blocking the pathway around the bed. "I hate it when he gets like this."

"I know."

Athos braced his knee at the bed's edge, separating his feet for leverage as he bent forward, slowly lowering Aramis down. At which point Porthos was there, supporting Aramis's back and head and keeping him upright as Athos ducked back from under his arm.

Slumped as he was, Aramis's wild hair looked wilder, falling over his eyes, making his pale face look paler – honest and accessible, even with his eyes closed. The raw vulnerability did things to Athos's ribs.

Brushing back Aramis's hair for a moment, Athos smoothed his thumb along the dip of his temple, then braced his head as they tipped him backward. He hated when Aramis got like this too, but he liked being able to physically do something for him. Particularly when he felt at a loss in other ways.

Porthos nudged him. Having poured a basin of water, he was holding out a cloth. Athos took it, folding the cool dampness over Aramis's forehead.

Together, they worked Aramis's boots free. The punctured leather in one revealing a cut that was about as bloody as Athos had expected it to be from the knife that'd gone through it. Sitting on the bed to take Aramis's legs across his own as Porthos gathered their supplies, he watched Aramis's face as he pressed gently against the bruised skin around the wound.

Aramis stumblingly exhaled, but didn't speak.

His eyes stayed closed.

"Think he's right enough?" asked Porthos. He'd moved the basin stand to accommodate Athos's reach, and then taken seat against the wall by Aramis's head. Pressing his thumb over the cloth dampening Aramis's eyebrows in a gentle pattern.

Athos worked, holding Aramis's ankle as he wrapped the injury from both directions, closing over the soft bandage in way he could ensure it didn't slip. "No doubt, he will regret it all by morning. More so when we tell him he cannot walk on this foot."

Porthos made a noncommittal sound.

Athos looked at him, then drifted his gaze to Aramis's wearied face. "He'd do better not to follow my example in this," he answered softly. "But there are worse things than drunken fights. He's as entitled to such nights of folly as any of us."

"It's our fourth fight in two days," Porthos reminded wryly. "The captain's going to want words with us before long."

The corner of Athos's lip turned up. "Undoubtedly. But only this one owes any part to Aramis's doing. And one could say he was arguably provoked."

"He was looking to be provoked."

"Nevertheless, Treville will concede our clashes yesterday were the unavoidable result of duty, and d'Artagnan is already on errand out of the city to keep him from continuing his tangle with the Red Guards. The captain will hardly ask more from us than that."

"D'Artagnan could've controlled himself."

"He is getting better at it, yes," Athos agreed, then reconsidered. "Sometimes."

"It isn't right," Porthos said, and Athos didn't pretend to imagine they were still talking about d'Artagnan, or Treville. "This isn't him. This isn't like him."

"Not often, no."

Athos contemplated for a moment without letting his thoughts go to far. He smoothed a finger along the ridge of the bandage he'd just placed, then held Aramis's legs up as he moved from beneath them and stretched out along his side, exhaling with an arm behind his head, then changing his mind. He rolled onto his side, folding an arm over Aramis's ribs, just to feel him breathe.

Aramis turned his head at the touch, sighing heavily and bumping his nose to Athos's chin.

On the other side of him, Porthos stretched his own legs out, tweaking the pillow he'd bunched against the wall behind his back. The candles were still burning on the stand near Porthos's head, but he made no move to blow them out.

In the stillness, Athos imagined he could see Porthos's thoughts circling upward toward the black stains on the ceiling. Evidence of the faint smoke from flickering candles, burning night after night next to where Aramis sat reading.

"As long as it doesn't become a pattern," Porthos mumbled finally, seemingly mostly to himself as it came out sounding like some private truce between his concern and practicality.

"We'll worry then," Athos agreed regardless, adjusting his head on the pillow shared with Aramis, listening to him exhale and go on sleeping.

-o-