Athos looks away from the firework display that is replaying on the TV for the fifteenth time to check his texts at 12:41. He hates New Years and would rather be alone, all his friends know that- but they still let him know that he is loved. There's the usual "HAPPY NEW YEAR! I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR THIS COMING YEAR!" with a thousand kisses from Anne on the stroke of midnight, a missed call from Constance at 12:01, a "Happy New Year" from D'Artagnan with three party hats and a fireworks emoji precisely one minute after Constance's missed call, and "Happy new year- Love, Aramis, Porthos and the kids x" at 12:06. There's another text at 12:37 from Aramis: "I kissed him again."

He replies to everybody else, wishing them a happy new year- he texts Porthos as well, before he replies to Aramis.

You have to tell him. (Seen by Aramis at 00:48)

I can't – would fuck everything up and I only just got him back (Sent to Athos at 00:48)

That's entirely your fault. (Seen by Aramis at 00:48)
Then don't kiss him. (Seen by Aramis at 00:49)

I know. And I can't do that either (Sent to Athos at 00:50)

So you have to tell him. (Seen by Aramis at 00:50)

Athos. (Sent to Athos at 00:50)

Aramis. (Sent to Aramis at 00:51)

Aramis doesn't reply.

He loves you too, you know. (Seen by Aramis at 01:03)

If only (Sent to Athos at 01:14)

Athos sighs heavily, drinks the last of the wine in his glass, and heads to bed. Why he befriended such idiots, he would never know.

It's early January when Porthos sees Flea and Charon again. Flea has a whole hour for lunch (shock horror) and Charon doesn't have any lectures until that afternoon, so the three of them agree to meet in Constance and D'Artagnan's florist-shop-but-also-a-café.

When D'Artagnan and Constance came back, they didn't really know what to do. D'Artagnan was young- he'd only ever been in the army; Porthos could empathise with how lost he was. Constance had been married before she joined- she'd been a seamstress, her husband a tailor, and they owned a shop for mending and making army uniforms. They did everything from khakis to General's suits.

The musketeers- as they jokingly called themselves when D'Artagnan joined their ranks- had been on leave when they met Constance. He'd fallen head over heels, and though she was reluctant to say it, she is a very sensible woman after all, so did she. She was already a reserve for the army, and when they had to head back out to the front, she wanted to go with them. Her husband refused, and so she left him. She couldn't be with a man who tried to control her. Porthos always suspected that the only reason she was going to go was to get away from her rather pathetic excuse of a husband, but even after the divorce, she came with them.

She and D'Artagnan married a year before the war was over.

When they got back- the world was their oyster. They could do anything- Constance just knew that she didn't want to sew anymore. D'Artagnan, as much as he loved Paris and all its eccentricities, missed his home. Before his father had died, they'd lived on a farm- and D'Artagnan knew almost everything a person could know about the flora indigenous to France. So they set up a florists shop. They found that customers would spend hours waiting around for D'Artagnan to put together a perfect bouquet for them- something which amused the other musketeers greatly- he cared so much that one time he literally sat counting how many petals where on each rose to make sure that it matched the date of the anniversary of the couple he was making the bouquet for. There were one hundred and two roses in that bouquet.

So to avoid angry customers, Constance set up a café inside. It was a tight squeeze, but they put tables outside, and she hired a few students to help her bake all that she needed to.

Flea and Charon are already there when Porthos gets there, but he still takes a minute to admire the gold cursive on the window that reads "From Gascony to Paris." Love from D'Artagnan to Constance.

He sits down at the tiny table in the corner with them and Charon gets up to go and get him a cup of coffee, just how he likes it. The shop is busy today and Constance doesn't mind that he gets the coffee. He used to work in the coffee shop down the road after all, he knows what everything is. He grabs Porthos a slice of chocolate cake too, and puts his money in the till when Constance isn't looking so she can't tell him "no, friends don't pay."

Charon sits, and his eye on the clock out of habit. When he left the orphanage at eighteen, he worked random jobs that required little of his massive intellect, to help Flea through university. She managed to get loans and a scholarship to study medicine at one of the finest universities in Paris- but she still needed to pay for food. Charon had little interest in doing anything. He had been smart in school, but no one had been there to help him- they just saw the snarky smile and the bruises on his knuckles and cast him of as "one of those." They hadn't known that the bruises came from being hit with a cane, not from street fights.

While Porthos was never adopted, and Flea was lucky enough to be adopted by a wonderful woman who had sadly lost her husband when she was very young and never remarried, Charon was shipped from place to place, from one horrible family to a worse one.

That was how Porthos got his scar. He was sixteen, and Charon was ten.

Porthos was sat by the phone in the upstairs corridor of the orphanage, as he did every night. It rarely rang, but that night it did.

"Hello?"

"Porthos?"

"Charon are you okay?"

"I need help."

Porthos had called down the phone again and again, but got no response. He thanked god that he hadn't changed into pyjamas, left the house and ran. He'd walked Charon home enough times from school to know where he was going, and when he was about five minutes away, he called the police and an ambulance for the address. Charon never called him to tell him what was wrong, even when he got hit hard, so something must have been seriously bad.

He ran into the front door when he got there, forcing it open- its hinges where barely holding it up anyway. He didn't call out for Charon, and he listened but it was eerily quiet, until he heard something smash and a child whimper. He hurtled into the kitchen, where Charon was curled up on the floor, clutching a floppy wrist, and his right eye was swollen shut.

His foster father stood above him, the neck of a smashed vodka bottle gripped tightly in his hand. The room stank of alcohol and piss, and Porthos had to stop himself from retching.

"Porthos," Charon whimpered, and in that second the man spun around, flailing the smashed glass in his hand. Porthos was too close to him and too slow, and a sharp edge caught his face. He barely noticed his vision turning red as he punched the drunkard's temple, knocking him out and knocking him to the ground. The man's head bounced and something cracked, but Porthos ignored it. He dropped next to Charon, lifting him into his lap, ignoring the wetness of his pyjama bottoms.

That's how the police found them, half an hour later. It was a rough neighbourhood; they got calls telling them something bad had happened every five minutes. They were starting not to care. The boys were huddled in the corner next to a possibly dead man, one with a broken wrist, the other with half his face covered in blood.

When Charon was twenty three, he was working in a supermarket on night shifts. It was okay, because Flea was on ward duty nights too.

A woman had walked in, dragging her son by the ear, and he was shouting and screaming. It took her all of a minute to backhand him across the face, and the boy's cheek bled from where her ring caught the skin. Charon had seen red, and called the police. He went with the mother and son to the police station, where he was asked to recount what he'd seen. He told them word for word, and the mother undid everything in an instant.

She stood behind her son, and roughly stroked his hair.

"I'd never hit my boy, no would I? My little man wouldn't let anyone be hit- would he?" The boy shook his head. "He slipped and fell- the floors were wet. There really should have been a sign, you know."

The police let them go. The next day, Charon was fired from his job. He'd walked away fuming, and when he walked for about fifteen minutes, he stopped and repeatedly, gently hit his head on the side of a building. An old man walked out of the building and asked Charon what he thought he was doing. He was probably in his seventies, and Charon thought he looked like Atticus Finch would in his seventies. Pale skin spattered with brown spots, thinning white hair, but with an air of dignity about him.

He told the man everything- not just the story about the supermarket- but his whole life story. The man had stood patiently, listening to Charon for a solid hour. He invited him in and told him he run a small law firm. The pay wasn't anything compared to the big firms, but they'd put Charon through university to study law if he'd come to work for them.

Charon asked what the catch was. There wasn't one. They needed good people to be lawyers, not sharks.

Two days later, Charon accepted the job.

Porthos smiled at the two of them and Flea leant across the table for a hug.

"You smell like a hospital," Porthos tells her and she makes a face as she sits back down and takes Charon's hand in hers.

"That's because I work in a hospital. Don't make stupid comments."

Charon smirks as Porthos rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his coffee.

"So when are you going to tell Aramis you're in love with him?" Flea says, stealing a forkful of his chocolate cake. Porthos chokes and then swallows the coffee which burns his tongue.

"I'm not in love with him Flea-" he wheezes, and Charon snorts.

"Yeah, and you also don't have a big ugly scar over your left eye." Flea hits Charon for that, but Porthos waves it off. He knows Charon isn't being mean.

"Even if I was in love with him-"

"Ha! So you admit it!"

Porthos growls and ignores Flea. "Even if I was- which I'm not- he wouldn't love me back. We've always been just friends."

Flea rolls her eyes and calls D'Artagnan over. He's just checking off something on his computer, he'll have a minute.

"D'Art, isn't Porthos in love with Aramis?" She gestures to the older man sitting across from her, and D'Artagnan looks confused.

"I thought it was Aramis who is in love with Porthos? Are they in love with each other? Or am I just getting confused?"

Flea squeals, Charon smirks and Porthos drags a hand down his face. D'Artagnan remains looking confused.

"Did I say something?"

Porthos shakes his head and goes to eat his chocolate cake, when he realises half of it is gone and Flea has the fork in her hand. He snatches back the fork and gobbles the rest of the cake down, before Flea can have any more.

"And why, dear D'Artagnan, do you think Aramis is in love with Porthos?"

The younger man looks sheepish and squirms under Flea's stare.

"Well it's not really my place to say," he mumbles and then Constance walks over.

"Flea, if you're hungry, go and help yourself rather than grinning wolfishly at my husband like you're going to eat him," she says, a hand resting on her ever-growing stomach. She turns to Porthos who has his head in his hands. Flea bolts, grabs a fresh baguette, and sits back down in twelve seconds. Charon counts.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Porthos says, but Charon speaks over him.

"We're discussing how Aramis is in love with Porthos, and your husband won't say where he got his information from."

Constance shakes her head and sighs.

"Luke and Celeste, obviously," she says and Porthos looks at her, wide eyed. She ignores him and continues. "This has become their regular place to plot and hang out at lunch." Porthos splutters and she silences him with a hand gesture. "They heard Aramis telling his mother at Christmas. She asked if he loved you and he said yes, he always has."

"That could mean anything!" Porthos cries, and all four of them look at him like he's an idiot. "We've been best friends since we were eighteen! Of course we love each other!" They give him a look. "In a totally platonic way!"

A customer comes up to D'Artagnan to ask about peonies. Before D'Artagnan excuses himself, the customer- a middle aged woman comfortably in her fifties- turns to Porthos.

"My dear, it sounds like you're in a romantic comedy. I have heard only snippets, and I can tell you- it does not sound platonic."

Porthos groans.

It's near the end of January when Porthos sees Athos for lunch. They're in some fancy Italian place- Aramis is working and he couldn't make it. Athos has a day off from work. None of them actually know what he does, still.

"Athos, do you think Aramis is in love with me?"

Athos sighs and then his mouth twitches under his moustache in a half-hearted attempt at a smirk.

"Yes."

"Damn."