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Somewhere, in a place that does not really exist, a possibility is born.
It is an idea, wrapped in shadows and stacked chances and a moon that - unknown to most - will rise once in a thousand years.
It came from a tear in the fabric of everything, a tear that it can hook its claws into and prise apart.
It stirs, flickers itself into something just a little more defined.
It wants many things - blood meat bone fear submission - but overall to simple be.
And so it casts itself outwards, and calls to all the dark and creeping things, and watches the ripples spread.
And waits, to be taken up
*
Aramis had a blow to the head. Porthos must remind himself, constantly. Every day brings questions from their fellow Musketeers curious as to Aramis’ long absence from duty, or Constance’s frequent appearances at the doorstep with broth and bread and laundry cleaned and darned, the worry tucked expertly in the corners of her mouth.Aramis had a blow to the head.Porthos cringes a little as he watches his friend lever his legs slowly off the edge of the bed, placing bare feet flat against the ground with a look of complete, fixed concentration on his face. He has to bite down on the hot spike of anger that claws its way up from his belly, because, no, Aramis did not have a blow to the head: Aramis saved them from the darkness and an evil the likes of which the world had not seen, and by God he has paid the price. All of France should know what he did for them, and they never will.For a while Porthos’ world has shrunk to just Aramis, and the truth that he cannot admit to himself unless very, very drunk, is that he hates it. He, Athos and d’Artagnan revolve their days around service with the Musketeers and service to their friend, and Treville makes sure that they are never all on duty at the same time so that someone can always be with Aramis. He notices d’Artagnan draw closer to Athos, find any reason to be with the older Musketeer, and it only seems to result in Porthos barely seeing either of them. It feels as though something is splintering inside him.At first caring for Aramis required them to comb out the tangle of his hair, feed him when he could not even muster the coordination to pick up the spoon with hands gone clumsy and unresponsive. He can walk now, and though he speaks far less than he used to - stumbles over words and stutters trying to shape his mouth to the sounds - his laugh is as buoyant and, it seems, instinctive as ever. Athos and d’Artagnan seem to have taken to the task of caretaker with remarkable ease, cheered by each new small victory, easily able to ignore the moments where Aramis’ mind seems to slip sideways and he mutters nonsensically, or stands staring into thin air with a blank sort of serenity on his face.And Porthos feels the hate expand inside him like a balloon when they pass on the stairs on their way to the garrison as he trudges in for his shift with Aramis. They smile, tell Porthos of Aramis’ progress and he smiles back and hates hates hates them all. It sickens him to see Aramis like this, feels it somewhere so deep in his gut that the whole of him is loose and quivering every moment of the day.The truth is that looking at Aramis reminds Porthos of the demon and sometimes it is so overwhelming he wants to scratch at his eyes, feels his hands crushed so tightly into fists that the nails leave little half moon indents in his palms.And so he hates himself, too.Porthos tries to remember, when his friend’s mind wanders, when he struggles to do even the most basic of tasks: Aramis can laugh again. Aramis is getting better and he might never be himself again but he is a person again and there is no fucking reason on God’s green earth for Porthos to feel so utterly consumed by this poison.It’s moments like this that Porthos truly realises how strong his friend is, and it shames him: he knows too what it felt like to have the demon in him, if only for a short while, and he knows intimately the darkness from which he still wakes screaming and sweat-soaked in the small hours of the morning. He’s not sure he’d be capable of ever coming back if the thing had been in him as long as it had Aramis, if it had been he who had held it down through the blood and the pain and the terror long enough for it to be sent back to hell.But Aramis is resolutely optimistic, his only frustration is his desire to go back to something resembling a normal life. Before long he begs to be allowed to go to the garrison. It's d'Artagnan's turn at his side, and the lad wilts beneath the other man’s mournful eyes and turns up later that morning, looking rather sheepish, with a grinning Aramis at his side."Waited for the opportune moment, yeah?" Porthos huffs, knowing that Aramis would not have tried to wheedle his way if it were he or Athos at his side that morning. Aramis only grins, and shrugs expressively.At first he just sits, watching the men training in the yard, nodding at Serge and smiling in response to the stable boy's excited chattering.After some days Porthos sees Aramis attempt to clean and tend to his weapons. It's slow going, with much spilling of water and oil, ramrod or cloth slipping through deadened fingers as often as not, but the muscle memory seems to return after a while, if not as practiced and as fluid as before.Porthos knows that his friend pretends he can't hear the things that are said, usually by Red Guards passing by on the street, that Aramis is a simpleton now, that he is like a child. Porthos pretends too, until Aramis is home and asleep and under the watchful eye of one of his brothers. He will pretend, too, that he doesn't see the narrowing of Athos eyes as he leaves, or the wary look in d'Artagnan's when he returns, covered in bruises and, more often than not blood that does not belong to him.Another month passes, Paris easing herself into what looks as if to be a sweat-soaked, stinking summer. And despite Porthos' misgivings Aramis begins to train with them. At first Porthos will have nothing to do with it. He has always needed to be careful, feeling sometimes like a giant in a world made of glass that shatters under each footstep or in the too-hard grip of his hand, but Aramis is more fragile than he has ever been and Porthos can not bear the thought of being too rough with him in their sparring, especially now that all the care in him feels knocked loose.Athos, on the other hand, does not appear to be worried in that respect. From the beginning his tending of Aramis has been patient, unassuming and quiet. The gentleness of his hand shocked Porthos at first, the way he could make himself soft and caring. Athos does not push or cajole, barely blinks an eye at Aramis’ mood, whether it be sullen or shaking with remembered fear, or - worse yet - lost to some confused grey place to which they cannot follow. Athos is steady like a rock, and it hurts Porthos more than a little to see the steadfastness that he himself finds so difficult to summon.Sparring in the garrison courtyard, Athos is only a little less hard on Aramis than he would have been were it a normal training session. The other Musketeer spends most of the days flat on his back or wearily picking himself up from the mud, but the light of frustration in his eyes is only a flashing moment between the determination and the gratitude, because Athos will not pity him.It’s not pity that Porthos feels: it’s a mess of guilt and sadness and horror and God knows what else that he cannot untangle into a coherent thought, roiling in the pit of his stomach every waking moment.He finds himself drinking more than he used to, relishing in the frequent short bursts of aggression that his duty requires along with the fights that he doesn't have to look too hard to find. Paris seems to be poised on the edge of something that he cannot put his finger on, but it suits his mood well because the summer heat has sharpened the air into something hot and hard and spoiling for blood, like himself. The violence doesn’t help it make sense, but the turmoil is muffled a little by the warm ease of muscles relaxed, the edges just smoothed off when his world narrows to that of a thundering heartbeat and flesh compacting beneath his knuckles.So the days pass, the weeks pass, and each morning sees Aramis climbing the stairs to Treville’s office so he can beg to be allowed to return to duty, and every day he stomps the steps down a little while later with a face like thunder. His impatience to return to duty is clear, but so is the fact that his reflexes are not as fast as they once were, he tires quickly and his mind will sometimes inexplicably drift somewhere beyond their reach. He’s not been able to hit the bullseye of a target with musket or arquebus or pistol either, no matter the hours upon hours he dedicates to the task.It’s this that troubles Aramis the most. There are days when, eyelids drooping and arms visibly shaking in the evening dusk, he must be dragged away from the practice targets in the garrison and led stumbling home, where he will collapse exhausted into bed without exchanging a single word with them.It makes Porthos want to burn down the whole world. To shoot and to stitch and to love, these are the gifts that Aramis was given by God. But the demon had taken them: his eye is too confused to shoot, hands and stomach too unsteady to stitch bloodied wounds, and his will and words and strength too lost to even consider charming anyone into his bed.And Porthos fucking hates it all.
*
One sweltering evening Aramis succeeds in persuading them to let him come to the tavern, where he promptly falls happily and thoroughly drunk on a single glass of mediocre burgundy.Outside the night air seems to go a little way to clearing Aramis’ head, and Porthos is relieved to find that he doesn’t need to support the other man much on the way back to his rooms. After a few streets Aramis mumbles something about needing a piss, so Porthos walks on a few paces and lets him take care of himself (since, thank God, he’s quite capable of that now).It’s only after a few minutes that Porthos turns to the silence behind him and sees Aramis, staring up at the dark canopy of sky hung low with pin-prick stars and a fat moon, perhaps a week away from full.“Can you feel it?” Aramis says, his voice oddly detached. He doesn’t look at Porthos, just keeps his face tilted up towards the waxy yellow light of the moon. There’s a faint ring around it, hanging there in the blackness.Ring around the moon, trouble coming soon. That’s what they used to say in the Court.“Feel what?” Porthos asks, the unease starting to trickle down his spine like cold water.“Something’s coming.”Porthos swallows, shakes his head to chase away the little tendrils of fear that are creeping like smoke into his consciousness. “Don’t be foolish,” he chides, perhaps a little less kindly than he should. He takes a step towards the other man. “Don’t be foolish, Aramis.”“Thought...you might feel it too.”Aramis heaves a heavy sigh like that of a child who has cried themselves into the numb tiredness where there are no more tears. “Sometimes I...think it left a bit of itself. In me.”Porthos stops mid-stride, tries not to stumble with the words that hit him like a punch to his gut. Aramis doesn’t have to explain - Porthos knows instantly to what he’s referring, but he pretends that he doesn’t, pushes the questioning tone into his voice and asks “What are you talkin’ about?”“A shadow,” Aramis says after a while, quietly, almost to himself. “A stain. On my soul.”There’s something strange about him under the filtered light of the clear moon, something otherworldly and odd. The planes and hollows of his face, the way the light catches and slips over cheekbones, the tilt of his chin - he’s thinner than Porthos has seen him for many years. Aramis looks sick where he stands motionless, bleached-out like marble and distant as the cold moon, and Porthos is suddenly afraid. Of Aramis?“Rubbish,” Porthos says, too-loud, brisk. “Don’t talk like that. Let’s go home.” He crosses the short distance to Aramis and puts out a hand to his arm. The other man jolts and tears his gaze away from the moon to look at him, something surprised in his eyes. He smiles, just a little too late, a little too sad, and leans into Porthos’ hold.“Yes,” Aramis nods, “Yes please.”
*
In the morning Treville calls the four of them into his office, brows tense and lowered. He looks tired, something flittering in his eyes, his hands twitching at the papers on his desk.“You’re on duty at the palace today,” he bites out the words.“All of us?” Athos says, after a while, looking straight ahead.“All of you,” Treville nods,There’s a moment of stillness, and then Athos nods once, making to leave.“Nah, nah,” Porthos says, shaking his head, “Not all of us. Not Aramis, Captain.”Aramis opens and closes his mouth but the words are nowhere close today. Even so, Porthos can feel the heat radiating from him, the frown over his narrowed brown eyes.“He’s not ready,” Porthos says, starting forward and tapping his fist perhaps a little too heavily on the Captain’s desk.“The four of you have been personally asked for by the King...and the Queen," says Treville, narrowing his eyes at Porthos' hand until the other man straightens and removes it from his desk, before continuing, "It seems she’s not forgotten the service that the Musketeers did her in foiling the assassination attempt at the convent.”Treville looks squarely at Porthos. “She commented that she had not seen the four of you lately. Besides,” Treville bites out, and there’s a little note of something like anxiety in his eyes for a moment, “I would have you there. I’ve gone without you four for too long now.”“Couldn’t you lie, make something up?”“Porthos,” Athos says, laying a hand on his arm, his tone firm.Porthos shakes the other man off, and brushes past him out the door and down the steps into the courtyard. He stops in the yard and takes a deep breath, trying to still the wild angry beat of his heart, until something slams hard into his back. In itself it’s not enough to knock him over, but Aramis’ weight catches him on its way down and he crumples underneath the other man.“Get off,” he rumbles.Aramis splutters and flails, trying to get his limbs coordinated, cheeks flushed.“...I am,” he says, heaving out the words with effort.“You're what?" Porthos asks, standing up and brushing himself off.“...ready...I am ready, Porthos” Aramis says.Porthos sighs and holds out his hand to help his friend up, but Aramis studiously avoids it. “Did you really just tackle me to the ground?”“Didn’t mean to,” Aramis mutters.“Yeah, well, my point exactly. You can’t even push a man without wilting like a flower.”Aramis swears, heartily, and the words seem to flow quite easily in that respect.
*
At the Palais du Louvre they stand guard near the door while the nobility whisper and shift opposite them. A strange sort of shiver is running back and forth in the crowd, a tension that hovers somewhere above their heads and makes Porthos frown tightly. Years of living in the Court of Miracles leaves a man uncannily able to read the unspoken in a room, the animal sense of a blow about to fall, and the tight heat in his chest that he has been unable to feel around all of the hatred and anger snaps suddenly into something solid.The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he shifts his weight to the balls of his feet without even realising it, readying himself for something.After a while the doors are swung open and the King and Queen enter, followed by a handful of attendants and the Cardinal in his carrion crow sweep of black robes.Porthos feels Aramis sway a little when the Queen passes him, a small, barely audible sigh slipping between his lips. When she is seated on her throne beside the King she casts a quick look in their direction, eyes swiftly passing over them all before alighting on Aramis. There’s a slight flinch to her face, worry perhaps, before the barest hint of a smile sets something alight in her eyes. She rubs absent-mindedly at the curve of her belly.When they are all seated and the crowd has settled itself around them, the King speaks. “We have brought you here today to discuss the…situation in Paris. Cardinal,” he says, waving a hand at the man, and Richelieu steps forward to speak to the room.“You will all have heard the reports. Strange…mutterings. Many of you,” he indicates the crowd, “Will have come here from elsewhere in France with your own stories.”“Something’s happening!” comes a shout from the crowd, though Porthos cannot see who spoke.“A mass, Cardinal!” Calls a woman. “Lead us in prayer!”Porthos turns to look at Athos, who shoots him a tight look. “What the hell’s going on?” Porthos mutters quietly across Aramis’ head. “You heard something?”“I have been rather preoccupied of late,” Athos says in a low tone. “Have you?”Porthos feels himself flush a little. He wants to say the truth of it is that he’s been too busy smothering his anger in drink and violence to have really paid much heed to the growing tension of the city, to the whispers in corners and the tight looks of fear on people’s faces.“A mass is a good idea,” Treville says, his voice ringing. “But I have sent my men to gather reports from the outskirts of Paris, and I would recommend that the King deploys his Musketeers and doubles the guard at every gate.”A ripple of fear runs through the room.“And what would you ask them to guard against,” says the King disdainfully. He does not look remotely interested in the proceedings, if truth be told, and smiles faintly at Treville.“Wolves!” Bursts a voice from the crowd. A man pushes his way to the front and makes as if to approach the King until Athos takes two steps forwards and warns him back with a lowered brow and a hand coiled around the hilt of his sword.The man steps away but his eyes flit back and forth between Athos, the King, Treville and the Cardinal.“Wolves,” repeats the King, barely able to keep the laugh from his voice. “Tell me, Monsieur…” he casts about until the Queen leans towards him in her chair and whispers something under her breath, “…de Chabannes. If we are expecting Isengrim the Wolf should we also set a watch for Reynard the Fox, hmm? Bruin the Bear?!”“This is not some fable,” the man spits. He is dressed richly though his fine clothes are dusty and travel-worn. His eyes are ringed red and startled. The room shies at his disrespectful tone, but it only seems to add urgency to his words. “I have seen them. Hundreds, more than have ever been seen. They come from all around, they have killed our livestock, they have killed our children.”The Queen startles a little, paling. Her hand comes reflexively to her stomach.“We will not double the guard on the gates. We will send no further forces on this foolish errand - and Treville, your men will stand down,” says the King firmly. “Our people will find comfort in a King who does not bow to childish fears.”The room erupts in gasps and shouts, but the Queen rises to her feet and the sound diminishes slowly.“Cardinal,” her voice rings out, still soft but holding a thread of steely conviction that goes some way to calming those in the room. She crosses her pale hands gently in front of her, and for a moment the sun from the tall windows lining the walls catches across her silver-gold head and anoints her in a soft light that seems almost holy.She turns to address Richelieu, “In the morning we will take mass with you at the Chapelle de la Sorbonne. Open the doors to any who would wish to pray with us. We will find comfort in the protection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”Porthos wonders if she knows what she has said, that her words directly echo and challenge those of her husband’s surety that France will trust in the higher power of his rule. Louis does not seem to have noticed at least: his face is a tight pout of frustration, but he waves his hand in dismissal. “Everyone leave now,” he calls.
TBC….
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D’Artagnan frowns, and can’t help but shoot a look at Athos to which to gauge his own growing unease against. The older man is stony-faced but there is a tightness to his brow. “The Queen may be able to convince him to change his mind,” Athos says, hopefully.“He shouldn’t speak to the people like that,” d’Artagan says quietly, “He shouldn’t dismiss their fears.”“He cannot bow to them either,” says Athos in a low tone. D’Artagnan fights against the childish urge to agree with the older man despite his own opinion, and says instead, “The people from outside this city know about things that he can never conceive of. Sometimes they’re worth listening to.”Athos watches the people file out now that the King and Queen and the Cardinal have left, and says to him, “Do you have any knowledge of what is happening?”“No,” d’Artagnan replies, shaking his head, “But we four of all people know that…that there are bad things out there. Things that should not be.”He tries his best to not think about what happened in Avernes, the thing they brought back to Paris. If he lets himself remember, d’Artagnan finds the bottom of his stomach falls out and then he knows he won’t be able to sleep for the next few nights, so instead he has thrown himself into any and all tasks given to him, whether caring for Aramis or standing guard at fetes or parades or, really, anywhere that Athos is.At first it wasn’t really a conscious thing, the desire to be near Athos at all times, but it has become such a strong need in d’Artagnan that he can no longer ignore it. He refuses to interrogate it, knows only that next to Athos he feels a little more sure of himself, a little safer.And sometimes there is a small curl of shame at the realisation that he is following the older man around like nothing more than a lost puppy, because he has been trying so hard to prove to them all - especially Athos - that he is not a boy and he is deserving of his recently-acquired pauldron and commission into the King’s Musketeers. But why shouldn’t he follow Athos as his mentor, try to learn as much from him as he can? It’s not as though he thinks the man is his father.“Perhaps we can ask some questions and-” Athos begins, but he is interrupted by Aramis, who stands swaying slightly, skin waxen, and says “But…blood…and three and three…” his eyes are distant. “Doesn’t he know?”“Right,” Porthos huffs, fisting his hand roughly in the back of Aramis’ collar and steering him towards the door, “Time to go.”As they move to leave the room d’Artagnan catches sight of a tight knot of men still talking amongst themselves by the door, and his gaze is drawn involuntarily towards one in particular.The man is tall, broad shouldered, perhaps similar in age to Athos. His hair is an odd, brindled sort of tawny, thick and swept back coarsely from his lined face, eyes an unusual gold-brown.D’Artagnan notices this particular detail largely because the man appears to be staring at him, and when he catches d’Artagnan returning his gaze his smile is slow and feral, splitting his face in two.He is…not beautiful, not lovely or charming or any word that implies a softness. There is no prettiness in this man, and yet d’Artagnan finds himself utterly undone by him. He is not particularly used to assessing the attractiveness of his fellow men, but there is suddenly something thin and needy in his chest that makes d’Artagnan want to kneel at the man’s feet, do whatever the man asks.God. It horrifies him.D’Artagnan realises with a sinking feeling that he will have to pass by the man to get to the door. He feels suddenly naked, like those dreams where he is walking the streets of Paris wearing not a scrap of clothing. He fights hard against the instinct to roll his shoulders forward and hunch across his body, jam his hands over his groin in some desperate attempt to cover himself.Without realising it he has sunk back so that he is walking in the middle of the group of Musketeers, swallows down the shame as he finds himself matching step with Athos so that he will stay between d’Artagnan and the one watching him. He trips a little over his own feet, feels the agitation as the blood rushes to his cheeks in a boyish flush.Before he reaches the door he shoots a quick glance under his lashes back at the man. He is still grinning at d’Artagnan, his smile giving the unnerving impression of too many teeth.Athos lays a heavy hand on his shoulder for a moment and it almost makes d’Artagnan’s heart burst from his chest. The older Musketeer raises an eyebrow in question, but d’Artagnan forces a smile in return that he hopes will pacify Athos. He goes back to staring at his boots, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to will away the horrible stirring of fear and submission and desire in his gut until he is out onto the Rue Saint-Honoré and can breathe properly once more.
*
It is decided that Porthos should take Aramis back to the Garrison to rest, while Athos and d’Artagnan will head to the Porte Saint-Honoré. He’s not sure what they hope to find there, but he’s glad for the short ride to the city gate. Athos is a sure and silent presence next to him, and offers him some measure of comfort after the unsettling encounter with the man in the Louvre Palace.At the Porte Saint-Honoré there is more traffic than usual. In of itself it wouldn’t be terribly shocking, but when Athos speaks to a harried looking guard at the gate the man tells them that people are coming in from all over the countryside - coming to Paris.”Why?” d’Artagnan asks, though he’s afraid of the answer.The guard shrugs and goes back to trying to settle an argument between an old man who appears to be carrying his worldly possessions on his back and another with a donkey that appears to want to try to eat said possessions.They decide to try a gate on the other side of the city, to see if indeed the streams of people entering Paris are coming from all over. Turning their horses, they cross the Ponte Neuf and head towards the Porte d’Orleans to the south. As they ride D’Artagnan plucks at his shirt where it sticks to his body with sweat. There’s an odd prickling sensation at the back of his neck, as though curious eyes are watching him, but the streets are so packed that when he turns to scan around him he can’t see anyone in particular for all the milling crowds of people with nowhere to go.At the Porte de’Orleans they are greeted with the same sight: a steady stream of people are making their way into the city, hurrying along with children and animals and bags.D’Artagnan catches the attention of a passing man and calls down to him, “Hey! You! Where are you going?”The man is young, around d’Artagnan’s own age, and is dressed a little better than most of the others who are making their way through the gate and into the city proper. He sets down his bag and looks up at them where they sit on their horses, “Need to find my master,” he says, a little breathless. “He came ahead of me. We’ve travelled from near Dole.”Athos seems to stop and search his memory for a moment, before saying “But that’s almost the Swiss border. You must have been travelling for days.”The man swipes a shaking hand across the back of his neck, his pale blonde hair sticky with sweat in the afternoon heat. He nods wearily.“Here,” d’Artagnan says, untying his water flask from his saddle and passing it down to the man.“Why travel so far?” Athos asks, once the man has drunk deeply.“Haven’t you heard? There’s something out there.” The man shoots a look over his shoulder, gaze distant.“There are many things out there,” Athos says, “Would you mind being more specific?”The man looks at him levelly, and seems to draw himself in. “Everywhere we went things…were happening. Cattle in the fields torn to pieces, always the feeling that something was with us.” He pauses to pass the water flask back to d’Artagnan with a nod of thanks. “Something even got into the stable and took my horse one night - I could hear it but I couldn’t…I didn’t… There wasn’t much left of it by morning. Which is why I had to walk the rest of the way here,” he says, with a grim little laugh. A wave of something like exhaustion seems to overtake him suddenly, setting him swaying slightly on his feet.“You look like you could use something stronger than water,” d’Artagnan says. Looking at the man’s dusty clothes, the dark shadows under his eyes, he is reminded suddenly of being on the road with his father, the bone-tired feeling of trudging onwards. The man’s boots are thin and worn.“I could,” the man agrees weakly, “And a place to stay.”“Your master has not made provisions?” Athos asks.“He’s a bit busy,” the man smiles, “But he’s good to me. He’ll call for me soon. You wouldn’t know of anywhere I could lodge in the meantime, would you? Just for a few days.”It’s only a moment for d’Artagnan to offer really, and maybe it’s because he looks a bit like himself less than a year ago, and despite everything that has happened to him since, Paris has been good to him. He has found friends here. D'Artagnan shoots a look at Athos and says, “You can stay with me, if Con - Madame Bonacieux allows it. I’ve barely used my room lately anyway.”
*
At Constance’s kitchen table they sit the man down, and he introduces himself as Bastien Lambert. Constance busies herself getting out wine and bread, but d’Artagnan can tell that she is not happy by the pinched look to her face, and the fact that she offers them a middling bottle Bordeaux rather than the good stuff. He pulls her gently to the corridor and gives her his best, doe-eyed smile. “Constance…”“Oh…” she fusses.“He says it’s only for a few days, until his master can get him situated.”“I don’t know him, d’Artagnan,” she says, raising herself up on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder at the man sat at her kitchen table.“You didn’t know me when I first came here, and you let me stay.”Constance huffs a little, drying her hands compulsively on the apron about her waist.“Because you are a good and caring angel of a woman who will never turn down a poor country boy who needs a bed.” Before he’s finished the sentence it occurs to him how it might sound, actually, and he clears his throat and looks away when Constance flushes, even though he wants nothing more than to drink in the beautiful rose hue on her cheeks, think about her, and beds, and all the ways he could make her blush…“It’s not just that,” Constance says, “Something…something is…oh I don’t know…” she shakes herself a little, then seems to grow more resolved and fixes her gaze on his, serious now. “Something doesn’t feel right. At the moment. With anything, I mean.” She says, “It’s like a wrong note in a song you’ve sung your whole life. And it’s so damned hot.” She presses the back of her hand to her hot cheek, frowning.“Everything will be alright,” he says.“D’Artagnan. I’m frightened.” It’s not like her to be so direct in her vulnerability. It rocks him, just a little, but after a moment he squeezes her arm gently and says “Everything will be alright. I promise.”Heading back into the kitchen d'Artagnan knows he should say more, should comfort Constance properly or at least listen to her fears fully after she opened herself enough to speak so plainly to him, but the truth is he feels the same swell of wrongness and it frightens him too. He thinks of the mass of people flooding into the city, the man at the palace earlier, the curious feeling of being watched.
Like a wrong note in a song you’ve sung your whole life, he thinks.
*
They bring their horses back to the Garrison, but before they’ve even neared the place they can hear the raised voices of an argument, Porthos’ a low rumble and Aramis’ halting but no less impassioned.“Gentlemen,” Athos says, and when they don’t seem to hear him he raises his voice and shouts again. “What in God’s name is going on?”“Aramis is acting-”“Like a lunatic?! Go on, say it Porthos!” Aramis shouts, his voice rising again, “I know it’s what you think!”Porthos glowers, shifting on the balls of his feet. “Don’t start this, Aramis.”“Would someone please explain exactly what’s happened?” D’Artagnan asks, jumping down from the saddle and handing his reins to a frightened looking stable boy, who hurries the horse away.“Aramis wants to - I don’t know - run the streets of Paris looking for Reynard the Fox? This isn’t a fucking children’s story, Aramis! You’re not making any sense!”“I will not sit back and let…let it happen again,” Aramis hisses. “I will not.”The four of them fall into a hush, the only sound coming from Aramis’ ragged breathing.“Aramis…” Athos says after a moment.“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t sense it, too. It’s not just the lunatics that can feel something bad is coming,” Aramis says bitterly.No one says a word, and the moment seems to yawn horribly until d’Artagnan can’t ignore the skittering desire at the back of his neck to fill it, to fix it. “Aramis, no one-”But his words are cut off suddenly by a great sharp rushing sound from above. Startled, he cranes his neck in time to see the sky above the Garrison courtyard black itself out with wings.D’Artagnan swallows thickly and looks at the others, who stare open-mouthed up at the sky. Aramis is making the motion of the cross against his chest without seeming to realise. For maybe three or four minutes the sky above the streets of Paris is filled with swifts and blackbirds, crows and finches and a hundred kinds of birds that d’Artagnan cannot even identify, flying out of the city, away. Perhaps more startling yet, they do not utter a single sound.And then the rustling of wings is gone and the hush that falls feels curiously empty.“What the fuck…” he hears Porthos breathe.For some reason they all turn to look at Aramis, who returns their gaze with wide-eyed shock. “Don’t look at me, gentlemen. There are some things even the lunatics can’t explain.”
*
Treville is grim-faced and serious when he joins them in the courtyard a little while later. Steadily, Musketeers have been trickling into the Garrison, pulled by their uncertainty and the need to act, the need for orders when they clearly feel so unnerved. Without even realising it d’Artagnan notices that he, Athos and Porthos have formed a little knot around Aramis, who is jittering on his feet and clutches compulsively at the crucifix around his neck, muttering to himself about blood and the number three.“Gentlemen,” Treville says. “The King has ordered that the Musketeers stand down.”There is a restless shifting through the crowd of men.“However,” Treville continues. “He has given no orders against me sending you out on exercise. Some of you will conduct this - training - at the city gates. Some will be posted near the palace, others patrolling the streets.”D’Artagnan shifts himself a little closer to Athos without realising.“There have been reports of wolves.”There are a few scoffs and mutters from the listening men.A dismissive voice calls from the crowd, “Why should we be afraid of beasts?”“The people who’ve left everything they know to seek shelter in the city are afraid,” d’Artagnan calls back.“‘Cause they’re dumb peasants like you, farm-boy!” responds another voice from the crowd of Musketeers. D’Artagnan shoots a glance over and sees a man named Corbin grinning scornfully at him. A bright flare of anger rises in d’Artagnan’s chest. He senses Porthos shifting next to him, takes no small measure of joy that Athos has pulled himself up very straight as if waiting to draw his blade.“Those peasants keep this city fed,” D’Artagnan drawls in the direction of the voice, “Which you would realise if you weren’t such a dumb fucking city-boy, Corbin.” His words are met with a few chuckles here and there, but by and large the waiting Musketeers are silent and serious.“Gentlemen,” Treville calls firmly, “The city is full of refugees. People are afraid, and when they are afraid chaos reigns. It is our duty to keep the peace.”D’Artagnan sees Athos incline his head slightly as if in agreement.“I know that current events are…unnerving. But we are Musketeers. We will trust in our training. We will trust in our brothers at our sides.”
*
A little while later they ride from the Garrison in a stream of Musketeers, peeling off to head towards the east of the city.“Our orders are to patrol from the Bastille south to the Arsenal and the river. Brousseau, Corbin, Léger and Chapelle will be at the Porte Saint-Antoine, we’ll rendezvous with them there at midnight and switch places,” Athos calls to them.D’Artagnan nods and concentrates on making it through the chaos of the streets, which seem to be packed with more and more frightened people.“If there is somethin’ in the city these people ought to find somewhere to go,” Porthos says, raising his voice over the din. The truth is there isn’t really anywhere for them to go, and the task of organising refuge from them would be a difficult one even if the King did give orders to do so.When they reach the Bastille they see Brousseau and his group of Musketeers riding past. “Go well,” Athos calls to them as they continue on to the city gate, “We’ll see you at midnight.”Corbin grins at d’Artagnan as he passes, shouts “Call for us if you get frightened by some little animals, boy!”D’Artagnan just makes a rude gesture in the man’s direction and keeps riding.The skies are darkening quickly into a hot and sticky night as they patrol the streets. It’s slow going since they are stopped frequently to settle some frightened citizen or to mediate an argument born of the rising tensions in the city.“Does anyone else feel like they’re being watched?” d’Artagnan plucks up the courage to say, after a while.“There are hundreds of people on the streets, many of whom have never seen a Musketeer before - it would be strange if we were not,” Athos calls back.“Right,” d’Artagnan says, feeling a little quirk of embarrassment.When they near the Arsenal the crowds begin to thin, until they find themselves alone. There’s a fair-sized expanse of wooded area here, with the ruins of an old monastery and the largely unused arsenal itself. They skirt the trees and D’Artagnan doesn’t like the way that they stretch into the gathering darkness. With no one else here it’s also becoming harder to explain away the sick, prickling itch of eyes on the back of his neck.They make it to the slipping rush of the river, and reel their horses back around towards the trees when Aramis’s head snaps up like a hound that has scented something on the breeze. Even in the gathering dusk d’Artagnan can see the way his knuckles tighten white around the reins.And suddenly it’s as though the horses sense something too: at first they shy and skitter, but soon they are crying out in distress and d’Artagnan is finding it hard to stay in the saddle.“What the-” Porthos spits, as his own horse begins to rear. He holds on for a moment before deciding the better option is to slip himself from the saddle and away from the animal before it can throw him to the hard ground itself.“Aramis!” Athos calls sharply, his own horse wheeling in distress. D’Artagnan follows his gaze and sees Aramis is on the ground and running into the darkness of the woods.“This way!” he shouts over his shoulder.“Aramis, come back! Aramis!” Porthos bellows, and sets off after him.“Shit,” d’Artagnan hears Athos curse.There seems little point in trying to stay on the backs of their increasingly terrified mounts. D'Artagnan and Athos jump down from their saddles and try in vain to tether their horses to a nearby tree, but the animal’s eyes are rolling and showing white around the edges. D’Artagnan lets go of his reins with a curse, not much wanting to be kicked in the chest by a frightened horse, and sees Athos do the same.Once they enter the woods the dark seems unnaturally impenetrable. He tries to tell himself that it’s his own fear, his eyes playing tricks on him, but d’Artagnan can’t help but see the slip and twitch of moving shadows between the trees, hear the soft animal pants of breath. He takes out his pistol, tries to draw some comfort in the solid heft of it.“Stay near me,” he hears Athos whisper, and though d’Artagnan has no particular desire to wander off he realises with a sick and sinking feeling that he cannot see the man next to him any longer.“Athos?” he calls back in a hiss. Something rushes past him, between them, and d’Artagnan finds himself tripping backwards and further away from where Athos must be.The fear rises clawing up his throat.“Fuck,” he breathes, “Fuck fuck fuck!” There is a sound behind him, the undeniable feeling that something is following.D’Artagnan runs then, tripping through the woods until he finds himself in a small clearing in the trees that looks as though it must once have been a building of some kind: crumbling walls heave themselves from the tangles of fern and ivy, and above it is clear enough of branches for him to see the moon peering sickly down.He suddenly has no idea where to go, feels a dizzying swoop of disorientation in each burning breath he drags into his heaving chest. He spins around.That’s when he sees it.The darkness coalesces into an immense shape. It’s far enough away that he can make out no features other than what could be the slick of eyes, the teeth. With sudden and awful clarity d’Artagnan knows that this thing wants him, wants to consume every part of him. He can feel its wanting. He snaps the pistol up towards it.And then his entire vision is blotted out and the thing is on him. He hears his gun discharge blindly into thin air, and the earth comes up to slam against his back.D’Artagnan is aware of…something…something huge and dark reddish black, stinking - fur? - fills his mouth as the beast - wolf? - clamps its massive jaws into his neck, his shoulder, and shakes and he can’t breathe - oh God! - the weight of it on his chest, the press of it, and it’s not pain that he feels but utter numbing shock.The pressure on him is enough to flatten all the breath from his lungs in a great rush of air. It is as though the beast is trying to push him into the very earth. D’Artagnan grunts involuntarily as he feels the crack of one, two, three ribs give beneath the immense force.It lets go of him - he feels, abstractly, each tooth as it slides out from his flesh - and brings its snarling muzzle down to peer at him. D’Artagnan twists his head sideways instinctively because he cannot bear to look at it. Its breath is hot and reeking with old meat and his own fresh blood, iron-red and dripping in a steady pat pat pat on to his cheek. Some of it dribbles back into his mouth and he coughs fitfully at the awful feel of it sliding down his throat. He thinks he may have pissed himself, and finds he is absurdly glad that Athos cannot see him now.“Pl…please,” he hears himself wheeze, because it’s the only word he can find now, here at the end. He knows that mercy is a thin hope - whether that is for the beast to leave him or to kill him quickly - but he cannot help but reach for it anyway. The ragged wound at the crook of his neck is thrumming with the blood deserting it and the spiking sharp rush of adrenaline.A crack of gunfire whips across the clearing, and the beast flinches just slightly as the ball hits its side. Distantly d’Artagnan can hear someone shouting, running, his brothers - but all he can see are the beast’s unblinking eyes, and the white and gaping hole of the moon above his head, not quite full.It lifts one paw from his chest, and then another. With the terrible weight gone the pain comes rushing in to fill the space, and washes over him, unbearable. D’Artagnan feels his shattered ribs slide and catch against each other as he shudders out a broken sound around the wound in his neck. The beast’s golden eyes contemplate him for a moment, it huffs almost like a laugh before licking a thick burning stripe across the torn column of his throat, and bounds away into the darkness with three massive leaping strides.
TBC…..
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The wound is stark and deep in the moonlight, ragged edges glistening wetly. The air seems to rush back into d’Artagnan’s wildly spasming lungs, his breath coming in little shallow wheezes of shock.“Breathe, d’Artagnan, breathe slowly,” Athos urges, lacing his arms beneath the boy to cradle his head. As he does so - as d’Artagnan’s head slips sideways - the wan light of the moon illuminates the true extent of his wound. The left side of his neck is a mess of torn flesh and twitching muscle. Athos feels his stomach slip sideways at the sight of it, and shudders air into his own shocked lungs. His breeches are already soaked through with blood where d’Artagnan lays against them.The boy is twitching on the ground, legs kicking blindly against the scuffling dirt and leaves. His hands flutter weakly up to his neck, and Athos knocks them away with a shushing sound, knowing only that he cannot let d’Artagnan feel what’s left of his throat, can’t let him know…Know what?That it’s too late?That he is already dead?Porthos clatters to the ground next to them and d’Artagnan’s eyes flick around in panic at the sound. The big man makes a little bitten off sound of alarm when he sees the wound, his gaze meets Athos’, wide-eyed and desperate.“Aramis!” Porthos calls. The other Musketeer is stood in the clearing some way away from them, the muzzle of his arquebus touching the ground in his slipping grip. His face is tilted upwards, staring calmly at the moon. “Aramis!” Porthos bellows.“Three and three,” Aramis sighs, something far-away and vacant in his voice. Porthos swears loudly.“Come back to us now, Aramis,” Athos shouts, and his voice is ringing steel and steadier than he thought possible. “Now, Aramis!”Aramis blinks then, and seems to see for the first time the young man bleeding into the dark grass of the clearing. “Yes,” he says, and darts over to join them like an uncoiled spring.D’Artagnan’s teeth chatter as Aramis tries to get a better look at the wound. “Is it gone?” The boy asks Athos, eyes strained so wide they look huge and glassy in the moonlight. D’Artagnan’s voice is thin and high, but though they may not have seen it clearly, they all saw the sheer size of the thing that did this and they don’t blame him for the fear laced through the words. Instinctively Athos and Porthos look at Aramis, who nods his head without hesitation. “It’s gone.”“Oh,” d’Artagnan says, “That’s good.”His eyes roll back into his head as he falls into limp unconsciousness.“What do we do, Aramis? What do you need?” Porthos asks.Aramis’s bloody hands slip desperately where he tries to hold them against the now slowly pulsing wound. He shakes his head in disbelief. “I don’t…I don’t know…”“Aramis!” Porthos shouts, “Pull it together and think!”“I am Porthos! There’s nothing I can do!”“Stitch it,” Porthos says, and he’s grabbing at Aramis, trying to get a hand into the pocket where he knows Aramis keeps the kit containing the little wickedly curved needle and catgut for suturing wounds.“Stitch what?!” Aramis cries, “There’s nothing…it’s too…there aren’t even any edges!” He finishes in despair. “I’m sorry….I….”“Let’s bind it,” Athos says, startling them suddenly with his movement. He rips at the scarf around his own throat and begins to wrap it tightly around d’Artagnan’s neck.Once Aramis can remove his hands he rocks back on his heels and pushes the hair away from his brow in a seemingly unconscious movement that leaves a swipe of blood against his skin, obscenely black in the moonlight.His breath comes panicked and short, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”Porthos pulls d’Artagnan from Athos’ lap and into his arms. “Let’s find the horses,” he says gruffly.
*
They take him back to the Bonacieux house, because where else could they go? There is no surgeon in Paris who can do anything for the boy now. Miraculously he is still alive when they clatter through the back door into the kitchen. Porthos lays him out on Constance’s scrubbed wooden table, and is shocked for a moment when he sees the boy’s legs hang from the end and realises how tall he is.“My God!” Constance gasps, woken by their entrance and appearing in the darkness of the doorway to the rest of the house. Her shawl slips from her shoulders as she runs to the table, to d’Artagnan, seemingly uncaring that she is dressed only in a thin chemise. Athos’s scarf is sodden and slipping from where they’d tried to bind the wound, and when Constance catches sight of what’s beneath it she brings a hand up to her mouth as though she might be sick.”He’s still alive,” Porthos says“What can we do?” Constance asks.“Very little,” Athos says, grimly. He stands leaning heavily against the mantel above the fireplace, feeling as though his legs might give way at any moment.“But he’s still alive!”“Then we should send for a priest,” Athos says, and Porthos looks as though he wants to start breaking things, beginning with Athos’ jaw.“Course you’d fucking give up!” the big Musketeer sneers, “Go to the tavern, why don’t you.”Athos nods, and lets the anger wash over him. He wants to agree because by God he’s never needed a drink more in his life, he can feel the lack of it ringing painfully in every vein. He shoots a look and sees Aramis is still standing in the doorway. He is ghost pale, and every now and then his head twitches violently. His mouth opens and closes reflexively.“Porthos…” Athos says, “Aramis.” He flicks his head towards the doorway and Porthos follows his gaze, and shakes himself into action. He crosses in two quick strides and takes Aramis by the shoulders. “Come, sit,” he orders.“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…baptised…” Aramis mutters. He looks up at Porthos and his eyes are half mad, his hands come up to curl and clutch at his friend’s jacket. “Three…th…I’m sorry! I’m…blood…blood…blood…blood…baptised… blood… ”Athos sees Porthos shake him a little, but the man keeps muttering, his eyes darting back and forth from Porthos’ to Athos’, to d'Artagnan laying stretched out on the table, to Constance who is holding the boy’s limp hand and weeping quietly. In his gaze there seems to be a silent plea for explanation, for his own words to make sense.Athos shakes his head, looks back at the fireplace, grinds his teeth together until his jaw is a fierce ache that pulses in accompaniment to Aramis’ muttered words.“Blood…blood…blood…blood and three and three…baptised...blood…blood…”
*
At some point Athos is aware that Constance has left the room in a rush, but everything in him is leaden and mute with shock and the receding adrenaline that leaves him feeling beached and sick. Aramis sits staring across the room, muttering in a monotone, and Porthos is beside him with his head in his hands.It’s not long before the door is flung open and Constance appears again, dragging a bleary-eyed priest just roused from his bed. He stands frozen for a moment, taking in the three wild-eyed men covered with the dark brown of old blood, the boy on the table. Constance pushes him roughly towards d’Artagnan.“Hurry,” she says, and Athos is dimly admiring of the cool steel in her voice, doesn’t know why he would be surprised that, despite her obvious affections for the boy, she would make herself of use here now at his end.The priest hovers over d’Artagnan. His eyes keep flicking to the ragged wound, and over towards Aramis who is reciting the word “blood” in a litany, and when he makes the sign of the cross it is with hands that shake visibly. “Has…has he sinned?”“Undoubtedly and often,” Athos says, his voice a scratch.”When was his last confession?””Does it matter?” Constance says, worrying her hands, “Please, Father…”“Does he seek penance?”“Of course!” Constance shouts angrily. She is crying again now, tears slipping down the curve of her pale cheek, “Please, hurry!” she sobs.“Then I absolve this man of his sins, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”The priest makes the sign of the cross again, and Constance sags with a relief that makes Athos want to look away. He goes on to whisper prayers over the boy, and at his words something seems to calm in Aramis, whose muttering fades and blurs until he is mouthing the words of the prayer along with the priest.
“Domine sancte, Pater omnipotent, aetérne Deus, te fidéliter deprecámur, ut accipiénti fratri nostro…”
Athos, who has never really cared for the many and varied theatrics of the Church and who - though he tries not to think about it - parted ways with God some time ago, lets the words slip over him like water. His exhaustion, the lack of wine in his belly and the grief and guilt that is beginning to unfurl inside his limbs is enough to lull him into a sort of aching calm.After a while the priest leaves. No one in the little kitchen says anything, or moves, except for Constance who slips silently into the chair the priest had just vacated at d’Artagnan’s head.She takes one of the boy’s limp hands in hers. “He’s not so cold,” Athos thinks he hears her murmur. Her other hand smooths d’Artagnan’s hair with a kind of tenderness that shoots a hot lance of pain into Athos’ heart.Sometime later, when the grey light of dawn is beginning to filter through the kitchen windows, d’Artagnan gives one great heaving breath and Athos finds he is screwing his eyes shut so tightly they ache because surely this is the end, surely, surely.And d’Artagnan breathes again, and again. When Athos opens his eyes he sees the boy’s chest rising and falling in a way that only serves to underline how still he had been lying all the rest of the night.Aramis moves fast - quick as he used to, back before everything that has happened to him - and crosses to the table. With a careful hand he pulls slightly at where Athos’ scarf lies stiff with dried blood, and takes a shuddering breath.“I…how can…”When Athos rounds the table he sees it for himself: the wound is ragged and pulpy and red…but somehow, healing.
*
They move him into Constance’s bed, because Lambert - though apparently out attending his master tonight - has taken d’Artagnan’s.“My husband is away on business at the coast,” Constance says, as Athos lays the unconscious boy down, “Oh…I…hopefully he’ll be safe away from all of this,” she says, as though the thought of the man has only just entered her mind. She seems too tired to care much. She bats Athos’ hands away when he goes to take d’Artagnan’s boots from his feet, and sees to it herself with a kind of reverent care.“What happened to him, Athos?” she asks, voice very small.He finds himself clearing his throat. He feels completely dead on his feet, and suspects the shock is the only thing keeping him standing. “I…I don’t know what to tell you,” he responds, carefully.“You don’t need to spare me,” she says. Athos notices that she’s holding d’Artagnan’s hand again.“It was a beast of some kind, but what I cannot say.”“A wolf? That’s what people are saying.”“Perhaps.”“And how…how is he still alive?” she whispers, “Could we have been wrong, about how serious it was?”“Perhaps,” Athos says again, scrubbing his face wearily with his hands.Constance tssks. “Go and lie down, man. I’ve no more beds but there’s a storeroom at the end of the corridor. Don’t get blood on the bolts of fabric if you can help it, please.”Athos nods, and makes as if to leave, but Constance calls after him. “Athos…”He turns. She’s looking at him, something very level and a little sad in her eyes. “There’s armagnac in the dresser downstairs.”The relief floods through him, knocks away any flush of shame he might have felt to be recognised as so weak. He takes a shuddering breath, and nods.
*
The storeroom is dark with windows shuttered and blissfully a little cooler than the rest of the house. He, Porthos and Aramis move a few bolts of cloth around to clear enough space so they can lie down on the ground, remove their belts and use their balled up doublets to rest their heads against, commenting quietly to each other that they’ve slept in many a less comfortable spot.Aramis falls immediately into a sleep so deep that Athos has to fight the urge to check that the man is breathing. Porthos holds out a little longer, glowering at the ceiling, but when his breathing finally evens out into sleep Athos cracks open an eye, creeps over to prop himself against the wall, and drinks the bottle of armagnac to the very bottom.Once he’s done he sits for a while letting it settle in his belly and hum pleasantly through his limbs. Then he checks that the others are still sleeping, opens the window shutters a crack, sticks his fingers down his throat and quietly vomits just enough of it out onto the morning street below to leave him feeling a little clearer in the head.He’s instantly sorry for the loss of it but he knows that he cannot have himself blunted with drink right now. He comforts himself by counting in his head all the bottles that he has left back in his own rooms, half-drunk and full, tells himself he will go there immediately and drink them all as soon as he can.
*
Porthos wakes first, props himself slowly up on his elbows, yawning deeply. His eyes go straight to Athos who sits slumped against the wall still.“Didn’t sleep at all, did you?” He asks, and Athos just lifts the corner of his mouth in reply.Aramis stirs then with a groan, and throws out a fitful hand which smacks Porthos across the chest.“Ow,” Porthos grumbles, rubbing at his ribs.“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Aramis says, and Athos draws himself inwards a little, expecting Aramis to return to his rambling of earlier. The other man rakes a hand through his hair and says instead “Well, I feel entirely unrefreshed.”“Hungry’s what I feel,” Porthos says, getting to his feet and reaching down a hand to pull Aramis up. The other man takes it with a grimace, “Me too.”They troop past Constance’s bedroom and down to the kitchen as quietly as they can. The table there is still brown with d’Artagnan’s crusted blood, and the sight of it seems to sober them.“I appear to have lost my appetite,” Aramis says quietly.“Me too,” Porthos says. The big man seems to pull himself together. “We should let Treville know. I’ll find someone to send a message.”When he steps outside Aramis says “And I should probably go and check…check on d’Artagnan.”Athos nods, and collapses into a chair beside the stove. A few minutes later Aramis comes back down with a deep frown on his face.“Don’t mistake me,” he says, pulling up a chair, “I’m eternally grateful that d’Artagnan is alive.” He looks deeply troubled. “I wish I could be only grateful.”“We can’t have misjudged it,” Athos says, after a while. Despite what he said earlier to Constance he knows well enough the sight of a fatal wound, and that d’Artagnan sustained one last night. His hands spread across the dark brown stain of the boy’s blood on his thigh. In doing so he notices his hands are still deeply ingrained with it, and feels his stomach tilt with nausea.Porthos comes back in and takes a chair between the two of them. “Paid a boy to let Treville know what happened. Or as much as I could without sounding…”“Mad?” Aramis offers.“Let’s not start this again,” Porthos says wearily, staring up at the ceiling.“We all saw the blood, it was…there was so much…and besides, even if it were a scratch with a training blade it’s impossible that it could be almost healed already,” Aramis reasons.When no one says anything he continues. “I just saw it now. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”“That wound should have killed d’Artagnan, and there is nothing about the boy that would make him any more immune to it. So,” Athos says “We must only conclude that the thing that gave it to him must be preternatural.”“Supernatural,” Aramis corrects darkly. “It was not of this world”“I know I saw wolves in those woods - real flesh and blood wolves,” Porthos says, “And you hit it with your arquebus, Aramis. It must just have been a…a really big wolf,” Porthos says, though the conviction in his voice seems to wane towards the end of his words. “Did you see it, Athos?”“No,” Athos says, “I did not. Aramis?”“I didn’t…I don’t…”“You saw it well enough to shoot it,” Athos prods, and Aramis shakes his head tightly, seems unwilling to elaborate.“Well you could ask me, you know. I saw it fairly well,” says a voice from the doorway.“D’Artagnan!” Aramis jumps to his feet in surprise, and Porthos grabs the edge of his chair as if uncertain whether to rise.Athos, on the other hand feels frozen where he sits, flooded with a disorientating mix of relief and unease. D’Artagnan stands easily in the doorway, frowning at them but otherwise looking his normal self, though a little flushed and jittery. His shirt hangs loose at the neck, torn and stained almost entirely brown with blood. Beneath it Athos can see the pink mass of healing flesh.Aramis has crossed the room to study the boy. “How do you feel?”“I’m…I’m fine.”“Fine,” Porthos says, disbelief dark in his voice.“Do you have a fever? You look flushed.” Aramis moves to lay his hand on d’Artagnan’s brow but the boy flinches away as though it were a heated fire iron being brandished at him.“I’m fine,” he bites out, frowning at Aramis, “And I did see it: It was a wolf, but…not a wolf. Like the man said back at court, it was like something from a Reynard tale.”Athos is sure of two things: like Porthos, he saw wolves in the woods last night, but like d’Artagnan he is sure that the thing that attacked the boy was not a wolf. For one thing it was far too big, and moved like lightning. More worrying, it barely seemed to notice Aramis’s shot hitting its side.But beyond any of that, Athos cannot ignore the way that wood felt: the darkness that set in, the awful cloying fear, the way the feeling of a terrible wrongness seemed to be hanging mist-like and almost visible in the air.They should never have been there, Athos thinks. He knew before he even left the Garrison that something was out there - he’s felt it for some time - and yet he still led the others straight into it, let them all become separated, let d’Artagnan get hurt.“D’Artagnan,” he says, looking up at the boy, “You should not have come out on patrol last night, it was my mistake. I’m sorry.”The boy frowns. “What do you mean? I had a right to be there as much as anyone.”“You have not been yourself lately.”“Have any of us?” Porthos asks.There’s a challenging tilt to the angle of d’Artagnan’s face. “What exactly do you mean, Athos?”“I know that you’re afraid,” Athos says after a moment.“What?!”Athos shakes his head tightly. “Do you think I haven’t noticed that you are barely alone these days, that you’re always at my side?” He tries to say the words kindly, but he needs to make d’Artagnan really hear them, and he’s worried it comes out a little harsher than he had anticipated.“Are you calling me a coward?” There is a kind of fury in d’Artagnan’s face that Athos is not sure he has seen before. The boy seems coiled like a spring, and his hand keeps coming up to the corner of his throat, hovering just above the still-healing wound.“Only afraid,” Athos replies, quietly.“Isn’t that the same thing?!”“D’Artagnan, if you think that’s true then you really haven’t learned anything from us. But when we are afraid we make foolish choices.”The boy laughs bitterly, “Are you actually blaming me for what happened? You’re the one who left me! One minute you were beside me and the next you’d gone!”“That’s not what-““And what about Aramis?” D’Artagnan continues, “You can’t take me out with you because my fear might cloud my judgement, but Aramis is alright to come with you?”Athos shoots a look to Aramis, whose eyes have widened a little.“Hang on,“ Porthos bites out, getting to his feet.“D’Artagnan-“ Aramis says.“There’s nothing wrong with me!” D’Artagnan shouts.Suddenly everything rises up inside Athos and he finds himself unable to bear it. “I should never have taken any of you there last night! I should never have taken you to Avernes!” He roars, and silence falls in the room.What he wants to say - what he hopes they will understand without him having to say - is that he will never forgive himself for what he has led them to, for what has happened to Aramis and now d’Artagnan. He is supposed to look after them, he is supposed to keep them safe and his actions have done neither of those things.It’s not that he minds the light of admiration in d’Artagnan’s eyes. He doesn’t feel he deserves it, and knows for a fact that it would die the instant the boy actually knew the true nature of the man he so idolises. But he knows also that, for all its faults, the way he was raised has shaped him into a man that is able to lead others. It’s not earned but designed, and if he is able to put himself to this service he finds it can act a little way to soothing the guilt and grief that he has accumulated in his lifetime. He can actually help people. It’s the reason he found himself at the Musketeers garrison, signing his newly-assumed name on the enlisting papers.But Athos is so tired. He has felt tired for longer than he can remember, but right now he finds himself in an especially fierce battle against the urge to fold into himself and close his eyes, and only open them for someone very pretty with a very good bottle of wine. He hates the way the others are looking at him after his outburst, the way the awful summer heat seems like a living thing in the room with them, the way it serves to only intensify the smell of old blood on the table and on his clothes and hands.“Athos,” Aramis says. There is something like disdain in his eyes. “Far be it for me to deny a man his pleasures, but these constant acts of self-flagellation are becoming tiresome.”He wants to retort, but a small noise from the outside door pulls his attention. A young boy is standing there looking a little uncertain. “Er…” he says, “Got a message from Captain Treville? He says hand it to…Argos?”“That’s me,” Athos sighs, and reaches to pluck the message from the boy’s hand. He takes a couple of livre from his pocket and passes them over, before unfolding the paper, hoping the others will not notice the way it shakes slightly in his unsteady grip.“Well,” he says after a moment, “It seems that the mass at the Chapelle de la Sorbonne will not be going ahead today.”
*
Porthos is a hulking and angry presence next to Athos as they walk to the Sorbonne. Aramis had gladly elected to stay at the Bonacieux house with d’Artagnan. The boy had put up rather more of a fight when told he should stay and continue resting, until Athos had looked pointedly at his wound and d’Artagnan had fallen into a stubborn quietness.If it’s possible the streets are just as manic as yesterday, with perhaps more people on them and a tangible note of panic in the air. Fights and squabbles are breaking out all over as tensions overflow. Everyone seems to be going somewhere, even if they’re not sure of the destination but only of the overpowering urge to keep moving, to find somewhere safe.It’s not a long walk from the Rue de Fossoyeurs to the Sorbonne, and Athos and Porthos have only made it to the Rue de Vaugirard when they hear the screams coming from the street ahead. A mass of people are running, or hurrying to climb on to carts or steps away from the street itself. He and Porthos reach for their blades, unsure of what is coming.And then there is something like a low and dark brown wave rushing towards them, around the feet of horrified people and shying horses.”What the-“ Porthos mutters.Athos grits back the exclamation pushing at his teeth. It seems as though, like the birds last night, every rat in Paris is flooding along its streets and out of the city. Porthos shifts his feet in disgust but they soon realise the best tactic is to stand still and let the creatures pass over their boots.The sensation of it, Athos decides, is one of the most unpleasant things he has experienced in his lifetime.”Well,” Athos says, when the last few rats are skittering along in the wake of the mass of them, and the streets have fallen into a horrified lull with people helping each other up from where they had fallen or hopping down from steps. “That cannot be good.”“Remember that time we went to war, Athos?””I do, Porthos.”“Foiling Spanish plots and assassination attempts?”“Simpler times, Porthos.”The big man huffs his agreement, and they continue on until they near the steps of the Chapelle de la Sorbonne.“Alright, Porthos says, “This ain’t gonna be pretty, right?”“I don’t imagine it will.” Athos says.“Battles,” Porthos sighs wistfully. “Ambushes. Spies.”“Once this is all over you shall have as many as you like, Porthos,” Athos says, to which the other Musketeer grins darkly in reply.There are a handful of Red Guard standing outside the big doors to the chapel, tasked with keeping any citizens from wandering in.“Can’t come in,” one of them says to them as they approach.“We’re here to meet Captain Treville, gentlemen,” Athos says, with an attempt at civility.“Well this is the Cardinal’s chapel, and the Red Guards are his men, and we don’t follow no orders from no stinkin’ Musketeers,” another of the men sneers.Before the man knows what’s happening - and truth be told, before Athos even knows what he is doing - he has the man pushed up against the doors of the chapel.“You have no idea what the last few hours have brought our way, friend, but when I tell you now that we are not to be tested I hope you can understand that, at least.”There is something wild in his voice, restrained as it is, and he knows the man can hear it by the widening of his eyes, the fact that he hadn’t even had the time to reach for his weapon.The man in his grip nods slightly at his friend, and Athos steps back, inclining his head a little in an act of civility. Porthos smirks and doffs his hat in a flourish at the Red Guards as he and Athos make their way past them and inside.Within the doors the heat of the city recedes a little into the incense-heavy quiet of the chapel. Their footsteps ring on the stone as they pass under the great domed ceiling and make their way towards Treville, who is standing with the Cardinal near the altar.Athos smells the rank butcher-shop smell before he sees the body. Or bodies. It’s quite hard to tell if it is one or many, since there are rather a lot of pieces.Treville turns to greet them, and as he moves aside he and Porthos are able to see the altar clearly. Arranged along it are dismembered body parts, laid with apparent deliberation to form a cross of sorts. Athos lets his gaze slip slightly to the side so that the display is only a vague mass of red and pink and white in the corner of his eye, and brings a gloved hand up to his nose, brows lowering in disgust.“Fucking hell,” Porthos whispers, and then seems to realise that he is in a church, shoots a look at the Cardinal’s back and crosses himself.“Rather,” says Richelieu, who, unlike Athos, seems disinclined to turn away from the altar.“Athos, Porthos,” Treville says. “As you can see…” he trails of, unsure quite what to say.“This happened last night?” Athos asks.“It was not here at vespers. It was found before lauds,” The Cardinal replies.“And,” Athos clears his throat, “Who is it?”“We’re not exactly sure,” Treville answers grimly. “An altar boy. Perhaps others.”“Well. One thing can be sure,” Athos says, the knowledge slotting somewhere horrible and sick in the pit of his stomach. “This was not the work of an animal.”
*
They leave the Cardinal to his silent vigil over the altar and follow Treville back out into the heat of the day. The Red Guards glower as they pass, but they pay them little heed.“Captain, d’you think whoever did this knew that the Queen was going to be at mass here today, with the Cardinal?” Porthos asks.”I imagine they did, yes.”“The plans for her to do so would have spread around the city yesterday. There’s no reason to believe that the person responsible was in the room when the Queen made the announcement,” Athos says, thinking out-loud.“They might have been, though.” Porthos’ voice is rough. “Who would do something like this? What are they trying to say?”“That nothing and nowhere is safe,” states Athos.“To that end, I have posted more men as guards on the palace, as has the Cardinal,” Treville says.“Should we report for duty there?”“No. Your message said d’Artagnan was wounded. How is he?” The Captain asks.“He is…” Athos and Porthos share a look, “Well.”“He needs to rest a bit. Aramis is with him,” Porthos adds.“Good. I was concerned.” Treville stops on the Rue Saint-Jacques where a young cadet waits with his horse, and turns to them. There is something in his eyes for a moment, a complicated swirling of care and fear and guilt. “I should inform you that Brousseau and his men were killed at the Porte Saint-Antoine last night.”Porthos blanches visibly. “Did anybody see what happened?”“People are saying that they saw…wolves,” Treville replies, climbing up into the saddle. “There are similar deaths - similar sightings across the city. Wolves that seem to appear out of thin air and disappear as easily.”The Captain sighs heavily. “Which I must now go and relate to the King, somehow. And then, also, somehow, to the families of those dead Musketeers.”So, they know now for sure that there were wolves in the woods last night. But they know also that the beast that attacked d’Artagnan was not a wolf - at least not any kind they have seen before. And now, Athos thinks sourly, it seems as if they are also looking for a creature that can open doors, enter chapels, and has enough understanding of religious iconography to arrange dismembered body parts on an altar.“What are our orders, Captain?” Athos asks, pushing down at the burr of fear which has lodged itself in his throat.“At times like this I imagine you four will end up doing whatever you see fit, regardless of my orders,” Treville sighs and looks out at the heaving streets. “Keep the peace if you can.”He grips the reins tightly in his hands, adding, “And, gentlemen?Don’t die.” He spurs his horse and rides off in a clatter of hooves, and Athos and Porthos are left to look at each other grimly.“Sensible orders,” nods the cadet, who Athos had quite forgotten about until this moment..“Indeed,” agrees Athos. “And you’d do well to heed them also. Stay inside tonight.”
TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
With Athos and Porthos gone to meet Treville at the Chapelle de la Sorbonne, d’Artagnan finds himself alone in the kitchen with Aramis. He glowers at the other man, but Aramis just smiles and says “Well I’m glad for your company, d’Artagnan. And I am truly glad that you have recovered so well.”The truth is that d’Artagnan does not feel unwell at all, and neither does he feel weakened by the wound that has healed so curiously fast. What he feels instead is a tight, hot crawling under his skin, and every now and then he finds himself filled with an inexplicable, curious rush of adrenaline that feels almost ecstatic in its intensity.He feels alive, so furiously alive. It makes him wonder how he could possibly have borne it, every moment of his life leading up to last night. He doesn’t know how he hasn’t taken his own knife to his throat in despair at how very small everything felt.“I don’t need a nursemaid.”“Good, because I fear I would make a terrible one.”“You don’t need to do that, you know,” he says to Aramis, “Always try to make everyone laugh. Always play the jester. It’s…grating.”Aramis just shrugs. “As irritating as you so obviously find my company, I do need to check your wound.”He moves towards d’Artagnan and crowds him into sitting in a chair at the table. Leaning forwards, Aramis reaches to gently peel back the neck of his shirt. D’Artagnan finds himself drawing in a deep breath to quell the sudden need to fight Aramis off.“God,” d’Artagnan reels, bringing a hand up to his mouth, “Why do you smell like that?!”“Like what?” Aramis asks, straightening.“Bad.”Aramis frowns a little, the smile slipping. “Well. I have not had the opportunity to bathe in a little while, and I do believe I’m mostly covered in your blood, so…”“It’s like…something burnt. Smoke,” d’Artagnan frowns, and Aramis can do nothing but shrug again in response. He doesn’t know why Aramis should smell so appalling but it is bitter and acrid at the back of his mouth.“Do you think you can stomach it long enough for me to have a look at that?” He says, gesturing at d’Artagnan’s throat.“I’ll try.”“How very magnanimous of you,” Aramis mutters. He’s about to lean forward when the door opens and Lambert comes in, yawning widely.“God!” He exclaims, “It smells like a butcher’s shop in here!”“And yet the complaints are levelled at me,” Aramis says, throwing up his hands.Lambert turns then, and takes in Aramis, covered in d’Artagnan’s dried blood, and d’Artagnan covered in rather more of it. “And here are the butchers. What in God’s name has happened?”“That is rather a long story,” Aramis says. “Where have you been?”“My master needed me. A busy night,” Lambert sighs, “So I will take myself off to bed, if that’s alright with you.” He frowns a little at d’Artagnan. For a moment some strange emotion seems to ignite and flicker behind his eyes, something that d’Artagnan cannot identify. Lambert swallows thickly. “Is all well?” His voice is slightly strained.D’Artagnan smiles, feels it tight and hot across his face. “It is.””Yes,” Lambert says, tightly. Then he turns and climbs the stairs, up to the spare bedroom.“He’s rather an odd fellow, isn’t he?” Aramis remarks. “Right. Let’s get this over with then. Ready?” And he leans towards d’Artagnan in an attempt to assess his wound again.D’Artagnan is prepared this time, and resolves to try to put up with it until the other man is done with his inspection, but instead he finds that the smell of Aramis has completely changed: now there is the undernote of sweat, and something dark and slightly spiced like church incense on the man’s skin as he leans very close, humming to himself as he gingerly lifts the neck of d’Artagnan’s shirt. Neither of these scents are unpleasant - not remotely - and something stirs low in his gut and he fights against the urge to…To what?His heart thunders painfully in his ears.And then he realises that he can hear Aramis’ heart too, can see the slight throb of it in the other man’s throat and oh god oh god -D’Artagnan pushes Aramis away, sending him tripping back a little. “Alright, enough,” he says roughly, and turns away from Aramis’ shocked expression.“Well,” Aramis says after a moment “You’re in inexplicably fine form, though you do seem a bit hot, and I can tell from here that your pulse is racing.” A shadow of worry passes across Aramis’ face, “You would tell me if you felt like you had a fever? A wound that turns bad is not to be trifled with. I could find some hot wine to put on it…““I’m fine,” d’Artagnan says.Aramis eyes him. “D’Artagnan…” he begins awkwardly, “What happened last night…you might…it might do you well to speak of it.”“As you spoke about what happened when the demon possessed you?” D’Artagnan shoots back plainly, before he can stop himselfThe other man pales visibly, but then drops his gaze and nods. “I deserve that. I’d like to say I would have spoken of it, if I could have but…I’m not sure that’s true.”D’Artagnan just grits his teeth. He doesn’t want to think at all about what happened last night. He doesn’t want to think of shaming himself, of cowering, or begging for his life. And when he thinks of the beast that attacked he feels…He finds it hard to say. There is fear there, of course, but it’s almost the shape of something like curiosity.Yearning?After a moment Aramis sighs and says, “Alright. Since you’re so well and I feel like the dead come alive, I am going back to Madame Bonacieux’s storeroom to sleep. Please,” he says, “Wake me if you need me?”D’Artagnan nods.When Aramis reaches the stairs he turns, and looks a moment at d’Artagnan. “Do you promise, d’Artagnan?” He says, voice curiously plaintive.“I do,” d’Artagnan replies. “Go. Sleep.”
*
D’Artagnan’s not sure how long he paces back and forth in the kitchen, but only that he has the overwhelming itch in his limbs. He hasn’t felt anything like it since he was a boy, since his voice dropped and his mother told him that he appeared to have grown three feet overnight. Except this time the ache in his muscles is all-encompassing, raging, howling. So he paces, and shakes his arms to rid them of the fitful buzzing.After a while Constance comes downstairs, looking tired but terribly happy to see him.”Oh!” She says, and rushes towards d’Artagnan as if to hug him, but his heart lurches up into his throat and he steps away, not daring to look at her until his pulse returns to something a little more normal.”D’Artagnan I’m so glad you’re…you’re alright,” she says.”Me too,” he smiles.”I’ve decided not to question it,” she says with a sudden conviction. “It was a miracle. I won’t be ungrateful for it.””Here,” she hands him a clean shirt and pair of breeches. “These were hanging to dry and…well they’re dry now…so..you might want to…””Of course,” d’Artagnan says, looking down at his filthy and torn clothing. “Probably a good idea. Thank you.”Constance smiles and points at the larder door off to the left. “I’ll be in there. For a bit. So you can take your time changing, in here, I mean.” She laughs a little awkwardly, and hurries out.D’Artagnan changes quickly, balling up his ruined shirt and soiled breeches and putting them in a bucket he finds by the door. He should probably just suggest Constance burn them.A little while later she comes back with armfuls of things with which to make a meal. She looks at the kitchen table and wrinkles her nose, laying everything down on a few chairs instead. “I should clean this up first.””Ah,” d’Artagnan scrubs at the back of his neck. “I should probably do that, actually,”“Nonsense,” she says. “But you can peel these apples for me.” She hands him a bowl full of apples and a small knife, and then sets to cleaning the table. The vinegar and salt she uses to scrub at the stain makes d’Artagnan’s nose burn, but he swallows thickly and concentrates on peeling the apples.He tries not to stare at the way a stray curl sticks to her temple in the heat, or the curve of her arm as she leans over the table. He feels absurdly as though he is on a galloping horse, moving faster and faster through his own life, through the seconds. He has a sense of everything being hot and feverish and burning.After a while Constance makes a small sigh of defeat and stands up. “I’m not sure I can do better than that,” she says, hands on hips. There is still a sizeable brown stain across much of the wooden table top.“I’m sorry, Constance. I’ll have another one made for you. A bigger one, better. I’ll pay for it.””With what?!” She laughs.“I’ll find the money. I will, I promise.”“Of course, d’Artagnan.” Constance smiles and lays a hand on his shoulder. He can feel it like a brand through the linen of his shirt.Constance smells of soap and the barest hint of rosewater. D’Artagnan has watched her make it more than once, heating the water and honey and handfuls of fragrant petals from the garden in a pot on the stove when Bonacieux is not around to scold her for frivolities, pouring it carefully into a clay jar to cool so that she might bathe her face with it every morning. He knows it is the one luxury she allows herself, the one thing she does that makes her feel even the tiniest bit beautiful.There is a hint of it in the hollow of her throat, and the place where her jaw curves up to meet her earlobe. D’Artagnan can smell it from where he sits.He can feel his pulse quickening, can actually feel his pupils blowing out huge and black. His heart thunders in his chest like a beating drum, every thrum and push of blood an urging in his veins. Without thinking his hand comes up to press hard against the pink skin healing at the base of his throat.“..have more than enough apples,” Constance says, reaching down to take the bowl from his feet, “I can make another one of those cakes for Aramis, he seemed to like it last time.”*-*-*The movement brings her so close to him, too close, and it’s only when he hears Constance breathe out a little whimper of fear that he realises he’s pinned her to the table, the weight of his body crushing her.“I’m sorry,” he says, and it comes out like a huff, all in one breath, but he doesn’t loosen his grip where his arms are wrapped tightly around her.He wants to consume her, that’s the only coherent thought d’Artagnan can make. He wants to claim her and pull her into him and taste the iron tang of her blood in his mouth. He wants to have her so completely, and he knows, distantly, that in doing so he will kill her.It must take a second for Constance to break through the shock of d’Artagnan’s sudden movement, because once it’s worn off she begins to fight, squirming and wriggling in an attempt to get an arm free. D’Artagnan is proud of that - at least, the small piece of his mind that is still a person is proud. The rest is composed of wanting and teeth and the colour red. She can’t scream - he’ll barely let enough air in her lungs for that - but she struggles still.“D…” she says, struggling, “D’Arta…”. Each time she speaks something animal in him shakes her, hard, till she’s reeling and dazed.And then D’Artagnan pulls Constance down to the floor and knows that the weight of him on her is too much for her to fight against. The skin of her thighs is soft and yielding as he rucks up her skirts and digs his fingers in with bruising force, breathing ragged against her ear. He reels with the heat of the thing that moves him, feels himself hard and aching in his breeches, feels it like a furious joy that is too big to fit inside his too-tight skin.”D’Artagnan,” snaps a voice from the stairs. He lifts his head and sees Aramis there, smells that awful acrid stench of him.And then there is the barrel of a pistol against his ear, and Athos’ voice, very low and calm.“Leave her, d’Artagnan.”“I can’t, d’Artagnan manages, his eyes stinging and wide. “I won’t.”“Yes you will,” Athos says. “Or I will be forced to shoot you. And I do not wish to shoot you.”“D’Artagnan,” Porthos’ voice is a low rumble of threat, and d’Artagnan lifts his head enough to see the other musketeer standing in the doorway. “You’re hurting her.”His concentration is gone for long enough for Constance to wiggle a leg free, which she deploys to great effect as she knees d’Artagnan between his own legs. He seizes up, and she crawls desperately on hands and knees until she is at the doorway, where Porthos scoops her up to stand behind the shelter of his body.“Oh…oh God,” d’Artagnan mouths in horror when he gets his breath back. He scuttles backwards on the floor until he meets the clatter of chair legs and puts up a hand to brace himself on the underside of the table. He wants to hide under it like a child, he wants to curl up into a ball and cry, he wants to sink his teeth into someone and shake his head until they come apart in his mouth and-D’Artagnan hunches over himself and vomits messily between his knees.-*-*-*
*
“No,” Porthos’ voice is adamant. Constance is asleep upstairs at last, and he, Athos and Aramis sit around d’Artagnan, who has resorted to burying his head in his crossed arms, leaning against the table top. He can’t stop grinding his teeth, feels a curious kind of emptiness in his mouth, disappointment in the muscles of his jaw.“Porthos,” he hears Aramis say, “Please, just..”“No Aramis,” Porthos says, louder now. “It’s not…it’s not something like that again. It can’t be. It can’t.”“I don’t think it matters how much we say it can’t, “ Athos says, voice curiously calm.“Don’t tell me you’re going along with this madness?” Porthos explodes.“It’s not madness just because it’s me who is suggesting it,” Aramis bites out.“I never said that Aramis-““And it’s not madness just because it frightens you.”“Nah,” Porthos says. “Look, it was a wolf that attacked him, not some monster. They’ve been seen in the city, they got Brousseau and the others. This was just a very big one.””And the Sorbonne. Was that also a wolf?” Athos says.D’Artagnan lifts his head. “What?”Porthos and Athos exchange a glance. “Someone was murdered at the chapel. They were…left…displayed…” Athos says.”Displayed,” Aramis repeats, confused.”On the altar.”Aramis swallows visibly, and crosses himself.An immense wave of heat crawls its way through d’Artagnan suddenly, he feels as though he is going to burst into flame. Every muscle in him is tight and ready to run or fight or do something, his heart is racing and there’s a growing hardness in his breeches. He finds he is too appalled to be ashamed. “Something’s happening to me,” he manages to say, “I’m frightened.”Athos puts out a hand to touch his shoulder but d’Artagnan reels away in panic. “Don’t touch me!” He spits, and he’s staring ferociously at Athos hand, feels his tongue darting out for a second, wetting his lips.It takes a moment of breathing deeply and willing himself back to an acceptable steadiness before he can go on.“For God’s sake don’t touch me. You have no idea what I want to…” he takes in a huge breath. “Lock me up. Far away from others. Please. Athos, please?”The room is silent, there is no sound or movement but for his own startled breathing.“I want to hurt someone,” he whispers, and his eyes are aching suddenly with tears, “I want to…I want to do terrible things and I don’t know that I will be able to stop myself so please. Please. Please.”
*
It is reaching dusk when they come to stand before the Hospice Saint-Jude Thadée.“What’s St Jude the patron of again, Aramis?” d’Artagnan asks.Aramis smiles wanly and says “Lost causes, my friend.”The building squats low and sprawling, its walls an expanse of stained and crumbling brick as though the things inside are seeping through the stone and mortar itself. Aramis seems to quail at the sight of the place, and d’Artagnan isn’t sure if that’s due to some fear that the man may end his days rotting in its cells, or if he can somehow sense the desperation emanating from the place.D’Artagnan can. He can taste it, salty like tears in his mouth. Before they pass through the portico he takes one look up at the sky, which is hung low with clouds that only serve to shut the heat of the city in like a lid on a pot. Somewhere above them he feels a faint tugging that pulls at his bones uncomfortably.A few words to the guards and they are allowed to walk right in, their Musketeer pauldrons affording them the authority to come and go in much of the city without resistance. A bored looking man who seems more suited for jailor than the care of the sick of mind leads them down, down and down into the very bowels of the building. “Here,” the man says gruffly, “This is where we keep the ones who fight back.” He takes a long, assessing look at d’Artagnan down his nose, nostrils flared. “Yeah,” he says, as if to himself.”There are no windows.” Aramis’s voice is very small.“What do the mad need windows for, other than to throw themselves out of?” says the guard bluntly. “Put ‘em in the catacombs, the King said. Might as well. These tunnels run under half the city and they’re used for nothin’ else after all.”He sniffs, and points down a long and snaking corridor to their left. “There’s a free cell down there.” He throws Aramis a rusted key which the man fumbles and almost drops, and then stalks away, kicking idly at a cell on his way back to the stairs.The halls of this part of the hospice are long and dwindle into darkness with very few lamps to offer any respite from the skittering shadows. But even without the light d’Artagnan can hear the people who dwell here, the awful shuffling, the weeping, gibberish, the rhythmic thudding that sounds like a head being slammed repeatedly against stone. His stomach turns.“We can’t leave him here,” Porthos says, “This ain’t right.”D’Artagnan winces. It is beginning to feel as if every noise is too loud, and the dim flickering light of the catacombs hurts his head. There’s a building tension in all his muscles, the desire to fling them out or tense or contract or move is becoming hard to ignore. He flicks out the fingers of his hands where they hang at his sides, “Please,” d’Artagnan whispers, “Do it quickly.” He turns to look up at the low ceiling as if he can see straight through it, as if he is watching for something up above them.”Yes,” Aramis agrees, and d’Artagnan notices the other man’s skin is pale and sheened with sweat, “For God’s sake. Quick.”Porthos looks utterly lost, and glances to Athos for some sort of explanation, but the other Musketeer’s face is drawn hard into a frown and as closed off as ever.Athos’s hand is firm around d’Artagnan’s upper arm as he guides him down the corridor. The walls on either side are rough-hewn and dripping with water, and at one end of the corridor sits a great wooden barred door, beyond which presumably lies the continued darkness of the catacombs.The cell has three stone walls and one that faces the corridor, barred with thick and rusted iron. There isn’t even a pallet or a blanket in there, nothing but a few scraps of rotting straw and the flagstone floor, soiled with unnamable stains.Athos guides him through the doorway and makes to walk in with him, but d’Artagnan suddenly hears a breath from Athos and turns to see that Aramis has tugged him sharply by the back of his doublet. As soon as Athos is clear of the barred door Aramis slams it shut, hands shaking as he jams the key in the lock, and puts all of his weight into its turning until it creaks shut with a horrible finality.As if the muscles in his neck are beyond his control, d’Artagnan feels his head crane back up to the expanse of cobwebbed ceiling. From the corner of his eye he sees Aramis do the same: the slow, awful movement as though their gaze is being pulled skywards by some unseen hand.As one, he and Aramis let out a huge and shaking breath. Porthos swears. Athos has gone entirely white.There is an explosion of sudden noise from all around them, and Porthos starts violently. Every occupant of every cell in this godforsaken place seems to be rattling at the bars and screaming to be let out, begging with prayers or guttural sounds of terror.“I’ve changed my mind,” d’Artagnan says, crossing to the door and wrapping his fists tight around the bars. He pulls at them, desperate. “Let me out. Let me out!Something has turned in him. He sees these men - his friends, they call themselves. But what have they done for him, other than mock him and treat him like a child and now they have locked him in here and they have no right, no right to keep him away, to keep him from running, keep him from the moon, from taking everything that he wants and making it bleed.The screaming all around them swells to a cacophony.And then it stops, and everything is silence.D’Artagnan suddenly feels his knees give out and drops hard to the stone floor. It’s alright. He doesn’t feel the pain.He notices Aramis has flattened himself against the far wall.A shudder works its way through him, pulled from his very bones. When he looks next he can see that Porthos and Athos have backed away from him too.Good, he thinks. Run from me. I’ll chase.His body feels taut like a bowstring and full of so much possibility it staggers him.And then he convulses - once, twice - and collapses thrashing to the ground. His body moves as if there’s something inside of him trying to claw its way out - because there is, he knows - but now it hurts because he is only a man, and he is too small.D’Artagnan can hear an awful, guttural noise, and understands that it is coming from him only because he feels it tearing at his throat.TBC
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Aramis wants to screw his eyes shut but he is too horrified, and truth be told, too afraid.D’Artagnan is slamming himself against the gated door of his cell, again and again and again. Even from across the hallway Aramis can see the flecks of blood flying to paint the floor and walls of the cell, the scratches and bruises that are already beginning to purple across the boy’s skin.“Blood…blood…blood,” Aramis whispers. His mind reels and the words seem to be the only thing that makes sense, though he cannot for the life of him think why. Porthos is next to him, and Athos on his other side. Aramis has to fight the urge to grab for their hands.Distantly, the sound comes drifting down from upstairs - screaming, gunshots.“What?” Porthos rumbles.“D’Artagnan,” Athos says quietly.Aramis turns back to the cell. The boy has stopped his frantic raging and is still, standing very close to the barred door, panting heavily. His head is angled towards the stairs leading upwards at the end of the corridor.Amongst the muffled chaotic sound from the street level there comes a single, distinct howl.And d’Artagnan smiles.Aramis feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in horror.Drawing his pistol in one hand and blade in another, Athos runs towards the stairs, calling for Porthos over his shoulder.“Aramis,” he shouts, “Stay with d’Artagnan. Be prepared to fight. Do not leave him, do you understand?”“Yes. Yes, Athos!”Porthos claps Aramis on the back and gives him one desperate glance as he runs past, and then the two men bound up the stairs and out of sight.The still in the catacombs is horrible. Aramis can’t see the other inhabitants of the asylum but he can almost sense them cowering silently in the corners of their cells. And then there is d’Artagnan, who is looking intently at Aramis now.And then he begins to throw himself at the door once more.Aramis can do nothing but watch. The door protests on its hinges as d’Artagnan continues to throw his entire weight on it. The bars are iron, thick, made for the purpose of keeping rabid souls at bay, but inexplicably the whole thing seems to be…bending beneath the boy’s onslaught.God in heaven, Aramis thinks, how can he be so strong?The door shrieks in protest.“No d’Artagnan!” Aramis calls desperately, rushing against all his judgement to clutch at the bars. He knows that he cannot hope to match whatever strange strength is flooding d’Artagnan right now. The boy throws himself at the door snarling and Aramis flinches backwards but keeps his knuckles wrapped tight around the bars.“No, don’t do this!” And Aramis feels himself going, his brain slowly trickling sideways into a confused, detached sort of place. Not now he tells himself please not now.Now. Always - an awful voice inside him seems to reply.From upstairs Aramis can hear the distant noises of fighting, animal shrieks and gunshots.And from the gated door at the end of the corridor - the one that leads to the winding darkness of the catacombs proper - he hears a sound: something is slamming its way into this door too, trying to get in, just as d’Artagnan is trying to get out of the cell. The awful, bodily thuds are like a heartbeat, echoed throughout the space. Aramis wants to clutch at his head to block out the sound, screws his eyes shut tightly -The cell door gives in a sudden scream of metal, and suddenly Aramis is thrown backwards, pinned beneath the now loose door and the wall opposite the cell. His temple slams against the iron bars while the back of his head hits hard against the brick wall behind him, stars of pain shooting across his vision for a moment. The door tumbles sideways off him and he follows, slumping awkwardly down to the ground.Aramis finds himself stunned, and, strangely, his mind echoes for a moment with nothing except the image of a small yellow-stoned house, built into the side of a round tower, surrounded by trees. He cannot understand where it has come from, but it bounces around inside his head until he can take a deep and shaking breath and let it fade away with his regaining focus.D’Artagnan stands over him, panting, his face bloody and dark with a kind of feral joy. Aramis looks up, blinking away the vision of the house, and can see d’Artagnan grinding his teeth from where he slumps.And then the door at the end of the corridor smashes open too, and everywhere is filled suddenly with the rush of fur and snapping jaws. Aramis fumbles for his pistol and brings it up but his hand is so unsteady the shot goes high and hits the wall above the slipping mass of wolves.With an effort that seems almost beyond him, Aramis drags his knees beneath himself until he is kneeling awkwardly with his back to the wall. He draws his sword. The point of it waves in a semi-circle in front of him, and though the wolves snap and yowl at him they stay back.Blood blood blood says the voice in his head three and three and baptised.D’Artagnan’s head snaps towards the catacomb door, and from the darkness a man steps forward. The wolves spin and tumble around him, beside him, snickering and yapping with delight.For a moment d’Artagnan seems to gain more of himself. His eyes widen, and a look of awful recognition coalesces behind his eyes.“It’s you,” he breathes.The man grins hungrily, inclines his head in mock politeness. “You may call me Garnier.”Aramis tastes blood in his mouth, and realises dimly that he has bitten right into the meat of his tongue. The fear running through him is so all-encompassing, he has only ever felt its like when the demon slammed its way down his throat and wore him, walked around in him, made him do such terrible things. He takes a deep and shuddering breath and concentrates on keeping his sword up, holding back the ring of snapping wolves that dart towards him and snicker in delight.“Why?” D’Artagnan says, “Why did you…”The man - Garnier - contemplates d’Artagnan for a moment. There is something so old and weary in his eyes, but Aramis can’t bring himself to pity him because the man is so strange and so very hungry, Aramis can sense it somewhere deep inside him.“Do you know how long I’ve been alone, little boy?” Garnier says. He closes his eyes for a moment. “I tried to make others but they never lasted more than a moon or two.”He opens his eyes and smiles gently at the boy then, “It’s too much. You can feel it already, tearing at you. As though all your life is happening to you at once.”Aramis sees d’Artagnan swallow thickly.“You will be different though,” Garnier says, with certainty.D’Artagnan shakes his head, takes a step back. The wolves part for him like water, seem to be moving around him in a wary ring.“When the blood moon rises and I am baptised it will change everything,” Garnier continues. “I will keep you safe. I will teach you. Oh, the things I will teach you,” He croons.“But why?” D’Artagnan breathes in horror, and what he seems to be asking is why him.Garnier understands the unspoken question. “Oh it had to be you, the moment I saw you. I knew it. You did too.”“No”, d’Artagnan shakes his head again, desperate, “No.”“Yes!” Garnier snaps his teeth at him, gleeful. “You can’t lie to me, boy. You’re mine.”He stalks closer. “I am in you, in your blood and your bone.” Around them the wolves slink and bare their teeth. “I am your god and your father and your lover,” Garnier says, “I am your everything.”“No.”“Yes,” Garnier says.“….yes…” d’Artagnan whispers, and it comes like something hooked out of his mouth on a line, unconscious, against his will but utterly and completely true. He weaves slightly on his feet.Yes,” he says again, in an awful shuddering moan. He drops to his knees at the man’s feet.“There,” Garnier says. He rakes his hand slowly through the hair of d’Artagnan’s head and winds his fingers into it, but needs to push only gently for the boy to present the column of his throat in a line that stretches taut. D’Artagnan bares his neck in submission and Garnier grins, his lips cracking open around his teeth. “My good boy.”Aramis can only watch, the horror pulsing with the rising bile in his throat.Garnier loosens his grip in d’Artagnan’s hair and steps back. “Now come.”And d’Artagnan gets shakily to his feet.”No,” Aramis croaks. The wolves snap and snarl at him as he swipes his sword at them. His vision keeps trying to black out to nothing, the room swirling unpleasantly, and the back of his head spikes sharply with pain.It’s only then that Garnier seems to notice Aramis. He quirks his head to the side. There is something so utterly inhuman about it that Aramis’ blood runs cold. Garnier steps closer, and Aramis moves his sword as if to strike but Garnier darts forwards and grabs the blade with his own hands and pulls. Aramis comes forward with it, until his back is stretched and his head is bowed low before the man, who brings down his boot hard on Aramis’s hand in a crunch of bone.The pain rocks through Aramis, shuddering.Garnier bends down then, and reaches out a hand that pulses a little, palm out, an inch or two from Aramis’ brow. Aramis can see the raw line that his own blade left in the man’s skin, and though it is dripping with blood the wound seems curiously healed.“Hmm,” Garnier hums, and then he speaks to the air around them as though something unseen is listening. “I won’t kill him.” He squats down, lifts Aramis’ chin. The man’s blood burns and prickles where it slicks against Aramis’ skin. Garnier’s gaze is curious, but there’s a slight disgust to the curl of his lip. “You’re already taken,” he says, “And I never enjoyed other’s scraps, anyway.”He sniffs, nostrils flaring, and turns away.And d’Artagnan turns too, and follows Garnier and the wolves snapping at their heels through the gate at the end of the corridor and down into the darkness of the catacombs.D’Artagnan doesn’t turn to look back once, not even when Aramis screams his name so hard he feels something tearing in his throat.
*
Aramis doesn’t know how long it is before Porthos and Athos come barreling back down the stairs, their weapons drawn, panting. Aramis has managed to drag himself against the wall until he is standing - has even managed to take a step or two towards the yawning mouth of the catacombs, though the effort it has taken is immense.When they see him they stop, shocked, eyes taking in the cell door hanging warped on its hinges, d’Artagnan gone. Athos looks to him, eyes very wide.”Aramis what happened?” And then with a note of panic in his voice, “Where is d’Artagnan?”“Blood,” Aramis says, feels himself in total shock, “Blood.” He cradles his broken hand against his chest, shaking.“We should never have left d’Artagnan with him!” Porthos roars to Athos.“I didn’t, I couldn’t blood blood…baptised…” Aramis splutters.“Fucking…Aramis!” Porthos explodes.Aramis brings his uninjured hand up to the tight heat at the back of his head. It comes away dark with blood and he slams out his other hand to brace himself against the wall, forgetting for a moment that it was crushed beneath Garnier’s boot. He feels the room yawn and spin horribly.“Aramis? ah…God, I’m sorry!” Porthos cries, coming to his side in two quick steps and holding him up because his knees suddenly feel brittle and paper-thin.
“Are you alright?”“Little…concussed…perhaps,” Aramis says, breathing hard through his nose against the wave of sudden nausea. “My hand…” His vision swims, he blinks the dark shapes swimming across the room away, they look too much like swarming wolves.“What happened, Aramis?” Athos says urgently, gripping his shoulder tight. “Where is he?”“There were…there…wolves…”“Yeah,” Porthos said darkly, “Upstairs too.”“And a man.”“A…a man? Aramis? A man?” Athos says.“…blood blood…blood,” Aramis swallows thickly.“Aramis!” Athos’ voice is rising now, “A man?”Aramis feels himself pushing somewhere in his head, and the pressure is awful suddenly, everything throbbing and loud. Still he heaves at it, harder, harder-“Blood blood blood moon,” he gasps, the final word slamming into clarity in his head as though he has dragged it there with everything in him. God it hurts. “Baptised under the blood moon, he said it.” He looks at Athos then, the confusion blooming in him hot and awful. “He said that the blood moon would rise and baptise him and everything would be well. How did I…blood…baptised…how did I…?”He doesn’t miss the way Athos and Porthos share a worried glance over his head.“What else did he say, Aramis?” And then, pointedly, “Do you know anything else?”“I…he said…blood, blood, he said blood, fuck!” Aramis swears, shaking his head, trying to say it, trying to clear his garbled thoughts. “Garnier. That’s his name. D’Artagnan seemed to recognise…I…I think it was him in the woods last night.”“But that was a beast,” Porthos says, “Aramis, it was a beast that attacked d’Artagnan, not a man.”“Perhaps it was both,” says Athos, quietly.“Where did this man go? What did he want with d’Artagnan?”“He wants to finish what he started last night,” Porthos spits, but Aramis shakes his head desperately. “No…no he won’t…he…blood…wanted him. He chose him.”“For what?” Athos’ voice is very level, the fury there holding it steady like a blade’s edge.“To be…” Aramis shakes his head, “To be like him? To be his.”“Where did he go? Was d’Artagnan conscious when you last saw him?”“He was. Athos he…blood blood…he went willingly,” Aramis says desperately.“No.” Porthos shakes his head. “You’re mistaken. He wouldn’t’ve.”“I don’t think…he could help himself…,” Aramis breathes. And then he draws in a shuddering breath, and pushes Porthos away so that he can double over and vomit onto his boots.
*
“-do we do?”“-leave him-““-don’t know-““-Aramis-“The conversation swims in and out of Aramis’ comprehension. Porthos has torn a strip from his shirt to bind Aramis’ head wound, which seems to have stopped bleeding now, and Athos tore a line from his shirt for them to wrap Aramis’ crushed hand.That had been excruciating, and the pain sent his mind spinning into oblivion for some time where he simply sat with his head against the walls and felt the word blood blood blood explode inside his mind with every pulse of pain. Bit by bit though, Aramis concentrates hard on gathering the scattered parts of himself inwards.There are some bits he doesn’t want to look at. He resolutely will not think about Garnier contemplating him. You’re already taken. No. No. He won’t think of that, he won’t…”It’s alright,” he says, breathing deeply, “I’m…I’m alright.””You’re not really, though, are you mate?” Porthos says grimly, standing above him.“You need to go after him,” Aramis says, “Hurry.””We’re not going to leave you.” His voice is resolute but Aramis can hear the note of panic underneath it all, the fear.”Of course you are,” Aramis says. “You’re going to help me back into that cell, and you’re going to go after d'Artagnan and get him back and I’m going to…I’m going to just sit here a while…”Porthos and Athos shoot each other a glance.
*
Aramis will not lie down. He will sit, can summon that much dignity at least. Athos had done him the service of reloading his pistol for him before he and Porthos left through the catacombs in pursuit of d’Artagnan. It sits now in his lap, his fingers resting gently on the trigger. He has to hold it in his left hand of course, and though he is not as good a shot with that hand he is still far better than most men.Well, he was once, at least. Now he’s not sure he could hit a man if he were two feet in front of him, standing obligingly still.But he will have his dignity. He’s been pretending for far too long - for the others, for himself - that the state he finds himself in these days does not bother him. He hasn’t been able to admit even in his own heart that his sense of self has shrunk to something small and ashamed.Aramis hates his life now.He hates that he can’t shoot, or say the things he wants to. He hates the sickening feeling of his sanity trickling out of his ears. He hates more than anything the way that Porthos looks at him. And Aramis does not blame him at all, can only feel a deep sense of shame that he has forced his friend to see him so diminished, to care for him like a child.And now he is worse than that: he is a liability.He let Garnier take d’Artagnan.Aramis screws shut his eyes in despair and when he does his vision is filled suddenly with that same strange house in the woods. It calms him, somehow, but it is so utterly out of context that he resists the urge to go there in his mind, and so he shakes it from his head as much as he can without making the room spin again..Aramis looks at the bars of the cell, the flickering light of the hospice corridor, the place where they keep the lunatics, and says aloud in a grim voice, “Well. It’s happened at last, then.”
*
He is woken by a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently. “Aramis,” Athos says.Aramis blinks gritted eyes and feels the blood rush to his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I must have…I didn’t mean to sleep.”“It’s alright,” Athos says, with more gentleness in his voice than Aramis can remember hearing before. “Can you stand?”Aramis gets to his feet, and though he is a little unsteady he finds he feels improved enough to be able to hold himself upright, and the room stays resolutely solid and unmoving around him.“You didn’t find him,” he says, feels the flatness of his tone."Those tunnels run for miles,” Porthos spits. “It’s like the fucking Minotaur’s maze.”They stand and look at each other in silence for a moment, none of them seeming to know what to do from here."I need a drink,” Athos says, with uncharacteristic vulnerability, and scrubs a shaking hand through his hair.A huge breath explodes from Porthos. “God, me too. And I don’t remember the last time I ate.”
*
Constance sits white-faced at the table. Her eyes are fixed tight on the dark stain of d’Artagnan’s blood."He said he’d have another table made for me,” she says, voice curiously detached. “He said it before he…” Her eyes are red-rimmed but steady."He was not himself,” Athos says, simply. His fingers clasp and unclasp rhythmically against the neck of the bottle that Constance had handed to him without a word. The man is clearly too exhausted to get up and find somewhere private to drink it as he usually would, but Aramis notices that he turns a little when he takes a swig, as though he is trying to maintain some level of dignity in front of them.“I know he was not…I know him,” she breathes. “But tell me what he was if not himself?”“He was bitten by some kind of beast,” Porthos says, “And it’s…changed him.”Constance swallows tightly.“And where is he now?”The three men share a glance.”We don’t know,” Aramis says.Something passes like a shadow flickering across Constance’s face. “Will he come back here?” she asks. “Will he come back, and…?””We don’t know,” Athos admits, and she closes her eyes tight for a second, seems to draw herself in.“You are going to try to find him.””Aramis will stay here. If d’Artagnan returns he will protect you.”Constance takes a long assessing look at Aramis. “I mean no offence,” she says, “But leave me a pistol and I will protect myself.”He does take offence, of course, the shame like an ever-burning ember in him, flamed hot suddenly with her words. Aramis can’t help but look away for a moment to swallow away the hard lump in his throat, but then he takes the pistol from his waistband and unties the powder flask and shot, pushes them to Constance across the table.He smiles a little wanly at her, “Madame, I put myself into your capable hands.”It’s decided that Athos and Porthos will head back to the hospice. There are entrances to the catacombs scattered all over the city, but they know for a fact that d’Artagnan and the man used this one, and Paris is a big city after all. It’s not much to go on, but they have been drowning enough times to know to grasp at any straw that comes their way.Aramis stands leaning in the doorway and watches the other two men until he loses track of them on the heaving streets. It’s late afternoon now, and the city is beginning to grow tangibly more and more panicked as the hour stretches towards dusk, and whatever the night might bring. The lowering sun does little to lessen the simmering heat."You should eat something,” Constance says behind him. “Me too.”She sits him down, takes one look at the table and then disappears, coming back a moment later with a faded embroidered tablecloth which she lays over the surface, hiding the brown stain from view“That’s better,” she says quietly. “I couldn’t bear to look at it a moment longer.”"Are you alright?” She asks, handing him a plate with some bread and a little cheese. Aramis picks at it, twisting the crust between his fingers with his left hand as his right lays bound and useless and throbbing on the table. “I should ask you the same,” he says.“Hmm,” she says, “I suppose it was a foolish question. At least we can be not alright together.”Aramis smiles and forces himself to eat some of the bread, which tastes as dry as dust in his mouth. He takes a long swig of the wine she has laid out for them, to try to sweep the dryness away. There’s something buzzing in the back of his mind, something that he puts down to his earlier concussion and the utter exhaustion of the last few days. Weeks. Months. Aramis pinches at the skin between his eyes, trying to ease away the gathering tension there.”I hope you weren’t….I really didn’t mean to offend you earlier,” Constance says. Her gaze goes pointedly to Aramis’ pistol, which lays beside her plate, within her reach."I know,” Aramis replies, simply."Ah,” comes a voice in the doorway, “Have I missed supper?”"Lambert,” Constance says, standing, “Please join us, I’ll get you a plate.”The boy slumps into a chair opposite, and the buzzing in Aramis’ ears intensifies a little.“I’ve heard you Musketeers have been busy.”Aramis frowns."What with all the…all the attacks. Across Paris,” he says."Yes,” Aramis says, shaking himself a little."Is that where the others are? Off trying to do something about it?”"It is our duty to keep the peace, to protect the King and the citizens of Paris.”Lambert looks at him a moment. “But you’re sitting having dinner with a pretty lady.”Aramis can’t help but feel the blood rush to his face. There was a time when he wouldn’t have cared at all if some smooth-faced boy who knew nothing about anything had challenged his honour, not really. Aramis would have laughed it away, more than likely, but now he feels himself shake a little with anger. He swallows, hard.“What exactly are you implying?” Aramis asks, voice low. His hand goes unconsciously to the blade tucked into his waistband but it’s awkward to reach across himself with the wrong hand, and he misses the easy weight of his rapier at his side since Constance is rather firm about such weapons being left beside the door when they enter her kitchen, where possible. Aramis assess the space: no room to duel in here in any case.Constance slams the plate down in front of Lambert with force, and leans down with both hands on the table. In doing so, her right hand has come to rest on Aramis’ pistol where it lays next to her own plate. “I’m sure Bastien misspoke, Aramis. He’s not foolish enough to say such things in here, after all.”Aramis almost grins at the way she says his given name, puts him in his place by emphasising his boyishness. For his part, Lambert flushes a little, and brings up both hands in a mock show of contrition. “Apologies, apologies Madame, Monsieur.”Constance doesn’t sit down, but goes instead to busy herself by the stove, bringing the pistol with her. Silence falls, and Aramis tries again to eat a little, if only in some vain attempt to gather some strength.“My head is pounding,” Lambert says abruptly after a little while. He swipes at where his white-blonde hair sticks to the sweat of his brow in the heat, and pushes his chair out to stand. “And so I will take my leave. My master might call for me again this evening, I’d rather not be dead on my feet if I can help it.” He says, smiling sheepishly. As he reaches the stairs he turns and says, “Monsieur Aramis, I am…I did not mean to offend.”“Think nothing of it,” Aramis mutters, and the boy nods his head before trudging up the stairs."The day he leaves can’t come too soon,” Constance says darkly. “I don’t like him at all.””He’s rather rude, I’ll admit, but a harmless servant.”"Hmm,” she says. “I’m not sure I believe anyone can be truly harmless these days. It’s like everything is…picking up speed, don’t you think? Like the world’s spinning too fast….” She trails off, then clears her throat.”I’ve some mending to do.” Constance slumps into the chair by the stove and hooks the toe of her shoe into the handle of a basket sitting nearby, dragging it towards herself before reaching down and plucking out some piece of fabric and a set of needles.“I could help,” Aramis says, “I’m rather good at stitching, if you can believe it.””I can,” Constance smiles, “I’ve seen your handy-work on d’Artagnan. I mean…I mean that time his arm was wounded. Very prettily done.””Ah, thank you, Madame.” Aramis inclines his head, graciously.”But it’s alright. You really do look like you could use some sleep,” Constance says kindly. “You might as well sleep in my bed.” She seems to pull herself up, as if she will not let herself be troubled by such trivial things as propriety right now. “I think I’ll stay awake tonight. I should probably bar the door, but I want to be here in case Athos and Porthos and…and d’Artagnan come home.”Aramis nods, feels his heart twinge a little at her hope, her steadfastness to d’Artagnan even after what he tried to do to her.And the truth is, he is very tired.“Thank you, for the offer,” he says, “But I think I’ll stay here. I may try to sleep a little - if that’s alright with you - I can just lay my head down at the table.””Won’t that be uncomfortable?””Ah, first thing they teach a Musketeer: how to sleep absolutely anywhere.”Constance smiles, and Aramis smiles back too, because she is an easy woman to smile at. But his head is buzzing and he feels the exhaustion creeping up his limbs, so he lays his head on his folded arms, and tries to calm himself into sleep.For a while his mind drifts, and perhaps goes somewhere close to a state of almost-sleep. He tries not to think about Athos and Porthos out there without him, or about what Garnier has said to him, or about d’Artagnan on his knees, bearing his throat. The list of things he won’t think of is extensive and the effort to keep his mind from skittering there is immense.Aramis’ hand throbs uncomfortably and the little he’s been able to eat and drinks sits like stone in his belly, but it’s not that at all that seems to keep him from sleep: his mind pounds with the word blood blood blood over and over again until he thinks it might drive him mad, and then he almost laughs out loud because it may be rather too late to worry about such things.But lying there edging around sleep, with his body aching and his muscles heavy and the summer evening heat omnipresent in the room, Aramis is suddenly simply too tired to fight it all. Blood blood blood says his mind, and so he follows the words instead of pushes at them, and feels himself shift slowly into the thing he has been so afraid of, the thing he has been fighting so hard against.He lets his mind be lost.His head shoots up, and Constance swears and jumps out of her chair.“Aramis?” She asks, uncertain.He feels himself getting to his feet.“Blood,” he says.”Aramis…are you…are you awake?” Constance asks. Her eyes are very wide. Very pretty.”Blood,” he says again, “Because it’s three and three again and he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know it.”Constance pales. Aramis doesn’t notice the way her hand moves slowly towards the pistol on the dresser beside her."I have to be there," he says, voice wavering dreamily.And then he walks to the door, and throws it open, and doesn’t look back when she shouts his name.
*
The sky is huge and cloudless this evening. Something sings to Aramis, deep behind his eyeballs. He walks, tripping slightly through the streets as if he is at the end of a rope and being pulled along by something that doesn’t care how fast his feet can move. But God it’s glorious, not to fight so hard against it all. He sighs contentedly.He thinks he recognises a street or two - at one point he definitely thinks he’s walking across the Pont Neuf, he can feel the cool slipping of water at the corners of his mind. He weaves around horses and handcarts and street-sellers and guards, onwards and onwards in a beautiful blankness.BloodBloodThree and three again.After a little while Aramis feels his feet slow, and stop. He’s somewhere near the Porte de Montmartre, he thinks, idly. He lets his head hang forwards to rest against the warm wood of a door, and his hand drifts blindly to grasp at the ring of a door latch.BloodBloodBloodThe door swings quietly open, and his mind is filled with the pleasant darkness of a garden of some sorts. It’s overgrown - almost wild, really - for a moment he thinks about how much more pleasant it would be if it were filled with the evening chorus of birds, but Paris is empty of them now. He walks through the garden following some path that is completely invisible to him, until he reaches another door, which he opens. An alleyway swims into his focus. He turns left, then right, then right again. He coordinates his limbs enough to swing his legs over a wall and drop down a few feet into a courtyard. Another door. Another corridor. Perhaps he walks through someone’s kitchen, he can’t be sure.And then there is another anonymous alleyway, this one clearly little used, littered with broken boxes and trash. Halfway along one wall is a door. It looks like any other door. It doesn’t feel like it, though.Aramis’ mind is a scream, suddenly.”Blood,” he spits out. “Three and…and three…”He doesn’t want to go in.He turns the latch.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The tunnels beneath Paris are actual catacombs in only a few places. Athos has quickly come to appreciate these areas, because, despite their eerie walls of skulls and stacked human bones, they are maintained and fairly well-lit. The rest of the passageways on the other hand are the complete opposite, a network of old mining shafts and basements and myriad tunnels that were created for a purpose which Athos finds himself not particularly eager to investigate.In some places the tunnels lead into spaces where the open sky peers down from above, and in others they don’t see the light of day for so long that the air is thick and stale.“God I hate this,” Porthos rumbles behind him.“Well. At least there are no rats,” Athos reasons, wryly.“Do these tunnels look familiar t’you?” Porthos asks after a while.“Tunnels look like tunnels,” Athos says wearily, scrubbing at his dusty forehead, “I’m struggling to find anything to distinguish this one from all the others.”They continue on. Every now and then they come across a door or stairway that leads out on to ground level, and they take it in turns to go up and assess where exactly they might be before diving back into their fruitless wandering below ground.Athos holds tight to the image of d’Artagnan in his mind - not the wild, frightening thing he has become but the flash of fire and youth that stormed into his life not so long ago and has, curiously, made it all the richer.But there is no sign of anyone. No wolves, no strange man, no d’Artagnan.Athos is beginning to feel it might be time to call off the search, and the despair is a pinched sensation behind his rib cage. He can feel the guilt echoing his footsteps like a figure following behind, as familiar as his own shadow. The desire to keep one step ahead of it is overwhelming, but the truth is that they have been wandering for hours and they are utterly lost.He turns to Porthos, the shame rounding his shoulders with its weight. “Perhaps it’s time -“It’s only then that he feels it. Porthos is staring straight ahead, a shuttered look on his face.Athos turns and follows his gaze into the darkness ahead, and there it is: the pressing sense of wrongness at the corner of his mind. It’s been growing imperceptibly but he has not been able to feel it around the edges of his own guilt.“Porthos…do you…do you feel that?”The other man swallows tightly. “That feeling like we’re walking towards something really bad?”“Oh good,” Athos says dryly, “So it’s not just me.”Porthos grips the torch in his hand a little tighter, juts out his chin.“Onwards, then?”“For d’Artagnan.”“But maybe…we should mark the way we’ve come. In case we need to come back this way.”In case we need to run, Athos thinks, but he nods, “Good idea.”It’s when he turns to scratch a sign into the crumbling stonework of the wall that he sees it: something moves in the darkness behind them. There is the brief unmistakable glimmer of their torches, reflected in moving, yellowed eyes.A single, ululating howl comes forth, very close. It is answered by something primal and frightened in his brain which wants nothing more than for him to find somewhere small and safe and curl himself into a ball. Instead he feels his hand grip tighter around the heft of the torch, the hilt of his sword.They run, Porthos panting harshly at his side as they flee down the tunnels, the wolves yapping and howling and rushing behind them.The tunnel opens into a great dripping room, ringed with torches, and Athos knows of course that they have been driven here and that was always the plan, but he’s not sure what else they could have done.There is a low ribbon of water that rushes through the middle and out through some darkened tunnel. He assesses it: some forgotten underground river, not too deep, if they threw themselves into it perhaps they could let it take them to safety. Or it could drown them.They are pushed close to the water by the pursuing wolves, but when they reach the middle of the room the beasts stop their chase and form a snapping snarling ring around them. It’s only then that Athos raises his eyes to the steps that lead to a ledge above the water.D’Artagnan is there, squatting with his head hung low, at the feet of a tall man who looks at them with a smile that’s all teeth and hunger.“Oh no you’ve found us,” the man sighs in mock sadness, “What a terrible shame.”“Garnier, I assume,” Athos says.The man waves his hand dismissively. “Ah the pretence at civility. Names.” He rolls his shoulders and sighs again. “How fucking boring words are.”“D’Artagnan,” Porthos says, desperately. “Are you alright?”“He’s better than he’s ever been, thanks to me,” Garnier says, his tone blatantly proprietary.“We’d like to hear from d’Artagnan himself if it’s all the same,” Athos says.“I’m better than I’ve ever been, no thanks to you,” d’Artagnan says, simply. His head is down and he doesn’t look at them. His voice is eerily calm, but there is something blurred about him, as though every muscle in his body is quivering with some barely restrained energy.Athos feels as though he may throw up as the shiver of cold sweat runs through him, shifts on his feet in an attempt to ignore the fact that the bottom of his stomach has dropped out.“You don’t look it, d’Artagnan,” Porthos says quietly beside him“I think he might be bored,” Garnier says, thoughtfully. “Such a creature is not made for sitting around like this.” There’s something so nakedly proud in Garnier’s voice. Athos feels a pounding high in his temples, and realises he is grinding his teeth.“So,” Garnier continues, “Let’s give him something to do.” He leans down and takes the boy’s chin gently in his grip, angling it up towards him. “D’Artagnan. Would you like a hunt?”D’Artagnan’s face is open, something worshipful in his eyes that Athos can see even from this distance. He swallows. “Please.”“Good boy. Go.”D’Artagnan springs to his feet faster than Athos would have thought possible, his long legs sprinting down the steps and winding path downwards, towards where he and Porthos stand.Something sick and hot jolts through Athos.“Run!” He yells at Porthos, and the sea of wolves parts to let them go as they race towards the passageway that leads God knows where.From behind them he hears Garnier laugh, high and howling.They dart, plucking at each other’s doublets to drag around this corner or another, with no idea where they are going only that they must keep running. Athos hopes fitfully that their crazy turning right and left in the endless maze might throw d’Artagnan off their trail, but somehow he doubts it. He’s never met a better tracker than the Gascon boy, and that was before he became whatever he is now.Soon they find themselves in a tunnel that has partially collapsed and filled with rubble. Without even stopping they are scaling the tumble of stone, both of them knowing that at best there will be a gap at the top for them to slither through, and at worst, higher ground to make their stand.There is in fact a small space, broad but thin at the top of the tunnel. Porthos roars as he hefts a stone or two from the top and chucks them down, hears the pained sound as it hits a wolf in the darkness below.“We can make it through,” Athos pants.“Speak for yourself,” Porthos says darkly, assessing the small gap.“We have to try.”“Go through, you can help pull me.”Athos shakes his head. “Not leaving you,” he says, breathing hard.Porthos looks assessingly at the flaming torch in his hand for a moment before throwing it down at the ground. They trace its tumbled arc, and before it hits the ground and snuffs itself out there is a brief illuminated circle of writhing animal bodies.“Death by wolf, deep underground? Not exactly the way I thought it would all end,” Porthos mutters.They feel it rather than see it when d’Artagnan approaches.“Hey,” Porthos calls, hopefully, “D’Artagnan? It’s us.”“I know who you are,” comes the easy reply. From the sound of it d’Artagnan is still a little ways down the tunnel. His voice is not out of breath, or angry, or filled with any emotion in particular bar a strange, distant sort of excitement. “And I think you should keep running,” he calls.With a growl Porthos turns and heaves more stones from the opening at the top of the tunnel, desperate. “Gonna have to do!” he declares, and throws himself into the space where the gap is the widest. With sudden realisation Athos knows that he cannot wait for Porthos to go through. He drops his torch, unbuckles his belt and lets it fall to the ground with powder flask and pistol attached, and dives squirming through the opening beside Porthos’s struggling legs.It’s an awful feeling, exposed with his bottom half kicking and scrabbling against the rocks behind him as he struggles through the gap on his elbows. Athos inches forwards, and a bright note of panic rings through him when he realises his doublet is caught on the rocks around him and he cannot move an arm back to work it free. He grits his teeth and squirms, pulling with all his might until his blood pounds in his temples with the effort. Suddenly he feels the buttons on the front of the doublet rip and he is slithering forward and tumbling out the other side of the gap. Headfirst and with nothing to arrest his fall he slips down the jumble of stone until he is able to throw out an arm and catch himself, and then struggles back upwards, where Porthos’ hands have begun to appear through the gap.“Hold your breath,” Athos grits out, and grabs Porthos, pulling with all his might.“I…fucking…am…” comes the muffled reply from the darkness.Athos heaves, bracing one foot and then the other against the rocks, putting his entire body into the effort until the big man is pulled through the gap with a sudden exhalation and they are tumbling roughly down the rocky slope in a jumble of limbs and stone.Athos hits the ground hard, Porthos coming down tangled with him and landing squarely on his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs.“Are you…alright…” Athos wheezes. He can barely make out the other man in the gloom now that they’ve left their torches behind.“Mmm.” Porthos heaves himself off Athos and to a stand. “Shoulder feels a bit dislocate-y, thanks very much.”“Next time I shall endeavour to pull less hard,” Athos mutters. “Where’s your blade?”“Up there,” Porthos says, indicating the top of the tunnel. “Yours?”“Likewise.”Porthos reaches down a hand and hefts Athos unsteadily to his feet. Athos’ whole body feels battered and bruised, his doublet is torn and hanging open, the rocks have left a long swipe of scraped skin across his face and a stream of blood from his nose hints that it might be broken.He takes a moment to cast a look back at the top of the tunnel, which he can barely see through the gloom now that they’ve lost their torches.“D’Artagnan is much slimmer than the both of us,” he says.“Yep,” Porthos replies, and they move off in a limping jog, as fast as they can manage.They stumble for a few minutes through the dark, catching themselves against the walls and each other when they trip. And then - “Is that…?” Porthos pants.Up ahead there is something faint, the pale but unmistakable light of dusk stealing its way into the passageway.“Yes,” Athos breathes, and they pick up speed in a last desperate sprint to reach the evening light.They burst out into a great open circular space, ringed by tiered sloping steps of crumbling rock that reach as high as the tops of the trees they can see just peeking from behind the walls.“Where are we?” Porthos gasps, but Athos can only shake his head. The structure looks like the remains of a Roman amphitheater he had once seen near Compiègne, but Athos had not realised that Paris held such ruins, and though he has no idea of their current location they must still be somewhere in the city, or very close outside its walls.He casts about, desperate. There must be a way out.It’s then that he sees the slumped dark shape in the middle of the open space. It looks horribly like a person.He’s running before he realises it because he knows, he just knows.“Aramis!” He calls, Porthos swearing and sprinting behind him.Aramis is curled on his side with wrists bound in front of him with thick twisted rope. There is a purpling bruise across his brow that spreads nastily around his right eye-socket, and when Athos goes to cradle his head in his hands he feels the ooze of blood from the head wound Aramis had sustained only last night, seeping into the grass behind him.“Wish he’d stop getting himself knocked over the head,” Porthos hisses, smoothing the hair from the other man’s face.Aramis opens bleary eyes, one pupil blown wide, and croaks up at them, “…never know…it might…improve things…”. His grin is crooked and fleeting and slightly nauseous.“How did you get here? What happened?” As Athos speaks he notices the marks, just visible in the darkening light: Aramis lays within a crude triangle that seems to have been burnt into the dried grass. On either side there is a great arcing line that sweeps into what appears to be a huge circle. There are two other shapes broken into the line in the distance: one a circle and the other a strange arrow shape of some kind. Around them are various swept lines and symbols, that converge in one point in the middle or the arena.“Some kind of…sigil…” Athos says, frowning.“Battles,” Porthos grits through his teeth, “Assassins. Spies. Give me those, please. But sigils?”“You should step away from him,” d’Artagnan calls from where the tunnel opens up into the amphitheater. “Go where you’re told or I’ll make you.”Athos straightens, while Porthos draws his knife from his boot and hunches over Aramis, the arm of his dislocated shoulder held tight against his body.“D’Artagnan. Please. Stop this and come home with us now,” Athos commands.“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m not yours.”“No. And neither are you his.”“You have no idea.”“Enlighten us,” Porthos calls.There’s an awful confidence in the way the boy is moving slowly towards them, kicking his feet into the dusty grass. He seems utterly untroubled by any of this - utterly beyond their reach - and it breaks Athos’ heart to see him so gone. D’Artagnan rolls his neck, languid.“No,” he calls back, “I don’t think I will.”“What power does he have over you?” Porthos explodes. “This is us, d’Artagnan! You know us!”“Yes I know you I know you I know you,” d’Artagnan sighs. “The Inseparables. Plus one. That was us, wasn’t it?”“And you,” he says, casting the words at Athos “It suited you to keep me right there on the outside, didn’t it? It didn’t matter how much you knew I needed you. And now I have someone who sees me, sees everything I can do. He’s going to teach me.”D’Artagnan’s voice goes curiously quiet. “He’s going to keep me safe. Nothing will hurt me now. Nothing will frighten me. I won’t be alone.”“I can do that for you,” Athos calls, voice level. “You’re right: I pushed you away, and I did not keep you safe.” He feels himself relax into the rising tide of shame, let it push him somewhere useful. Athos knows it’s true, after all. The world is cruel and does not let young men idle in their boyhood, but even so, d’Artagnan is barely nineteen. Athos isn’t sure he can even remember being so young. For all his bravado, for his genius at strategy and his undeniable skill with a blade the boy needed guidance, and Athos has guided him into nothing so much as disaster, time after time.So he believes it, he means it when he says, “But I can do that for you now. I will do what I ought to have done all along. You don’t have to be alone.”Porthos shoots him a glance, brow furrowed, but Athos takes a step forward. “It’s too late,” d’Artagnan says after a moment, assessing. “I am what I am now.”“And can’t I be that too?”“Athos, what are you-“ Porthos hisses.“You could make me like you, couldn’t you? You could teach me then. Neither of us would be alone.” Athos doesn’t know if he is buying for time or making himself a sacrifice. Either way he does it willingly.“Would you do that, d’Artagnan?” Athos asks, makes his voice low and easy and appealing, offers himself fully. “Would you do that for me?”D’Artagnan seems to stop for a moment, then shakes his head tightly. “No. No I have him.”“You like the way he makes you feel?” Athos steps closer. “Good boy, he called you.” He raises an eyebrow and sees d’Artagnan flush, even in the darkening light.“Shut up!” The boy hisses, his remote facade snapping loose for a second. He seems to reel it back in, but there is a bitter note to his voice. “Athos the great leader. You said it yourself: what happened to Aramis was your fault. What happened to me was your fault!””That ain't true,” Porthos shouts, “You know that ain’t-“”Then you really are stupid, Porthos! He said it would be different after Avernes but nothing has changed, has it?””I said no more lies, and I meant it,” Athos says. His hands are out, palms up towards d’Artagnan. The boy is coiled tight with fury, shaking his head fitfully every now and then as if to rid it of something.”Not lying isn’t the same as speaking the truth, Athos,” d’Artagnan says. “For one it requires actually speaking. No one talks about anything! No one says what they mean!”The now naked emotion in his voice strikes somewhere in Athos, kindles something small and fragile in his chest that feels almost like hope: he would not be so angry if he did not care at all. He can still be reached. There is still enough of d’Artagnan in there, there has to be.But then the boy’s head snaps up, everything in him coming to attention. A hush seems to fall over the amphitheatre.”That’s because words don’t mean anything,” a voice comes. Garnier steps out into the arena, the wolves following in his wake. The creatures fan out to prowl around them, around the sigil on the ground, from which they keep their wary distance. They are all sizes and colours, more and more and more than Athos could have thought possible.Garnier comes to stand beside d’Artagnan, who bows his head as the man nears. It makes Athos shiver with disgust to see the way he puts out his hand and strokes d’Artagnan’s hair, smiling at the boy all wide and glinting.”I would know. I’ve watched for hundreds of years, after all. Watched the age of men. The age of words, and metal,” he drops his hand heavily to his side and cocks his head at Athos, curious amber eyes boring into him. “Who needs metal when you have teeth?” He snarls the word but there’s no anger there, only a feral kind of joy, of anticipation.The wolves yowl and snicker in delight around them. A slow smile spreads across d’Artagnan’s face.“It’s alright, my good boy. You won’t have to wait,” Garnier says to d’Artagnan, and then, outwards, to the arena, to the wolves, “Three sacrifices, and three again will shed their blood to the wolf born of water. And he shall be baptised under the Blood Moon, a God it shall make him, and The Age Of The Wolf will be upon mankind.”“An’ now we got fucking prophecies,” Athos hears Porthos spit darkly behind him. “Wonderful.”“Three and three again,” Aramis whispers, and Athos can hear by his voice that he’s shaking, “Blood and blood and blood, willingly.”“They brought me to this, you see?” Garnier says. “It is the very cruelty of man that has wrought my destiny. And now I will be a God”Garnier quirks his head, and the wolves rush forwards.Athos has just enough time to grab the knife from his boot before they are on him. He stabs blindly, roaring as the creatures knock him to the ground, feels his blade compact with flesh again and again and the pained animal shrieks as it slides through meat and muscle. And then the resistance as it hits bone in one of the mass of animals above him, glances sideways and is ripped from his grasp.Distantly he hears Porthos shouting, but he can’t see anything for the mass of wolves above him. They hook their teeth into his shoulder, his arms and drag him, gasping along the dusty ground. He thanks God for the tough leather of his doublet because their teeth only seem to prick at his skin. He does his best to buck and kick at them, and is rewarded by a sudden rush of pained heat at his side where the protection of his leather doublet gapes around its torn buttons.When they leave him the wolves only move back a few feet, snapping and snarling and keeping him in his place. He pants, easing himself up onto his side into a half-lying position. The wolves have dragged him across the arena, the bodies of the two he managed to kill lay heaped about twenty feet away. He looks around him now but already knows what he will see: the burnt grass of the circle marked into the arcing larger circle of the sigil. Athos lays splayed within it.He pants, reeling. Then the sky above him is blocked for a moment by d’Artagnan, peering down at him. Athos sees him sniff, and then smile. “Oh good, you’re already bleeding.”Then d’Artagnan stands and leaves his circle of vision. Athos heaves himself on to his side. Through the wolves dancing legs he can just make out Porthos in the distance, similarly dragged, laying presumably within the arrow shape burnt into the circle. As he watches, d’Artagnan comes to stand over the other Musketeer. Porthos tries to struggle but d’Artagnan puts his entire weight on the man, pinning him between his knees. He grasps Porthos’ injured arm and heaves it upright, pulling a pained scream from the big Musketeer, and with Porthos’ own knife he cuts a thin line there before shoving it down and smearing the bloodied skin against the grass. Porthos swears and struggles, and it is jarringly disturbing to see the boy barely move beneath the man’s strength.Once he’s done d’Artagnan throws the knife into the edges of the arena and gets to his feet.“It won’t be him, d’Artagnan,” Aramis calls, his voice is sick and thin, and Athos can hear everything he’s putting into it, all the urgency, the fight to stay lucid despite the concussion and whatever is dragging at his sanity. Athos twists until he can make out flashes of the other man between the writhing wolves. He is raised on one elbow, awkwardly. “We’d shed our blood for you. We’d shed our blood for each other…three and three again, and it’s not for him. It won’t be him.”D’Artagnan stands, staring at Aramis.”What?” He says, after a while.”Blood…blood…blood,” Aramis pants, “For you. I shed it for you, for Athos, for Porthos. I don’t give a fucking drop for him.””I don’t know what you-“”When it happens there’ll…there’ll be a choice,” Aramis’ strength seems to give and he lowers his head back jerkily to the ground, panting up at the sky. “Remember that you’re one of us, d’Artagnan.”The boy stares at him a moment longer. His back is to Athos, he has no idea what the boy is thinking, what if anything these curious words have done to him. He hopes, at least, that d’Artagnan heard the last bit though, that it went some way to breaking through to whatever part of the real d’Artagnan that is still in there.“I agree with all the bits I could make sense of,” Porthos calls. He’s on his back but raised himself on the elbow of his uninjured arm, craning his neck to see d’Artagnan over the wolves that ring him and keep him from leaving his place in the sigil. “We love you, yeah?”Unconsciously it seems, d’Artagnan’s head turns towards Athos. There’s a flash of something lost in his face for a moment, something uncertain.”All for one, and one for all,” Athos croaks. “Nothing can alter that.”The boy’s eyes seem to widen a little. But then he shakes his head angrily, and stalks back towards Garnier. For his part the other man seems utterly lost in a daze, standing in the very middle of the sigil where all the lines converge. His face is tipped to the night sky, a look of utter, hungry anticipation in his face.Athos can’t help but drag his gaze upwards too.Above them, a smudged dark line begins to edge from one side of the bright, full moon. As he watches, the shadow grows slowly, spreading across the shining orb. Athos has read a little on the astronomical theory of eclipses, and about a German who has invented a telescope to observe such things, but he has never seen one like this: when the shadow has spread across the entirety of the moon and blotted it out, it fades slowly back into view, a vivid, blood red.The burnt lines of the sigil on the ground seem to smoke and crackle in the sick red light. The wolves dart back until they are outside of the huge circle, alive with a sort of manic, fevered fear. They howl at the sky, at the moon, and the howls seem to reach an awful crescendo as the light grows more and more red.And then Garnier gasps, and stumbles sideways. And where he stood on the converging lines now stands d’Artagnan, body rigid, arrow-straight towards the moon.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What?” Garnier gasps.Something awful seems to pulse from the middle of the arena, from d’Artagnan, a deep thrumming sound that is not a sound but hums its way painfully through every bone in Porthos’ body. He feels his eardrums vibrate as though they are about to burst, and tastes blood in his mouth where he has bitten his tongue.If Porthos weren’t already on the ground the awful sound would flatten him. Dimly, he watches as Garnier falls.And then the sick red light seems to recede into darkness, followed not long after by the bright silver shining of the moon once more.Around them, the wolves are silent, waiting.“No,” Garnier growls, but there’s something smaller in his voice now, more uncertain. “No it can’t be you. It’s me. It’s me!” The wolves around them shift anxiously, as if ready to flee or fight on a warning given by…given by who?“No…they…they tried to drown me,” Garnier says, “I was born in water…I should be baptised by blood.”A conversation - distant and drunken - flitters into Porthos’ memory: the way they’d teased d’Artagnan when he’d mentioned it months ago, their lucky Gascon, born en caul. Born in water. Porthos has seen births in the Court of Miracles, he’d even seen a child come out with a milky veil across its face and watched as the midwife squirreled it away to sell as a good luck charm. But he’d never seen what d’Artagnan described: a baby born completely encased in its bag of water.He wonders where the boy’s luck has gone now, can’t tell if it has cursed or blessed him.D’Artagnan does not look surprised by any of what has happened here: his face is down, and Porthos can see something in it that is not rage but a barely tethered violence. It is not a specific anger, not even aimed towards the man who has made him this beast, but rather a huge and animal thing that even Porthos can taste the edges of. D’Artagnan’s chest heaves as if he cannot drag enough air into his lungs, his body seems to be quivering with some internal effort, though Porthos is not sure quite what that is.What he can sense is the power that seems to pulse from d’Artagnan in waves. It makes Porthos want to flatten himself even further down to the ground, dig down, hide away somewhere small and safe.“D’Artagnan,” Athos says, and his voice jumps and quavers, and Porthos’ breath shunts sideways just to hear it. The other man is trying to crawl towards the boy. His eyes are very wide, rimmed in red and stark against his pale face.
“You shut up!” Garnier hisses, his head whipping towards Athos with a blind and furious rage.Afterwards Porthos will find he cannot say exactly what happened, or how, only that the moon’s light is bright, and Porthos is very tired and very afraid, and Garnier leaps towards Athos and then there is not a man but a huge wolf, brindled and tawny red.Athos rolls as if to stand but he’s too slow, and he has no weapon. Porthos hears himself utter a strangled cry as the beast that was Garnier comes down on Athos, teeth and sinews and wild hunger --and then there is an animal shriek, a blur of movement, a stuttered exhalation from someone.
Porthos can make out nothing but a rolling mass of fur, knocked sideways from where Athos is lying now curled on his side breathing harshly with his knees up and his arms wrapped around his head, and then the tumble splits into two huge panting animals that stand opposite each other with hackles raised and teeth bared.The wolf that was Garnier is big, red, spitting with fury. And the other one…the one that was d’Artagnan, the one that must be d’Artagnan….Sleek and so dark brown he is almost shadowed black, smaller than the red wolf but thrumming with a power that seems ancient and remote as the moon. Porthos realises with a jolt that the creature is standing over Athos, head low, a deep rolling growl coming from deep within its chest, and Porthos cannot tell if it is protecting Athos or something else.The beast shakes a little - the change had seemed like a simple slipping of one form into another, but perhaps it had not been so easy after all - and his teeth and eyes are jagged chips of moonlight.
Garnier is a wolf but more terrible, in a way that Porthos cannot describe other than that there is the calculated purpose of a man about him, a quality that makes him infinitely more frightening than any of the other wolves that watch from the edges of the arena.But D’Artagnan is like the idea of a wolf, like the cautionary one, the story whispered on snowy nights, don’t open your door or it might get in. This wolf is something very old that strikes a primitive and animal place in the back of Porthos’ brain.
Run , everything in him screams , and at the same time don’t move don’t breathe don’t make a sound or it will see you. Nausea curls hot in Porthos’ belly and he hisses involuntarily, flinching away as much as he can. He sees the others from the corner of his eye: Aramis lying on his side with his head heavy on the ground, shaking, and Athos still curled around himself between the two huge beasts.And then D’Artagnan leaps across him with a huge coiled spring of muscle, and throws himself at Garnier.Porthos wants to look away. He can’t. He feels the blood begin to slip lazily from his nose. His heart is beating like a small and frightened animal that knows it is too close - too close -
to something terrible. The wolves that circled the arena have slunk back into the shadows, only the glow of their watching eyes visible in the darkness as they look on, afraid.For a while it is hard to make out anything that is happening. The awful sound of teeth fills the arena, the slam of huge bodies against the dusty grass. Athos is on his belly, scrabbling desperately away from the fight, away from the reeling mass of fur and snapping jaws and claws.And then a dark reddish shape breaks free and streaks across the arena, as if trying to run.It doesn’t get far. The smaller beast takes it down by the throat, and shakes, and suddenly there is Garnier as a man lying bleeding on his back with a huge dark shape above him.
Even from here Porthos can hear the snap of bones as the beast puts its weight onto the man’s ribs. It lowers its dripping maw at the mess of Garnier’s ripped throat, teeth bared and glinting in the light.“D’Artagnan,” comes a voice.
Porthos turns his head to see Aramis, who has raised himself onto hands and knees. Shakily he gets to his feet, pushing himself upwards with his wrists still bound and one hand broken and bandaged. He stumbles a little but Porthos is astounded that the man can rise at all, because he himself is still fighting the urge to run or hide and he knows that Aramis must feel it too.The beast turns its head with a snap and growls at Aramis, low and rumbling. From here Porthos can see the bloody teeth, the bits of gore in its mouth. Its eyes are thin and cruel.“That’s enough,” Aramis says, and his voice is firm but almost sing-song somehow, soothing. He takes a step forwards, bound hands palm out towards the animal.The beast growls and snaps its jaws at Aramis in warning, its muscles coiled tight and ready to pounce, but the man barely flinches.“You are owed his death, and your revenge.” Aramis’ voice is quiet. “But do not lose yourself to it.”The moment stretches, loaded. Porthos watches wide-eyed, barely able to breathe. It feels as if everything is hanging on some unseen precipice and though he does not know what will happen next he knows that it will change everything.The beast stares at Aramis through slitted eyes. Its teeth are still bared, hackles raised, but it does not move as he takes another step towards it.“Please,” Aramis breathes, “We want you back, d’Artagnan.”Porthos blinks, and the creature is gone, and d’Artagnan stands panting above Garnier, his face smeared dark with blood in the moonlight.Garnier laughs weakly, a thin, mean sound. “I am the first,” he breathes.D’Artagnan stretches his neck and rolls his shoulders with a stuttered movement, as if he is trying very hard to hold himself to a human form. “And I will be the last,” d’Artagnan replies. His voice is shredded and raw.Garnier smiles, blood spluttering obscenely from his lax mouth. “Fool….no idea,” his teeth are gritted sharp and red. “You..all of you…opened a door and you forced a demon through it…and…you didn’t even think to close it.”
He laughs again, low and breathless.Porthos feels the cold like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.
“It’s coming,” Garnier says, voice growing fainter now.“What is coming?” Aramis demands, his voice too loud in the arena.Garnier turns to look at Aramis then, and his eyes are full of a cruel and terrible joy.
“… Everything ,” he whispers, and dies, a bloodied smile upon his face.
*
Porthos finds Athos’ knife beside the cooling bodies of the two wolves he had managed to kill before they’d dragged him across the space. The rest of the animals have slipped away, back through the tunnels and, Porthos fervently hopes, out of Paris and back to wherever the hell they came from.He bends to pick up the blade, feeling everything in his body protest at the movement, and crosses to where Aramis stands wavering on his feet. It’s short work to cut through the rope binding his hands.
“Alright?” He asks, and when Aramis nods mutely he pulls the other man into a tight one-armed hug around his still dislocated shoulder. “Fucking hell,” he breathes. “S’over now.” Porthos says the words because he has to, because he needs to convince himself in some act of defiance.
This is done now. This is over. Nothing like this will happen again, no matter what Garnier said.D’Artagnan is on his knees in the middle of the clearing, staring wide-eyed at Garnier’s dead body. His shoulders are shaking, and at first Porthos thinks that it’s from the adrenaline, but then he hears a sob escape from the boy and a shock jolts through him.
Athos makes his way over towards him, drops to his knees and gathers d’Artagnan into a hug. Porthos can see him stiffen slightly in Athos’ arms, but he doesn’t pull away.“It’s alright,” Athos murmurs into the boy’s hair.“It’s not,” d’Artagnan replies. “I…how could I…I killed him!”“You saved us.”“I loved him,” d’Artagnan sobs, “Oh God…I…did…I…why would I…?”Porthos screws shut his eyes against the plaintive grief in the boy’s voice. Aramis is still wrapped tight in his own arms, shaking. He cannot hope to understand what d’Artagnan means, what he feels or why. He knows somehow that they have failed the boy and the shame is like a heavy stone in his gut.“Yes,” Athos replies, simply, calmly, and it seems to be the right thing to say. The four of them stay that way for a while, until Aramis shifts in the circle of Porthos’ arms. He crosses shakily to where Athos and d'Artagnan kneel, gets carefully to his knees as though pained, opening arms that have always been eager to wrap around the world. He buries one hand gently into Athos’ hair and places his broken one against d’Artagnan’s, lays his head on the boy’s shoulder from behind and lets out a great, quavering sigh. Porthos follows, kneeling and enclosing as much of the other three men as he can with his one good arm and the breadth of his chest.“It’s over now,” Porthos says again. “It’s over.”
*
They follow d’Artagnan back to the Bonacieux house, none of them saying anything. On their way out of the arena Porthos strays behind for a second, and bluntly pops his shoulder back into his socket. He barely feels it, and it registers in a dull sort of way that he is probably in shock.D’Artagnan’s face is dry now, streaked with blood and tears and dirt, and though he no longer emits the same awful thrumming power there is something undeniably changed about him. He seems taller, something secret and coiled behind his eyes. He moves like water slipping in the moonlight, utterly silent even on the cobbled streets that ring with the footsteps of the other three men.
And he casts a glance up at the moon every now and then, a glint of something both wary and worshipful in his gaze, but soon the clouds seep slowly from nowhere until the light is blotted dark, and not long afterwards the first few drops of rain begin to fall.
The oppressive heat lifts, the streets have the quiet air of a child that has cried itself into calm. They move as if in a dream, none of them talking, making their way south and across the river through the soft curtaining of rain.At the door to Constance’s kitchen D’Artagnan stops, and rolls his shoulders.“I can control it now, I think,” he says, “You don’t have to worry about me.”Athos puts a hand on his shoulder, and the boy stiffens slightly before relaxing his muscles with visible effort.Porthos doesn’t know if it’s true. He hopes it is. He doesn’t know what they could possibly do to stop him if it weren’t.“What was it?” Porthos forces himself to ask. “That…prophecy, ritual, the whole thing. Garnier said it would make him a God. What did it really do?”D’Artagnan turns. There’s a resigned sort of directness in the way he looks at them.“It’s…I’m…the primordial?” he says, as if he’s tasting the word, but instantly he is frowning, shaking his head in a show of frustration that is so human, so like his old self it rings through Porthos like a bell. “No, that’s not right. It’s…too old. Too big for words.”“He is the wolf before the wolf,” Aramis says then, voice curiously detached. “He is the hunger and the hunt.”Porthos swallows tightly.And then Aramis smiles. “And he’s d’Artagnan.” And the certainty in his voice could make Porthos cry.
D’Artagnan smiles at Aramis, wide and slightly crooked and filled with a gratitude so naked and open.“Shall we?” Athos says, indicating the door.
“God, yes,” d’Artagnan says, “I’m ravenous.”They still, and he looks up at them, whip-fast.“Bread,” he says, quickly. “Cheese?” The lower half of his face is still smeared red with Garnier’s blood, and he makes a hellish picture.
Porthos huffs a laugh, reaches behind him for the door latch.Inside, the Bonacieux house is dark, the kitchen lit only by the thin light of a wet dawn that is beginning to filter through the windows.
Distantly, Porthos realises that the air is thick with the smell of gunpowder, the high tang of blood.The slight scuffle of movement across the room stops him in his path.
Beside the door to the pantry stands Lambert, a knife held tight to Constance’s throat as she pants in his grip.Porthos raises his arms out placatingly as his brows lower.“Here,” he says, tries to keep his voice calm even though he is furious and exhausted and utterly done. “Don’t be a fool now, boy.”“You,” Lambert spits. His eyes are like blades thrown over Porthos’ shoulder- at d’Artagnan. “It was supposed to be me, you bastard!”He gives Constance a little shake in his arms and she lets out a sharp, frightened breath. Lambert’s already pale face is milk-white and furious. There is what looks like a gunshot wound in his shoulder, and though it is slipping dark blood through his shirt he doesn’t seem to care much, and it’s doing nothing to act as a hindrance to his grip on Constance or the blade at her throat.
Porthos can feel the quiet stillness behind him, the absence of movement which in itself is a terrible threat.“I think you should let her go,” d’Artagnan says. His voice sounds like his when he is angry, but there is a quiver of something barely restrained to it that Porthos can make out now.Lambert shakes his head, tightly. “You have no idea. I gave Garnier everything. And he promised me! But then…then one doe-eyed Gascon whore and I’m forgotten!”“If you hurt her we will not be able to stop him,” Athos says. His voice is level, but the warning there is clear. “Don’t do this, for your own sake if not for that of an innocent woman.”Lambert looks them up and down, a smile splitting his face. “You threaten me? You don’t have a single weapon between the lot of you!”It’s true, Porthos thinks.But also: they don’t need one.“…fuck…fucking…the ritual’s done and he’s a God and I was…I was his good boy! I deserved it and he deserved it and…” he shakes Constance a little in his grip, tightly. “His own mother threw him in the river to drown, did you know? And he would have, if the wolves hadn’t found him. So it….the cruelty of man…it…it wrought his destiny. And…he is going to make them all pay…” Lambert raves, eyes wide and rolling in his pale face.“You can’t even feel it, can you?” D’Artagnan asks, and the little note of amusement in his voice makes the other man’s nostrils flare. “You might have given Garnier everything but he threw you aside like you were nothing. And now he’s dead.”
Something small flickers across Lambert’s face for a moment, tainting the rage with an edge of uncertainty. “He’s not. He can’t be killed so easily,” Lambert shakes his head. “ He is your God now. It was him, it was prophesied.”“Yeah,” Porthos says, “Turns out prophecies are surprisingly unspecific, for all their stupid details.”“What?”“D’Artagnan was born in water,” Porthod says, in a low voice. “D’Artagnan was baptised in blood.”“…no,” Lambert whispers, horror dawning slowly behind his eyes.“Three and three again,” says Aramis.“And now, it seems, d’Artagnan is a…God,” Athos adds.“But…but Garnier..”“Is dead.” D’Artagnan’s voice is very calm now, blade-sharp. “And I am not.”There is a rush of something very fast beside Porthos, which he only registers when a high piercing scream and a sickening thud has rung through the room. Constance staggers sideways. D’Artagnan stands very close to Lambert, with his left arm cast out sideways. Porthos follows the trajectory of his arm, notes the red splatter on the opposite wall which is only now beginning to drip with long rivulets of blood. On the floor beneath it, a knife, a severed arm.Lambert screams and screams, clutching the stump of his shoulder.D’Artagnan shudders a breath, Porthos can see it settle through his ribs from behind him. Then his other hand comes up to the man’s throat and the toes of Lambert’s boots are scuffling desperately against the floor.Constance has her hands to her mouth in horror.The boy does not move. Porthos can hear him breathing hard through his bared teeth.
“D’Artagnan,” Aramis says. His voice is calm, held steady as if he were stitching a wound back together, the care in it just as evident, just as reverential. “Constance’s kitchen has seen quite enough blood, don’t you think?”D’Artagnan turns his head to Constance then, and though Porthos cannot see the expression on his face he sees something very frightened, and then very resolved flicker across Constance’s.
She nods, firmly. “No more, please d’Artagnan,” she says, and Porthos is filled with a bright flare of respect for this astounding woman.The boy lets go of Lambert’s throat, but he barely has time to find his footing before d’Artagnan’s fist is slamming hard into the side of his face. He drops to the ground like a stone.“He’s just unconscious,” d’Artagnan bites out after a moment of silence. “I think.” He squats to check, then nods, and hooks his arms under Lambert’s shoulders and drags him none too gently towards the open door of the pantry. “Does this door have a lock?”“Yes,” Constance says, shaking herself a little. She takes a key from a bowl on the shelf and locks the door once d’Artagnan has deposited the unconscious man within.“Good,” Athos says, and then, “…ah…” Porthos turns in time to see him sag a little, leaning against the dresser at the side of the room with his right arm clamped tight to his side. “Ah…”D’Artagnan’s head snaps up. “Athos!” He cries, “I didn’t…I could smell the blood but…we were all…”Aramis is already crossing over to Athos, lifting the man’s arm carefully to peer inside the gaping doublet.“Why didn’t you say something?”“Honestly,” Athos says, “I quite forgot.”“Well. This I can sew.”Aramis makes to lead him to the table, and Constance hurries over to gather up the tablecloth and the candlestick and cups that lay there from earlier. Porthos shakes the shock from himself and helps Athos to lie down. As he does so he sees the ring of teeth marks in Athos’ side, the way his shirt is curled and sodden with blood.
“Constance…” Athos says weakly once they’ve settled him down, “My apologies…your table.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, “d’Artagnan is going to buy me a new one, aren’t you?”She shoots a look at the boy, and there’s something more than the question in it, some sort of testing of the edges of everything that he is now.
TBC...
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Aramis stretches out his legs, pointing his toes in his boots, feeling the burn of his muscles pull tight. He is so tired he feels like an echo of a person. It’s not an entirely unpleasant sensation, he thinks, especially since it comes in the deep settled lull after battle.But it is keeping him awake, and he would quite like to be able to sleep. Somehow though his gritty eyes, wide and a little desperate, don’t seem to want to close.“Is it safe now?” Constance had asked d’Artagnan, once she’d brought Aramis a bowl of water and a cloth to clean his hands of blood.“The wolves have gone,” d’Artagnan had replied, simply, and Constance had nodded and said. “Then if it’s alright with you I’ll go and fetch Treville. I don’t want that bastard in my house any longer than necessary,” she had said, eyeing the door of her pantry darkly. Aramis suspects that she had offered to fetch the captain because she had needed to leave the kitchen, to leave all of them for a moment. Perhaps to cry, or breathe, or think. He doesn’t blame her. He saw how her hands had shaken when she handed back his pistol, empty of shot.Athos is still on the table, his chest rising and falling easily. They had given him some wine when Aramis had finished stitching the wound - a nasty but not too deep ring of jagged teeth marks on his side that span from the front of his abdomen to his back - and he had promptly fallen fast asleep. His long legs dangle from the end of the table and it can’t be particularly comfortable, but none of them really have the heart to move him.With Constance gone, Porthos had sat down at the foot of the table. Before long he had stretched out on his side, and quickly fallen asleep, unconsciously rolling himself half under the shelter of the table.And Aramis had leant heavily against the opposite wall and let his feet slip until his backside met the floor, and let his head thunk backwards against the cool plaster.Now, Athos gives a small startled intake of breath and shifts slightly, but does not wake. The sound is something intimate and so fragile it makes Aramis want to cry.It’s not as though they haven’t seen each other like this more times than they can mention. The last person to lie on that table was d’Artagnan and Aramis was sure - sure, when he could pull his mind together enough to sit in that kitchen and the here and now and be Aramis enough to think coherently - that the boy was moments from death.They had never seen each other quite like that before.Aramis knows, distantly, the likelihood that one of them will die young, soon, bloody. He tries not to look directly at the thought, keeps it in the corner of his eye when he can. He focuses instead on the moments like these, imagines himself folding them in cloth to tuck carefully away somewhere impenetrable and sturdy in his heart, somewhere that all the filth and the awfulness can’t reach, somewhere with a lock.So Aramis counts the steady rise and fall of Athos’s chest as he lies on Constance’s kitchen table. He makes himself notice, as a painter or a poet would, the way the sunlight filters through the dust-moted air and gilds the edges of the man’s face, slack and beautiful in sleep, the slight, vulnerable upwards tilt of eyebrows which Athos will rarely allow them to see when he is awake and conscious.He observes, deliberately, how very broad Porthos’ back is as he lies asleep, facing away. One hand is thrown up over his head, fingers loose and curled where they aren’t buried in those dark twists of hair that Aramis thinks are very pretty indeed.And he gives sincere and heartfelt thanks to God, for all of it.“Can I…” d’Artagnan’s voice shakes him from his patient cataloguing of beauty. The boy sounds a little worried, and shifts his weight from foot to foot. It is such a strange display of uncertainty from a god, Aramis thinks. How wonderful.He smiles slightly and pats the ground next to him, feels the boy settle himself down there, the ghost of warmth where his shoulder almost touches Aramis’ own.At first, being this close to him, there is the reflexive need to pull away. Aramis lets it flicker through him and then ushers it firmly away, because this is d’Artagnan, with his uncertainty, with his sweet sunlight smile, and Aramis will not be afraid of him.They sit in silence for a while until the question pushes itself against Aramis’ teeth in its insistence.“It’s the demon, isn’t it?” He says, “When Garnier said I was marked. When you smelled… whatever you smelled on me.”“Yes,” d’Artagnan says, after a moment.“Is it still here?” Aramis tries to keep his voice calm, tries to keep the shake from it. He tells himself he won’t be afraid of that either, but his efforts don’t have quite the same success.D’Artagnan shakes his head. “It’s gone.”“Will it come back?”D’Artagnan is silent for a long time. The kitchen feels heavy with it.“I don’t know,” he says, after a while, and Aramis is grateful that the answer, plain as it is, comes with deliberation. “It feels like…like when you turn the corner of a page, to remind yourself where you left off,” d’Artagnan continues.“Speak for yourself,” Aramis says after a moment, when the knowledge has settled into his gut. “Book desecrator.”He’s not surprised, not really. Aramis thinks he’s known all along.They sit, listening to the rise and fall of Athos and Porthos’ chests, listening to the streets of Paris waking up outside the house.“I think I’d like to go away, for a bit,” Aramis says after a while. “I think I’d like to leave Paris and I think you should come with me.”D’Artagan says nothing.“We both find ourselves altered,” Aramis continues, “I think…I think it would do well for us to get to know ourselves again. Far away from who we used to be.”“They won’t like it,” d’Artagnan says, quietly. “They won’t understand.”“No, they won’t.”Aramis moves the little finger of his left hand where it lays on the floor next to d’Artagnan’s, quirks it until it is wrapped across the top of the little finger on the boy’s right hand.“Look at us,” Aramis says softly. “Two lunatics.”He feels d’Artagnan shudder a breath. He lets it be.
*
They hadn’t liked it, but they had understood that there was little they could do short of locking d’Artagnan and Aramis up in the Châtelet. Or with Lambert in the asylum of the Hospice Saint-Jude Thadée, where Treville had assured them the boy would spend the rest of his life if his wound didn’t kill him first.After a little while in silence, while Porthos raged, Athos had looked at them both squarely and said, “Not too far. No more than a day’s ride from the city.”When they had agreed, he had nodded. “I had…have, a hunting lodge. In the woods near Domont.”When they come around a bend in the road lined either side with thick and old forest, the house comes into view and Aramis laughs out loud, clapping his hands together and startling the others.It’s a modest, low yellow-stoned building, its thatched roof patchy, leaded windows paned in warped diamond shapes. To one side the building sidles up against an older tower, made of the same stone, scored with narrow slitted openings.“Loup-holes,” Aramis says, smiling and pointing to the thin windows of the old tower, “So that we can watch for wolves.”D’Artagnan laughs then, a bright yip of amusement.It is not the first time Aramis has seen this building - it’s been haunting him behind his eyelids for the past few days, after all - and suddenly it feels as though some light of clarity is shining where Aramis has been lost in fog. He cannot truly see his way, but he feels once more the certainty of his faith, that it is God who is laying the path before him.It fills him with a lightness, to believe that what he is now might be a gift from his saviour and not an awful mark of sin laid on him by a demon.“It is in need of…a little attention,” Athos says with a curl to his lip, though his voice is stoic. The building’s thatched roof is rotted and old, and the walls are crumbling in places, but it looks fairly sound.“Lovely,” Aramis smiles, “Privacy for me to rave, room for d’Artagnan to run around on all-fours savaging small woodland creatures.”He feels Athos draw himself in, and Porthos holding himself very still, but d’Artagnan shoves his shoulder playfully against his. “Ow!” Aramis says, rubbing where he is sure a bruise is beginning to form even now, “Remember you’re a lot stronger now.”“I am,” d’Artagnan says, “So you can rave in privacy and I’ll take care of you.”“Just don’t make a mess on the rugs,” Aramis says. “Are there rugs, Athos? Either way, d’Artagnan, do try not to shed.”D’Artagnan bares his teeth and Aramis feels the laughter bubbling up his own throat before he even realises, and it feels like cool water after a great thirst.It’s easy to do, really, and he knows that d’Artagnan is grateful for it. Because it is something that Aramis alone can do for him right now, and in doing so he can lead the way for Porthos and Athos too. And maybe even Constance.He looks at where the woman stands, looking up at the lodge, worrying her lip between her teeth. She had insisted on coming with them here, making baskets of food, bedding and pots and pans and candles, a hundred other essentials, packed in the little cart alongside a crate of suspiciously good wine from Athos and enough powder and shot to sustain a battalion in the field for a month from Porthos.“What in God’s name are you expecting us to be doing?!” Aramis had asked, aghast.Porthos had just shrugged darkly, “Knowin’ you two you’ll find some kind of trouble.”“True,” Aramis allows. “And when we do I promise to set the whole thing alight at once so you can see it from Paris and come running.”“I will and all.”“You will.”And now, outside the little lodge Athos comes to stand beside Aramis, and hands the heavy key over to him. They watch as d’Artagnan sticks his head inside, looks around and disappears to explore.“I’d say take care of the place but you can burn it down for all I care,” Athos says, and then his eyes narrow and he adds “As long as neither of you are in it at the time.”“Stables around the back,” Athos calls to Porthos, who is unhitching Aramis and d’Artagnan’s horses from the back of the cart.“Athos,” Aramis says, turning to the other man. “If…if anything happens…” he puts the weight on the word, pushing it to shape it into something heavy and meaningful, “You will send for us?”Athos raises an eyebrow. “Aramis, if anything happens I imagine you will know of it before anyone else here.”“Yes I suppose I will,” Aramis says after a while, “Herald of the uncanny, as I find myself. John The Baptist of the Occult.”“And to think, you wanted to be a monk.”“I did,” Aramis sighs. “I did.”“Well. I should inform you that the Comte de la Fere has taken the liberty of writing to some of the more, shall we say, specialist book sellers and collectors in France. And Germany. And England,” Athos says, “How is your German and English?”“Ah…tolerable?” Aramis offers.“Best brush up, then. Ecclesiastical Latin?”“Oh, very good, surprisingly.”“Not remotely surprising,” Athos smiles, “Look out for some rather large deliveries in the coming weeks, then. If it is indeed true that we can expect, more…encounters, like this and…well. Perhaps our John The Baptist of the Occult can help us know how best to meet them.”“I think I can do that,” Aramis says. “I think I’d’ like to try.”They are joined then by Porthos once more, returning from settling the horses. “They’ll need some hay,” he says, quirking his thumb over his shoulder. “But there’s a little paddock ‘round the corner, fences look sound.”“Ah Porthos, we shall make a farmer of you yet,” Athos smiles, clapping the other man on the back. He gives Aramis a long look, and then reaches out to fold him into his arms.“Don’t let yourself need stitching,” Aramis says into Athos’s doublet, “I shall become very jealous if anyone else lays a needle to you.”“My skin is your cambric alone to embroider, ” Athos says, pulling away, “I will take good care of it in your absence.”He smiles then, and walks over to where d’Artagnan stands, having made his rounds of the lodge’s interior. Aramis watches them speak, though he cannot hear their words. Athos puts out a hand and lays it carefully on the crook of the boy’s neck, where his wound from Garnier lies pink and shiny with scars. Athos gives him time to move away, but D’Artagnan visibly stills himself, allows himself to be touched.Porthos and Aramis stand for a while, looking at the lodge. The big man shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot.“I don’t like this,” he says, after a while. “Who’s going to look after you?”“Porthos,” Aramis smiles, soothing, “D’Artagnan and I will look after each other. I think we are the only ones who can be the voice of reason for each other right now.”Porthos nods. Jaw tight.“I just don’t know why you have to do it so far away.”“It won’t be for long, friend,” Aramis soothes, “And you can always visit.”“But I hate the countryside!” Porthos cries. He looks suspiciously at the rolling wooded hills around him. “You know that. All this open space. It’s not natural.”Aramis just smiles. They watch as Athos shares a final word with d’Artagnan before walking back to the cart and climbing up carefully, mindful of his healing side.“Paris won’t be the same without you,” Porthos says.“I should hope not.”“Quieter,” offers Porthos.“Less interesting.”“Much less.” And then, gruffly, “So. Goodbye then, I suppose.”“Goodbye, brother.”“I’m…I’m sorry, yeah?” Porthos offers, voice suddenly filled with a desperate kind of earnestness. “I’m sorry that I was so…”“It’s alright,” Aramis says quietly, “I know. It’s alright. Just…promise me something, Porthos?” He feels his mind drifting slightly but it’s pleasant right now, feels much less frightening and more akin to the moments before falling asleep. He reaches out a hand and takes Porthos’ right hand in his. He curls the fingers into fists. “Less of this,” he says. And then he lays his other hand on Porthos’ chest, over his heart. “More of this.”Porthos sniffs, shifts from foot to foot, squints at the treeline.“I’ve never met a man with more love to give than you,” Aramis says, around the hard lump in his throat. He concentrates on it, lets it pull him back into focus. And then, because he knows this moment needs a hook with which to pull it somewhere lighter, somewhere the sun can shine on it, “The good women of Paris have been lonely too long, after all.”Porthos exhales something like a laugh. Then he pulls Aramis into a hug, a bit too tight. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll do my best.”Then Porthos lets him go with a little push, and walks to join Athos on the cart, his neck held very straight and the muscles of his back rigid.Aramis realises he is standing with Constance and d’Artagnan and makes to walk into the lodge and give them some privacy, but d’Artagnan draws a breath and says “Aramis? I think Constance would feel more comfortable if you stayed.”The boy’s voice is very calm. Constance draws in a little breath, her eyes wide, but she nods at Aramis, at d’Artagnan. The gratitude is evident on her face.So Aramis just nods back, and takes a step or two away.“I hope you can forgive me one day,” d’Artagnan says to her, and Constance makes a small noise as if to say don’t be silly but they all know it’s very true.“I want you to be…be well,” she says, voice earnest. She lays a hand against his chest. They are standing very close, but when d’Artagnan moves to kiss her something seems to slip in her and she draws in a breath and turns her face.“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Constance says. Aramis can see she is crying now.D’Artagnan closes his eyes for a moment, a look of obvious pain on his face, but when he opens them once more he is resolved, and steady.“It’s alright,” he says. “I know things can’t be the same. But I will never hurt you again. And I’ll wait, for as long as you need. Or until you tell me to stop.”Constance takes d’Artagnan’s hand in hers, raises it to her mouth and places a small kiss on his knuckles. Something twists sharp in Aramis’ breast to witness it, such a small act, such a loving thing.“Please take care,” she says, and she turns to Aramis now too, “Both of you. Or I’ll be very angry.”D’Artagnan stands there long after the cart has disappeared around a wooded bend on the road back to Paris. He stands, looking at his hand where Constance kissed it, something holy in his face.Aramis sits with his back against the warm stone walls, feeling the pleasant buzz of tiredness. The quiet of the forest feels good, like something soothing and cool against a burn. His mind is quiet.After a while, when the sun is truly setting and the trees are felted together with dark shadows until they are one great mass, he thinks he sees movement. Eyes blink back at him from the dark, creatures moving slowly about the lodge in the gloom.D’Artagnan holds himself rigid. Then he flicks his chin up quickly, and the blinking eyes turn and disappear until the shadows are just shadows once more.“Think they’ll be frequent visitors?” Aramis asks carefully.“They’re…curious,” d’Artagnan replies, simply, “But they won’t hurt us. They wouldn’t dare.””Oh good,” Aramis breathes. “I never liked wolves, you know. Sorry.”D’Artagnan huffs a laugh in response. “Worse things out there,” he says.“Aren’t there just.”“I won’t let anything hurt you,” d’Artagnan says, after the silence has eased out between them once more, and the setting sun is a bright twist of orange on the horizon. His voice is very strained, as though he is trying hard not to snap his teeth, “I won’t let the demon take you.”Take him. Take his body, walk around in it like a new set of clothes, all shiny but screaming on the insides. Take his soul, which Aramis has always suspected to be a battlefield of sorts, and never more so than now.Take his mind, which is already sifting like flour through a sieve.He heaves a breath, stills the quiver of fear.Because the thing is, it did take him. It took him and broke him into a million pieces and he has been trying so hard to reassemble them, to build himself back into a man. And some of the bits are broken and some are lost, and some are changed so utterly they will never go back the way they were. But Aramis is trying, and he is this man now, and he feels very suddenly resolved that he will not throw his God-given life away on fear.And he believes d’Artagnan.Aramis can’t even make out the boy anymore in the lowering light: he is just a dark shape, standing so still in front of the house, back to him. “You shed your blood for me,” d’Artagnan says, simply, “You and Athos and Porthos. If you’re not my pack then no one is.”“A pack,” Aramis says, musing. “I suppose it’s as good a word as any.”And the sun sets, and the dark gathers, and Aramis finds that he is becoming a little more able to face it.
END