Chapter Text
o0O0o
Strike.
Strike.
Strike.
“Damn.”
“Aramis?”
Pivoting on his knees, Aramis scrubbed at the water dripping down over his eyes. He blinked up at Athos, sighing his exhaustion. “The spark won’t catch,” he explained, flexing against the cool stiffness in his fingers in preparation to try again. The flint and firesteel slithered in his grip. The char cloth poised below, mocking and belligerently unresponsive.
“It’s no wonder,” mumbled Porthos, shaking his own wet head so that droplets of water danced off of it, peppering the smooth cabin walls. Outside, a rumble of thunder tumbled across the sky, loud enough and near enough that Aramis felt the sensation of changing pressure between his ears.
Sniffing deeply, he ignored it.
Strike. Strike. Strike.
Strike-strike-strike.
“Here,” said Athos, kneeling to add an extra bundle of kindling to the mix. A dry bundle he’d collected and wrapped in his pack as soon as he’d seen the dark clouds rolling towards them over the plain.
“Always thinking ahead,” shivered Aramis, sitting back on his heels in front of the tiny hearth so that Athos could lean past him. “In case you were wondering, that’s what I love about you.”
“Because you do it so little?” Athos questioned dryly, glancing at Aramis from the corner of his eye.
“Ha,” Aramis huffed, breathing out his nose, but he smiled, letting his mouth widen despite the numbness of his lips and cheeks. His reward came as he hoped when Athos smiled back—a gentle twitch in the corner of his mouth that complemented the subtle warmth in his eyes. “My dear Athos,” Aramis said, feigning offense. “I thought you loved my plans?”
“He does,” interjected Porthos, slinging his soaked doublet with Athos’s over the cabin’s one rickety table before coming to kneel with them. “Just not the suicidal, impulsive ones.”
“Touché,” said Aramis.
o0O0o
It was probably more exhaustion than cold that caused it, but the end result was the same. Porthos couldn’t get his boots off. Even with the fire finally crackling merrily below the continued rumblings of the sky—and the tiny cabin feeling less like an icehouse—his digits were slow to cooperate. His feet and fingers belonged to another body. No longer subject to his commands.
“I’ve got them,” said Aramis, going to his knees in his shirtsleeves to tug at first one boot, then the other. His quick work exposing Porthos’s toes to the slow warmth trying to swath the room. With odd precision, Aramis then set the boots upright against each other, and shivered. His limbs racked in a tremble that visibly quaked through him as he started to rise.
Porthos set a hand to his shoulder, keeping him to his knees. “Your turn,” he said. “Bend your head.”
Breathing out, Aramis complied, lowering his chin so that he knelt before Porthos in a bow, more humble than he would be even before their king. Without preamble, Porthos tangled his grip into the saturated collar and pulled, yanking against the suction that wanted to keep the shirt to Aramis’s body, until finally it peeled loose.
When he finished grappling it over Aramis’s head, Aramis looked up again, but stayed where he was, a sudden docile expression on his face. As if, all at once, the remainder of his strength had fled him.
Porthos exchanged a quick glance with Athos, then curled forward. “Hey, now,” he said, touching Aramis’s shoulder. “You still with me?”
Wanly, Aramis smiled, but even that brightness was dulled. “Just tired.”
“Gentlemen,” said Athos, lifting a blanket from the pile in front of the fire and dropping it over Aramis’s shoulders. “To bed, I think, before the cold makes us forget why we’ve ceased to be warm.” He twined his fingers temporarily into Aramis’s wild hair, rubbing the pad of his thumb across his temple. “You, go,” he ordered.
Nodding obediently, Aramis crawled over to the pallet, pausing to unlace his braies and fumblingly shuck them before collapsing in front of the fire. A confused twist graced his features once he was down, and he scrubbed his hand clumsily through his hair, frowning as though he was, as Athos had predicted, already forgetting how he’d come to be there. Or was simply too exhausted for any semblance of continued stoicism.
“Now you,” said Athos softly, nudging his hand up Porthos’s neck with an assessing look in his eyes. His palm was cold with the just the barest hint of warmth.
“Now me,” repeated Porthos, suddenly feeling the heavy lag in his own muscles.
“Can you make it?”
Dimly, Porthos nodded, but accepted the help when Athos gripped his slick wrist and pulled his arm across his shoulders. “Fire’s going,” Athos mumbled as he moved them. “We’ll be warm enough soon.”
“Warm,” agreed Porthos, using the last of his strength to shed his trousers before rolling in towards Aramis. Athos was at his elbow mere moments later, tugging the mass of blankets over all of them.
A dedicated flurry of rain beat loudly against the roof, broken intermittently by the wild din of thunder.
Wrapping an arm around Aramis’s shivering back, Porthos tugged him closer until Aramis’s forehead was pressed flush to his collarbone. Shifting around, Athos rolled with him, nose pressing into Porthos's neck.
The sound and nearness of steady breathing lulled Porthos’s twitching muscles into a loosening sprawl. The fire crackled. “Warm,” he murmured again, sighing into Aramis’s drying hair.
“Yes,” mumbled Athos. “Warm. Now sleep.”
Smiling softly, Porthos closed his eyes.
o0O0o
“Athos!”
“Athos!”
“Athos!”
The echo was visceral. Athos stared across the plain at Porthos and Aramis, downed from their horses and held helpless against the approaching enemy. He reached for his sword, ready to take to their defense but his fingers wouldn’t work. He gasped as his grip ached and growled, refusing his commands.
Ahead, a faceless horseman was bearing down on his brothers, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. Athos opened his mouth to shout a warning just as Aramis struggled up to his knees and took a musket ball to the chest.
“No!” Athos shouted, surprising himself with the hollow strength of his voice. No.
“Aramis!” yelled Porthos, dragging himself to Aramis’s side and then lifting his face to the sky. “Athos!” he yelled. “Athos, help me!”
Aramis.
God.
Not Aramis.
“Athos!” Porthos yelled again. “Athos, please!”
Athos pushed forward, but his legs refused him also, cramping and tangling until he felt like he was trying to balance on water. He glanced down his body, trying to figure out what was wrong, then jerked his head up when he heard another cry of pain.
Porthos.
Porthos with a sword in his back, slumping over Aramis’s wasted body.
No.
No no no.
Porthos.
“Athos, please.”
“No.”
Finger pads dug into his shoulder, pressing in with the barest edge of blunt fingernails. “Athos, wake up. Athos?” The hands shook him. "Wake up."
Aramis?
“There you are,” breathed Aramis, kneeling in the pallet of blankets and frowning down at him, the flickering firelight playing across his dark eyes. “Are you awake? Are you all right?”
Blinking, Athos rose up on his elbows, staring around the space numbly as reality and nightmare worked to separate themselves.
A dream.
It’d been a dream.
Shakily, he pinched the bridge of his nose, digging into his eye sockets.
“Athos, look at me.” Removing his hand, Aramis pressed his palms to either side of his face and braced him, angling his head until their eyes met and held. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Athos said hoarsely, absently. He darted his eyes down his friend’s body, but found no bullet wounds. He breathed a slow exhale, then tried his answer again, circling a hand around Aramis’s wrist and squeezing reassuringly. “Yes.”
“Bad dream?”
“Yes,” he repeated, then squeezed the wrist tighter. “Just a dream.”
Somewhere above them, thunder rumbled. It sounded farther away than before, the steady drumming of rain on the roof becoming dulled and sporadic.
“You’re still cold,” Aramis determined, releasing his face and sliding his fingertips down his arm. “I’ll put more wood on the fire now it isn't quite so damp. He pivoted on his knees, but hesitated. “All right?” he checked again.
This time Athos didn’t answer. Not directly. He’d already answered yes one too many times and Aramis wasn’t anymore likely to believe it now, even if he heard the word again. Clearing his throat, Athos shaped his voice into a steadier tone. “Put the wood on the fire, then come lie down. Please?”
Aramis lingered then sighed and turned away. As he did, Athos dropped his head back to the blankets, rolling his face to the side to find Porthos’s eyes were open and watching him. “Bad one?” Porthos asked softly.
“Think I’m still just a bit cold,” Athos denied, releasing a shaky breath. In reality, he needed a drink, he thought.
“I’m not,” said Porthos, sitting up and setting a hand to his bicep. “Trade places with me? Put you closer to the fire?”
Athos sniffed, pausing. But, just as Aramis seemed to chill too easily, Porthos was nearly always warm. “All right,” he agreed, and they manhandled and negotiated until they’d switched places.
“Aramis, what are you doing?” Athos queried, finding him not by the fire but near the packs.
“Calvados,” said Aramis, handing him the bottle before folding himself back into the blankets. Aramis was shivering again, but Athos accepted the bottle and smiled lightly. He’d thought they were out of everything but the watered wine.
Under the layers, Aramis angled his face towards the flames while Athos pressed his free hand to Aramis's scalp, scrubbing softly. “Thinking ahead?” he muttered, echoing the evening’s earlier conversation.
“I strive ever to be more like you,” answered Aramis cheekily.
Porthos laughed.
The burn of the first swallow was sweet and fiery, the strength that settled in his gut nearly enough to drive out the last flashes of Aramis and Porthos’s lifeless corpses. Eventually passing the bottle off to Porthos, he twined his fingers through the chain of his locket and closed his eyes as the alcohol settled him.
Someday he'll have to stop doing this, he thought.
Through another distant rumble of thunder, he felt Aramis and Porthos exchanging a look over his head before Porthos tugged him down again. “You want to tell us what the dream was about, or is it the same one as you can’t talk about yet?” he asked.
Like the metal had abruptly grown hot, Athos shed the locket chain from his fingers and breathed, staring up at the ceiling. “You were dead,” he murmured, dully and oddly direct. “Both of you.”
“I’ve had that dream,” rumbled Porthos low voice, tightening his warm hand over Athos’s ribs. “But we’re not, you know. We're here. It was the cold talking.” He was near enough that Athos could feel his heartbeat against his shoulder. He let the sensation carry him for a long stretch, then nodded.
“Of course,” he said. "Of course you are."
“Sleep then,” mumbled Aramis, tucking himself a little closer, bringing more of the blankets with him. “Do you think you can?”
Almost smiling, Athos rolled, working an arm across Aramis’s chest so that he could feel the expanse of his ribcage moving steadily beneath his muscles. Simple, warm points of contact.
“I can,” he answered. “Go to sleep.”
o0O0o
Fin
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