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“I’m fine,” he mutters, shaking Porthos’ hand off his shoulder. “I know the way to my apartments.”
“And you’ll not get there.” Porthos says firmly, ignoring Athos’ protest and shoving his back. The world spins for a moment, and he has to stand stock still in the middle of the street until he can walk without feeling like he is on-board ship. “Come on.”
Athos allows himself to be lugged away from the inn like a sack of potatoes. He tries to formulate an insult – something pithy, that’ll prove to Porthos that he isn’t as drunk as the man thinks – but his brain refuses to cooperate.
Porthos’ arm is warm around his shoulders, bridging the gap between comfortable and too hot. His limbs are unwieldy though; there’s no point in trying to push him away.
It has been, after all, a very long day, and one that Athos wishes could be forgotten as easily as his charges were.
Porthos clears his throat with a chuckle, and Athos realises they have arrived at his apartments.
“I can walk,” he says with regrettable sharpness, when he sees Porthos eyeing up the stairs. “I can make my way from here.”
“I –”
“I can walk.”
(But really, he can’t abide the pity in Porthos’ eyes, even if his friend is skilled at hiding it behind terrible jokes and brotherly slaps on the back. Porthos pushes: Athos does not want to be pushed.)
“Alright,” Porthos heaves out a sigh. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Athos watches him walk down the street, too broad and too brash to be a target for cut-purses or cut-throats.
He groans low in his throat and turns to face his door. He misjudges the angle and crashes into the doorframe. Ah. That will leave a mark. Something brushes against his ankles and makes him curse and fumble for his revolver, but whatever it was makes no move towards him.
It takes Athos a long time to make it up the stairs, his head spinning and vaguely nauseous. His landlord is unsympathetic to those who vomit in communal areas.
There is more wine in his room though, so he manages to make it up there.
He lights the first candle that he comes across and navigates his way mostly through touch to the stores of wine under the bed. Athos collapses onto his bed and uncorks it.
It takes his befuddled mind a few moments to realise he isn’t alone in the room.
A ginger cat is sitting on the table next to the window, swishing its tail as it watches him. He supposes that explains that presence at his legs when he tried to climb the stairs – and he is glad that he couldn’t pick out anything in the dark. He is not yet so wretched that he’s been condemned to shooting animals.
“I have nothing to feed you,” he tells it, resting his forearms on his knees. “Unless you would drink wine.”
It is his imagination – or perhaps the alcohol – that makes him think the answering meow is a disgruntled negative.
Athos knows he should let the animal out – it probably has fleas, and will shed all over his room, and make more of a mess than Porthos does on nights when he’s too drunk to get back to his own lodgings – but that requires moving from the bed, and that is currently more effort than Athos can bear to waste.
“I almost died today.” Has he sunk so low, that he is talking to a cat?
And yet – it has been playing about his mind all day. It has been five years of existing in a way that beckoned death, but when it came down to it… He cannot help but feel that he is now living on borrowed time, or worse, that he is dreaming and will wake to face the firing squad again with manacles on his wrists.
Athos squints in the dim light. Yes, there are marks. Bruises and scrapes, like the ones he picks up normally – like the one he can feel growing, just above his eye – but these feel… different. They are not ones he will forget easily, that is sure.
There is a meow about his ankles.
The cat rears up on its back legs and rests its paws on his knee, butting his arm until he moves it, and then hops up onto his lap.
“I almost died,” he says again, resting a hand on the cat’s skull and fully expecting to feel claws pierce through the leather of his cuffs. Instead, the cat presses into his touch. “They were going to shoot me.”
And that is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? His heart beats at his chest in an irregular pattern when he even considers the morning: how cold he was, the click of the guns, the –
There is a sudden sharp pain in his hand, and he looks down to see the cat detract its claws with an air of innocence.
“My apologies, monsieur.”
He has officially gone mad. He is talking to a cat.
Said cat rolls on his lap, sprawling on its back and presenting its stomach for rubbing. And Athos obliges, because it’s something to do that will occupy his hands.
“Ah,” he says, when his hands find small nubs under the fur. “My apologies, madame.”
The only woman-creature who has entered his apartments, save Madame Bonacieux when she suspects (rightly) that he has consumed nothing but wine in three days. She doesn’t bring food, just chastisements, but Athos humours her. She is much like Aramis, in that regard. Only Aramis brings food.
The cat’s rumbling purr is soothing and sleep-inducing, particularly for a man both inebriated and sleep deprived. Athos finds he has no more appetite for his wine.
“I must disturb you, I am afraid,” he informs the cat, testing the waters and shifting his legs. It seems mostly unperturbed to be put aside, rolling around instead on his bed. Athos tugs at the leather of his jacket and discards it on the floor, pressing the heel of one boot to the back of the other and kicking them off.
The wine he treats with more care, re-corking the bottle and standing it upright next to his bedpost.
The cat barely blinks when he collapses on the bed next to it, and he is asleep before he even realises.
When Athos wakes in the morning, his head pounding and his mouth dry, the cat is nowhere to be seen.
---
They are drunk off life and exhilaration when they stumble through Athos’ door. All of them are bruised and battered, but none are dead.
No one is dead, save Vadim, and Athos cannot bring himself to be broken up about it.
Nobody threatens his men and lives.
“Catch,” Aramis calls to d’Artagnan, following it up almost immediately with a bottle of wine that narrowly misses his head. Athos gives the man a warning look. Friend or no, alcohol is not to be thrown. It would have been a waste if d’Artagnan had missed it – and the boy’s only just stopped shaking, so he might well have done.
Athos goes to sit down and stops halfway, stifling a noise of pain as he does so. It leaves him stuck in an awkward crouch, but it’s a position that doesn’t hurt, so he’s passed caring what he looks like.
There is a fumbling at his shirt back. “Your back is as blue as your cloak, do you know that?” Aramis asks in a conversational tone. “I suppose that’s what you get when you try to catch a wall with your body.”
Porthos chuckles as the window creaks open. “Pretty sure we’re all that bad. Been one of those days.”
“I’m –”
“Apologise again and you’re buying all the drinks the next time we go out,” Athos says curtly, letting Aramis gently manhandle him into a seated position. “Drink your wine, boy.”
“Indeed,” Porthos drags his bucket inside. “It’s the last time Athos will give you wine. Treasure it.”
He gives Porthos a withering look and uncorks his own bottle. D’Artagnan looks from man to man uncertainly, before doing the same.
The bucket crashes against the wall with a shout of surprise, and all hands jump to their pistols.
“S’alright, s’alright!” Porthos says hurriedly. “I was just – surprised, s’all. There’s a – Athos, when did you get a cat?”
The man behind Athos sits up with an exclamation of delight. “You got a cat?”
“It’s not my cat,” Athos breaks in before things can get out of hand. “She just lives around here. And clearly I don’t shut my door fast enough.”
Porthos dumps the bucket of water in the centre of the three sitting and raises an eyebrow. “Hands up who needs bandages.”
“I don’t have any,” Athos mutters, as Aramis raises both his hand and Athos’. “Get off, I’m –”
“Drink your wine, boy,” the man holding his wrist mimics. D'Artagnan, who’s been sitting quietly in the corner with his bottle of wine, bursts out into loud peals of laughter. Either the boy can’t hold his liquor or his drunkenness is compounded by the trauma of recent days.
Probably both. But if d’Artagnan wants to make it as a musketeer, he must learn to hold his alcohol better.
The cat ignores Aramis, who is making noises at her, and heads straight for Athos’ lap, where she curls up as though she is queen and he is her throne. He can’t think why she likes him, or why she comes back. He never feeds her. He scarcely remembers to feed himself, most days.
“Maybe I should get you some fish, the next time I’m at the market,” he murmurs to her, trying not to flinch as one of his friends tends to his back. “d’Artagnan, come here. Let me see your head.”
“Wine and aid?” Aramis – who is the one attending to his back, if the breathing on his neck is anything to go by – exclaims. “He must like you.”
Athos sighs and gestures again to the boy, who stumbles over to him gracelessly.
He may not have bandages, but he has an old shirt that does well enough, and they bandage each other up, and drink, and talk. The cat seems to have caught everyone’s interest, and he’s not sure why – do they think he’s that heartless? He supposes they have had little evidence to the contrary.
“Athos, my dour faced friend,” Aramis flutters cold fingers against his cheek. “Do you have another shirt? I don’t need to rip it up, just get it wet. To slow down the bruising.”
“Feels too late for that.”
They drink into the night, a silent agreement passing between them that no one is leaving. It’s a need for company, or it’s the unwillingness to go outside when everyone is warm and comfortable, Athos doesn’t know which.
But he is pleased to have them all here, pleased to remind himself that no one is dead. That, whilst his decisions almost killed d'Artagnan, they didn’t; that the bomb Aramis threw himself on was a dud, that both him and Porthos survived the explosion, and none of the prisoners that set themselves on him had landed a lucky shot.
He can sleep on the floor for one night, in favour of that. It doesn’t look like he’s getting his bed back from Porthos, anyhow.
“Why did we come here?” Porthos grumbles, sprawled out on said bed. “There isn’t nearly enough room on your bed for us all.”
“There isn’t,” Athos nods over the mouth of his wine bottle. In the corner of his room, Aramis has made a nest out of their discarded cloaks and a pillow of d’Artagnan’s jacket, and he hums something that might be an agreement with Porthos. “I believe you chose my rooms because they were the closest to the inn, and you declared a wish to ‘drink yourself into oblivion.’”
“Aramis has the largest bed. Should have gone there.” Porthos is out of wine, Athos notes. If he was a good host, he’d get up to find him some more, but he is not, and Porthos is hardly a guest. If he wants more wine, he can shift his arse and do it himself.
Plus, there is the warm weight of the cat sprawled across his lap, demanding head scratchings every time his fingers stop moving for a second.
“Well,” d’Artagnan says, from where he’s sprawled on the floor, his face inches from the cat. “Aramis’ rooms don’t have a cat. So I much prefer these ones.”
Porthos’ eyes meet Athos’ when he looks up. “Farm boy,” his friend mouths with a grin. “Got any more wine, Athos?”
---
“I will not be good company tonight, amie,” he grunts as he pulls his wardrobe across the front of his door. It’s a stupid risk, that’s for sure – he might set his room on fire, or one of his friends might desperately need him – but right now, Athos doesn’t care.
He can still smell his manor burning around him.
He doesn’t light a candle.
His cat makes a questioning meow, and he hopes she can see in the dark. To kill the only thing that gives a damn about him would be a sad state of affairs, particularly if he stands on her.
His imagination, heightened by terror and guilt, offers up the sound of his cat’s back breaking, snapped by his sturdy musketeer boots, and Athos freezes.
“Amie?” It is not a name – he does not dare name her, for fear that somehow that will be the last he sees of her, and something else will be gone – but it is a placeholder. She is, after all, his friend. And Athos doesn’t have that many friends.
Or any at all, his treacherous mind whispers. You lie too heavily upon them: your presence is unwelcome.
“What’s the matter with you?” Aramis had growled, his hands fisted in Athos’ shirt.
“I paid him back,” he tells himself, or the cat. He no longer really thinks of a difference between it; the cat is an excuse to speak when he is bereft of human company, and she makes him feel less like he’s losing his final grip on sanity. “I figured it out. He didn’t die.”
To his relief, the cat meows in something that might be agreement.
Wine – where’s his wine – where’s his bed, because his wine is under his bed.
There is a nudging at his ankles. It’s as if she knows where he is heading. Together, they get to the bed, with no loss of life or limb.
Athos presses himself into the corner of his room, stockinged feet curling against his blankets. He will not sleep tonight, he knows it. He will keep guard, against the door or against his mind, and wine is his weapon either way. He barely tastes it as he drinks.
He has scars on his hands, from one of their first missions.
Scars on his hands from Porthos’ teeth as he tried to hold him down, and “Don’t you care about Porthos?” Aramis had shouted.
Yes, yes he does.
Poitiers, he thinks it was. He doesn’t remember; everywhere blurs into one after a while.
His cat butts at his legs, pressed up against his chest, when he remains silent and still. She knows him too well. She still likes him, though, he can say with relative certainty. Or she relies on him – he is not sure there is a difference, anymore. He feeds her, he pets her, he rescues her when Aramis teases her with the feathers in his hat.
Do they – do they not know? He doesn’t tell them, he supposes.
He is almost out of wine.
He should have it brought from the manor, if the cellars escaped. He doubts it, somehow. She is nothing but thorough.
Athos shifts, and his clothes still smell of smoke. The left side of his face stings. It’s hot to the touch, and it will perhaps scar. He hopes it does, hopes it makes people recoil to look at him.
It is the wine talking, he knows that.
“Don’t they know?” he whispers to his cat, who’s settled on his feet. “I would lay down my life for them.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
It would have been his fault, if Porthos had died. Not the man who stabbed him, nor – nor her, for making him freeze, making him want to hurry on to reach Paris, but his. And Porthos didn’t die, but it still would have been his fault.
They don’t know, he doesn’t tell them, and who can blame them for… for…
There is a knock at the door, and all the breath leaves Athos’ lungs immediately.
“Athos? Athos, it’s me – d’Artagnan. I’m – I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
He holds his breath. The door handle rattles, thudding against the wardrobe, and he hears d’Artagnan make a confused noise, before he figures it out.
“I won’t stay for long.” There is the sliding of a back against the door. “Maybe an hour. I’m just – going to stay out here. Need the air, y’know?”
His cat decides enough is enough, and claws her way up Athos’ legs to sit on his knees. The pain is dulled by the wine, luckily. She meows at him demandingly until he strokes a hand down her back.
“Your cat’s back!” Gascon farm boys have sharp ears, it would seem. “That’s good. I’ve been thinking. Have you named it yet?”
He shakes his head. D’Artagnan takes his silence for a no.
“You could – you could name it… after your brother?” He grows more uncertain as the sentence continues. “I just – as a memorial. In memoriam. I’m not. Sure.”
“She’s female,” Athos says, scarcely louder than the volume he’s been speaking at for most of the night, and relying on d’Artagnan’s farm boy ears to pick it up.
“Then – twist it?” He seems encouraged by the fact that Athos hasn’t dismissed it out of hand. “Thomas…ina? There was a girl in the village, called that. A fine name for a cat.”
D’Artagnan keeps talking, every so often, just to – to what? Remind Athos that he’s there? Athos knows he’s there. Athos knows he’ll probably leave soon. And he’s not sure why d’Artagnan is here, or why he’s staying. Athos is hardly fine company when sober, but certainly not drunk and hiding behind a wardrobe.
He must fall asleep at some point, because he’s woken by the cat clawing at his knees impatiently.
He blinks at her. She hisses.
“Oh – you –” the sun streaming in through the broken shutters hurts. He doesn’t want to pull in the water yet. He doesn’t want to open those windows because that will hurt even more.
So he opts for the safer option, shoving at the wardrobe with as much strength as he can muster until it is out the way of the door, and he opens it for the cat, who’s getting more and more insistent. She doesn’t normally stay the night, after all.
The cat bounds over the insensible bodies of his comrades in her hurry to leave. Athos stares at the three men at his feet in semi-drunk confusion.
Porthos appears the most awake, rubbing at his shoulder ruefully. “Let us in?” he asks. “Sleeping on the stairs isn’t fun.”
---
“Easy,” Athos grunts. “There’s a step there – lift your leg up, Aramis. Up, I said!”
His drunk friend stares helplessly at him, and Athos swears under his breath. The other side, Porthos chuckles and kicks at Aramis’ leg to see if it moves. Instead of doing anything useful, it buckles, nearly taking Athos with it.
“I’ll take the feet,” Porthos grins, grabbing Aramis’ legs and hoisting them up, until they’re carrying him up the stairs to Athos’ flat.
“Mind the cat,” he says, closing the door behind him. “I won’t be best pleased if you break her back.”
There is a yowl, all of a sudden, and Tom scatters away from the three of them, hissing like a kettle. “Oops,” his more sober friend says sheepishly. “At least it was only her tail?”
Athos glares at him and doesn’t deign to give a response.
They settle Aramis on Athos’ bed, giving him a new bottle of wine to console himself with. Athos hangs up his jacket and kicks off his boots, opening up the cupboard that doubles as his pantry and wine cellar to get some fish out for the cat nursing her tail in the corner of the room.
“Hello,” he says, kneeling down and offering Tom his hand to sniff. “I’m sorry about him, he’s a brute.”
Porthos is laughing.
“Yes?”
“You being a cat person makes sense,” he shrugs, pulling off his boots and letting them stand by the chair he’s sitting on. Porthos fills the room with an ease that Athos envies; he’s fine enough in his role as a captain, but that is something he knows. Porthos is confident everywhere.
He’s not nearly drunk enough for thoughts like that, so he buries his fingers in the scruff of Tom’s neck and makes her purr.
“Cat,” Aramis says suddenly, and they both turn to look at him. He seems wrong-footed by the sudden attention and bursts into a spiel of Spanish that neither can understand.
“Of all the languages,” Athos stands up. “He picks Spanish to be his drunk language. Of course.”
Tom meows and picks her way delicately across Athos’ room, skirting around Porthos and his boots with another angry hiss.
“Worrying,” Porthos says as Tom clambers up Aramis’ legs to settle on his lap. “He’s at that stage where he either wants to eat or fuck everything.”
“I’m not sure which would be more disturbing.”
Aramis croons to the cat in Spanish. Tom seems happy for the new attention, and Athos most definitely is not jealous. He straightens up and picks two bottles of wine (one for him, one for Porthos, as they are both on Aramis watching duty), before settling down on the bed – a gap between him and Aramis.
A gap that is quickly closed because, as Porthos says, a drunk Aramis wants to fuck or eat everything. “Stop laughing, you bastard,” Athos says through gritted teeth, trapped against the wall by Aramis’ legs, which have suddenly ended up in his lap.
Aramis mutters something and cuddles into Athos.
“Porthos! Help!”
But Porthos just laughs harder, safe across the room.
“When I get free, I’m going to kill you.”
“Sure,” Porthos props his legs up on Athos’ dresser and drinks from his bottle of wine deeply. “You look quite comfortable there, anyhow. Is it warm?”
Yes, but Athos settles for another glare instead, reaching out a hand to pet Tom. The cat looks in her element, being stroked by two different people and away from Porthos (who, to Athos’ eternal amusement, she does not like normally, and especially when he has landed one of his heavy feet on her tail). Aramis’ hair is itching against his skin, though, so it isn’t perfectly comfortable.
His friend sits bolt upright, Athos almost falling into his lap in surprise at the sudden lack of dead weight on his shoulder. “I need –”
“Not in my bed! Porthos!”
They manhandle him into an upright position and to the window, so Aramis can piss on something that Athos doesn’t own. He requires assistance to stand up, but luckily not assistance to piss.
Athos would lay down his life for his friends, but he will not hold their cocks so they don’t piss on their boots. He has some limits.
“Easy now,” Porthos says, on the other side of Aramis. “You all done? Tuck yourself back in then.”
“I can – walk,” Aramis shoves them both away in drunken petulance. Athos closes the shutters and leans against it with his arms folded and an eyebrow raised.
“You’re just the same,” Porthos pats his shoulder. “Don’t you worry.”
“I’ve certainly never needed help to…” Lacking the words to explain – sometimes an aristocratic upbringing is a hindrance – he gestures at the shutter. “I –” He’s about to mount a defence of his inebriated self, when he catches sight of Aramis on the bed and laughs instead. “I think you might be staying here tonight, friend.”
“What?” Porthos turns to look as well, brow furrowed in confusion. “I – Aramis!”
With the logic that only the truly drunk possess, Aramis has made his way back to Athos’ bed, which in itself is frustrating, but not enough to cause a stir – Aramis has been through enough, these past few days, that he can’t begrudge him stealing his bed for a night. No, what is making Athos laugh – and Porthos curse colourfully – is the fact he has two things clutched tightly in his arms: Tom, and Porthos’ left boot.
Porthos groans and strides across to test the waters; but Aramis growls at him when he tries to take the boot away.
“And your feet are tiny,” he straightens up and crosses his arms. “The two of you will be the death of me.”
Athos glances down at his feet and curls his toes thoughtfully. They’re not that small, he doesn’t think. “Looks like we’re all staying here for the night then. More wine?” At his friend’s agreeing grunt, he crosses the room to get some.
There is a butting at his legs, and he looks down to see Tom winding herself affectionately around them. “How did you escape Aramis, amie?” he asks, getting another bottle of wine and some glasses out of the cupboard.
He places one in front of Porthos and pours a generous measure as his friend complains about Athos showing affection and how wrong it is.
Athos settles at the end of the bed – away from Aramis’ flailing feet – and lets Tom take up her place on his lap. He raises a glass to Porthos, who grins back.
FINIS.