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Athos' blood turned cold as he saw the young musketeer on the ground, unmoving and bleeding from a wound in shoulder. There were five men standing over D'Artagnan and their swords were aimed at his chest, ready to strike the final blow. In the darkness, Athos couldn't see who the men were or what they were wearing, so he couldn't even be sure if they were red guards or not. This angered him. He was out numbered, his young friend was unconscious and hurt, and it was dark so he was unsure of whom he was going to fight. Athos just hoped that he would have the element of surprise on his side otherwise he would not be able to get his young friend to safety.
Moving as quietly as he could at the time, he picked up a heavy rock and threw it on the opposite of where he stood, which gained the attention of the five men, who were now forgetting about an unconscious D'Artagnan on the floor. Athos hid, thankful for the shadows from the building's that were hiding him.
“What was that?”, came the deep voice of a man, whose eyes had gone wide in trying to take in his darkened surroundings.
“Probably nothing”, another man said, though Athos could tell he didn't believe his own words.
There was a loud sigh, “For goodness sakes”, came a stern and harsh voice, and from the tone he was using, Athos suspected he was the leader of the group. “You two, go and have a look at what it was.”
Athos pulled his hat down and hid further in the shadows of the building as he waited for the two men to walk a short distance away before following them, only using his dagger as the preferred weapon. Drawing his sword would be too noisy and would catch the attention of the other men, whereas his dagger was small enough to conceal and did not make any noise when drawing it from his sheath.
“It's nothing”, one of the men said, sounding relieved, “there's nothing here”
With both their backs turned away from him, Athos had the upper hand. Slowly creeping up to the man closest to him, he grabbed him around the waist and before the man could make a noise he slit his throat. Blood rushed out onto Athos' hand's before he let the man fall to the ground in a heap. Despite being a soldier, he never liked killing.
The other man turned around, his mouth agape in shock but before he could say or do anything, the musketeer moved forward and stabbed him in the chest. He died instantly which Athos was happy about. Better a man die a quick death rather than a slow and painful one.
Two down, three to go...Athos thought to himself almost nonchantly. He walked back over to where the other men were, all three of them too worried to focus on their victim. Hiding a small distance away Athos smirked to himself as he heard their leader speak.
“They should have been back by now”, he said angrily, “you need to check on them”. He pointed a stubby finger to one of the men, who complied almost instantly.
This was his chance to take down the man and even the odds even more. Once again, he waited until the man unintentionally distanced himself before following. This time Athos took extra care in staying hidden and as quiet as possible. The training lessons when he first started in the regiment played in the back of his mind; Treville had first told him that the two most important factors when taking the offensive in a surprise attack was being patient and being as quiet as possible. At the time he thought Treville to be overly cautious and annoying with the amount of training he put Athos through, but now he was incredibly thankful for the training. It certainly came in handy at the moment. Athos made a mental note to thank Treville for the training once he got his young friend out of danger.
The man finally reached his fallen friends. The shock was evident on his face and Athos nearly pitied him until he remembered that it was either they who died or D'Artagnan and he would choose his brother every time, even if it came to killing more men. “You”, the man said in shock before Athos put a hand over his mouth to prevent him from alerting the others. The man struggled furthermore and Athos sighed at what he was about to do. His dagger felt heavy as he stabbed the man in the chest, exactly where his heart was. Like his friend before him, he slumped to the ground and Athos felt guilt weighing heavily on his chest. It was one thing to kill a man in battle but this was borderline sadistic and cruel. Deciding he would dwell on this later and surely drink himself to an early grave, he continued on with trying to get his dear friend to safety.
Athos once again hid behind the building, relying on the darkness of the night to conceal him as he carefully watched the remaining two men. His eyes strained against the darkness but he saw them, and the way their attention was off of his unmoving friend. They didn't even look at him at all. Athos had never been the praying type, but he found himself praying for D'Artagnan's health.
“Something isn't right”, one of the men said with a slight tremble in his voice. Athos frowned, something was off with this man. He didn't sound as vengeful or even as confident as the others.
The other man, the leader, scoffed and Athos could make out the man flinching, “Thank you for that wonderful insight. You are by far the smartest man I have ever met”, his voice was dripping with sarcasm, angering Athos even more. A leader should be kind and equal to his group, not be vengeful and act superior.
“What are we going to do?”, the man asked, fidgeting with the hilt of his sword with nervousness.
The leader shrugged, “Don't know about you, but I'm leaving”, he remarked, his mannerism annoying Athos to the point where would not feel remorseful about killing him. This man was the clear leader of the group and yet he felt no duty to protect them. Had he no honor?
That disgusted Athos and the musketeer soon found himself making his presence known. “No, I don't think you will be leaving”, he said coolly, tipping his hat lower over his head.
The man stopped in his tracks and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Athos didn't wait to do the honorable thing and wait for the man to get his weapon, he just threw off his hat and lunged at the man, with his sword in his hand and the dagger in the other it made for an easy kill. His sword ripped through the mans side and his dagger ripped through his upper arm, emitting a disgruntled grunt from his opponent. Athos concluded that his dagger ripped through the artery and he would be dead within minutes.....maybe even seconds.
Good, the scum deserved it.
Turning to the other man, Athos felt a tinge of sympathy. He looked to be young, maybe even younger than D'Artagnan, which was far different from his companions who were at least middle aged...and much fatter. “You can leave, I'll let you go”.
Athos had many deaths on his conscience but he would not have a boys death on it.
“Monsieur”, the man -no,boy- began but Athos stopped him.
“You are far too young to be killed and far too young to be persuaded into being a sadistic fool like you're friends. I just hope you don't turn out like your companions. Go!”
“Monsieur”, the boy began calmly with admiration in his voice, “by killing this man you have done me a world of favors. I thank you and to repay you I vow to never be as those men were.”, with that he stalked off, leaving Athos with his unmoving friend.
Rushing over and kneeling down next to his friend, he saw that the wound on his shoulder was deep and would need stitching, but the wound itself wasn't like threatening. What was, however, was the blood loss. Ripping the bottom of D'Artagnan's white tunic, he bandaged the wound best as he could before he heaved him over his shoulder with a grunt. It concerned Athos how D'Artagnan didn't stir or wake up, but he decided to worry about that later.
It wasn't easy carrying his young friend back to his place. It wasn't that D'Artagnan was heavy or that Athos lacked the physical strength, it was just that D'Artagnan was dead weight. Nevertheless, he finally made it to his place, but not before bumping into a musketeer on patrol and ordering him to get Porthos, Aramis and Captain Treville. He would need their help of dealing with the mess he had made.
D'Artagnan looked pale and weak as Athos lay him down on the bed, the candles that illuminated the room didn't help with his his friend's pale complextion either. As it was, Athos gently took off D'Artagnan's tunic and had a closer look at his wound. It was an angry red and was bleeding, though not as heavily as before, but it was the head injury Athos was worried about as D'Artagnan still hadn't even stirred as yet. There was dried blood at the boy's hairline and Athos felt angry all over again from those idiots who had hurt him.
Tapping on the tanned man's cheek, he called to him. “D'Artagnan, can you hear me? If you can, you need to open your eyes”, he tried to say it as loud as he could without shocking the boy into consciousness. “Boy, can you hear me?”.
There was a faint groan as the boy opened his eyes, much to Athos' relief. There was a moment's silence as D'Artagnan looked around the room tiredly, his eyes not really focusing on anything. “How are you feeling?”, Athos asked calmly.
“I”, the young musketeer croaked and Athos poured a glass of water for him, which he accepted and drank with fervor. “Thank you...and I feel...weird “.
His voice didn't sound right to Athos, it sounded too quiet and fragile. “Besides your shoulder, where else are you hurt?”
The boy closed his eyes and took a breath before answering, “my head. Everything is fuzzy”.
“Mm, definitely concussed”, Athos replied quietly, “get some more rest”.
Once D'Artagnan was resting, he waiting at the small round table for the others. The only sound in the room was D'Artagnan's erratic breathing. It was still a relief for Athos, as the man knew that if he had not stumbled upon the young musketeer and his attackers then he would have more injuries than a concussion and a shoulder wound to worry about.
Finally, Athos was snapped out of his reverie by the door opening and in walking three of the men he asked for. It was Treville who spoke first, his eyes going from a pale D'Artagnan to Athos.
“What's going on?”
Instead of answering the Captain he addressed Aramis, “D'Artagnan has a wound on his shoulder and gash on his head. It needs stitching”
Aramis tipped his hat and said “of course” before going over to the younger man. Athos breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of his young friend being looked after by a rather talented and competent person. Turning back to Porthos and the Captain he recounted what had transpired a mere forty-five minutes ago and the more he spoke, the higher the Captain's eyebrows went.
“Athos”, the Captain began, “that was a good plan, simple, but good.”
“But where are the bodies?”, Porthos inquired.
Athos sighed heavily, “Where I left them, I suppose someone ought to move them before civilians find them and do what they do best: panic”.
Porthos chuckled, “right about that you are. Where are they?”
And so Athos told them where they were and both the Captain and the musketeer set out to remove the bodies from the public eye. As they left, the eldest musketeer gravitated near the bed and found Aramis stitching the nasty wound on the boy's shoulder. Neither of them said anything for a while. Aramis was concentrating too much to talk and Athos was focusing on D'Artagnan's face, watching him grimace in his sleep, occasionally making a sound of discomfort. Athos thanked his lucky stars that D'Artagnan didn't wake up throughout the ordeal. If he had, he probably would have panicked and ruined Aramis' needle work whilst it was still being perfected.
“Has he woken up at all?”, Aramis asked with concern, pushing the boys hair out of his face.
“He did, only for a small moment. He complained of his head hurting though the boy was so tired I told him to continue resting”.
“Yes”, Aramis began, “I would assume his head would be hurting. There's a bump on the back of his head that will be hurting for quite some time”. Aramis covered D'Artagnan with the blanket before washing his hands and sitting down at the table.
Athos joined him and straight away he was being asked questions by Aramis.“Why would those men attack him for? There is no precedent.”
The older man shrugged, “I'm sure they didn't have any idea who D'Artagnan was. They probably would have roughed him up a bit and D'Artagnan being who he is, fought back. He was obviously outnumbered, five, or I should really say four, against one are bad odds. Even by musketeer standards.”
“I would still like to know who they are.”
They both lapsed into silence, both too occupied with their own thoughts to talk. Athos was silently wishing he could go to the tavern and forget the faces of the men he killed”.
This time is different......
Of course it was, Athos silently reprimanded himself. He didn't kill these men for no reason, he did it to save one of his own. Porthos and Aramis would have done exactly the same thing, he was sure of it. Perhaps he wasn't the bad person he feared he was; he wasn't exactly good either but he wasn't bad. He was neutral. He did what he had to do in order to save a brother in arms.
Eventually Porthos came back, though he was alone. “Treville went back to his office to organize a meeting with the king at first light. It seems that the men Athos intercepted were known for other crimes as well.”
Aramis smiled, “well, that's good news! Athos won't be reprimanded for what he did.”
“If there's any relief, then I suppose that's it”, Athos replied.
The three were once again silent until Athos suggested they go home and sleep, after all, he was sure he could look after D'Artagnan now that he was no longer bleeding profusely.
As it was, D'Artagnan slept through the night, only waking up briefly for some more water. Athos on the other hand, didn't sleep, he dozed of quickly but quickly woke up again. With the rising sun, D'Artagnan woke up with a groan and the older musketeer found himself moving over to the bed straight away, checking for a fever....which he didn't have, thankfully.
“You're worrying for no reason”, the boy said quietly, closing his eyes briefly and rubbing at his temple.
“Probably, but I don't want you developing a fever”. He wet a rag and put it on the boys forehead for good measure, wanting to keep him cool as he healed.
“I'm fine, a bit sore, but fine”.
“That you are”, Athos smirked at the boy's hatred of being worried over.
“Worry wart”, D'Artagnan murmured before lying back against the pillows.
Athos didn't disagree. He was worried about the younger musketeer, Athos worried about him every time they went on separate missions, or whenever he couldn't keep an eye on him. Every time D'Artagnan was out of his sight Athos could never rest as he was constantly worrying and that would never change he was sure. He had come to see D'Artagnan as his friend, his younger brother and an adopted son. The worrying would never stop and nor would he stop trying to keep D'Artagnan safe from the enemies clutches. They were brothers and brothers take care of each other.