Work Text:
The Moon Fled Eastward
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In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.
– John Churton Collins
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It is nearing the sixth hour of night when d’Artagnan decides he has given enough to the day to call it finished.
When he exits the tavern, it is with too few coins in his possession and too much wine in his stomach. The Paris street welcomes him into its slips and shadows nonetheless, peeling him slowly from the light and laughter dragging at his back. Taking him out of the strange world he’d stepped into—the strange world, and the lingering images of its strange characters.
Athos—a reserved and distant god, slumped and drinking in a corner.
Porthos—nimble fingers shuffling a deck of cards, eyes wily and smiling, all while in attendance of his protective vigil, like the daimon Kratos in attendance to Zeus.
The night air is cool but breathable. The dirty stones under his boots uneven but solid. Nevertheless, he stands for a moment in abject stillness, filling his lungs to capacity as he tips his head back to find the blackness of the sky. It, too, is a cold and distant god. So far from home that he is.
They play cards differently here, he decides.
And for no explainable reason, that’s the thought that does it—tumbles him into the mesh of grief he’d been avoiding by sinking his soul into revenge and anger.
Between one breath and the next, his bones turn cold. He drops his chin to his chest and gasps, swallowing repeatedly against the thick tightening of his throat, the frantic thudding of his own beating blood echoing distantly in his ears. It doesn’t work. His heart is thundering and his lungs have stopped working, the very air around him turning fallow.
He opens his mouth to compensate, backing up to the wall behind him, rolling the crown of his head to thunk against it as he attempts to draw air.
When he blinks his eyes, oddly, as if conjured, he sees Aramis standing at the end of the street. He is staring down at a bundle of something in his hands, looking white and shaky. Like confusion and panic. But it all flees when he glances over and meets d’Artagnan’s eyes. Vanishing until all that’s left of Aramis’s shaken demeanor is a furrowed brow and an expression of puzzlement.
“D’Artagnan?” he says, striding forward, face suddenly as calm and collected as a summer morning.
If Aramis too is a god, he is the god of contradiction, d’Artagnan decides. A man who has spent the last several days leading the rush towards Athos’s killer with equal parts flickering darkness and brightly lit quips.
These three men, d’Artagnan thinks as he struggles through another breath—he does not understand a single one of them.
Before him, Aramis comes to a stop and puts a hand on his shoulder, eyes dark and probing. Lungs seizing, d’Artagnan stares back until the distinct features of this new friend’s face become foggy and blurred while d’Artagnan gasps again, searching for air and order.
The grip on his shoulder tightens. Dropping his bundle unceremoniously, Aramis presses his other palm to d’Artagnan’s breastbone and leans closer. “Breathe, boy. Breathe,” he commands.
A flash of fire ignites d’Artagnan’s frozen chest, filling his head with the anger-haze of smoke. The kind of smoke that chokes his thoughts and makes his eyes water, even as his lungs finally expand. “I’m not a boy,” he bites.
Aramis flinches not at all. Instead, his eyes turn gentle. “There is no shame in it. Nor in grief. You lost your father, d’Artagnan. We are all boys when we lose our fathers, no matter our age in years.”
Collapsing his chin to his chest once again, d’Artagnan’s eyes flood. Aramis’s hand shifts to hold the back of his neck. Solid and calmly warm, like the man himself. And he stays present, saying nothing while the rush of anguish rises to his head and eventually ebbs.
Several deep, steadying breaths later, d’Artagnan lifts his eyes, breathing through the last of the siege as the beat of his blood evens out and the dizziness abates. He finds Aramis’s face void of judgement and nods, still grounded by the grip on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
The corners of Aramis’s eyes wrinkle as he regards him. After a moment, he loosens his hand and eases back a fraction, opening the space of night air between them. “It is I who should be thanking you,” he says, and his voice dips, reflecting something d’Artagnan does not quite know how to name. “You helped to clear Athos’s name and in so doing, save his life. You cannot know what that means to us. Man to man—as one gentleman to another—I am in your debt.” With strong fingers, he clutches the junction of d’Artagnan’s neck where it meets his shoulder—so close to the way his father used to—then steps away, still watching him.
Feeling as though he’s emerging from stone, d’Artagnan nods again, not yet trusting his voice to a better response.
“All right?” Aramis asks.
“Yes.” Straightening up, d’Artagnan gets his balance set underneath him, equilibrium smoothing incrementally. He draws air purposefully and slowly through his nose, then clears his throat. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”
“To your lodgings then?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain you need no one to see you there?”
D'Artagnan shakes his head and draws another steady breath, just to show he can.
Aramis watches, eyes wrinkling anew. “Very well,” he finally says, clapping d’Artagnan’s chest softly before bending to pick up the bundle he’d abandoned—a fine pistol, clothed in cloth.
D’Artagnan follows it with his gaze, and cannot decide whether he should ask or let it go. It is, perhaps, none of his business. But for some reason, he wants it to be. Strange these men may be, but strong and loyal they still are. Fine men. Good men.
He doesn’t know why any of them should feel like solid ground to him, but they do.
Aramis has nearly reached the corner to the street when d’Artagnan comes to a decision. “Aramis,” he calls, stopping him. “Did you mean what you said—about holding yourself in my debt?”
“Of course.”
Fortifying himself, d’Artagnan walks closer. “Be it known, I hold you to no debt. You aided… you helped bring my father’s killer to his fitting end, and for that…” Stopping, he swallows, hating the choke still in his voice. “For that, I cannot thank you enough. However, I do have a favor to ask.”
Lifting his hat off his head with one hand and holding it against his chest, Aramis dips his head solemnly. “If it is within my power, I’ll see it done.” He pauses, and gestures towards the tavern. "We would see it done."
Deliberately, d’Artagnan straightens his chin, his shoulders reflecting something of his father-taught determination. “I wish to become a Musketeer.”
~
Fin