Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Get in the car within the next ten minutes or I’m leaving you behind!” Athos called up the stairs as he passed them on his way to the kitchen.  He snatched his bright pink hydroflask off the drying rack and spun around to see d’Artagnan, dressed like a highlighter, halfway falling down the stairs.

“And I oop,” he said when he saw what was in Athos’ hands.

“I still don’t know what that means,” Athos sighed as he walked past him back towards his room.  His was the only bedroom on the first floor, an arrangement he enjoyed for a myriad of reasons: he didn’t have to walk up stairs, he didn’t have to sneak out from the second story, he got unchallenged bathroom rights to the tiny half-bath off the main room, and, it was much easier to hide his alcohol from Treville.

He rummaged through the tangle of blankets littering his floor and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid, which he started pouring into his hydroflask.

“Now, really, Athos, the next time you get caught with liquor in school Treville will actually recommend they expel you.”

Athos glanced up at Aramis, whose hair looked so artfully ruffled that Athos (rightfully) suspected he had been up for at least an hour working on it.  “If they’d like to graduate me early, I’d be happy to accept.”

“Expulsion is different from graduation.”

“Not to Athos!” boomed Porthos as he rumbled down the stairs like an elephant.

“Athos, if you got expelled would you get your GED?” asked d’Artagnan between bites of the bagel he was shoving in his mouth.

“Or would you go straight to working in a coal mine?” Aramis asked, already playing with his hair again.

“No, I’d say he’d skip straight to marrying a wealthy widow,” Porthos said meaningfully as he pulled eggs out of the fridge.

“None of the above, Porthos, put away those damn eggs, you haven’t time to cook any of them-”

“Not true!  We still have-” Aramis took this opportunity to show off the Apple Watch he’d begged Treville on hands and knees for “-seven minutes and fifty-four seconds.”

And, because Athos’ foster brothers lived and breathed purely to spite him, both d’Artagnan and Aramis helped Porthos cook all seven of the eggs left in the carton and cheered him on as if he were an Olympic runner crossing the finish line as he ate all seven eggs.  

“Congratulations,” Athos said from the doorway as Porthos ran his victory lap around the kitchen.  “You’ve officially volunteered to buy more eggs on your way home tonight.”

“Oh!  Speaking of!” d’Artagnan said while Porthos groaned.  “Is it you or Dad picking me up from practice today?”

“Assuming someone brings the car back, it’ll be me.  Treville won’t be home till late tonight,” Athos answered, moving to the side to let Porthos and Aramis past him and out the door.

“Really?  I thought he was coming home this morning.”

“No.  Who told you that?”

“Porthos.”

“Who told him that?”

“Aramis, I’d imagine.”

“And who told him that?”

“Well, you- no, wait, I think it was me, actually.”

“Mystery solved, you were stuck in a loop of your own stupidity, please get in the car now.”  Athos gestured out the door and d’Artagnan moved through it on reflex, only registering the insult after he’d crammed into the backseat of Athos’ formerly jet black 1997 Kia next to Porthos.

“Hey!”

As had become custom, when Athos pulled up to the school, he took the car over to the freshman drop-off point so d’Artagnan could jump out and wait for Constance.  Previously, d’Artagnan used to pretend he and Constance just happened to arrive at school at coincidentally the exact same time, but since Aramis and Porthos’ mostly failure of a New Years’ party, they’d been kind-of-sort-of dating, and he’d given up the ruse.

“Athos, pull up by the football field,” Aramis said, once their youngest member had left the car.

“Why?” Athos asked, even as he turned the car towards the field.

“Because, the cheerleaders had a morning practice today, they should be getting off the field right about now.”

“I should have guessed.  Don’t bother them too much.  I’m sure they’ve been working hard, a concept I’m not sure you’re familiar with.”

“You wound me, Athos.  I am more than familiar with working hard to get what I want.  You, on the other hand, don’t want anything at all.”  Incidentally, this was true.  It just happened that all Aramis really wanted was girls’ attention.  Over his three years in high school, Aramis had joined a truly impressive number of clubs and organizations in order to meet girls, including but not limited to: Model UN (his fluency in conversational Spanish made him a magnificent role-player for Spanish speaking countries), embroidery club (where he discovered his talent for needlework), ukulele club (he didn’t join for the ukuleles, but after attending a couple meetings, he bought his own ukulele and brought it with him everywhere for a six month stretch his sophomore year), GSA (ostensibly as a straight ally), and chess club (not his most successful venture, given it was rather difficult to impress chess-playing girls when Aramis was atrocious at chess).  Athos, in this regard, was Aramis’ polar opposite.  Athos woke up, drove his brothers to school, drank, walked home, and sat alone in his room unless someone (read: one of his brothers) needed him.

Neither Athos nor Aramis, because they were both in the front seats and preoccupied with their semi-quarrel, took notice of Porthos, in the back seat, nervously readjusting the straps on his backpack.  

Athos pulled the car to a stop and Aramis bounced out.  Porthos bounced his foot rapidly, and Athos had already put the car back into drive when he called out, “Wait!”  Athos slammed his foot on the brakes and Porthos opened the door before the car even came to a stop.

“Porthos, what-”  Porthos slammed the door again before Athos could finish.  Athos sighed, by now resigned to this kind of behavior.

“Hello Porthos,” said Aramis, a little distractedly.  The cheerleaders had started leaving the stadium.  Aramis straightened his shirt (which was in no way crooked), and stood on his tiptoes, trying to pick out one particular face from the crowd of cheerleaders, because Aramis was always trying to impress girls in general, but lately there had been one girl he had been trying especially hard to impress.  

“Hi Anne,” he said, waving to the current object of his soulful longing.

“Aramis,” Anne replied with a beatific smile, weaving through the crowd of her teammates to meet Aramis.  “What are you doing here?”

“Oh,” Aramis said, playing at bashful as he brushed nonexistent lint off his brand new black and white striped shirt that he really wanted Anne to notice.  “You never know where Athos is going to drop you off.”

“Is he skipping class again?” Anne asked, her sunny smile now marred by concern.

Aramis fought back a momentary urge to throw himself in front of a passing car.  What was it about Athos that gave him the power to completely derail conversations with so much potential?

“No, no,” Aramis lied.  “He’s just a little erratic sometimes is all.”  

That, for some reason, failed to ease Anne’s concern.  Anne, while she did hold a certain amount of concern for Athos (Aramis wasn’t completely blinded by jealousy; Athos did have a certain way about him), as it happened, was not particularly interested in his current state of being.  Anne had, through careful observation of all things relating to Aramis, determined that his brothers were the most important thing in the world to him.  Asking after Athos seemed like a good way to demonstrate her interest and concern for the people Aramis cared about most.

However, Anne experienced a sudden reminder of why absolutely none of that should matter to her at all in the form of her boyfriend throwing an arm around her shoulders.

“Hey Anne!  Hey…Aramis.”  Louis somehow managed to fill the three syllables of Aramis’ name with such pure unrestrained disdain that Aramis considered asking him to throw hands right then and there.  However, joining in fisticuffs were her boyfriend would likely not endear Anne to him, so he refrained for the time being.

“Let’s go to class,” Louis said, already leading Anne away from Aramis.  Louis didn’t know what was going on between his girlfriend and the kid with good hair who lived in a foster home, but he did know that he did not like it.  Louis’ attempts to keep Anne and Aramis apart were far from subtle and worked far less often than he would have liked.

Anne threw Aramis one last—slightly uncertain—smile over her shoulder as Louis led her towards the school.  Aramis heaved a sigh that was certainly a sigh of lovesick longing and not at all a sigh of teenage angst and sexual repression.  When he finally managed to tear his eyes away from Anne’s retreating figure, he noticed Porthos, who hadn’t moved a single inch from where he’d been standing once he’d gotten out of the car.

“Porthos?  Are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine.”  Had Porthos answered truthfully, he would have said something more along the lines of ‘no.’  Porthos had made what was for him quite a monumental and brave decision when he stepped out of the car.  That was where his courage had ended, evidently.  He’d spent the next few minutes rooted to the spot, fiddling frantically with the hem of his favorite studded leather jacket and staring into the crowd of cheerleaders, absolutely incapable of stepping forward a handful of feet and saying, “Hi,” to the dark-haired cheerleader who sat in front of him in chemistry and knew every answer to the teacher’s questions and smiled kindly when she passed papers back to him.

“Well as long as you’re sure,” Aramis said, clapping Porthos on the shoulder and pretending he didn’t know exactly what Porthos hadn’t done.  “Let’s get to class then.”

It was unspoken agreement that during school hours (barring some strange emergency), the brothers were to avoid each other like the plague.  If Athos saw d’Artagnan in the hallway, he pulled up his hood, avoided eye contact, and altogether acted as if the stupid freshman in neon green impossible-to-miss athletic wear was invisible to him.  If d’Artagnan ever came across Aramis or Porthos in the lunch room, he was to turn around and stay out of their line of sight.  However, like all rules, there was an exception.  Aramis and Porthos, through a combination of being closest in age, having nearly identical school schedules, and genuinely enjoying each others’ company, were joined at the hip, at least until the final bell rung.  They functioned in all things as a unit, to the point where all their teachers had long since given up trying to partner them with anyone else, because invariably they ended up collaborating together so much it was practically expected that telling their work apart from the other’s was impossible.

In sharp contrast to this, every teacher could tell immediately when d’Artagnan’s work was his own and when he had somehow convinced Athos to do his homework using one simple guide: if it was wrong, it was d’Artagnan’s.  To Treville’s dismay, d’Artagnan was failing every single one of his classes except for gym.  It wasn’t so much that he was stupid as much as it was that he didn’t care very much for anything except lacrosse.

“So Constance,” d’Artagnan said to his maybe-sort-of girlfriend in the middle of Spanish II, “tryouts are next week for the school team.  Are you ready?”

Constance, who was actually attempting to listen to the teacher, considered ignoring d’Artagnan.  Unfortunately, it was her greatest failing that she couldn’t ignore d’Artagnan.  “Um… About that, d’Artagnan-”

“If you’re not that’s okay, I can come over this afternoon and show you some stick work.  You’ve got your stick, right?  If not, I have an extra you can use, it’s a guys’ stick so it’ll be a little different but we could always work on guarding and footwork…”  As d’Artagnan continued babbling on, Constance regretted ever expressing interest in the sport that evidently consumed d’Artagnan’s every waking moment.  She’d done it in a misguided attempt to connect with him, but now he seemed to think she genuinely not only was interested, but that she wanted to actually play lacrosse.  Which was something she decidedly did not want to do.

“I can’t do this afternoon, d’Artagnan,” she said, cutting him off in the middle of explaining the mechanics of a pick and roll.  “I have…homework.”

“Oh.  Do you wanna just hang out later tonight then?”

Constance held back a sigh of relief.  She nodded.  “Eight?”

“Sounds good!”

Halfway across the school, Athos, after having emptied half his hyrdoflask, decided he’d had enough schooling for one day.  He stood up in the middle of class, nodded at the teacher, who had reported him to administration too many times to even bother kicking up a fuss, and left.  He trudged out the classroom door, belatedly realizing he still had the car keys.  The car was, nominally, his, but the keys left his possession so often it was more his and Porthos’ and Aramis’ and d’Artagnan’s (not that d’Artagnan could drive).  Athos, because he was Athos, knew his brothers’ schedules by heart, so a few minutes later he interrupted Aramis and Porthos’ Pre-Calculus class to toss the keys at Aramis with absolutely no warning.  Lucky for Aramis’ self-image, he had quick reflexes.  He caught the keys and in the same motion he clicked them onto his lanyard, which prior to Athos’ entrance had been empty, but Aramis still had it hanging out of his pocket, just to remind everyone that he could drive, provided he had a car to do it in.  Athos was gone before their teacher had a chance to do anything more than gape.  

Athos may not have been at all good at taking care of himself, but he at least had never drank and drove.  It was by no means a short walk back to their house, it was actually upwards of an hour, which gave Athos plenty of time to contemplate his self-loathing in total peace, except for the roar of the passing cars and the occasional noisy pedestrian.  

When Athos finally did arrive home, he did so to an empty house.  Well, empty except for the tiny little terrier mutt with a misshapen patch of brown covering his entire face.  Musketballs (a temporary name invented jointly by Porthos and Aramis mostly as a joke that had unfortunately stuck) bounced around Athos the instant he stepped through the door, yipping and whining as he went.  Athos stared at the little dog for a moment, then ultimately deciding it would be someone else’s problem if he ran away, but definitely his problem if he peed on the carpet, and stood aside so Musketballs could dart out the door.

Musketballs was a relatively recent addition to the household, only having been just adopted over the summer after d’Artagnan spent the last week of his eighth grade year dropping really subtle hints that he wanted a dog.  Shining examples include: “Now that I’ll be in high school, I’ll be a lot more responsible. You know, back in the 1600’s, I could have been a father by now.  Oh, unrelated, I was reading an article the other day about how dogs are a lot less hard to raise than children.  I just thought that was neat," and “I’ve heard you’re five hundred times less likely to be robbed if you have a dog.  Dogs are really amazing," and “Wouldn’t it be really cool if we had some kind of animal…like a giraffe, or like a tiger, or maybe, I don’t know, it’s kind of crazy, but, a dog?  Just kidding.  Unless…?” and his attempts at subliminal messages (which may have been what truly broke Treville), wherein he began a chant of “woof, woof, woof,” and steadily increased in volume until someone told him to shut up, after which he’d pretend he didn’t even know what a dog was.  It perhaps spoke to how soft Treville was becoming, or perhaps how annoying d’Artagnan was, that it only took a week of this for him to finally get them a dog, when Aramis and Porthos had been keeping up a steady attempt since Aramis had first been adopted.

Athos had long since lost track of how long it had been since he’d gotten home when the door flew open and Musketballs charged back in, straight for his water bowl, followed closely by Aramis and Porthos.  Porthos bounded up the stairs without so much as a hello, yelling out, “I call the shower!” as if anyone would dream of denying him.  After his wrestling practice, Porthos smelled like a huge pile of used gym socks condensed into a living breathing person who’d lived their entire life in a boy’s locker room.

“What time is it?” Athos asked Aramis, who made another show of whipping out his Apple Watch.

“Six.”  He tossed the keys back to Athos.  Their game of hot potato with Athos’ car cost them roughly sixty dollars in gas every three weeks, but none of them had the patience to bother working out a schedule that would be in any way fuel efficient.  Because of this, Athos was now to drive back to the school to pick up d’Artagnan from his pre-season practice, which ended at six-thirty.  Unfortunately for all the members of the Treville household, d’Artagnan didn’t feel the need to shower after every practice, preferring instead what he called ‘showering: speed round,’ which consistently of pouring a bottle of water onto himself after practice and spraying on a liberal amount of cologne he’d stolen from the bowels of Athos’ room.  d’Artagnan was just lucky he hadn’t attempted to steal a bottle of something else—if d’Artagnan had touched even a drop of alcohol, Athos would beat him within an inch of his life, not because he was that territorial over his alcohol stash (he wasn’t at all, really, he’d long since lost count of the amount of underclassmen he’d sold to), but because he would be damned before he let his little brother near the shit.

Athos had successfully picked up d’Artagnan and all four boys were home by the time the door opened.

“Dad!” d’Artagnan squeaked, flying over to the door and sticking himself to Treville’s side.  

“Hello d’Artagnan,” Treville said, smiling genuinely as the rest of his boys meandered over to him.  “Porthos.”

Porthos came up and gave him an all-encompassing hug.  “Hi Dad, glad you’re back.”

“Treville,” Athos greeted on his way back to the kitchen.  He was working on some kind of pasta for dinner, so he popped off the top of a bottle of wine and, after a quick sniff, added what Treville thought was perhaps too much wine into the sauce on the stovetop.  At least the alcohol would cook out, meaning it was one less thing for Athos to drink.

“How was your trip?” Aramis asked.  “Kill any terrorists?”

Treville sighed deeply.  “You know that’s not what my job is.”

“We don’t know what your job is.  We know that you work for the government, are gone for days at a time, we’re not allowed to look inside your secret black suitcase-“

“Aramis, I am a Governmental-Military-”

“-special non-tactical operations liaison.  So I’ve heard.”

“Oh, leave him be, Aramis,” Porthos said, reminding Treville once again why he was his favorite.  “Killing a man takes a lot out of you,” he added afterwards, very seriously, reminding Treville that his foster brothers have been a terrible influence on him.  Not that Treville would ever actually regret taking any of them in.  He’d had Porthos the longest, having taken him in after the death of his mother, right around his third birthday.  Porthos’ father had been a good friend of Treville’s from the military, but he’d refused to care for his own son when he was all Porthos had in the world (Treville always had the uncomfortable sense that Porthos’ race was not a non-issue, as if he needed another reason to cut ties with him).  Treville considered all of his boys his sons, but he had raised Porthos since he could barely talk to where he was now, standing on the verge of adulthood.  Athos was the next to be brought into the fold, but he was just as stubborn a ten year old as he was an eighteen year old, and hadn’t ever switched over to calling him dad.  After Aramis, Treville had accepted that Porthos would be the only one of his kids to call him anything other than his given name.  That is, until the whirlwind that was a twelve year old d’Artagnan came flying in to their lives, and within to months called Treville ‘Dad’ and openly referred to the boys as his brothers, without prefacing it with ‘foster’ like Athos or Aramis sometimes did.

“What’s for dinner, Athos?” Treville asked, once Porthos and d’Artagnan had released him.

“We’ll be finding out together,” Athos said, which was not at all promising.  Athos had a vague idea of the meal he was making, but had decided to do some improv after he realized he didn’t have the correct spice.

Once Treville had put his bags and also his secret black briefcase up in his room and they’d all sat down for their mystery meal, Treville said, “So, Athos, I was cleaning through the hall closet last week, and I dug up some of your old fencing gear.”

“Hm.”  Athos shoved a huge bite of pasta into his mouth.

“I still have all mine from college, I was thinking maybe you’d want to do some fencing together this weekend?”

“Hmm.”  Athos chewed very, very slowly.  When he finally swallowed his bite, Treville was still watching him expectantly.  He took a long sip of water.  “Yeah, maybe a little later.”

“Sure,” Treville nodded, attempting to contain his disappointment.  He told himself almost daily that he would be proud of all of his boys no matter what they did, but, he was perhaps more proud of Athos when he was following in Treville’s own footsteps by being what was, by almost any count a fencing prodigy, than now, with whatever was the latest way he’d decided to waste his potential.  

“I’ve got tryouts on Tuesday, and Constance’s start on Monday,” d’Artagnan said, because Treville trying to engage Athos in anything productive was always a painfully awkward experience to be on the sidelines of.  That, and d’Artagnan was physically incapable of enduring a conversation without bringing up the love of his life: lacrosse.  “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be on Varsity this year.  They need more good players on attack, and you know I can shoot better than pretty much anyone that’s on the team right now, and I know I’m faster, because Duncan, who thinks he’s a shoe in for captain this year, he’s a senior, can only do a seven thirty mile, and I can run way faster than that…”

While d’Artagnan continued talking a mile a minute (far faster than he could ever run), Aramis silently caught Porthos’ attention from across the table.

He blinked three times, then slowly tapped the table an extra five times.  Eight o’clock.  He pulled his napkin off the table and draped it over his lap, clearing his throat as he went.  Cover for me.  “And how long do tryouts last?” he interrupted d’Artagnan.  “Potentially all week?”  Possibly all night.

“No, they only last till Thursday,” d’Artagnan answered, not that Aramis was actually interested.  “First practice is Friday.”

Porthos stared at Aramis and shook his head minutely.  He patted the side of his head twice, playing it off as scratching his head.  No, sleep.

Aramis leaned forward slightly and looked at Porthos with a pleading look in his eyes that was not part of their code but easily decipherable all the same.  Please?

Porthos finally caved, like he always did, and downed the last of his drink.  In their code, that meant yes, but it came across more as a fine, but I’m not happy about it.

Covering for each other (or, nine times out of ten, Porthos covering for Aramis), was fairly easy for the two of them, considering they shared a room.  When d’Artagnan had been introduced to the family, they’d originally flipped a coin to see who’d have to share a room with d’Artagnan.  Aramis had drawn the short straw, and within a week, come pleading to Porthos to share with him.  Graciously, Porthos had agreed, and neither had regretted it.  Well, times like this, Porthos did occasionally regret it, but the regret usually faded the next time he and Aramis stole Athos’ dart board and stayed up all night doing trick shots (an activity that only ended with them going to the emergency room once).

“There isn’t any dessert,” Athos declared, tossing his napkin onto the table, thankfully stopping d’Artagnan’s blabbering.  “And I’m not doing the dishes.”  Neither would Aramis, Porthos, or d’Artagnan.  The dishes would likely remain in the sink for a very long time.

Athos disappeared to his room, and Aramis, after boring a hole in the side of Porthos’ head, loudly said, “I’ll be heading up to our room.  I have a lot of homework to be doing.  I’ll probably be seeing you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Porthos said, unhappily.  “Me too.”

“Dad!”  D’Artagnan appeared at Treville’s side, lacrosse stick in hand, and Porthos and Aramis took the opportunity to escape up the stairs.  “Do you want to throw around the lacrosse ball?”

Treville stared at d’Artagnan, then at the sticks in his hand, then at the growing darkness outside.  “Uh, sure, d’Artagnan.”

“Great!  I’ll go find the balls!”  d’Artagnan darted off.

Treville didn’t hate lacrosse, but he was not in any way talented at it.  He was terrible at it, but it was apparently the only way to connect with his son nowadays.  D’Artagnan had spent a period of about three weeks after he’d really become comfortable with all them obsessed with fencing.  He’d mirrored Athos in everything, and at the time, Treville had been very proud of Athos for not losing his temper with the new kid who wouldn’t leave him or his fencing gear alone.  Then, d’Artagnan had been hit in the head with a lacrosse ball in PE (which had scared the hell out of Treville) and decided he was in love with the sport.  Which meant Treville had to spend an inordinate amount of money on gear for a whole new sport.

Ten minutes later, d’Artagnan reappeared, hanging his head.  “I can’t find my lacrosse balls.”

“D’Artagnan,” Treville scolded, secretly very relieved.

“I know, I know, you just bought them, but I don’t remember losing them all!”

“D’Artagnan, it’s fine.  Just don’t expect more for a long time.”

“But—the season-” d’Artagnan stopped talking and started pouting.  It was ineffective.  “I’m going to Constance’s,” he said next, switching moods so fast it gave Treville whiplash.  “I’ll go get ready.”

And just like that, less than an hour after he’d gotten back, Treville found himself in the main room, complete void of any of the boys.

D’Artagnan’s idea of ‘getting ready,’ meant throwing all his video games into his backpack to play with Constance and spending nearly a half hour parting his hair (a habit he’d no doubt learned from emulating Aramis).  D’Artagnan then stepped through Athos’ door and jerked his head to the right to avoid a dart that was heading straight for his face.  It stuck into the wood to the right of the door with a weak thud.  Judging from the darts centered on the bullseye and the growing number of darts farther and farther from the board itself, Athos had started throwing darts sober.

“I take it you can’t drive me to Constance’s tonight?” d’Artagnan asked.

Athos, who was sitting on his bed, bottle in one hand, a poorly aimed dart in the other, tossed the dart into the floor, and d’Artagnan flinched as it sunk into the hardwood.  “No, I can.  Just give me an hour or so.  And a bucket of ice water.”

“What time did you tell Treville you’d be back tonight?” Athos said, a whisper, as he and d’Artagnan reentered the house, many, many hours later.

“I didn’t,” d’Artagnan replied, closing the door very slowly after himself.

“He’ll assume the worst, you know.”

D’Artagnan blushed furiously.  “We were playing Mario Cart!”

Athos rolled his eyes.  “Sure.”

“I’m serious!” d’Artagnan insisted, officially breaking the whisper barrier.  Musketballs, who was previously sleeping fitfully, woke up, and wasted no time in trotting over and yipping urgently.  “Shhh!  Be quiet!”

In the kitchen, Porthos cursed and dropped the poptart he’d successfully extracted from the top shelf without waking the dog.  “D’Artagnan!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Porthos, why the hell weren’t you in our room?” asked Aramis, from halfway up the stairs, fully dressed.

“Great,” Athos said, tossing the keys onto the couch.  “The gang’s all here.”

“Aramis, why the hell weren’t you back three hours ago?” Porthos shot right back, without missing a beat.

“Wait, you were gone too?” d’Artagnan asked.

“You know it’s just as easy to sneak in through the front door as it is your window,” Athos said, as if he hadn’t spent half his middle school years sneaking out his window.

“Where were you?”

“Where was I?  I was gardening.”  Aramis walked the rest of the way down the stairs.  “Where the hell did you think I was, d’Artagnan?”

D’Artagnan huffed.  “I should have asked, which girl were you in tonight?”

“D’Artagnan!” Athos said, genuinely surprised.  

Porthos, however, barely registered what d’Artagnan had said, saying, “He wishes he were with Anne.”

“Porthos,” Aramis said, sounding disappointed.  “We are friends.”

“Right.”

Aramis sighed dramatically.  “You know, sometimes it feels like Anne is the only relationship I have, outside of you, that truly means something.”

“Oh really?” d’Artagnan drawled, unimpressed.  “Are we just supposed to pretend Marsac doesn’t exist?”

“Marsac?” Porthos asked, with a sudden razor-sharp focus.  “What does Marsac have to do with anything?”

Athos rolled his eyes.  The dog barked.

“Don’t bring Marsac into this,” Aramis said, although he was already resigned to this topic of conversation.

“Don’t bring Marsac into this?” d’Artagnan repeated.  “Don’t bring Marsac into this?  I can bring Marsac into whatever I want since he tried to make out with Constance at the New Year’s Eve party!”

Porthos made a noise of frustration.  “I don’t understand why we’re bringing him into this in the first place-”

“D’Artagnan, you and Constance weren’t even dating-”

“That doesn’t matter-!”

“He was drunk-”

“Are you making excuses for him?” d’Artagnan asked, with deadly precision.

Aramis stared for a moment, face blank, before he broke.  “No.  No, I’m not.”

“I do not wish to forget what Marsac did but I would like to point out that the matter has been settled.  Quite soundly,” Athos intervened, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the barking of the dog.  ‘Soundly’ was an apt descriptor for how well Athos had beaten Marsac into the ground once he’d heard what had happened with Constance.  Nobody, least of all Marsac, had expected Athos to be the one to confront him.  In a shocking turn of events, Athos had actually managed to sit through an entire school day so that he could be the one to catch Marsac after class, beating out both d’Artagnan and Porthos, and Constance herself, and beat the ever-loving shit out of him.

“Will somebody please explain what Marsac has to do with Aramis being a man-whore?”

“Now that’s an ugly word, Porthos,” Aramis said, convincingly mock-offended.

“Technically, it’s two words, hyphenated.”

“Will somebody feed the fucking dog?” Athos said, finally losing patience with Musketballs’ whining and barking.

“Why don’t you do it?” d’Artagnan asked, arms crossed.

“You know, d’Artagnan, I would, except I’m ‘not allowed’ to ‘come within four feet’ of ‘the dog.’”

“One: that was far too many air-quotes.  Two: vodka, Athos, vodka.  You poured vodka instead of water into his bowl.”

“Living in this house, he could use it.”

Aramis spread his arms.  “And yet another shining example of why we don’t let Athos near the dog.”

“I’m not letting this Marsac thing go.”

“Porthos,” d’Artagnan began, at this point wondering how he missed just how thick his older brother could be, “I wonder how I missed just how thick you can be.”

“Hey!”

“Musketballs is hungry and if no one does anything about it I will, the rules be damned-”

“No, Porthos is right, d’Artagnan, Marsac really isn’t relevant, Anne, on the other hand-”

“Everybody stop changing the subject!”

“If Musketballs would just shut up for one second-”

“What the hell are you boys doing?”  All four boys were silenced by Treville’s booming voice.  They all turned sheepishly to where he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in his pajamas.  “It is four in the morning.  Why the hell are you all up?”  After actually looking at his boys, Treville still genuinely couldn’t tell.  Athos was fully dressed, from his jeans to his ratty sneakers (Treville made a note to himself that Athos needed new shoes); Aramis was also wearing jeans but his shirt was only half-buttoned; d’Artagnan was wearing what appeared to be a neon yellow tracksuit that could have easily been something d’Artagnan wore in public or to bed; Porthos was, apparently, his only sensible child, since he was wearing a pair of sweats and looked, for all intents and purposes, like he’d just been dragged out of bed.

“We were feeding Mustketballs,” Athos said, deadpan.  To be fair, Athos said everything deadpan.

“All four of you.  At four am.”

“Yes.”

Treville looked at the dog.  The poor thing was running back and forth between each of the boys (although, interestingly, he was keeping his distance from Athos), whining as he went.  “Then why is his food dish empty.  And why is Athos wearing shoes.”  These, while their phrasing suggested they were questions, were, in actuality, statements of fact.

“Now that’s…”  Aramis pointed at Treville.  “That’s an interesting question.”

“Does this interesting question have an equally interesting answer?”

“Terribly boring, I’m afraid,” Athos said.  “It seems we’re out of dog food, and Aramis and I were just heading to the store.”

Porthos slapped his hand against the table.  “Out of dog food!  That’s it!”

D’Artagnan, not subtly at all, stepped in front of the full container of dog food, which did more to draw attention to it than actually hide it.  “He doesn’t like this kind,” he said as he realized he’d done more to undo the lie than anything else.

Treville contemplated, for a moment, exactly how stupid his boys thought that he was.  He also contemplated, momentarily, grounding all of them for a month purely because the extent of the implied notion they seemed to have of his intelligence must be so staggeringly low for them to even imagine he’d believe a single word of this.  But, knowing his boys, this was more of a token effort than anything else.  It might be admirable, but it had long since lost its amusement factor.  “Go to bed.  Now.”  With that, Treville turned around and walked back up the stairs, letting the boys take this easy out.

The instant the sound of Treville’s footsteps faded the four of them jolted into motion; Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan all running for the staircase, while Athos had a different target.  He grabbed onto the bad of d’Artagnan’s hoodie and yanked, sending d’Artagnan stumbling backwards.  Porthos laughed heartily at his brother’s misfortune as he bounded up the stairs after Aramis.

“D’Artagnan,” Athos hissed in his ear, “if you don’t feed your damn dog, I will feed him every drop of alcohol in this house.”

D’Artagnan, too preoccupied with the horror of just how much alcohol that meant, failed to realize that Athos’ threat was a poor one due solely to the fact that he would never waste his alcohol on a dog, even to spite d’Artagnan.  So poor Musketballs got fed promptly, and the house was quiet once again.

The next morning, Porthos and Aramis pulled off a high-stakes operation they codenamed “trick the bitch,” which consisted of setting the clock on Athos’ phone back an hour, bribing d’Artagnan with the location of his hidden lacrosse balls to keep his silence, and profiting by not only pulling a prank on Athos (their favorite mutual pastime), but arriving at school early enough to sit in the bleachers and watch the competition cheer team practice down on the grass.

“Does it make us weird, or creeps or something, that we went through all this trouble to watch a cheer practice?”

Aramis have Porthos a strange look.  “Yes?  I thought you knew.”

“I wouldn’ta done it if I’d been thinking of it like that!”

“Porthos, how else could you possibly think of it as?”

Porthos turned a grumpy look on Aramis, and then very purposefully avoided looking down at the practice on the field.  “You’ll be at my match tonight, right?”

“Of course.  Treville’s coming too.  So do try your best not to fuck up.”

Porthos grinned at him.  “I wouldn’t worry about that.”  He didn’t need to.  Porthos had a reputation for absolutely destroying his opponents.  

Against his will, Porthos found himself looking for a certain dark head of hair down below.  Aramis noticed.

“You know, it would help if you talked to her,” he said, leaning over conspiratorially.

Porthos crossed his arms.  “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it really is.  Do you have any idea how many girls I’ve dated-” for a broad definition of ‘dated’ “-because I’ve actually talked to them?  Compared to all the girls I’ve dated-” again, remember the loose definition “-when I haven’t?”

Porthos didn’t respond for a long moment.  “What did d’Artagnan mean by bringing up Marsac?  I thought you weren’t friends anymore, not since New Year’s.”

Aramis froze, then slowly drew a hand through his hair.  “Nothing, Porthos,” he said.  “And I’m not.  Friends with him, that is.  Don’t worry about it.”

Porthos was not, contrary to popular belief, an idiot.  His unfortunate character flaw was that he always believed Aramis.  This was not, however, without a reason.  Porthos operated under the assumption of an arrangement; he and Aramis told each other everything.  Porthos told Aramis about all his crushes, all his near-misses of talking to his crushes, and even any random thoughts that popped into his head.  He assumed, as was natural, that Aramis did the same.  Unfortunately, Aramis was not aware of this arrangement.  

“Alright,” Porthos said, considering the matter done.  “You should stop bothering Anne, though.”

“I’m not bothering her!” Aramis said, not even mock-offended, but actually offended.  “We’re friends.”

Like you and Marsac were friends, Porthos thought but didn’t say, shoving the thought as far down as it would go.  “She has a boyfriend.”

“That doesn’t mean she can’t have friends.”

Porthos rolled his eyes but let it lie.  “Their practice is almost over, let’s just go to class.”

“No, we should go say hi-”

“Class,” Porthos repeated, grabbing Aramis by his arm and bodily dragging him into the school.

 Just after freshman lunch, Aramis and Porthos were on their way to the courtyard when some underclassman came zooming by them, knocking into Aramis as he went.

“Hey!” Porthos called out, then mumbled, “Jerk.”

“Where the fuck is the fire?” Aramis said, glancing around the immediate vicinity.  

There was no fire, but the reason for the underclassman’s rush became clear as they stepped outside into the grey overcast day.  The remnants of freshmen lunch still hung around around some of the picnic tables, clumped together in a way they only were for one reason: a fight.

Aramis sighed deeply as he and Porthos started shoving their way through the crowd.  “Odds on d’Artagnan?”

“Definitely him,” Porthos said, as if it were a given, which, given d’Artagnan’s previous track record, it essentially was.

When the two of them had finally manhandled their way to the center of the ring, and sure enough, there was d’Artagnan, sitting on his ass, a trickle of blood trailing from his lip.  However, d’Artagnan was not the one currently embroiled in a fight.  

Athos ducked under a swing from a rather skinny looking blonde that could only have been a freshman.  Athos took a quick step back and stood there, waiting for another swing that, when it came, he dodged again easily, sending his opponent sprawling off his balance.

“Is he…sober?” Porthos asked, honestly admiring his brother’s footwork.  And admiring him making a fool out of someone who clearly gave d’Artagnan a bloody lip.

“No way.  It’s too early in the day for that.”  Aramis dismissed the idea out of hand, but he too noticed how coordinated Athos looked.

“I kind of don’t think he needs help,” Porthos said.

“Oh no, definitely don’t.”

Porthos turned to Aramis, questioning his certainty.  Aramis looked back up at him.  “Come now, Porthos.  It would be embarrassing if it took three of us to finish off,” he gestured back to the freshman, “him.”

Porthos considered Aramis’ reasoning and then considered the new piece of evidence of Athos’ competency as he quite literally kicked the unidentified freshman in his ass.  The freshman went tumbling to the grass and Athos, confident in a a fight well finished, turned back to d’Artagnan.  He held his hand down to him, and once d’Artagnan gripped it, tore him up to his feet.

“Are you alright?” he asked, tilting his brother’s chin to get a better look at his injury, which, compared to the bruises Athos had just inflicted on the other freshman, really was nothing.

“I had him,” d’Artagnan insisted.  “Marcheaux is nothing, I could’ve taken him.”

Athos didn’t say anything, because when he’d entered the fray, d’Artagnan had been shoved up against a picnic table and Marcheaux’s arm had been rearing back for another hit.

“What the hell was that about?” Porthos asked as he and Aramis appeared behind the other two.

“Marcheaux is an ass who can’t play lacrosse for shit,” d’Artagnan said, wiping the blood off his lip with his arm in a way he thought made him look very manly and that made Athos glare at him, deeply unimpressed.

“Please do not tell me you got into a fight over lacrosse,” Aramis said, folding his hands together as if for prayer.

D’Artagnan shook his head, now more visibly subdued.  “He won’t leave Constance alone.  I heard him talking about her and I just, I couldn’t let him talk about her like that!”

“And where is Constance in all this?” Athos asked, hypocritically, because Athos was nothing if not a hypocrite when it came to d’Artagnan.

“Don’t tell her!  Please, she’ll be so upset with me if she knows!”

Perhaps in most cases, d’Artagnan would be right.  However, in this particular instance, Constance hated Marcheaux just as much as he hated her, and she would be righteously pleased to know that anyone gave him an ass-whooping, even if it was precipitated in an effort by her boyfriend to preserve her honor.  Constance had a mean-streak, and it was, in truth, what made her and d’Artagnan work so well together.  D’Artagnan had a short fuse, one that burned at every perceived injustice dealt to anyone, but the people he loved in particular.  He had a nasty habit of getting himself into things he wasn’t equipped to get himself out of, in which case he was either saved by his girlfriend’s quick wits, or the brute strength of three older brothers, all of whom (with perhaps the exception of Aramis, who tended not to get into too many fights anymore, having ultimately determined that ‘soft boys’ worked better on the ladies than ‘bad boys’) were certified brawlers.  Constance, on the other hand, was forgiving, usually a temper to d’Artagnan’s lack of restraint.  However, when someone well and truly deserved it, she didn’t hold back, a trait which d’Artagnan, still caught up in the honeymoon faze where Constance appeared in his mind as nothing short of an angel, hadn’t yet realized.

“You realize she’ll find out one way or another, don’t you?”

D’Artagnan’s pouting was cut short by an administrator, who shooed the crowd away (Aramis and Porthos chose this moment to blend back into the crowd; no sense in all of them getting in trouble after all), and came very close to grabbing Marcheaux by his ear as he tried to perform the same disappearing act as Aramis and Porthos.

“I’ve been told you three had a fight here,” she asked, eyes drifting between the three of them.

“No, not at all,” Athos said, pulling off a mildly confused but unconcerned tone of voice rather well.

“The three of you are going to come with me to the office and I am going to personally,” she pointed an accusing finger at Athos, “call your father.”

Athos muttered something that sounded very much like, “not my dad,” that all parties ignored.

Treville was not at all pleased to be called in the middle of the school day—in the middle of his work day, interrupting his planning for what was definitely not the raid of a cell of domestic terrorists—to be told that his boys had beaten the shit out of another student.  He put on his best displeased face as he walked into the principal’s office and turned it on Athos and d’Artagnan, who were sitting in uncomfortable looking chairs, looking everywhere but in Treville’s face.

“D’Artagnan, go wait in the car,” Treville said, once Treville had been thoroughly apprised of the situation and they were out in the parking lot outside the school.

“Ughhhh.”  D’Artagnan deflated theatrically and kicked the ground on his way over to the car.  The same motions performed by anyone else may seem disingenuous or sarcastic, but somehow d’Artagnan managed it in complete seriousness.

Once they were alone, Treville turned to Athos, whose face was set in a blank mask that still belied a stubborn set to his jaw.

“Athos,” Treville began, deciding to start it slow.  Athos said nothing.  “Athos, you cannot continue down the path you are on.”

“D’Artagnan was in over his head,” wasn’t he always?, “I had to help him.”  His tone of voice was purposefully dull and monotone.

“D’Artagnan is another matter.”  Another matter that would be getting a somewhat similar talking to later.  “Why you were in this particular fight doesn’t concern me.  What does concern me, is how often this is happening.”

“Any one of us would have taken that fight.  If it weren’t me, then it would have been Aramis or Porthos.”  The boys complete and total loyalty to each other was admirable, but that wasn’t the point.  And Athos knew that wasn’t the point.  Treville knew that Athos knew that that wasn’t the point.

“That’s not the point,” he said, rather unnecessarily.  “You show no interest in your classes, you spend more time on d’Artagnan’s homework than you do your own, you have no hobbies, no friends that I can speak of, and you really do not want me to get started on the drinking.”

“I’m eighteen,” Athos said, a crinkle between his eyes the first sign of his mask cracking.  “I’m an adult.  Legally, I can do whatever I want.”

“Legally, you’re still my dependent.  And it doesn’t matter your age, I will never stop caring for you or worrying about you.”

“I pardon you.”  Athos waved his hand as if he were trying to swat a fly while high as balls.  “I pardon you from ever having to worry or care about me ever again.  You are free now.”

“Athos.”

“Take the out, Treville,” Athos said, turning to leave.

“Athos, get back here.  This is ridiculous.  I am tired of hearing you write yourself off as a lost cause.”

“Maybe I am!”  Athos whipped around, completely heedless of Treville’s heart breaking.

“It has been two years of this,” Treville said slowly and calmly.  “It’s long past time that you can use a high school breakup as an excuse for your substance abuse problem.  You need to take responsibility for yourself!  Drinking yourself to death is an awfully slow way to go, but you’ll manage it if you keep this up!”  Towards the end of it, Treville could admit he was rather less calm than where he started.

“Keep this up?” Athos asked, pulling off his backpack as he spoke, a move that confused Treville, because as far as he could tell, there was nothing in it.  Until Athos pulled out his hydroflask from an otherwise empty backpack and clumsily unscrewed the top.  “Keep this up?” he repeated as he shoved the open top into Treville’s face.

Treville’s exasperated confusion faded as he realized he couldn’t smell anything from the liquid inside.  “It’s water,” he said.

“Yeah.”  Athos turned the bottle over, pouring the water out onto the pavement, all while maintaining eye contact with Treville.  “It’s water.”  What Athos didn’t tell Treville, was that it was only water because he’d run out of time that morning to fill it, because he’d noticed a new sticker on his hydroflask that said “Flower Power,” and he’d spent nearly fifteen minutes staring at it trying to figure out when he’d put that on and why.  He hadn’t put it on at all, in fact, Porthos had, to spite Aramis when he said that if they put any more stickers on the hydroflask Athos would start to get suspicious.  The ultimate result being that Athos just filled it up with water after he’d gotten to school.

“I’m going to the car,” he declared, feeling very much like he could use a drink.

Treville watched him go and wondered where exactly he’d fucked up.  He knew Athos had great potential, beyond however good he used to be at fencing.  Treville didn’t know at what point Athos stopped understanding that, just like he didn’t know what he could have done to prevent that.

No one said a single word the entire ride home.  The quiet festered, oppressive, even after Aramis came home from his Model UN meeting.  D’Artagnan stayed in his room, door closed, and within twenty minutes texted Constance everything that happened.

Athos stayed in his room, door closed, and stared at the marked up dart board hanging on the back of his door.

Treville and Aramis (who had decided his best option would be to weather this strange bout of silence) left eventually for Porthos’ match, and that’s when Athos realized he couldn’t take it.  He set out walking to the nearest bar, only after he’d left a pre-made meal for d’Artagnan sitting on the kitchen counter.

Athos flashed his fake ID at the bartender, who apparently wasn’t paid enough to question it.

“The strongest thing you’ve got,” Athos said, and was pretty sure he caught an eyeroll from the bartender even as they dropped a shot glass on the table and poured from a bottle of vodka.  Athos knocked it back and tapped it immediately.  The bartender shot him a look before refilling it that Athos had seen enough times to be able to interpret it as ‘you better be able to pay for this.’  They didn’t need to worry; Athos, in a moment of petty spite, had stolen Treville’s credit card, and was definitely planning on leaving it at the bar.

Athos kept drinking, and refilling his glass, and drinking, until everything felt blurry around the edges.  And then he kept drinking, in the vain hope it’d help him forget what it felt like to burn.  Because whenever he closed his eyes he still saw flames illuminated against the dark of his eyelids.  And whenever he caught a whiff from a fireplace or a cigarette, suddenly his eyes were tearing and the scent of smoke invaded his nose.  And when everything was quiet, and things were at peace, he could still hear his brother’s screams.  The heat on his skin was palpable, but that wasn’t what burned him.  It was the screams that made him burn.  Eight years later, he was still burning.

Anne de Winter was the only person who ever made the burning stop.  With her, quiet could be bliss, instead of a waiting game for the screams of his dying brother.  He hadn’t realized, not at first, that she was a different kind of burning.  Something slow and simmering that only needed a little bit of gas to explode.  And explode they did.  It was not a brilliant or beautiful explosion, but painful and ugly and the aftermath reminded Athos of standing in the ashes of a broken home, watching unrecognizable and charred bodies being dragged out of the rubble.

After she was gone (after she left, the rubble left from the two of them so bad she switched schools to get away from him), things were worse.  Sometimes Thomas’ screams weren’t alone, sometimes they were joined by voices sounding suspiciously like another set of brothers.

When Athos felt sufficiently like he’d been plunged underwater—his surroundings were blurry and the screaming sounding miles away—he stood up.  Sloppily.  The barstool went clattering to the floor with a far off clang.  Someone (the bartender, not that Athos could tell) was saying something to him (they were asking if he needed a cab, not that Athos could tell).  He stepped out into the night and closed his eyes, taking in the chill clinging to the early spring air.  

Then he opened his eyes, because he’d lost his balance and was suddenly falling over.  He landed on his ass with a solid “oof.”  He pulled out his phone and blearily tried to force it into focus.  

A handful of names passed through Athos’ mind.  D’Artagnan.  He dismissed that one, remembering d’Artagnan couldn’t drive.  Treville.  A hard no.  Anne- no, she was gone.  Porthos? Something itched in his brain at that, but he didn’t know what, so he figured Porthos would do.  Athos clicked on the first open message that he saw Porthos’ name in.  Lucky for him, it happened to be a group text with both Porthos and Aramis.

Several miles away, Aramis’ intense viewing of Porthos’ match (and he was watching the match, not at all distracted by exactly how revealing the singlet was on Porthos’ opponent) was interrupted by a garbled series of texts from someone labeled in his phone as ‘bitch.’

bitch: ned rude homeostasis

bitch: hemostats

bitch: hojmo

bitch: duck it

bitch: h

bitch: o

bitch: m

bitch: e

Aramis glanced over to Treville, who was seated directly beside him, but luckily hadn’t noticed the incessant chirping of Aramis’ phone, too preoccupied with Porthos’ match (Treville, unlike Aramis, actually was focused on the match).  Porthos didn’t have a lot of home matches, and Aramis had never missed one (not even when Francis Eugene had invited him over while her parents were on a business trip), but judging by the texts, Athos was well and truly wasted.  Part of him wanted to leave Athos out to dry, after all, it was his own decisions that put him in this position.  He pulled up Snapchat and found Athos’ location on the map and briefly wondered how the hell he’d gotten so far from home without a car.

So somehow, despite his greatest intentions to the opposite, Aramis ended up in Treville’s car with his disaster of an older brother absolutely wasted in the passenger’s seat.

“You know, it’s really remarkable,” he said, after they’d been driving for a minute or two in total silence.

“What?” Athos asked, although he failed to properly enunciate the ’t’ on the end, so it sounded more like “Whaaa?”

“It’s really quite remarkable how you are able to take care of every single person brilliantly, except for yourself.”

Athos dipped his head against the window, his eyes lazily following the raindrops as they slid by.  

Aramis took his silence as a cue to continue.  “And on paper, Athos, you do so little with your life and your time, that there’s no way anyone would think that you’re the problem child.  Yet somehow, it’s me that’s picking up you in the middle of the night from a bar of all places-“

Aramis’ slight tangent was paused by his phone ringing.  He glared at Athos as if to say ‘I’m not quite done yet and don’t you forget it,’ only to find Athos had closed his eyes.  He fished his phone out from his pocket and put it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Aramis!”

“Anne?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to call so late, but, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Athos, upon hearing who was on the other line, had reopened his eyes, having found some kind of cloudy interest in the conversation.  Aramis, on the other hand, just felt his heart rate spike.  If Anne was calling him in the middle of the night, there was only a handful of things she might be telling him and as far as he could fathom, they all involved such things as ‘Aramis, I’ve broken up with Louis,’ or ‘Aramis, I’ve been thinking about that night we spent together,’ or ‘Aramis, I’m in love with you too.’

“Yes?  What is it, Anne?” he asked, trying and ultimately failing to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“It’s, oh God, Aramis, I don’t even know what to think right now.”

“Whatever it is,” Aramis began, using his very best calming and reassuring tone, “you can tell me.  We can work it out together.”  Really, truly together, if this conversation was going in the direction Aramis thought it was going.

There was a sound on the other line that sounded suspiciously like a sob.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.  I just, I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell Louis, or my father, or-"  She cut herself off and Aramis frowned.  Louis, sure, but her father?  He supposed her father had been a fan of her and Louis’ relationship but that hardly warranted this kind of stress.

“Anne?”

There was a moment of silence, where both Aramis and Athos (who, without Aramis noticing, had leaned right up against his ear and was straining as hard as he could to hear Anne’s side of the conversation) held their breaths.

“Aramis, I’m pregnant.”

Athos fell back against his seat, eyes wide, because he became atrocious at concealing his emotions when he got this drunk.  Aramis hardly noticed.

“Oh God,” he said, not taking His name in vain but rather a legitimate prayer to his Heavenly Father, “I’m so screwed.”