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It had been a quiet, sunny spring day as the Musketeers walked the streets of Paris on their patrol, D’Artagnan on their heels just as surely as ever. No one had said much by way of conversation in a while, which suited D’Artagnan just fine, until suddenly, Aramis cleared his throat and spoke up.
“Gentlemen.”
Though superficially as amiable as ever, there was an undercurrent of something to Aramis’s voice that gave D’Artagnan pause. Whatever that something was, Athos and Porthos must have heard it too, for they both stopped in their tracks, so suddenly that D’Artagnan almost barreled into them.
“I regret to inform you that I am having trouble seeing.”
Immediately, D’Artagnan felt Porthos stiffen beside him. “Is it starting?”
Aramis gave a terse nod.
“Is what starting?” D’Artagnan nodded, looking the man over and noticing the way his posture was beginning to droop, the way his eyes were starting to look heavy.
Athos ignored him. “Can you make it back to the garrison?”
Aramis chuckled hoarsely, rubbing his palm across his face. “I’ll have to, won’t I?”
D’Artagnan spoke again, louder this time and slightly breathless with worry. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?”
Athos ignored him a second time. “How long?”
“The visions started about half an hour ago,” Aramis said, “so perhaps ten minutes?”
Athos swore under his breath, and Porthos swore quite clearly. “Jesus Christ, Aramis,” the man growled. “You should’ve said something.” He caught Aramis’s shoulder when the man stumbled on the cobblestone. “Lean on me.”
“Take his other arm, D’Artagnan, and the two of you will guide him back to his room,” Athos said briskly. “In the meantime I will inform Treville.”
D’Artagnan wound Aramis’s arm around his shoulder, concern growing at how uncoordinated the man was, how his eyes kept slipping closed for longer and longer bouts as though he could not keep them open. “But, please,” D’Artagnan huffed, though based on the way his previous input to the conversation had been received, he had more than an inkling of how this one would go. “Don’t tell me why we are doing any of this. Should I start guessing?”
“I can inform Treville myself,” Aramis snapped, even as he was squinting and swaying in his comrades’ hold like a drunkard. His legs buckled slightly, and D’Artagnan and Porthos shifted quickly to keep the man from falling.
“You can’t even stand on your own!” Athos hissed. He looked in Porthos’s direction for a long, hard moment before rolling his eyes. “Well, since we are apparently indulging your utter stupidity, D’Artagnan, you go ahead to his rooms and draw the shutters. Make it as dark as you can.”
Part of him wanted to press the men more, to draw out a reason for why the shutters needed to be closed, but Athos had used that tone of voice on him, and D’Artagnan was hopeless to do anything but obey. He left the three to stagger and bicker their way to the garrison and, sensing the urgency to the still-nebulous situation, D’Artagnan set off at a brisk pace toward Aramis’s lodgings.
******
D’Artagnan had been waiting in the dark for what felt like hours, perched awkwardly on the very edge of Aramis’s bed and bouncing his leg, when the three Musketeers burst through the doorway at last. The meeting, brief though it was, with Treville had obviously drained whatever strength Aramis had had left; the man was sunken so far in his brothers’ hold that they practically dragged him across the floor and to his bed.
D’Artagnan leapt out of the way. “The shutters are drawn, just as you asked.”
Athos had been helping Porthos unbutton Aramis’s coat, but he paused, turning to narrow his eyes critically at the sunlight which slipped in through the lines and cracks in the shutters. “Get me the blankets,” he said. “From atop his shelf.”
D’Artagnan nodded. The shelf was just high enough and the room just dark enough that he could not see very well what exactly it held, so he rifled around half-blindly, knocking over books with a dull thud as he cast around for something soft.
“The blankets, D’Artagnan!” Athos hissed.
“I’m trying,” D’Artagnan bit back. “It’s not my fault he has–”
His fingers alighted on something vaguely woolen within a basket, and he tried to pull it down, only to send another book and a statuette tumbling to the ground with a damnably loud crash. Aramis whimpered, and Porthos made low noises, shushing him.
Athos’s voice was still a whisper, though it contained all the heat and vigor of a savage yell. “ Quietly, if you please!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” D’Artagnan said hurriedly, running back to the bedside and holding out the basket to Athos. “Here.”
Athos snatched it from him. “Help him off with his boots.”
D’Artagnan knelt at Aramis’s feet, wishing he knew what had come over the man to disable him so badly as to need D’Artagnan to play the servant and remove his boots. And to need Porthos to keep him upright, so it seemed, for Aramis was so slouched against the man their forms were nearly indistinguishable in the low light.
Carefully, D’Artagnan eased off the boots, as Athos affixed the blankets so that they draped over the shutters and blocked out any stray light to the room, with a practiced ease and expediency that suggested this was something he had done many times before. He turned back to the man in the bed, his voice a thousand times softer and more tender than D’Artagnan thought it capable of being.
“How is that, Aramis?”
“Ready to lie back?” Porthos whispered when there was no vocal reply.
This time, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, D’Artagnan caught Aramis nodding weakly. Porthos guided him gently downward, until Aramis was lying on his side, pressed into his pillow. Porthos murmured at him soothingly all the while, for the movement drew agitated groans from Aramis’s lips.
“Easy, easy.”
Silently, Athos went to the drawers and cast around, withdrawing with a small piece of wood in his hand. A crucifix. He placed the crucifix into Aramis’s outstretched palm, bending in his ear to whisper. “Is there anything else?” When a few moments of silence had passed, he stroked a few pieces of hair back from Aramis’s forehead and retreated.
D’Artagnan watched as Aramis’s fingers closed around the crucifix like a vice, bringing it to his lips which trembled with feverish, inaudible snatches of what the Gascon could only assume was prayer. His hands shook and his eyes screwed shut tighter than what D’Artagnan would have thought physically possible, until all the color had drained from his face. He started whimper on exhale, as though he couldn’t restrain the noise, with each increasingly strenuous tremor, and just when D’Artagnan could not bear the sight of his agony any longer, Aramis’s entire form went limp as a doll upon the bed.
Athos and Porthos filled the room with their exhales beside him.
“Fuck,” Porthos sighed, dragging his palm down the length of his face. “I hope he’s out for most of the pain this time. It’s a bad one.”
D’Artagnan heaved out a breath of his own, surprised when he felt himself tremble. “If one of you doesn’t start explaining right now, I’m going to start shooting.” His shaking fingers tapped at his weapons belt for proof.
Porthos and Athos shared a look, before the former shrugged and headed for a chair at Aramis’s bedside. “I’ll stay with him.”
Athos nodded and assured D’Artagnan outside and down the hall, his hand on the small of the Gascon’s back until they reached the staircase where he stopped, and turned D’Artagnan to face him.
Athos took a deep breath before he spoke. “A number of years ago, Aramis received a serious wound to his head.” He paused. “Serious enough that there were doubts amongst the physicians as to whether he would be able to speak or remember things upon waking. The kind of injury that might have killed another man. ”
D’Artagnan felt his blood run cold. “Oh God.”
Athos regarded his fearful countenance with careful apathy. “Fortunately, none of their most serious prognoses came to pass, but what has stuck with him through the years are the–”
“Headaches,” D’Artagnan supplied, the connections dawning upon him like a horrid sunrise.
Athos gave a humorless chuckle. “Porthos thinks it’s a mockery of the word to call them so, and I’m inclined to agree. You’ve seen it. They debilitate him completely. Says it’s the worst pain he has ever felt.”
D’Artagnan felt his heart squeeze. “Are there any treatments?”
“None which have proven effective.”
“God,” he repeated, running a hand through his hair helplessly. He raised his eyes to Athos. “But how can Treville allow a soldier with such a–”
Suddenly, Athos’s breath was at D’Artagnan’s cheek and his hand fisted in D’Artagnan’s collar. “Because you are new, young, and foolish, I will stop you there and write that comment off as a lapse of judgment.” His voice was low and controlled, calm even, but the twitch in his jaw belied his anger. “But I would caution you not to think about it again or let it come to its conclusion, or I will have your head in a duel before such talk even reaches the captain, do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” D’Artagnan gasped. Athos let him go, and D’Artagnan rubbed nervously at his neck. “I didn’t mean to question Treville.”
“So you meant to question Aramis?”
“No!” D’Artagnan cried desperately, retreating a step so that Athos could not take hold of him again. “I… I only meant, what if Aramis is incapacitated during a battle?”
“And how is that different from any other man who suffers an injury in battle? If he is incapacitated, then he does not fight, same as any other.” Athos’s eyes glinted and D’Artagnan worried the man could hear his rapid heartbeat. “If you are concerned for your own safety in his presence, well then tell me, whelp. In the months that you have known Aramis, has he ever intentionally put you in harm's way?”
D’Artagnan shook his head quickly. “No.”
“Has he failed to protect you when it was in his power to do so?”
“No.”
“Then I suggest you direct your worries elsewhere,” Athos said with one last fearsome look at the Gascon, before showing the young man his back in dismissal.
“You’re right, Athos,” D’Artagnan said, touching the man’s shoulder to try to turn him back around. He took a deep breath to calm his voice. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Athos nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m not the one whom you owe the apology.”
“But he didn’t even hear me.” D’Artagnan pointed out, feeling like a chastised little boy. He was trying to convince himself as much as Athos, this much he knew, and from the look on the older man’s face, Athos knew it too. “He’s unconscious.” D’Artagnan sighed and shook his head. “Should we go back in?”
“With any luck,” Athos drawled, “he’s just how we left him.”
“I know, but I feel like…” D’Artagnan’s gaze drifted toward the floor.
“You should apologize?”
He looked up to find Athos smiling slightly at him. “Shut up,” D’Artagnan mumbled, and went back into Aramis’s room.
Much to their collective dismay, Aramis was not in the same limp state in which they had left him; it seemed Mercy would not let him ride through this attack so easily. D’Artagnan looked at the tense form on the bed and swallowed back a sudden and overwhelming urge to cry. Aramis’s whole body vibrated with pain and each exhale was an unconsciously whispered whimper, and D’Artagnan was just supposed to stand by and watch? Aramis had bandaged his cuts, inspected his bruises, brewed him tea for soreness, and yet in this instant, D’Artagnan could not repay him. He understood clearly, now, the specter of horror that seemed to descend upon Athos and Porthos earlier; how could they manage being so helpless to their dear friend’s distress?
“What else shall we do?” D’Artagnan whispered.
“Wait,” Athos said.
Despite his best efforts, D’Artagnan felt himself growing louder. “Wait! What do you mean wait? ” He looked back at Aramis; the man’s face was pale and sweaty, the vein in his temple pulsating rapidly beneath his hair. “If he clenches his teeth any tighter I think his head might actually burst.”
“That could potentially be a comfort to him,” Athos said drily, and D’Artagnan could have punched him. “There is nothing more to be done.”
“Surely you jest. There has to be some potion, some herb that will take away at least some of his pain!”
“Are you suggesting that, in all the years we have known Aramis, Porthos and I have not tried every single thing we could think of to help him?”
“No! I–”
“Shut up!” Porthos hissed viciously, still perched in the chair from which he promised to take his vigil. “Both of you. Or I’ll send you back outside and you can just wait there.”
Tension thrummed from every inch of the room, like the air which feels hot and potent before a thunderstorm, and D’Artagnan did not trust himself to keep his head under such conditions, and that would help no one. “I’ll go fetch Constance,” he muttered, turning toward the door as he cast around desperately for an excuse to leave. “See if she has any suggestions.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “She might know… Women seem to know… I–”
With that, D’Artagnan gave up and turned the knob and slipped through the door, Porthos raising his eyebrows at Athos as the young man left.
“I may have frightened him a bit in the hall,” Athos said simply, rolling his eyes at Porthos’s slightly admonishing glare. “Porthos, you are not the only one who would go to the ends of the earth to protect Aramis.”
“I’m glad,” Porthos said with a small smile, running his fingers along Aramis’s knuckles. “He needs us.”
“He has us,” Athos said resolutely. “And in due time, I think he’ll have D’Artagnan as well.”