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“We should make camp here.”
Athos could see Aramis’s shoulders tense even through the layers they both wore against the cold, saw the white puff of air indicating the marksman’s measured exhale as he stopped his horse.
“I suppose here’s as good as anywhere else, yes.”
They were on that slow November creep into winter, the days getting colder little by little, and as it so often did, it was taking a toll on his partner.
Being on a multiple day mission with Aramis in winter was never an easy feat, even less so if said mission took them across the borders of Savoy. Much less so if it happened to be snowing.
It wasn’t that Aramis was obvious about his struggle. If one didn’t know about his past, one might not even have noticed that anything was off about him. But Athos knew, and so he noticed. He was brave, he thought. What Athos had faced when he went back to Pinon, Aramis faced every winter.
It began with a jaw twitch. Haunted eyes that tried to be brave, scanning the woods for potential enemies at every little noise. Athos could never blame Aramis for being too careful, not with their track record and the way they seemed to attract bad luck like light attracted a moth. Athos was uneasy, too, about it only being the two of them.
Porthos, who was recovering from a leg wound, had joked about them finally getting alone time away from him for a couple of days, but of course he had worried. He had held Athos back, after Aramis had gone to pack and prepare the horses. “Take care of him,” he had said. “You know how much he hates this.”
“I do.” Athos had squeezed Porthos’s shoulder in farewell, not knowing what else to add. “We do not plan to stay any longer than is absolutely necessary, I assure you.”
“Yeah.” Porthos blinked up at him, weary eyes framed by a light-hearted smile. “Keep him warm.”
Athos had ducked his head at that comment, a private smile lifting the very corners of his mouth.
“I intend to.” It was said in the practical manner in which Athos said and did most things, but with the lingering softness which he bestowed on his loved ones and, rather recently, especially on Aramis.
How he longed to be back in that heated bedchamber now, with mulled wine and company. “Not long now,” he said out loud, as much for Aramis’s comfort as his own. “If we ride hard, we will make it back to Paris tomorrow.” Aramis had kept quiet on their ride, and Athos found himself in the unusual position to try and fill the silence whenever it became too pressing. He had often found that cheering Aramis up was a challenge when he was gloomy like this, and it was perhaps for the best to just soldier through it as fast as they could.
The two men dismounted, and fell into their routines naturally: Aramis building a fire so he could be the first to get warm, while Athos cleared the surroundings and unpacked their bedrolls for the night.
“I’ll take first watch.”
Aramis sounded tense, and what was worse, he did not even bother to hide it. Athos sighed.
“Is that an offer or a demand?”
Aramis merely looked at him. Athos met his gaze undaunted, letting him know that he was fooling nobody. His partner was the type who would take first watch, then ‘forget’ to wake Athos when it was time.
“You think someone might be coming after us,” he observed.
“I think someone
is
coming after us,” Aramis countered. “I doubt Savoy forgot about you nearly gutting him in front of His Majesty.”
Athos huffed through a crooked smile. “You think?” He hadn’t exactly held back his snark this time during their brief stay there, either – mostly to keep Aramis’s mind off the fact that the man they were sent to as peaceful envoys had caused the death of twenty of his friends. They had delivered the King’s letter as ordered, but left the Duke seething with rage.
“Let them come.”
He sat down on his bedroll, watching Aramis wordlessly tug his own closer to his before he sat as well. Athos reached out to put an arm around his shoulders. “I sometimes think I should have killed him.”
"Nonsense. It would have brought more trouble than it’s worth.” Aramis shook his head, but his lips twitched, which Athos counted as a win.
Aramis leaned his head against his shoulder, and Athos felt him relax a little against him. “It is still an hour or so until it will become completely dark,” he murmured. “You barely slept last night.”
Aramis grumbled something unintelligible, causing Athos to gently ruffle his hair. “Take a nap, at least. I will have something edible ready when you wake."
“Edible," Aramis remarked, taking the bait for banter as Athos had hoped he would.
“That’s the most I can promise.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Athos gave him a little shove for that, and was glad to see Aramis smile before he acquiesced to common sense, lying down to get comfortable.
The woods around them stayed quiet, and between the merry crackling of fire in the slow approach of dusk and Aramis’s even breathing, Athos finally found a sense of calm.
And then, everything happened so fast. One moment he was stirring the pot so the sorry excuse of a stew he'd been cooking wouldn't stick and the next, both of his indexes had left ladle and spoon and were pressed to his pistols' triggers. A less seasoned soldier would not have picked up on the noise quickly enough to react. A less seasoned soldier just like, as Athos would muse later that day, twenty freshly appointed musketeers on a training mission had been.
In just another heartbeat, sound seemed to wrap around him, exploding through the woods, and Athos moved just in time to avoid being impaled by a lightning-fast projectile, which impacted on the tree at his back and sunk into its core like a knife through butter.
That is not a bullet.
Athos cursed under his breath, but the noise of the projectile had been enough to wake Aramis, who was already aiming one of his pistols into the woods. With a bang that sounded louder than usual amongst the silence, a yelp came from between the bushes, and Athos knew they were one man down.
He sensed more than saw the second bolt – that’s what it was, a bloody crossbow bolt – coming into the clearing as though time had ceased to pass at its usual speed.
"Aramis! Move!"
Usually, it shouldn’t have been a problem, but sleep-deprived as he was, Aramis wasn’t as quick on his feet as he would have been. His side-step was slow, almost sluggish, until his shoulder suddenly jerked backwards, and he fell down with a cry. Athos wasted no time to use his clear line of sight, aiming and shooting at the men. Now apparently out of pre-cocked crossbows, they had resorted to pistols as well, which made Athos expect four prepared shots if the man Aramis had hit stayed down.
Athos dropped his spent pistol to the ground, knowing he would have no time to prime it again and trying to not think about Aramis at his back, possibly bleeding profusely. There was no time to lose, and another shot echoed through the trees and got lost inside someone else, judging by the sound of it.
A new thud, a new pistol tossed to the floor, and just a single shot left. Sometimes, when time was tight, one of his brothers would muse about how easy conflicts would be if someone handed Athos of the King’s Musketeers some grenades to chuck at someone. He had none, but his dagger was sent hurling towards the first man he managed to see through the foliage.
Nothing about their clothing hinted at them being sent by Savoy, but that was obviously something the Duke would want to avoid.
Another thing that confirmed their suspicion was the enemies' swift retreat, despite not having stolen from or killed their targets. It was simply bruised pride and petty revenge. And now Aramis had to pay for it. Athos watched the men scramble away, deciding not to chase them because he had more important matters at hand.
He dropped down by Aramis's side, gathering him into his arms to help him sit up. After a grunt of pain, the first words out of Aramis’s mouth were “Are you alright?”, to which Athos simply nodded, taking Aramis’s hand to lift it to his lips. They were both shaking, though Athos immediately set out to calm his breathing methodically, feeling for Aramis’s heartbeat to help him do so. Aramis’s fingers travelled from his lips to his cheek, then rested at the back of his neck. He shifted a bit to make sure his injured friend was comfortable.
Athos kept his eyes fixed on the trees where the bastards had disappeared, wondering if they’d dare to return.
“Do you … think they’re gone?” Aramis spoke slowly as he echoed Athos’s own thoughts, in a low voice, clenching his jaw against the pain in between words.
“They got what they wanted, but we can’t be sure. Are you hurt anywhere else?” Tearing his eyes away from one threat, he was faced with another: the crossbow bolt which was still stuck in Aramis’s arm, like a personal insult to him.
“Don’t think so,” Aramis murmured, twisting a little in Athos’s hold to try and look at his shoulder.
Blood was trickling slowly but steadily out from the sides of the shaft, and Athos winced in sympathy just looking at it.
“What do we do about this?” he asked with a calmness he did not feel. “The one that hit the tree had barbs on it.”
“... Well, there’s three options– no, four,” Aramis said evenly, taking his time to weigh them against each other. “One is to leave it in until we’re home, but it will get jostled on the way and frankly I don't think I can do that." His voice was strained, and Athos's hand settled on his uninjured arm both in an attempt to comfort and as a prompt to go on. "I could cut it out, which would go badly, pull it out, which would go worse … “ He raised a hand to gingerly feel the back of his injured arm. There was no exit wound, but from the way he flinched and judging by the length of the shaft, the head had to sit right beneath the skin.
“Or?” Athos prompted, even though he thought he already knew.
“Or push it all the way through.”
Athos could see the sweat beading on Aramis’s forehead despite the cold, and he helplessly leaned in to press his lips to his temple. “Is that advisable?”
“It would cause the least damage.” Somehow, the circles under his eyes seemed to have darkened since the beginning of the conversation.
“What about blood loss? Is it worth it?”
Athos saw Aramis’s lips twitch at his question and couldn’t fight a small surge of pride; he had learned some things during the many years of Aramis taking care of them.
“It should be manageable that way, a lot better than if I tried removing it out front and doing more damage than it did going in. – One more thing.” Aramis spoke quickly to get the information out while he had the strength to do so, and Athos braced himself for the next response.
“– you need me to do it,” he cut to the chase.
“Yeah.”
Athos nodded, and then just looked at him, willing himself to move. Knocking Porthos unconscious for his own benefit was one thing; actively worsening an existing injury was quite another. His limbs would not obey.
Aramis’s grim expression softened, then he leaned his forehead against Athos’s cheek, and while Athos hated that he needed to be comforted in this moment, he also welcomed it very much. “I’m sorry. I’d do it myself if I could.”
“I know.”
And then he told himself that prolonging the anticipation of pain was a kind of torture in itself, one he would not subject Aramis to any longer. He helped Aramis back to the fire, wrapping him up in a blanket but leaving his shoulder free to work on. The horses were still there, thankfully, and only a little restless after the brief skirmish. Athos retrieved the satchel with Aramis’s supplies from their saddlebags, as well as the rest of the brandy they had shared last night to keep themselves warm, then returned to his side.
The first step was to saw off the thick end of the bolt, keeping the rest of it as still as possible. Athos found that, oddly, his hands did not shake, even though Aramis certainly did.
“Push as strongly and swiftly as you can,” Aramis instructed next, taking a swig from the bottle before handing it back to him. “then grab the other end and tug. I should have some pincers in there.”
Athos rummaged through the satchel and found them, looking up at Aramis with no small amount of uncertainty in his eyes. “And then do I stitch it?”
Aramis shook his head. “Wounds like this tend to get infected easily, probably because they’re hard to clean, so it’s better to leave it open and bandage it.”
Reciting his knowledge seemed to help calm him down, so Athos continued in that vein.
“Summing up: I’m pushing it through, then pulling it out. I clean both wounds thoroughly, then I wrap you up, and we wait for sunrise.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Simple enough.”
Aramis responded with an entirely mirthless laugh, reaching for a strap of leather to fold and place between his teeth.
Athos took a steadying breath, kneeled in front of him and placed his palm on the end of the shaft, the other hand on Aramis’s shoulder.
“Ready?”
“M-hm.”
Athos barely waited for the confirming hum before he all but punched the bolt through Aramis’s arm, closing his mind and heart to the answering muffled scream as his partner convulsed in his hold. It worked, he told himself, over and over. It’s working. Now, pincers. He took the vicious looking tongs, slipping off the bloodied arrowhead a few times while Aramis shook and clung to him, spitting a stream of colourful curses.
“I’ve got you,” he breathed. “Hold still, hold still.”
Only when Aramis’s fingers dug into his skin hard enough to bruise did he finally get a good grip on the damn thing, and with one forceful tug it was over. Aramis’s next scream turned into a series of gasps and whimpers as the leather dropped from his mouth, and Athos flung the bolt away like a poisonous snake that might come back to bite him.
And stay gone.
“You’re alright. You’re alright.” Athos clasped the back of Aramis’s neck and kissed his head, rubbing soothing circles into his scalp with his thumb until Aramis loosened his hold. Right, because they were not done. There would be plenty of time to comfort him after.
He let Aramis keep his face buried in his shoulder while he worked on washing out the wounds, feeling heat through his shirt whenever Aramis hissed in pain. He had always been more vocal than him and Porthos, Athos reflected. Not that he could not withstand a lot, heavens knew that was not true, but he never saw the point in keeping quiet when he was hurt, unless it served a direct purpose.
“There we go,” he said softly some minutes later, tying off the last bandage. He had to do it in the light of the fire, as darkness had enveloped them in the meantime. Not that it was night yet. Athos hated camping in this time of year, when the sky turned dark around six in the afternoon.
“Have this.” He pushed the last remains of brandy into Aramis’s uninjured hand, then cupped his cheek to look at him. “How do you feel?” He gently thumbed away the tears that had collected under Aramis’s eyes, glad to at least see them awake and alert.
“Like crap.” He emptied the bottle and set it aside. “And I’m cold.”
“So … like cold crap?”
Aramis made a noise anywhere between a snort and an indignant huff. “You’re lucky I can’t fight you right now.”
“So lucky to have you be shot, indeed.”
They were quiet for a second, a second in which Athos, too, became very aware of the temperature.
“Let’s see if I can’t do something about at least one of those things, though,” he offered, and Aramis managed a tiny smile.
“Are you flirting with me now, monsieur?” His speech was slurred and his breaths came quickly, but he did not sound faint, which did wonders to lift Athos's spirits.
“I could think of no situation more enticing than stopping by woods on a snowy evening, with my partner severely injured,” he deadpanned.
Aramis laughed, then grimaced. “Fair enough.”
He let himself be more-or-less gently manhandled onto their joined bedrolls, on his uninjured side, with Athos behind him.
“Should we really be lying down? It’s gonna be a long night.”
“There’s no way I’m sleeping after this.” Athos wrapped his arms around him with all the care in the world. “And this is the best way to keep you warm.”
"I'm inclined to agree."
Aramis carefully settled into his embrace, and Athos let the familiarity of it wash over him like a calming wave. The relative silence was comfortable for a while, as both men recovered from the ordeal. It wasn’t until he felt Aramis shiver in his arms that Athos noticed that the quiet had carried his partner’s mind to other places.
“Aramis?” he softly called his name. “What’s wrong?”
“... They came when we were asleep, just like last time,” Aramis whispered, trying to press closer to Athos which was impossible at this point. “They would have shot us where we lay. The chaos, the confusion– all I could think earlier was please, not again. ”
Athos saw Aramis’s hand curl into a fist in front of him, and he reached across him to place his own hand over it.
“You are not that boy anymore,” he offered quietly. “That memory did not stop you.”
Aramis did not respond for some time, and Athos did not press him until he felt the shaking pick up again. “And I knew it would happen,” he hissed, when Athos tried to trace over his balled up knuckles soothingly. “Expecting it changed nothing. ”
“That’s not true.” Athos now pushed insistently at Aramis’s fist, until his fingers uncurled and allowed him to hold his hand. He felt a shiver of relief run through Aramis’s body, and congratulated himself on how much he had learned about being with Aramis. Sometimes passive touch was not enough. “We’re both still alive, for starters.”
“For now.”
“Alright, now you sound as if you died and turned into me.”
The chuckle that followed his lame joke sounded a little wet, and Athos squeezed Aramis’s hand, attempting to shield him from the entire world with his body.
“Shame about the stew,” he tried again, grasping for more things to say to fill in the empty space which would usually be taken up by Aramis’s chatter. “I was really onto something with the rosemary.”
Aramis squeezed his hand back, now, and brought it to his lips. Athos all but melted at the gesture, despite the snow. “Well, we can always try again later. Are you still so cold?”
A nod. Athos pulled the blankets more firmly around them.
“Has the bleeding in your shoulder stopped, do you think?”
Another little nod. Athos gave up on making conversation, simply lay there and hoped that Aramis’s shoulder would heal well. After a while Aramis murmured something, which Athos didn’t catch at first.
“What was that?”
“... keep talking.” Aramis pulled Athos’s hand to his chest, holding it there. “... need to know you’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive,” Athos said, placing a kiss between Aramis’s shoulder blades. “I promised Porthos we’d make it home safely.”
He recited their little conversation to him, predicting that Porthos would shake his head at them and their inability to stay out of trouble. Then he talked about Porthos some more, and about home. Athos wasn’t used to talking so much at once, but for Aramis’s sake, he would keep finding words until the break of dawn. For Aramis, he could do anything.
Eventually the sun did rise, and the first rays of warmth promised to bring less snow and more light than the last.
Later, when Aramis sat up by himself to take a look at his shoulder and fuss about the way Athos had bandaged it, he knew they would be alright.
~fin~