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“I know what you do,” Athos had said, on his back on the bed. “I know what you are.”
Aramis stopped, hand on the doorknob. He had snuffed out the bedside candle between thumb and forefinger as he passed, and the only light was the silver-backed lantern at the window. He had thought Athos asleep almost before he had rolled him onto the bed and pulled off his boots.
At the Nag's Head, Porthos had been deep in a serious game of l'ombre with a merchant and a diplomat when Aramis had grown bored of watching him. D'Artagnan had gone home an hour before, yawning. (The boy didn't yet have their tavern-crawling stamina, though he tried his best.) Aramis had slapped Porthos on the shoulder, smiling slipped a heavy half-pistole coin into a serving girl's hand, and hauled Athos, wine-sodden and half-dreaming, from his chair.
It was a long stagger to Athos' rooms, and by the time Aramis had half-dragged, half-carried him up the narrow stairs, he was almost minded to stay. He'd curl up in the wooden chair by the window, with a stiff neck in the morning for his pains. But that there was another dark room halfway across Paris, in which waited a warm bed and someone who was always glad to see him. So he was on his way out when Athos had spoken.
“What?” Aramis said, turning. There was a moment of silence. A smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “Go to sleep, or you'll feel even worse in the morning.”
Athos raised himself on one elbow, pushing his unruly hair back from his face. “You,” he began, pointing with a wavering finger, “are a very pretty man.”
A grin split Aramis' face. “Why, thank you,” he said. “I know.”
“Very pretty,” Athos repeated, as if puzzled by it. He shook his head, and sat up. For a moment, he looked as if he might fall back again. Aramis drew closer. Athos held up a finger. “Tell me,” he said, then shook his head. “Come here.”
Aramis, wearing an indulgent smile for the benefit of no one but himself, obeyed. When he was within reach, Athos reached out, quick as a whip, and grabbed his shirtfront. He dragged him closer. Athos stank of wine like a freshly-opened bottle. Aramis put his hands over Athos' but didn't pry him loose.
“Tell me,” Athos said again, struggling to focus on Aramis' face. “It's not just women, is it?”
Aramis stiffened. “What?” he said, mouth curling up in what he hoped looked like a smile. “What are you talking about?”
“You,” Athos said. “The famous lover. But it's not what everyone thinks. Not always. It's boys, too. Isn't it?” His expression was of one concentrating intently.
Aramis' hands tightened on Athos'. He felt cold, suddenly, despite the city's virulent summer heat, despite the closeness of the room. He set his jaw. There could be no dissemblance between friends. Omission, yes. But not lies. “Men,” he said, the word hard and cold as a piece of iron in his mouth.
“What?”
“Men,” Aramis repeated. “I fuck men. Not boys. Men.” Inside his chest, his heart beat as hard as if he were running, or fighting.
“Men,” Athos said, as if trying the word out. “Tell me,” he said again. This time he paused, hesitating on a thought. He lifted his eyes to Aramis' again. “What's it like?”
Aramis took his hands from Athos', but before he could pull away, Athos had seized his wrists. Aramis stilled, heart in his throat. “Don't,” he said, a warning in his tone.
Athos, frowning incomprehension, uncurled his hands from Aramis' wrists. Aramis let relief close his eyes for a moment. It was then, startling them open again, that Athos kissed him.
His mouth was soft and warm and tasted sweet with wine. For a long moment, Aramis was unresisting. The strangeness and the familiarity at once dazzled him; and he sank into the kiss with question. It was Athos, of course; beloved Athos, whom he would trust with his life.
Then he pulled away, and breaking apart was like a dash of cold water. He backed away until his back was flat against the door. Athos sat on the bed, staring after him. He drew, slowly, a trembling hand across his mouth.
Aramis, unused to running away from anything, fumbled with the doorknob before flinging open the door and fleeing down the stairs and out into the night.
…
The morning after the next, it was Porthos Aramis found lounging against his front door, dancing a gold coin across his knuckles. The street was busy with market day traffic—mostly women in matrimonial linen caps, carrying laden baskets; barefoot urchins dodging around their skirts. Aramis didn't even realise he wasn't alone until he put his hand to the door and found Porthos blocking his path. “How do you do that?” he asked, hoping his face didn't show the dread that coiled cold in his guts. “It's not as if you're unobtrusive.”
“Nice to see you too,” Porthos said. He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “It's a trick I mastered when I was small. Just got to keep in practice. Where've you been?”
Aramis shrugged. “You know. Here, there, everywhere. A rolling stone gathers no moss.”
With a quick motion, the coin flicked upwards, flashing in the sunlight. Porthos caught it in a fist. “Wouldn't want you getting all mossy, naturally.” He raised an eyebrow at Aramis. “Aren't you going to invite me in?”
Inside, Aramis poured them each a cup of wine. They clinked their cups and drank. Porthos made a face. Aramis said, “Breakfast wine,” by way of an explanation. He swallowed another mouthful before saying, “What's the matter?”
“I feel like I should be the one asking that question,” Porthos said. “What have you done to Athos?”
The wine turned to ashes in Aramis' mouth. He swallowed it anyway, and looked at Porthos from under his eyebrows. “What has he told you?”
Porthos grinned. “Absolutely nothing. But something did happen?” When Aramis turned away, Porthos shook his head. “You know what he's like. He's gone all—” He went rigid, and made a sergeant-major's face. “—you know.”
Aramis took off his hat and flung it onto a chair. “And why do you assume this is somehow my fault?”
"Well, no offense or anything,” Porthos said, “but you're not exactly yourself either, this morning.”
“Oh, and it couldn't possibly be anything the saintly Athos himself could have done,” Aramis spat. He tore off a glove and raked his hand through his hair. He was surprised to find the bile within himself.
“All right,” Porthos said at last, drawing out the words. He paused there, raising his eyebrows for further explanation.
“Sorry,” Aramis said. The vitriol was already bitter in his heart. “I'm sorry. I did wrongly to speak that way about a mutual friend.” The last word was the hardest to get out.
Porthos grinned, disbelievingly. “Damn propriety,” he said. “This is me you're talking to. If you two have something to sort out, then sort it. Don't dance around it like a bloody maypole. Not that I begrudge waiting outside your door for an hour like you were my mistress, but I've got better things to be doing.” He drained his cup and set it down. “I'm going to the yard. Are you coming?”
Aramis shook his head; it was barely more than a twitch. “No.”
"Suit yourself. Treville'll be annoyed but I'll keep him quiet.” Porthos brought his hand up. Something bright arced through the air between them. Aramis caught it reflexively. When he looked down, he saw it was the coin Porthos has been toying with outside. Porthos cocked his head at it. “Just a small taste of my winnings from the other night. Come to the Winking Beggar tonight, I'll stand a round or two.” He didn't give Aramis time to reply. “Don't bother saying no. You're coming out, if I have to drag you out.”
Aramis performed a little bow, smiling despite himself. “As you say, sire.”
“Damn right.” Porthos clapped a hand against Aramis' neck for a goodbye, gloved fingers curling briefly in his hair—then he was gone, out of the door and into the bright morning sunlight.
Aramis blinked after him. The sunny street outside left grass green afterimages across his vision when he turned his head. He stripped off his other glove and sat down abruptly.
He had spent the last twenty-four hours in the arms and between the legs of a red-haired Dutchman, a captain of a trading ship, who tasted of salt and was as freckled as a seal. Aramis had fucked him—been fucked—desperately, insatiably.
He stank of it; there was exhaustion in every limb. He reached his cup from the table, and drained it in one swallow.
He had spent a long time—a span of years—purging himself of the last poisonous traces of shame. He had drawn the insidious thoughts like splinters from his flesh—the what would your friends think of you and what would your mother say when he was curled, sated, in bed or gasping for breath with his back against a wall, spent. Vicious, perfidious shame—he had seen it ravage the souls of good people and turn them to twisted, wrathful parodies of themselves. It would ruin him if he let it.
And now here it was again, striking at his heart from the most unexpected quarter. Aramis took another mouthful of wine, and the hot pulse of anger in his veins propelled him to his feet. Athos had no right to speak of it. It wouldn't be him looking behind him at night or listening for the pounding at the door.
What's it like?
Cold shivered down Aramis' spine. He tossed his gloves aside, and set to serious drinking.
…
The Winking Beggar, one of their habitual haunts, was an alehouse deep in a labyrinth of narrow streets north-east of the Pont au Change. The grey spires of the Châtelet rose oppressively close over the southward rooves. The streets were full of the stink of the sewers, overwhelming in the merciless Paris summer. Aramis kept his back to the prison, and wore violets pinned to his shirtfront.
He waited outside until Athos appeared. Sunk in a well of shadow under the overhanging first floor, Aramis made sure that they were alone before stepping out into the street.
Athos stopped. The empty street was lit by lanterns and candles burning in the windows above. They cast a wan yellow light. Twenty feet apart, the two of them would have been unidentifiable to perhaps anybody else.
Aramis crossed the distance between them in five strides and took hold of Athos' collar. Athos remained standing as he had when he had spotted him—shoulders tight, face hidden in the shadow of his hat. Aramis hands balled into fists in the leather of Athos' collar.. “Look at me,” he growled. “Look at me, damn you!”
Slowly, Athos reached up and took off his hat. He met Aramis' eyes from under a dark fringe of hair. “I am aware,” he began, speaking as if recalling a prepared speech, “that I have overstepped a boundary.” Aramis stared at him, heart beating fast. Athos went on. “I can only beg your forgiveness for an unforgiveable trespass. If you were to demand satisfaction I could not in good conscience deny you, or even be surprised.” He bowed his head again.
He was prepared for this to be the end, Aramis realised. “You would never have said anything, would you?” Aramis asked, half to himself. Athos looked up. “You were just going to lock it away in that strongbox you have for a heart with every other dark secret you own, and never utter a word, and drown yourself in wine?”
“Of course I would never have said anything,” Athos said, low and bitter. “It was I who acted dishonourably, and to a friend.”
Aramis uncurled his fists from Athos' collar, dropping them to his sides. “I don't want to fight you,” he said. “Just tell me—why? Why did you ask me? Why did you—”
“I didn't follow you,” Athos interrupted. “Please don't think that of me. I simply saw you, one night. On the left bank of the river.” He hesitated. “With a friend of yours.”
Aramis caught his breath. “I see,” he managed, after a moment. He turned away, took a few directionless steps. His blood roared in his ears. If you, then who else? Had he been a fool to think he could be two people—one in the musketeers' yard, one in between the sheets? Suddenly he seemed to be standing naked on a precipice, and his feet were unsteady.
Aramis looked back. Athos stood where he had been, unmoving, like a clockwork automaton whose spring had wound down. Something—brittle pride perhaps—gave way in Aramis' chest. He became aware of a great weariness he had in store—an exhaustion that built up over years of straight-backed, pin-smart chivalry. For a dazzling moment, he considered turning his back on Athos and walking away. Away from the Winking Beggar, from Porthos, from Paris itself. From his duties, from his name. In that moment, his feet itched to do exactly that.
Then, because he was Aramis still, and being Aramis came with certain responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities was to care for his friends, he put aside the exhaustion and the temptation. He returned to Athos and took him by the shoulders. “Come,” he said.
Athos looked at him with uncomprehending eyes. “Where?”
“Just come.” Aramis steered him back, into the shadow where he had been waiting. Dangerous, his gut said. He ignored it. Was anything safe? Perhaps he was already dead. He pressed Athos against the wall.
Here, in the dark, Aramis could barely see anything but for the glimmer in Athos' eyes. “You wanted to know what it was like,” he said.
“I—” Athos stalled, stopped.
“Didn't you?” Aramis prompted.
Athos' breath hitched in his throat. “Yes,” he said at last, and Aramis, hands still holding his shoulders, felt the tension go out of him. He gripped harder. “I did. I do.”
Aramis pressed his forehead to Athos'. He was cold, despite the heat. Their breath met and mingled, wine-flavoured. It occurred to him that perhaps Athos was afraid, too. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course,” Athos said, no more than a breath.
Still holding him steady, Aramis kissed him.
Athos' mouth still tasted of wine, salt and sharp as blood, and Aramis could feel the scar bisecting his upper lip under his mouth. His hand came up, a creature of its own, and tangled in Athos' hair. Aramis felt Athos' hand at his ribs, tentative, querying.
Aramis pulled away. Athos took a gulp of air like a man rising to the surface of the river. Aramis kept hold of Athos' shoulders, pinning him against the wall. He fixed him with a stare, though all he could see were the twin glints of his eyes. “That,” he said, “it what it is like.”
The best revenge, he thought, would be to leave now. Leave him bewitched and bewildered and craving, unmistakeably, more. Aramis touched the backs of his fingers to Athos' untidy hair; brushed it back from his face. Athos found Aramis' eyes with his own. Aramis smiled at himself for ever thinking he could leave now. Athos was his friend. He loved him too well to ever take pleasure in revenge.
“Look,” he said, close enough that his nose bumped Athos', their lips teased one another. “Don't worry. I am your friend. That is all.” He pressed his body against Athos'. “I will always—” He drew his open hand down Athos' ribs, his hips, his thigh. “—be your devoted—” Athos trembled under his hand. “—friend.” Aramis leaned in to capture Athos' mouth in one more brief kiss before he stepped back. Madness, his heart said. He quieted it with a smile that wouldn't be quelled.
Hands—Athos' hands, of course—found his wrists. This time, despite the tremor in them, they were gentle as if handling royalty. His fingers circled Aramis' wrists and held them for a moment: a deliberate apology. In reply, Aramis caught Athos at the waist and tugged him against him, giddy with the reality of their situation. The violets pinned to Aramis' shirt, crushed between them, fell away in petals, filling the foul air with sweetness. “Come away with me,” he breathed into his friend's ear.
Athos pulled back. “Where?”
Aramis grinned. “Geneva. London. My rooms. I don't care. Just come.”
Something that was almost a smile passed over Athos' face. “You're not as smooth as you think you are, you know,” he said.
“Yes, I am.” Aramis took Athos' face in his hands and pressed his forehead to his once again. Inside, he was flying. This was why, he thought. This was why he was who he was. This moment, every time. “Come on.”
…
Darkness made everything different.
Moonlight, falling in stripes through the shutters upon the floor, dazzled Aramis' eyes as he staggered back, through the door and into the room, tossing aside his hat and stripping off his gloves. Athos closed the door behind him and advanced upon Aramis. Aramis, feet stupid and clumsy with wine, found the table behind him and gripped it with both hands. Athos closed the distance between them and seized Aramis' neck, in his rough hands. He kissed him, messy and urgent, before pulling back. For a moment the only sound between them was their breathing. Then, Athos said, “I don't know how to do this.”
Aramis arched his hips against Athos', and drew from him a sharp intake of breath. He reached down between them and began unbuckling, with practised fingers, Athos' swordbelt. “I'll show you,” he said. The belt undone, Aramis let it drop to the flagstones with a clatter. Athos, with unsteady hands, unholstered his pistol and laid it upon the table behind Aramis, before dropping his gunbelt, too. Aramis reached up and took the hat from Athos' head. He threw it aside. Then, he grabbed Athos' shoulders again, as Athos pushed him back onto the table.
They grappled in the dark, stripping one another of their clothes and casting them aside. Skin to skin, Athos' hands were alternately hesitant and rough, like those of a man learning to play an instrument for the first time. Aramis knew Athos' body almost as intimately as his own—could map every ridged scar, every old injury. He traced them blindly with his fingers and his mouth, redrawing their history to the uncertain present.
Although Aramis did his best, his skilled mouth could draw no sounds from Athos but his shuddering breaths. Athos' hands spoke for him: searching, gripping, holding, wherever they could. At last they curled in Aramis' hair; opened, closed, opened. When he came, he did so holding his breath, like someone steeling himself against pain. Aramis followed moments after him, spending himself into his hand with an exhalation.
They spent a long time wordless in the darkness. Aramis with his forehead resting on Athos' damp thigh; Athos with an arm flung over his eyes. Then somewhere close by a door burst open, and there was the sound of good boots on the cobbles outside. Both Athos and Aramis started up.
The boots strode past, and the wearer hailed somebody at the other end of the street. His shadow passed over the shutters. Their voices receded into the night. After they had gone, Aramis pushed himself to his feet—the flagstones cool in the hot night—and took a fresh bottle of wine from the shelf. He dug the cork out with a knife and took a long swallow.
Athos gestured it away before Aramis had even offered it. After a while, he spoke without looking up. “It's been a long time since I was intimate with anyone,” he said. Something tugged at the corners of his mouth that wasn't a smile. “I've been alone for a long time.”
“No,” Aramis said, and Athos looked up. “No, I must contest that.” He took the bottle from Athos' hand and swallowed a mouthful of wine. “You've always had Porthos and I.”
Athos watched him drink. “I suppose so,” he said.
“And you will continue to have us,” Aramis said. An irresistable grin broke open his face. “You can certainly have me, at any available opportunity.”
Athos shook his head, but he was smiling too. As Aramis watched, the smile faded, and when he looked up again his eyes were troubled. “I don't understand you, Aramis,” he said.
“Yes, you do.” Aramis took another swig of wine, before leaning in to wind his arm around Athos' waist. “I'm exactly as simple as I seem. It's other people who insist on making problems.” Aramis was surprised when Athos' hand closed around his on the neck of the wine bottle.
“They will not,” Athos said, holding Aramis' gaze. “You have nothing to fear, Aramis, as long as I can protect you.”
Aramis pulled away. He set the bottle down on the table. “I don't need protection,” he said. “I am a musketeer. I'm the best damn shot out of all of you, and you know it. I have lived thus far. Come to that, you are in just as vulnerable a position as I am, now.”
Athos stiffened. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. Not in this.”
A wry smile bent Aramis' mouth. “That's the spirit,” he said, softly. They were silent for a while. Then Aramis, leaning in again, put his hands on Athos' naked shoulders, in an echo of their earlier positions outside the Winking Beggar. Athos met his gaze with guileless eyes. “We deserve,” Aramis said, pronouncing each syllable definitely, “to be happy and free of shame, as we were when God made us. We deserve to live in the light.”
Athos bowed his head. “Not all of us,” he said.
“All of us,” Aramis said. “It's the truth. Hold onto it.” He ducked his head to find Athos' eyes with his again. “You have to trust me. I'm practically a man of God.”
This failed to coax a smile out of Athos, but did seem to encourage him to take Aramis' face in his hands again, gently, and kiss him. Aramis leant into the kiss, soft and sweet and long, and wound his fingers through Athos'. When they broke apart, Athos said, “Thank you.” His voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
Aramis smiled against Athos' mouth. He was going to be half dead at the yard in the morning, he knew. Already a lazy ache suffused his muscles. Porthos would tease him relentlessly and demand his gold back. Aramis wondered if it was a secret worth keeping from him.
He nudged back between Athos' knees, and buried his face in Athos' neck. Athos tipped his head back, exposing his throat. Aramis grazed it with his teeth, felt his pulse under his tongue, planted a kiss on his collarbone. “You're welcome,” he said, lips against skin. “What are friends for?”