Musketeers' story
Really, just a silly little tale about camping gone wrong *g*
A big thank you to jackfan2 for the beta-work. Enjoy!
RIVER SIDE REDS
Breakfast was fish, supper was meat. It was a sort of an unspoken arrangement amongst the three of them whenever a mission took them outside of Paris for any number of days.
Aramis would fish -because neither of the other two could do it without the use of a fishing cane and, honestly, water outside a bathing tub tended to disturb them- and Athos would shoot them a pair of hares along the way, before they stopped for the night. Porthos, having once claimed, albeit in jest, that he could ignite flames with just the intensity of his gaze, dealt with the fire and sometimes cooked. The others would never say it to his face, but Porthos was quite the cook, even if he had to start the fire using a flint, just like everyone else.
The addition of the young Gascon to their little group meant that they now had a pair of free hands to tend to the horses, a chore that D'Artagnan had wholeheartedly accepted. Hares reminded him too much of cats and the smell of uncooked fish turned him a somewhat unflattering shade of green. Besides, he loved the horses.
Aramis didn't mind being the one stuck in the river, down to his braies, hands pruning in the water as he waited for a distracted salmon to pass by. It took him back to his boyhood days, when the only care he had in the world was fear for his father belt, if caught stealing bottles from the still. Again.
In his father's defense, Aramis had to admit that it was slightly embarrassing for the family whenever his eleven year old self would show up for his lessons at the monastery, cross-eyed and completely drunk.
The river was rather shallow, the deepest part barely reaching his thighs, and the water had not yet chilled to winter's temperatures. If he closed his eyes and allowed himself to be swept away by his memories, Aramis could almost smell the sweet aroma of the ripe vineyards near his home.
The sound of clashing swords was an unwelcome addition and didn't fit at all in his remembrance. Nor did it fit with their present situation. They had been on their way to deliver a small token of congratulations to a distant relative of the King, on the occasion of the birth of his first son, and seeing no reason to hurry, had taken a route away from the main roads. There was, after all, no sense in tempting fate.
Fate, it would seem, had heard about their change of itinerary and wanted revenge.
Sparing no thought for the clothes he'd abandoned by the river side, Aramis picked up his weapons and raced back to camp.
His mind imagined the worst. As he ran, cold wind pushing his wet undergarments to his legs, Aramis pictured their small campsite overrun by villains, vicious killers too numerous to count, trying their best to kill his friends. In his mind, his bare feet were crushing freshly fallen snow.
Aramis was truly disappointed to realize that he had a rather prophetic mind. Minus the snow.
They were everywhere, at least four to each of the Musketeers and, if the distant sound of galloping horses was anything to go by, more were coming.
Sparing no thought for odds of winning or survival, Aramis waded in. If he was to die that day, he would do so standing alongside his brothers.
Firing one of his pistols on the run, Aramis killed one of the men closing in on Athos, before tossing the useless weapon aside, drawing his blades and plunging himself into battle. He forgot about all else, his world narrowing down to the tips of his sword and main gauche and the enemy flesh where they dipped time after time.
Like ants they were, for each robber that one of the Musketeers felled, two more seemed to replace it. The battle seemed to go on for hours, when in reality they knew that no more than a few minutes had passed.
Still, the intensity of being heedful of every single inch of their surroundings, while fending off two or three swords at once, was taxing even to the most experienced fighter.
When Aramis pulled his sword from the belly of a burly man twice his size and swerved around in search of his next opponent, he was disoriented to find himself surrounded by fallen, unmoving bodies.
Across the clearing, his eyes met Porthos, the tall man standing surrounded by his own circle of gruesome casualties. A few feet behind him, Athos and D'Artagnan were slowly walking towards them.
No one said a word for a time, four pairs of eyes carefully searching four bodies for any serious wound. They were all still standing, which was an unexpected and welcomed surprise, but they had all paid their price in blood for defeating their enemies.
"You're a sore sight to see," Aramis finally said to no one in particular, unable to handle the silence anymore. It was slowly being filled by the harsh breathing of the living and the screaming echoes of the dead men.
In an eerily timely fashion, all three raised an eyebrow and just stared at him. Silently. Waiting.
"What?" Aramis asked, slightly concerned by their reaction. It wouldn't be the first time that, in the heat of a fight, he would fail to perceive some sort of grievous wound on his body -plus that one, memorable time, when he had failed to see the bone sticking out from his arm- but this time, Aramis was fairly certain that the worst he had suffered were the same cuts and bruises that his brothers also shared.
Looking down at himself, just in case this was an untimely repetition of the 'bone' incident, Aramis quickly discovered what had caused the collective gaping.
He looked utterly disgusting.
Every single man felled by his sword had decided to bleed all over Aramis in retaliation, resulting in a canvas of absolute red and all its shades of gunk. The fact that he had completely forgotten about his state of near nakedness, did not help matters.
Porthos, of course, was the first one to laugh. To his face. "Oi, mate," he sniggered. "Were ya tryin' to distract them or scare them with yer manly bits?"
Aramis would have strangled him, but his arms were too tired from fighting. He contented himself with staring until Porthos ignited in flames and turned into ash. If Porthos could do it, so could he.
Truth was, his friend was right. Weighed down by the wet blood, his braies had become rather... ineffectual in their purpose. They hung limply on his hips, glued to his body like a second layer of skin.
Had he been a more modest man, Aramis might have even blushed. Where he not already covered in red, it might have even been noticeable.
Suddenly aware of the contact of dead man's blood all over his skin, Aramis didn't think twice. He pushed his last piece of clothing off and toss it away, the braies landing on the ground with a sickening splash of wetness. As it were, he really couldn't be accused of modesty. "I'm going to wash and dress myself, if you ladies don't mind," announced, stiffly turning away to return to the river. Athos and D'Artagnan, the traitors, had joined Porthos in his laughter.
Of course that had to be the exact timing for the distant sound of hooves to become nearer, announcing the arrival of their Captain. Alongside half the garrison.
Apparently, the robbers' plans for attacking the Musketeers on their way to deliver the gift had reached Treville's ears.
It was the Captain's eyes, however, that were making Aramis' cringe. He could see the blue gaze wandering over the carnage, assessing Athos and the others for injury before settling once more on his naked form. The eyebrow that raced to meet his receding hairline was a thing of wonder. "Somehow, I doubt you gentlemen have a reasonable explanation for... all of this," he said. The twitching expression on his face, making his mustache contort in the most unnatural fashion, could be interpreted as either concealed amusement or a violent fit, waiting to happen. "I am, however, immensely curious to find out what you have to say for yourselves."
The fact of the matter was, it was a curiosity shared by Athos, Porthos, D'Artagnan and Aramis. Because, really, who would believe the truth?
The end