Fic: In Another Time (1/2)
Athos woke up because he was cold. The bolster that was somehow cleverly shoved into his arms to substitute the warm body that had been sleeping there earlier, no longer retained its former occupant’s warmth and, therefore, barely fulfilled its designated role in the charade. Athos rubbed his eyes and spanned the white expanses of their bed with a terrified look. Pushing the offensively deceptive pillow away from himself with disgust, he could feel drops of cold sweat forming on his forehead.
Every day, for nearly a year now, he awoke with the fear of finding his arms empty like this again. Although each night, as soon as his body hit the mattress of the new bed that Aramis had specifically brought to Bragelonne to replace the “travesty” Athos had been sleeping on before, that warm and catlike form always rolled deftly into his arms, and clung to him until morning. Athos had never been so happy in his life before, and, at the same time, never more terrified of the impermanence of his happiness, the sand-like quality of these blissful moments, spilling so pitilessly through the hourglass of his life.
Aramis promised he would stay as long as he wanted him. Then where the hell was he? I only swear to those things which I have direct control over. Instinctively, Athos cast a defensive look at his lover’s pillow, expecting to see another piece of paper on it. My love, please forgive me.
“You look like you’ve seen a veritable army of ghosts,” Aramis said, gliding into the room and slipping back under the covers, having carelessly tossed off his dressing gown.
“Where the hell did you go?” Athos asked, with a pleading tone in his voice which slightly disgusted him.
“I went to empty my bladder. Not to join a monastic community. Am I not allowed to do that without your express permission?” Not waiting to hear a reply, Aramis rewrapped his limbs around the torso of Athos and pulled him back onto the pillows.
“Sorry,” Athos mumbled, settling back into the warmth, allowing it to wash over his body, letting his heart beat return to its usual slow, steady rhythm again.
“Hope you weren’t planning on getting up just yet,” the touch of Aramis’s lips tickled his earlobe.
“The most important thing on my ‘To Do’ list for the day is right here,” Athos mused.
“Your life is full of hardships, M. le comte,” Aramis’s fingers were outlining the grooves of his abdomen, drawing geographic shapes around his ribs.
“Mmmm, hardships,” Athos agreed, and buried his face in the hollow of his lover’s neck, making a mental note to have no more thoughts for at least the following half an hour.
It was around the time that they were settling down to have lunch that Grimaud pulled Athos aside and intimated to him by a series of private, yet clearly obscene, gestures that Bazin had arrived and had a message for Monsieur d’Herblay. Athos made an eloquent hand movement indicative of exasperation and surrender in one, letting Grimaud know to allow the other man in.
“I’m happy to see you overcome your initial instincts of having him stoned,” Aramis smirked, clearly having figured out the meanings behind the master and servant’s secret language some time ago.
“I find the magnanimousness within myself to not kill that which you find useful,” Athos responded, kissing his friend’s hand with mock gallantry.
“You truly are a prince among men,” Aramis responded with the same dead-pan expression.
Bazin entered the dining room, casting fearful and suspicious glances in the direction of the master of the house. Athos, with an especially friendly and purposefully radiant smile, calmly sat down at the table and started to eat the cheese, in such a way that, despite the lackey’s best efforts to force those thoughts out of his mind, was forcefully suggestive.
“Monsieur l’abbé,” Aramis’s old lackey made a reverential bow towards his master, causing Athos to roll his eyes and chase the cheese with a hefty swallow of wine.
“I told you to call me chevalier when we’re not working.” There was no doubt by the tone of his voice, and the emphasis he put on his final word, Aramis was irate.
“This letter came for you, Chevalier, and I did not trust anyone else to deliver it,” the little man said with another, albeit more restrained, bow. Taking out the letter from the folds of his doublet, Bazin handed the sealed missive to his master, and cast another suspicious look in the direction of Athos, as if expecting to get kicked.
Aramis only had to glace at the writing on the paper to know that lunch was about to get ruined. “Go,” he curtly dismissed Bazin, who still stood by his side, eagerly awaiting entertainment.
“Grimaud!” Athos called out to the flitting apparition of his silent servant. “Please see to your… friend.” With these words, Bazin was scurried out of the dining room and away from his master, whose presence he seemed to crave like the sun. The servants out of earshot, Athos turned to his companion and asked, “Well? Aren’t you going to read it?”
“I don’t know what she could possibly want,” Aramis retorted, defensively, nervously filling his cup with wine.
“There is only one way to find out,” Athos shrugged, and directed his attention towards bread.
“I have not corresponded with her,” Aramis said, the letter still lying unopened on the table before him.
“I am not accusing you of anything,” Athos was making something vaguely duck-shaped out of the bread.
“Do you want to open it?”
“NO!” Athos shoved the bread-duck into his mouth and refilled his own wine cup.
“I’m sorry that you can even recognize her handwriting,” Aramis added, still not touching the piece of paper.
“Aramis… I… I trust you.” Athos could barely even believe that those words just came out of his mouth, but he knew them to be true, otherwise he would not have spoken them. His friend could not know the true reason that he was feeling this flustered at the sight of that familiar, wide, feminine handwriting. “Just… open it.”
With a sigh, Aramis broke the seal and quickly devoured the contents of the letter with his eyes.
“Truly,” he said, putting the letter aside again with a look of bewilderment in his bright eyes. “I have not the slightest idea what this is all about. But if you ask me, it smells of intrigue.”
“Of course, what else would it smell like?” Athos offered, while thinking, Lavender. Aramis emitted a small chuckle. “Besides, it’s what you and she had the most in common.”
“Now, now. You weren’t there.”
“Yes, please, tease me.” Athos shot his lover a dangerous look. Actually, I kind of was, he added in his own head.
“I, honestly, do not have the smallest inkling of what this letter is in reference to. Something about a parsonage… and a package… and how she wants me to look in on the package to make sure it’s being taken care of properly. Athos, I swear to you, what on earth?” Aramis pushed the letter across the table and tapped it with his elegant finger. “Go ahead. Read it.”
“I don’t need to read it,” Athos moved away from the letter as if it were going to bite him. “I told you, I trust you.”
“Yes, but if I’m to go to some god-forsaken village that I have never heard of in my life, to which I’m incidentally making you come with me, you should at least know why.”
“What village?” Athos felt his pulse speed up again.
“I don’t know. Roche… Something-or-Other.”
“Roche-L’Abeille?” Athos bit his own tongue.
“Maybe?” Aramis glanced over at the letter again. “Yes. Why? You know it?”
“Hm,” Athos responded, and snatched the letter off the table.
My dear cousin, the letter began. “Hah!” Athos could not help but exclaim at this all-too-familiar salutation.
My dear cousin,
It is quite some time since we have had news of you, and, times being what they are, we would not be writing to you were it not absolutely necessary. As you may have heard, I have had to go away for some time, as the climate in France is too deleterious for my weak condition. There is a certain package, all too dear to me, that I was not able to take with me on my journey, and have had to leave it at the parsonage of Roche-L’Abeille. I have no one else to ask, so I am asking you. If ever our family relations were dear to you, I beseech you to go to Roche-L’Abeille and make sure this package is being taken care of properly. In another time, it could have belonged as much to you as it does to me. As you are a man of honor, I know I can rely on you and your discretion in this, my dearest cousin. I hope our separation is not too lasting.
Affectionately yours,
Marie Michon
Slowly, Athos refolded the piece of paper and lay it back down on the table. I think I’m going to die, he thought. He forced himself to direct his gaze back towards Aramis and look into his friend’s vaguely amused eyes.
“Fascinating,” he stated, schooling his facial expression.
“Isn’t it?” Aramis was calmly buttering his bread.
“You… want me to come with you then?” Athos was pressing his nails into the palm of his hand.
“First of all, yes. Second, I don’t suppose you’d ever let me out of your sight for that long. And third, I hate making you worry.” Aramis gave his friend a playful and charming smile and got up from the table.
“Really, you just had me at ‘yes.’” Athos also got up and tried to give his physiognomy his most nonchalant appearance.
“Then let us go to Roche-L’Abeille and glean what Marie Michon has been up to this time around!”
“You look positively ecstatic,” Athos smirked, pulling Aramis into an impromptu embrace. “I knew you were getting bored here,” he whispered, nuzzling against the side of his lover’s face.
“With you? Never!” Aramis protested. “Come, bore me some more upstairs, before we must take the road.”
***
This way to PART 2