Title:
Broken Places [Link to story on AO3]
Fandom: The Musketeers, BBC
Author: gaelicspirit
Characters: d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis - GEN
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. Title comes from Hemingway quote inside the story.
Summary: Set S1, between episodes 3, Commodities, and 4, Good Soldier. A voluntary mission turns d’Artagnan from a wayward recruit into a Musketeer in all but name. However, first things go very, very wrong. As they do. And the men are pushed to their limits to keep their brotherhood intact.
Author’s Note: To my fellow h/c junkies, this isn’t one of those stories that goes right for the hurt and lingers there. I love reading those stories; I just am not all that great at writing them. I realized a while back that I have to wrap my hurt in plot and make it mean something to me (which doesn’t work for everyone). So, once again, I wrote this for those of you who like some plot with your pain. Because there’s plenty of it here. Pain, that is. We hurt the ones we love, do we not?
Anyway, I was curious about something, so I decided to write a story to figure it out. What was it that shifted the men’s perception of d’Artagnan so early on in their growing friendship? Treville went from shrugging off d’Artagnan’s possible demise in the ruse with Vadim as an acceptable loss to trusting him enough that he included him in the King’s protection detail when the Duke of Savoy arrived. And then there’s that moment when Marsac lunges at d’Artagnan as if to attack and Porthos steps between them growling, “Don’t go there. Not if you enjoy breathing.”
This is my interpretation of the events that transpired to cement d’Artagnan’s place among the Inseparables. I hope you enjoy!