Musketeer fic: Affinityverse

[rainjoyswriting]

The Wolf, Musketeers fic, affinityverse (best catalogued in my memories) <3

Disclaimer: I don't even own a grasp on the situation anymore.

Rating: R

Warnings and spoilers: The main list's on part one, read sensibly. Non-graphic discussion of past sexual assault. Also, gratuitous use of italics.

Summary: Beware of wolves. What matters more, beware of becoming a wolf.


Note: Just as an FYI, 3x04 was where I gave up on watching the series, because holy crap that was *terrible* writing, I'm still offended they thought I'd sit through it. I'll continue ficcing until something else inspires me to fangirl about it - and that is an *astonishingly* rare occurrence, in more than ten years I've only had three fandoms - but I'll only ever be writing based off S1 canon because beyond that point I just have too many fucking issues with characterisation ^^; Anyway in terms of notes to the actual fic - this 'verse offers the characters in many ways a chance to rerun decisions their canon selves made so they can choose differently (something Aramis, when on the verge of the past, understands and insists on: now is not then). There are aspects of the programme which are so entirely shocking they run on a different scale to 'unforgivable', I just find them *unbelievable*. The idea that taking victim blaming to the level of trying to murder the victim and that being *okay* being one of those. I hereby call bullshit on that. The way the writers and parts of the fandom have dealt with Thomas' assault on Anne has been fucking shameful, there is no other way to word it. You don't have to like the character, I don't *like* Anne, but what the hell did likeability ever have to do with *morality*? Now is not then: it's 2016, let's try to *pretend* it's the twenty-first century . . .

For two days, Aramis doesn't know how he doesn't throw up. He feels like he's having a permanent out of body experience precipitated by sheer horror, by just too much to possibly cope with, and he tries and tries to think how to manage the situation, the best thing to do, and there is no good thing to do.

Porthos very quickly stops caring about Aramis' disappearance in Andalucía, unnerved by the shellshock Aramis can't shake himself out of, the bombshell that threw him fifty feet and left a ringing in his ears he can't drown out. He knows Porthos and Athos have had harried, whispered conferences about him, and he knows he ought to act to stop them worrying, but the only action available to him - he can't ignore it, can't push it out of sight, he can't be normal any other way - the only action he has is telling Athos. And Athos' response . . .

Some psychic; he literally has no idea what Athos' response will be.

Some psychic. He folds his arms around his heavy hoodie and prowls the house by the sea, trying to walk some decision into himself, while Porthos follows him at a nervous distance and the wind pushes confused and questioning at the walls. He knows they'll soon push for an answer on Aramis' odd behaviour and he knows he can't allow it to come that far, if they have to ask him then it's a very different matter to his openly telling Athos. But he doesn't know what to tell Athos. Telling Athos could destroy everything. Aramis' tongue is a serpent, and its venom is scented with the sweetness of jasmine, and as soon as he opens his mouth it will bite.

He doesn't believe that woman's warning for one second, Athos will not hurt him. That isn't what he's afraid of. But there are things he's afraid of, because, some psychic, he doesn't know what happens next. He's afraid of Athos hurting himself. He's afraid of Athos' anger and accusations - he doesn't know, he honestly doesn't know, that Athos will believe him, or if he'll just think of Aramis as naïvely manipulated by her. He's afraid of how badly Athos believing Aramis will hurt him, because he'll have to face the mistakes he's made, and Aramis would do anything to take the pain for him - he even has a half-second's despairing thought that he should have let Thomas take his mind all those years ago just so Aramis couldn't exist anymore to one day hurt Athos like this -

And then he remembers what that pressing squirming suffocating presence trying to get in at him was like, trying to push and wriggle and force into his mind, he panicked like there was someone on his chest trying to close their hands around his throat but it was so much worse than that, what they were doing was trying to push their fingers into his brain. Every time the exhaustion gathered over him like the weight of a bruise and his aching eyes closed, there it was again, greedy fingers at his skull scrabbling for entrance, and he panicked himself into another episode while Porthos hushed and stroked and held him and had no idea that he could never protect Aramis from this. What Thomas did to him - what the psychic echo of Thomas did to him -

He believes every word of that woman's story. And it shames him that that evidence is even required; why, after all, wouldn't it be true? What Thomas did to her is a shockingly everyday matter, statistically so reliable that he doesn't know why Athos, pragmatic lawyer as he is, didn't accept it at face value. She was assaulted by a man close to her - her own brother-in-law-to-be - it's hardly like her story was improbable. Apart from his rift breaking, Thomas was a tediously commonplace creature, horrific and brutal and entirely ordinary. He wanted something. He tried to take it. And when it was refused, his immediate response was to punish the person who had never owed him a thing in the first place.

He was Athos' little brother, and she killed him. Those are the two facts of the story he can't remove from the jigsaw he's trying to construct. He was Athos' little brother, and she killed him. And Athos tried to kill her for it, and now Aramis has to face him, he has to do this, he has to tell him that she was telling the truth, that it was self-defence and she had no other choice, and that there is no justice, none, in his trying to complete the murder he first attempted all those years ago.

He will hate Aramis even for trying. Aramis prays on the matter frequently, miserably: fine. Athos will hate Aramis. Good. Because the more miserable option is that Athos hates himself, and Aramis can't bear to be the person who does that to him, who breaks him like that. It's better to be despised, to be rejected from Athos' side, to be a traitor to him and never loved again, than to see Athos hurt even half as much as this hurts him now.

He doesn't want to eat, too queasy for it, sleeps erratically, dreams too urgently. In the middle of the night while the two of them lay sleep-heavy on the bed behind him he paces the room, rubbing his arms, cold and confused and trying to walk himself to enough physical exhaustion to just close his eyes and not think. Sometimes he notices the breath coming out of him white, and his fingers have long gone numb.

This is what madness is like, he thinks. This is what the subsuming of a person into their neuroses is like, this is how personality fractures into disease. It's a full dress rehearsal for what he knows his rift is already trying to do to him. Athos gave him some brandy last night, trying to be gentle with him, and the sweet burn of it in the backs of his cheeks gave Aramis for one moment that glowing twist of wistful loss, the warmth of the memory of his father.

And then the smile went cold on his mouth, as he remembered that he doesn't have a father, he's never had one. But the memory was a heat in his stomach, the memory of someone's father sitting there as replacement for Aramis' own memories, his father -

Does he have a father? Has he only forgotten him?

He remembers Treville. He feels lost and uneasy, but he thinks that that's enough, Treville is enough. It's Treville; of course it's enough.

In the house by the sea - they had Roger with them in Spain, and so declined Treville's offer of a lift back to the villa - Aramis walks and frets and remembers only the wrong things. That woman, that woman, he would give anything to simply ignore her, to put Athos above her and not care that Athos wronged her, but there's something stuck in his chest and he hates it. He hates it. He hates his own inability to accept injustice, that clot in his artery, his own disgusting honour. Honour does not matter more than Athos does. Justice does not matter more than Athos does.

He hangs his head in the dark, squeezes his arms around himself as he stands there in socked feet in a bedroom so cold his skin runs with it. He knows it's bullshit. Justice does matter, more than anything. And justice matters not more than Athos but because of Athos. Athos is a better person than the mistakes he's made, and the only way Aramis can give him that, the truth of how good he is, the ability to be the person he really is, is by giving him the worst of it too. Aramis owes Athos this. He's the only person who can return Athos' decency to him, give him the chance to make the right decisions this time, and if Athos is angry with him for doing it, it is a minimal price to pay. There isn't a great deal of Aramis left to be angry at, really. You might as well kick a chair for all it really matters.

He does doze again between them, fitful and dream-plagued, and he's awake again for the early summer dawn, awake and numb listening to the seagulls, awake and exhausted, watching the morning move the strip of light skimming its way past the curtains slowly along the ceiling. It will be hours before the others wake, but he doesn't move. He doesn't want them to wake and worry about why he's awake, and doesn't want to go elsewhere and be alone.

He turns himself to the solid warmth of Athos' sleeping body, fits himself in close close close, like squirming a chrysalis of Athos' arms around himself. And then he lays there, eyes tight closed, body hurting with lack of sleep, and feels Athos' heart beat regular and easy against his cheekbone, and he knows he's going to break that heart and knows he is a sinner because can't even stop the miserable selfish impiety of questioning why he has to be such a weapon aimed at Athos' breast . . .

Even coffee burns sour in his stomach that morning, and Porthos is agitated by Aramis' agitation, the wind is getting worse. Porthos and Aramis spar for a while to try to burn Porthos' energy off but Aramis can't concentrate and Athos tells them to stop, if his heart isn't in it. Porthos lashes his foil at the air a couple of times, clearly crazed with energy, he needs to do something. Athos suggests he goes for a run, as all the windows strain not to buckle under the wind's frustrated pressing. He'll mind Aramis. Just get out and clear his head.

All of this trouble is Aramis' fault. But as Aramis and Athos move to the living room and Porthos puts his headphones in and his running shoes on, Aramis' stomach, pasted heavy and cold to the bottom of his pelvis, knows that this is when he tells Athos. Porthos will help with the aftermath, but he doesn't have to be here to face the worst of it as well. Porthos would complicate the situation. He wouldn't let Athos express what he needed to, he would get between them, he would get angry if Athos became angry with Aramis and of course Athos will be angry with Aramis. He needs to be allowed to be angry. This is going to be awful for Athos, he doesn't need Porthos there to force him to respond in ways not strong enough to match the feeling inside him.

Porthos comes back into the living room to ruffle Aramis' hair before he leaves, it's worse than a kiss, it makes his eyes sting with wanting to wet. He just smiles at him, and watches him force the door onto the gardens closed behind himself in the wind, and then head off already moving into a jog before his easy speeding run. And they're alone, then, Aramis and Athos. They're alone but for the ghost unacknowledged between them, Athos' little brother, who precipitated the destruction of Athos' life, forced himself on his fiancée, forced her into self-defence, and broke all the faith Athos ever had in the world by doing it. That boy destroyed Athos' life. But he's Aramis' ghost too, and now he rears again to see if there isn't yet more damage he can do, to all three of them.

He's Aramis' ghost too. Aramis remembers that house. He remembers it. His guts remember it, his bile remembers it. There are things that can be done with psychic powers that can never be anything but abuse. People's minds are private places, places to be respected, their places, not places you force yourself into, places put there for your use. He's never been able to tell Athos that what Marsac did to him Aramis has always understood, but what Thomas did to him, that he can never, never forget.

He sits on the sofa, he feels like he's shaking but his folded arms aren't moving, and wets his lips, and looks at Athos in his armchair watching Aramis over a newspaper, wry and steady and concerned. And he'd like to smile but his mouth just can't do it, as he says, and tries to keep his voice steady, swallows and tries to be as brave as Athos deserves from him, "Can I talk to you?"

Athos folds the newspaper, and sets it aside, and says, "You always can."

It may be the last time he ever says that to him. The smile does come, then, but it feels so sad, as if he feels every last second of love ticking away.

*

Before they're even home Athos sincerely doubts that it was mere irresponsibility that took Aramis from them in Andalucía. That is clearly not only guilt he feels as the days progress, he looks stunned, far overabused by the world's capacity to shock. Whatever the hell happened to him between his disappearing from their backs and reappearing in some small square looking like he'd just done something terrible Athos has no idea, and what worries him the most is that Aramis may have no real idea of it either. As confused as he is over the next few days, as unable to put into words the torment he's clearly feeling, Athos worries not that Aramis is literally unaware of what happened in that missing time - that he could admit to, he'd admitted to lost time before - but that he's aware of what happened but can't identify with it. What if he was that other man? What if he was someone else entirely? What if he did something, what could he have done?

So he is prepared, when Porthos has left the house and Aramis says to him, so obviously so nervous, "Can I talk to you?", to be as reassuring as he possibly can be. If Aramis doesn't want Porthos to know then it must be something that would distress Porthos, something Aramis could never do, which means it is going to be bad. And if it's that bad, the last thing Athos can possibly do is allow Aramis to live alone with it any longer. Whatever happened - whatever he did, or whatever was done to him, whatever happened - Athos is going to get this right. Neither of his circle yet know what they've saved him from, the ways they've given him the safety to change, the ways they have rescued him, that so long as they live, he has a future as well. He's going to give Aramis the same offer of everything not because it is owed but because it is deserved; he loves their hopeless, good-natured, idiotic, waning water affinity, and Aramis does not deserve this suffering, and Athos will not allow it to continue.

So he shakes his paper out and puts it on the table his glass rests on, watching Aramis' unsteady eyes, and says to him, voice so steady, "You always can." He wishes Aramis looked more glad to hear it. All he looks is like he's about to admit to something awful, something unforgivable; that he killed someone, that he's cheated on them, that he's the mole - ?

All three options seem absurd and wouldn't cost them any forgiveness anyway, he would still only be Aramis to them. Nothing could matter more to them than that, they understand his motivations, they know he never means harm, they would be confused, never angry. Athos is still trying to work out what this is going to turn into when Aramis folds his hands together, and looks at them in his lap, and then looks up at him again because even when he's afraid, he always manages eye contact, which in its own small way would be enough to make him the bravest man Athos knows. "I didn't just wander off in Andalucía," he says quietly.

"No," Athos says in return, only gently. "I didn't think that you did."

Aramis watches his eyes, and nods, and presses his lips tight for a moment before he continues. "I don't know what happened between . . . I came to standing in that square you found me in. I have no memory of leaving you or making my way there. My rift, presumably. It wanted me apart from you and alone so that . . ." He pauses, closing his eyes, swallows hard and opens them again. "Before you found me there, your - wife - was there. We were talking."

His - what? "I don't have . . ." Where in time is Aramis right now? Is he unaware that he's talking to Athos, or is he occupying some - some insane and improbable future where Athos is married, and to someone else? "Aramis, I don't have a wife."

"Y-" Aramis stops, looks like he honestly doesn't understand, and then something changes in his eyes and he closes them, and rubs hard with his thumb at his brow above his nose, between his eyebrows. "Fiancée," he says more hoarsely. "Your ex-fiancée. I was talking to - your Anne."

For a moment it's meaningless to him. And then he understands and he's on his feet, it's just physics, the force with which his stomach drops catapults the rest of his body upwards and steel clamps both lungs in like a tripped trap. "What did she - Aramis what did she do to you-"

"Nothing," Aramis says, lifting his head to look at Athos. "Please, Athos. She did nothing. We talked. She didn't- she barely touched me."

"What did she-"

"Please - let me - we talked." He presses his hands together, squeezes at the knees of his jeans, presses his hands together again. "We just talked. She saw me leave you two and she followed me to make sure I wasn't going to get myself killed. You know she's said they want me alive."

"She didn't take you," Athos says, can't understand it and his heart is beating like a drum kit crashing down a staircase, never a second's silence in the bangbangbangbangbangbangbang because she was alone with Aramis and she kills rifts and she kills people Athos loves and Aramis is vulnerable with his rift confusing him so badly and she wants to hurt Athos, she could have done anything to him and Athos wasn't there, they could have run into that square to find Aramis exquisitely butchered on the ground, a bloody kaleidoscope of human pieces for Athos' particular eyes -

"No," Aramis says, and his voice doesn't waver but it doesn't sound natural either. "I think - they know as well as we do by now that I wouldn't last if they took me from you now, and they still want my powers. So she didn't take me. We talked. I swear, Athos, that was all that happened. We talked."

"She didn't-"

"No, love. No, she didn't. No."

Athos walks to him on legs that feel broken they're so clumsy, snatches his hands up in a panic to feel the life of him, and Aramis squeezes his hands and stares at him with his mouth pressed flat and - frightened. Why does he still look frightened? He's here now, he's safe, Athos will slaughter her before she touches him, what did she do to him - ?

"We only talked," Aramis says, and his thumbs stroke to soothe at the backs of Athos' hands. "But I need to tell you what we talked about, Athos."

"Why didn't you tell us this - when we found you, you could have - we would have made you safe."

"We were - I didn't know how. We were about to face a fire rift, I knew this would - distract you, I knew it would - hurt you, I couldn't. Not when I was going to walk you into danger immediately afterwards. And then every hour since then has been harder and harder to - I have to tell you, Athos, I'm sorry, I have to tell you, and -" His eyes roll briefly skywards, looking for strength - "you're not going to like any of this . . ."

Whatever she has done to Aramis to shake him into this, Athos feels all the old rage awaken, all that lethal burning bile he once held, petrol on the inside, a great rising of it like the world splitting open, rock rising up like a tsunami, he will kill her. His voice comes low, heavy with hatred down in the earth where it compresses itself diamond-sharp. "What did she say to you?"

Aramis holds his hands, and stares at his eyes. Then he says very quietly, "Please sit down."

Athos does, immediately, because he wants to know. He sits beside Aramis and holds his hands and his heart working too hard is making his head feel light, so sitting does help a little. "Just tell me," he says, pressing Aramis' hands. "Just tell me. I won't let her hurt you. I will never let her touch you."

"Athos -" Aramis squeezes his eyes closed, then looks at him and looks so - hopeless, Athos doesn't understand the expression, as if Athos only doesn't know yet that this can't be fixed. "She told me about what happened with your brother," he says, and his hands aren't steady in Athos' grip. "The truth of it."

The silence that comes afterwards empties the world. All those empty bottles Athos has screamed his questions into: he's never known the truth. He's never known the truth of why she killed his little brother, and now Aramis who has always known too much finally knows the right thing, and Athos can't help the greediness of his gaze on him, though the fear behind Aramis' eyes is stoking the slither of his guts, cold in the chasm inside him. "Tell me," he says, voice coming too rough. "Whatever it is, believe me, Aramis, it's better than not knowing. Tell me. Please."

Aramis looks him in the eye, and breathes unsteadily. He wets his lips again, and takes a deep breath in. "She already told you most of the truth," he says. "When you first confronted her. She told you the truth, Athos, as much as she could. He attacked her. She defended herself. And then when his rift broke he attacked her with that as well, and the only thing she could do to stop him assaulting her in her own mind was to take him to the pond and-"

Athos drops Aramis' hands when he realises how hard he's holding them - when he sees in the tightening of Aramis' face how much it hurts - and sits pulled back from him, staring at his face, appalled before a fury of contempt rises in him. "You believed her. You actually believed - she has lied about everything she has ever been and you believed-"

"She was telling the truth about this."

"She is a liar."

"That doesn't change the truth of what happened. She doesn't have to be innocent to get attacked, Athos, it isn't only perfect saints blameless for the length of their lives who get assaulted, I'm not saying she's a good person I'm just saying that that doesn't change what he did to her-"

Athos stands and strides away, turns back and finds he can't look at Aramis - the urge to hurt him just to shut him up appals him afresh, like a physical jolt, he turns away, turns back, can't make his voice not sound like hatred. "She lied to you and you believed her, she is a liar-"

"I do believe her, she's telling the truth. Athos, please-"

"How fucking naïve are you, how stupid are you-"

"I know what he did-"

"How the hell did she get to you like this-"

"- because he did it to me too, Athos -"

"She manipulates- what?"

Aramis is breathing quick and fearful but he's not flinched back from Athos, his posture is in no way defensive, he just looks up at him very subtly shaking and Athos has no way of knowing with Aramis if that's emotion or cold. Athos says, "What the hell are you talking about, he -" Anger comes so hard it makes him feel sick. "He was dead before you knew he existed, what the hell did he ever do to you -"

"He drowned me in your pond," Aramis says. "And then he spent the entire night -" He stops, and puts a hand over his eyes. "There isn't a word for - there's only one word I - all those episodes in your house, Athos, what did you think that was? Bad things have happened everywhere, there's nowhere we can walk where someone wasn't once hurt like that and you never see me react like that, what happened in your old house wasn't - that wasn't normal, that was him. That was him. I never wanted to tell you-"

"What the hell are you - what are you saying?" He's trying to understand, trying to think, he always knew emotion was bad for him, his feelings swirl his mind like a whirlpool, he can't fix on anything to understand it and move past it. "It was his murder doing that to you?"

"No," Aramis says, and drops his hand to look up at Athos so pleading for Athos to understand him. "It was him doing that to me. His psychic - whatever was left of him, his soul, whatever our affinities together allowed him to be to me, but it was him. He kept trying to force himself into my mind." His eyes fix on the ceiling for a second, mouth a flat line, as if he can't believe the words that just came out of his own mouth. Then he looks at Athos and says it again, slower, each word in the sentence given its full weight of emphasis; "He was trying to force himself into my mind."

Athos stares at him, trying to read him, trying to understand why Aramis insists on this, why he's trying to turn - whatever happened into - into this. "He was trying to talk to you."

"No. He was trying to overpower me. He wanted to force himself in and force control of me. He would have wiped me blank to have a new body to move around in. Self-defence, you said it to me once, those episodes were self-defence. My rift was making me a place he couldn't inhabit. Well, it doesn't like sharing enough just with me, him and his rift both -"

"Why are you saying this, why the hell are you trying to turn it into - he was a boy. He was a boy, he was murdered -"

"Marsac was a boy," Aramis says, voice not steady, looking right at him so helplessly. "Marsac was a year younger, he was a boy when we were together and you still judge him. Athos, I know he's your brother -"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"- but everyone who does that is someone's brother or son or father, I know you loved him -"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Athos snarls. "What the hell do you even think you're saying, he was a boy -"

"I know you don't want to think of him like that Athos I know -"

Athos grabs the glass from beside his armchair and throws it at the wall so hard it explodes, he doesn't even see where the pieces fly, and screams at him, "Don't tell me what I'm thinking!"

Aramis just looks at him, doesn't even flinch. And in that second, in his failure to show any fear, Athos wants to fucking kill him to make him afraid -

He turns away and strides into the kitchen, holds on to the side of the sink huffing hard and cold-running-hot through all the arteries in his guts until the need to vomit begins to die back. He's shaking. He wipes his mouth on the back of a hand, pants his breath out, and hears through the pounding in both ears the soft footsteps behind him, Aramis, saying quiet and desperate from the doorway, "- I love you, Athos. You know I-"

"Then why," low and rough with hatred, "do you believe her?"

"I don't want any of it to be true either, I wish it wasn't, I wish - I would give anything for this to be . . ."

Athos grips the edge of the sink, says gruffly to it, "He was a child. What you are accusing him of - he was a child."

"He was my age, you said." Aramis says, voice so small. "So I was a child as well when he did that to me. I don't . . . I wish, Athos, I wish . . . but - but the truth - matters. It matters. That woman - I know she's not a good person. I'm going to kill her myself, you and I will have to see who gets there first, I promised Porthos. But she's a bad person because she murders rifts and makes it so we can't save them and because she lied to you, yes, she lied to you over and over but not about that. She's a bad person but not because of what she did to your brother, she had no choice, she really didn't. That was the truth. It was the truth, Athos."

Athos whispers, harsh with too much breath, "She is a liar."

"Yes. She's a liar. That doesn't mean she's lying about this. I - all along you've insisted to me that the way Marsac treated me, what he did to me, that was wrong. But I wasn't innocent when he did that to me, you know I wasn't, you know what I was like. I wasn't innocent but it doesn't mean he had a right to do whatever he wanted to me, and she wasn't innocent but that doesn't make what he did to her right either. She is a liar and I am a whore but that doesn't mean neither of us can't be hurt like that -"

Athos pushes his back straight, arms rigid on the sink, and says, "Do you have your alarm?"

Aramis is silent, then says, voice very uneasy, "Yes."

Athos says, "Then use it." and walks out of the room without looking at him, and when he slams the study door it sounds like a gunshot.

Then he stands there, alone, hands fisted, heart screaming.

His head is stuffed full with every word of the drivel of Aramis' betrayal, that he believed that woman, listened to her and believed her and now he comes to Athos and says - now he accuses Thomas of - what the fuck even was he accusing him of, Thomas' ghost trying to - to -

The nonsense of it twists on the memory that Thomas' ghost really did try to do something to Aramis, because it put him into the pond to drown him, Athos was the one who had to beat his lungs into working again. But Thomas was trying to talk to him. He wasn't just trying to hurt him, he wasn't trying to hurt him, it was just the only way he had of communicating with them. He was a boy, he was a boy, he wasn't -

Athos jerks open the desk drawer, pulls out the bottle of whisky, pours a generous slop into the glass on the desk and downs it in one. It burns in his guts as he pours the next, and sits, and stares into space holding the glass as if for safety, how could Aramis - how could he even - why the fuck did he keep invoking Marsac's name as if he and Thomas were a breath of the same, Thomas was a murdered boy and Marsac abused Aramis' trust in him and hurt him, they are nothing the same, they are nothing of the same.

He downs that glass as well, and pours another. He's too angry right now even to feel his bones; this is not about that.

Something is beginning to stir in the back of Athos' mind, disturbing the sediment. Some fault line is beginning to shift, as he thinks, can't ignore that thought any longer, he can't stop thinking it now he's started - Aramis is psychic. Aramis is psychic, and Athos has never, never known his intuitions to be wrong.

But this isn't intuition, this is the handling of matters of fact, which Aramis is shit at. Aramis trusts the woman who killed Athos' brother. He believes her sob story because he's such a soppy idiot for anyone distressed, he let her manipulate him - but then why the hell did he keep telling Athos that Thomas had - had done something to him - Thomas couldn't have known he was doing it. He was trying to communicate with him and he didn't have many options because she had killed him, he wasn't trying to - to -

He knows what Aramis meant and couldn't bring himself to say. What Aramis meant, and couldn't say in stark unadorned words, was that Thomas had forced himself on Anne and that what he then did to Aramis' mind was exactly the same. But he didn't force himself on Anne, and -

Athos doesn't know what Thomas did to Aramis. He couldn't have meant it. He remembers that first morning with the two of them, Aramis leaving the house to curl up into a ball on the patio tiles, pale and strained and eyes heavy with shadows. He remembers how ill he looked, how thin he was then, and so young. But Thomas couldn't have meant it. He couldn't have meant what Aramis is choosing to read it as. He . . .

His stomach chills on the realisation that that is exactly what Aramis meant by invoking Marsac, because at least in Aramis' mind, Marsac didn't mean it like that either. He didn't intend to abuse Aramis, he wasn't, when he hurt him, strictly thinking about Aramis at all. Is that really what Aramis meant? That whatever his intention was, Thomas really did do that to him?

The anger has cooled into confusion, and he takes another sip of whisky, slower now, troubled at the memory of how ill Aramis was when Athos first met him, and saw and was shocked by his first episodes. He thinks of him so ill now and feels ill himself, to face Aramis facing it. And he can't think of Aramis as only choosing to view what happened to him as hurting him, as if it isn't true that it did hurt him. Aramis is profoundly disinclined to admit to any sort of injury, it's inconceivable that he would invent one. He isn't the kind to cry wolf. Aramis isn't merely pushing some agenda in labelling what Thomas did to him as a violation, and even if she is lying, Aramis isn't; to him, it was a violation. It was a violation. And Athos keeps thinking that Thomas didn't mean it like that but keeps coming back to the thought of Aramis, Aramis having to face that, and what he comes back to is the thought that it doesn't matter what Thomas intended by it, what he did was try to force himself into Aramis' mind, intrude and push and -

The word he is continuously trying not to think of is 'penetrate'.

Athos stares into space, and remembers once, setting the bedside alarm clock while Anne sat there working moisturiser into her hands, murmuring to them as her fingers folded together and rubbed, "Your brother looks at me, you know."

Athos had only glanced at her, then set the clock down, said, "You are a very beautiful woman." and kissed her shoulder, added with his eyebrows raised, "And he is a teenager."

She looked at him, very evenly. He didn't understand that look. Then he turned the lamp off, and never thought of it again.

But he was a boy. He was only a boy. He never meant . . .

All of Aramis' pleading. I know you loved him, I know you don't want to think of him like that. Aramis thinks that Athos has sainted his brother in death and can't conceive that he's a human being and human beings do bad things sometimes. Athos knows that Thomas wasn't perfect. He could be unreasonable about Athos' time when he had so much work, so much work, and Thomas made him feel guilty for not having more time for him. He remembers being told off by his parents when he was younger for not paying more mind to his little brother and how he used to fume that Thomas had told on him, that Thomas had - he hasn't thought of it in years, but now he remembers very fresh and hard again the injustice of how Thomas manipulated his parents, always twisted the story to make himself the martyr, and they never listened to him. It was always Olivier's fault. Thomas was innocent and just wanted to play, Thomas never heard the word 'no' from them, Olivier was the bully who insisted on it. Olivier, who needed his alone time, who wanted to read, to think, to practise his fencing, to be left in solitude just sometimes, Olivier was 'selfish' for wanting anything for himself at all. Thomas was allowed to want things. Olivier wasn't.

The glass hangs from his hand, propped in a slump over the chair's arm, and he stares at nothing, and remembers how increasingly frantic she became to make him believe her and he knew she was lying, he knew she was lying -

She was. He knows that much to be true, she was telling at least one certain lie because she didn't mention Thomas' rift breaking when she told Athos that he'd attacked her. She lied about that and it put a break in her story, it didn't make sense without it, why, even if it wasn't a lie to begin with, why she had had to go as far as killing him. And so, he thinks with his dis-ease growing slow as a dying star in his stomach, and so of course she appeared to him to be lying, because she was. If she did know that Athos was an affinity as well, she didn't yet know that his rift was about to break, and so she didn't even mention Thomas' rift. Of course he read a lie into her words, because there was a lie there.

Does that mean she lied about all of it? She is a liar and I am a whore but that doesn't mean neither of us can't be hurt like that -

He knows there are people who would think that. People who would look at Aramis and sneer; how can he pretend he didn't want it? He always wants it. The thought of their contempt - the thought of what that means for Aramis, that because he's so generous with his yes they assume he's no entitlement to a no anymore . . . but - he doesn't know that it - it isn't the same. Is it the same? That she lies and lies and lies; does that make everything she says a lie?

For the first time, he really begins to understand what he might have done. His fingers weaken; he barely catches the glass before he breaks his second in the same day.

He drains the glass quickly and shoves it across the desk, and pulls out from under his shirt her locket, the pretty antique he bought her, the painted forget-me-nots he's been wearing to remember her betrayal by. He found it in the churned grass after he believed he'd killed her, picked it up and stared at it and was numb with what he'd done, with what had happened, the end of everything. It must have still been in his hand when he made his way to the wine cellar. All he knows is that at some point when he was slightly less drunk, he became aware that he was wearing it, and he didn't like to touch it to remove it so he just got drunk enough to forget its presence once again. They never acknowledge it, Aramis and Porthos, delicate in that if nothing else. They never speak of it, never look at it, it's as if it doesn't exist, a ghost hanging around Athos' neck. They love him, so they give him the things he needs, mostly the silence he needs, and they never mention it.

Athos' eyes raise from the locket. They've never said a word about any of it. Athos hasn't told them yet that he had, until today, given up on the thought of abandoning them for the purpose of cold-blooded murder. They didn't know that he was resolved to stay with them whatever the price, but even so they've never pushed him in it, never demanded it from him, never resented him for it. Until today Aramis has never even said a word to him about - about what Thomas did to him. Athos stares into space and tries to manage his nausea; Aramis has lived with that, with that, while he knew that Thomas was in Athos' mind an innocent victim and yet to Aramis he was - he was a monster. He was a monster who tried to overpower him and - and enter him and - destroy him, negate him, wipe out his autonomy, end his humanity. Aramis has stayed silent for years while Athos mourned the man who tried to force himself on Aramis and break him.

And Anne -

If. If she is telling the truth. If she had had to act to save her own life.

He puts both hands over his face, digging the fingers in hard to his skin, and oh, god, Christ.

He remembers Aramis' hesitant, desperate, I love you, Athos and through the wide-open daze of his mind he no longer knows how he can. What is there to love? Athos has for years been letting Aramis think that Athos doesn't love him enough to stay with him because he wants to avenge the monster who tried to pry Aramis open and force himself inside him. What the hell do they see in him, he's -

Oh god, if she was telling the truth - if she was actually telling the truth, and he -

He hunches forwards, hands dug over his face, and every bone in his body in that moment burns enough to snap in him. And he doesn't scream. It takes effort, he has to bite it in and stifle it down but he doesn't scream, he doesn't scream, facing what he could have done, he can't scream. Aramis is in the house, if Aramis hears it -

- I love you, Athos.

He thinks of that, and breathes, and breathes, keeps himself breathing, breathes. It calms him somehow, from the great awful open plains of seeing himself, it anchors him to something bearable. Aramis does love him. They both do, he knows they do. He's never deserved it but they've never stopped anyway, they just do. There must be something in him worth loving to the two of them. Neither of them would entrust him with the other, at least, if they suspected him of being dangerous, of being unworthy. They love him. They honestly do.

And he might have - if she didn't lie - he might - of course he can't think of Thomas as a monster, of course he can't use that word, because he knows which one of them the monster really is. She is a liar and Aramis is a whore but Athos in that house always knew himself to be righteous and right and that gave him the power to do something that might, understood properly, be unspeakable. If there was a wolf in that house, there is not only one contender for the title. Athos loved her and slept beside her and swore his loyalty to her forever, and then at the end -

He can't think of it. He will make himself, he will make himself deal with the entirety of it, when he can. For now he needs to cling, for the remainders of his sanity, to the knowledge that the two of them love him, both of them, in full knowledge of what he is, and that he needs to start, to finally, truly start, living up to that.

He pours another glass of whisky - every bone hurts now, all at once they've crescendo'd, and he drinks slowly, glass held in both hands because either one alone feels too weak. He was almost a lawyer, he can be rational. He has to think. Heart running too hard and bones screaming too loud but he has to ignore them, and think.

Aramis would never have told him this just to hurt him with it. Aramis intended something more by his knowing it. What he probably intended was for Athos to have the chance to understand and to fix his mistakes; he loves Athos and he has given him a gift that few people truly receive, because Athos has a chance to understand, a chance to actually repent. And Athos knows immediately that Aramis feels no resentment that Athos has for years put Thomas before the two of them, Thomas who hurt Aramis like that. Aramis believes in grace. What he's given Athos, and no-one has ever gifted him this before, is the chance of a fresh clean sheet of paper, a new start, if he's strong enough for it, which Aramis must believe that he is. And Athos rubs his face and takes another drink and will go find him, soon, to make him understand that he understands. But he has to understand properly, first. He needs all his thoughts in order.

He needs all his thoughts about Anne in order.

He knows it may be a long time before he really believes, really understands, what Thomas did to Anne, and then to Aramis, even before he can understand his own part in the entire sick melodrama of it all. It's hard to unpeel the little boy Athos knew from the older boy he became, the man, to all intents and purposes - legally he was a man when he died even if he still seemed young to Athos, a wolf in lamb's clothing - who made decisions to do things Athos can hardly believe in.

He wasn't a monster, he thinks, because every time he tries to face that he's jerked back to another image of him. He was Athos' little brother, and everyone loved him, he was always the better brother. He was good-tempered and dreamy, he would spend hours decorating and wrapping presents at Christmas, he loved when all their family was together, he liked cats, he loved music. He wasn't a monster. He was a person.

He also assaulted Athos' fiancée, and Athos thinks - immaturity, lack of self-control, lack of perspective, he'd lost both of his parents while young, resentment of Athos, simple selfishness - simple evil, a refusal to care about anything but what he wanted, whoever he had to hurt however he had to hurt them to achieve it - whatever motivations he attributes to him he'll never know the truth of it. He doesn't know if his brother truly was a bad man, or a damaged one, or something in between, or worse.

He rubs his eyes, squeezes the bridge of his nose. No. He can't be dishonest about it now. He does know that Thomas was a bad man. Men who do bad things are bad men, and what he did was not excusable, cannot be pretended away; assaulting Anne would be enough and it wasn't even only her that he attacked. But it doesn't make him nothing but a monster, a wolf pure and simple, Athos can't reconcile his own brother with nothing but evil. It would be too easy, give too much away, to make him a monster and leave it at that. He was a greedy, selfish boy, but he was a boy; not all victims are saints and not all perpetrators are monsters, they are all human beings, and no sense can be made of them if they're not understood as such. All Athos really knows is that Thomas wasn't a good person. He was a person; he just wasn't a good one, and there is no rewriting of that fact.

Athos looks at the wall, head propped on his knuckles, and he faces that: Thomas wasn't a good person. He was still young and he might with time have been taught to be better, or he might had he lived gone on to become worse. He was human, and he made choices, and then he died. Now it's Athos' turn to make his choices. He will never really know his brother, though he knows now he'll spend the rest of his life trying to work him out, trying to really make himself face the things he did. All Thomas can be to him right now is a warning: there are choices Athos cannot allow himself to make, priorities he can't put aside, and doing right by his circle is now the most important thing. But there are other things that matter as well.

Justice. He's always told himself that he cares about justice. Now it's time for him to prove that he means that, even when it costs him as well.

Anne lied to him. She lied to him about who she was - she was no student, the life she told him of was a lie, he knows that - and what she did, because what she did was kill rifts, for as long as he knew her she's been killing rifts, and Aramis has clearly never forgiven the dart she once put in Porthos. That she lied so extensively and entirely makes it difficult for Athos to ascertain what ever could have been true. Thomas attacked her, and Athos in his loss, wild with grief, Athos who had believed so many of her easy lies couldn't believe her when he actually needed to, and - his eyes close - that he will have to bear. He knows what he's done now, and it sits cold in his stomach, that ice isn't melting until one way or another this is seen to its end. He now knows that he's not a good man either, but, unlike Thomas, he does now have the chance to try to be better, and he intends to take it. For them, he has to take it. He cannot be something he knows to be unworthy of them for any longer than he already has been.

Anne lied, such that he doesn't know even now why she came to him in the first place. He doesn't know if she knew his rift was there to break, doesn't know if she thought he would be an easy ride out of life - doesn't know, now it comes to it and she didn't murder his brother for petty gain, he doesn't know if she actually did love him the way she said she did. He needs to talk to her. That realisation comes so strangely to him, he sits perplexed by the sheer simplicity of it, he needs to talk to her. He needs to ask her to answer an honest question, and if she can't, at least he knows he got some things right. But he needs to talk to her. She murders rifts, and he can never forgive her that, but he needs to talk to her. He needs to look her in the eye and ask her himself, one last time, if she was telling the truth.

He may have done something abominable. If that is the case, and he's sick to think of it but has no choice, he needs to face it. But it reduces nothing of what she has done, or the danger she still poses to his circle, and to others. He will face her again, and do the right thing. The two of them owe each other some honesty, finally. She must have things she wants to say to him and he has questions for her.

He covers his eyes, rests his head on his hand, and remembers being in love with her. He pokes the feeling and all it emits is a wistfulness, slightly wry, because it's hardly like that was a long-term relationship in the making, secure with the two of them he finally understands that. She kills rifts, and Athos turned out to be a rift himself, and unable to love anyone who does what she does, and she lied, and she is cruel, and brutal. And anyway, he's better with them. They make him laugh. They're so generous in giving him space and time and never resenting it. They make him face the hard things, they make him be a better person, they give him a model of strength and love to live up to. He runs his thumb around the edge of the clasp of the locket, and thinks, forget-me-nots; but then, flowers die.

He lets the locket drop, a little surprised by how serene he feels about all of it now. He won't take it off until he trusts that he won't need to remind himself of what not to be anymore. Instead he checks his watch - he's lost so much time, and he needs to find Aramis. Everything Athos must have left Aramis thinking, Aramis had the courage to tell him and then Athos must have left him thinking himself blamed and abandoned for it - and Porthos must be back from his run by now but if he's come back to Aramis so upset and broken glass in the living room - why isn't the wind more angry?

He pushes himself up from the chair. He needs to find them, to reassure Aramis, to check on them. He needs to reassure Aramis. Everything Athos has ever sworn he would be for the two of them, and now he's put the burden of guilt on Aramis' neck for giving Athos nothing but the hardest honesty he might ever have had to face, Athos needs to find them, now.

He's only done a circuit of the ground floor in looking for them - they're not there, and the glass has been cleaned up in the living room, Aramis must have taken care of it while Athos was locked away - when he hears Porthos' voice, muffled overhead, crying two syllables loud, and he knows it's his own name. He also hears Aramis' voice desperately saying something, probably telling him not to bother Athos, probably too afraid of Athos' state of mind to risk him either coming to help him while full of hatred for him or else - oh god, what it would do to Aramis to face it - deciding not to come to help him at all.

Athos takes the stairs three at a time, and sprints through their bedroom door. It's June, and the scent of jasmine from the plant on the windowsill fills the room; he doesn't have the time to be nauseated and oppressed by it as he usually is. Porthos still hasn't showered, must have got back fairly recently and been too preoccupied for it, his hair lifted from his head by his sweat. Aramis is lying on his side on the bed, Porthos' hand on the back of his neck to steady him and the leather cuff already clamped in his teeth, obvious panic in his eyes on Athos.

Athos stares at him for one second - the strain around his eyes, the lines scoured there by the oncoming episode, the tautness of the muscles in his neck and jaw, the way his fingers press tight at the duvet and the way he's looking at him, Christ (How did I make you look at me like that, how did I ever do that -) - and Athos walks to him, sits on the edge of the bed and closes a hand around his arm, promises him, head low and voice softly urgent, "It's alright, Aramis." Aramis' eyes follow him with a certainty that this is bad, but he makes no move to defend himself, whether he's actually able to or not. Athos strokes his arm with a thumb, holds his eye, and whispers, "It's alright."

He would kiss him, somewhere on his face - it's all lovely enough to compete for the best place for a kiss to land - but this close to an episode, it's asking to be headbutted in the face. Instead he strokes his arm, and tries to make Aramis understand the choices he's made through eye contact alone, and tells him so softly, "It's alright."

All Aramis does is stare at him, clearly not trusting this place of safety, until there's that fade in his eyes and they roll back closing, and his head begins to jerk on his neck.

Stress makes them worse. Of course Aramis was going to have an episode today, because Athos essentially screamed at him that one of the worst things ever done to him didn't matter, threw a glass at him and then abandoned him to the tender mercies of a rift they all know could kill him in a split second. Of course he was stressed, the pressure he was under, Athos can't stand it. He knows Aramis can't hear him but he hushes him gently through it, stroking his arm, while Porthos keeps an eye on his face. He doesn't jerk for long, hardly more than a minute, and then his head slumps, his rigid muscles go limp, and he lays there with his breathing shuddering, the muscles in his face hardly strong enough to grimace as he struggles to work his teeth loose of the cuff.

Porthos wipes the drool from his cheek, Athos swaps the pillows out, holding his head gently up in his palm to lay it back down. Aramis doesn't open his eyes, clearly drained so badly he's barely awake, coughs weakly and manages in a rasped voice without being asked, "Car. I saw a car. Don't know what . . . it felt bad, though. Not safe."

"Stationary?" Athos asks in a low voice, his head is probably splitting, and runs his fingers through his hair. "Moving?"

"Moving. Fast. Felt . . . bad."

He doesn't seem to have any information that would help anyone and he's already trailing out, so Athos nods to Porthos, who looks with a slight frown between the two of them, but gets the pad from the bedside table to write it down all the same. Athos puts the cuff on the table to rinse off and dry out - Aramis is particular about these things - and takes the glass of water from there, as Aramis' eyes open dopey and unfocused, and between Athos and Porthos they get him close enough to sitting up so they can help him drink.

"Sleep," Athos says, somewhere between a worry and an order. Aramis hangs from their grip and nods drowsily, incapable of making such a decision for himself anyway. Athos shuffles to sit more comfortably beside him on the bed, catches his heavy head as Porthos lowers him and tucks Aramis to his side, head propped off his thigh. He'll quickly become too heavy, but at least while he drifts away he has Athos' hand in his hair, and he must know that he loves him despite everything Athos has done . . .

Porthos sits back, giving the two of them a strange sort of look, there's something hurting and confused and furious behind it, but Aramis is unresponsive already and Athos doesn't care about anything but seeing him safely to wake again. Porthos sighs, and scratches at his hair. He says, low, "You mind if I shower?"

"I'll be here," Athos says quietly, and his fingers stroke through Aramis' hair.

Porthos nods, as if he knows something about this situation is off and he's suspicious, but he trusts them enough to leave them alone for now. He climbs off the bed pulling his t-shirt off, and tosses it mostly-into the laundry basket on his way to the bathroom, where he closes the door with a very careful click, trying not to wake Aramis.

Apparently, god knows how, it's enough; maybe anything would be enough, as on-edge as he must be. Aramis' eyes crack open, his lips part confused, and Athos just cradles his head closer, murmurs very low, "It's alright."

Aramis drags his gaze up to him, spends a moment just gathering his understanding of the situation, says, "Athos . . ."

"It's alright," Athos says, softly. "You were right to talk to me. I'm sorry I shouted. I'm sorry for some of the things I said. I'm - very sorry I threw the glass."

Aramis' head shakes, barely, just once, like he doesn't understand what Athos is apologising for. "It doesn' . . ."

"Aramis," Athos says, and tucks his body closer in his arm, and lowers his head so he can speak in barely more than a whisper, directly to his eyes, "you were right. I - need to talk to her." He draws his breath in. "I need to talk to her. But that's a problem for the future. I'm sorry, I . . ." Aramis is clearly too drained to really follow him, still he looks too nervous. He always finds touch easier to understand; Athos leans his head awkwardly down and kisses him, high on his hairline, and says there with his voice thickening, "I didn't know he hurt you like that. I wouldn't allow it. If I could have I would have stopped it, I would stop it, if I could. I'm sorry for what he did to you." He swallows, and breathes the scent of Aramis' shampoo, and runs his thumbs along Aramis' hairline to stroke the hair back from his brow. "I've made my choice," he says to him, and suddenly it's so true he doesn't know how he can contain the feeling of it, the feeling is wider than the world is, his bones don't matter, nothing else matters, everything feels good. "I choose my circle."

He lifts his head and Aramis' eyes open slowly again, and he looks drowsily incomprehending up at Athos. Athos' smile twitches a little more true, and he slides a hand down to cup Aramis' shoulder closer, murmurs to him, "You're too sleepy to follow me, aren't you?"

"Mn?" Aramis says, struggling to focus on him.

"I love you," Athos says. "That's all you need to know." He strokes his shoulder, holds him close where Aramis can feel it, pressed to his body and safe. "I love you. Go to sleep. You're safe. I love you."

"Mm," Aramis hums, eyelids sliding down, and slowly gone.

Athos doesn't move. He hears the shower in the next room, the hiss of water, and stays where he is, and strokes Aramis' hair. He's not going anywhere. He's made his choice. He's never going anywhere again.

He needs to talk to her, and he will. Until then, he has much more important things to think about; the two of them, and how fiercely every moment matters to them, now and always.

The room smells of jasmine, so clean and so pure, almost like innocence.

Continued