Stupid exorcist fic: I made it and now I'm stuck with it

[rainjoyswriting]

The Golem of Paris, a men in hats fic set in the stupid exorcist AU. I asked Niitza for creepy French tales to use in this 'verse and as we talked it turns out there isn't a French golem story, and so of course I immediately wanted to write one. What I wanted to write was nothing like this, but that is why writers love the golem story so much.

Rating: R for violence, largely off-screen but pretty bad.

Disclaimer: I don't own the golem myth either, but then the things you own tend to get out of your hands before you know it.

Warnings/spoilers: Always refer to part one, this part is mostly bad for violence, sorry!

Summary: If we knew what our golems would end up doing, we may never have made a golem, nor anything else at all.


Note: The weird cellar they end up in is kind of based on fact; there were tunnels linking the Louvre as a palace to a wine supplier back in the day, though I have played extremely fast and loose with the details. Facts, you know. They just get away from you.

Porthos is crouching, sniffing discreetly at the corpse, hardly a mark on it except that its head has been clobbered almost clean off. D'Artagnan is tracing runes on his wrist but he can't feel any presence left in the air, the poor bastard probably died too fast to feel even shock. Athos is standing in the wrecked-open doorway of the shop, a newsagent, destroyed like a van rammed it open; Athos is surreptitiously, they all know, minding that nothing comes back and gets past him at the two exorcists. And Aramis is stirring bits of dried mud on the floor with the tip of his shoe, pressing his lips together as if holding something in before he looks up at Athos bright-eyed, not clamping the smile down nearly enough for a murder scene.

He says, "It is, isn't it?"

Athos just looks at him. D'Artagnan kicks at one of those little dry clumps of dirt and watches it rumble and bounce across the linoleum of the shop broken open, like a tiny little boulder. Porthos pushes himself back to his feet, says, "I'm not gettin' any of our usual suspects. Just clay."

Aramis grins, and pats Porthos' arm in delight. "I am so excited. I've always wanted to see one."

"See what?" d'Artagnan says.

"Golem," Porthos says. "They real, then?"

"I saw one once," Athos says. "A very long time ago."

"What was it like?" Aramis says, and gestures at the shattered open shop front, where something broader and taller than a bull crashed its way in. "Big?"

"Not especially, actually." Athos looks over the demolished doorway as if appraising an artwork, disinterested. "The man who made it meant it as a holy gesture. He'd tried to make the thing beautiful."

"Was it?"

"Beauty," Athos says, in a tone of voice that might as well be a shrug, as if Athos has no real opinions regarding beauty. Aramis gives a low little laugh as if he knows Athos' opinion of beauty rather better, and d'Artagnan feels uncomfortable, and kicks at the dust on the floor some more.

Porthos, practical while they want to pontificate on beauty, says, "They hard to kill?"

"They have a word on their forehead," Aramis says, tracing a little curve along his own brow, between his eyebrows, with the pad of his thumb. "That means 'truth'. You remove the aleph - it looks like an x drawn by the wrong hand - and the word becomes 'death', and the golem ceases all movement."

"All life?" d'Artagnan says slowly, because the two things aren't the same, exorcists know that.

"Life," Aramis says with a shrug, as if how could he know the final details on such a thing, and Athos cuts him a little look.

"Wonder why they picked here," Porthos says, looking around the shop, and at the body again. "Wonder why that poor fucker had to get it."

"It's not far from the department," d'Artagnan says. "You'd think they'd pick somewhere further from all of us if they were going to do something random. So presumably they meant to kill him specifically?"

Aramis' hand lands on his shoulder, and squeezes as if pleased. "Yes," he says. "Or perhaps they wanted us on the scene as soon as possible."

"I c'n follow the scent," Porthos says. "S'not like I'm gonna get a whole bunch of trails of fresh clay movin' around Paris to get confused by."

Aramis pats both hands off Porthos' back. "Okay, let's go. I've always wanted to see one of these things. Can you tell how big it is from the scent?"

"I c'n tell how fuckin' big it is from the clay dragged over the ceilin'."

"If we have to subdue it can you get that letter off its head, a thing of that size?"

Porthos shrugs. "Only one way to find out."

"Okay," d'Artagnan says to their backs as they head for the door, "just to clarify, you think it could be a trap so let's go?"

"It's rude to keep people waiting," Aramis says, one hand on Porthos' back as he walks out of the shop, head raised, scenting the air ahead.

Athos says, "I'll call for backup, I'll request a werewolf. We may need their strength and they can follow us by scent if they have to."

"Okay," d'Artagnan says, as they walk out at a brisk pace to catch up with the werewolf and the excited exorcist already some way up the road ahead of them in the deep dark Paris night, too early yet for any real movement but them and the police still closing off the scene behind them. "Good to know the protocol at least."

Athos says, "When there are exorcists involved in something that may turn dangerous, always call for backup."

"No," d'Artagnan says, "I meant, 'when it's a trap, find out what's happening by falling into it'."

"It's the only definitive way to find out what is happening."

"No it isn't."

"Well, it's the quickest, and mortals prize speed." Athos says, as if feeling weary about that fact. "And he's impossible when he's excited like this."

D'Artagnan does have to admit that he's curious too, it's not often that his first experience of something is also Aramis' first experience of it. He says, "What happened to that golem, the one you saw?"

Athos watches Porthos and Aramis, and walks as if unconcerned by anything. "The mob broke it, and burnt it," he says. "And the rabbi who made it, and the ghetto he meant to defend." He looks at d'Artagnan's face, says, "That is what mobs do. I've seen enough of them, they never display new and interesting behaviour. Mobs are entirely predictable, in their own depressing way."

". . . when was this?"

"Long ago." Athos walks, no expression on his face but his permanent world-weariness. "If that helps."

The problem, gnawing in d'Artagnan's stomach, is that that story lingers on his shoulders too much, because mobs don't change, however many centuries pass. So no, it doesn't help, not at all . . .

*

Porthos sniffs up the street a bit but comes back to them outside the wine shop, and shrugs. "Stops here. What now?"

It's the dead hours of the morning and there's no-one on the street, no sign of light or life in the building, but beside the shop front is a large red-painted wooden door, a gate really, to allow a delivery van in and out d'Artagnan guesses. It's big enough to allow in even a creature whose clay head brushed the ceiling of a shop. The streetlights aren't really enough; d'Artagnan digs in his satchel, and takes out his torch.

"We wait," Athos says. "Backup is coming."

Aramis says, "If you find some way to withhold a golem from me for safety's sake I will be very disappointed, Athos."

D'Artagnan clicks the torch on, aimed at the pavement, and just looks for a moment. Then he lifts a foot and crunches down the little soft flakes of clay into dust.

"Why do you even want to see one so much?"

"Why does curiosity demand such a defence?"

"Because curiosity seems to demand you risk your neck on far too regular a basis."

D'Artagnan shines the torch beam on the smaller door set into the larger, small enough to allow people through without all the fuss of opening the great gates in the archway overhead. There doesn't seem to be any lock on it on the outside.

Porthos says, "When'd you see yours, Athos?"

"Long ago."

"You always say that."

"It usually was."

D'Artagnan puts his fingertips, just his fingertips, on the door, and pushes. It opens as easily as any cupboard in their kitchen. He says, "It's not locked."

They all look around immediately, and Porthos takes d'Artagnan's arms, pulling him very firmly out of the doorway, which Athos leans through, glaring into the pitch dark. "An empty garage," he says. "With a smashed in doorway at the rear."

Aramis looks around the street they're on. "We're near the Louvre. This place is going to be annoying with tourists in -" He checks his watch. "Not long enough. So -"

Athos says, "We were waiting for backup."

"We were. We are. But we can do other things while we wait."

"It's in there," d'Artagnan says. "Has it killed the people who work here?"

Athos and Aramis look at each other, and then Aramis takes a long slow breath, eyes falling half-closed, and Athos walks to the shop doorway, which he leans against so his nose is by the meet of door and frame, and sniffs. "Blood," he says.

"No echoes." Aramis says.

"Shit." Porthos says. "Get that door open -"

"How the hell could it kill anyone in there? It's too big."

"Maybe whoever made it . . . they need orders, they don't just decide to kill."

"But they always get beyond the orders, don't they?" Aramis says, withdrawing from his own satchel a gun, which he snaps the safety off. "That's the problem."

Athos jars the door open with a single shove of his shoulder and walks in. D'Artagnan moves to follow but Porthos still has his arm, eyes suspicious on the garage, the shop, and Aramis is watching them both as well, neck very steady and gun aimed low. Athos emerges quickly, says, "The owner's face down in there, he wasn't killed by a golem. Far too clean."

"Too many murders," Porthos says. "An' Aramis is right, there's too many random victims to wander into this, the two of us can't shut this street off -"

"The four of us," d'Artagnan says, pulling his arm until Porthos does let it go.

"The two of them," Aramis says, gently. "Exorcists must be minded, not do the minding. This is the problem, we're supposed to have two supernaturals to an exorcist but until you get your badge we can't be assigned anyone else."

Porthos says, "We don't need anyone else."

Aramis pats his arm. "I think it's nice when the pack gets bigger."

D'Artagnan's still angry about how ridiculous this is, they don't need minding like little children, they have guns for Christ's sake. "We're not helpless, can't we guard the street while you two go find the golem?"

Aramis says, "I knew someone would try and trick me out of seeing this golem."

Athos says, "No. It's not just the golem, and you know exorcists don't walk alone in Paris anymore."

"Where the hell is this backup anyway?"

"The switchboard said they had a backlog. You know how stretched we are."

"This is ridiculous, we have two dead bodies in half an hour and we can't get more agents than this?"

"Perhaps we should put that on the recruitment posters," Aramis says. "'Join up for an average of four dead bodies an hour!' Do you wonder that we're so slight a force?"

Athos and Porthos' head whip to the foot of the street and Aramis follows their gaze, gun still held easy in his grip, as d'Artagnan fumbles his own out, still a very new thing in his hand. A group of three voices speaking in English are approaching, and then they turn onto the street itself and start walking towards them; American backpackers, d'Artagnan thinks, with their bags still on their shoulders. They weave as they walk, and no-one speaks that loudly if they're even slightly aware of the hour; drunk American backpackers.

Athos steps forward and removes his badge from his jacket pocket, flashes it in front of their faces forcing them to halt or trample into him. "DPI," he says. "Please find another route to your destination."

The three of them talk in confused English amongst themselves for a moment and then one of them says, "S'il vous plaît? Qu'est- que - no - qu'est-ce que -"

Porthos says loudly, "Fuck off out of it, hell why would you go somewhere you couldn't speak the fucking -"

Aramis says, "Perdóneme, ¿hablas español?"

The tourists make loud relieved noises, and one of them begins speaking stunted, English-speaker's Spanish back. D'Artagnan rolls his eyes, and steps through the red door into the garage.

It's clear there should be a van here, and from that side door into the shop a ramp can be set up, to roll stock into it. But the space is empty and has that strange inside-outside feel to it, covered overhead and on all sides but the air is cool, and the ground underfoot feels like pavement and grits with crumbled clay. There was probably a door at the back of this space but now it's an open cave, crumbled plaster and broken wood, shattered bricks as d'Artagnan approaches, gun in one hand and torch in the other, stepping through the space that was once a door.

This must have once been a corridor. And there are stairs, down, stone; an old wine cellar, built back in the day when buildings were too sturdy to be shattered by a golem's simple movement. And on them, still harsh underneath d'Artagnan's soles, are the shavings of clay . . .

"D'Artagnan!"

He turns with such a jolt he almost fires his gun in sheer shock, and his torch beam lurches over and shakily resettles on Athos walking at him like fury. "What the hell are you doing, you know not to walk away -"

"I was only looking. It's downstairs, look -"

"They won't let me look," Aramis says gloomily from somewhere further back, d'Artagnan can make out the clumsily large shape of Aramis and Porthos together, Porthos presumably keeping hold of Aramis, so they couldn't lose both exorcists at once. "I knew you'd steal my golem from me."

"I don't know," d'Artagnan says, hot in the cheeks with the way Athos is looking at him. "I only thought - I jus-"

"Thinking is the last thing you did, between the damned golem and whatever killed that shopkeeper-"

"Athos," Aramis says.

"If you wander off we will be up to three corpses in forty minutes -"

"Athos," Aramis says again, only quietly, because d'Artagnan is beginning to feel it sink in as well, the low pull of it. He only now understands it himself, that he came in here not out of mere frustration, he felt . . .

"Downstairs," Aramis says, soft in the dark. "Someone's echoing."

Athos is still, then says, "The golem?"

"I don't know. Whatever life is in them, I don't think it feels like this, though."

"Whoever made the golem," d'Artagnan says. "Or whoever they first told it to kill, before that shopkeeper."

"You said no echoes."

"Up there there weren't any." Aramis says, "Down here? Now you need exorcists." He clicks his own torch on, and smiles at them all in the weird-cast glow of it. "And I get to see my golem."

"Backup," Porthos says, but uncertainly.

"How many more dead bodies can we wait for?" d'Artagnan says. "We're standing here arguing, for all we know they're down there listening -"

Athos says, "I don't hear a heartbeat."

Aramis says, "Two corpses in, that doesn't make anyone feel any better, love."

"You said they needed orders," d'Artagnan says. "Right? So if there isn't a heartbeat down there then there's no-one to give the order, so isn't it safe?"

Athos looks at Aramis, who has studied the supernatural extensively and has the qualifications to prove it, and Aramis gives an almighty shrug, head tipping to one side, even his mouth tilted. All he says is, "They tend to get beyond their orders in the end."

"Yeah, well," Porthos says. "Can't judge, so do we."

"Hell," Athos mutters, and strides at the staircase. "You two, between us -"

Aramis links his arm with d'Artagnan as they're jostled like ducklings to walk between the vampire and the werewolf. "A golem," Aramis says, grinning delighted. "Aren't you excited?"

"After we found two bodies already."

"Our wanting to see the golem doesn't make them any more dead," Aramis says, then huffs his breath out, perhaps now a little ashamed of his own excitement, and says more softly, "I'll light candles for them."

Athos has stopped, at the bottom of the staircase, which goes down surprisingly deep. D'Artagnan's torch beam hovers on his back, but Aramis' has already flicked in the direction of his gaze, which falls on a body on the floor, a man by the looks of it and very dead with his throat a mess of blood flashed up his face. And standing over the dead man is what looks like a massive statue of a human body layered and layered and layered in clay until the features are obscured into gestures; two open holes for eyes, and big heavy stumps of clay for arms and legs. It doesn't look like it's alive, not in any sense of the word d'Artagnan knows, no more than a snowman is.

D'Artagnan feels the ghost of the dead man's feelings, the panicked fear and the - the despair, it's deeper than a sudden shock, that fear feels very deeply set in . . .

"The aleph," Aramis whispers again, to Porthos and Athos, as if actually nervous now. "It looks like a distorted x -"

Athos says without lowering his voice in the slightest, "It has no ears. How could it hear us?"

"It's clay brought to life, you think it not requiring ears to hear is the most irrational thing in front of us?"

"That guy made it?" Porthos says. "The dead guy?"

Aramis looks at the dead man, and d'Artagnan watches his eyes, trying to read him reading him, he knows he has to learn this and Aramis has years of experience on him. "I think," Aramis says slowly, "he did make it. But I think he didn't want to."

D'Artagnan feels that pushing quality to the bad feeling left in the air, and understands why he'd say that, because the panic of that spirit does feel like it's being forced into something. Athos steps off the staircase, onto the floor of the cellar itself. The space is large, crates of wine bottles and barrels stacked to the walls of the room, and d'Artagnan doesn't like to lift his torch beam from the golem to investigate it further; it feels large, though. Aramis says, "Athos -"

Athos walks for the dead man. "You were the one who wanted to see it."

"Careful -"

"So if he's the one echoing," d'Artagnan murmurs, thumb poised to trace a rune on his inner wrist. "Did the golem kill . . . ?"

Athos, reaching the dead man and crouching to roll him over under the looming shadow of the still golem, says, "It looks like a vam-"

The blow is faster than they could have anticipated from the dull leaden form of it and Athos crashes heavily aside, crates and bottle shatter, and Aramis barks a wordless sound, stumbles to run forward to his vampire but Porthos grabs his shoulder and physically flings him back up the staircase - Aramis might have fallen all the way back down it again if he hadn't fallen against the wall - and roars at him, "Get the kid out of here!"

"Athos-"

"Can't fight that thing with you two underfoot!"

Porthos grabs and hauls d'Artagnan back up to Aramis' side and then jumps off the side of the stairs to run with a roar at the golem lumbering to Athos as he picks himself up, the vampire looking angry more than anything stuck on his arse in the shattered remnants of a wine barrel, suit already ruined. "He's right," Aramis says, like it sticks in his throat but he does say it. "He's right, we can't - we're just in the way. Come on."

Porthos takes a running jump and punches downwards at the back of the golem's head; d'Artagnan sees it turn and swing and catch Porthos in the side, flinging him bodily sideways as Athos rises up with a blade in one hand and aiming for the face. That's the last d'Artagnan sees; Aramis is dragging him up the stairs with his torch in his teeth, an unsteady beam casting jolting light up the stairs as they run, until they're back in the garage again, and Aramis can spit it into his hand. They can't see what's happening anymore, but they can hear it, some of it, roars and echoing crashes coming strangled from below.

"Hell," Aramis says, scratching his hair back with the hand holding the gun. "So that's what a golem looks like."

". . . did you three close the door when you came after me?" d'Artagnan says, keeping his own torch aimed on that little red door, and feeling nervous.

Aramis says, "Wh-" and takes a sudden sharp in-breath, staring frantic back down those stairs again. "Athos -"

He must be feeling whatever Athos is feeling in the fight. D'Artagnan just keeps looking at that door, feeling weirdly ill, and walks over to tug at the handle; it doesn't move. "Aramis . . ."

"Oh Christ," Aramis says, shivering as if pulling the strength back into himself, pacing back and forth at the top of the staircase, agitated as a poked cat. "We'd be nothing but a burden down there, we can't fight a golem for them, we would only make it worse -"

"Aramis," d'Artagnan says, knowing Aramis too distracted to focus given whatever is happening to Athos echoing in his own body right now, "why is the door to leave locked?"

Aramis looks at him, hesitating for a fraction of a second even as his eyes understand, and a voice to their side says, "Because it was never about the golem, obviously."

The hand around his wrist is like a vice, twisting so the gun falls numb from his fingers; the one around his throat and holding his head back is as insistent as stone, d'Artagnan tries to move to see behind himself but it's like trying to displace a manacle, that grip is going nowhere. "Two for one," the vampire says, as Aramis can only stare at them, his face pale in the dark, and d'Artagnan hears a soft snickering, sees the second vampire as she steps forwards, looking at Aramis. They came in from that side door, to the wine shop, where the hell were they hiding when they were here earlier - ?

"Exorcists," the second vampire says, lifting d'Artagnan's satchel, still slung over his arm, and looking delighted across at Aramis. "Two of you, this is our lucky-"

The first shot snaps back the head of the vampire holding d'Artagnan, and his hands go limp on him; the body's not yet fallen before the second shot spins the second vampire around - she had been already lunging forwards like a snake's strike - and they both drop heavily, heads shining with their own murky blood. D'Artagnan staggers to the side, heart beating like a drum roll low in his throat, stares at the vampires, stares up at Aramis -

He's standing there still holding gun and torch up as if a single tool, beam and muzzle aimed steady in his hands like they do in the films, and he's still staring at the second vampire he dropped. He blinks, says, "I - did not think I would be fast enough to do that."

"You - you shot right past my head, you didn't know before you shot right past my head -?"

Aramis blinks again, shakes it out of himself, says, "We don't have long, they'll wake up again. Is that door -"

D'Artagnan swallows, looks at the little red door, walks to it and kicks it with everything he has; the blow bounces, he staggers back, but the lock doesn't break. He says, "You'll have to shoot it open. That was - that was really - impressive."

He's seen Aramis shoot before, smug at the practice range in the department, but against two lethally fast vampires in the dark, that was something else. Aramis just says, "You're too kind." and d'Artagnan takes a moment with his torch beam to pick him out, as Aramis rattles at the door to the wine shop. "They must have locked this, they should have the key on them."

"I'm not digging in their pockets." d'Artagnan says, eyeing the two - for all intents and purposes - corpses. "You said you were in the army."

"Mm, some time ago."

"What did you do?"

"Got some practice, obviously." Aramis looks at the door behind d'Artagnan and then they hear another shocking noise from below and he flinches like something got at his right eye, blinking it out and shaking his head. "We can't make them defeat a golem and not know they're coming up here to two angry waking vampires as well, we need to -"

"Come on then." d'Artagnan says, because it's what he's wanted to do since before they fled back up those stairs, and he crouches to scoop up his gun from beside the fallen vampires, following Aramis to the staircase again. He mutters, "Retreat feels wrong."

Aramis pats his shoulder, and they begin their hurry back down those stairs, towards the terrible noise below, it echoes in an even worse way now they're actually on the staircase. Why is there a cellar so deep under Paris, what the hell is this place? D'Artagnan says, "How old is this-"

Aramis barks a noise of - shock more than pain, d'Artagnan realises, as he collapses sideways, d'Artagnan's breath thumps in his chest, he grabs at him to steady him and for one awful teetering second halfway down a staircase their weight tilts the worst way. Then d'Artagnan is pinning Aramis' body to the wall beside the stairs and Aramis is making soft distressed noises on each out-breath, panting, "Ath- Athos -"

D'Artagnan's stomach wrings itself out, he's never seen Aramis like this, can't even imagine Athos - Athos, stony as a statue - actually hurt. He pulls at him to get him moving, says too low in the chest, "Come on, then. Fast."

He has to support him, they realise very quickly, Aramis' left leg trembles, d'Artagnan can see the effort involved in him putting his weight fully on it, not exactly pain but something else, some sick weakness in it. They stumble together down the stairs, torch beams flashing wild across that cellar, trying to pick out -

Aramis makes a noise, and flings forward out of d'Artagnan's grip.

Athos is struggling to get himself onto his legs from the foot of a wall, and the golem is holding Porthos up by the shoulder, punching him in the face with the horrible repetitive tirelessness of a machine. D'Artagnan realises too late how flimsy they are in this, tries to snatch at Aramis' shoulder again but he's already aimed, eyes narrowed, gun and torch held true - but the bullet merely skims across the golem's forehead, pings clean past, d'Artagnan would choke on the wasted chance, would think that the blood all over Porthos' face and whatever is wrong with Athos' leg and the tang in the air of the strangled horror and fear of that dead man still on the floor had ruined Aramis' possibility of thinking to aim right but -

But the golem's punching arm slumps down, limp, and Porthos drops from the grip of the other hand, the golem's head lowering as if in sleep. One of the letters on its forehead is crossed out by a bullet's glancing blow as neatly as if done with a pen.

Porthos hits the floor with a full-weight thud, no bracing at all, but Aramis is already at his side choking on the soothing voice he's attempting, his own panic makes any attempt to quell anything in Porthos impossible. He's already opening his satchel, fumbling for his first aid kit; the golem hovers over them, unmoving in the eeriest way, the back of d'Artagnan's neck prickles to watch them. He watches for a moment to make sure it doesn't move, then walks to Athos, who has given up on standing up and has lowered himself to sit, back to the wall, both hands gripping the thigh of one leg laid out at a strange - oh fuck, at a really strange angle on the flagstone floor.

D'Artagnan stops, looking down at him, and says, "You can put that back in, right?"

Athos looks up at him balefully, hair a mess and clothes rumpled and wine-stained, split in one seam, he hates getting his clothes messed up. He just says, "There were gunshots."

"There are two vampires upstairs, dead for now, Aramis got them both. They said it wasn't about the golem."

Athos rubs his forehead with a thumb, eyes squeezing shut, and says, "Of course it wasn't. I'm going to have to - if we might need to fight them - is he sitting down?"

D'Artagnan looks across at Aramis tending to Porthos, who is at least sitting upright; Aramis is kneeling beside him, wiping the blood from his face, whispering some urgent and unending thing to him with his eyes so desperate on his ruined face. "Sort of."

Athos draws his breath in - unusual enough for d'Artagnan to note it - raises his hips from the floor, forces his foot to brace off the floor with both hands gripping his leg and snaps it back in, d'Artagnan can see the sheer brute force involved in his forcing a clearly dislocated leg back into its socket. Behind d'Artagnan Aramis makes a noise, d'Artagnan hears him crash over, and Athos' eyes are very wide, the hands on his leg are shaking, as he calls weakly, "Aramis -"

"God damn it Athos," Aramis huffs, picking himself up from the floor by his elbows before his hands, body rocking with his breathing, staring over at them white in the face. His teeth are chattering around the words, d'Artagnan realises it's a miracle he hasn't gone straight into shock. "You could give me some warning -"

"You told me last time not to give you warning, you hate anticipating it."

"I could have chipped a tooth," Aramis mutters, looks up at Porthos to check on him - holding a cold pack to the side of his face, looking mostly very, very sleepy - and then he looks across at Athos again, and holds an arm stretched out long towards him, something urgent in his eyes. "You're alright . . . ?"

"It will heal." Athos says, and he doesn't say anything but his hands are still trembling, and d'Artagnan touches his arm, offers it because he knows it can't be asked for, not by him; and Athos does put an arm around his shoulders, allow d'Artagnan to return the gesture, and help heave him upright to limp to Aramis.

D'Artagnan says, "Do vampires feel pain?"

"Less than humans." Athos says, and then admits, "Some. The muscles need to knit back together, there is some nerve damage that needs to heal."

D'Artagnan helps Athos to get to a clumsy sit again beside Aramis, who puts a hand over his, the one supporting him against the floor, and squeezes it. "We shouldn't have left you to fight it alone."

"We didn't know it would be so hard to subdue, nor that we would send you up into the web of two vampires without us."

"We were alright," d'Artagnan says. "Aramis shot everything today."

"Aramis might have to do it again if those vampires come down here," Aramis says, and with unsteady hands he turns to Porthos again, his jaw flexing tight, and he touches his forehead so, so gently before he begins winding bandages around his split eyebrow, to stem the blood still running down his swollen face. "And he would appreciate some help."

D'Artagnan looks up that staircase, and once more removes the gun, slotted away to help Athos stand, from his satchel. He says, "Next time we're practising - in the department - show me how to do the thing with the torch."

"Yes." Aramis says, winding bandages patterned with his own bloody fingerprints around Porthos' head. "You'll need that."

"I just thought it looks really cool," d'Artagnan says, eyeing the staircase, knowing himself the only man standing if those vampires return; Porthos can't see even if he could stand up, Athos can't fight two other vampires in this state, and Aramis facing both of them injured like this and feeling Athos' injuries in his own body - god knows what else he's dealing with beside the leg, after that fight - Aramis has very little left to give, is running off nerves and instinct and can't be pushed much further than this.

So d'Artagnan stands there, beneath the switched-off golem, beside the body of what may be the man who made it - the echoes of his fear and panic, even as d'Artagnan feels them touch cool, desperate fingers on the back of his neck, are fading - while Aramis pieces Porthos' face back together with bandages and Athos tries to disguise how clearly agonising his leg is. D'Artagnan watches that staircase, and resettles his fingers on the gun, and waits for a vampire. He's got people to defend. And he feels, for maybe the first time, essential; he feels, even in the midst of all this, like he's finally getting good at this. Not as good as them, not yet. But he has the time to learn, if he lives, and they trust him enough to have their backs, and that means a lot about how ready he now knows he feels.

*

Afterwards: there is a lot of afterwards.

Aramis gets through the afterwards in a shivery haze of awareness of Athos' leg. The strangest thing is that he can walk on his own, the limp involuntary just because he always anticipates the collapse that doesn't come, the pain that does not peak. It's when Athos walks that the blood drains from Aramis' face, and he can't keep his own feet without help. Pathetic. Athos, limping and imperious, leaves that place snapping a lethal glare at anyone who tries to intercede. Aramis is the one who has to follow on d'Artagnan's arm, leg trying to collapse him to the floor with every one of Athos' steps.

Their backup, Marcel and his unit of a werewolf and a witch, arrive in time to stop the waking vampires following Aramis and d'Artagnan downstairs. One vampire has to be killed in the fight, and the other, as she's being pushed into the back of a reinforced van on the street, looks at their emergence from the cellar - Athos limping, Aramis limping, Porthos with his face covered in blood and bandages - and she smiles, and never says a word again, throughout all interrogation. But they piece it together, Aramis texting Marcel for more information from his seat in the hospital Porthos insisted through a bloody mouth that he didn't even need. Aramis can piece some of it together himself, anyway. With better light they can see the kippah on the head of the dead man on the cellar floor, a scholar it transpires, the police have the missing person's report from his panicking and now grieving family. Vampires kidnapped a man to make a golem for them, knowing it would lure musketeers into this cellar to kill. And they fell for it, because of Aramis and his curiosity. They fell for it and Athos got his leg as good as torn out, and Porthos his face battered almost open.

Exorcists, he knows, that's what they hoped to lure into that cellar with a golem. Department exorcists.

Idiot.

Porthos has broken ribs, a fractured cheekbone, a broken jaw, can hardly see through the swelling. The doctors want to keep him in for observation, in case of concussion, but you can't stop a werewolf from doing what he wants; Athos only rolls his eyes as Porthos staggers off in a very meaningful, not entirely straight stride for the hospital exit. Looking only aggravated Athos pushes himself to stand, to follow, which is when Aramis feels all the blood leave his head and he nearly slips limp from his own seat.

"Dunneven need 'em," Porthos says in a growled mumble through his tender mouth, slamming his car door open. "Heal on m'own, fuck'm."

Aramis drags each step along gripping d'Artagnan's arm tight, the boy holding him up with an arm around his back, and the embarrassment of forcing this on the boy in this way is much less of a problem right now than the shriek of the pain every time Athos puts his foot on the floor.

"You're not driving," Aramis gasps, and swallows, and clamps his teeth again. Athos, hand on the driver's side door handle, hesitates, giving him a glare before his face flattens to the neutrality of him reading Aramis' own feelings in that moment - mostly, Aramis feels that if Athos puts his weight on the clutch, Aramis will throw up - and Athos says dismissively, "The boy can drive." walking for the passenger door instead. "You're a terrible driver."

Aramis' hand shakes on the door handle at the back, and the breath comes out of him shaking with relief. They both know that he could no more drive right now than Athos.

It's better in their apartment, where Athos sits in the desk chair in Porthos' bedroom with clearly no intention of moving - he doesn't need to, it's not like he ever gets thirsty or needs the bathroom - for Aramis' sake, not his own. That leaves Aramis more free to focus on Porthos, who sits on the edge of his own bed with a grunt. Athos will be as healed as if nothing had ever happened by midday tomorrow, Porthos' injuries will be gone within the next few days, and there's nothing Aramis can really do for Athos, though he can for Porthos. For one thing he can tut and stop him trying to remove his own shirt, wincing through the shifting of his broken ribs, and unbutton it himself, work each arm clear carefully, then look at the bruises made visible, the map of what was done to him, just look, heart beating in his throat.

He climbs on the bed at Porthos' side to look over his back, fingertips tracing paths between the bruises, finding the unhurt flesh. Then he lays his forehead to the back of his neck for some time, stilling himself, calming himself, offering the calm that he knows touch can be; he lifts his head to kiss the back of Porthos' neck, and to lay his nose there to his shoulder, breathing in the sweat-and-hospital scent of him. Porthos will smell more of Aramis' current scent even without his nose pressed to him.

He says, eyes closed and voice muffled to the flesh of Porthos' shoulder, "I'm sorry."

Porthos says, muffled through his own broken mouth, "You didn' punch me."

Aramis breathes. "No," he allows. "But I wanted to see that golem, and - you were right, Athos. About curiosity." He takes a slow breath in, sighs it quietly out - Porthos will feel it - and kisses Porthos' shoulder. "It always does get beyond my original intentions."

Athos says nothing, then, "We should really have at least another agent here tonight, while we're compromised."

Aramis' eyes open cold. "Let them come." he says, low through his teeth. He wants something to kill tonight, and he's not unstrapping gun or knives for a moment until his lovers can defend themselves again. If something evil knows where they are and intends to harm them, Aramis has a good few bullets left, and his stabbing arm feels hungry.

He gets Porthos' trousers off him, his socks. Porthos usually sleeps near-naked, he's too hot in most rooms, so Aramis doesn't help him put any new clothes on but helps him lie with a grunt first on his side - but he hisses when he tries to lay his swollen cheek to the pillow; on his back, then, with the butterfly stitches aimed at the ceiling, the bruises all on show. Aramis strokes his arm with the gentle backs of his fingers, light as moths' wings, and whispers, "Hot compress or ice pack?"

He already knows but it's better to ask. Porthos lays there for a moment eyes closed and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the need of either, then mutters, "Ice pack." and moves as if to roll onto his side, remembers that he can't, and continues lying there eyes closed and brow set in a snarl at the ceiling like a sulk. Aramis really doesn't blame him. He pushes himself to stand, tries to make himself ignore the nagging of his unsteady leg, and looks across at Athos. "Do you need anything?"

They hold each other's eye, Aramis and his vampire, and take that moment of silence to read everything there is to read in each other's body: the pain, and guilt, and embarrassment at how simply bad at being injured they both are, and some searching yearning almost-understanding, almost-affinity in their thoughts in the moment. Then Athos says, "No." and just sits there, arms folded and leg stretched as comfortable as he can get it, and they both know that's a lie but it's to be dealt with later.

Aramis closes the door behind himself very softly. Eyes closed or swollen closed, he doesn't know if Porthos is already asleep. There are ice packs in the freezer for this very eventuality but first he walks to the door to their cramped little balcony, where dawn is breaking in chilly blue and pink outside and he can lay his forehead to the glass and stand, for one moment, cold flat hardness pressed to his skin and staring dully at the skyline, backlit and blossoming with light as the sun emerges.

Idiot.

He doesn't even know why he thinks it, truly, he isn't entirely certain how this one is his fault - they all walked into that cellar - except that he took it too lightly, he always does, and now look at his lovers. And he tells himself that he can fix it, Porthos only needs his pack to heal and Aramis is his pack, and by extension and affection Athos is too, and so Aramis knows he helps there. And Athos, Aramis could fix Athos with just a little drink though he feels such a flush of guilt for even thinking of offering it - Athos would stare at him disbelieving that even he could be so fucking stupid, before he opened his mouth to ragingly tell him so - that he knows Athos will feel it, Aramis' more lively emotions bang on Athos' heart like angry woodpeckers. Which is something else to feel guilty about, on top of everything else tonight and he knows at least some of this is down to Catholicism because Aramis knows how to take responsibility for his fuck-ups because he has been taught to, but some of it -

Just a little drink, or if he truly were Porthos' pack the way a wolf is, and Aramis would never have had to flee that cellar. Aramis could have fought alongside them. Aramis could fight anything alongside them.

His leg is steady beneath him right now, twitches a little though the trembling's stopped, now Athos has been off his own feet for some time. The pain is an awareness but not a concern. And he stands there thinking it through, eyes fixed on the street below, then turns with a growled sort of sigh and folds his arms, leaning off the doorframe, facing the kitchen. There are twenty dead exorcists he owes more than this. And more even than them, God rest their troubled souls, Aramis just doesn't want to be more than mortal. His church is not comfortable with the state of supernatural souls which could break Aramis' heart, but Aramis, who is perfectly comfortable with the souls of the supernatural - after a few long years on the job here, he has seen strange enough to make other people's 'strange' seem very mundane, he doesn't know what their problem is - Aramis doesn't want to be anything but human. In the end that's all the decision is.

And it's not just that he doesn't want to be more than human, it's because he doesn't think he could be more than human. He thinks it's what his church fails to understand, that there is difference but difference is not good or bad unless it's made to be so. It's just difference, and Aramis doesn't want to be different. What's wrong with a mortal length of life? Even the brevity of it is beautiful, like autumn leaves glowing through their last days, the shortness gives reason to make it matter. What's wrong with his body as it is? His body is fine as it is, good as it is, Aramis has no complaints about his body, has rarely met a lover who did either. What's wrong with his capacities, his strength and his senses? They could be stronger but so could Athos' and Porthos', they can't feel the dead except through cold on the skin, they don't hear their voices plead for help, and Aramis doesn't think they are any less for it. Why should Aramis want to be different? Aramis is perfect as he is, demonstrably so.

And this is where the guilt gnaws, because he knows they may not see it that way, he knows it's selfish that the reason he really doesn't want to be changed is just because he doesn't want to be. They have reason to regret that he can so fucking piously be buried a semi-decent Catholic after only a handful more decades at the very best. Relationships need compromise but this is such an either-or and Aramis thought they were done with it long ago, when they asked and he was shocked, and said no. Yes, they extorted from him the promise to think about it; no, he never has thought about it very much since, just now and then, when he sees them like this and he could do nothing. They always have to protect him. What the hell does he give them in return?

Some very good orgasms, he reminds himself. And I'm the only one who cleans the bathroom with any regularity. And, and. I always have breath mints . . .

Perhaps his worry is that even if he were made 'better', he would still turn out to disappointingly only be himself.

D'Artagnan's bedroom door opens with a casual creak and the boy's halfway to the kitchen before he notices Aramis just standing there like a strange person, back to the window and not doing anything. Aramis puts a smile on, says, "I thought you would be sleeping."

"Yeah," d'Artagnan says, walking for the kitchen again in a t-shirt and loose tracksuit bottoms, and socked feet. "Just hungry. You okay?"

"I'm supposed to be getting Porthos an ice pack, I just," He rubs his face with a hand. "Just phased out."

D'Artagnan has poured a bowl of cereal, and now opens the fridge for the milk. "Those two okay?"

"They've had worse," Aramis says. "You needn't worry about us. We've all been through it before, we chose all this long ago."

Digging the spoon in the cereal, lower back leaned against the worktop, d'Artagnan raises his eyebrows at him. And Aramis doesn't know why until the obvious next question is already in his throat, and he has to stop it; Are you okay?

The boy's made the same choices as they have. They all need to stop coddling him one of these days, and accept the danger none of them can protect each other from entirely. Aramis smiles and says, "You'll just have to get used to it, I'm afraid. Look at that face, you're just so very coddlable."

D'Artagnan says, "That's not a word." and chews some cereal, eyes lowering a little from Aramis. "I did want to say," he says, and clears his throat. "I . . . sorry. About . . . you know. Sorry."

"I - don't know. What have you done? Did you put something damp in the laundry basket?"

D'Artagnan gives him that look because they all know he's better at housework than the three of them combined, and his eyes flick away again as he says, "Because I was the one who walked us down there, and then at the end of the night I was the only one who could really walk back out of there again."

Aramis just looks, for a long moment, at that angry-guilty bow of d'Artagnan's head, his glare at the worktop opposite, the way his hair forms a little shield around his face with the gesture as if the style were intended for that purpose. "But we were going to go down there anyway," Aramis says. "That's our job."

"Not that fast and unprepared."

"D'Artagnan - how long have you been shadowing us now? Of course we were going to go down there that fast and unprepared. That is what we do."

". . . but . . ."

Aramis shrugs. "I thought it was my fault. I always did want to see a golem."

"You got to be the hero tonight," d'Artagnan says. "Three things that could have killed us and you got all three in the head."

He waves a hand. "Luck."

"I've seen you practise, that wasn't just 'luck'."

"I have some little skill. You're too kind."

"What did you do in the army?"

Aramis walks over to open the freezer for Porthos' ice pack. "This and that."

"How did you not know?" d'Artagnan says, watching him straighten again holding the solid plastic packet in his hand, solid cold. "In the army, there must have been so many dead people around you, how did you never know you were an exorcist?"

Because snipers are rarely close enough to feel a ghost's touch when they pull the trigger. "I did, now and then. 'Migraines', we thought, it's why they discharged me in the end. I need to get this to Porthos, but, d'Artagnan -" He holds his shoulder, and looks him in the eye, carefully, reading the boy's wary gaze back. "You'll see them hurt worse, one of these days, and probably me too, and God help us but perhaps you as well. But that's the job. Someone has to do it so we do, and the inevitabilities that follow, they're not your fault. We all walked into that cellar tonight. Even if we'd waited for backup, if we'd had more agents walking down there, the strength of that thing, it may not have made any difference at all."

D'Artagnan's eyes have the gold-brown quality of a hawk's. "Your aim made a difference."

"Aim you can learn." Aramis says, and squeezes his shoulder. "You're alright?"

D'Artagnan looks down at his cereal. "Yeah. If you three are."

Aramis likes the collective they form to d'Artagnan, the fact that he thinks about them as the three of them first, in work and life. It feels so very right, to Aramis. He says, "We always are."

Back in their room Porthos hasn't moved from his back but he's shifted an arm over his stomach, and Athos might as well be a statue in his seat by the window, not even breath stirring. Aramis whispers to Porthos, bends and touches the ice, tender as a kiss, to the worst of the swelling; Porthos hisses, and lifts a hand to touch Aramis' fingers on the ice pack, then take it off him to lay it heavier to his cheek, letting his breath out slow through his teeth. Aramis strokes his fingers through his hair, then walks over to Athos to let the blinds down a little, so the raising rosy light of dawn doesn't pierce at his eyes too badly after the night.

Athos says, "How is the boy?"

They'll have been able to hear the hum of their voices through the door, and anyway, Athos can feel the hum of Aramis' voice in his diaphragm when he speaks, something that pleases Aramis when it doesn't make him feel guilty for talking too much. "Fine," he says, putting a hand on Athos' shoulder, testing his own leg; he feels the pain still, but as long as Athos doesn't use it it's not a pain he can't bear. "Are you alright sitting so still?"

"I'm a vampire."

"Well, I'd get bored is all."

"I'm not you."

Porthos gives a little huff of laughter from the bed, then his breath comes out tighter again and Aramis looks up feeling pinned, in that moment, unable to tend to the both of them at once. Athos rolls his eyes, says, "Help me up, then. To the bed."

"We need to get these clothes off first," Aramis says, and gives Athos an amused raised eyebrow at his eyes narrowing. "Wine all over you."

It's not an easy task, undressing Athos without bothering his leg; shoes and socks are bad enough but his trousers make Aramis hold his breath in between his teeth biting like rock. He gasps his lungs awake again when it's done, and just kneels by Athos for a moment then, breathing, while Athos puts a sorry hand into his hair, and strokes it a little. It's more reviving than it should be; Aramis fetches Athos' pyjamas and a flannel dipped in warm water, to take care of the worst of the stickiness. Athos refuses the pyjamas. It's not like he feels the cold, and it's not worth the grief of pulling them on.

The business of getting him to the bed, then. Aramis draws his breath in, and stands to take the weight of Athos' shoulders, steadying his hip with his other hand. "You should have taken that crutch when they offered it."

"I got my leg dislocated, not my dignity. And it's already healing."

Aramis braces his weight and between them, Athos stands on the one leg, and looks down at the other; even the swing of its shifting position spiked in Aramis' hip, he held himself steady but his hands on Athos' have tightened. Healing, yes, but not healed, yet; 'dislocated' is a kind way of saying 'torn out' to not upset the boy. So Athos has to scowl like thunder and hop to the bed, where Aramis helps him down into a sit again, and then can finally sit himself, one hand on Porthos' leg, one on Athos', and close his eyes, and sigh the night's long exhaustion out.

After a pause, Athos says, "Sorry."

Aramis rouses himself from the almost-doze he slipped into just from the act of closing his eyes, and blinks at him. "For what?"

"My leg." Athos says, looking at the window. "How you have to feel it too. And for -" His jaw works for a second - "failing. The two of us were tasked with protecting you, and instead we sent you unguarded up to two hostile vampires-"

"Athos, you hardly -"

"- and then required rescue ourselves." His eyes on the half-obscured window just look so gloomy. "Not our finest hour."

"No-one is dead," Aramis says, finding his hand to lace their fingers together, so he can squeeze them. "And you didn't know about the vampires, and I am not some wilting flower, protection goes both ways between all three of us. And you have just gifted me with my second apology in five minutes, an unheard of phenomenon. Usually I'm offering that many."

Athos looks from the window to him. "The boy?"

"He thinks our going unprepared down there was his fault," Aramis says. "You should speak to him, you know he thinks the world of you."

"I won't." Athos says. "I would rather him cautious and guilty than dead. So he can retain this for a lesson, if it will keep him one day longer on this earth. And I am aware of how my being idiotic enough to get injured affects you, so don't tell me it doesn't matter."

"It matters because I care about you," Aramis allows, "but you know it goes both ways. You feel it when I get hurt. And you put up with all of my other feelings, so the apology is mostly owed the other way."

"I am capable of getting much more badly injured than you are."

There is that; Aramis would die long, long before Athos would of any given injury, and none of them know how bearable it would be for Aramis, if Athos sustained injuries serious enough to kill his exorcist if they'd been committed on his own body. Aramis lifts his hand from Porthos' leg to lay it on Athos' back - he thinks Porthos is asleep, they gave him enough painkillers to lay low a horse in the hospital - and presses it to the cool solidity of him, and wets his lips. He whispers, "Athos." He doesn't have to speak loudly for Athos to hear him. "Just don't die." His fingers press the flesh of his back, flesh unchanged for centuries, flesh Aramis prays never needs to. "Please?"

Feeling what Athos feels is what living is like, for Aramis. He has no idea how to live without it now. He has no idea what it will feel like when it stops, what he will feel of Athos stopping.

Athos says, "I can't make promises you know that I can't keep."

Aramis draws a long breath in, sighs it heavily out, and lays his tired cheek to Athos' cool shoulder blade. It's been a very long night and he really needs to sleep, soon. He says, low, "I know we never intended this." His eyes close, so, so tired, he could sleep just like this. "Things just - get beyond you. They do to me, anyway."

Athos turns a little, enough to cup Aramis' cheek, run a thumb over it, and encourage his head up to at least aim him towards the pillow behind him on the bed. "Yes," he says. "They do to all of us."

Aramis kicks his shoes off, yawns, lays behind Athos' back, next to Porthos, tugging the pillow to settle to his cheek. He says through a yawn, "Will you lay down?"

"My leg isn't healed."

"Does it bother you?"

"Not really. It's just irritating."

"Then lay down," Aramis mumbles, really too close to sleep now to care about much more than that. He keeps his eyes closed to the pillow but lifts an arm, and after a pause - one of his scowling pauses where Athos may comply or not, where if he were human, he would sigh - and Athos shifts his weight, lifts his leg onto the bed in both hands, carefully - Aramis feels the stretching of damaged muscle, the shrieking of damaged nerves - and lays his weight down alongside Aramis, so Aramis' arm can hug him for a second, pleased.

"There," Aramis whispers, turning on his back so he can stroke at the side of Porthos' arm with the backs of one set of fingers and the side of Athos' arm with the other. "He heals quicker with his pack here."

Athos' leg, which had been bad enough to leave Aramis panicked at the pain of it, is now a dull ache so long as it's not bothered, and should be nothing of note in a few hours. Porthos' poor beautiful face will take a little longer but there won't be so much as a mark left behind. None of them intended to end the evening like this. Things just get beyond them.

But then, the three of them in one bed; Aramis doesn't usually mind things getting beyond him. Curiosity, though, that's been a sin of his for as long as he can remember. Not that a little curiosity is a sin, but the extents Aramis takes it to, he knows it is. Like the remaining question of why, why, why vampires would want a golem to draw the attention of musketeers, they knew the cost of it if they failed, presumably they meant to kill whichever agents came into the cellar - they were hoping for exorcists, excited they got two - and flee, leaving the golem to whatever a golem with no orders may do. All it seemed to want to do was to stand guard over the body of its maker.

Do they feel, then? Do they feel attachment, and loss?

There; curiosity again. But it's the habit of a lifetime, and the Lord forgives slow learners. Breathing low, on the verge of sleep, he thinks that lifetimes, lifetimes get away from us too . . .

But he's exactly where he wants to be, and his life didn't get away from him, right here and now it's precisely right.

He sleeps. He dreams of a locked red door, and all the answers on the other side of it.