fic : your ex lover is dead
Fic : The Three Musketeers
Title : Your Ex Lover Is Dead
Characters : Athos
Ship : Athos / Lady de Winter
Words : Approx 1200
Rating : there is some sexual content so watch out for that I guess
Note : This came into being at around three at night so forgive the cracky-ness. I don't know if there is more Three Musketeers fic out there but when I re-read the book what I realized was : firstly Dumas is a god and secondly Athos and Lady de Winter are the epitome of epic so if you like this please comment. Also I would like to clearify that I realize that some of the scenes are more sensational than in the book but I truly believe that what I portrayed is what Dumas meant.
Most nights he sits at the table polishing off another bottle of Spanish wine. It's been a ritual of his for who knows how long now. It started with her; they shared a glass of wine every night before bed.
She was younger then.
With every new bottle he sees her blond hair falling to her waist. The ruby liquid lulls his senses and he drowns in memories of bottomless blue eyes. The alcohol in his blood gushes forth, pounding in his veins, making him dizzy. He closes his eyes on such nights and sees her extinguish the lamps in the room. The moonlight pours in through the windows and outlines her form as she slips out of her clothes. The memory of her bare skin bathed in the silver of the night sends an ache though his soul even after all these years. He sees her hair modestly covering her breasts, her form seductively making its way towards him in the dark, his mouth on her nipple, her fingers caressing him, making him hard, guiding him inside her, the arch of her back as they climb higher together, the cry escaping from the depths of her being. It all comes back on moonlit nights when the wine flows freely, making him bleed without drawing blood.
He ends up remembering when he drank to forget.
He hates her more for doing this to him, despises her for creeping back into his thoughts and making him remember a time when he was young and naive.
Count de La Fere; it's a mouthful. It's a mouthful, but O how proud he was of that mouthful once. There was no woman he couldn't posses, no woman who could resist him and the word "no" was never an obstacle. He laughs in the face of Count de La Fere today, he spits on the ground that child; for he was no more than a child, walked with such pomp. No he isn't the Count, not anymore. The Count died the day he killed her. Anne de Breuil hung from a tree and de La Fere wept for love of her. He wept on his knees for the only woman he would ever love.
He is Athos now. Just a man, no more; born from the remnants of a Count dishonoured and betrayed.
The cruel fates have made him end her life twice now and he can't help but wonder if she will come back. She came back from the dead once before. Lady de Winter rose from the ashes of a woman branded for life, despised by her husband with a contemptible secret on her left shoulder, what's to stop her from coming back now?
The beauty of her face still has the power to paralyze him, even in death she has a hold over his heart. He started drinking right after her first demise at his hand. He had hung her from the very tree they had first kissed under and he had collapsed, anguish clutching at his heart, tearing his insides to shreds, the memory of the fleur de lis on her shoulder branded in his mind. He had started drinking to expel her from his life.
A decade later he is still drinking.
He has killed her again, this time she lies at the bottom of a river.
He should be elated. He should end his term of celibacy, he has atoned for his mistakes.
Then why is he still drawn to the bottle?
The wine makes him suffer, he sees her face again every night. He sees the many masks it wore in a lifetime of deceit but he sees her most often as she was that night at the Colombier Rouge.
He had rushed back to see her when the Cardinal had left. Hearing her voice after so many years, it had set him on fire. His pulse pounding in his ears, he had driven his horse faster to get to her. A mixture of fear, trepidation, panic and longing had taken possession of his usually calm and composed self. He had stepped into her room and the look of unconcealed fear distorting her pretty features at the sight of him, it had torn at his heart and given him a grim satisfaction all in one. He had pinned her up against the wall, he had stepped close to her. He could still smell the fragrance from her skin if he closed his eyes. He had recalled standing over her at that instant, the sensation of holding her in his arms as she slept in his bed, his face buried in her hair, his legs wrapped up with hers, he had been a content man back then, now her scent flooding his senses it had intoxicated him and he had wanted to kiss her fiercely. Kiss her so she would feel the pain that radiated still through his entire frame. His hand had closed over her throat off it own accord, their eyes had met and he had seen the desire in hers. His hand had left her neck and travelled to her face and she had pressed up against him. The sight of her heightened colour had brought him back and his eyes had shone with a hatred, where there was ardour a moment before. He had put his pistol on her forehead and he had been ready to send the demon of his past back to hell. As he had left her, pale as a corpse and trembling from head to toe (he wondered if it was fear, anger or desire that made her shudder so) he had kissed her lips with a ferocity that had made her bruise and she had slipped her tongue between his teeth and her hand had travelled to his pants, he hadn't been hard like that in a long time. He had wanted to throw her on the bed, cut her out of her dress with the dagger at his belt and he had wanted to thrust into her, hurt her so she would know how he hurt because of her but he had pushed her away and walked out, calm and composed every bit the musketeer he was reputed to be while his insides rebelled against his stern reprimands.
The sound of her sobs however had rung in his ears all night.
He knows he shouldn't have walked back into the web she had spun for ages, it had been a moment of weakness and now he burns for that small mistake.
Watching her take lives and leave misery and heartache in her wake had been difficult but watching the executioner sever her head from her shoulders that had caused him physical pain. He knows her death was inevitable, it had always been written at his hands but he had died with her the first time around and he had died again as her body had sunk to the bottom of the river.
It is just him and his guilt now.
Guilt. Not at having killed her, he knows she deserved to die, but guilt for that part of him which still worships her as the mistress of his heart.
In the meantime Grimaud knows to keep the wine coming.