Musketeer!fic: Wolf Moon pt I
Seriously I drank an entire pan of mulled wine working myself up to posting this -_-
Wolf Moon part one of three, Musketeers fic, featuring mpreg, I'm going to drink mulled wine while formatting until I'm no longer even embarrassed \o/ Not prioritising the posting of this over affinityverse stuff so expect a wait before part two . . .
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the trope, and I kind of disclaim the weird impulse I have to write this stuff sometimes too ^^;
Rating: Hard R? Some sex, hard to tell how shocking the *internet* will find it . . .
Warnings and spoilers: Set after the end of S1 so whoa spoilers you guys! (I'm already avoiding fandom at large because of S2 spoilers right now, though given that I'm a scarred ex-Glee fan, mostly all I think about for S2 is please don't be shit, please don't be shit . . .) Warnings-wise, deals a lot with stuff that happens *in* canon, so, alcoholism, mentions of miscarriage, bad things; eventual anatomically improbable account of birth; period-typical but actually still relevant here and now because fuck the world homophobia and misogyny; the fact that it is an mpreg.
Summary: "What Porthos means to say," Athos says, and doesn't look at d'Artagnan, "is that we had an agreement whereby there would be no unpleasantness between any of us if we were both to engage in occasional relations with Aramis."
"Occasional," Aramis snorts.
Note: It turns out that pretty much as many people as I was aware of reading my stuff for this fandom anyway were willing to read this too, so I might as well format it and post it, and then sit in the corner feeling weird about it (thank you, my five readers ;) ). I honest to god cannot explain my occasional impulse towards mpreg, I just can't. Anyway, while I don't even pretend any medical accuracy for any of this - because you leave that at the door when you start with this trope - I did want to write something the *felt* right to me, so, the first thought is 'what would the world be like if at least some men could get pregnant?' Given the culture and time period we're dealing with I remembered the Bible story of Rachel and Bilhah; if you're not conceiving, have your husband impregnate your handmaid and claim the child as yours instead. I can imagine in a world with occasional male pregnancies that story having been written with a man used as a surrogate instead, giving some vague but frowned-upon legitimacy to male pregnancy. It's going to lead to a still homophobic, still misogynist worldview, but it gives some context at least. Anyway. Rainjoy thinks about things too much. Particularly mpreg. Sorry. (Also it is hellish weird posting this, I sometimes write just-for-me fic but it has a very different *feel* to it to me, even the rhythms of the writing read different to me. I have no idea if it will be remotely apparent to anyone else, but this honestly was written only because I needed to get the damn thing out of my head, and no-one else was ever meant to see it ^^;)
When Aramis has been gone for three months, they run out of patience. D'Artagnan sees the looks pass between Athos and Porthos for a couple of days and they don't say anything but they hardly have to; the gap in their group where Aramis should be slouched and smiling has been empty for too long, they all feel it, and Aramis' best friends have now waited quite long enough for him to come back of his own accord. D'Artagnan can tell by looking at them that they've made their minds up. Aramis is coming home; the only person who doesn't yet know it is Aramis himself.
Treville told them, weeks ago when Aramis didn't turn up at the garrison that first day, that Aramis had come to him to request some leave. That Aramis hadn't breathed a word of wanting time away from Paris and away from soldiering to any of them did strike as strange, though d'Artagnan actually found the way Treville looked at Athos and Porthos while he spoke the strangest part of it - too intense, too searching, something bordering on anger, though somehow not directly at them. When they'd left Treville's office Porthos had looked confused and uncomfortable and mulish, and said, "Guess he had a rough year, after Adele left an' Marsac came back an' everything else."
Athos gave a grunt and said nothing. Athos and Aramis have been weird about each other for a while, for almost as long as Aramis has been weird all on his own, strained, somehow. Best not to ask Athos, even now d'Artagnan doesn't enjoy pushing Athos for answers, and Aramis is after all no longer here to ask. At least d'Artagnan might be able to ask him when they bring him back. At least Aramis might be mellowed out by a very long holiday, since he had been odd, withdrawn and nervous, the last few months and worse those last few weeks before he left . . .
It occurs to d'Artagnan that maybe they don't intend to bring him with them to find Aramis, if this is purely inséperables business. But he discards the thought almost instantly. They're a four, now, not a three, they don't do anything without him that they don't do entirely alone. So when they go to Treville to request his permission to go find Aramis, who has inevitably got himself into some sort of ridiculous situation left to his own devices anyway, d'Artagnan just goes right along with them, and neither of them comment on it. They've needed him, Aramis gone, anyway. They get snippy with each other sometimes, Athos and Porthos, without Aramis there to soothe everyone's temper. Athos can be cold and Porthos too proud, and it can escalate too far without Aramis there to make a joke of it all. D'Artagnan has been trying to step into the role, understanding when everyone's had a little too much to drink and tempers are beginning to rise exactly how important all of them are to the dynamic of the group. Remove one person and the fragile edifice of these very difficult men sharing their lives begins to teeter.
Athos knocks, and they enter at Treville's call. He looks up at them from his desk and he never looks surprised to see them, as if their marching into his office at any time of the day or night is something he's greatly overused to. "Training this morning," he says brusquely, eyes down on his paperwork again. "The King's hunt is delayed until the mist clears."
"We came to request leave to find Aramis." Athos says. "If you can spare us."
Treville looks up, silent for a long moment, then pushes the papers away slightly, breathing in long and slow through his nose. "Has he written to any of you?"
Athos looks at Porthos, who shrugs. "No. Ought he have?"
"It would simply suggest that he may not like to be disturbed."
"We find the idea of him lacking supervision disturbing in itself. We don't know how long he'll take to locate, so we wouldn't be able to specify how long we may require, but if you wanted to stipulate a date -"
Treville sighs, heavily, and his eyes on them aren't happy. "Are you looking for him out of anger or impatience?"
Porthos says, low to the desk, "We miss 'im."
Athos inclines his head, eyes closing, in deference to the sentiment. It's true. They may be to some extent angry with Aramis for taking off without saying a word to them, and they may be impatient by now for him to return, but the heart of it simply is that he is missed, that they don't like their days without him. They manage, of course. It is a great deal harder to enjoy themselves, though.
D'Artagnan stands with his arms crossed, watching Treville's eyes scanning Athos and Porthos for a long time before he sighs. "You needn't scour the country for him, I know where he is. When you find him -" He looks at them, at Porthos' face blanking, at Athos' turning icy with anger that Aramis told Treville where he went and never sent them so much as a letter, and his face hardens again. "- you will behave in a manner that is a credit to your regiment."
Three voices, one uneasy, one very small, one very cold; "Yes, sir."
Outside Treville's office Porthos puts his hat back on, still looking like he just can't make himself believe that Aramis would write to Treville but never to them. D'Artagnan says to him, since Athos is stalking off ahead for the stables in an evidently black mood, "What did he mean by that? 'A credit to the regiment'?"
Porthos' mouth twitches; not a smile, it might like to be one but there's no feeling that could dredge a smile up in him right now. "Looks really bad, musketeers goin' around throttlin' each other." he says, and follows Athos down for his horse.
*
They ride for two days. The address struck d'Artagnan as hilarious, at first, he couldn't keep the grin down, looking between them to share the joke but still Porthos just looked confused and Athos just looked angry. "A monastery?" d'Artagnan said. "What would Aramis do in a monastery?"
"Monks," Porthos mumbled, looking across the countryside. D'Artagnan didn't really get it.
Athos said nothing, and rode in silence.
The mist does clear, midway through the first day. The second day starts clear, then turns to drizzle, then mid-afternoon it turns majestically clear again, the fields clean green, leaves livid with the risen sap of summer, the sky that heart-clenching bright blue. The next town gives them directions - just up the road and take the left fork, and the monastery is the first settlement they'll see. No-one asks what business musketeers have there, and d'Artagnan doesn't know how they'd explain this journey to anyone else anyway. He still doesn't know what business Aramis could have in taking himself to a monastery. Aramis has never been one for wanting space and quiet to think, Aramis forced somewhere quiet can hardly last for two days, Aramis loves Paris. What on earth has he been doing out here for three months?
The land is very flat, the fields very wide, the sky goes on forever. They see the monastery long before they reach it, walled gardens but not impregnable and certainly not guarded. A little before they reach the main gate they pass, fenced and edged with blossoming trees, a small cemetery, and Porthos removes his hat as he rides past it. Athos looks straight ahead like he's not even aware of it.
D'Artagnan is beginning to get a bad feeling about this.
Athos knocks, two heavy pounds of the flat of his fist, and two monks in sackcloth brown open the gates. They invite them in, and ask if they require stabling for the horses, if they'll be staying the night. "Perhaps not," Athos says, and d'Artagnan glances at him and suspects that Athos has no desire to spend the night in this place; Athos and God parted ways a long time ago. "We're looking for our friend, and if he's here then we may leave together by tonight."
"Your friend?" The monk holding the reins of Porthos' horse while he climbs down looks across confused. "One of the brothers?"
The older monk, who has Athos' and d'Artagnan's reins, says nothing and is now wearing a strange expression. "No." Athos says. "Not one of the brothers. Not unless you are rather lax about who you permit to join the order. We know that Aramis of the King's musketeers rode out here three months previously, and we've now come to collect him."
The older monk holding Athos' and d'Artagnan's horses says, "We have no Aramis here. We can offer you beds for the night, of course -"
"Does he mean René?"
"Brother Lucas -"
"He didn't say he was a musketeer."
"Brother Lucas."
"We can't hide a musketeer, they're the King's own -"
"Tallish?" Porthos says, holding a hand up beside his own ear to measure Aramis' approximate height. "Floppy hair? Irritatin' grin?"
Athos says, "I believe that we do mean René. If you could direct us to him that would be appreciated."
The older monk folds his arms into the baggy sleeves of his robes and says, "People come here for peace. They come here to be left alone."
"And you shall indeed be left alone, as soon as we have collected our friend."
"What do you mean 'collect'? He can't go any-"
The older monk cuts in coldly, "Brother Lucas, perhaps you should take these horses to the stables."
"Yeah, Brother Lucas, that'd be great." Porthos puts a friendly hand on the older monk's shoulder, and squeezes, and smiles. "Your friend here's gonna take us right to 'René'. Right?"
The older monk stands there, stonily. The younger, looking between everyone's faces, tugs the reins and walks away with the horses, hesitant of leaving this situation. Porthos rubs the older monk's shoulder, says, "We'll be out of your hair before nightfall, promise." Then, "Sorry," with a glance at the man's bald head.
The monk stands there, grim and silent, staring expressionless through the air. Then he says, "He's harmed no-one. He has a right to peace and prayer."
"We're hardly dragging him away in irons." Athos says. "Anyone would think that you expected us to do something terrible to him."
He says it looking right at the monk's eyes, which flick to him, nervous but then turning guarded, his head pulling back a little. He says, quietly, "Is it truly possible that you don't know why he came here?"
Porthos says, "What d'you mean by that?" and d'Artagnan is a little uneasy of the way Porthos is almost as big as two of that monk, and they are supposed to be acting as a credit to their regiment; he says, "Let's just find him, okay?"
Athos stares at the monk, then blinks away, looking over the spread buildings of the monastery itself, low against the sky but for the pointed peaks of the chapel. "We need to speak to him. We have no intention of harming him." He doesn't look at Porthos, whose eyes have narrowed a 'not much, anyway'. "Please lead us to him before we must pursue other routes in finding him."
The monk is silent, and pale. It's a long tensed pause, his jaw held tight, before his breath hushes out hard, and he says, "Remember that this is a place of God. This way, please."
He walks in silence, and they follow. Other monks pause, mid-step and mid-task, to watch their strange procession approach, but all of them seem in their stillness to understand not to intervene as they enter the building and move through its cool halls. It's clearly one of the orders more inclined to noble poverty, quite sparse, but the buildings are neither uncomfortable nor unfriendly. D'Artagnan thinks of the bright May gardens out there, and they smell the kitchens as they turn up onto a staircase, the scent shooting straight to d'Artagnan's belly; he doesn't think Aramis would have been unhappy here, as such, if he could only keep his own impatience reined in. How Aramis of all people has managed to amuse himself in this sleepy place for three months . . .
Along a landing and down another corridor, around a corner and the long corridor here stops at one end; the rest is all dark doors, all open but for one, a little over halfway down. The monk takes a breath, but Porthos takes his shoulder again before he can speak. "Think we c'n find him from here," he says. "Thanks."
Athos says, "We would like to speak to him alone."
The monk's hands are in unmonklike fists. "He came here for peace. He prays and he reads. He harms no-one."
"Thanks, again," Porthos says, pushing him not unkindly but not unlike an ox right back the way he came. The monk stares at them, helpless, starts to say something and stops himself, and turns away, and hurries around the corner like he needs to be anywhere but here, like he can't bear it. Athos and Porthos look at each other, and d'Artagnan looks uneasily between them.
"What's up with him?"
Porthos looks back up the corridor again, says gruffly, "Let's find out."
Monks' cells line the corridor, narrow beds and plain wood. They're all unoccupied at this time of the afternoon but there is that one closed door, and Porthos knocks on it - his knock, now it comes to it, is strangely hesitant - and there's only a slight pause before, inside, a voice that catches d'Artagnan's stomach for three months of silence says, "Hello?"
Porthos turns the handle. He and Athos march right in. D'Artagnan, arms folded nervously, follows.
For half a second, his attention is focused entirely on Aramis kneeling by the bed with a rosary in his fingers, in a monk's rough robe, turning himself to look over his shoulder and face blanching at the sight of them. But then he's turned himself enough; then, on his knees, he's almost sideways-on to them; then they can see his arm caught supportive underneath the heft of his stomach, huge as the moon in his arm, and for a second, staring up at them, he looks pale and glazed enough to faint.
All the shouting and accusation and awful questions d'Artagnan had been dreading, and now they stand in front of Aramis all the three of them can do is stare back at him, silenced.
It's Aramis who snaps out of it first, still pale and clearly shaken but he draws his head up, heaves himself properly around on his knees to face them, back straight and arm around his absurd, enormous stomach as he says, "Well, would one of you gentlemen care to help me up, now that you're here?"
Athos seems to have turned to stone. Porthos fumbles forward to take Aramis' arm, Aramis' jaw working as he uses it to haul himself to his feet, supporting the weight of his belly in his arm, letting Porthos - still silent - set him back with a huff of breath on the bed. "Thank you." he says, neck held stiff, arm protective around the bulk of his stomach. "Most kind of you."
"Aramis," Porthos says, like a breath coming out of him, but there doesn't seem to be anything to follow. Athos, apparently, is still turned to stone. And d'Artagnan is making himself believe - because it's rare, but - but the rarity is hardly what strikes him as so stunning, what he can't believe is that this means that Aramis - with a man. Of course Aramis has always been so openly flirtatious with every kind of woman, but this means that there's been at least one man too. There must be a father. Another father. A father. And Aramis . . .
He has the presence of mind to close the door behind them. And he clears his throat, says into the silence of the room, his voice coming damnably young and far too small, "Who's the father?"
All three of them snap their heads to look at him. D'Artagnan doesn't understand the way they're looking at him.
Aramis sighs, and runs his hand over that waxing curve of his stomach through the robes. Porthos is trying to say something but his voice keeps catching on syllables. Athos looks at Aramis.
Aramis says to him, "How on earth do you expect me to know?"
"How are we to know?"
"Well that is rather the point, isn't it, Athos, no-one knows."
D'Artagnan says, "How can you not know?" He sincerely hopes that he doesn't have to explain the mechanics of this to anyone, while he's the one who grew up on a farm these three are all more than old enough to - unless, good God, unless Aramis has just - known so many men that he can't -
Aramis looks wearily at Athos and his anger, and then at Porthos just helpless, and very lost. And he gestures between the two of them, and says, sounding so defeated, "Toss a coin."
"Wai-" D'Artagnan stops.
He tries, "But -"
No-one says anything.
"You -"
No-one helps him. He'd been expecting - what had he been expecting? He hadn't been expecting - them, either of them, but -
"Both of you?"
Athos says quietly, "We had an arrangement."
Porthos is staring at the size of Aramis' stomach, which Aramis keeps a protective hand on, eyes flicking between Athos and Porthos like he's rapidly working out a strategy of self-defence. Bump-defence. D'Artagnan says, incredulous near to hysterical, "You had an arrangement?"
"I'm very generous," Aramis says, but there's no real humour in it, and all he looks on the bed is tired, and small behind his ridiculous stomach, and alone.
"You - the three of you -"
"Just with him," Porthos says, as if more than that would be some sort of scandal. "We only do him."
Aramis murmurs, "That's such a charming way of wording it."
"What Porthos means to say," Athos says, and doesn't look at d'Artagnan, "is that we had an agreement whereby there would be no unpleasantness between any of us if we were both to engage in occasional relations with Aramis."
"Occasional," Aramis snorts.
"Don't you dare start - this. This. And you don't say a word to us, you just run away -"
"You knew?" Porthos says. "That's why you left, you knew? An' you didn' tell us -"
"What would I have told you?" Aramis says quietly, both hands folded over the bump now. "I don't know who the father is. What was I supposed to say-"
"Anything, something, this, this is not something you keep to yourself -"
"You wrote to the captain, you never wrote to us -"
"You had no right to keep this from us."
"Were you ever gonna tell us, what the fuck were you even thinkin' -"
D'Artagnan says, because it's making him feel sick between their yelling and how folded-in around his stomach Aramis has got himself on the bed, "Don't shout at him."
Their voices drop off. Athos looks back to him, cold blue eyes white all the way around with shock, then at Aramis again. Porthos has already noticed the way Aramis is holding himself.
Aramis whispers to the floor, "Why do you think I left? I was scared. Do you need me to say that to you? He knows and he's not the one who sleeps with me, I was scared. I had - this." Gesturing helplessly at the size of himself, "This to deal with, and I didn't know who the father was, and what would have happened to me if I'd stayed? I would be thrown out of the regiment and married off to God knows who to save the scandal of one of the King's own guard embarrassingly pregnant on duty. I came here to try and - to work out what to do. To work out what to - at least after it's born I'll have some idea of whose it is, I -"
Athos says, no longer shouting, "Does Treville know?"
"Yes." Aramis closes his eyes, and folds his arms around himself again. He says, very quietly, "He was surprisingly kind."
Porthos looks - there is no other word for it - sad, all but broken with it, at Aramis small and defensive on the bed like he needs to protect himself from the two of them. "We wouldn've let 'em marry you to some - anyone. Not if you didn' want it."
"What else do you propose would have happened? The alternative is that they take my child and throw me right back into one of these places." Aramis says, and can't look at him. "You know the shame of my being like this, I have to be married. You know that the Cardinal would certainly never have allowed for one of Treville's men to be this. It would only ever have been a matter of time before someone was forced to put me in his bed and call me his property to the end of my days."
Athos says, "One of us would have married you, and you know that we would not have made you into 'property'."
Aramis looks wearily at him. "Which one of you would it have been, then, to admit to fucking me in the first place and then to end up stuck with me forever, knowing that it could very well be the other's child I'm carrying? Porthos still has plenty of time to snag himself the rich and beautiful widow he deserves, and it would be an act of risible social climbing for me to marry the Comte de la Fère. I am not ruining both of your lives because I -"
He stops, staring down at his stomach again, then closes his eyes tight and swallows and shuffles his arms close around it. "I'm sorry," he whispers, dry. "I get emotional quite easily now. And I haven't exactly talked about anything in a long time, I am out of practice at conversation and bad company, and you came all this way. I'm sorry."
Porthos whispers, "Don't be sorry," and rubs his shoulder, and it's the first easy touch between them since they walked into this room, and Aramis' face goes tight with misery.
Athos says quietly, "We will find an arrangement."
"What will you do, draw straws? I will not ruin either of your lives. And I am not coming back to Paris. Not like this. So thank you, for your visit, but I'm afraid that I'm not what you thought you'd find and I don't intend to be anyone's arrangement. My God, Athos, you have the most unromantic way with words."
"You didn't have to resort to this. Coming out here and - what sort of order takes on a pregnant man on for a monk anyway?"
"What?" Aramis looks down at himself. "You actually think I - have you seen what they do to their hair? None of my own clothes fit me anymore. Honestly. They've been very kind to me, thank you for not asking. They've never even asked me a single question I couldn't in good conscience answer. They have shown me nothing but compassion and God you bullied them into letting you in here, didn't you?"
Porthos doesn't meet his eye. Athos doesn't look embarrassed. Aramis glares back at them both.
"Aramis, you can't stay here."
Unimpressed, "Where else am I to go?"
"What happens when the child comes? You can't expect monks to tend to you."
"There's a - midwife in the town." They all read the hesitation, and Aramis shrugs, and runs a hand over his stomach again. "A rather judgemental midwife who has already made her views on me quite clear. I don't see that it makes much difference if it's her or anyone else, though. There are two like me buried in the cemetery outside the gates." Porthos has stilled, and something has happened to Athos' face, and d'Artagnan swallows, uneasy at their backs. Aramis says coolly, "Most of us do not live. Women seem to be the stronger sex after all."
There's silence after that. D'Artagnan feels drained - utterly exhausted with worry, and he's the only man in the room without some stake in the size of Aramis' belly. The others look even worse, and none of them more so than Aramis himself, as Porthos runs a thumb over the shadow under his eye.
"Look tired," he says gruffly.
Aramis smiles, faintly. "The little one is a night owl." He pats his stomach. "Whenever I lie down it decides to wake right up."
"You wanna rest? Since we just walked in here an' started yellin' at you."
Aramis looks up at him and his smile is nervous, tentative, and d'Artagnan never before knew to read into those looks between them exactly what he now sees they are. "I'm sorry," Aramis says, whispers, and Porthos whispers back, "Don't be sorry." and bends to kiss him on the crown of his head.
It looks so strangely natural.
The sky outside the window is falling with a deeper blue, they've been in there for longer than d'Artagnan noticed passing. He twitches a smile for Aramis and Aramis just looks him in the eye, head tipped back with his eyes on d'Artagnan, some fresh respect in his gaze for d'Artagnan's reaction to all of this and that makes him feel a little warm inside in a way he tries not to show. Athos just turns and opens the door and walks out, and Aramis shuffles himself awkwardly back on the bed, lays on his back with his hands folded on his stomach, and gazes troubled at the ceiling while they all walk out.
They all know exactly what's happening. Aramis is awaiting his sentence.
Porthos closes the door again behind them, and in the corridor Athos says, "He can't stay here."
"You heard him, he in't leavin'. What're we gonna do, abduct him?"
D'Artagnan says, "He can't travel on horseback in that condition."
"We need a carriage. I'm not having some village crone poke around at him, he needs a proper physician."
D'Artagnan doesn't know if he should say anything about the man two villages away from his home farm, known to a cousin of his, who did manage to bear a living child, and bled to death the same night. Men are not built as women are, and their births are hard; the ability is rare, and rarely welcome, for so many reasons.
"He won't let you." Porthos says, but looks doubtful himself, now. Both of them would be willing to fight for any extra chance Aramis might have, but the problem is whether they can convince Aramis to let them.
"He's never had any sense when it comes to his own life. The child's may be better currency for arguing with him."
"Look, you need to word this - carefully," d'Artagnan says, because he can see Athos walking back in there to announce exactly that, to accuse Aramis of taking risks with his own child's life when d'Artagnan can't even think what he would do, put into Aramis' position. "He's upset right now, if you make him feel like you're bullying him -"
"He realised himself in that state and ran away. His thoughts on the matter are so far from sense it's hardly worth consulting him."
"He was trying to protect you."
"From what? We would have made this work, better than -" Athos waves an irritable hand at the darkening corridor of the monastery. "- this."
"He should marry you." Porthos says, quietly. Athos looks at him, and Porthos shrugs, and looks at Athos like it costs him a lot to do it while he says this. "I got nothin' to give. Kid might as well get some sort of inheritance."
Athos is silent, then nods once. D'Artagnan rubs his face that that is how this matter is being taken care of.
"He's been scared and on his own and - pregnant, for months, can't you just be gentle with him?"
"Gentle." Athos says, profoundly unimpressed.
"No, he's right," Porthos says. "You're not meant t'give people like that shocks, an' we walked right in on him like . . . we need t'go easy on him. Athos, he's all - he looks like he's made out of cracked glass right now."
Athos is silent, brooding, for a moment. Then he looks at d'Artagnan again, a considering sort of look, quite cool, and says, "Do you judge us?"
"What? I - no." The immediate issue of Aramis pregnant and clearly just as helpless in the face of it as they are seems to shout too loudly for any further considerations, such as their little 'arrangement', to even be heard. D'Artagnan shrugs his folded arms. "All that matters right now is -" He stops. He's not sure what matters now. He looks at Aramis' door, uneasy.
"We need to arrange for a carriage first thing tomorrow, we'll probably have to send to the town, I don't imagine they'll have one here. Someone should be able to perform a brief marriage ceremony, though."
"You haven't even asked him," d'Artagnan points out. "You can't arrange a wedding for someone you haven't asked."
Athos sighs, like everyone is being so unreasonable right now. He knocks sharply on the door and opens it, and they look in on Aramis, head turned wearily to them on the bed, hands folded on his stomach. Athos says, "We'll arrange for a carriage in the morning. We've agreed that it's most practical for you to marry me."
"Thank you, and my commiserations on your drawing the short straw," Aramis murmurs, and all he sounds is tired, "but I regretfully have to decline."
"You have no other chance of staying in the regiment. You can't remain there unmarried and you can't remain if your husband wouldn't permit it, it's only one of us who-"
"Nevertheless, it does yet remain my choice to not end my days as the burden you clearly view me as." Aramis murmurs, and rolls his head back so he sighs at the ceiling, eyes closing.
Athos' voice is getting colder again, and Porthos' eyes flit to him. "You are being childish."
"No," Aramis says, eyes closed and breathing slow on the bed. "I'm being practical. Duty is never enough reason for this."
Athos slams the door on him again. "We will arrange for a carriage in the morning."
"You can't make him marry you," d'Artagnan says, and Athos turns and begins walking down the corridor back the way they came. "Athos - he can't make him marry him," he hisses to Porthos, who rubs the back of his head, looking between Athos and the closed door to Aramis' room.
"Dunno what t'do when they get like this," he says, quietly. "I dunno what the best thing to . . ."
"We can't drag him out of this place. Not with him in that state, we could - hurt him, or the baby. If he doesn't want to go-"
"Alright, d'Artagnan, we get it, right? But what the fuck're we meant t'do? Leave him here for some sour old sow to watch bleed t'death the worst fuckin' way just t'prove her right? What're we meant t'do?"
D'Artagnan can't answer that, or the look in Porthos' eyes. He doesn't have the first idea of what to do. What the hell is the least worst thing to do, now?
Porthos gives Aramis' door another desperate glance and then follows the sound of Athos' boots off through the monastery. D'Artagnan stands there, rubbing his forehead. He hasn't got a clue what to do. At least now everyone else is beginning to understand how Aramis feels about it . . .
*
It's difficult to knock and hold the tray at once. From inside Aramis' voice says so wearily, "Come in." like he's expecting worse, again; d'Artagnan struggles with the handle and the tray, and does, eventually, get it open.
He's apparently taken long enough that Aramis has dragged his bulk up from the bed to start to help, falling back again in some surprise to see just d'Artagnan there, and the tray. "D'Artagnan," he says, and smiles, only a little thin. "You are the most welcome sight of the day so far."
There's a candle burning on the table by the bed, but the sky outside the window is blue-black, now, and the moon isn't risen. "Not the stew, then?"
"Depending on the sauce, I could eat a skinned red guard right now." Aramis confesses, taking it from him gratefully. "Their habits of personal hygiene taken into account and all. Thank you."
There's no chair in the room, so he stands a little awkwardly until Aramis, breaking the bread open, nods to the bed beside himself. "It's a little basic, but it's not uncomfortable. Have you eaten?"
D'Artagnan sits beside him. "Yes. The food here's good."
"They honestly have been more understanding than I looked for. They're very good people. And they do indeed make a very fine mutton stew."
"You look - well. Despite, you know," A gesture has to convey three months away from Paris and a stomach the size of a barrel, "everything."
"A veritable Madonna," Aramis says, casting him an amused look across his stew. "Aside from worry and lack of sleep I have no complaints. And monasteries turn out to be very good places to be up all night, I'm teaching Brother Hugo to read Spanish, and Brother Frances looks in now and then to play chess. Are those two discussing some fresh plan to spirit me away and get me married off?"
". . . they want to help, they just . . ."
Aramis looks back into his stew, stirs it with the spoon, shrugs. "There is no 'help'. They were better not knowing."
"One of them is the father, they have a right to know."
"D'Artagnan," Aramis says gently, and blows on a piece of turnip to cool it, "in all likelihood, within two months both the child and I will be dead. I saw no reason to worry them with all this chaos beforehand. And if by some miracle we do survive, then I could have told them what had happened in some knowledge of who specifically I was talking to. But right now -" He looks at his own stomach making the tray precarious on his knees. "Right now I'm a primed bomb."
"In fairness, Aramis," d'Artagnan says, as he tries to set aside his own dis-ease about Aramis' chances with that baby in his belly and Aramis himself navigates the battle between manners and obvious hunger in swallowing stew, "you always have been."
Aramis glances across at him, and grins. For one second he's the same old careless creature d'Artagnan has always known, conceptually incapable of taking anything seriously, a man aimed at life like a cocked pistol. But then the smile slows, sobers, his eyes still look too tired, and he looks down at his stew again, and raises his spoon. "Not anymore." he says, quietly. "Athos was right about that. Even if I did go back to Paris I could never be a soldier again, certainly not a musketeer. All of that's done."
"So what will you do?"
His spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl. "Probably, be dead. I don't see much point in worrying about it."
"You never see any point in worrying about most things, nothing's actually changed."
Aramis sucks the spoon, and grins at him. D'Artagnan shuffles on the bed, uneasy, says, "They do want to help, that's why they're . . . they want you to see a proper physician, they want you to - they want you to live, Aramis."
"I'm not going back to Paris."
"You can't stay here."
"I've done perfectly well here so far." He puts the tray to one side, sits back supported on one hand with the other on his stomach, and looks down at it as he pats it. "You've been fed, little wolf, so be quiet a while. I suspect it is Porthos' for how hungry it is."
"In Paris you could find a physician who knows what he's doing, out here -"
"In Paris I condemn one of them to me for the rest of his life. Or the rest of mine, at least. I'm not letting Athos marry me out of some misplaced sense of duty, you know how he feels about marriage. Anyway, his wife's still alive, he can't marry me."
"Well, he . . . I hadn't thought of that."
Aramis looks down at his hand on his stomach, and sighs. "I almost feel like I wished this upon myself." A little awkwardly, "I always wanted a child."
D'Artagnan can tell by the tone of voice that it's a serious confession, but he's still not sure how to take it. "You've never really . . . settled down with anyone."
"No. I have tried." His eyes slide to the side, and his hand presses his stomach. "It never works out."
Then he looks up, smiling again, and says, "Thank you for the stew, pup. It was much appreciated, I can assure you."
"We've all missed you," d'Artagnan says, because he can't imagine going back to Paris without Aramis now, facing the two of them stormy from this without Aramis to placate them . . .
And Aramis' face softens in the smile, and he says, very honest and very tired, "I have missed the three of you more than I can say. But here I am." He looks down at his stomach again. "And here I must stay."
There's another knock at the door, and they both look up as it opens, slow and awkward, and Porthos looks in through the crack. "I'll - take that." d'Artagnan says, springing up for the tray, because when he sees Aramis and Porthos look at each other now, he doesn't want to be there. It's not that he's uncomfortable in the same space as them; it's that they haven't had one second to be alone since they first got here, haven't been able to look at each other like that in months, and d'Artagnan remembers every stolen moment with Constance Bonacieux like a slip of metal got stuck in his heart . . .
Aramis touches his arm as he takes the tray, and says again, "Thank you."
"It's fine," d'Artagnan says, and gives Porthos a twitch of a smile as he hurries past him in the doorway.
Porthos closes the door behind himself.
*
Porthos stands there in the doorway, and Aramis' face, after so long, has changed so little. It's always the same, the way Porthos imagines him never does him justice when he's there in front of him, so impossibly there with all of his impossible life, so breath-stopping just by the fact of his existence. The shadows of lost nights sit under his eyes but he looks, even with that insane hump of a stomach, still just like the man who was the loveliest in all of Paris before he wasn't in Paris anymore, even monk's robes can't hide that. Porthos had been prepared for being angry with him, prepared for dragging him through the mud over his disappearance when they found him again. He hadn't been prepared for this, of course; and he hadn't been prepared in the slightest for what it would do to him to see his face again.
On the bed Aramis looks away, and wets his lips, and rubs uneasily at his stomach straining his borrowed robes. "I'm sorry," he says, eyes on the meet of floor and wall. "I know it's a mess. I'm sorry, Porthos."
He can't move, he hardly knows what he's meant to say. He only wanted to see him. He couldn't stand to be so close and not see him, not now. He gets out, roughly, "You should've told us."
"I didn't know what to tell you. Porthos, I'm sorry, I didn't - I was terrified, and I didn't know what to do. The whole time I've been here I've been trying to think what to say to you, I've wasted so much paper on letters I couldn't . . . because I didn't know what to say except that I have made a mess, again, that both of you would have to pay for, again, and I kept thinking - when it's born I'll know, when it's born I'll know -"
He looks down at his hand on the bump, and his mouth folds all wrong. Porthos says, "This isn' your fault. Not that. You runnin' off an' not tellin' us maybe, but not that."
Aramis keeps his eyes to the side, dark and unconvinced. And Porthos, now he's said it, does understand, at least a little. Aramis was afraid. Porthos would be afraid, finding his body invaded like this, taken over like this, knowing his life rent irreparably by this, all pride done, all choice done, all control gone forever. And Aramis should have felt that he could come to the two of them and that they would have protected him from the worst of it, from the shame and sneering and from his life relegated to second class forever after it, but remembering that when they walked into this cell the first thing they did was yell at him, Porthos does understand the sheer scale of the fear that Aramis was dealing with. Aramis was afraid in an awful understandable way and now Porthos knows why he ran, and he sighs, very hard.
"I'm sorry," he says, awkward as it is. "If we made you feel like you had to run off 'stead of tellin' us. 'cause - 'cause you didn' have to. But if we made you feel like you did then that's on us. Aramis." He walks forward, uncertain, but when he takes his hand from his stomach Aramis doesn't take it back, just watches him, not certain of when the kick is coming. Porthos presses his hand in his. "Sorry."
Aramis looks very confused about why he's not to be blamed for how fucking terrified he must have been. So Porthos squeezes his hand again, and grins, and says, "You did run off an' leave us like a bastard though, thought you were a gentleman."
Aramis gestures at his stomach, eyes not convinced of Porthos not being truly angry. "Gentlemen don't come with these attached."
Porthos sits beside him on the bed, since he's not being kicked out, and doesn't let go of his hand. Aramis looks at him again, now it doesn't seem that this will immediately descend into more shouting. Sitting on a bed this close in candlelight's cast gold, they've been here many times before, though never before with . . .
Porthos stares at the bump. Aramis says, "I didn't know what to do."
"I know." Porthos shakes his head, and can't tear his eyes away. "I wouldn't've either."
Aramis watches his face as Porthos watches his stomach, mystified by the magic of it, then reaches across with his free hand to disentangle one of Porthos', and to lay it on his stomach, pressing it there gently. "You know it might be Athos'," he says quietly.
"Athos would have cute kids," Porthos says, staring at their hands set as if they belong there on his swollen stomach.
"You would both have cute kids." Aramis closes his fingers around his. "Don't you care?"
". . . I dunno. Just . . . I dunno." He tries to think about Aramis carrying his baby, and it lurches something in him he doesn't even understand, some desperate leaping grab like a dog's grab-and-pull. But then he imagines that it's Athos' baby in there, and that would make it the child of his two best friends in all of the world, and he'd do fucking anything to protect that child. So he really doesn't know. And he gets, of course, that neither does Aramis, neither does Athos, no-one knows.
"S'a mess," he says, and Aramis sighs, softly, and nods, and squeezes his fingers.
They're quiet in the candlelight for a moment. Porthos finds that he's missed the sound of Aramis breathing.
He says, "I came out here all ready t'be mad at you."
"Aren't you?"
"Dunno. This seems kind of bigger than that."
"I shall have to get pregnant every time you're going to be mad at me."
"Could just stop doin' shit to make people mad, Aramis."
Aramis stares at their hands folded over his stomach, and says quietly, "I suspect that I have, now."
Porthos doesn't really understand that. He concentrates on the taut shape of Aramis' belly under his hand, the full curve of a ship's sail driven forward. It's warm to his palm, and he tries to imagine the baby in there. He strokes it with his thumb, not really thinking.
Aramis whispers, "I missed you. A thousand times every day I missed you, I hated myself for doing this to you -"
"You could've come back, we'd've made it work -"
"I can't destroy your lives with this. Porthos -"
"Stop sayin' that, you know we don't give a fuck."
"Porthos, I don't - want to say this, please understand me, I don't want this to be true, but I have never heard of both a man and child surviving this, and I didn't want to put you both through it, I - it's not like a battlefield, it's not . . . what we're used to is so much quicker than this. And I hoped to spare you both. It's all I've been clinging to. I didn't want one of your reputations spent forever just so that I could die in your bed. I didn't know what the hell I was doing but I hoped at least to spare you from being helpless through it all."
"Don't say that. Don't say any of that stuff."
"It's the truth, and I don't know why you both believe that any doctor can make it different. It's up to the Lord and my luck and Porthos my luck is bad."
He's beginning to get upset again, Porthos gets scared when Aramis gets upset. Aramis is never upset - never acts like anything much matters at all, only ever gets disturbed when things are really fucking disturbing, and he was right when he said it earlier, he's 'emotional' now, shocked and cornered and Porthos can tell how the loneliness and fear have eaten away at him. And you're not supposed to get pregnant people upset, not at the size Aramis is, he looks ready to pop right here on the bed. So Porthos rubs the knuckles of both his hands and says, "Hey, c'mon, don't say that, you got us. We're not good luck? You got us, Aramis -"
He hides his face in Porthos' shoulder, and Porthos drops his hand to close his arm around his back; Aramis' hand squeezes miserable with need at his trousers at the side of his leg. "I missed you, every night laying here wondering what the hell I'd done and if you'd ever forgive-"
Aramis' hand is holding his too tight to his stomach now. "No, don't say that, you don't ever have t'-"
"- and I wished you were here, it was the most selfish thing, I knew how much I'd hurt you and I couldn't, couldn't bear -"
"I'm here now, Aramis, I'm right here n-"
Something runs along the inside of Aramis' stomach right past Porthos' palm.
Porthos jumps like a rat just ran over his leg. Aramis' breath bursts from him in a laugh, and he lifts his head from Porthos' shoulder, blinking hard but composed, smiling. "I told you," he says. "As soon as it gets dark. Now we'll be up all night, the two of us."
Porthos -
He can't take his eyes from that bump, from Aramis' hand holding his there. Aramis in his arm is now made out of magic, made out of miracles, because he contains the creature that just moved inside him, that baby already waiting to be born, Aramis' body is straining wide with all the life it contains and Porthos is dazzled, blinded, awed, Porthos finally understands wonder.
He has to wet his lips. He has to clear his throat.
He says, "Don't have t'be up alone."
Aramis hums a little, happier now. "You'll scandalise the monks."
"Like this isn't already scandal enough?"
In his arm Aramis looks very tempted, but for the first time since Porthos has ever known him, he takes a breath, and Porthos sees in his eyes Aramis letting it go. "No," he says, quietly. "Though I appreciate it more than I can tell you, I'm sorry, Porthos. I am trying to be good, for once in my life."
He has to cup his jaw to raise his face to kiss him. And it's been too long, he's forgotten it's not a thing casually embarked upon, kissing Aramis, he's forgotten what it does to him as Aramis' hand closes around his elbow and something stretches for space in his stomach under Porthos' hand. Porthos can hardly open his eyes when the kiss breaks back. He already knows that any forgiveness needed is done, long done, in both directions. He doesn't care that Aramis fled without saying a word, and Aramis doesn't care that he's been for months tormented by consequences that Porthos and Athos need never face, that they've spent the last three months casual in Paris like nothing had already changed forever and they, but never he, can go right back to that. Porthos knows what it means for Aramis to have to go back to Paris like this. Whoever marries him at least retains his own name, Aramis' life can never be the same. And they're the bastards who knocked him up and then made him so uncertain of their reaction that he . . .
Porthos runs his hand over the size of his stomach, astonished by how much of it there is now. "You gonna try an' sleep at least?"
Wryly, "'Try' is the operative word."
Porthos kisses him again, just gently, and says quietly, "I'll see you in the mornin', right?"
You won't be gone again this time, right?
Aramis whispers, "There is nothing I want more than to see your face again." and lifts his hand, and kisses his knuckles, and finally hands it back. Porthos doesn't know how he'll make himself look away from his eyes to leave the room. It's been too long, and he never realised how much he relied on the way Aramis looks at him to get himself through the days feeling good about himself until he was gone, he never did know how much he needed him; and, weird as this sits in his guts, Aramis always has looked far too good for his own good but Porthos doesn't know if he ever has found him this attractive before, back when he wasn't ridiculously, massively pregnant . . .
He cups his jaw again, runs his thumb over his cheek above the beard. He murmurs to him, "It's gonna be alright."
Aramis' smile is soft, and very full of love, and very, very sad. Porthos leans down to kiss him, one last time, just so he doesn't have to leave him with the memory of that troubling sorrowed look in his eyes.
Continued
Wolf Moon part one of three, Musketeers fic, featuring mpreg, I'm going to drink mulled wine while formatting until I'm no longer even embarrassed \o/ Not prioritising the posting of this over affinityverse stuff so expect a wait before part two . . .
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the trope, and I kind of disclaim the weird impulse I have to write this stuff sometimes too ^^;
Rating: Hard R? Some sex, hard to tell how shocking the *internet* will find it . . .
Warnings and spoilers: Set after the end of S1 so whoa spoilers you guys! (I'm already avoiding fandom at large because of S2 spoilers right now, though given that I'm a scarred ex-Glee fan, mostly all I think about for S2 is please don't be shit, please don't be shit . . .) Warnings-wise, deals a lot with stuff that happens *in* canon, so, alcoholism, mentions of miscarriage, bad things; eventual anatomically improbable account of birth; period-typical but actually still relevant here and now because fuck the world homophobia and misogyny; the fact that it is an mpreg.
Summary: "What Porthos means to say," Athos says, and doesn't look at d'Artagnan, "is that we had an agreement whereby there would be no unpleasantness between any of us if we were both to engage in occasional relations with Aramis."
"Occasional," Aramis snorts.
Note: It turns out that pretty much as many people as I was aware of reading my stuff for this fandom anyway were willing to read this too, so I might as well format it and post it, and then sit in the corner feeling weird about it (thank you, my five readers ;) ). I honest to god cannot explain my occasional impulse towards mpreg, I just can't. Anyway, while I don't even pretend any medical accuracy for any of this - because you leave that at the door when you start with this trope - I did want to write something the *felt* right to me, so, the first thought is 'what would the world be like if at least some men could get pregnant?' Given the culture and time period we're dealing with I remembered the Bible story of Rachel and Bilhah; if you're not conceiving, have your husband impregnate your handmaid and claim the child as yours instead. I can imagine in a world with occasional male pregnancies that story having been written with a man used as a surrogate instead, giving some vague but frowned-upon legitimacy to male pregnancy. It's going to lead to a still homophobic, still misogynist worldview, but it gives some context at least. Anyway. Rainjoy thinks about things too much. Particularly mpreg. Sorry. (Also it is hellish weird posting this, I sometimes write just-for-me fic but it has a very different *feel* to it to me, even the rhythms of the writing read different to me. I have no idea if it will be remotely apparent to anyone else, but this honestly was written only because I needed to get the damn thing out of my head, and no-one else was ever meant to see it ^^;)
When Aramis has been gone for three months, they run out of patience. D'Artagnan sees the looks pass between Athos and Porthos for a couple of days and they don't say anything but they hardly have to; the gap in their group where Aramis should be slouched and smiling has been empty for too long, they all feel it, and Aramis' best friends have now waited quite long enough for him to come back of his own accord. D'Artagnan can tell by looking at them that they've made their minds up. Aramis is coming home; the only person who doesn't yet know it is Aramis himself.
Treville told them, weeks ago when Aramis didn't turn up at the garrison that first day, that Aramis had come to him to request some leave. That Aramis hadn't breathed a word of wanting time away from Paris and away from soldiering to any of them did strike as strange, though d'Artagnan actually found the way Treville looked at Athos and Porthos while he spoke the strangest part of it - too intense, too searching, something bordering on anger, though somehow not directly at them. When they'd left Treville's office Porthos had looked confused and uncomfortable and mulish, and said, "Guess he had a rough year, after Adele left an' Marsac came back an' everything else."
Athos gave a grunt and said nothing. Athos and Aramis have been weird about each other for a while, for almost as long as Aramis has been weird all on his own, strained, somehow. Best not to ask Athos, even now d'Artagnan doesn't enjoy pushing Athos for answers, and Aramis is after all no longer here to ask. At least d'Artagnan might be able to ask him when they bring him back. At least Aramis might be mellowed out by a very long holiday, since he had been odd, withdrawn and nervous, the last few months and worse those last few weeks before he left . . .
It occurs to d'Artagnan that maybe they don't intend to bring him with them to find Aramis, if this is purely inséperables business. But he discards the thought almost instantly. They're a four, now, not a three, they don't do anything without him that they don't do entirely alone. So when they go to Treville to request his permission to go find Aramis, who has inevitably got himself into some sort of ridiculous situation left to his own devices anyway, d'Artagnan just goes right along with them, and neither of them comment on it. They've needed him, Aramis gone, anyway. They get snippy with each other sometimes, Athos and Porthos, without Aramis there to soothe everyone's temper. Athos can be cold and Porthos too proud, and it can escalate too far without Aramis there to make a joke of it all. D'Artagnan has been trying to step into the role, understanding when everyone's had a little too much to drink and tempers are beginning to rise exactly how important all of them are to the dynamic of the group. Remove one person and the fragile edifice of these very difficult men sharing their lives begins to teeter.
Athos knocks, and they enter at Treville's call. He looks up at them from his desk and he never looks surprised to see them, as if their marching into his office at any time of the day or night is something he's greatly overused to. "Training this morning," he says brusquely, eyes down on his paperwork again. "The King's hunt is delayed until the mist clears."
"We came to request leave to find Aramis." Athos says. "If you can spare us."
Treville looks up, silent for a long moment, then pushes the papers away slightly, breathing in long and slow through his nose. "Has he written to any of you?"
Athos looks at Porthos, who shrugs. "No. Ought he have?"
"It would simply suggest that he may not like to be disturbed."
"We find the idea of him lacking supervision disturbing in itself. We don't know how long he'll take to locate, so we wouldn't be able to specify how long we may require, but if you wanted to stipulate a date -"
Treville sighs, heavily, and his eyes on them aren't happy. "Are you looking for him out of anger or impatience?"
Porthos says, low to the desk, "We miss 'im."
Athos inclines his head, eyes closing, in deference to the sentiment. It's true. They may be to some extent angry with Aramis for taking off without saying a word to them, and they may be impatient by now for him to return, but the heart of it simply is that he is missed, that they don't like their days without him. They manage, of course. It is a great deal harder to enjoy themselves, though.
D'Artagnan stands with his arms crossed, watching Treville's eyes scanning Athos and Porthos for a long time before he sighs. "You needn't scour the country for him, I know where he is. When you find him -" He looks at them, at Porthos' face blanking, at Athos' turning icy with anger that Aramis told Treville where he went and never sent them so much as a letter, and his face hardens again. "- you will behave in a manner that is a credit to your regiment."
Three voices, one uneasy, one very small, one very cold; "Yes, sir."
Outside Treville's office Porthos puts his hat back on, still looking like he just can't make himself believe that Aramis would write to Treville but never to them. D'Artagnan says to him, since Athos is stalking off ahead for the stables in an evidently black mood, "What did he mean by that? 'A credit to the regiment'?"
Porthos' mouth twitches; not a smile, it might like to be one but there's no feeling that could dredge a smile up in him right now. "Looks really bad, musketeers goin' around throttlin' each other." he says, and follows Athos down for his horse.
*
They ride for two days. The address struck d'Artagnan as hilarious, at first, he couldn't keep the grin down, looking between them to share the joke but still Porthos just looked confused and Athos just looked angry. "A monastery?" d'Artagnan said. "What would Aramis do in a monastery?"
"Monks," Porthos mumbled, looking across the countryside. D'Artagnan didn't really get it.
Athos said nothing, and rode in silence.
The mist does clear, midway through the first day. The second day starts clear, then turns to drizzle, then mid-afternoon it turns majestically clear again, the fields clean green, leaves livid with the risen sap of summer, the sky that heart-clenching bright blue. The next town gives them directions - just up the road and take the left fork, and the monastery is the first settlement they'll see. No-one asks what business musketeers have there, and d'Artagnan doesn't know how they'd explain this journey to anyone else anyway. He still doesn't know what business Aramis could have in taking himself to a monastery. Aramis has never been one for wanting space and quiet to think, Aramis forced somewhere quiet can hardly last for two days, Aramis loves Paris. What on earth has he been doing out here for three months?
The land is very flat, the fields very wide, the sky goes on forever. They see the monastery long before they reach it, walled gardens but not impregnable and certainly not guarded. A little before they reach the main gate they pass, fenced and edged with blossoming trees, a small cemetery, and Porthos removes his hat as he rides past it. Athos looks straight ahead like he's not even aware of it.
D'Artagnan is beginning to get a bad feeling about this.
Athos knocks, two heavy pounds of the flat of his fist, and two monks in sackcloth brown open the gates. They invite them in, and ask if they require stabling for the horses, if they'll be staying the night. "Perhaps not," Athos says, and d'Artagnan glances at him and suspects that Athos has no desire to spend the night in this place; Athos and God parted ways a long time ago. "We're looking for our friend, and if he's here then we may leave together by tonight."
"Your friend?" The monk holding the reins of Porthos' horse while he climbs down looks across confused. "One of the brothers?"
The older monk, who has Athos' and d'Artagnan's reins, says nothing and is now wearing a strange expression. "No." Athos says. "Not one of the brothers. Not unless you are rather lax about who you permit to join the order. We know that Aramis of the King's musketeers rode out here three months previously, and we've now come to collect him."
The older monk holding Athos' and d'Artagnan's horses says, "We have no Aramis here. We can offer you beds for the night, of course -"
"Does he mean René?"
"Brother Lucas -"
"He didn't say he was a musketeer."
"Brother Lucas."
"We can't hide a musketeer, they're the King's own -"
"Tallish?" Porthos says, holding a hand up beside his own ear to measure Aramis' approximate height. "Floppy hair? Irritatin' grin?"
Athos says, "I believe that we do mean René. If you could direct us to him that would be appreciated."
The older monk folds his arms into the baggy sleeves of his robes and says, "People come here for peace. They come here to be left alone."
"And you shall indeed be left alone, as soon as we have collected our friend."
"What do you mean 'collect'? He can't go any-"
The older monk cuts in coldly, "Brother Lucas, perhaps you should take these horses to the stables."
"Yeah, Brother Lucas, that'd be great." Porthos puts a friendly hand on the older monk's shoulder, and squeezes, and smiles. "Your friend here's gonna take us right to 'René'. Right?"
The older monk stands there, stonily. The younger, looking between everyone's faces, tugs the reins and walks away with the horses, hesitant of leaving this situation. Porthos rubs the older monk's shoulder, says, "We'll be out of your hair before nightfall, promise." Then, "Sorry," with a glance at the man's bald head.
The monk stands there, grim and silent, staring expressionless through the air. Then he says, "He's harmed no-one. He has a right to peace and prayer."
"We're hardly dragging him away in irons." Athos says. "Anyone would think that you expected us to do something terrible to him."
He says it looking right at the monk's eyes, which flick to him, nervous but then turning guarded, his head pulling back a little. He says, quietly, "Is it truly possible that you don't know why he came here?"
Porthos says, "What d'you mean by that?" and d'Artagnan is a little uneasy of the way Porthos is almost as big as two of that monk, and they are supposed to be acting as a credit to their regiment; he says, "Let's just find him, okay?"
Athos stares at the monk, then blinks away, looking over the spread buildings of the monastery itself, low against the sky but for the pointed peaks of the chapel. "We need to speak to him. We have no intention of harming him." He doesn't look at Porthos, whose eyes have narrowed a 'not much, anyway'. "Please lead us to him before we must pursue other routes in finding him."
The monk is silent, and pale. It's a long tensed pause, his jaw held tight, before his breath hushes out hard, and he says, "Remember that this is a place of God. This way, please."
He walks in silence, and they follow. Other monks pause, mid-step and mid-task, to watch their strange procession approach, but all of them seem in their stillness to understand not to intervene as they enter the building and move through its cool halls. It's clearly one of the orders more inclined to noble poverty, quite sparse, but the buildings are neither uncomfortable nor unfriendly. D'Artagnan thinks of the bright May gardens out there, and they smell the kitchens as they turn up onto a staircase, the scent shooting straight to d'Artagnan's belly; he doesn't think Aramis would have been unhappy here, as such, if he could only keep his own impatience reined in. How Aramis of all people has managed to amuse himself in this sleepy place for three months . . .
Along a landing and down another corridor, around a corner and the long corridor here stops at one end; the rest is all dark doors, all open but for one, a little over halfway down. The monk takes a breath, but Porthos takes his shoulder again before he can speak. "Think we c'n find him from here," he says. "Thanks."
Athos says, "We would like to speak to him alone."
The monk's hands are in unmonklike fists. "He came here for peace. He prays and he reads. He harms no-one."
"Thanks, again," Porthos says, pushing him not unkindly but not unlike an ox right back the way he came. The monk stares at them, helpless, starts to say something and stops himself, and turns away, and hurries around the corner like he needs to be anywhere but here, like he can't bear it. Athos and Porthos look at each other, and d'Artagnan looks uneasily between them.
"What's up with him?"
Porthos looks back up the corridor again, says gruffly, "Let's find out."
Monks' cells line the corridor, narrow beds and plain wood. They're all unoccupied at this time of the afternoon but there is that one closed door, and Porthos knocks on it - his knock, now it comes to it, is strangely hesitant - and there's only a slight pause before, inside, a voice that catches d'Artagnan's stomach for three months of silence says, "Hello?"
Porthos turns the handle. He and Athos march right in. D'Artagnan, arms folded nervously, follows.
For half a second, his attention is focused entirely on Aramis kneeling by the bed with a rosary in his fingers, in a monk's rough robe, turning himself to look over his shoulder and face blanching at the sight of them. But then he's turned himself enough; then, on his knees, he's almost sideways-on to them; then they can see his arm caught supportive underneath the heft of his stomach, huge as the moon in his arm, and for a second, staring up at them, he looks pale and glazed enough to faint.
All the shouting and accusation and awful questions d'Artagnan had been dreading, and now they stand in front of Aramis all the three of them can do is stare back at him, silenced.
It's Aramis who snaps out of it first, still pale and clearly shaken but he draws his head up, heaves himself properly around on his knees to face them, back straight and arm around his absurd, enormous stomach as he says, "Well, would one of you gentlemen care to help me up, now that you're here?"
Athos seems to have turned to stone. Porthos fumbles forward to take Aramis' arm, Aramis' jaw working as he uses it to haul himself to his feet, supporting the weight of his belly in his arm, letting Porthos - still silent - set him back with a huff of breath on the bed. "Thank you." he says, neck held stiff, arm protective around the bulk of his stomach. "Most kind of you."
"Aramis," Porthos says, like a breath coming out of him, but there doesn't seem to be anything to follow. Athos, apparently, is still turned to stone. And d'Artagnan is making himself believe - because it's rare, but - but the rarity is hardly what strikes him as so stunning, what he can't believe is that this means that Aramis - with a man. Of course Aramis has always been so openly flirtatious with every kind of woman, but this means that there's been at least one man too. There must be a father. Another father. A father. And Aramis . . .
He has the presence of mind to close the door behind them. And he clears his throat, says into the silence of the room, his voice coming damnably young and far too small, "Who's the father?"
All three of them snap their heads to look at him. D'Artagnan doesn't understand the way they're looking at him.
Aramis sighs, and runs his hand over that waxing curve of his stomach through the robes. Porthos is trying to say something but his voice keeps catching on syllables. Athos looks at Aramis.
Aramis says to him, "How on earth do you expect me to know?"
"How are we to know?"
"Well that is rather the point, isn't it, Athos, no-one knows."
D'Artagnan says, "How can you not know?" He sincerely hopes that he doesn't have to explain the mechanics of this to anyone, while he's the one who grew up on a farm these three are all more than old enough to - unless, good God, unless Aramis has just - known so many men that he can't -
Aramis looks wearily at Athos and his anger, and then at Porthos just helpless, and very lost. And he gestures between the two of them, and says, sounding so defeated, "Toss a coin."
"Wai-" D'Artagnan stops.
He tries, "But -"
No-one says anything.
"You -"
No-one helps him. He'd been expecting - what had he been expecting? He hadn't been expecting - them, either of them, but -
"Both of you?"
Athos says quietly, "We had an arrangement."
Porthos is staring at the size of Aramis' stomach, which Aramis keeps a protective hand on, eyes flicking between Athos and Porthos like he's rapidly working out a strategy of self-defence. Bump-defence. D'Artagnan says, incredulous near to hysterical, "You had an arrangement?"
"I'm very generous," Aramis says, but there's no real humour in it, and all he looks on the bed is tired, and small behind his ridiculous stomach, and alone.
"You - the three of you -"
"Just with him," Porthos says, as if more than that would be some sort of scandal. "We only do him."
Aramis murmurs, "That's such a charming way of wording it."
"What Porthos means to say," Athos says, and doesn't look at d'Artagnan, "is that we had an agreement whereby there would be no unpleasantness between any of us if we were both to engage in occasional relations with Aramis."
"Occasional," Aramis snorts.
"Don't you dare start - this. This. And you don't say a word to us, you just run away -"
"You knew?" Porthos says. "That's why you left, you knew? An' you didn' tell us -"
"What would I have told you?" Aramis says quietly, both hands folded over the bump now. "I don't know who the father is. What was I supposed to say-"
"Anything, something, this, this is not something you keep to yourself -"
"You wrote to the captain, you never wrote to us -"
"You had no right to keep this from us."
"Were you ever gonna tell us, what the fuck were you even thinkin' -"
D'Artagnan says, because it's making him feel sick between their yelling and how folded-in around his stomach Aramis has got himself on the bed, "Don't shout at him."
Their voices drop off. Athos looks back to him, cold blue eyes white all the way around with shock, then at Aramis again. Porthos has already noticed the way Aramis is holding himself.
Aramis whispers to the floor, "Why do you think I left? I was scared. Do you need me to say that to you? He knows and he's not the one who sleeps with me, I was scared. I had - this." Gesturing helplessly at the size of himself, "This to deal with, and I didn't know who the father was, and what would have happened to me if I'd stayed? I would be thrown out of the regiment and married off to God knows who to save the scandal of one of the King's own guard embarrassingly pregnant on duty. I came here to try and - to work out what to do. To work out what to - at least after it's born I'll have some idea of whose it is, I -"
Athos says, no longer shouting, "Does Treville know?"
"Yes." Aramis closes his eyes, and folds his arms around himself again. He says, very quietly, "He was surprisingly kind."
Porthos looks - there is no other word for it - sad, all but broken with it, at Aramis small and defensive on the bed like he needs to protect himself from the two of them. "We wouldn've let 'em marry you to some - anyone. Not if you didn' want it."
"What else do you propose would have happened? The alternative is that they take my child and throw me right back into one of these places." Aramis says, and can't look at him. "You know the shame of my being like this, I have to be married. You know that the Cardinal would certainly never have allowed for one of Treville's men to be this. It would only ever have been a matter of time before someone was forced to put me in his bed and call me his property to the end of my days."
Athos says, "One of us would have married you, and you know that we would not have made you into 'property'."
Aramis looks wearily at him. "Which one of you would it have been, then, to admit to fucking me in the first place and then to end up stuck with me forever, knowing that it could very well be the other's child I'm carrying? Porthos still has plenty of time to snag himself the rich and beautiful widow he deserves, and it would be an act of risible social climbing for me to marry the Comte de la Fère. I am not ruining both of your lives because I -"
He stops, staring down at his stomach again, then closes his eyes tight and swallows and shuffles his arms close around it. "I'm sorry," he whispers, dry. "I get emotional quite easily now. And I haven't exactly talked about anything in a long time, I am out of practice at conversation and bad company, and you came all this way. I'm sorry."
Porthos whispers, "Don't be sorry," and rubs his shoulder, and it's the first easy touch between them since they walked into this room, and Aramis' face goes tight with misery.
Athos says quietly, "We will find an arrangement."
"What will you do, draw straws? I will not ruin either of your lives. And I am not coming back to Paris. Not like this. So thank you, for your visit, but I'm afraid that I'm not what you thought you'd find and I don't intend to be anyone's arrangement. My God, Athos, you have the most unromantic way with words."
"You didn't have to resort to this. Coming out here and - what sort of order takes on a pregnant man on for a monk anyway?"
"What?" Aramis looks down at himself. "You actually think I - have you seen what they do to their hair? None of my own clothes fit me anymore. Honestly. They've been very kind to me, thank you for not asking. They've never even asked me a single question I couldn't in good conscience answer. They have shown me nothing but compassion and God you bullied them into letting you in here, didn't you?"
Porthos doesn't meet his eye. Athos doesn't look embarrassed. Aramis glares back at them both.
"Aramis, you can't stay here."
Unimpressed, "Where else am I to go?"
"What happens when the child comes? You can't expect monks to tend to you."
"There's a - midwife in the town." They all read the hesitation, and Aramis shrugs, and runs a hand over his stomach again. "A rather judgemental midwife who has already made her views on me quite clear. I don't see that it makes much difference if it's her or anyone else, though. There are two like me buried in the cemetery outside the gates." Porthos has stilled, and something has happened to Athos' face, and d'Artagnan swallows, uneasy at their backs. Aramis says coolly, "Most of us do not live. Women seem to be the stronger sex after all."
There's silence after that. D'Artagnan feels drained - utterly exhausted with worry, and he's the only man in the room without some stake in the size of Aramis' belly. The others look even worse, and none of them more so than Aramis himself, as Porthos runs a thumb over the shadow under his eye.
"Look tired," he says gruffly.
Aramis smiles, faintly. "The little one is a night owl." He pats his stomach. "Whenever I lie down it decides to wake right up."
"You wanna rest? Since we just walked in here an' started yellin' at you."
Aramis looks up at him and his smile is nervous, tentative, and d'Artagnan never before knew to read into those looks between them exactly what he now sees they are. "I'm sorry," Aramis says, whispers, and Porthos whispers back, "Don't be sorry." and bends to kiss him on the crown of his head.
It looks so strangely natural.
The sky outside the window is falling with a deeper blue, they've been in there for longer than d'Artagnan noticed passing. He twitches a smile for Aramis and Aramis just looks him in the eye, head tipped back with his eyes on d'Artagnan, some fresh respect in his gaze for d'Artagnan's reaction to all of this and that makes him feel a little warm inside in a way he tries not to show. Athos just turns and opens the door and walks out, and Aramis shuffles himself awkwardly back on the bed, lays on his back with his hands folded on his stomach, and gazes troubled at the ceiling while they all walk out.
They all know exactly what's happening. Aramis is awaiting his sentence.
Porthos closes the door again behind them, and in the corridor Athos says, "He can't stay here."
"You heard him, he in't leavin'. What're we gonna do, abduct him?"
D'Artagnan says, "He can't travel on horseback in that condition."
"We need a carriage. I'm not having some village crone poke around at him, he needs a proper physician."
D'Artagnan doesn't know if he should say anything about the man two villages away from his home farm, known to a cousin of his, who did manage to bear a living child, and bled to death the same night. Men are not built as women are, and their births are hard; the ability is rare, and rarely welcome, for so many reasons.
"He won't let you." Porthos says, but looks doubtful himself, now. Both of them would be willing to fight for any extra chance Aramis might have, but the problem is whether they can convince Aramis to let them.
"He's never had any sense when it comes to his own life. The child's may be better currency for arguing with him."
"Look, you need to word this - carefully," d'Artagnan says, because he can see Athos walking back in there to announce exactly that, to accuse Aramis of taking risks with his own child's life when d'Artagnan can't even think what he would do, put into Aramis' position. "He's upset right now, if you make him feel like you're bullying him -"
"He realised himself in that state and ran away. His thoughts on the matter are so far from sense it's hardly worth consulting him."
"He was trying to protect you."
"From what? We would have made this work, better than -" Athos waves an irritable hand at the darkening corridor of the monastery. "- this."
"He should marry you." Porthos says, quietly. Athos looks at him, and Porthos shrugs, and looks at Athos like it costs him a lot to do it while he says this. "I got nothin' to give. Kid might as well get some sort of inheritance."
Athos is silent, then nods once. D'Artagnan rubs his face that that is how this matter is being taken care of.
"He's been scared and on his own and - pregnant, for months, can't you just be gentle with him?"
"Gentle." Athos says, profoundly unimpressed.
"No, he's right," Porthos says. "You're not meant t'give people like that shocks, an' we walked right in on him like . . . we need t'go easy on him. Athos, he's all - he looks like he's made out of cracked glass right now."
Athos is silent, brooding, for a moment. Then he looks at d'Artagnan again, a considering sort of look, quite cool, and says, "Do you judge us?"
"What? I - no." The immediate issue of Aramis pregnant and clearly just as helpless in the face of it as they are seems to shout too loudly for any further considerations, such as their little 'arrangement', to even be heard. D'Artagnan shrugs his folded arms. "All that matters right now is -" He stops. He's not sure what matters now. He looks at Aramis' door, uneasy.
"We need to arrange for a carriage first thing tomorrow, we'll probably have to send to the town, I don't imagine they'll have one here. Someone should be able to perform a brief marriage ceremony, though."
"You haven't even asked him," d'Artagnan points out. "You can't arrange a wedding for someone you haven't asked."
Athos sighs, like everyone is being so unreasonable right now. He knocks sharply on the door and opens it, and they look in on Aramis, head turned wearily to them on the bed, hands folded on his stomach. Athos says, "We'll arrange for a carriage in the morning. We've agreed that it's most practical for you to marry me."
"Thank you, and my commiserations on your drawing the short straw," Aramis murmurs, and all he sounds is tired, "but I regretfully have to decline."
"You have no other chance of staying in the regiment. You can't remain there unmarried and you can't remain if your husband wouldn't permit it, it's only one of us who-"
"Nevertheless, it does yet remain my choice to not end my days as the burden you clearly view me as." Aramis murmurs, and rolls his head back so he sighs at the ceiling, eyes closing.
Athos' voice is getting colder again, and Porthos' eyes flit to him. "You are being childish."
"No," Aramis says, eyes closed and breathing slow on the bed. "I'm being practical. Duty is never enough reason for this."
Athos slams the door on him again. "We will arrange for a carriage in the morning."
"You can't make him marry you," d'Artagnan says, and Athos turns and begins walking down the corridor back the way they came. "Athos - he can't make him marry him," he hisses to Porthos, who rubs the back of his head, looking between Athos and the closed door to Aramis' room.
"Dunno what t'do when they get like this," he says, quietly. "I dunno what the best thing to . . ."
"We can't drag him out of this place. Not with him in that state, we could - hurt him, or the baby. If he doesn't want to go-"
"Alright, d'Artagnan, we get it, right? But what the fuck're we meant t'do? Leave him here for some sour old sow to watch bleed t'death the worst fuckin' way just t'prove her right? What're we meant t'do?"
D'Artagnan can't answer that, or the look in Porthos' eyes. He doesn't have the first idea of what to do. What the hell is the least worst thing to do, now?
Porthos gives Aramis' door another desperate glance and then follows the sound of Athos' boots off through the monastery. D'Artagnan stands there, rubbing his forehead. He hasn't got a clue what to do. At least now everyone else is beginning to understand how Aramis feels about it . . .
*
It's difficult to knock and hold the tray at once. From inside Aramis' voice says so wearily, "Come in." like he's expecting worse, again; d'Artagnan struggles with the handle and the tray, and does, eventually, get it open.
He's apparently taken long enough that Aramis has dragged his bulk up from the bed to start to help, falling back again in some surprise to see just d'Artagnan there, and the tray. "D'Artagnan," he says, and smiles, only a little thin. "You are the most welcome sight of the day so far."
There's a candle burning on the table by the bed, but the sky outside the window is blue-black, now, and the moon isn't risen. "Not the stew, then?"
"Depending on the sauce, I could eat a skinned red guard right now." Aramis confesses, taking it from him gratefully. "Their habits of personal hygiene taken into account and all. Thank you."
There's no chair in the room, so he stands a little awkwardly until Aramis, breaking the bread open, nods to the bed beside himself. "It's a little basic, but it's not uncomfortable. Have you eaten?"
D'Artagnan sits beside him. "Yes. The food here's good."
"They honestly have been more understanding than I looked for. They're very good people. And they do indeed make a very fine mutton stew."
"You look - well. Despite, you know," A gesture has to convey three months away from Paris and a stomach the size of a barrel, "everything."
"A veritable Madonna," Aramis says, casting him an amused look across his stew. "Aside from worry and lack of sleep I have no complaints. And monasteries turn out to be very good places to be up all night, I'm teaching Brother Hugo to read Spanish, and Brother Frances looks in now and then to play chess. Are those two discussing some fresh plan to spirit me away and get me married off?"
". . . they want to help, they just . . ."
Aramis looks back into his stew, stirs it with the spoon, shrugs. "There is no 'help'. They were better not knowing."
"One of them is the father, they have a right to know."
"D'Artagnan," Aramis says gently, and blows on a piece of turnip to cool it, "in all likelihood, within two months both the child and I will be dead. I saw no reason to worry them with all this chaos beforehand. And if by some miracle we do survive, then I could have told them what had happened in some knowledge of who specifically I was talking to. But right now -" He looks at his own stomach making the tray precarious on his knees. "Right now I'm a primed bomb."
"In fairness, Aramis," d'Artagnan says, as he tries to set aside his own dis-ease about Aramis' chances with that baby in his belly and Aramis himself navigates the battle between manners and obvious hunger in swallowing stew, "you always have been."
Aramis glances across at him, and grins. For one second he's the same old careless creature d'Artagnan has always known, conceptually incapable of taking anything seriously, a man aimed at life like a cocked pistol. But then the smile slows, sobers, his eyes still look too tired, and he looks down at his stew again, and raises his spoon. "Not anymore." he says, quietly. "Athos was right about that. Even if I did go back to Paris I could never be a soldier again, certainly not a musketeer. All of that's done."
"So what will you do?"
His spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl. "Probably, be dead. I don't see much point in worrying about it."
"You never see any point in worrying about most things, nothing's actually changed."
Aramis sucks the spoon, and grins at him. D'Artagnan shuffles on the bed, uneasy, says, "They do want to help, that's why they're . . . they want you to see a proper physician, they want you to - they want you to live, Aramis."
"I'm not going back to Paris."
"You can't stay here."
"I've done perfectly well here so far." He puts the tray to one side, sits back supported on one hand with the other on his stomach, and looks down at it as he pats it. "You've been fed, little wolf, so be quiet a while. I suspect it is Porthos' for how hungry it is."
"In Paris you could find a physician who knows what he's doing, out here -"
"In Paris I condemn one of them to me for the rest of his life. Or the rest of mine, at least. I'm not letting Athos marry me out of some misplaced sense of duty, you know how he feels about marriage. Anyway, his wife's still alive, he can't marry me."
"Well, he . . . I hadn't thought of that."
Aramis looks down at his hand on his stomach, and sighs. "I almost feel like I wished this upon myself." A little awkwardly, "I always wanted a child."
D'Artagnan can tell by the tone of voice that it's a serious confession, but he's still not sure how to take it. "You've never really . . . settled down with anyone."
"No. I have tried." His eyes slide to the side, and his hand presses his stomach. "It never works out."
Then he looks up, smiling again, and says, "Thank you for the stew, pup. It was much appreciated, I can assure you."
"We've all missed you," d'Artagnan says, because he can't imagine going back to Paris without Aramis now, facing the two of them stormy from this without Aramis to placate them . . .
And Aramis' face softens in the smile, and he says, very honest and very tired, "I have missed the three of you more than I can say. But here I am." He looks down at his stomach again. "And here I must stay."
There's another knock at the door, and they both look up as it opens, slow and awkward, and Porthos looks in through the crack. "I'll - take that." d'Artagnan says, springing up for the tray, because when he sees Aramis and Porthos look at each other now, he doesn't want to be there. It's not that he's uncomfortable in the same space as them; it's that they haven't had one second to be alone since they first got here, haven't been able to look at each other like that in months, and d'Artagnan remembers every stolen moment with Constance Bonacieux like a slip of metal got stuck in his heart . . .
Aramis touches his arm as he takes the tray, and says again, "Thank you."
"It's fine," d'Artagnan says, and gives Porthos a twitch of a smile as he hurries past him in the doorway.
Porthos closes the door behind himself.
*
Porthos stands there in the doorway, and Aramis' face, after so long, has changed so little. It's always the same, the way Porthos imagines him never does him justice when he's there in front of him, so impossibly there with all of his impossible life, so breath-stopping just by the fact of his existence. The shadows of lost nights sit under his eyes but he looks, even with that insane hump of a stomach, still just like the man who was the loveliest in all of Paris before he wasn't in Paris anymore, even monk's robes can't hide that. Porthos had been prepared for being angry with him, prepared for dragging him through the mud over his disappearance when they found him again. He hadn't been prepared for this, of course; and he hadn't been prepared in the slightest for what it would do to him to see his face again.
On the bed Aramis looks away, and wets his lips, and rubs uneasily at his stomach straining his borrowed robes. "I'm sorry," he says, eyes on the meet of floor and wall. "I know it's a mess. I'm sorry, Porthos."
He can't move, he hardly knows what he's meant to say. He only wanted to see him. He couldn't stand to be so close and not see him, not now. He gets out, roughly, "You should've told us."
"I didn't know what to tell you. Porthos, I'm sorry, I didn't - I was terrified, and I didn't know what to do. The whole time I've been here I've been trying to think what to say to you, I've wasted so much paper on letters I couldn't . . . because I didn't know what to say except that I have made a mess, again, that both of you would have to pay for, again, and I kept thinking - when it's born I'll know, when it's born I'll know -"
He looks down at his hand on the bump, and his mouth folds all wrong. Porthos says, "This isn' your fault. Not that. You runnin' off an' not tellin' us maybe, but not that."
Aramis keeps his eyes to the side, dark and unconvinced. And Porthos, now he's said it, does understand, at least a little. Aramis was afraid. Porthos would be afraid, finding his body invaded like this, taken over like this, knowing his life rent irreparably by this, all pride done, all choice done, all control gone forever. And Aramis should have felt that he could come to the two of them and that they would have protected him from the worst of it, from the shame and sneering and from his life relegated to second class forever after it, but remembering that when they walked into this cell the first thing they did was yell at him, Porthos does understand the sheer scale of the fear that Aramis was dealing with. Aramis was afraid in an awful understandable way and now Porthos knows why he ran, and he sighs, very hard.
"I'm sorry," he says, awkward as it is. "If we made you feel like you had to run off 'stead of tellin' us. 'cause - 'cause you didn' have to. But if we made you feel like you did then that's on us. Aramis." He walks forward, uncertain, but when he takes his hand from his stomach Aramis doesn't take it back, just watches him, not certain of when the kick is coming. Porthos presses his hand in his. "Sorry."
Aramis looks very confused about why he's not to be blamed for how fucking terrified he must have been. So Porthos squeezes his hand again, and grins, and says, "You did run off an' leave us like a bastard though, thought you were a gentleman."
Aramis gestures at his stomach, eyes not convinced of Porthos not being truly angry. "Gentlemen don't come with these attached."
Porthos sits beside him on the bed, since he's not being kicked out, and doesn't let go of his hand. Aramis looks at him again, now it doesn't seem that this will immediately descend into more shouting. Sitting on a bed this close in candlelight's cast gold, they've been here many times before, though never before with . . .
Porthos stares at the bump. Aramis says, "I didn't know what to do."
"I know." Porthos shakes his head, and can't tear his eyes away. "I wouldn't've either."
Aramis watches his face as Porthos watches his stomach, mystified by the magic of it, then reaches across with his free hand to disentangle one of Porthos', and to lay it on his stomach, pressing it there gently. "You know it might be Athos'," he says quietly.
"Athos would have cute kids," Porthos says, staring at their hands set as if they belong there on his swollen stomach.
"You would both have cute kids." Aramis closes his fingers around his. "Don't you care?"
". . . I dunno. Just . . . I dunno." He tries to think about Aramis carrying his baby, and it lurches something in him he doesn't even understand, some desperate leaping grab like a dog's grab-and-pull. But then he imagines that it's Athos' baby in there, and that would make it the child of his two best friends in all of the world, and he'd do fucking anything to protect that child. So he really doesn't know. And he gets, of course, that neither does Aramis, neither does Athos, no-one knows.
"S'a mess," he says, and Aramis sighs, softly, and nods, and squeezes his fingers.
They're quiet in the candlelight for a moment. Porthos finds that he's missed the sound of Aramis breathing.
He says, "I came out here all ready t'be mad at you."
"Aren't you?"
"Dunno. This seems kind of bigger than that."
"I shall have to get pregnant every time you're going to be mad at me."
"Could just stop doin' shit to make people mad, Aramis."
Aramis stares at their hands folded over his stomach, and says quietly, "I suspect that I have, now."
Porthos doesn't really understand that. He concentrates on the taut shape of Aramis' belly under his hand, the full curve of a ship's sail driven forward. It's warm to his palm, and he tries to imagine the baby in there. He strokes it with his thumb, not really thinking.
Aramis whispers, "I missed you. A thousand times every day I missed you, I hated myself for doing this to you -"
"You could've come back, we'd've made it work -"
"I can't destroy your lives with this. Porthos -"
"Stop sayin' that, you know we don't give a fuck."
"Porthos, I don't - want to say this, please understand me, I don't want this to be true, but I have never heard of both a man and child surviving this, and I didn't want to put you both through it, I - it's not like a battlefield, it's not . . . what we're used to is so much quicker than this. And I hoped to spare you both. It's all I've been clinging to. I didn't want one of your reputations spent forever just so that I could die in your bed. I didn't know what the hell I was doing but I hoped at least to spare you from being helpless through it all."
"Don't say that. Don't say any of that stuff."
"It's the truth, and I don't know why you both believe that any doctor can make it different. It's up to the Lord and my luck and Porthos my luck is bad."
He's beginning to get upset again, Porthos gets scared when Aramis gets upset. Aramis is never upset - never acts like anything much matters at all, only ever gets disturbed when things are really fucking disturbing, and he was right when he said it earlier, he's 'emotional' now, shocked and cornered and Porthos can tell how the loneliness and fear have eaten away at him. And you're not supposed to get pregnant people upset, not at the size Aramis is, he looks ready to pop right here on the bed. So Porthos rubs the knuckles of both his hands and says, "Hey, c'mon, don't say that, you got us. We're not good luck? You got us, Aramis -"
He hides his face in Porthos' shoulder, and Porthos drops his hand to close his arm around his back; Aramis' hand squeezes miserable with need at his trousers at the side of his leg. "I missed you, every night laying here wondering what the hell I'd done and if you'd ever forgive-"
Aramis' hand is holding his too tight to his stomach now. "No, don't say that, you don't ever have t'-"
"- and I wished you were here, it was the most selfish thing, I knew how much I'd hurt you and I couldn't, couldn't bear -"
"I'm here now, Aramis, I'm right here n-"
Something runs along the inside of Aramis' stomach right past Porthos' palm.
Porthos jumps like a rat just ran over his leg. Aramis' breath bursts from him in a laugh, and he lifts his head from Porthos' shoulder, blinking hard but composed, smiling. "I told you," he says. "As soon as it gets dark. Now we'll be up all night, the two of us."
Porthos -
He can't take his eyes from that bump, from Aramis' hand holding his there. Aramis in his arm is now made out of magic, made out of miracles, because he contains the creature that just moved inside him, that baby already waiting to be born, Aramis' body is straining wide with all the life it contains and Porthos is dazzled, blinded, awed, Porthos finally understands wonder.
He has to wet his lips. He has to clear his throat.
He says, "Don't have t'be up alone."
Aramis hums a little, happier now. "You'll scandalise the monks."
"Like this isn't already scandal enough?"
In his arm Aramis looks very tempted, but for the first time since Porthos has ever known him, he takes a breath, and Porthos sees in his eyes Aramis letting it go. "No," he says, quietly. "Though I appreciate it more than I can tell you, I'm sorry, Porthos. I am trying to be good, for once in my life."
He has to cup his jaw to raise his face to kiss him. And it's been too long, he's forgotten it's not a thing casually embarked upon, kissing Aramis, he's forgotten what it does to him as Aramis' hand closes around his elbow and something stretches for space in his stomach under Porthos' hand. Porthos can hardly open his eyes when the kiss breaks back. He already knows that any forgiveness needed is done, long done, in both directions. He doesn't care that Aramis fled without saying a word, and Aramis doesn't care that he's been for months tormented by consequences that Porthos and Athos need never face, that they've spent the last three months casual in Paris like nothing had already changed forever and they, but never he, can go right back to that. Porthos knows what it means for Aramis to have to go back to Paris like this. Whoever marries him at least retains his own name, Aramis' life can never be the same. And they're the bastards who knocked him up and then made him so uncertain of their reaction that he . . .
Porthos runs his hand over the size of his stomach, astonished by how much of it there is now. "You gonna try an' sleep at least?"
Wryly, "'Try' is the operative word."
Porthos kisses him again, just gently, and says quietly, "I'll see you in the mornin', right?"
You won't be gone again this time, right?
Aramis whispers, "There is nothing I want more than to see your face again." and lifts his hand, and kisses his knuckles, and finally hands it back. Porthos doesn't know how he'll make himself look away from his eyes to leave the room. It's been too long, and he never realised how much he relied on the way Aramis looks at him to get himself through the days feeling good about himself until he was gone, he never did know how much he needed him; and, weird as this sits in his guts, Aramis always has looked far too good for his own good but Porthos doesn't know if he ever has found him this attractive before, back when he wasn't ridiculously, massively pregnant . . .
He cups his jaw again, runs his thumb over his cheek above the beard. He murmurs to him, "It's gonna be alright."
Aramis' smile is soft, and very full of love, and very, very sad. Porthos leans down to kiss him, one last time, just so he doesn't have to leave him with the memory of that troubling sorrowed look in his eyes.
Continued