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There’s a chord of white hot pain from his left temple to his cheek, flaring bright and sharp before the bleeding starts. Porthos crumples to the ground and all he can think is why did I go to that tavern tonight? and then, bloody Musketeers, and, then, when his mind thaws itself of pain and he realises with an awful swell of panic that he cannot see around the clinging blink of blood: oh fuck. My eye.

“Jump!” shouts the madman, “Jump, you stupid bastard!”

Porthos cracks his uninjured eye and can just see the man reaching towards him through the haze of blood and pain. He heaves Porthos up by the collar, stronger than his slim frame would suggest, and offers a lopsided grin around the hideous black eye that’s beginning to bloom across the right side of his face.

”Trust me?”

“You’ve got to be jokin’!” Porthos hisses, clutching at his face. The bastard laughs - actually laughs. He has a moment to feel the man’s hand sharp in the middle of his back, and then - the dizzying rush of air as they fall.

*
Earlier

It’s not the sort of tavern that you usually see King’s men in - especially if they’re men who want to see the morning with their purses, honour and limbs intact - but neither is it a usual haunt for people like Porthos, just this side of the outlying reaches of the Court of Miracles as it is. Still, more and more now Porthos feels the drag of the world outside the Court, feels it like there’s something hooked in his heart and pulling.

Either way, it’s setting his teeth on edge, sitting a few tables away from those Musketeers. They think no one will notice them without their fleur-de-lis pauldrons and fancy blue cloaks, but they’re as bright and shiny as a newly minted écu and Porthos can certainly see it. People are keeping their distance though - the Musketeers are an unknown quantity, newly formed as they are.

Now, at least with those Red Guard bastards you know where you stand. Even if that is against the wall with the shit being kicked out of you.

The two Musketeers sit with heads bowed, talking every now and then in hushed voices. One is all dark eyes and too-wide grin, and doesn’t he know what a show he’s making of himself, doesn’t he feel the way he pulls eyes towards him with his easy laugh and limbs and smile?

The other is a little fairer, perhaps a little older. In contrast to the sprawl of a man next to him, this one is all pulled-tight and shuttered, like he’s keeping something big and awful bound up around his ramrod straight spine.

Oh, yeah, and he’s obviously a gentleman. Trying to hide it, for some reason, but he stinks of it.

Porthos feels his brows lowering. He can read a man as well as anyone who’s spent their lives in the Court, but these two puzzle him. He has the contradictory and almost overwhelming desire to know more, but also, to get up and leave right now because these two…these two are clearly bad news.

He sniffs, wrinkles his nose, shakes his head and takes another swig from his bottle. Last two minutes in a fight, they would. Boys playing at soldiering, he thinks - though the two are probably not far off his own age - though isn’t that an unknown quantity too? and there’s a quiver of something hot and smouldering in his belly at that.

He feels itchy in his skin, a sensation he’s been having more and more lately, a tautness like growing pains in his muscles. He feels like there’s a storm coming.

“What about these two, then?” Porthos asks in a low voice. Flea shoots a glance, sly as a darting fox. She looks nervous tonight, and that’s enough in itself to make Porthos uneasy. “Stay clear of them,” she says warily, “Trouble.”

“Hmm,” Porthos hums in agreement. He pushes at his cup, draws little dabbed circles in the spilled wine, cheap and watery on the rough wooden table.

“Charon’s not coming,” Flea says suddenly, knee jiggling against his. She drains her cup and bangs it down a little too hard on the table, and Porthos sees one of the Musketeers flick a glance at them - the one with the dark tangle of curls swept back from his brow. “And I’m going.”

“Don’t,” Porthos says, reaching out to grasp her wrist but thinking better of it. He lets his leg press harder against hers instead. “Stay. He’ll come.”

“He won’t,” Flea insists, with that tone of her voice that means there’s no budging her on this one. Porthos wants to argue further, despite the warning note, but she’s probably right. She smiles at him as she leaves, but it’s a tight, brittle thing, and doesn’t go all the way to her eyes.

Porthos is not quite sure what’s happening to the three of them now, inseparable as they always were. He can’t recall the point where things shifted. There’s a small pang of guilt there, somewhere, because he knows it’s him that’s changing the rules. But he can’t stop this pull, not now. He wants to rage and swear and drag them with him, but he can’t stop it.

He feels it like a chasm between them, Porthos on one side and Flea and Charon the other as the void splits and widens. He’s almost past the point of being able to leap it, to cross back towards his friends - his family - and he feels their loss as though the hole was inside him, inside his heart.

And yet...he doesn’t know how to be the Porthos that they need. Not anymore.

The only way out of the Court is at the end of a rope, that’s what they keep telling him. Porthos is many things but he is not a fool, so he cannot understand this quiet voice that seems intent on whispering him away, to something he can’t yet see.

So Porthos stays, and he plays cards, and since they don’t know him here he cheats, and wins. There are grumbles and frowns, as there always are, but Porthos booms out a laugh and makes sure that it’s all teeth, restrained and glinting beneath the smiling geniality.

At some point in the evening he notices the dark-haired Musketeer from earlier step outside, presumably for a piss, and when he returns his friend has gone. He looks around in confusion, before his gaze falls for a moment on the men who’ve just sat down at the table beside him. He gives a shrug and flops back into his chair, all loose-limbed and grinning, insinuating himself into their conversation.

Porthos smiles to himself, only half looking at the cards in his hand. It’s expertly done, but he can tell the man is not as drunk as he’s playing. He wonders what’s he’s doing, and why he thinks it’s safe to do it here, alone as he now is.

There’s a voice in Porthos’ head that’s telling him not to stick his nose in someone else’s business, especially when that someone is a Musketeer. It’s the sort of voice that every child of the Court learns to give ear to if they want to survive to adulthood.

But there’s that tugging again, that prickle just under his skin.

*

Porthos watches the Musketeer’s back as he leaves with the group of men at his table, all of them loud and laughing about continuing on to another tavern, better wine, prettier women. He counts silently to ten before following. Big as he is, Porthos knows how to shadow someone and stay that way, quiet and hidden and just far enough away to be neither seen nor sensed.

When he steps cautiously outside, Porthos immediately leans back into the lee of the doorway and reflects that he either should have counted to twenty, or followed straight on the stupid Musketeer’s stupid Musketeer heels: the man is in the street outside and he is being utterly and thoroughly beaten up by the men he’d just left with. Porthos winces as a knee connects with the man’s torso, sees him collapse in a boneless heap with a little huffed noise of surprise.

The man rolls to the side to avoid a stamped foot and springs to his feet like a cat, spinning and whirling, moving with a fluidity that proves Porthos’ theory that he was only pretending to be drunk. He knows how to fight, that much is clear - and knows how to take the punches too - but his attackers are men from the streets, not constrained by any code or notion of honour. They fight dirty, breathtakingly so, and they outnumber the Musketeer considerably.

Turn around or join in, says a voice in Porthos’s head, you don’t want to watch this one die.

He wavers, like a man about to jump off a ledge.

“Bloody Musketeers.”

*

With the both of them the tide begins to turn, though when Porthos last counted there were still five men to only two. At some point the fight had evolved from a brawl of fists and kicks to a thing of blades, glinting dully in the wan moonlight.

It’s now, with his rapier, that the Musketeer really comes into his own. Porthos isn’t sure he’s ever seen such a confident and instinctive fighter, if a bit showy, for his own tastes.

He flashes a glance at the dark haired man, sees him smack one of the men hard with the pommel of his sword to drive him down, running another through with the length of the blade.

But though the Musketeer might have the protection of his regiment when it comes to killing, Porthos understands that taking a life when yours is worth nothing is always a last resort: these men could be the Cardinal’s favourites for all he knows.

Besides, Porthos has no sword, only a wicked little blade, the sight of which is usually enough to either quell or incite a brawl. He holds it loosely in his hand, swipes close enough to frighten but not to make contact, not yet. No, that's what fists are for.

For the sake of self-preservation Porthos knows a hundred ways to make a man unconscious without the need for any weapon other than his own body. Bring them down long enough to disappear, that’s always the best way where possible

He slams the last man to the ground in a heap and turns, breathlessly, to see the Musketeer toeing a fallen body with his boot, hand flexing around the grip of his sword. The man looks up and smiles, dazzling and so easy it startles Porthos.

The moment stretches, all ticing muscles and huffs of breath.

“Aramis,” the man says, holding out his hand.

“Porthos,” he answers, not taking it.

“Good to meet you. I think we should probably run now,” the Musketeer says amiably, flicking his head at something over Porthor’s shoulder. He hears footsteps from the alley behind him, and without even bothering to look, follows Aramis’s sprinted flight.

The Musketeer leads him down back alleys and streets where stinking nightsoil carts creak along, over walls, through courtyards guarded by chained and snapping dogs, along rooftops and on one occasion, through what looks in passing like a lady’s bedroom - complete with screaming mademoiselle.

Porthos doesn’t stop to ask where they’re going, because there are a thousand more pressing questions he can think of right now - most of them directed at himself, rather than Aramis.

Why the hell is he going with this man?

But the string tugs, and he follows.

*

Now

They’re hurrying along the top of a flat roofed building when something slams into Aramis from above, and Porthos has time to dart sideways before the second man comes at him.

“What the hell did you do to piss them off?” he shouts at Aramis as they stand back to back.

One of the men raises a cudgel but before he can do much with it Porthos has slammed his full weight into him, the weapon crushed between them smacks the man between the eyes and he goes down in a heap. Another comes from the direction they’ve just run from and throws himself at Porthos while Aramis grapples with one more.

The rooftop is too narrow to fight with rapiers, so the battle devolves to fists again, which suits Porthos just fine. From the corner of his eye he notices, rather scornfully, that Aramis is attempting to give the man he is fighting time to regain his balance, that he appears to be adhering to some sort of code that his opponent most definitely is not.

And Porthos can also tell that the man has a blade in the back of his belt and is reaching for it while Aramis is dodging the fists of another attacker.

So Porthos grabs the man by the back of his doublet, swings him around and slams the plane of his forehead hard into the man’s nose.

“Stop fighting like a fucking gentleman,” Porthos roars at the Musketeer, “These men want to kill you!”

He has a moment to notice Aramis looking steadily at him, a point of stillness in the mad spin of the fight. And then the man with the broken nose rises up, the blade in his hand now, notched and cruel and arcing around. The Musketeer doesn’t even look, just shunts the heft of his shoulder hard into him, and the man promptly disappears off the side of the roof, arms windmilling desperately.

“Better?” Aramis asks, breathlessly.

“Yeah, that’ll do it,” Porthos grins, leaning over to see where the man has fallen on the street below.

He is turning back when Aramis shouts in warning. Porthos has time to sense movement from the darkness beside him before a bright slash of pain blooms across his face, and he is stumbling backwards. His feet slip on a loose tile and he crashes to his knees on the very edge of the roof, before scrambling backwards desperately.

He hears the scuffle but there’s too much blood in his eye to be able to see, and the pain is so sharp and the panic rises up to screw shut his other eye too.

“Jump!” Aramis yells, “Jump, you stupid bastard!”

Dimly Porthos can hear the noise of men rushing towards them. Aramis heaves him to his feet.

“Trust me?” The Musketeer says.

“You’ve got to be jokin’!”

And then Aramis laughs, and pushes, and the air is rushing past him and…

They land with a not completely pain-free crash onto a cart, which is passing on the street below. It is full with sacks of grain, and sacks of grain, when full, are very very hard.

Porthos feels a rib crack as he impacts, but it’s certainly not as bad as the solidity of the cobblestones - the man Aramis had pushed and who now lies sprawled and glassy-eyed on the street can attest to that.

The cart rounds the corner, and Aramis, looking a little dazed says “Here,” and slips ungainly to the street. And Porthos, for reasons that he still cannot fathom, blinks the blood from his eyes, and continues to follow.

“Are you alright?” He asks the dark shape of the man in front of him as he follows him down street after street. Even through his gritted eyes he can see the Musketeer is holding his left arm tightly to his chest.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Aramis breathes, as they sprint across the Pont Neufe.

“Oh right,” Porthos calls. “So your shoulder always looks like that, then?”

Aramis slows his steps, and stops to lean his back heavily against a wall. They are in a part of the city that Porthos does not often frequent - near the Luxembourg - and does not feel particularly comfortable in. He steps a little closer to the Musketeer, to the shadow of the overhanging eaves above them.

“Like what?” Aramis says.

“You know.” Porthos gesticulates towards the man’s arm. “Sort of lumpy. Hanging all odd.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s dislocated,” Porthos corrects, and because he has seen this and done this and had this done to him more times than he can count, he simply leans forward and grabs the man’s hanging arm, rotates it upwards, puts one boot on the man’s hip as leverage and pulls.

Aramis bites off a very ungentlemanly squeak, which smoothes itself out into a humming exhalation of pain, before doubling over. He’s still cradling his arm to himself but at least the whole thing looks the right shape now.

“Fucking hell,” he hisses darkly, and Porthos feels his face split into a wild grin at the coarseness of the words coming from this man. Aramis clears his throat. “A little warning, next time?”

“At least a week’s notice,” Porthos agrees.

Aramis looks up at him then, and a tight, serious look flashes onto his face. “Your eye.”

He takes a step towards Porthos and lifts his right hand towards him, and Porthos takes a reflexive step backwards, smacking him away.

“Ow,” Aramis says, cradling his hand. “Alright but…I do need to look at that.”

“You a doctor or something?” Porthos mutters.

“Or something, yes,” Aramis nods. “The garrison is across the street. I can help you.”

“Nah,” Porthos says. He swipes tentatively at his face and tries to hide the way his teeth grit with the sudden flash of pain. “I’m not going in no Musketeer garrison.”

“My apartments, then,” Aramis says, pointing up the street, “They’re just a little further that way.”

Porthos stares, dumbfounded. “You can’t just do that, you know,” he says, “You can’t just meet a man and invite him to your apartments.” He feels the colour flush to his cheeks at how that might sound, pushes it away. He thinks of the privilege of having a space of your own - apartments, my God - thinks of the little curtained antechamber in the Court that he has slept in since he was six years old, and the one or two people he would ever allow to enter it.

”Why not?” Aramis asks.

“Well…I mean…I could do anything to you.”

”You could try,” Aramis grins, and then, “It’s alright. I trust you.”

He says it like a man’s trust is the easiest thing to offer, the lightest thing to carry.

Who is he? Porthos thinks. This something-of-a-doctor, loose-limbed fop of a Musketeer, who smiles too freely and fights like he’s dancing and acts as though they are friends?

Porthos frowns. Which fucking hurts.

“This way,” Aramis says, and Porthos feels all the blood rushing to his face in a confused stewing of fear and anger and confusion and excitement because, yet again, he follows.

Aramis apartments are in a tall building on the Rue de Vaugirard. The facade is handsome, but crumbling, and inside the stairways echo with their footfalls.

“Here we are.” Aramis unlocks a door on the third floor and pushes it open with a flourish marred only slightly with the way it creaks and drags a little against the floor. Inside Aramis busies himself lighting candles, and once done, searching for wine. Porthos finds a chair by a table and sits down heavily, looking around.

The apartments are made up of what looks like a general purpose room, with a set of double doors on one wall through which Porthos can just make out a crumpled bed. The paint on the walls is a little flaked, but fairly clean, and though the room is small the ceilings are high and speak of a grandeur since faded. The place is very tidy, with books stacked carefully against one wall, a few good chairs, a small table, dresser against one wall, and a simple but quite beautiful dark wood crucifix hung beside it.

“Ah,” Aramis says, coming over to the table with a bottle of wine, “I’ve been hiding this one from Athos, it’s quite good I think.” He pours a cup for Porthos and pushes it across the table to him.

“What are we drinking to?” Porthos asks, picking up the cup.

“A wonderful evening, of course.”

“You have a strange idea of ‘wonderful.”

“I have a very liberal sense of wonderful, yes,” Aramis agrees.

Porthos chuckles, and Aramis smiles at him like a magnet has pulled him there, but the smile soon falls. "Your eye. I really should look at it now. Will you let me?”

Porthos takes another swig of wine. “Alright then I suppose,” he grunts. “If you must.”

Aramis fetches a cloth and dips it into a jug of water, crosses back and bends down as if to clean the wound, but Porthos hisses and Aramis leans backwards immediately.

”Here,” Aramis says, putting the damp cloth in Porthos’ hands. “Gently,” he advises, and watches as Porthos carefully scrubs at the blood around the left side of his face.

”Hmm. Well, it needs stitching I’m afraid,” Aramis says, peering at him. “I can do it. I’m quite good.”

”I can’t pay you.”

Aramis looks utterly stunned. “Why would you…”

”Nothing’s free,” Porthos says, firmly. “Nothing.”

”Well then,” Aramis says after a moment, “It’s a small price for me to pay. If you hadn’t come along I would likely be lying dead outside that tavern. Can you imagine the shame.” He shakes his head mournfully, “To be eternally connected with an establishment that serves such terrible wine. Athos would never let me live it down.”

Aramis crosses the room and busies himself pouring a jug of water into a low bowl set on a dresser. Porthos watches as the man carefully scrubs at his hands.

“What are you doing?”

Aramis looks up, shaking his hands of water and drying them with a clean cloth.

“Ah, there’s rather a lot being written about cleanliness when it comes to open wounds. It’s fascinating, actually.”

”You a big reading man then?” Porthos asks, and gesticulates at the books around the apartment as the Musketeer comes over to the table and lays out another bowl of water, more clean cloths and a little wad of canvas which he unrolls to show a set of small curved needles and a carefully stowed loop of catgut.

“Oh yes,” Aramis sighs happily, fetching a couple of candles to the table so that he’ll be able to see his work more clearly, “The bible, of course. History. Athos keeps trying to get me to read Aristotle but,” he makes a small moue of distaste, “There’s so little poetry to philosophy. And I love poetry. Especially when it is about love.”

He sits down and waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Porthos can’t help but laugh. “Poems about love, or the making of it?”

”There is no difference,” Aramis says, simply, pulling a needle from the case. “Love is a verb. And how about you? Do you read poetry? Please tell me you are not a philosopher.”

“Nah. I can’t read.” Porthos says it as levelly as he can and watches under his lowered lashes, but Aramis is busy attempting to thread his needle, eyes slitted and tongue poking from the corner of his mouth in concentration.

”Hmm,” the Musketeers says, and then, once the needle is threaded, “I could teach you, if you like?”

“What?” Porthos says, after a moment, and Aramis looks at him then and his eyes widen.

“I’ve offended you?” He asks, worried.

”No,” Porthos shakes his head, and feels his cheeks flush, “No. It’s…no…thank you. But no one teaches me anything. I teach myself.”

Aramis looks at him seriously then. “But that’s too sad,” he says, quietly. And then a smile splits his face and he declares, “So I will be the first! I do love being the first at things. Athos says it will be the death of me.”

“You keep mentionin’ this ‘Athos’. Wait,” Porthos frowns, “Isn’t that the name of a mountain?”

“You are very well-read for a man who cannot read,” Aramis grins, a curious light of admiration in his eyes. “Athos is another Musketeer. My friend. You’ll meet him soon, I’m sure.”

He drags his chair until he is sitting facing Porthos, quite close, and pushes his knees firmly between Porthos’ legs, forcing them to spread further. And then he fits himself between them, scooting closer still.

Porthos fights the urge to reel back, he is so unused to anyone being this near to him, not least a man.

And this man…this man is so strange. So incredibly unguarded, and so blissfully confident that his physicality is warranted, and welcomed.

Porthos watches as Aramis frowns up at the wound, assessing. “Hmm,” the Musketeer says, “Perhaps in return you could teach me how to headbutt like you did earlier. I believe I did more damage to myself than my opponent the last time I tried it.”

This close Porthos can see the slight, almost invisible bump on the other man’s nose.

”Broke your nose, yeah?”

”Yes,” Aramis sighs, “It was dreadful. To mar that which God hath given me.”

Porthos cannot help it, and surprises himself with his own deep and booming laugh. “Christ, you’re a one, aren’t you?”

”A what?” Aramis asks, grinning openly. “A poet? A hero? One of the great thinkers of our age? Now,” he swats at Porthos’ knee in admonishment. “Stop laughing, it crinkles your eyes. Face very still, please, or I might end up stitching shut something that really shouldn't be stitched shut.”

And then, he looks directly into Porthos’ eyes and says, “I am going to touch your face now, next to the wound, to hold the skin. Yes?”

Aramis is very serious, very steady, and Porthos swallows tightly. It is utterly jarring that this complete stranger could invite himself into Porthos’ space, to force his legs open and sit between them like a lover and then ask permission to put his hands on his face. But then, Porthos realises quite suddenly, if Aramis had not warned him of what he was going to do Porthos knows that he would have instinctively knocked the man’s hands away, or reeled backwards as he had earlier. He feels suddenly as though he isn’t wearing any clothes, like this man can see everything of him.

”I don’t usually let men so close to my face with anything pointed,” Porthos mutters gruffly, trying to break the moment.

“The large wound on your face speaks otherwise,” Aramis grins, then holds up the needle and his other hand, his eyebrows high in question.

Porthos nods once, mutely.

So Aramis puts out his hand towards his brow slowly and deliberately, as if Porthos were a frightened animal. His fingers are cool and firm against his skin, the stitching is a bright point of needled pain and the brief, raw drag of thread.

“It’s missed your eyelid, that’s good,” Aramis says quietly as he ties off and snips the thread just under Porthos’ eyebrow. “More here, I’m afraid,” he says apologetically, and lays his hand gently on the curve of Porthos’ cheek, begins to stitch where the wound continues down his face.

Porthos tries to hold his breath, or to somehow breathe downwards, because otherwise he would be blowing directly onto the man’s face. He is so close. His eyes are flecked with little bits of gold. So, intensely close. He smells like wine and incense and sweat, the high note of blood. All of Porthos is tight and held in, except for his stomach which feels slack and quivering with nerves.

It’s over quickly. Aramis pushes Porthos’ hand firmly away when he tries to run a finger across the stitches. “Ah,” he admonishes, “No touching until it is healed. I have a mirror over there if you want to see? But I can assure you it’s very prettily done.”

“Huh. Isn’t pride a sin, monsieur who reads the bible?”

“Not when it is warranted,” Aramis says, sitting back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction.

“Good evening,” comes a voice from the doorway. Porthos almost jumps from his chair - he must be tired, to not even notice someone entering the room. It’s the Musketeer who Aramis had been sat with at the beginning of the evening. He stands in the doorway, his eyes move slowly from Porthos - to Aramis, sat between his legs.

“Ah Athos!” Aramis says happily, turning in his chair. “You should have seen us!” He claps Porthos on the knee, “The odds against us! We fought on a rooftop! We jumped into a moving cart!” He sounds almost giddy.

Athos raises an eyebrow, languidly. “It sounds quite the evening. And is it done?”

Porthos looks to Aramis, confused, but the other man just claps his hand to his heart and looks wounded for a moment, “Could you doubt me so, Athos?” His hand creeps under his doublet and pulls out a small piece of folded paper, dog-eared and smudged. He gets to his feet, crosses the room and hands it to Athos, grinning.

”Hmm,” the other Musketeer says, both eyebrows raised now.

Porthos congratulates himself on being correct in his earlier assessment, since he’s absolutely sure that this Athos is a gentleman, now he can see him up close. He wonders if Aramis knows? He doesn’t seem to speak to or about him as though this man is nobility.

Athos unfolds the paper, eyes zipping back and forth before folding it carefully and placing it inside his own doublet. “Well done, Aramis,Treville will be pleased.”

Aramis beams.

Athos turns to Porthos then, his pale blue eyes curiously assessing. “Your name, Monsieur?”

”Porthos.”

“You’re hurt.”

“S‘nothing,” he shrugs.

”Well, it seems we owe you a debt of gratitude. Porthos. I hope that our paths may cross again in the future.”

Athos turns to leave, but pauses in the doorway and says “Though if Aramis already has you - jumping off rooftops, was it? - I’m afraid to say he may already have corrupted you.”

Aramis laughs, as bright as a ringing bell, and Porthos thinks for a moment that he might see a shadow of a smile cross Athos’ face before he leaves, closing the door with a soft click.

“So that’s Athos,” Porthos says.

“Yes,” Aramis smiles.

“What’s his story then?”

“I keep hoping I can get him drunk enough to tell me, but alas, his tolerance for wine is far superior to my own, so I’m usually unconscious by then.”

“You looked drunk tonight, but you weren’t,” Porthos observes.

“A fine excuse to throw oneself around,” Aramis says, investigating another bottle of wine on the dresser. While he is distracted Porthos takes the opportunity to surreptitiously push Aramis’ chair until it sits a little less obscenely close to his own.

“You look like the sort of man that doesn’t need an excuse,” he mutters.

“Ha! You are beginning to know me already!” Aramis sounds utterly delighted at the prospect. He waggles the bottle of wine in his hand and comes back to sit at the table with Porthos.

"Wait. It was one of those men you were sat with, who attacked you, that’s who had that…piece of paper on them?” Porthos realises

“Indeed,” Aramis nods. “Please don’t ask me to tell you what it is because I can’t and I’m actually not very good at lying.”

“You needed to get close to him," Porthos says, slowly, thinking it out, “So you pretended to be drunk, and sat with them. But…but it didn’t work.”

“Alas,” Aramis says.

"So you…you found the only other way to get close to him. My God…you picked his pocket while he beat you up? That's-"

"Clever?" Aramis supplies.

"Bloody stupid! Clever would have been getting away with it."

"But I did get away with it," Aramis grins, jubilant.

"And with only a dislocated shoulder and a couple of hundred bruises to show for it, eh?"

“Oh no. Some broken ribs too, I should think,” Aramis says, pressing tentatively at his chest with a frown. He stutters in a sharp breath. “Ah, yes, see?”

“And your eye,” he says, seriously, looking at Porthos, “It's not deep but I'm afraid it's going to scar."

Porthos shrugs.

"You don't care?"

"Where I'm from looking like a tough bastard has its merits."

"The Court of Miracles,” Aramis says.

"Obvious, is it?"

"You know, we could do with some tough bastards in the Musketeers,” Aramis says, thoughtfully, “If you fancied something...new.”

"Ha!" Porthos laughs, "They must be desperate if they'd accept the likes of me."

Aramis looks confused.

"A card cheat, a thief from the Court, and in case you hadn't noticed, I ain't exactly the whitest man in Paris."

"Why should that matter? They take all sorts, if you're good enough." Aramis says. He pours himself a large cup of wine, and tops up Porthos’ cup with the rest of the bottle.

"All sorts?” Porthos asks.

"All sorts. I myself was on my way to becoming an abbé, before I enlisted.”

Porthos can't help the boom of laughter, "You?! Jesus Christ, the church really must be taking all sorts these days too!"

“Oh, they’re not, which is why I didn’t last particularly long,” Aramis says with a crook of a smile, one Porthos notes does not go all the way to his eyes.

“Anyway,” Porthos says, looking into the blood-redness of his wine cup in the candle light. “Don’t you need a letter of recommendation for that sort of thing? It’s not just any regiment, is it? King’s own.”

“It is the finest regiment,” Aramis states firmly, “With the finest men. And I will write you a letter of recommendation.”

Porthos can’t help himself: his first instinct is disbelief, that a man he has only just met would offer kindness after kindness, speak to him and move about him with a familiarity like that of a lifelong friend. But quite quickly after this comes a shuttered cynicism: what does he want in return? Because they are not friends, and Aramis does not know him.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I am an excellent judge of character, we really do need more men, and” Aramis shrugs, grinning, “I really do want you to teach me how to headbutt properly.”

“No,” Porthos says, and gets to his feet suddenly. “You keep doing that - making it funny, playing the fool. Like I won’t look past it and ask why.”

Aramis gets to his feet too now, smile quickly fading. He looks lost. “I really don’t know what you mean,” he says, a slight plaintive note to his voice.

“No one gives anything for free. Not help, not friendship, not favours.”

“If you really believe that,” Aramis says, confused, “Then, why are you here?”

Porthos frowns. He’s angry now, he feels like he’s being tricked, like he’s being laughed at. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you helped me!” Aramis says, and then something dawns in his eyes and suddenly they become strangely shuttered. “Ah,” he says. He straightens his doublet, he flickers a not-quite smile. “I can take you to Treville. This mission, this evening, it really was of utmost importance. I’m sure he would agree to a small reward, perhaps a few pistoles.”

“I don’t want money!” Porthos thunders, slamming his fist down on the table.

Aramis watches the wine from Porthos’ overturned cup as it drips steadily onto the floor. For the first time this evening a look of wariness steels into his eyes. “Then what do you want,” he asks. His voice is very level, but Porthos isn’t blind: he can see the way the other man has put the table between them, the way his hand hangs deceptively relaxed next to where his pistol is tucked into his belt.

Porthos realises that Aramis may think he wants to take something from him that Aramis does not want to give. He thinks of being invited to this man’s apartments, thinks of him sitting so close, but understands suddenly that there is no guile in this man whatsoever: his easiness is not an invitation for anything more than he offers plainly.

Porthos feels, all of a sudden, completely lost.

He sits down heavily, glares at his spilt wine. “I don’t know what I want,” he says. But it’s a lie - he does know.

He wants an escape.

He wants his own apartments.

He wants a sword.

He wants to fight for something more than survival.

Simply put, Porthos wants more, of everything. Money food safety friendship possessions trust happiness love. Life.

Because Porthos loves living, the business of it, all the little things, and he cannot shake the feeling that the world is more beautiful than he has known it to be. And Porthos understands that if something does not change soon this love will turn into a bitterness and it won’t ever change back.

He’s a big man. He has a lot of room in him for this sort of thing: love, hate. It could go either way, really.

“You really think they’d have me? In the Musketeers?” He’s ashamed of how vulnerable his voice sounds, how young.

*

In the end they fall asleep at their cups, heads resting on the table, the wine long gone. They’d drunk the last bottle in silence while watching the candles guttering low, and at some point the uneasiness that hung low in the room had staled and drifted off somewhere, because it became clear that Aramis wasn’t going to do anything to Porthos and Porthos wasn’t going to do anything to Aramis, and neither felt like talking, and the wine was good, and they were both very tired.

In the cold light of morning Porthos wavers for a moment, but Aramis drags him upright, and it really is only a short walk to the Musketeer’s garrison. Aramis chatters away, which Porthos finds allows his misgivings no space to unfurl inside him so they sit instead as little balls of worry in his gut, which are far easier to ignore.

When they step through the garrison portico they are greeted with a wide open courtyard, which is busy despite the early hour. Aramis leads Porthos to a bench at the side and sits him down.

“I will speak to the captain.”

“Alright,” Porthos says, gruffly.

Aramis smiles and begins to walk up an open staircase to the side of the courtyard, that leads up to a walkway and numerous closed doors. But he stops half way and turns to look back at Porthos.

“Don’t leave,” he calls, and then quieter, “Please? Just…don’t.”

Porthos just nods, swallowing tightly, and is rewarded with a sunbeam-like grin from Aramis.

He sits for a while, watching the stable boys grooming the horses. A couple of Musketeers troop in, casting curiously glances his way as they chatter amongst themselves. Porthos feels the tremor in his muscles build until his knees are jiggling nervously. He tries to look disinterested, tries to look as if he has every right to be there.

A few Musketeers begin sparring with blades in the courtyard, and Porthos watches, trying not to scoff. They are very good, it’s undeniable, and against Red Guards or other Musketeers it would be a very pretty fight indeed. But with real people? On the streets? They’d mostly be dead in minutes. Porthos bites his tongue, pushes down the urge to call out all the ways that they are opening themselves to attack or missing opportunities to bring down their opponents.

As the minutes pass the effort not to interject builds until he is resolved to just get up and leave this ridiculous situation, when a voice interrupts his gathering fury.

“Monsieur Porthos.”

He turns to see Athos has entered the courtyard. The man nods at him, stately and remote.

“It is good to see you again,” Athos says, coolly. “Aramis is…?”

”With Treville,” Porthos says, nodding towards the stairs.

Athos looks at him a moment.

“You have something to say, about their form?” He nods over towards the sparring men.

Porthos shrugs. “Yeah actually. Lots.”

Athos lifts an eyebrow.

Alright then, Porthos thinks.

“That one keeps showing his next move,” He says, nodding towards the man nearest him. “Look, you can see it where he puts his feet - see - there? And the other one is too busy trying to look good.”

And then, for good measure, “I could take them both out in, two, three minutes tops.”

Athos raises both eyebrows then. “I’m rather inclined to believe you, Monsieur. Are you interested in doing so?”

“Think I’m stupid enough to pick a fight with the wasps inside their own nest?”

“Perhaps you will get the opportunity to teach them a thing or two some day,” Athos says, calmly.

Porthos sucks in a breath, not quite sure what to say, but they are interrupted by a sharp whistle from above. Porthos looks up to see Aramis, bending over the balustrade on the upper level.

“Porthos!” He calls, “Treville wants to see you.” His grin is wild and excited, before he buttons it up.

A small smile flickers in the corners of Athos’ mouth, so quickly put away that Porthos could almost have imagined it. “Hmm. Perhaps we will not have to wait too long.”

Porthos gets to his feet.

”It would prove eminently helpful for us all if Aramis had someone to keep him out of trouble. Good luck.” Athos claps him once on the back, and then wanders across the courtyard to speak to the other men.

“Porthos! Let’s not keep the Captain waiting, eh?” Aramis hisses from above. So Porthos turns, and clumps up the stairs to join him.

And then they are standing in a room that is half-office, half-armoury, before a man with greying hair and a serious face who wears a simple, unfussy leather doublet as though it were a metal breastplate. Porthos has never seen anyone more obviously a soldier in his life. He stiffens a little in response.

He is suddenly acutely aware of his patched and frayed doublet and shirt, the tightness of the swollen skin around the slash across his face. Porthos has never felt more like a criminal in his life, and it makes him angry, and the anger pushes him conversely to somewhere proud and confrontational.

“Captain Treville,” Aramis says, nodding at the older man. The respect is evident in his voice, the way it smooths and stills under the man’s gaze.

Porthos fights the scowl that wants to crease his face with annoyance. What the fuck is he doing here? What made him think this was anything remotely close to a good idea?

What the hell will Flea say?

“According to Athos and Aramis both, you were integral to the success of certain…activities last night,” Treville says, directly.

Porthos shrugs in answer. But this man is looking at him not like a thief and a low-life from the Court of Miracles. His gaze is unwavering, assessing, with the light of something like interest in his eyes.

Porthos immediately regrets his petulant shrug, and clears his throat and answers gruffly, “Yeah. So they say, Monsieur - I mean, Captain.”

“Those activities were paramount to the safety and security of the Crown, both within and without France,” Treville says, simply.

Porthos shifts on his feet. “Well,” he says. “Well, that’s good then, isn’t it? Yeah.”

“And Aramis tells me you’re interested in a change of…career.”

“Captain,” Aramis interjects, “I will write his letter of recommendation.”

The captain shuffles some papers on his desk and says, “Of course, another requirement of entry is proof that a candidate has the funds to support their service.”

Aramis scoffs, and then hides it beneath a small cough. “Captain,” he says, “There’s not a single Musketeer who has been able to do so yet.”

“Cremoux did.”

“Cremoux is a very creative liar.”

Treville assesses Aramis for a moment, and Porthos is just beginning to wonder if the captain is going to reprimand him before Treville turns back to him.

“Porthos. Do you want to become a Musketeer?”

“Yes,” Porthos says, simply, and is surprised because his voice is very steady and he knows in that moment that it’s true, that a door is opening before him and he would be a complete fool not to step through it.

And Porthos is many things.

But he is not a fool.