du_vallon | (no subject)

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With the bribe of a nice dinner, Porthos had managed to get Aramis to come out appliance shopping with him, eager to find something for the house even though it's not going to be a while before they need to fill it with anything. Part of him is just pleased to poke around and see what they've got, admiring features he doesn't really need but sound wonderful to have. "Here," he says distractedly, but frowns when he hears Aramis' phone going off.

Athos wouldn't call them unless it's an emergency, but after their last few appointments at the agency (with lawyers and surrogates and contracts), he's been nervous every time he hears the phone ring. Stopping and freezing where he stands, gripping Aramis by the shoulder hard, his eyes widen in hope.

"Aramis, maybe it's...?" he trails off, not daring to truly believe.

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"I suppose information for the sake of information is nothing to frown at," Porthos says thoughtfully, admiring this anticipation now that he gets to wield it. "Though, I feel as if you've been an open book to me, now. I'm wondering what else there is that I don't know about."

"I can't imagine there's much," says Aramis with a laugh. He pulls himself atop the counter to sit, propped back on his arms so his sweater rides up again. "What do you wish to know about?"

Porthos gnaws on his lip thoughtfully, staring at Aramis. "I like hearing about the thoughts you had about me before we got together," he admits. "The jealousy and the pride and the others. Maybe you trade me your deepest, darkest fantasy secret about me and I'll tell you when I fell in love with you," he offers.

"My deepest, darkest fantasy," says Aramis, lifting both brows. "There are probably dozens vying for the spot." His eyes go unfocused for a moment, but then he cocks his head. "Each time I did something you or Athos found particularly reckless, I imagined you dressing me down for it. You know how you do," Aramis tells him.

"You loom, somehow looking bigger than you truly are. And you don't shout, you growl." Aramis sighs. "I love your growl. Sometimes," he admits, "You'd take me into the stables and you'd show me just how much you wanted me around. And sometimes," he adds with a grin, "If I'd been particularly bad, you'd put me over your knee."

Porthos lets a growl slip loose unbidden, mainly because he wants that. "We haven't managed to do that yet, not properly," he says, hungry for it because they keep talking about it and he loves the idea of doing it hard enough that Aramis won't be able to sit properly. He lets out a breathless laugh. "So your deepest fantasies is me yelling at you for being reckless? I did that all the time. Athos, more so."

"Growling," Aramis corrects. "It does something to me, all that power within you caged and raring to be released. And I did mention the stables," he says with a grin.

"How do you think you expressed your desire to have me around in there?"

Porthos laughs fondly and shakes his head. "Well, the next time you do something stupid, I'll yank down your trousers and take my hand to you," he promises. "Lash you with my fingers until you're so red that it makes Athos blush just to look at it." While he talks, he eases the casserole dish into the oven, washing his hands before he makes his way to stand in between Aramis' knees.

"My turn?"

"Until I weep," Aramis tells him with a shudder, "And then you fuck my tanned arse until I scream." He smiles sweetly through the filthy missive, wrapping his arms around Porthos' shoulders when he drifts near.

"Your turn."

"Well, that's a birthday present," he gets out, breathless as he leans into the touch. "You'll be happy to know that I did fall in love with you before I did Athos," he starts, feeling like he ought to give Aramis' ego a touch of that. "But it didn't happen in one moment. There were three, and by the third, I knew that I loved you. It didn't really occur to me that I could be in love with you. I just thought lust and love were separate things."

"The first," he says, "was when you took care of my eye so carefully when you stitched me up. Like you cared, rather than what some of them would've done with me."

"Your face when I first touched you with careful hands broke my heart," says Aramis, and even now his eyes sting with the tenderness that cuts at his heart. He kisses the scar that cuts across Porthos' eye and wonders how he can love that marred skin so much. "I could tell you hadn't been handled kindly much in your life."

"I hadn't experienced much affection before, no," he agrees, heart fluttering with the kiss that Aramis lays on him. He gives a soft sound, a whine of affection and need. "The second moment that I can look back on is when you picked me, out of all the other Musketeers, and you asked for me to be your partner on those early missions. It made me feel so proud and like I belonged."

"I terrorized Treville," Aramis remembers, laughing softly, scratching his fingers over Porthos' back. "Demanded that we be paired off until it was no longer a question when our orders came down. We were inseparable, even then."

"I'm so glad you did," Porthos replies. "Athos wasn't there yet and none of the others really wanted much to do with me, even if they gave me a bit of respect." He moans softly for the touch to his back, but he's got one more moment to tell Aramis. "And the very last was when we were on assignment with one of the lords. Lord Lapointe, I think? And he clearly didn't want me there. I still remember the way he looked at me with such disdain and hatred."

"And you refused to let him denigrate me like that. Said we'd both be gone if he couldn't behave." Exhaling a soft laugh, Porthos stares wondrously at Aramis. "You didn't just accept me for me, not just in private. You let people know I mattered."

"How could I not love you?"

"How could anyone not think you mattered?" Aramis asks with equal wonder, and he can't bear it anymore, drawing Porthos to him to kiss him deeply. "I think I loved you from the start, right from that very first fierce flash of your eyes," he says against Porthos' lips. "And if I did not, then I fell the first time you laughed, truly laughed, right from the bottom of your belly. I wonder that I can even see anyone else when you are in the room."

"You know why they didn't," is his muffled, quiet, sad reply as he leans into Aramis' touch and the kiss, still marvelling that he knows Aramis' silver tongue has been for other people, but now and always, it feels like the words have always been just for him. He rests his cheek on Aramis' shoulder, content to settle like that. "I can't believe it took me so long to figure out that I was in love with you, the way I was meant to be with a wife."

"It took time to believe that something that felt so right could also be so easy," Aramis tells him, folding Porthos into his arms. He holds him like the precious thing that he is, dropping a kiss to his curls. "It all worked out as it should, here," he says, dismissing the sad and lonely memories of his future at home. "We are almost a family."

Porthos smiles against Aramis' neck, tugging his sweater a little longer over his fingers, grateful that they have this. "Hopefully just a little over nine months," he agrees, voice hoarse. He wraps his arms around Aramis as tightly as he can and just holds onto him, refusing to let go.

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