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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"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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