du_vallon | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's only been a few days since they've escaped from the underworld they'd been trapped in and there are two things he's been doing since. One is making sure to obsessively watch over Aramis and Athos, and the second is that he's been basking in the sun as much as he can, indulging in the feel of it on his skin. Today, despite his project of assembling the pieces of a fancy crib he'd purchased at the flea market, he's opened the window to the fire escape and perches half-in, half-out, allowing the sun to shine on his face and make him feel right.

He leans inside to pick up the screwdriver and two slats of wood, bringing them outside as he begins to assemble them in the crisp air. He knows he's getting far, far ahead of himself here, but he also thinks it will be a treat for Aramis. Besides, if nothing else, they can keep the Captain in it until they actually need it.

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Aramis wishes he could say he felt easier after their romp - he had enjoyed it thoroughly, but thus far it has not been the balm that he knows Porthos was hoping for after the horrors of ashen Darrow. Aramis himself had faced no nightmares, not as the others had done, but losing Porthos, watching Athos suffer - these are nightmares in their own right, and his nerves feel raw as he lets himself into the apartment.

"I've returned," Aramis calls, putting away his coat as he frowns into the empty living room, but no. There's a bundle of wood in the corner, and the window is open, Porthos half in, half out of it.

"Cariño?"

Humming to himself and under his breath, he fixates past his sunglasses on the piece until it's assembled, setting it back in the other pile as he leans back inside, wild and tall hair brushing the window that's been kept up as he does. "I love when you call me that," he murmurs, basking in the little loving thrills because he's trying to be grateful about all of them, after nearly having lost a lot of them.

"Why are you half out the window?" asks Aramis with a bewildered chuckle. He pulls the scarf from his neck and lets it lie on the chaise as he passes by, drawing a short breath when he sees what Porthos has brought inside. "Is it too early for that?" he asks.

He knows there's a whole book of things that are meant to be bad luck, but he'd sort of thought that Aramis could really use this, especially when their little play session had ended so seriously. He sets the new piece aside and leans in for another two, tongue to the corner of his mouth as he waggles his brows and gets back to work. "The Captain can use it, until we need it," he insists.

"All the harder to keep the Captain out of it when it is occupied at last," says Aramis with a small, yearning sigh. He touches Porthos' shoulder and then his cheek, hissing at the chill on his skin. He returns to the coat closet and fetches one of Porthos' stocking caps, rolling it soundly over his curls.

Still, he understands why Porthos craves the sun and makes no further protest. "May I help?"

Porthos tugs the hat down onto his head a little tighter with a fond grin, tugging at Aramis' shirt to pull him in for a little bit of a longer kiss before he releases him, nodding as he gestures to the spindles. "You can start the frame," he advises. "And I don't see anything wrong with the Captain curling up with the babe. They'll make for fast friends."

"Eventually," says Aramis, "But I've read of this. If the cat sleeps too closely when the babe is young, some accidentally suffocate." He dismisses the grim thought, however, too full of them already, and goes to pull more wood from the case. "It all slots together," he says with some satisfaction, for he doesn't feel like drilling or hammering just now.

"Which bit are you working on?"

Porthos has to reach for one of the bands he's brought with him to tie his now long-enough hair into a small knot at the back of his hat to keep it from breezing into his eyes and against his neck. "The corner bits," he says, showing off the junctions as he wiggles one in the air. "And okay, so maybe the Captain has his own bed once the baby is here."

"I thought you might like a bit of hope," he says gently.

Aramis smiles faintly down at the framework in his hands, as much chagrin in his expression as genuine warmth for Porthos' thoughtfulness. "I am fine," he says, piecing two of the wooden slots together. "It is you I am worried for, and Athos."

"You shouldn't worry about me," Porthos replies matter-of-factly as he passes another corner back to Aramis, starting to work on the bottom frame to support the crib. "It's bruises. And sure, I'll have to come to grips with what Oliver did to me, but I will." It might take time, but he'll get there. "I'm more worried about you and Athos. You've been on edge since it happened and Athos...well, it's obvious why he's torn up."

Aramis shakes his head. Athos had scarcely spoken on his brother before that awful time in ashen Darrow. There are so many things that haunt him, and Aramis fears that he will never be able to free the man of his burdens.

"I am always on edge when it comes to your safety," he says. "And..." Aramis shakes his head, concentrating on slotting two more pieces together. "I do not like being confronted with the fact that I will not always be there to protect you. Either of you."

Porthos climbs inside and closes the window behind him, mainly because this conversation is not one that should be had where the neighbours can hear. He leans his forearms on his thighs and gives Aramis a long look, making sure he has his eye contact. "Love, I walked away from the fight without your help," he reminds him patiently. "Bruised and battered, but I got out of it."

"I know you want to be there, but you have to know that when you're not there, I'm fighting to get back to you," he vows.

Aramis' throat closes, and it is surely lack of sleep, but he feels his eyes burn for the thought of Porthos fighting to get back to him. "I know," he says roughly. "As I will always fight to meet you. I only wish I did not have to leave your side in the first place."

He places the pieces of wood down before he bends them. "We were meant to be safe here," he says in a rush. "Yet I have been removed from you twice, and each time one of us is grievously harmed."

Porthos crawls off the ledge of the window in order to crawl down onto the floor and get right into Aramis' arms, stroking his cheek with his hand as he takes the wood and puts it aside. "I'm no worse than I was at home after a fight. Certainly better off than the axe that went through my back," he points out.

"Barely any blood this time," he soothes.

"But I was not there," says Aramis, sounding almost petulant when he has Porthos in his arms, but it eats at him. "I have no power, no ability to protect you, when that is what I wish for more than anything." He clutches Porthos' hand, thumb dragging over the ring he'd placed there. "Long before I pledged it, I wanted to keep you safe."

Porthos pries off the cap as it grows warm, untangling his hair from the knot he's put it up in as he adjusts and smiles down at the ring on his finger and how Aramis soothes at it. "So let's stop being passive. We ought to be able to do something about it, shouldn't we? So why not try?"

"Of course we ought to," says Aramis, heaving a frustrated breath, "But that does not seem to matter. I already wake up every day and my first thoughts are of you, but you disappeared regardless, and no matter how I searched it was days before I found you, because this place did not let me. How are we to fight against that?"

"What if we asked Jim to help us? Could he put some sort of tracker in under our skin? Some way to always find the other?" He'd joked about it after Aramis had been kidnapped, but now he's beginning to honestly think that it's something he might not think is so awful an idea. He leans in for a slow kiss from Aramis' lips, cupping his cheek. "I looked for you down there, too, and couldn't find you."

Aramis shakes his head, and the fact that he can scarcely understand Jim's methods half the time only makes him more agitated. "Our phones did not work there," he says, "Why would these trackers? It did not even seem as if we were in the same place as Darrow, like the world itself had opened up to let us in, one at a time."

He rubs his cheek against Porthos' palm. "I suppose," he concedes, "For the basement, it would have helped."

Porthos works at Aramis' hand, staring down at it as he thinks about broaching the other topic. "It would have saved us days of searching to find you," he agrees, breathing in and out slowly. "I think we need to talk about writing wills, too, chou. Just in case of the worst case scenario."

Aramis gazes at Porthos in astonishment. "No," he says when he can find his voice. He cannot even begin to entertain Porthos leaving him for good. "To what end? Everything I have is yours as my husband. I know you will give Athos anything he desires, and that you will provide for our child whether - " He swallows tremulously. "Whether I get to meet her or not. What else is there?"

Porthos gives Aramis a stern look, because he knows that they need to address the issue somehow. "The shelter?" he points out. "Your friends? Aramis," he murmurs softly, curling into him. "I don't want to think about loss, but I need us to be ready."

"Darling," he murmurs. "You'll be there for our baby."

"If these last experiences have taught us anything, it is that no one can guarantee that," says Aramis with a touch of bitterness. "If you wish me to write a will, I will leave you everything. You will know what to do with it. Beyond that I cannot bear to think of it," he says, feeling ill.

Porthos bears in on Aramis and wraps his arms around the man, holding him as tightly as he can as he bears him down into the ground next to the crib, an embrace so tight that Aramis would have trouble breaking out of it. "I want us to be prepared. I got scared, thinking that if you and Athos left...well, then I couldn't pay for the house and I'd end up back on the street."

"Porthos," says Aramis, nudging his nose with his own when he can scarcely move to do more. "That could not happen here. It would be as it was at the start, with a stipend arriving each month in your bank account. At the worst, you could keep this place. You don't have to fear going back to the streets. Even if that stipend were not there, you are no longer a helpless child. You have always made your way in the world."