du_vallon | (no subject)

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Porthos had seen a glimmer of a familiar face in the crowds when he'd slipped through into the other city. It's not like he's truly familiar, but he knows that he'd seen him around Paris, which means that he knows that this man is someone he ought to know. More than that, he also knows he's one of the prettiest things he's ever seen and when he overhears him speaking French, he knows that he has to have him.

Waiting until he's distracted, Porthos yanks a blindfold over his eyes after he empties his pockets, hauling him over his shoulder and ignoring the kicking and protests.

Only when he's back through the seam and into the alleyways where he holds Court does he let him go, telling the few guards he trusts to leave them be in his maze of comfortable rooms, tying the man (the priest, isn't it, that's where he must have seen him) to a chair before he yanks off the blindfold, pouring wine in the corner of the room.

"What's a priest like you doing in a place like this?" he drawls, like he hasn't just kidnapped him here.

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Aramis ought to have known better than to wander too far from Porthos in a strange new city, but it was all so exciting, and he simply hadn't been able to help himself. He'd only just ducked into one of the street stalls selling wares when something slips over his eyes. He's only a moment's physical protest and then large hands lift him up and over a shoulder. Aramis struggles hard, but it isn't long before he realizes he knows this shoulder.

His eyebrows lift. It's rather industrious of Porthos to want to roleplay as soon as they've entered a new town, but Aramis is game. Aramis is always game. So he dangles there, marveling when it seems that Porthos has already secured rooms and people to play a part in this charade.

He is taken somewhere on a winding path and tied to a chair, and finally the blindfold is removed, showing him the breadth of Porthos' back. "You're normally kinder to my bad knee," Aramis mutters, but he does his best to slip right into character. "A priest, am I?"

Aramis shrugs despite his bonds. "There are souls in any place in want of saving, aren't there?"

Porthos raises his brow at the sudden flirtatious manner that this man seems eager to jump right into. His brow lifts higher and he wonders what the muttering is about, not to mention how collected he seems about the whole kidnapping thing. It's not really normal, is it? "You're not gonna find any of 'em here," he points out, his voice coarse and accent rough from years in the Court. "My people, they don't really need saving so much as they do the liberating."

"Coins," he says, smirking. "We set 'em free."

He's doing something marvelous with his voice, a rough and guttural take on what's already nearly a growl, and Aramis resists a shiver. "Ah," he says. "I hadn't realized I wandered into a den of cutpurses. You're their leader, are you?"

Aramis gazes at him. He's taken the time to slick his curls, giving them the effect of being shorter, and something about his face seems off, but that's likely just the dimness of his corner. "I believe you've already relieved me of mine. What else are you after?"

Porthos leans back against the armoire, dismissing the other men so they can be alone. When they're truly gone, he locks the door and wanders closer, giving the man a curious look. "You talk like you're plenty familiar with me," he says, having noticed this. "And yeah, I've got your purse. I took you because you're a pretty man and in a place like this, that'll get you in trouble."

Aramis resists another shrug. A priest would have a bit more decorum, he thinks, even if he knows he'd never have become a perfectly obedient one. "You seem to be doing alright for yourself," he notes, for Porthos has no trouble at all wandering this area with that handsome face of is.

It looks smoother, he realizes. That's the difference. The beard is still there, but the scar over his eye - how has he managed that? Aramis stares at him curiously.

"I run this part of town," is Porthos' reply, getting close enough to grasp him by the chin, lifting it up so he can twist it and turn it side to side, assessing whether he is the man he's seen. "It's been years, now, but I swear I know your face. You do the mass for the Queen, don't you? Back in Paris. 1630? When on earth did you get here?"

Aramis doesn't answer right away, his breath caught as Porthos' seizes his chin and examines him. This close, the scar is entirely smoothed over - Aramis can scarcely remember a time when it hadn't been there, but now it's gone. He feels a trickle of unease down his spine.

"Moments ago," he finally says. "An hour at most." Aramis tests the ropes that secure him to his chair and finds them surprisingly sound. Porthos usually can't stomach that. "Even a Queen needs a priest," he answers, distantly aware that he's begun to buy time. Something isn't right here, and Aramis would like keep things peaceable if he can. "You were in Paris, too? At the garrison?"

Porthos snorts at the obvious joke, because the only reason he could see himself at the garrison would be if suddenly the entire regiment had left and he needed to go thieve something they had in their possession that was better suited in someone else's hands. "The Court," is his reply, raising his brow dubiously at the idea that he'd ever be near the garrison.

He slides in and runs his fingers very slowly down the man's arm as he gets to the knots. "You're too pretty to be a priest, I think," he assesses.

"You're not the first to say so," says Aramis, mind racing. Porthos easily could have lived his life in the Court if not for Treville and his own driving desire to do more. It's so easily possible that Aramis sense of unease grows. "I admit, it's not been an easy path to holiness."

His breath trips for the drag of Porthos' fingers against his arm. "What shall I call you?"

"Porthos," is his reply, because the last name is a useless thing he's picked up just to sound fancy, but Porthos suits him well, he knows. After all, it's one of the few things he does have left from his mother. He lets his fingers slide to the ropes. "And you? What's your name, pretty?"

He starts to work the ropes loose, thinking that he's not bound to catch a fist to the eye. And maybe he's just looking for trouble by letting him a bit loose.

"Aramis," he answers, with a wild thought that he might really be telling Porthos his name for the first time. Porthos is still close, undoing the bonds on his arms, and Aramis keeps studying him. There's another mark missing from his cheek, his ear pierced in a slightly different way. Aramis' heart begins to pound.

It's some new madness of this city. It must be. It's changed Porthos somehow, just as it had changed him into a woman. Aramis' mind races - perhaps it will be safest if he continues to play along. "Is there something I can do for you, Porthos? You seem to have a flock here. So do I, in the church. Perhaps we can help each other."

"I took you because you're a very pretty man and you look like you come from my home. And, you speak my tongue. Which makes you, me, and the fussy priss who's very keen on name-calling," Porthos grunts, not wanting to think of Athos right now after their last poor encounter. "Right now, admittedly, I sort of just want to keep you."

"And if I get to debauch a priest today, more's the benefit for me."

"The fussy priss," says Aramis. Something in his brain is firing, making connections he'd never have made if his adrenaline weren't quite so high, but when Porthos says that all he can think of is the boy Athos had been for a few weeks.

"I do belong to someone," he says, quieting the hammer of his heart. If this were a game, he'd love nothing more than for Porthos to debauch him, but he's increasingly sure this isn't one. "And my God is a jealous one. Forgive me, were you speaking of Athos, the Comte de la Fere?"

What a shame, if he's saying that he's belonging to God and not to Porthos, possibly. When Aramis talks about the other man, he raises a brow. "It's de la Fère, yes," he agrees, trying to understand how the two of them know each other. Something more dangerous crosses Porthos' face suddenly. "Do you share his ideals and thoughts, too?"

He wonders if this pretty face is about to turn on him, start calling him a mongrel, too.

Aramis must be mad, because the instant Porthos' face darkens, his instinct is to soothe, not hide. "I don't know him well enough to say," he says. This man doesn't appear to be friends with Athos then, and certainly not brothers. Aramis' head spins. This is all so very strange, and even now, so close to a man he thinks he knows so well, Aramis can't decide if the game is theirs, or Darrow's.

"Porthos," he says. "Break for a moment, please." Aramis takes a breath. "This game is getting to me. What is our daughter's name?"

"What're you playing at?" is his reply, wary and unsure as to what Aramis might be hinting at. "I've never met you before today." Daughter? "Aren't you a priest? Don't think priests are supposed to be going out and having kids. Pretty sure your God would find that fairly sinful."

"Porthos," says Aramis, a touch of an edge in his voice now, "Stop this." Porthos is always the first to break character, it makes no sense that he'd be the one committed to the act. "I don't want to play right now. Tell me our daughter's name before I become truly alarmed."

"I really don't know what you're talking about," growls Porthos as he tightens his grip on Aramis' wrists and gives him a warning look. He doesn't appreciated being spoken to like he's losing his mind and right now, it's got that feeling to it. "You tryin' to pull one over on me? Make me feel stupid?"

Porthos' grip tightens to the point of pain, and Aramis feels the blood drain from his face. It isn't an act. Darrow has done something to Porthos, or replaced him, and who's to say that Aramis is the only one this false Porthos has seen fit to kidnap?

"Where is he?" he growls back, arms jerking hard beneath Porthos' grasp. "Where is my Porthos, did you take him, too? If you've hurt him I swear I'll take your Court down brick by brick."

Porthos only tightens his grasp on Aramis, hand slipping up to his neck so he can squeeze out the words that trickle out if he has to, a warning look in his eyes. He won't kill him, but Aramis doesn't need to know that. "I'm the only Porthos here," he promises. "I can vouch for that and get my men, if you want a second opinion. You're in my city, pretty."

Aramis trembles with rage, though that is soon overtaken by an almost dizzying familiarity. He forcibly reminds himself that this is not his Porthos. He doesn't know him, he can't predict him, no matter how well he knows his own. Still, Aramis lifts his chin above the press of Porthos' hand and meets his eyes.

"You're wrong," he says. He doesn't want to endanger his own Porthos by sending this one out to find him, but there's no way that Porthos will leave this new city without him. "He'll come for me and you'll wish he hadn't. My Porthos has been a soldier for ten years, and he can take the lot of you."

Porthos wonders if there really is a second version of him somewhere around. He can't believe that there's any him that could possibly have been a soldier for ten years, though, and he relents to let Aramis speak, lets him have his throat back. "Or he never finds you and I get to keep you forever. Soldiers can't fight back against a knife in their side, then there'll only be one of us."

"You don't know him." Aramis fights down the nauseating rush of fear that this man might try, might actually cut down the better, beloved version of himself. "And I might not know you, but I can't believe that any Porthos would rob a stranger of someone he loves. You wouldn't take my husband from me just to do it. And you wouldn't orphan our child."

Porthos relents completely when the man starts talking of husbands, because that really, really means that he's definitely not a priest. "Husband," he echoes, going a touch pale as he thinks of a version of himself that could possibly be all of those things instead of just wanting them quietly and to no success.

He's not a murderer, but Aramis doesn't need to know that. "You married him?"

That's struck a nerve, and Aramis presses his advantage, eager to reach the part of this Porthos he knows must still be good. "Of course I married him," he says. "I'm not mad enough to let a man as magnificent as that slip through my fingers. He's gorgeous and kind and his heart is larger than any I've ever known." Aramis is surprised to find his eyes are hot, but it's been an age since he had to defend his own Porthos. "He's my entire world."