du_vallon | (no subject)

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The whole situation has become more and more frightening, to Porthos. The year seems to be more modern than Porthos could have ever dreamt up, and now he's got some kind of quarters. The lucky thing is that they're above the ones Aramis apparently now owns, despite neither of them having paid for any of this. It's enough to do his head in and that's even before he thinks of all the strange folk he's met today.

After briefly inspecting his own small quarters and divesting of his outer layers, Porthos locks the door and wanders downstairs to Aramis', picking the lock with a few easy twists of his fingers, letting him in while his mind starts to hurt from the hangover and the ache of too many changes.

"'Mis," Porthos calls out as he wanders in. "Don't suppose your place comes equipped with a whole lot of wine, because I need a glass or two. Maybe the whole bottle." He collapses down onto the sofa and pries his boots off, without even bothering to ask if he's welcome. It's not as if he ever asked at the garrison and now's going to be no different. "Every day, in Paris, every day, I knew what to do. Here? Aramis, I don't know what's happening," he confesses, as scared as he's been since he set out on the streets with nothing and no one behind him.

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Porthos feels like snorting with faint bemusement, not bothering to point out that with Aramis here and Athos unaccounted for, the number of people who'd actively search for him are few and far between. Still, it's the kind of unpopularity he's used to living with, so he doesn't bother to say it aloud. He drinks more than he should, given how hungover he'd been only hours ago, but it seems like the thing to do.

"About the same, yeah," he agrees, gesturing upwards. "Upstairs, instead of down the way from you." It sends a chill down his spine, though, how it'd all been here waiting for them. He digs out the strange photo identification, while his mind's on it, and he throws the damn thing onto the table before him. "I'm going to burn it," he says. "I don't like it, Aramis," he says, blunt and plain. "It's not right," he says. "Like we're here to be catalogued and sorted."

"There is much not to like," Aramis agrees. It is dark inside, and has remained that way since he entered the place, not a candle to be found anywhere. Aramis peers across the semi-twilight at his friend.

"My strange little document held my entire name," he notes, an odd phenomenon, given that few know it. Drinking, he adds with a markedly casual air, "And my date of birth."

Porthos stares down at his own and he feels his jaw click as he sets it, working hard not to let anything show on his face. There's nothing of the sort on his. No birthdate, no full name, because he hasn't really got one, has he? He's got an adopted name and a random date of birth, but nothing official. So it's just a picture and a reminder of how little he knows about his own life.

He doesn't even know how old he is, not really. For all he knows, he could be a decade older than Aramis and look really good for his age. "Does that mean I ought to start introducing you as René?" he manages, prying the bottle from Aramis' hands to refill his cup before he remembers the twinge in his head from that morning, pushing the bottle back when he's got little more than a quarter cup.

"Only if you mean to introduce me as someone other than a Musketeer," replies Aramis, removing himself from his chair to produce another cup, this one as clean as the one that came before it.

He's already discovered the running water from the lever in the kitchen, and, having drunk from it once already, trusts that it won't harm Porthos. "Here," he says, handing Porthos the second cup. "Drink."

Porthos shoves the card with his picture on it under his gloves, not wanting to be reminded of how little he has and how quickly it can be summed up by a mysterious piece of paper waiting for them, as if it knew they were coming. He reaches both hands out for the cup, mumbling a brief 'thanks' before he nearly drains the thing dry in one go. "Suppose you should help me with my English," he admits, fidgeting and shifting, feeling all sorts of unnatural as the light continues to fade. "Seeing as that seems to be the language, here."

He scowls, knowing Aramis has seen him at his worst, and he shouldn't have to put on a face. "Nothing about this is right," he says. "We don't belong here, Aramis."

"No, we do not," Aramis agrees, and when he seats himself this time, it is next to Porthos on the chaise. "But we are fortunate enough to not belong here together. Suppose you had arrived here without me, hmm?"

Aramis, for all his teasing, wears a gentle smile in the fading light. "I will help you in whatever way I can. You know that."

Porthos doesn't have the energy to put on a show. The relief shows on his face when Aramis agrees to help him, because the truth is ... "I'd eventually figure it out," he says stubbornly, because he had before. He could do it again. Trouble is, he doesn't really want to. He'd fought so long and hard to reach the Musketeers that he doesn't want to lose it.

He takes a deep breath, taking the time to properly look at Aramis instead of focusing on himself, the concern in his eyes. "Are you okay?" It's hardly been a normal day and Porthos hadn't even had a chance to ask after Aramis, given all the people and all the commotion.

"You would," says Aramis with sincerity, for if Porthos is anything, it is resourceful. "And I am..." Aramis pauses, considering his words. He does not like to admit to weakness without cause, but neither does he care to lie to Porthos, and in moments of peril, he has always felt that candor is best.

"It is not the adventure I would have preferred," he says at length. "I am not accustomed to feeling lost, nor out of my depth. I find I do not care for it."

He spends too much time searching Aramis' face for something to show that he's lying, but it's getting too dark in here and though Porthos has gotten comfortable, he needs to strike up some sort of light. Bootless, he wanders over to the kitchen and starts yanking at drawers until he finds a set of matches and some small candles, striking them and setting them in the room, though they're small things.

"You're not out of your depth," he accuses, collapsing back onto the sofa beside Aramis, because he'd watched him charm his way into the good books of everyone they'd met. "We ran into at least a dozen people today and they're all half besotted with you. Already, they'd probably do anything for you. Don't see how that's out of your depth."

Though he is hardly one to refuse praises, Aramis finds himself shifting uncomfortably against the chaise. Still, he smiles. "Ah," he says, "I see you have taken my lessons at flattery to heart. But charm will not see us free of this mad place with its..."

Aramis looks around the room with a frown, one that deepens at it settles on their pitiful lights. "Tiny and ridiculous candles. Why have we not been provided with proper lanterns?"

"I probably would've been run out of town," Porthos elects to joke, even if he's only half-kidding. "I don't speak English half as well as I should and for all that you've tried to teach me, I can't carry charm anywhere near as easy as you," he remarks truthfully. He leans forward, weight of his forearms on his thighs before he pushes himself up, crawling over Aramis towards the front hall, where there are strange panels on the wall.

Out of curiosity driven, he presses it, only to be blinded by an unnatural shade of light that makes him wince enough to jam his fist against the panel again until they go away and only the miniature candles give him a sense of the room. Muttering profanities under his breath, Porthos decides he's had enough and goes for the bottle of wine, plucking it from Aramis forcibly and draining half of it back in one go.

Still stricken from the sudden burst of light where he sits, Aramis's numb fingers relinquish the bottle easily, but he soon snatches for it back.

"What do you mean by this?" he bursts, "To blind me and then drink all my wine in one go?" Curling the heel of one palm to his eyes, Aramis laments, "And when I was only just about to extol the virtues of your honest exuberance, the charm of sincere action and this! This is where it leads!"

Porthos practically dares Aramis to take the wine back with the snarl, but it does nothing and he's left bereft with Aramis' dramatic whining, which is usually only given to an audience and Porthos isn't like the rest. "Go on, be louder. I think you've woken all the neighbours," Porthos marvels, gaping at his best friend in the world. At this very moment, he's strongly considering knocking him out and taking joy in the solace of privacy. He bites his tongue so hard it could bleed, ignoring faint praises of his exuberance and sincerity.

Porthos' irritation with the whole thing has him digging out his flask with the little brandy he has left. "You think I understand any of this?" He gives another slew of profanities, these ones tempered with the dialect he'd picked up in the Court and aided on by Flea and Charon's creativity when it came to curses. "I don't," he says sharply. "Settle down or I'll settle you," he warns.

"Fine words to speak to a man in his own home," Aramis notes, though in quieter tones than the ones that came before, even if his scowl has lost none of its fervor. Truth be told, the last thing he wants Porthos to do is leave - the man's enormous presence is a comfort, even when used to menace him.

"Cover your eyes," he instructs, and marches towards that little panel, hat seized from its peg as he goes. Holding the brim cautiously near his eyes, Aramis extends a finger...and pokes. The same light as before bursts into being, and Aramis gives a shout, smacking it out of existence again.

"The work of four hundred years, no doubt," he says, breathless.

"It's your home now, is it?" Porthos challenges, raising his brow. Still, he does exactly as Aramis commands out of habit. He's taught his body to obey the commands of his fellow musketeers, so he raises his arm to cover his eyes through the flash of bright light and the ensuing darkness, peeking over the linen of his shirt when the light doesn't come back. "Four hundred years," Porthos echoes, the wine allowing him a brief spot of disbelieving laughter. "D'you believe that? We travelled in time and wound up in the future."

He wants to know how things have changed, but it's been a long day. He'll have time for exploring in the morning. "C'mere," he coaxes, patting the chaise beside him. "You'll give yourself a headache with all that shouting and flicking your finger at that thing."

Stretching his body out until his toes are tipped and his neck is elongated, he wiggles his hips to get comfortable. "Don't think I'm going anywhere tonight." Between the exhaustion and the drink, he can't imagine wandering up the hall, never mind up a flight of stairs.

Still a bit blinded, Aramis stumbles through the unfamiliar surroundings, though he's mostly recovered by the time he reaches Porthos. The other man is stretched out like a very large cat, and Aramis hides his smile in the darkness.

"Far be it from me to deny you your very great talent for falling asleep anywhere, at any time," he says. "But I think you will be more comfortable in the bed." Aramis peers down his own hall. "It's larger than any we ever had in the garrison."

"I was on your floor last night," he says. "Anything's bound to be an improvement." He knows he ought to get up and look, just the way he'd peered through his own apartments before the unsettled feeling of not belonging had faded in. He eases forwarded, moving his gloves for his ID card to slide it into one of his pockets, gloves settled over his knee. "I never did ask. What the hell were you doing half naked when I found you this morning?"

"I told you," replies Aramis, "I was fishing for our dinner." He eases one of the silly little candles forward, the better to see Porthos' face.

"It was an exciting day, even by our standards. The four us of were sent to guard the Queen while she bathed in the fertility waters. There was an assassination attempt, and we were forced to flee with her into the wilds."

Aramis did not look nearly as put out about this as he might have. "We had just come upon a moment quiet enough to think of supper when I found myself here."

Porthos has been on those little trips three times now, always in the same boring, peaceful place. At first, he'd got the job because he was unpopular, but then he found himself requesting it because it wasn't so bad. "Didn't exactly bring any fish with you, did you?" he teases, but it's barely a remark on the prowess of his abilities. "You already know when I come from," he points out, removing his feet from the table when the heat from the candle is just a lick too hot.

"Aramis," he murmurs, the thought bugging him enough to comment on it. "How come this place can know your name and still not know anything about me?" Part of him is fearful at the knowledge, but another part would welcome any kind of information.

Aramis doesn't like speaking of the town as if it had its own sentience, however much the other denizens of Darrow seem comfortable with it, but he must admit it's easier to speak that way.

"Perhaps," he ventures, "It only knows what we ourselves know. How it can read our minds and hearts, I do not like to think, but...that is the best explanation I've yet found."

"I suppose, then, barring my mother coming back from the grave, that information's lost to the world," Porthos mutters, resting back against the chaise with his head tipped to the side, the wine and the brandy beginning to mix to give him a relaxed feel down to his muscles, his body beginning to settle after the day they've had.

The other matter they've yet to deal with is fairly pressing. "So if there's no King, who does our duty lie to?"

Aramis casts his eyes away, reaching for his own little parcel from the train station, though he doesn't rifle through it again. He simply needs something with which to occupy his hands. "It is still the King," he says, with remarkable evenness, given his dread for this conversation.

"Our oaths have not changed, even if - " Aramis' mouth thins, body shifting as if it itself could bear the chafe of these truths. "Even if our duty has become impossible. We are Musketeers, cast from honour and into idleness."

They're meant to serve a King who isn't there, which means that Aramis is right. There's bound to be a great deal of idleness for them and Porthos has never coped well with not having anything to do. It always ends up that he gets too drunk or gambles too much or fights the wrong person. Duty keeps him honourable and busy. He closes his eyes, headache becoming a bit more pressing than before. "Almost feels like I brought this on us," he says, that guilt gnawing at a deep part of himself. "What with thinking I might leave the Musketeers."

"Porthos, please," says Aramis, his grim expression replaced with something lighter, for he does not care for the guilty rounding of Porthos' shoulders. He is much too large a man to make himself small.

"That smacks of self-importance. No, if we are being punished, it is due to equal sin. I longed for adventure, and here it is."

Eyes still closed, Porthos laughs in a deep rumble, bemused at what's happening. "I blame myself, you blame yourself. Well, if it's equal sin that brought us here, I'm not sure why it seems like we've been rewarded with money and places to live," he notes, shifting his weight from the chaise until his feet are on the ground and he's leaning his weight forward, stretching out his back. "It's not like this is very adventurous, now," he points out, gesturing to the small space around them and the silence. "Unless you long for calm and idleness."

He should get some rest. Maybe the day will look different once he's slept. Rubbing a hand over his face, he pushes his fingers into his hair, but can't coax himself to get up, despite the monstrous yawn he cracks.

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