du_vallon | Dated early November

Dated early November

To say that Porthos is unhappy and in pain is an understatement. For a man who's had axes buried in his body, musket balls pulled out of him, and all other manner of injury (not to mention the knife to his eye and the tattoo), the fractured bones in his foot are proving to be one of the most painful things he's ever had to cope with. The hospice had set a cast on him and Aramis had procured him enough drugs, but there's a business to run and d'Artagnan's life shouldn't be made to revolve around him. Still, there's a reason the boys have to knock him out so often and it's because Porthos has a very bad habit of being an awful, awful patient.

Whining as he tries to adjust his foot, Porthos looks forlornly to the kitchen.

Aramis had left ten minutes ago, whispering something with Athos, but Porthos is already tired of sitting around while the cat mounts him like a playground. He casts his gaze around and shifts his weight onto his thighs, readying himself to stand on his feet and hobble to the kitchen for a drink. The pills that he'd taken surely will be fine, despite Aramis' constant proclamations that his liver will thank him if he doesn't.

Porthos nearly makes it to the kitchen, too, except that the cat darts out in front of him and to avoid jumping on the thing, Porthos smacks his broken foot against the table. The pained yowl he lets out is nearly inhuman, followed by a swift and steady line of curses as he falls back onto the chaise, groaning as he presses his temple to the fabric. He'd slept on this thing for months. How is it that it's so uncomfortable now?

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“I should let you lie there until Aramis returns,” Athos observes coolly, watching Porthos without much sympathy from the foot of the stairs that divides what is now his own set of rooms from those shared by the other two men. He’s weary and irritable after a poor night’s sleep (too many thoughts of self-loathing, of her, of lonely days stretching on forever), but when Aramis had asked him to look after their fellow, he could not refuse.

He disappears into the kitchen. “Aramis told me not to give you any wine, no matter how you pleaded."

Porthos gives Athos his very best pathetic and forlorn stare from where he's arranged on the chaise, doing his best to settle back into a vertical position. The drugs have made him feel very bendy and all his limbs are stretched a bit too much, to his mind. "Clearly, he's only teasing," Porthos tries his best, thinking that he might have to withhold wedding plans if Aramis continues on like this.

He shifts, wincing as he gets his foot propped up with a pillow, panting at the effort it takes. "Is that what the two of you were whispering on about? Restricting my alcohol? Honestly, why I like the man, I've no idea," he mutters.

But when Athos reappears, he carries two glasses. Aramis will be cross if he discovers it, but for all his airs, the man is not even a real physician. Surely, they would all be healthier in spirit and body if Porthos spent much of his convalescence in a daze of alcohol.

Finding Porthos still all akimbo, Athos sets down the wine and offers the man his hand for support, so that he might pull himself to rights. “He has been reading foolish things on the mixing of drink and opiates, or so I gather."

Porthos' eyes light up at the glass. Yes, he knows Aramis will be cross and will make that horrible face where he's disappointed in him, but Porthos hurts so badly and wants to make that go away. He takes hold of Athos' hand, a little longer than possibly necessary, but time blurs and hazes for him, and what he thinks to be two seconds is more likely ten. "He says they'll kill my liver," he says, but reaches for the wine once it's down, sipping it once and then thinking again of Aramis' face.

Which is when he scowls and sets the wine out of his reach, thumping back against the chaise with a pout. "And if I drink it, he'll find out and be cross," he mutters. "Maybe more pills, is all I need. Or you could help me to the kitchen?" he suggests hopefully. "I'm going out of my mind, Athos. Please."

“Have you got any liver left to kill?” Athos asks in a rhetorical sort of way, going to sit on the chair opposite with his wine, resting his elbows on his knees. He sips, and closes his eyes, and sighs quietly. If drinking this early in the day has become gauche, Athos certainly hasn’t noticed - or has decided not to care.

He sends Porthos a skeptical look. “You just fell trying to get to the kitchen. Stay where you are.”

"The cat ran out in front of me!" Porthos accuses wildly, his eyes flashing with dismay. "I can't stay sitting here, I'll go mad," he pleads, but he's a little breathless, the pills are making him flush and delayed in his reactions, and he's already bored. "Besides, sitting here just lets me obsess over the pain and it hurts, Athos, so badly," he whines.

Athos closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. You would think that a man who had lived the sort of rough life that Porthos had would have grown tougher skin somewhere along the way. But no: with each injury he earned, great, strong, brave Porthos found new complaints with which to drive them mad.

“This is why we knock you out."

As if reminded of that and wary, Porthos holds his jaw and stares warily at Athos, not wanting to be knocked out. With as many drugs as are in his system, he doesn't like the idea of the wicked dreams he might have. "If you're not going to allow me to my hobbies, the least you can do is entertain me," Porthos feels inclined to comment.

“Do I look like a player to you?” Athos slides Porthos a downright icy look. Perhaps if he ate something, he wouldn’t feel so irritable, but Athos has done his best to steer clear of the kitchen, and all its mysterious contraptions.

But it might do them both some good. “Have you eaten?”

As if to remark on Athos' point, his stomach growls heavily and he gives Athos a somewhat shamed look, lip slipping into a bit of a pouting state. "Not since this morning when I took my first of the drugs," he admits, not moved at all by that icy look. Athos has given him far worse over the years. "There should be some sandwiches in there, from two nights back,' he says, widening his eyes slightly.

"You could feed me and then keep me company by talking?"

It’s about as likely that Athos will burst into song as he is to keep up his end of a conversation, and he actually smiles faintly, as though at a joke, as he rises and passes Porthos on his way to the kitchen. He takes the sandwiches out of the cold box and piles them onto a plate, grabbing the open bottle of wine from the counter, and bringing the whole makeshift lunch back to the other room. “Move,” he says, sitting on the edge of the chaise and nudging Porthos’ unbroken leg.

Porthos mutters, but does as he's instructed, hissing as each movement seems to jostle the injured leg in a way he hadn't expected. It serves him right for tumbling over a balcony after a criminal, but he's gotten so used to thinking he's untouchable. He's not meant to fall apart this easily. "Aramis bolted, didn't he," Porthos notes darkly. "He knows I'm a moody patient." And the milder the wound, the more he has energy to complain.

“Take care,” Athos chides, offering Porthos a triangle of sandwich. “He did.” Aramis might have hidden his frustration under excuses about ‘work to do’ and ‘a business to run,’ but Athos had seen the way he bolted at the first opportunity. “You are. I am already regretting my promise to look after you.”

He may have been joking. Maybe.

"Better underline that part of the vows," Porthos grumbles, a scowl on his face for the notion that Aramis has left him. He knows that's not the case, knows there are duties and Athos can take care of him just as well as Aramis, but with his leg in so much pain and his mind hazy, it's hard for him to think about that. He rubs at his eyes, like a child, and reaches for the triangle in Athos' hands. "Thanks," he mumbles, eating the thing with both hands, like a squirrel might feed itself on a morsel of food.

"It's not my fault it hurts," he complains. "I've never broken my foot before, I didn't know it could hurt this badly."

Still unimpressed, Athos only shakes his head, leaning his elbows on his knees and sipping his wine. “Certainly not more than being shot,” he notes dryly. “Or stabbed. Or earning a good knock to the head.” He sends Porthos a leveled, skeptical look.

Porthos stares right back defiantly, lower lip jutting out. "I've been shot and stabbed and knocked out. I've never broken anything." He tries to adjust, so that he can prop his leg up, which he's been told by Aramis and the doctor he ought to do. In the process, he heaves out short breaths of effort, giving a pained cry before he manages. "You're not a very good nurse, you know," he says bluntly, the medicine giving him courage. "Aramis is much nicer."

Sometimes. When he hasn't got the idea in his mind that Porthos has injured himself on purpose.

Athos lifts a brow at Porthos, his expression saying more than any words could. Of course Aramis is nicer. Were the situation otherwise, Porthos would begin to worry for their health. Frankly, Aramis probably left Porthos in his care for that very reason. After a certain point, kindness towards an unruly patient becomes exhausting.

As though to make that very point, he shifts Porthos injured leg - efficiently and carefully, but perhaps not kindly - and adjusts the pillows underneath. “Never?” That’s rather surprising. Porthos has led the sort of life that make escaping a broken limb or two nearly miraculous. But then, some would say that the fact that the man is alive at all is a miracle of its own.

Athos reaches for his wine again. “I fell out of a tree once. As a child."

"I thought I was invincible, as a kid," he admits. "Bruised up a lot, but I got good at stealing very quickly," he says, his voice hushed and serious, helped by the drugs in his system making him somewhat more sober. "You don't get caught if you're good and I was the best." There's no pride in that, only regret. He lets out a small pained cry when Athos moves his leg, but is more curious when Athos gives something to him from his past.

From Athos, that's practically a confession. "Did you break anything?"

Perhaps it’s the natural intimacy of the sickroom, makeshift though it might be, that makes Athos open up this tiny crack about his childhood, or perhaps it is that everything he knows still feels turned on his head, even a near-month after his arrival in Darrow. One says many things that one wouldn’t otherwise when knocked off kilter.

“My arm. I was a much worse patient than you. Of course,” he offers Porthos a flicker of a smirk, “I was also seven years old."

"I can be extremely childlike, at times," Porthos replies, though he knows he's an awful pain to live with, and he knows that he's a bear when he's in pain and lashes out, howling and feeling beyond repair. "Who set it right?" he asks, his eyes drifting to Athos' arm and sliding up and down it.

“A very good surgeon,” Athos answers, a touch sheepishly. Moments like these, he cannot ignore the great gulf that exists between the life he has lived, and that of Porthos. “I was lucky.” Absently, as though only just remembering that he should eat, he picks up one of the sandwiches.

"I've got one of those now," Porthos says with a stupid grin that probably looks ten times more dopey and idiotic than he thinks it does, but the happy sigh on his lips is tempered with pain. He reaches out with his index finger and pokes at Athos' right elbow. Once, twice, then a third. "Does that hurt?"

Athos snorts, not even gifting Porthos with a look in reply. He sips his wine, and when Porthos still doesn’t stop, sharply slaps his hand away.

Porthos shifts his finger to Athos' heart, instead, a worried look on his face as he thinks about all the talks he and Aramis have had, guessing at why Athos is the way he is, but he pokes now, bolstered by the medicine. "What about here?" he asks seriously. "Bad surgeon to fix this one up?"

Athos thinks Porthos must have had far too many of this little pills that came in the orange bottles. Much of Aramis’ whispered instruction had been about those - how important it was that he take only so many only so often, no matter how the great oaf insisted. Perhaps, for all the caution, he had snuck a few more.

He looks down at the finger pressing into his chest, and then up into Porthos’ eyes; they’re closer, somehow, than he expects, and his stomach does a flip. “Would you not?"

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