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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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?"

Porthos shakes his head, poking once more at the heart that must be resting underneath all that pain. Porthos exhales and slumps forward a bit before he catches himself, dragging himself up slightly to try and stay vertical. "We're supposed to be Inseparable," he says, forlorn as he thinks about it. "But Aramis and I don't know whole parts of you and you hate us, now, because you think we'd abandon you, but there's a space for you, Athos," Porthos argues earnestly. "Why don't you see it? See us?"

“I see you plenty.” The words have more ice in them than Athos, perhaps, intends. He has always held himself apart from his friends, even in Paris, even in their closest moments. They hate it, he knows that, but there are some things he has trouble finding the words for. Now, though, for all the time they have spent together, the hunts they have gone on, the drinks they have shared, the gulf still stretches wide in a different sort of way.

Softer, he says, “I do not hate you. I could never.” He reaches for more wine.

"It seems like you do," Porthos says brazenly, as if he can speak the truth now. He stares at the wine, wishing for it, and finally decides that what Aramis doesn't know can't hurt him. He leans forward to stretch for it, muscles quivering before he gets his hands properly on it. "It doesn't feel like you're our friend, sometimes. I know things are different, I know, but...Athos, make me understand?" It's a plea, if anything, and he drains his wine in a single gulp to steady himself for this.

“Then perhaps you don’t know me even as well as you think you do,” Athos says, suddenly harsh, suddenly angry. He’s too tired, the world is too sharp, and how dare Porthos drag into the open all the pain he has struggled with each day to bury deeper. He drained his glass and poured more wine. “Understand what? We are trapped in a hellhole. There is nothing more to it."

Porthos can't move, can't leave, and is wanting to talk about this. "Hellhole," he echoes. "Hellhole? You're in our company, well-fed, well-appointed for, and for what? Because it's not Paris? Because you're not allowed to sulk alone? Athos, why is this place so bad?"

Athos tightens his jaw and curls his fingers around his cup, summing every bit of strength to stop himself from hurling it to pieces against the wall. “Well fed and well appointed to what purpose?” he asks with quiet sharpness. He would expect Porthos to at least understand that, though his own pain goes deeper. He hasn’t met many men who quite understand the constant work it takes to keep the darkness at bay. Athos must have work, he must have purpose. Without it, what is he?

Deep in his heart, where he dares not linger, he fears that here, he might find out.

Porthos longs to snatch the cup from Athos' hands, but his mobility is restricted. His blood is boiling, even with the lethargy of the mind and he's decided that's it. He's had enough. He's tried to be patient, tried to bring Athos into their work and lives, tried to do everything he could and still, it isn't enough. Porthos really hates not being enough. "Don't you understand?" he spits out, eyes hot with moisture from exhaustion, anger, and pain. "We know our oath to France and King is temporarily on hold because we're trapped here by some volition of a city. We know it's not our choice, Athos. Just as I know, deep down, but don't want to admit that one day it might bring me back and I would return to that life unhappily, but willingly."

"We've done everything we can to make a duty for ourselves to keep busy. There are days when I barely can move for all the duty I'm upholding between friends, civilians, the night job, and the day one." Porthos forces himself onto his feet to try and escape, but it's no use. With a cry of pain, he falls back down again, but he musters up his strength to do so again, stubborn to get away before he can say more. "You're fighting us, Athos, every step and we don't know why. We love you," he growls. "And you could have purpose here, but you're so damned stubborn that you ignore it," he snaps, muttering swift profanities learned in the Court under his breath. "You picky son of a bitch," he rails.

"Though, why should I be surprised," he scoffs. "You nearly let me die to hide your past." It had been a thing in his outer vision, but Porthos had seen, had heard that conversation between Aramis and Athos. "Why wouldn't you stubbornly ignore opportunity when you could drink yourself into a osti de calice de pourris gutter hole?"

“Sit down!” Athos barks the words with every ounce of command within him, and almost immediately deflates. Setting down his wineglass upon the floor, he clasps his hands together, as though that might somehow hide the way he trembles. It’s Porthos’ indictment of his actions at La Fere that has finally cracked through that carefully crafted stoicism. Athos has committed his share of shameful acts, but that day ranks high, when he allowed himself to waver for the sake of his own vanity, and risked Porthos’ life in the process.

With jealousy as well as hurt, he wonders how Porthos and Aramis have done it, so easily turned a corner to a new life, where none of the rules to which they were born apply. They are both better men than he, and surely that has something to do with it. Athos detests himself for the selfish gnawing in his stomach that makes him wish his dearest friends had not changed so much. At first, yes, he had turned that pain onto them in anger, but once he saw their contentment and their warmth in this new life, he could do so no longer, could only sit with the selfish disappointment inside himself, and do his best to bury it.

“I am sorry,” Athos says, quiet again, and halting, “that I cannot be the man you wish me to be. And that you surely deserve.” He looks at Porthos and manages to hold his gaze for a moment, eyes full of pain.

Then he is pushing himself up from the chaise. “Don’t get up. You can holler if you need me.” Taking the half-drunk bottle, he heads for the stair.

Porthos collapses back onto his arse, but it's not his intent. He's still glaring at Athos, still hurt, still not understanding because they don't want him to be anyone except Athos, but they want him to be happy. Surely those two things don't exist outside of the other. "I don't want you to leave," he argues heatedly, when Athos makes it to the stairs. "I want your company, I just don't want you to sit around moping because...because you think you lack duty when you're just stubborn thinking you need pain to have purpose," he says pointedly. "Come here," he orders himself, grim and firm.

"And I'm going to tell you about the first two months here, for Aramis and I, so you can get it out of your head that we reached this point instantly."

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