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When Aramis had left for church, Porthos figured he had about an hour or so of good time to really prepare things. He'd barely noticed Aramis go, at first, his nose stuck in a book about cooking and how to prepare things with knives and new skills. He's good with a knife and a sword, so Porthos imagines he can do all the fancy things the pictures are telling him to do. He calls over to Aramis, asking if he's hungry, and that's when he remembers he's alone and Aramis is off praying to God for guidance or forgiveness or whatever it is you pray for.

So he figures he's got some time and he's starved, so it's best to get on with dinner. Porthos doesn't bother with a jacket over his linen shirt and his trousers, figuring it warm enough to walk. He heads straight for the market and buys potatoes and duck, two fine red wines, and when his coin's exhausted, he heads back to Aramis' apartment, which he's quickly thinking of as his own.

He's not entirely sure he plans to take his own place. Living with Aramis is like they haven't left the garrison and he's grateful for that familiarity. He's not sure what losing it would do.

Recipe book open, Porthos follows the steps and finds it's not so bad, making the duck. He cuts potatoes and puts them all around the thing, which is salted, peppered, and dried, before shoved into the oven that works off the electricity that Aramis hates so much. Almost forgetting, Porthos heads for the lights, using candles instead. Even if he's got dimmers installed, Aramis still seems to prefer candlelight the old way and the less fussing he has to put up with, the better. He busies himself in washing up, shirtsleeves pushed to his arms, as the smell of roast duck and potatoes begins to fill the apartment.

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If Porthos doesn't notice Aramis leave, he doesn't seem to mark his return, either. Aramis enters the apartment quietly, knees twin aches from kneeling and heart a sore thing in his chest, but at the smell that greets him, Aramis returns to life.

He removes his coat, intent on demanding when that heavenly smell will reach the table, but stops short at the sight of Porthos bent over the sink. With his sleeves rolled up, his hands seeming all the larger for the delicate dishes between them, the picture Porthos makes is curiously endearing. Aramis smiles, rubbing a hand over a heart that's gone sore again, and clears his throat.

"You've been busy."

Porthos is beginning to think that he's off his game, given that he hadn't heard Aramis come or go. Maybe he ought to start paying more attention to that sort of thing, or else he's liable to be caught off guard when it really matters. Porthos lets his brows raise playfully, nudging a glass of wine towards Aramis. "I was starved, you were gone," he says. "Sit," he orders. "I'll have it out in five minutes, otherwise we'll be choking down coal."

"If you mean to keep me from Church at all hours, this is hardly the way to discourage me." Aramis takes the glass, lingering at Porthos' shoulder for the first few sips, upon which he raises his eyebrows. "This is very fine."

Porthos has no idea what Aramis finds in church. It's a building, far as he knows, and it's empty. Any God he might have believed in vanished long ago, when Porthos was left to fend for himself in a cruel city at the age of five. He can't really understand a God who'd let that happen, so he doesn't see the point of church. "I've got two bottles," he says, pouring himself a glass before he fetches the oven gloves, bending over to pull out the duck carefully, setting the sizzling carcass and potatoes atop the stove.

"I let the man at the store pick it out for me, he says it's vintage something or other. All I care is that it's wine," he says, turning towards Aramis and opening a hand. "Hand me the knife, would you?"

"A vintage wine, for two vintage Frenchmen," Aramis muses and hands over the knife, wondering at it as he does. "Did we own this before?" he asks, for he certainly hasn't seen it, let alone used it to prepare a meal.

"It's from upstairs," Porthos says, picking up the bird and slicing the string loose so the juices soak into the potatoes. He talks while he works, absently paying no mind to what he's saying. "Figured I might as well just start moving my things in down here, seeing as they don't really get much use up there."

He sucks the juice from off his thumb when it splatters there, easily flipping the knife to stab it in the bird's meat before he leans back. "Hand me your plate, I'll get dinner going for you."

Aramis hands him the plate in silence, quietly marveling at the bird. It's a far cry from anything they ate at the garrison, more fit for the table of a king than a lowly Musketeer. It feels almost dangerous to indulge in it, which only serves to make Aramis all the more hungry.

"And where is your glass, my friend?" he asks, picking up the wine.

Porthos weighs the plate down with dark and white meat both, adding juice and potatoes until he feels it's a meal fit for at least three men. Only when it's obscene does he hand it to Aramis with a devilish grin. "Do you want me to serve you dinner or do you want me to drink?" he asks, a teasing lilt in his voice. "Make up your mind, or I'll drink until I can't carve a thing."

"Be useful, pour me some," he instructs, turning to make himself his own plate.

Aramis sets the heaped plate on the table, half an eye on the legs lest they buckle under the weight of it. "Porthos," he observes, "This isn't dinner, it's a feast." And he wonders what it will do to the stomachs of two men used to bread and dried meat, but he'll not complain.

Porthos grew up without even that - if he wishes to indulge himself, Aramis is happy to let him. He pours the wine, handing it to Porthos when he's made a mountainous plate of his own.

He gives his thanks with little more than a small sound, setting the plate down on the table before he moves some of the candles over, keeping the light focus on where they are before he stretches back to grasp the wine, staring at the plate before him and the company, and he can't hold back his grateful smile, stupidly happy with his lot in life.

"So," he asks, around a mouthful of duck. "Did you find something in that church of yours? Did God answer you this time?"

Aramis murmurs his Grace with speed, still crossing himself when Porthos tucks in to his food. "No," he admits, for he'd prayed for peace and found none, at least, not at chapel. He feels peaceful now, though, and the thought makes him smile.

"But our God is as mysterious as He is wise. Perhaps He knew what He was doing, sending me home in time for supper."

Porthos kicks at Aramis' foot lightly with his own, poking his fork at him. "Don't think you'll get this sort of meal every time you stagger back from church," he says, seeing as he might not mind the cooking, but the bird had been a pricy thing. He goes for his wine in between words, letting the warmth settle in his stomach.

The candlelight keeps him warm and Porthos finds himself growing accustomed to this life. "When I went out for this, no one stared at me. No one. No one curses at me or calls me anything and they don't care what I look like," he says, unsure why he's telling Aramis except maybe he needs to say it to accept it as truth. "Aramis, I could get used to this."

"I had noticed that as well." Between Athos' efforts and Aramis' own, the garrison had largely accepted Porthos as a brother, but even a blue cloak could not protect Porthos from the prejudices of Paris at large. Aramis had grown so accustomed to keeping an eye out for trouble, it had been a shock to realize how little Porthos attracted in Darrow.

And as much as Aramis longs for home, he can't begrudge Porthos for having found a better life here. "I am happy for you, Porthos, truly. It should not have taken centuries for mankind to find sense."

Porthos keeps his attention on the food, breaking bread to dip it in the fat of the duck, knowing his stomach will ache for this tomorrow like it had as a child when he had a meal after not having much for weeks. It's worth it, though, every single bite. "I still don't know that I wouldn't trade it all to go back to serving Treville," he admits, which is the hard part. That's the part that makes him sick.

He's willing to go back to being looked at like the mud under someone's shoe, just for his duty. "You thought anymore about turning upstairs into a place of business?"

"Of course you don't," says Aramis. "You are an honorable man, Porthos. If you could, I believe you would fulfill your oath no matter the cost to you."

Cutting himself another, more modestly sized bite of duck, Aramis looks upward. "It may as well see some use," he says, eying Porthos across the table. "Are you moving into these rooms for good, then?"

Porthos shrugs, not seeing why he shouldn't. "Unless you've got a good reason to want me out," he offers, giving Aramis the chance to keep his privacy. "But there's something I was thinking about. They've got all these people who work on buildings and I was asking one if it was possible and it is. We could always join the two with some stairs. Make a hole in floor and ceiling," he says.

"Not that I'd move back up there, but it'd be an easy way if we made it into a workplace. Get from one place to the other easily."

Aramis doesn't even consider a need for privacy. If he takes a woman to bed, it is always elsewhere, and he knows he'll not grow tired of Porthos. If they haven't exhausted one another's company by now, they never will.

"Make a set of stairs between them," he muses, picturing it. "If it can be done, why not?" Aramis looks suddenly down at his food. "Was this the plan?" he asks with a growing smile. "Ply me with food and drink and knock a hole in my ceiling?"

"Are you not drunk enough yet?" Porthos asks joyfully, tipping the bottle of wine so that it fills Aramis' cup more fully. "Should I ask you again when your cheeks are flushed and your words slurred?" Because he can, even if he doesn't know if he sees a need. He's grinning madly, pleased that Aramis seems not to mind the idea.

"Maybe we can find me a bed, though," he does say. "Or a bigger chaise."

"Porthos, please," says Aramis around a long gulp of wine, grinning back at Porthos to see him so happy, "We both of us know I could drink you under this very table."

"Maybe you are drunker than I thought, because you're not speaking sense," Porthos accuses, lining up the bottles of wine seeing as that's a challenge as far as he's concerned. "Neither of us is Athos, sure, but I've got a stronger constitution than you for this stuff."

Perhaps he is drunk, but Aramis will hardly admit to his own lack of sense. "You are stronger certainly...here - " he says, waving a hand at Porthos' bulk on the other side of the table, "But I have a stronger stomach. The whole garrison knows it."

Porthos leans back in his chair, flexing that bulk Aramis is gesturing to, a smirk on his face. "You think the whole garrison admires you and idolises you," Porthos challenges. "You've got the grandest ego of anyone I know. they just don't tell you the truth so as not to damage it."

"And now you accuse me of fragility," says Aramis, leaning back in his own chair, but not before topping off both their wines. "I suppose we will see." He lifts his glass. "To the last man left upright."

Porthos rolls up his sleeves, fetching the second bottle so they don't have to go far when the first is done. "Maybe we ought to make sure to lock the door," he says. "Just in case someone minds the drunken brawling," he says, not wanting to get arrested when he's been doing so well keeping out of trouble.

Aramis smiles sunnily. "It is already locked." He tucks back into his meat, not wanting Porthos' hard work to go to waste, and if these potatoes soak up some wine, all the better.

At a sudden thought, Aramis looks up, scanning the kitchen for melons. "And no shooting indoors," he says. "That is a rule."

Porthos' face falls, but he supposes it's a decent rule. After all, the one time he'd been shooting at the garrison, Treville and Athos both had nearly flogged him for his idiocy. "How many more rules are we gonna have?" he asks, drinking the bulk of the wine in his glass, immediately refilling it.

"As many as it takes to leave these walls standing and a roof over our heads," says Aramis, amending after, "Apart from the bit with the stairs."

He clinks their glasses together. "I have thought of another. No working at the electricity without gloves."

Porthos will readily agree to the terms of keeping the walls intact, but his face flickers with affront when Aramis names the second rule. "Yeah, well," he says, drinking back the wine. "No sulking about God inside these walls," he insists.

Aramis raises an eyebrow, the most he will do - at present - to chastise Porthos skirting so close to blasphemy. "I will expend the majority of my prayers at Church," he agrees. "If you will attend with me, from time to time."

Porthos stops, cup mid-way to his lips, when Aramis makes his demand. "Why do I have to go?" he wonders, like a child who's been instructed that he must serve out his punishment. "I don't make you come with me to the library."

"No," says Aramis with a smile that's strangely reminiscent of a hawk circling its prey. "But I would go, if you asked."

Porthos makes a face, which greatly resembles someone who's being backed into a corner. He needs more wine for this and he pours himself another full glass, beginning to feel a bit off-kilter as a bottle will do to him. "Don't know why you want me in church," he says. "Not like I believe or anything."

"Perhaps not," says Aramis lightly, and toasts him with his glass, "but you are excellent company. I prefer the earlier Mass. Say....six tomorrow morning?"

The laugh Porthos gives in reply to that is deep from his belly, a warm laugh that spills over his lips as he raises his own glass in turn. "Only if you can move me from the chaise," he counters. "Rule four," he says, when his lips are stained with red wine droplets and he licks them off. "We don't get up earlier than eight."

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