Fic: Three Days in Hell, Part Un
Three Days in Hell
And so it was really over this time. But after so long, so much self-indulgent drinking, and so much self-denial, Athos no longer knew how to define himself. Rejecting everything, like Lucifer, that was how he had so often thought of himself in the past five or so years since he had quit La Fère with nothing but the inability to forgive himself. He had rejected his birthright, his name, his wealth, his liver, and until Aramis, his desires. “No” had replaced “Yes.” Insomnia took the place of slumber. Wine had become a substitute for blood. It was amazing how a wound to one’s pride could be so much more fatal than a wound to one’s body. He had forgiven himself for betraying his destiny, his parents, and his upbringing. But he could never forgive himself for giving his heart to someone like that woman, someone who was so very beneath him.
But he could sleep now. Couldn’t he?
Aramis had not spoken a word since the execution, and yet, Athos could feel his eyes on him the entire time that they had galloped on from Armentières. They had three days to cover the eighty plus leagues to Paris, which gave them the perfect excuse to engage in more riding and less talking. And still, he could feel the eyes boring a hole in the base of his skull as he spurred on his horse. “He’s going to leave you,” the voice in Athos’s head spoke. He knew that voice well. It was the same voice that always turned the “yes” at the tip of his tongue into a “no,” and made him shake his head instead of nodding it. “Now you have killed the same woman twice, which is no better than killing her once,” the voice wheedled him. “Doing it better the second time around, does not make up for not doing it right the first time.” Athos looked over at d’Artagnan, riding silently next to him, his jaw clenched, his gaze fixed on the dusty road ahead. “And now another woman is dead and your friend is heart-broken. You can’t do anything right!” Unexpectedly, another voice entered the conversation, “There was nothing he could have done differently!”
“Aramis was right. I’ve gone insane,” Athos mumbled to himself. “I’ve completely lost my mind this time,” he thought, spurring the horse onwards, pitilessly.
They had decided to spend the night in the small village of Croisille, in which the only guesthouse did not offer the kind of luxurious accommodations our weary travelers would have preferred. However, no one blinked as the host offered them the only two available rooms, and Athos had reached out to take the keys from the host’s shriveled and shaking hands. Mounting the stairs and stopping before the door to the first room, Athos silently handed the second key to d’Artagnan. There was a distinctly uncomfortable moment, while the four friends stood in front of the door without moving. Finally, Porthos yawned demonstratively, and patted d’Artagnan on the shoulder.
“C’mon, lad,” he suggested.
“No,” d’Artagnan suddenly stammered. “I… I think I’ll go for a walk.” He took an awkward step back towards the staircase. “You go ahead.” He gave the key to Porthos, who shrugged and headed towards the other door.
Athos felt something like an invisible hand pushing him towards the staircase and before he could stop himself, he had said, “It’s too dangerous for you right now to be going on walks.”
“He’s right,” said Aramis, in a honey-hued voice that sent shivers up the spine of Athos because he suddenly heard the death knoll in it. “You should go to bed,” Aramis stated and followed Porthos towards the second room. Porthos gave Aramis a look of bewilderment, followed by a look of terror cast in the direction of Athos, who returned his gaze with an empty stare.
“Oh…. all… right?” he mumbled and unlocked the door, allowing Aramis to enter first. “Good night,” he let out, as he closed the door behind him, and locked it on the other side.
“I’m sorry,” d’Artagnan said quietly. “I did not mean to do that.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Athos said, having recovered his senses, and unlocking the door. “After you?” d’Artagnan gave him another conciliatory look, and slipped into the room.
When Athos had locked the door in his turn behind them, he found d’Artagnan staring at the bed in the most dumbfounded of fashions.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Athos said, lowering his sword and both of his loaded pistols onto the chair by the door.
“No you won’t,” d’Artagnan simply stated. Athos sighed and walked over to the small window to draw the curtains. He felt the hair on the back of his head standing on end.
“It’s been a long day,” Athos said. “You should sleep.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” d’Artagnan replied.
“Are you just going to say No to everything I say tonight?” Athos inquired.
“No,” d’Artagnan answered with a sad smile. “Just all the stupid things.”
“You should sleep. That is not stupid,” Athos pointed out, pragmatically.
“I’m not interested in sleep.”
“Then what are you interested in?” Athos asked, feeling that sensation in his stomach that often told him he was treading on very dangerous territory.
“I just lost the woman I loved and participated in the execution of another woman that I had made love to,” d’Artagnan started.
“I’m aware of these facts,” Athos stated.
“So, don’t you think that I should be comforted?”
Athos, who had been sitting on the bed for the most part of this conversation, had shot up as if he’d been stung.
“That’s not the reaction I was expecting, to be honest,” the young man continued.
“I helped you get what you wanted. Revenge,” Athos replied, darkly, his voice becoming a hoarse whisper. “Everything else is a fringe benefit.”
“No, I think my silence for the past year on a variety of topics is the fringe benefit,” retorted d’Artagnan, walking up to the older musketeer, and looking him brazenly in the eyes.
“I would think we had moved beyond threats,” Athos answered, quietly, meeting his gaze.
“I was perfectly willing not to talk about your past, but I would like to discuss your present.”
“My present?”
“Yes,” d’Artagnan moved a bit closer. “Your present.” He put his hand on the back of Athos’s neck. “It went to sleep with Porthos tonight.” Athos did not move. “And, truth be told, I’m glad of it.”
“This cannot happen,” Athos said, without moving away.
“But I’m so very upset.” D’Artagnan put his other hand on the back of his friend’s neck, interlocking his fingers.
“This must not happen,” Athos emphasized, without removing d’Artagnan’s hands.
“Your wife killed my lover,” d’Artagnan barely whispered and pressed his body against Athos’s chest.
“Stop this, it’s wrong,” Athos finally came to his senses and pushed the young man away.
“Is it? I’m not sure,” d’Artagnan said, feigning a perplexed look. “Perhaps we should go ask Aramis?” Athos clenched his fist and forced himself to sit back down on the bed. “Oh, but wait,” d’Artagnan continued mercilessly, “I believe he already gave us his blessing tonight.” Athos dropped his head onto his hands. “It’s not that I want to come between the two of you,” d’Artagnan continued. “It’s just that I think he’s leaving you regardless. You know that, right? This whole thing,” he went on, making a generalized gesture around the room, “This soldier’s life, the world, and the love of men… or should I say… the love of man… it’s all a passing phase for him. His true love is the Lord. Or rather, the Church. That is to say, ambition. You are a passing fancy. You know, like buggery.”
“You’re hurt and you’re trying to hurt me too,” Athos finally spoke.
“No. Actually, I’m just trying to have a hot, sweaty roll in the sack with you,” d’Artagnan contradicted the older man. “And after that, I’m willing to forget this ever happened. For Aramis or for you, whichever one of you gives a bigger damn.”
“I can’t,” was all Athos said.
“That is ridiculous! You want to!”
“But I cannot!”
“You’ve wanted to for years!” d’Artagnan insisted, breaking out into a terrifying laughter, made even more frightening by the circumstances. Athos said nothing. “Is it that you can’t bring yourself to do it because then he would have been right about you and you just can’t allow that?” It was as if d’Artagnan was speaking to him with the same voice that he had been hearing in his head.
“No,” Athos replied, “I cannot do it because I love him.”
“But he’s going to assume we did!”
“But I’m going to know we didn’t!”
“But he’ll never believe you!” d’Artagnan’s eyes got very wide, as did his incredulous grin.
“Even so, I cannot go on living knowing that it was my fault,” Athos said, sounding surprisingly resigned yet anguished. “It would kill me,” he added quietly.
“Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” whispered d’Artagnan, suddenly grabbing Athos by the shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. The kiss, which was in the beginning inadvertently returned, was suddenly and violently broken off by Athos, who shot all the way across the room, like a man possessed. With his eyes, darkly fixed upon d’Artagnan, he began to speak.
“D’Artagnan, you are,” he commenced, trying to find the right words, “very important to me. You are right now still everything that I shall never again be. You are young and you are honest. You are brave because that is in your nature, not because you have no desire to go on living. Your cleverness and cunning are virtues and not a means to an end. But in the past few days, you have come in contact with the kind of darkness that your very nature rebels against, and you have come in contact with it because of me! And I will not add this perfidy to the long litany of my existing crimes!”
At his friend’s impassioned words, the young man’s defenses seemed to drop, and two large tears ran down his hollow cheeks. The Gascon felt so moved that he exclaimed, “You are wrong about the darkness! Whatever good you think you see in me, is only there because I ever knew you!” And with these words he threw himself into Athos’s embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” Athos whispered, stroking the young man’s hair.
“No, I’m the one who should be apologizing,” d’Artagnan mumbled into Athos’s chest, and tried to wipe his face. “I behaved inexcusably.”
“There’s one way you can make it up to me,” Athos suggested. “You can let me go sleep in the stable.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Athos!” the young man exclaimed with his usual Gasconade. “Just sleep in the goddamn bed with me! I don’t wish to be alone tonight!”
“Fine,” Athos agreed with a sigh. “But absolutely no cuddling.”
“A little cuddling?” d’Artagnan snickered.
“I’m keeping my clothes on.”
“But not your shirt.”
“You are a bad child.”
“And you are a terrible father.”
“I try,” Athos shrugged.
The following day commenced with more interminable riding. The small band galloped along in silence until the growling of their stomachs forced them to stop for lunch at a roadside tavern. Athos was paying an even more exorbitant amount of diligence to his horse’s feed than he would usually, when he heard Porthos’s voice behind him.
“You know we were just sleeping last night, right?”
“My God!” exclaimed Athos, turning around to face his friend with a look of astonishment. “Have we really been that transparent?”
“A few times,” Porthos blushed and gave his mustache a nervous twist. Athos gave a good-natured laugh and a friendly slap to his friend’s vast shoulder.
“Oh dear, oh dear… Don’t worry, my friend,” he said with a smile. “I know you would not stab me in the back like that.”
“No,” Porthos confirmed. “I would not even stab you in the front!” Looking over his shoulder to where Aramis appeared to be exchanging inaudible words with d’Artagnan, Porthos added, “Also, you talk in your sleep.”
“Now he tells me!” Athos threw up his hands in exasperation and pulled Porthos along with him towards the tavern.
Their next lodgings were to afford them each their own room, avoiding the previous night’s awkwardness. Athos had specifically instructed Grimaud to kill anyone who tried to enter before he collapsed on the bed, exhausted more mentally than physically, and fell asleep.
He could not have been sleeping for very long when a feeling of being watched penetrated him even in the arms of Morpheus, and he shot up to find Aramis sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, watching him.
“Your servant tried to kill me,” Aramis said, coolly, by way of a greeting.
“I told him to,” Athos stammered.
“You told him to kill me?”
“I was not expecting you,” Athos shook his head, trying to wake himself up fully.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
“I… I don’t really know what I was expecting,” Athos confessed. “Do you hate me?” he suddenly asked his nighttime guest.
“My hatred of you is tantamount only to my love for you,” Aramis replied.
“I actually understand what you mean by that,” Athos said, running his fingers through his hair, distractedly.
“It is indifference that I crave,” Aramis remarked.
“Still following,” Athos nodded, then added, “I told you that you would not like me very much once you learned the truth about my past.”
“I hate you because you did not trust me to know you and still love you,” Aramis said, still keeping a steady and cool eye on his companion. “But more than anything, I hate that you have allowed yourself self-hatred due to the base betrayal of another.”
“Now I no longer follow,” Athos admitted.
“I thought you might not,” Aramis shrugged. “I have no more wish to punish you; you have punished yourself enough. I just want to know one last thing.”
“What’s that?” Athos asked, butterflies in his stomach with anticipation.
“How many times did he have to beg for it and how many times did you have to refuse him until he finally gave up?” Aramis asked, with a sudden wicked glimmer in his eye.
“We did not do it! Wait… what?” Athos felt confused again and his stupefied look made Aramis choke back laughter.
“He told me everything.”
“Well then… he’s lying!” Athos started again. “Wait… no. What?”
“He’s lying that you refused his advances?” Now Aramis was no longer choking back his laughter.
“He told you about that?” Athos asked, incredulously.
“Yes, he rather did,” Aramis confirmed.
“Why would he tell you that?”
“Something about not wanting you to die without me?”
“Oh dear Lord!” Athos made another gesture of exasperation and fell back onto the bed. “The Gascon has a damnable memory for inconsequential utterances!”
“Is that what that was?” asked Aramis, gliding on top of the bed. “Inconsequential utterances?” Athos said nothing, but remained lying there, staring at the ceiling. “Empty protestations?” Aramis, catlike, approached him on all fours. “Throes of youthful iconoclasm?”
“All right, now you’re just saying random things,” Athos conceded, looking over at his feline lover.
“You told him you loved me?” Aramis was beaming over him.
“Am I to presume from this entire exchange that you do not, in fact, hate me? And can we, in that case, move on to the next act in this program?”
“I was going to leave,” Aramis admitted, lying down next to Athos, softly tracing his finger along the lines of his lover’s lips. “I was so very angry at you. I could not stand the thought of the two of you together, and I was convinced that… you desired it too.” He placed an almost chaste kiss on the lips of Athos. “I was foolish. I should have known you would never succumb to a pleasurable whim.”
“Well, that’s beautiful, Aramis,” Athos snickered.
“It turns out my love for you is stronger than my desire to run away from all this,” Aramis stated, turning his friend’s head towards himself, forcing Athos to face him.
“Your desire to flee might be correct. There is a good chance we’ll all be killed or imprisoned once we reach Paris,” Athos reminded him.
“All the more reason then to not waste what could possibly be our last night in this world,” Aramis suggested. “Certainly it should not be wasted on more brooding and boring self-pity. Look around you: you have … ah yes… me.”
“Yes, but what have you done to Grimaud?” Athos asked, playfully enough to make Aramis doubt that he truly wanted to know the answer to the question.
“You need to learn to concentrate on the important things at hand,” Aramis growled, pulling on the strings of Athos’s chemise with his teeth and unlacing it.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find decent help these days?” the other man continued, helpfully lifting his arms over his head to aid in his friend’s quest of the removal of his clothes.
“It wouldn’t be if you were not known for beating them,” Aramis replied, supplying his friend with a steady stream of kisses along his chest. “But it is merely a suggestion.”
“Hm,” Athos responded, mechanically running his fingers through Aramis’s hair. He was just about to elevate his hips to allow for easier removal of the rest of his clothes, as they were both jarred out of their ministrations by loud pounding on the door. “A thousand plagues!” Athos cursed, as he scrambled to pull his pantaloons back up.
“Just my luck,” Aramis shrugged, slipping off the bed as gracefully as he had originally slipped onto it.
The knocking continued, and Athos had deemed it pressing enough at this stage to answer the door without resorting to putting his shirt back on. At the door, he found Grimaud, more mute and pale than usual, and even more terrified.
“Aramis,” Athos called back into the room. “You did not kill him well enough for here he is… interrupting!” Grimaud made some frantic signs. “Speak, you imbecile! What is the matter!” Athos was at his last wit’s end.
“It’s M. d’Artagnan. I saw him leave his room after M. Aramis threw me out, sir,” Grimaud stammered, averting his eyes.
“Well, get on with it already before I throttle you!” Athos exclaimed.
“I think he’s going to drown himself, sir!” Grimaud spat out, and pointed in the direction of nearby lake.
“The hell he will!” Athos muttered under his breath and took off without giving a further thought to another thing.
“Delightful,” Aramis uttered, knitting his immaculate brows together. “Fetch his cloak,” he ordered the blushing servant. “I shall wake Porthos.”
Waking Porthos turned out to be a taller order than Aramis had anticipated and upon the worried Mousqueton’s intrepid suggestion that he resort to extreme measures, Aramis emptied the contents of Porthos’s own canteen into his friend’s sleeping face. Once fully awake, it only took a few moments to get Porthos mobilized, and the small troupe followed Grimaud, who led the way to the lake.
“Wait,” Porthos suddenly grabbed on to Aramis’s arm. Aramis gave his friend a quizzical look. “You were never d’Artagnan’s biggest admirer. And I think,” he scratched his head as he spoke, “I think, I finally get why.”
“Porthos, this is not a conversation for tonight,” Aramis replied, flustered.
“But you don’t actually wish that he was dead right now, do you?”
“Don’t be silly,” Aramis responded, coldly, “Suicide is a mortal sin, and I have very little desire for d’Artagnan to burn for all eternity.”
“So you’d prefer another death for him, then?” Porthos pressed.
“That is no way to speak of our friend!” Aramis protested.
“No, no way to speak of a friend. But a rival, now, that’s a different matter,” Porthos stated, decidedly.
“Why are you stalling?” Aramis suddenly started. “I cannot give him absolution if we get there too late.”
“How thoughtful,” Porthos snorted, taking off after Aramis.
A few more minutes and the trees cleared. The two friends and their servants could make out a small lake by the light of the moon, softly reflecting upon its surface. The two forms that could be barely seen in the moon’s glow, kneeling by the water’s edge, appeared to be embracing.
“I think,” Porthos whispered, grabbing a hold of Aramis again, “We have come too late after all.”
“This isn’t happening,” Aramis muttered, more to himself than to his companion.
“I need to get myself a wife,” Porthos suddenly declared, sighing deeply. “No offense,” he added, in Aramis’s direction.
“What?” the other musketeer asked, absentmindedly, his eyes fixed on the two shadows by the lake.
“Nothing,” Porthos concluded. Then adding, “Why don’t I alert them to our presence?” he practically shouted “I HOPE WE DO NOT COME TOO LATE!”
The two dark figures instantly separated and became two men, one of whom jumped to his feet.
“Smooth,” Aramis stated, patting Porthos on the shoulder.
Upon closer approach, the two men appeared to be dripping wet, and upon even closer examination, they were confirmed to be Athos and d’Artagnan, just as the others have surmised.
Aramis took Athos’s cloak from Grimaud and threw it nonchalantly at its owner.
“D’Artagnan,” Aramis began, “Are you quite finished performing great acts of stupidity for tonight?”
“And did you really just try to drown yourself?” Porthos inserted, looking concerned and discombobulated.
“Subtlety,” Aramis nudged the much larger musketeer.
“I am resigned to go on living,” d’Artagnan muttered, “For the time being.”
“And how about you?” Aramis asked Athos, quietly, as the latter was drying himself off with his cloak.
“I’m sorry,” was all Athos said in response.
“Well, I am not letting you spend the night alone,” Porthos declared, putting his arm around d’Artagnan’s dripping form. “You must stay in my room tonight. Tomorrow will be another long day of riding, and we must all rest.”
“Porthos is right,” said Athos, avoiding Aramis’s looks.
“He usually is,” Aramis mumbled, and added even more quietly under his breath, “Strangely.”
PART DEUX