Fic: The Time Thieves
Rating for Part I: PG-13 (mostly for innuendo)
Plot of Part I: In which Athos and Aramis are in their 40’s (much older and slightly wiser) and they bicker like an old married couple should.
Spoilers: There might be some spoilers in both Part I and Part II for Twenty Years After, although I kept it fairly general.
Author’s Note: Alexandre Dumas kindly informed us in Twenty Years After, in the chapter titled “The Abbé Scarron” that Athos made two visits in Paris, between his visitation of the duchess de Chevreuse and the gathering of the Frondeurs at Scarron’s house at seven thirty. I have no prior knowledge of his second visit, however, I can attest that the first of two went something like this.
“The more public affairs are troubled, the less noise my escapades will make.” - Aramis, Twenty Years After, “The Two Garspards”
Part I
Time was always the enemy of lovers, Athos reminded himself as he slipped like a shadow up the stairs of another tavern, one directly across the corner from the sign of the Green Fox where he and the vicomte de Bragelonne were lodged. And as far as co-conspirators were concerned, time was a double edged sword, with which, if careful, one could slice at the throat of one’s opponents, so long as you did not get cut by the same blade on its way out. And now, time, as it commonly happened, was of the essence.
He threw himself into a familiar embrace as soon as the door closed behind him.
“What have you done with Raoul?”
“He’s across the street,” Athos replied, reflexively approaching the window to peek out. “I took him to see his mother.”
Aramis emitted some kind of a partially repressed noise followed by, “How was that?”
“Charming,” Athos replied, drawing the curtains. “She’s still quite the force to be reckoned with, not to mention, in possession of most of her looks of yore.”
“I’m sure you were a terrible flirt, as always.”
“I?” Athos uttered, incredulously.
“Yes, you, my dear. The worst kind of coquette: the kind that has no intentions of ever following through with her insinuations.”
“Who says I have no intention of following through?” Athos gave his companion a wicked grin, causing Aramis to veer upon him and slap him across the face. Silent and visibly unperturbed, Athos stretched out his jaw. “Really, Aramis? I did not think we had enough time for that.”
“You always make me lose my temper.”
“It’s easy to lose something so poorly tethered.”
“Truly, you’re constantly trying to enrage me.”
“Your jealousy strokes the vestiges of my youthful ardor.”
“You’re right: we definitely don’t have time for that.”
Athos ran his hand up his friend’s face, cupping his cheek and brushing his thumb across his lips. Reluctantly, he let his hand drop, and stepped back towards the window.
“So..,” he began again. “Your suspicions are not unfounded. I fear d’Artagnan is for Mazarin.”
“Was he forthcoming with you at Bragelonne?” The mention of d’Artagnan’s name was not doing much for soothing the ravaged nerves of Aramis, but he forced himself down into a chair.
“Perhaps a bit more than he was with you at Noisy-Le-Sec, though still not to his purpose.” Athos began to nervously play with his gloves. “He was terribly keen to tell me all about your latest intrigues.”
“Of what?”
“I suspect he knows about you and the duchess de Longueville.”
“And, really, who can blame him, given the nature of our meeting,” Aramis let out a small chuckle at the reminiscence of his dropping from a window onto the back of d’Artagnan’s horse, but silenced himself when beholding his companion’s facial wilt. “You know that my affair with her is beneficial to our mutual cause.”
“Oh yes, you martyr!” Athos shot Aramis a rather defiant and mocking look. “Only, explain to me, my beloved Aramis, how exactly does knocking that woman up further our mutual cause?”
“You should talk to me of impregnations, given whence you just returned!” Aramis once again leapt out of his chair. “At least I have no intention of raising that child!”
Athos put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Let us move on.”
“Tonight then. At seven thirty, be at the house of the Abbé Scarron on the Rue des Tournelles. I’ll have more information then. And be careful in the meantime.” Aramis paused to make sure his words were sinking in. “Did you hear me? Be less… yourself.”
“I will behave with all the accumulated prudence of my years.” Athos made a movement away from the window, then paused, as if remembering something.
“Raoul will be with me,” he said quietly.
“Of course, he should provide a useful cover for our discussion,” Aramis mumbled, averting his eyes. Then, approaching his friend, he took one of his hands into his own. “Do you think… um… do you suppose he will recognize me?”
Athos was not sure what kind of a reply he could give to this question that hid beneath it the truth of another question unasked. The truth was that after a while, the boy had stopped asking. The truth was that they had done too good of a job fooling everyone, to a point that sometimes Athos felt that he was fooling himself.
“I… I don’t know,” he finally replied and impulsively pressed his lips to the lips of Aramis, hoping that this would be answer enough.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” Aramis smirked when their lips separated. “I, honestly, have no idea how I ever got you involved in all this Fronde activity in the first place.”
“My mouth must have been too full to say ‘No’ to you.” Athos fixed Aramis with an insolent look.
“Filthy.”
“Only the finest for my love.”
Aramis could not help but laugh, even with the specter of the looming conspiracy breathing at their backs, and the shadows of the broken Elysium of their past hiding in the corners of his long-time lover’s eyes. Instinctively, he reached for that mouth again with his lips, if only for a few blissful moments of oblivion.
“Tonight then.”
“At the house on the Rue des Tournelles.”
“Tomorrow, we might be dead.”
“That is usually the case,” Athos stated, shrugging in his customary fashion.
“Will I never cure you of such fatalism?” Aramis ran his hands through his friend’s long hair, the graying of which at the temples only made this man somehow more handsome and still more dear.
“I have nothing to fear if I should die at your side.”
“No, I suppose only I will be the worse for that occurrence.”
“That’s right. For you shall never die and your beauty will live forever.”
“You have to go,” Aramis gave his friend a gentle push towards the door. “Honestly, Count, my self control is not at all as strong as you seem to think.”
“I’m going, Chevalier,” Athos put his hat back on and moved it down to cover his eyes. He halted in the doorway, darkly cloaked, looking positively menacing, and added, dropping his usually husky voice down another octave, “But you will owe me, d’Herblay. And I will collect.”
Time was his enemy, Athos thought, quickly descending the stairs. But, somehow, he made it this far, and who would have thought twenty years ago that he would ever live to see forty-nine? And was he not now at that ripe age a better man than he ever had been before? Perhaps time was not something to be despised after all, for as long as there was hope, time simply was.
Title: The Time Thieves (Part II of II)
Rating for Part II: R (for man on man action)
Plot of Part II: Athos and Aramis had a rough day. First, there was all that rescuing of the Duc de Beaufort from prison. And then they had a very unpleasant conversation with d’Artagnan and Porthos at the Place Royale. And now, logically, they must have sex.
“Ministers, princes, kings, will pass by like a torrent, civil war like a flame, but we - shall we remain?” - Athos, Twenty Years After, “Place Royale”
Part II
Having returned the gate key to the concierge of the Hôtel de Rohan, Aramis walked back to the trees where Bazin was guarding the horses. He was trying, in vain, to suppress the shaking of his muscles and the twitching of his eye that began in earnest with the first words escaping d’Artagnan’s mouth at the Place Royale. He prayed silently that Athos would not notice.
“You owe me a sword, de La Fère,” he snapped, approaching the horses and his companion who was already in the saddle.
“I shall buy you several.” Athos shifted uncomfortably in his stirrups. “They’ve gone,” he added, with a nod in the direction in which d’Artagnan and Porthos had disappeared.
“What now?” Aramis was still concentrating on his breathing as he mounted.
“I had rented a place on Rue Guénégaud last time I was here.”
Aramis cast a look in Bazin’s direction, contemplating something.
“For God’s sakes,” Athos mumbled to himself, shaking his head.
“Bazin, you are free to return to the abbey, if you wish.”
“But, master..,” the servant stuttered, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“I will find you tomorrow.”
“Yes, Monsieur.” Reluctantly, and as usual, tearing his eyes away from Aramis with much difficulty, the servant put spurs to his horse and disappeared into the night, leaving the two cavaliers alone at the Place Royale.
“Let us leave this place,” Aramis suggested, in a weak voice. “Lead the way,” he added, feeling drained of all mental and physical capacity.
***
As soon as they arrived at the place leased by Athos on Rue Guénégaud, Aramis collapsed into the nearest sitting implement with a quiet groan, his scabbard producing a reproachful and dolorously hollow sound against the wall. Athos was quietly disarming himself of the rest of his accoutrements in the opposite corner of the room. His own scabbard, broken and discarded along with his sword, had been abandoned in the Place Royale: his willing sacrifice to the gods of friendship.
“You were magnificent,” Athos spoke over his shoulder in the direction of his companion, whose only response was another groan. “I know how difficult that was for you.”
“I hate you,” Aramis quietly responded in a doleful and resigned tone.
“Things would not have gone off so well if that was true.” Athos threw off his cloak and hat and walked up to the chair currently being occupied by the slightly diminished personage of the Chevalier d’Herblay.
“The one redeeming thing about this evening was the joy I got from having you repeatedly call d’Artagnan your son, you deviant son of a bitch.” Aramis spoke with his eyes closed, his affection betrayed only by the slight shadow of a smile upon his lips.
“I am so sorry you had to listen to him say all those horribly unfair things,” Athos said softly, kneeling at the feet of the chair.
“Why?” Aramis inquired, not opening his eyes, with the back of his head pressed against the cool wall. “D’Artagnan’s hatred of me is not a particularly new development, is it?”
“You did not deserve what he said.”
“It does not matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. You’re here. I win.” Aramis smiled again, both with his lips and with the corners of his closed eyes. He heard a familiar chuckle from Athos and then felt one of his boots being slowly pulled from his exhausted feet, followed quickly by the other. “Although he still is a downright bastard.”
“I am also sorry for Porthos, getting mixed up in this whole thing.”
“Porthos drew his sword against us!”
“So did you.” The tone of Athos was calm and, despite the happenings of the night, Aramis felt strangely soothed by it. He was about to respond with something suitably acerbic, when he felt his lover’s fingers on his feet, massaging them with uncanny skill.
“Is this some kind of a bribe?”
“A prelude to a bribe,” Athos responded, his smirk audible in his voice.
“Haven’t we had enough emotional blackmail for one night, my dearest of counts?”
“Emotions? No, no, this is merely physical blackmail.”
“It won’t work,” Aramis protested weakly.
“Why not?” Athos pressed his thumb into the middle of the arch of Aramis’s foot, causing him to suppress a little moan of release.
“Because I am exhausted. Every single part of me, physical and otherwise.”
“And don’t forget: disarmed.” Athos apparently had no intention of letting up on either the cajoling or his ministrations, reminding Aramis once again why he was the Devil incarnate.
“No,” Aramis quasi-whimpered, and tried to shoo his friend away with a feeble gesture of his hand.
“But you don’t have to do anything,” the devilish voice insisted. “I promise. All you have to do is… lie there.”
“Vade retro, Satana!” Aramis now felt hands traveling along his calves, strong fingers releasing the tension from the muscles in which it had gathered. “Stop!” he tried to protest again. “We’re not in church!” Both men could not help but laugh at the latter statement.
“But I love you.”
Aramis felt heat rise up his neck, his face flushing in deep pleasure at the knowledge of the truth of that simple statement.
“And I owe you one, isn’t that right?” he inquired, finally opening his eyes, and beholding his companion kneeling in front of him, smiling wickedly, devious hands continuing their journey up towards his thighs, kneading his flesh as they traveled.
Athos leaned in closer, sliding his body in between his seated companion’s legs.
“Mostly,” he whispered, “it is just that I love you.”
Somehow, all the years and practice had not diminished the effect that locking eyes with Athos had on Aramis. They tugged at the very core of his soul, simultaneously wounding and soothing; one moment - a playful puppy dog, the next moment - Cerberus at the gates of Hades, but always - the man he loved.
“I know that, god damn it,” Aramis pulled the other man by the collar towards himself, with an unexpected jolt of energy. It was because he had not doubted this fact in many years that made contradicting this man, in any of his often unreasonable and at times downright self-destructive demands, virtually impossible for Aramis. He kissed that beautiful fool, biting somewhat forcefully at his lower lip as he did so. Athos laughed into his mouth in response.
“I know you’re angry at me.”
“That does not begin to describe what I am,” Aramis responded, breathlessly, taking the other man’s lip between his teeth again, watching him through narrowed eyes as he did so. Somehow, in the meantime, Athos had succeeded in maneuvering his wandering hands in between Aramis and the chair, lifting him out of his seat with one powerful movement of the back. Aramis found himself suspended a few inches above the ground and clutched in a rather ungentlemanly fashion to his lover’s groin.
“You’re going to hurt yourself, old man,” he beamed down into Athos’s face, wrapping his legs around his waist for better balance.
“Does it feel like I’m going to drop you? Hm?” Athos moved with deliberation towards the bedroom, or so Aramis was surmising, given he had no idea of the landscape behind him as he was being transported.
“This is extremely undignified,” Aramis pointed out.
“You said you were exhausted.”
“And I blame myself entirely.” Aramis felt himself lowered onto the bed with a surprising amount of control and care. He unwound his legs from around Athos’s hips somewhat unwillingly and looked up. In the darkness of this new room, they were somehow ageless again. “It’s been so long since I’ve been alone with you,” Aramis heard himself say, as if from a distance.
“There. Now… you’re beginning to understand my perspective on things.”
Athos was no more than a silhouette against the candlelight coming from the other room when he closed the door behind him, shutting all light out entirely. Aramis could only detect his location by the shuffling of clothes, falling off, hitting the floor, boots being carelessly tossed off, a trail of sounds all leading up to the foot of the bed. He felt his body trembling again, this time not in suppressed anger, but with youthful anticipation. Then a hand found his foot again and used it as leverage to pull the rest of its owner’s body into the bed.
“I can’t see you,” Aramis whispered, somehow afraid to ruin the perfection of the stillness of the night with the sound of his voice.
“You don’t need to see me,” the quiet voice responded right next to his ear, tickling him with warm breath.
Blindly, Aramis reached out in the direction of the voice, knowing fully what he would find: warm, naked flesh, willingly tangling itself up with his own still mostly clothed form. The wave of possessiveness, of ownership that he felt over his lover’s body, seemed to give him a surge of energy he was so patently lacking only a few minutes prior.
“I would have done anything for you,” Aramis whispered, thinking simultaneously of what had transpired at Place Royale, when he had broken his own sword merely because Athos wished it done, and of all the other things now gone, but not forgotten. The choices he had made, the times he stayed, the times he left, the ebb and flow of their love that wound like Ariadne’s golden thread through both of their lives, and all of it only because the touch of those hot lips on his neck, like at that moment, left Aramis bereft of all reason.
“Thank you,” even Athos’s words felt hot against his skin now. He bit his own lips to hold back from crying out. Hands. Everywhere. Aramis arched into their touch. “You can do whatever you want to me.” Those whispered words had their desired effect on Aramis, as Athos must have known they would, tearing a guttural cry out of him, as he managed to wrestle his lover down into the mattress and loomed over him in the dark, hair falling onto what Aramis was sure would have been a grinning face.
“I plan on it,” Aramis declared, victoriously.
“Only be careful. Remember: my body belongs to the Fronde and the Duc de Beaufort now - you told me so yourself earlier tonight.”
“You will be punished for that,” Aramis promised, attacking the other man’s mouth with his own. He was seeking out his partner’s arms in the darkness, only to discover them between their bodies, already undoing the lacing of his trousers. “You’re being most obliging.”
“Get over here.”
“I am over here.”
“No, over here,” the deep voice said from underneath Aramis as he felt a shift in his lover’s hips and tried to hang on to him with his thighs as if he were in the saddle.
“Oh,” he responded.
The bells began to toll midnight. They both held their breath, counting off each stroke, as their bodies slid closer together and the rest of the night stretched out before them like the ocean into some unknown horizon.
“What a day,” Athos whispered at the sound of the final stroke, the heat of his lips sending acute waves of pleasure down Aramis’s neck again. Aramis tightened his grip on the man beneath him.
“I have forgotten,” he replied and buried himself inside his lover’s body, choosing to believe his own words, choosing to forget, becoming nothing but sensitized flesh, becoming only the pulse at the base of his own neck, and the rhythm of his hips rising and falling. Morning was an eternity away. In the meantime, Paris could burn.
Plot of Part I: In which Athos and Aramis are in their 40’s (much older and slightly wiser) and they bicker like an old married couple should.
Spoilers: There might be some spoilers in both Part I and Part II for Twenty Years After, although I kept it fairly general.
Author’s Note: Alexandre Dumas kindly informed us in Twenty Years After, in the chapter titled “The Abbé Scarron” that Athos made two visits in Paris, between his visitation of the duchess de Chevreuse and the gathering of the Frondeurs at Scarron’s house at seven thirty. I have no prior knowledge of his second visit, however, I can attest that the first of two went something like this.
“The more public affairs are troubled, the less noise my escapades will make.” - Aramis, Twenty Years After, “The Two Garspards”
Part I
Time was always the enemy of lovers, Athos reminded himself as he slipped like a shadow up the stairs of another tavern, one directly across the corner from the sign of the Green Fox where he and the vicomte de Bragelonne were lodged. And as far as co-conspirators were concerned, time was a double edged sword, with which, if careful, one could slice at the throat of one’s opponents, so long as you did not get cut by the same blade on its way out. And now, time, as it commonly happened, was of the essence.
He threw himself into a familiar embrace as soon as the door closed behind him.
“What have you done with Raoul?”
“He’s across the street,” Athos replied, reflexively approaching the window to peek out. “I took him to see his mother.”
Aramis emitted some kind of a partially repressed noise followed by, “How was that?”
“Charming,” Athos replied, drawing the curtains. “She’s still quite the force to be reckoned with, not to mention, in possession of most of her looks of yore.”
“I’m sure you were a terrible flirt, as always.”
“I?” Athos uttered, incredulously.
“Yes, you, my dear. The worst kind of coquette: the kind that has no intentions of ever following through with her insinuations.”
“Who says I have no intention of following through?” Athos gave his companion a wicked grin, causing Aramis to veer upon him and slap him across the face. Silent and visibly unperturbed, Athos stretched out his jaw. “Really, Aramis? I did not think we had enough time for that.”
“You always make me lose my temper.”
“It’s easy to lose something so poorly tethered.”
“Truly, you’re constantly trying to enrage me.”
“Your jealousy strokes the vestiges of my youthful ardor.”
“You’re right: we definitely don’t have time for that.”
Athos ran his hand up his friend’s face, cupping his cheek and brushing his thumb across his lips. Reluctantly, he let his hand drop, and stepped back towards the window.
“So..,” he began again. “Your suspicions are not unfounded. I fear d’Artagnan is for Mazarin.”
“Was he forthcoming with you at Bragelonne?” The mention of d’Artagnan’s name was not doing much for soothing the ravaged nerves of Aramis, but he forced himself down into a chair.
“Perhaps a bit more than he was with you at Noisy-Le-Sec, though still not to his purpose.” Athos began to nervously play with his gloves. “He was terribly keen to tell me all about your latest intrigues.”
“Of what?”
“I suspect he knows about you and the duchess de Longueville.”
“And, really, who can blame him, given the nature of our meeting,” Aramis let out a small chuckle at the reminiscence of his dropping from a window onto the back of d’Artagnan’s horse, but silenced himself when beholding his companion’s facial wilt. “You know that my affair with her is beneficial to our mutual cause.”
“Oh yes, you martyr!” Athos shot Aramis a rather defiant and mocking look. “Only, explain to me, my beloved Aramis, how exactly does knocking that woman up further our mutual cause?”
“You should talk to me of impregnations, given whence you just returned!” Aramis once again leapt out of his chair. “At least I have no intention of raising that child!”
Athos put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Let us move on.”
“Tonight then. At seven thirty, be at the house of the Abbé Scarron on the Rue des Tournelles. I’ll have more information then. And be careful in the meantime.” Aramis paused to make sure his words were sinking in. “Did you hear me? Be less… yourself.”
“I will behave with all the accumulated prudence of my years.” Athos made a movement away from the window, then paused, as if remembering something.
“Raoul will be with me,” he said quietly.
“Of course, he should provide a useful cover for our discussion,” Aramis mumbled, averting his eyes. Then, approaching his friend, he took one of his hands into his own. “Do you think… um… do you suppose he will recognize me?”
Athos was not sure what kind of a reply he could give to this question that hid beneath it the truth of another question unasked. The truth was that after a while, the boy had stopped asking. The truth was that they had done too good of a job fooling everyone, to a point that sometimes Athos felt that he was fooling himself.
“I… I don’t know,” he finally replied and impulsively pressed his lips to the lips of Aramis, hoping that this would be answer enough.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” Aramis smirked when their lips separated. “I, honestly, have no idea how I ever got you involved in all this Fronde activity in the first place.”
“My mouth must have been too full to say ‘No’ to you.” Athos fixed Aramis with an insolent look.
“Filthy.”
“Only the finest for my love.”
Aramis could not help but laugh, even with the specter of the looming conspiracy breathing at their backs, and the shadows of the broken Elysium of their past hiding in the corners of his long-time lover’s eyes. Instinctively, he reached for that mouth again with his lips, if only for a few blissful moments of oblivion.
“Tonight then.”
“At the house on the Rue des Tournelles.”
“Tomorrow, we might be dead.”
“That is usually the case,” Athos stated, shrugging in his customary fashion.
“Will I never cure you of such fatalism?” Aramis ran his hands through his friend’s long hair, the graying of which at the temples only made this man somehow more handsome and still more dear.
“I have nothing to fear if I should die at your side.”
“No, I suppose only I will be the worse for that occurrence.”
“That’s right. For you shall never die and your beauty will live forever.”
“You have to go,” Aramis gave his friend a gentle push towards the door. “Honestly, Count, my self control is not at all as strong as you seem to think.”
“I’m going, Chevalier,” Athos put his hat back on and moved it down to cover his eyes. He halted in the doorway, darkly cloaked, looking positively menacing, and added, dropping his usually husky voice down another octave, “But you will owe me, d’Herblay. And I will collect.”
Time was his enemy, Athos thought, quickly descending the stairs. But, somehow, he made it this far, and who would have thought twenty years ago that he would ever live to see forty-nine? And was he not now at that ripe age a better man than he ever had been before? Perhaps time was not something to be despised after all, for as long as there was hope, time simply was.
Title: The Time Thieves (Part II of II)
Rating for Part II: R (for man on man action)
Plot of Part II: Athos and Aramis had a rough day. First, there was all that rescuing of the Duc de Beaufort from prison. And then they had a very unpleasant conversation with d’Artagnan and Porthos at the Place Royale. And now, logically, they must have sex.
“Ministers, princes, kings, will pass by like a torrent, civil war like a flame, but we - shall we remain?” - Athos, Twenty Years After, “Place Royale”
Part II
Having returned the gate key to the concierge of the Hôtel de Rohan, Aramis walked back to the trees where Bazin was guarding the horses. He was trying, in vain, to suppress the shaking of his muscles and the twitching of his eye that began in earnest with the first words escaping d’Artagnan’s mouth at the Place Royale. He prayed silently that Athos would not notice.
“You owe me a sword, de La Fère,” he snapped, approaching the horses and his companion who was already in the saddle.
“I shall buy you several.” Athos shifted uncomfortably in his stirrups. “They’ve gone,” he added, with a nod in the direction in which d’Artagnan and Porthos had disappeared.
“What now?” Aramis was still concentrating on his breathing as he mounted.
“I had rented a place on Rue Guénégaud last time I was here.”
Aramis cast a look in Bazin’s direction, contemplating something.
“For God’s sakes,” Athos mumbled to himself, shaking his head.
“Bazin, you are free to return to the abbey, if you wish.”
“But, master..,” the servant stuttered, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“I will find you tomorrow.”
“Yes, Monsieur.” Reluctantly, and as usual, tearing his eyes away from Aramis with much difficulty, the servant put spurs to his horse and disappeared into the night, leaving the two cavaliers alone at the Place Royale.
“Let us leave this place,” Aramis suggested, in a weak voice. “Lead the way,” he added, feeling drained of all mental and physical capacity.
***
As soon as they arrived at the place leased by Athos on Rue Guénégaud, Aramis collapsed into the nearest sitting implement with a quiet groan, his scabbard producing a reproachful and dolorously hollow sound against the wall. Athos was quietly disarming himself of the rest of his accoutrements in the opposite corner of the room. His own scabbard, broken and discarded along with his sword, had been abandoned in the Place Royale: his willing sacrifice to the gods of friendship.
“You were magnificent,” Athos spoke over his shoulder in the direction of his companion, whose only response was another groan. “I know how difficult that was for you.”
“I hate you,” Aramis quietly responded in a doleful and resigned tone.
“Things would not have gone off so well if that was true.” Athos threw off his cloak and hat and walked up to the chair currently being occupied by the slightly diminished personage of the Chevalier d’Herblay.
“The one redeeming thing about this evening was the joy I got from having you repeatedly call d’Artagnan your son, you deviant son of a bitch.” Aramis spoke with his eyes closed, his affection betrayed only by the slight shadow of a smile upon his lips.
“I am so sorry you had to listen to him say all those horribly unfair things,” Athos said softly, kneeling at the feet of the chair.
“Why?” Aramis inquired, not opening his eyes, with the back of his head pressed against the cool wall. “D’Artagnan’s hatred of me is not a particularly new development, is it?”
“You did not deserve what he said.”
“It does not matter.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. You’re here. I win.” Aramis smiled again, both with his lips and with the corners of his closed eyes. He heard a familiar chuckle from Athos and then felt one of his boots being slowly pulled from his exhausted feet, followed quickly by the other. “Although he still is a downright bastard.”
“I am also sorry for Porthos, getting mixed up in this whole thing.”
“Porthos drew his sword against us!”
“So did you.” The tone of Athos was calm and, despite the happenings of the night, Aramis felt strangely soothed by it. He was about to respond with something suitably acerbic, when he felt his lover’s fingers on his feet, massaging them with uncanny skill.
“Is this some kind of a bribe?”
“A prelude to a bribe,” Athos responded, his smirk audible in his voice.
“Haven’t we had enough emotional blackmail for one night, my dearest of counts?”
“Emotions? No, no, this is merely physical blackmail.”
“It won’t work,” Aramis protested weakly.
“Why not?” Athos pressed his thumb into the middle of the arch of Aramis’s foot, causing him to suppress a little moan of release.
“Because I am exhausted. Every single part of me, physical and otherwise.”
“And don’t forget: disarmed.” Athos apparently had no intention of letting up on either the cajoling or his ministrations, reminding Aramis once again why he was the Devil incarnate.
“No,” Aramis quasi-whimpered, and tried to shoo his friend away with a feeble gesture of his hand.
“But you don’t have to do anything,” the devilish voice insisted. “I promise. All you have to do is… lie there.”
“Vade retro, Satana!” Aramis now felt hands traveling along his calves, strong fingers releasing the tension from the muscles in which it had gathered. “Stop!” he tried to protest again. “We’re not in church!” Both men could not help but laugh at the latter statement.
“But I love you.”
Aramis felt heat rise up his neck, his face flushing in deep pleasure at the knowledge of the truth of that simple statement.
“And I owe you one, isn’t that right?” he inquired, finally opening his eyes, and beholding his companion kneeling in front of him, smiling wickedly, devious hands continuing their journey up towards his thighs, kneading his flesh as they traveled.
Athos leaned in closer, sliding his body in between his seated companion’s legs.
“Mostly,” he whispered, “it is just that I love you.”
Somehow, all the years and practice had not diminished the effect that locking eyes with Athos had on Aramis. They tugged at the very core of his soul, simultaneously wounding and soothing; one moment - a playful puppy dog, the next moment - Cerberus at the gates of Hades, but always - the man he loved.
“I know that, god damn it,” Aramis pulled the other man by the collar towards himself, with an unexpected jolt of energy. It was because he had not doubted this fact in many years that made contradicting this man, in any of his often unreasonable and at times downright self-destructive demands, virtually impossible for Aramis. He kissed that beautiful fool, biting somewhat forcefully at his lower lip as he did so. Athos laughed into his mouth in response.
“I know you’re angry at me.”
“That does not begin to describe what I am,” Aramis responded, breathlessly, taking the other man’s lip between his teeth again, watching him through narrowed eyes as he did so. Somehow, in the meantime, Athos had succeeded in maneuvering his wandering hands in between Aramis and the chair, lifting him out of his seat with one powerful movement of the back. Aramis found himself suspended a few inches above the ground and clutched in a rather ungentlemanly fashion to his lover’s groin.
“You’re going to hurt yourself, old man,” he beamed down into Athos’s face, wrapping his legs around his waist for better balance.
“Does it feel like I’m going to drop you? Hm?” Athos moved with deliberation towards the bedroom, or so Aramis was surmising, given he had no idea of the landscape behind him as he was being transported.
“This is extremely undignified,” Aramis pointed out.
“You said you were exhausted.”
“And I blame myself entirely.” Aramis felt himself lowered onto the bed with a surprising amount of control and care. He unwound his legs from around Athos’s hips somewhat unwillingly and looked up. In the darkness of this new room, they were somehow ageless again. “It’s been so long since I’ve been alone with you,” Aramis heard himself say, as if from a distance.
“There. Now… you’re beginning to understand my perspective on things.”
Athos was no more than a silhouette against the candlelight coming from the other room when he closed the door behind him, shutting all light out entirely. Aramis could only detect his location by the shuffling of clothes, falling off, hitting the floor, boots being carelessly tossed off, a trail of sounds all leading up to the foot of the bed. He felt his body trembling again, this time not in suppressed anger, but with youthful anticipation. Then a hand found his foot again and used it as leverage to pull the rest of its owner’s body into the bed.
“I can’t see you,” Aramis whispered, somehow afraid to ruin the perfection of the stillness of the night with the sound of his voice.
“You don’t need to see me,” the quiet voice responded right next to his ear, tickling him with warm breath.
Blindly, Aramis reached out in the direction of the voice, knowing fully what he would find: warm, naked flesh, willingly tangling itself up with his own still mostly clothed form. The wave of possessiveness, of ownership that he felt over his lover’s body, seemed to give him a surge of energy he was so patently lacking only a few minutes prior.
“I would have done anything for you,” Aramis whispered, thinking simultaneously of what had transpired at Place Royale, when he had broken his own sword merely because Athos wished it done, and of all the other things now gone, but not forgotten. The choices he had made, the times he stayed, the times he left, the ebb and flow of their love that wound like Ariadne’s golden thread through both of their lives, and all of it only because the touch of those hot lips on his neck, like at that moment, left Aramis bereft of all reason.
“Thank you,” even Athos’s words felt hot against his skin now. He bit his own lips to hold back from crying out. Hands. Everywhere. Aramis arched into their touch. “You can do whatever you want to me.” Those whispered words had their desired effect on Aramis, as Athos must have known they would, tearing a guttural cry out of him, as he managed to wrestle his lover down into the mattress and loomed over him in the dark, hair falling onto what Aramis was sure would have been a grinning face.
“I plan on it,” Aramis declared, victoriously.
“Only be careful. Remember: my body belongs to the Fronde and the Duc de Beaufort now - you told me so yourself earlier tonight.”
“You will be punished for that,” Aramis promised, attacking the other man’s mouth with his own. He was seeking out his partner’s arms in the darkness, only to discover them between their bodies, already undoing the lacing of his trousers. “You’re being most obliging.”
“Get over here.”
“I am over here.”
“No, over here,” the deep voice said from underneath Aramis as he felt a shift in his lover’s hips and tried to hang on to him with his thighs as if he were in the saddle.
“Oh,” he responded.
The bells began to toll midnight. They both held their breath, counting off each stroke, as their bodies slid closer together and the rest of the night stretched out before them like the ocean into some unknown horizon.
“What a day,” Athos whispered at the sound of the final stroke, the heat of his lips sending acute waves of pleasure down Aramis’s neck again. Aramis tightened his grip on the man beneath him.
“I have forgotten,” he replied and buried himself inside his lover’s body, choosing to believe his own words, choosing to forget, becoming nothing but sensitized flesh, becoming only the pulse at the base of his own neck, and the rhythm of his hips rising and falling. Morning was an eternity away. In the meantime, Paris could burn.