#aramis the cheeky bastard just go to bed

[groundcontrol21]

Recitations (M, Musketeers)

An answer to my previous Musketeers story, but a bit different. In this one, Athos is still drinking and Aramis is still sick, but Athos is significantly less of a b!tch to Aramis. Quite the opposite in fact ;)

Also for @seasnz, since it's Athos/Aramis :)))

****

A soft October rain patters against the windowpane as Athos uncorks the night’s second bottle of wine, pouring it slowly into his glass cup. He is not far-gone enough yet to drink straight from the bottle, but he does not discount the possibility. He raises the glass to his lips, then almost spills it down his chest when the door to his bedroom crashes open. 

Aramis enters in a flourish and hangs his hat and coat on a peg, brushing off stray rain droplets. He beams at Athos, easily, as though he had been invited here in the first place. 

Athos rolls his eyes and sets the glass back down. “Is knocking now beneath you?”

“Your candle was lit and I saw you drinking alone,” Aramis says simply, gesturing at the window, and Athos resolves to never again light a candle at night without drawing his curtains. “I figured you would enjoy my company.”

“More so than Porthos?”

“Tavern is too noisy,” Aramis says, taking a seat at Athos’ desk chair and reclining his head back against the wall. He pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, and his eyes flutter shut. “This, on the other hand, is just perfect.”

“Headache?”

“Mmm,” Aramis hums, rubbing at his eyes. All at once, he crashes forward into steepled hands with a sneeze– “Heh’PTSHHH!”--then another– “Ihh’KSHHH!”-- and another– “Heh’ISHHH’uhh!”, and Athos knows what the problem is at once. His heart pulls with altogether more concern than is necessary (good God, the man has a cold, for heaven’s sake), and he is grateful when Aramis manages to produce his own handkerchief, saving Athos from the accusations of mother-henning he would receive if he offered the man his own.

“I see,” Athos says profoundly, observing his friend with a wince as he makes copious use of the cloth. Then, as Aramis lets the handkerchief fall to his lap, Athos narrows his eyes. “Weren’t you going on about an appointment with Madame Boucher tonight?”

“Canceled it.”

“Over a little headcold?” Athos scoffs as Aramis clears his throat, congested. “I hope it was not your vanity speaking, for I’m sure you could charm the slip off any woman even half-dead of the pox.”

“Not feeling well enough that it would be enjoyable,” Aramis says simply, hoarsely, as though the admission did not just send shockwaves through the mounting concern Athos is trying resolutely to ignore. Athos sips his wine to give his mouth something to do that is not something stupid like coo at him like a nursemaid.

Aramis’s cheeks part in a smile, his smile, and Athos instantly feels a bit of the worry slip off him like rainwater. “Besides, I would hate to pass on the affliction to such a lovely lady.”

Athos smirks. “But you have no similar reservations about passing it on to me.”

“Your constitution is far less delicate,” Aramis says dismissively, gesturing at the empty bottle of wine, before grinning again. “And anyway, I am hardly as close to you as I would be to Madame Boucher.”

Athos takes another drink and holds the wine in his mouth, considering the feel of it against the insides of his cheeks in an attempt not to consider why he feels flustered and a bit sad at the truth that Aramis has just pointed out. He swallows, wishing now he had opened one of his cheaper bottles; there is not enough of a sour burn from the Sauvignon to serve as an adequate distraction.

“Eh’KETCHH! Snf!” Aramis sneezes again, catches his breath momentarily, then heaves a crackling cough into the crook of his arm. Once he is finished, he swipes the back of his hand across watery eyes and leans back in his chair again with a shaky, controlled sigh.

Athos winces. “Why not go to bed then?”

“It’s far too early for that, on a Friday night,” Aramis says, even as his voice is thin and cracked. He kicks his feet up on the table, crossing his arms behind his head, and the sight of his boots, caked with mud and peeling, on his table is enough to banish any concern Athos has for the man and replace it with the desire to punch him.  “The tavern was far too loud, I’m in the mood for conversation, et voilà!” He opens his arms in a grand, sweeping gesture. “Here I am.”

Athos rolls his eyes and buries his words in his glass as he takes another sip. “Lucky me.”

Aramis sneezes again, and damn him, the sound is raw and scraping. The feeling tugging at Athos’s belly, the one he might describe (disgustingly and inappropriately) as tenderness returns. Aramis beckons to him, waving his handkerchief. “Pass me some wine, Athos.”

“Not with a headcold like that,” Athos says, more firmly than intended. His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle as he pours himself some more, and why does doing so feel like a betrayal? He cloaks his private inanities in a pompous hum. “Besides, I’m not about to waste my fine Sauvignon on a man who can’t taste it.”

At this, Aramis merely sticks out his tongue, a gesture Athos replies to with a well-chosen finger of his own. For a few blessed moments, Athos enjoys his wine in relative silence, the only sounds the pattering rain and Aramis’ sniffles and sneezes. 

But then, Aramis shoots upright, his feet crashing to the floor, the sound perfectly synchronized with a hearty burst of rain outside. “Oh, I was supposed to read the madame some of my poetry tonight.” Aramis sighs like a dramatic hero in the theatre, slumping back despondently in the chair, flashing a delicate palm across his eyes. 

In an instant, though, he perks up again, eager as a rabbit, all drama forgotten. “I could read it to you instead.”

“That will not be necessary.” 

Aramis pouts at him like a child, and the wine must be going straight through him tonight, Athos thinks, because that is surely the only explanation for why he feels the need to soothe the frown from his friend’s face. “Come,” Athos says, softening, “you’ll lose your voice before you finish three stanzas.”

Aramis huffs; the congested noise snags on a couple coughs. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I am.”

“Oh, but they are such fine poems, Athos,” Aramis says, his voice almost beseeching. “Love poems. I think you would enjoy them.”

Athos pauses, the flagon halfway to his lips. “Then you don’t know me as well as I thought you did, mon ami, for I think all things of the sort are pointless drivel.” He speaks a bit harshly, more so than he had intended, but that is fine if that is what is necessary to stop Aramis from going down whatever road it is that he seems intent on traveling. 

“That’s because you haven’t heard the right poems,” Aramis says. “My poems.” As if his poems were the missing piece that kept the Philistines from being each one of them prodigies of the arts, and the confidence of his voice… Athos uncrosses his legs, silently blaspheming the name of everything the godly man holds dear. 

“Ah, but they are all the way at the garrison in my room,” Aramis sighs forlornly, and Athos has never heard sweeter words in his lifetime. He releases a breath through his tight throat, relaxes against the back of his chair once more, and tops off his glass. His hand hardly even shakes as he raises the glass to his lips.

“Let’s see what I remember.”

Athos chokes on the wine.

Aramis begins his recitation. The man learned to write at the seminary, this Athos knows, but surely they did not teach him to write like this. In the early days of their marriage, Athos had read to Her from the Song of Solomon, but Aramis’s cantos make the book seem like the innocent musings of a choirboy, the innuendos here even more scantily hidden. But what is worse—the poem is actually good. Excellent, even. But Athos can hardly focus on the words any more than to hear them in Aramis’s low, hoarse voice as he recites borderline obscenities, the cadence growing and building, and Athos wonders if this is what he sounds like when… No. Athos crosses his legs, uncrosses them, shifts forward on the chair, shifts back, but even his own skin is uncomfortable at this point and it is no use.  

Finally, Aramis droops back down in his chair with a sigh. “The rest escapes me.” He bends double as coughs scrape painfully past his throat, and Athos takes the blessed respite as a moment to collect himself, not trusting the noise that would come out of him should he open his mouth. 

“That’s for the best, you daft man,” Athos says croakily after a while, and he has never spoken truer words in his life. He was right not to trust his voice, but Aramis is too caught up in his coughing fit to notice. When the fit shows little sign of stopping, Athos quickly pours wine into a small pewter cup and takes it to Aramis. 

“Here, take some for your throat.”

Aramis accepts the cup, tipping it to his lips. He peers at Athos, wide-eyed, over the rim. “I thought you didn’t want to waste—“

“Shut up.”

Their fingers brush as Athos takes the cup from him to refill it, and anything Athos might have felt at the contact is overshadowed by how hot Aramis’s skin feels. Athos sets the wine aside and presses his palm to Aramis’s forehead, frowning at the clammy heat he feels there. 

“You didn’t mention a fever.”

“Mmm?” Aramis blinks at him, a bit dazed, and Athos wonders how it took him this long to notice the glassy sheen to his eyes. “And how do you know it isn’t just the flush brought on by reciting such passionate verse?” Aramis says cheekily, and Athos is tempted to hunt down a bucket of ice water large enough for both of them to dunk their heads in. 

Aramis sneezes again and again. “Heh’TSHHH’uhh! Ehh’hihhh’HISHHH’uhh! Snf!” He groans loudly, his eyes screwed shut. Athos pats the man’s head, letting his fingers linger at Aramis’s temples, kneading a little, because he knows how much Aramis likes it when Porthos strokes his hair after a nightmare, and Athos never thought he would get the chance to do it, too. 

Aramis cracks an eye open at him, and Athos instantly removes his hand. “Go lie down,” he grumbles instead.

“On your bed?” Aramis asks, sounding suddenly as innocent as a child who has been granted an extra round of sweets. 

Athos clears his throat and looks away. “Unless you’d prefer the floor.”

Aramis, the fiendish man, winks at him before making his way, admittedly a bit shakily, over to the bed. He undresses down to his small clothes, far more slowly than is at all necessary or proper, and Athos has to look at the wall and dig his fingernail into the pad of his thumb to keep himself grounded. Mentally, he chides himself; how many times has he watched his brothers-in-arms change out of their clothing? How many times has he himself been the one to aid them when one was sick or injured. Still, though, between that display and the bloody winking, Athos is tempted to revoke his offer of his bed to Aramis and, to hell with sleeping on the floor, just bury the man beneath the boards instead.

Aramis slips beneath the covers, tucking them up to his chin. Once Athos has made sure Aramis is comfortable, he retrieves his waterskin, still full from the afternoon on account of the evening��s alternate beverage choices. Athos uses it to soak his handkerchief, then folds the cloth and lays it across Aramis’s pinched brow. It’s not ice water, but it is far cooler than Aramis currently is. 

Aramis sighs in relief, melting further into the pillow, and Athos’s own shoulders unclench in sympathy. Athos applies a gentle pressure to the cloth with his fingers, and is gratified when Aramis sighs again. 

Aramis peers up at him from beneath the cold cloth, eyes half-covered as though peeking out from underneath a ridiculous hat, and takes Athos’s hand. He speaks the first line of his poem again, his voice even huskier than before, and as if that weren’t enough, he presses a kiss to Athos’s knuckles. His fever-bright eyes never break their contact with Athos’.

Athos feels his cheeks burn and wonders if it is possible he has already caught the man’s fever. His voice certainly sounds little better than Aramis’ when he manages to choke out, “Just close your eyes, for God’s sake.”

Aramis obeys, but continues to speak, and–damn it–Athos should have ordered him to shut his mouth instead. “You liked them, didn’t you,” Aramis says, and it is not a question but a statement of fact. “The poems. I saw it on your face.”

“My face?”

Aramis’s eyes slit open again, and he smiles. It is a more private thing now, more intimate and less teasing. “You are not as subtle as you think you are, dear Athos.”

It happens then, as Athos leans forward. He tells himself the motion is to check Aramis’ fever, to fluff the pillows and make him comfortable, but whatever reason his mind might conjure, the rest of him finds reason and answer in Aramis’ lips as they meet his. The man’s breath is hot, wet puffs of congestion as he gasps around the kiss for air.

“Mmm,” Aramis hums softly, and Athos nearly groans when he pulls away slightly. His eyes are gleaming and his face is flushed, but Athos would be a fool to attribute the whole of his appearance to his illness. “Now you are definitely getting as close to me as I would be with Madame Boucher. Snf! Ehh’TSHHHoo!”

Athos does not care, and he tells him as much, pulling him close again. 

(When he wakes two days later with a throat seemingly cut by glass and a head stopped full of congestion, he will wish he cared a bit more, but even so, he will never, ever regret this night. Of that much, he is certain.)

#my writing #you guessed it #sick ara/mis #the world needs so much more historic snz fic #snzfic #do not reblog to non kink blogs #more muskie snz!!! #aramis the cheeky bastard just go to bed