#what would've happened if D'Artagnan was there?????

[cave-cryptid]

I lost my MIND when Milady de Winter confidently strolled into the room to falsely testify against Ninon, and there you have Athos in the background

Stoic, composed Athos, performing as nothing less than a perfect soldier

And the second he hears her voice the façade melts away like candle wax

The acting skill alone !!!

For his mask to just slowly drip from his features and reveal all the layers of emotion left behind. Disbelief, grief, guilt, fear, anger all in a matter of seconds.

That's probably one of the only times Aramis and Porthos ever saw Athos so completely vulnerable to his own emotions, and even still he doesn't tell them the truth afterwards which demonstrates just how much control Milady has over his psyche that he'd almost reveal his darkest truth.

Just !!!!! Will be thinking about that scene for a long time

#the entire episode was just #SO GOOD #Also Ninon like Is there an inner sadness that informs the beauty of your features? #ahdgfyfururutiti #finally someone said it #and her flirting with him the SECOND he enters the room 👀 #a queen #what would've happened if D'Artagnan was there????? #the musketeers #bbc the musketeers #athos #D'Artagnan like Oh did she try to frame you for murder too what a small world #Athos like yOu slEpt wiTh mY eX WiFe *instantly kills him*

[dramatisperscnae]

"i know there's been a lot between us, kyle, but i want you to know i'm... thankful," it's hard to be honest in a place like the one hal's actions put him, but he has to be. kyle held the torch for them all when he nearly snuffed the green lanterns out. hell, if the kid didn't want to look at his face ever again after meeting him as parallax, he'd understand, but here they are, sharing a rare moment of peace.

maybe it's the rare opportunity of sharing a moment at warriors without guy or john watching. maybe it's the alcohol talking already (he shouldn't drink, anyway, but recommendations are not something he follows through often), but he thinks kyle deserves a little honesty.

"i know you think you weren't chosen but even if you weren't, you were better than any expectations anyone could have. doing all you did, with no training? kilowog would've been out of his mind." he chuckles at the rim of his pitcher. "and hey, i know that means little considering i was the one who put you in that spot first thing, but... i mean it. you are one of the best of us."

Kyle really hadn't known what to expect when Hal had invited him out. They hadn't really had much interaction since Hal's return, and the only meetings they'd had before then had mostly been Hal - well. Parallax. - trying to kick seven kinds of shit out of him. And then had come the Sun-eater, and then Hal had died, and now…well, death somehow had a way of never quite being permanent for the true legends, didn't it?

Not that Kyle included himself among that number despite his own death during that Atlantis fiasco, but that was neither here nor there.

But he couldn't deny it was nice to actually talk with Hal Jordan himself for once, without the added weight of Guy and John in the conversation. It wasn't that Kyle didn't like being a part of the group - far from it - but get all four of them together and Kyle tended to feel kind of like D'artagnan to the others' Three Musketeers; a part of the group, absolutely, but still somehow on the outskirts, without the deeper bond the other three had.

He sipped at his beer, the conversation reaching a natural lull for a moment before Hal spoke up again and had Kyle looking up in mild confusion. Thankful…? What, just in general or for something specific? And where had it come from all of a sudden? They'd been just shooting the shit, catching each other up on the more mundane aspects of their respective lives - what few those were - and suddenly this?

But Hal didn't stop there. Kyle stared at him, brain trying to catch up with what he was hearing. No one else had really ever acknowledged the fact that Kyle had never gotten the same training as the others…hell, he'd never even heard the oath until Donna had introduced him to John, and he sure as hell hadn't known the legacy he carried. He'd done his best, of course, but there had been - still were - days where it just didn't feel like enough.

And then Hal had to go and finish like that. Kyle couldn't help the wry, almost disbelieving chuckle as he focused on his beer rather than the man across from him. It was one thing for Kyle's own ego to occasionally talk like that, but to hear it from Hal Jordan? The legend himself? That was something else. Especially since Hal still seemed to think Kyle really had been chosen.

"I wasn't chosen, y'know," he said with a shrug. "It could've been anyone in that alley that night. Could've been the homeless guy. Happened to be me. 'You shall have to do', exactly what he said before he shoved the ring at me and disappeared." And then, a scant few months later, he'd had to fight to keep the damned thing when both Ganthet and Hal had showed up to take it back and claim it personally, respecively. No, Kyle Rayner hadn't been chosen. He had chosen. He'd fought for his right to wear the ring.

"But that…it means a lot, actually, coming from you," he added with a crooked grin. "More than you think. I mean, all that bullshit aside, you're still Hal Jordan, y'know? The living legend, that whole thing?" Supposedly the best Green Lantern ever, depending on who you asked. "When he gave me the ring, Ganthet's only instructions were to 'do what I must'." Kyle shrugged. "So I did. Learned a lot of lessons the hard way, but…I'm still here, so I've gotta be doing something right, yeah?"

#Communication #knightlier #kyle ic #kyle verse: torchbearer #[holy shit this got away from me whoops o.o]