Musketeer!fic: Affinity!verse
Apr. 9th, 2014 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainjoyswritingCaptain Treville's Home for Motherless Boys, affinityverse (best catalogued in my memories <3 )
Disclaimer: Aten't mine. Just faffing.
Rating: R? Maybe? Probably? I like R.
Warnings and spoilers: The main list's on part one, read sensibly.
Summary: There is nothing more dangerous on this earth than trust.
Note: This is my third attempt at writing this fic and is basically just the point at which I gave up ^^; Treville doesn't like co-operating with me, apparently. You can see why.
The first time Treville attends an episode in the night and Porthos is already in the room with Aramis - Porthos is clearly the one who pulled the alarm, already in the bed with him holding his head safe to his chest - he knows it's already too late. He gives no indication of having any thoughts about it at the time, because there's Aramis to deal with, teeth tight in that leather cuff and eyes wide open, making unsettled huffing noises against Porthos' t-shirt as his body jerks; there's Aramis to worry about, boneless afterwards, exhausted, mumbling that he doesn't understand what he saw; fields of green grass, splitting like the earth is wounded.
When Aramis has slipped unconscious in Porthos' arms Treville stands up again, reties the belt of his dressing gown, holds Porthos' eye - a little nervous, he knows what being caught in this bed implies - and nods, once. Then he leaves them, because this is something he has no authority over. Circles are circles: Aramis is Aramis. And this isn't Aramis, fourteen and cocky and infuriating, being informed that the next time he seduces a gardener Treville will have the man sent to prison for statutory rape. This isn't Aramis bored out of his mind and seducing people more than ten years older than him just for something to do and at least partially to see how insane it will drive Treville. They're the same age and they're half of a circle, and Treville has no right to interfere with whatever Aramis and Porthos mean to each other.
He can't help feeling bitterly that he has every right, all the same.
Treville is responsible for both of them but it's Aramis he's already been responsible for for two years, for two intensive and demanding years, because when Treville took on this job the last thing he anticipated was teenagers. When he first picked up a fourteen year old water affinity who'd somehow survived his rift, who shared no language with him, who was strangely adultly solemn in his medical bay bed with stitches in his cheek and restraints on his wrists because of the violence of his early episodes, Treville had had no idea what the hell to do with the boy. He had been, not that he could confide it in anyone, terrified. He'd prepared himself to deal with all the chaos and carnage of rifts but he'd prepared himself to deal with adults dealing with their rifts. What the hell was he meant to do with Aramis?
Over the course of two years, Treville has become very attached to his stubborn, stoical, unpredictable charge. He knows that Aramis is devoted to him, Aramis loves very deeply and sincerely and until Porthos got here, there was no-one in France he was more attached to than his 'captain'. But now there is Porthos, just as Aramis predicted. And now that he's here, Porthos is a problem.
'Isaac' is forgotten in less than a week, because Aramis always is right about these things: Porthos, who within a matter of hours becomes irreplaceable to him. Aramis follows him around the villa like an overexcited puppy, his eyes follow him around every room, when he wakes from an episode the first word out of his mouth is now always his name. Treville has watched this before, and of course he worries. Marsac's desertion nearly killed Aramis, and after so long without even another quarter of a circle, his ability to fight his own powers is failing. Treville doesn't think he could survive it twice. Treville is responsible for both of them but it's Aramis who's been his charge for two years, it's Aramis he's watched grow from a boy to a spindly young man already taller than he is, it's Aramis he feels protective towards in ways that Aramis himself would only find amusing. He needs to know that he can trust Porthos. Mostly he needs to know that Aramis can trust Porthos, and it's already far too late to warn him of that.
They're not just teenage boys. They're teenage boys with devastatingly volatile, emotionally-charged elemental powers capable of flattening cities, and there never was a chance for Treville to warn either of them, to tell Aramis to tread carefully because he won't survive it the second time around, to tell Porthos what Aramis is like and that he has to be careful in how he reads him. It would never have been appropriate for him to tell either of them, At least try not to sleep together until you're certain, because either one of you could cause unspeakable destruction but the both of you accidentally breaking each other's hearts could devastate half the country.
He wouldn't even pretend, if asked, that Porthos doesn't make him think of Marsac. Of course he makes him think of Marsac: another air affinity (Aramis really could have used an earth affinity to ground him a little, but they have to take what they can get, and surely better than pairing his rather over-fluid water affinity with a fire affinity . . . ?), another air affinity Aramis puts no defences up against at all. Another air affinity blowing into his life - but Marsac blew right out of it again and left him for dead, and Porthos -
You didn't say that would happen!
The test will not be the first rift they deal with together, rifts only ever made Aramis and Marsac closer. The act of surviving, trying so hard and failing but at least coming through it alive together only ever made them seem stronger. Aramis and Porthos will deal admirably with rifts, he already knows that. The first true test will be the first true 'bad one'. Because Aramis' episodes have been so manageable since Porthos arrived, and Treville remembers the first time he attended an episode in the night and Marsac was already in the room, pressed back against the wall, terrified because Aramis on the bed was contorted and bleeding from the nose and making an inhuman noise with his back bent like that -
The real test will be the way Porthos looks at him after that.
Treville doesn't want him to be another Marsac. Treville needs to hand his water affinity to a circle he can trust. He needs Aramis to be safe with Porthos.
He already knows that safety is the last thought on Aramis' mind.
*
In the practice room he watches them spar. They do, occasionally, get into tumbling physical fights - at first Treville had been horrified, had dragged them off each other, before he'd realised that he can't yet tell the difference between their silliness and their seriousness: mostly, they're playing. Only rarely do they actually bicker (walking past a room and hearing, "Fuck your fucking ¿qué? -" means that Aramis has overstepped in his teasing and it's time step in) but even then they seem to make efforts not to hurt each other in anger. The time Aramis gave Porthos a bloody nose and the time Porthos knocked Aramis out against the wall were both accidents, they swear, brought on by overenthusiastic horseplay. Neither of them has ever presented so much as a bruise gained through spite.
Still what Treville mostly sees is the size and weight difference between them, because even if Aramis is beanpoling up at an almost alarming rate (Treville remembers the first time, Aramis reaching over his head for a bread roll in the cafeteria, that they both realised that Aramis had grown taller than him; he remembers his own surprise, and the way Aramis paused before he grinned around the spoon hanging from his mouth), his body's still undecided as to how to fill out all that extra height, and Porthos, built like a young boxer, looks like he could crush him without even trying to. Porthos is a hell of a fighter, God only knows how he learned, Treville is better not asking. Aramis is quick and lethal but is clearly only admiring of the fact that in a genuine brawl, Porthos would wipe the floor with him. The only advantage Aramis has against him is speed: if he can do something inventively nasty enough to stop Porthos pinning him, he has a chance of winning, but he knows he's doomed as soon as he lets Porthos get his hands on him. And Aramis can be very inventively nasty, but he still only succeeds three times out of ten - and still, for some reason that makes sense to him alone, Aramis seems to think that as long as those statistics hold, all is right with the world.
They face each other on the practice mats, Porthos shifting all his muscles out, body swaying just a little like a tree in the wind, left and right, hands flexing, eyes on Aramis; Aramis stands loose and easy, weight held calm as water, just watching him.
Porthos moves like thunder, the impossible building horror of it, catches Aramis' lashed-out left elbow and gets his weight on him - Aramis' foot skids out, he goes down backwards with Porthos on top of him but -
They all hear the click, and Treville nods just slightly to himself. Porthos is very still, muscles very tight, pinning Aramis to the mat flat on his back with an arm over his throat but Aramis has his right arm free and a gun aimed right at Porthos' face, eyes dark and set.
Not a muscle moving, not even looking away from his eyes to the gun two inches from his temple, Porthos says, "Did you take the safety off?"
"¿Qué? Oh, sorry." He clicks it back on, and smiles. "Force of habit."
Porthos gives him the just pointed a live gun at me you crazy fucker look, again, and climbs off him, keeping hold of his arm to help-haul him up. "Draw?"
"I would have blown your head off."
"I would've crushed your windpipe."
Aramis shrugs. "Draw. Best out of five?"
They face each other again: looseness of water ready to flow with the world's tilt, in-breath silence of the air's stillness before the wind roars.
*
Porthos' Social Services files are sent from England. There are rather a lot of them.
Treville reads through them while, through the open window of his office, he can hear two boys squabbling without malice over how to hang a hammock between two trees in the garden. It's a blessedly warm spring day, playfully blustery but bright with sunshine. Porthos is still meant to be settling in before his schooling starts, but Aramis had pleaded to take his French outside for today, since the weather is fine, to teach Porthos too. He really can be so damnably pleading.
Treville flips through the files listing Porthos' foster homes, his stays in children's homes and institutions, his interactions with the police - many, though largely petty. Treville reads the files and tries to be rational about them. Possession (mostly pot), truancy, shoplifting, joyriding - a little arson, of the 'bored' rather than 'malevolent' variety. Nothing, he tells himself, that Aramis wouldn't have got around to, given half the chance. Nothing that Aramis wouldn't have topped just to prove that he could.
Every episode is Treville's breath wrung from his lungs, the sight of Aramis essentially already dead, leaving Treville with just his body's unfeeling throes. Every episode brings back too many bad memories, and Porthos let him -
Outside there's a raised pitch to the squabbling, a thump, and then after a pause, they both start laughing hard.
Treville does know how very persuasive Aramis can be, and he doesn't doubt that Aramis came up with the plan, that Aramis persuaded Porthos that it would be fine, he does know that Aramis tempts and that other people struggle not to be seduced. Treville can be really very rational about these things. Porthos is not a malicious boy. But he still let him . . .
He thinks of Aramis - still René, then - fourteen years old in the medical bay bed, looking very small and quiet, stitches in his cheek and hooked up to the drip that his seizures - he hadn't been awake and comprehensible enough to christen them his 'little episodes' yet - kept ripping from his wrist. He was philosophical even then, never cried about his condition, never looked obviously self-pitying even, just looked around at everyone so confused, as if he didn't understand why they were doing whatever it was that they were doing, as if his self-containment within his seizures was something they had yet just failed to grasp.
Treville remembers all his worst episodes, remembers the times Ferrand has gone quiet - a very bad sign - remembers him unable to wake after Marsac, remembers a time when he could physically pick the boy up himself to put him in his bed. He's not a boy now and Treville has no idea if Aramis even remembers any of those occasions, but he's not going to forget the drop of his dead limbs, the weight of his head rolled to his chest. He remembers his first ever face to face interaction with Richelieu, the violence of the episode - the first nosebleed, and he lashed so hard that the bedsheets and the wall were scattered scarlet -
Treville remembers all his worst episodes, and every new episode could always turn into the worst. Hurrying to Aramis on the floor in the corridor beside the pool, muscles jerking only slightly but face already wet with blood - every time, he remembers all his worst episodes, every time could be the last time. And Aramis did it to himself, for him, and still refuses to tell him half of the things he sees -
Treville can be very rational about these things: Aramis would die for Porthos. The only thing Treville isn't yet sure of is that Porthos will ensure that he doesn't.
There's silence, from outside, just birdsong and the distant hum of the lawnmower. He stands, leaving Porthos' files on the desk, and walks to the window.
The hammock barely swings, steadied by their weight. A foot hangs out from either side of it, one pale gold, one pale brown. They're very quiet, book held open between them. If Treville knows teenagers, they're looking up all the bad words first.
He hears Porthos' deep laughter, and Aramis' foot flicks from the pleasure of making him laugh. They've known each other a matter of weeks; already they might have known each other for years, for all their lives.
Treville is very rational. Aramis is always right. He and Porthos are meant to be a circle.
All Treville needs to know is that that circle will be safe.
*
He sends for Aramis from another session of teaching Porthos to shoot - he's no natural, not like he is at hand to hand fighting, but Treville grants easily that the boy works damn hard - and Aramis knocks, enters, and stands in front of his desk with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, giving Treville one of his patiently amused, quizzical looks.
Treville used to put a chair in front of the desk for him but something about Aramis has always suggested that he prefers to stand. He has a lot of oddly military habits - little modes of carriage and vocabulary that Treville, so long a soldier himself, is quick to spot and curious about. He doesn't think it's anything he picked up in the orphanage. Like his English - like his gun skills, terrifyingly accurate from the very first shot - it seems to be one of what Aramis terms his 'borrowed' memories. Sometimes he remembers things that have yet to happen, and sometimes he remembers things that other people know. What a curious existence it must be, Treville has always thought, riding the choppy surface of a present that can always drop you into the waters of the past or future with no warning and no defence . . .
"Three days," Treville says. Aramis quirks his smile. Treville checked the files but Aramis knows in a much more intimate way that it's been weeks - months - since regular three day gaps could be relied on. He can make it to four and five days, now. No wonder he's beginning to take some interest in his French, he finally gets at least a couple of days a week without either the prelude or the hangover of his episodes to deal with.
"Are you throwing me a 'congratulations' party?"
"How are you feeling?"
He shrugs, looking quite happy with himself. He does look happy, happier than Treville's ever seen him; he knows how hard Aramis has found his isolation here, both the only quarter of a circle and the only teenager in the building. "You must appreciate the unbroken nights."
"Is Porthos settling in well?"
Aramis looks across to the window, and they both contemplate the wind dragging hard at the trees outside. "He's concentrating very hard, he wants to be good." Aramis says, and shifts his shoulders a little awkward. "He doesn't like being so obvious. All - this." Lifting a hand at the window. "It feels unfair to him. It is unfair to him. But, he's fine, mostly. I like him."
Too much, Treville suspects. "Can you see any potential problems on the horizon?"
"I'm informing on my own circle?"
"I need to protect you and him."
Aramis rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "He's fine. He's working very hard to be fine. Captain, I know you worry, but I don't, not when it comes to Porthos. And I'm the one who's psychic, ¿cachai?"
"And not particularly able to control that."
"Three days," Aramis says, and touches his chest as if wounded. And again, even though they must have had similar conversations a thousand times, what strikes Treville is how genuinely happy, how easy he looks. It's so rare not to see him looking tired, drained, a little tight at the edges with keeping under control how worn down he is. He's always had that strangely adult habit of concealment, of acceptance. Right now he looks a great deal more sixteen, though whether that is really a good thing . . .
Loneliness has been the heart of so much of what has hurt Aramis. The episodes he can accept. His powers he can handle. The gruelling nature of so inevitably many failed rifts he can manage. But being without a circle has been slowing killing Aramis in more ways than just leaving him at the mercy of his uncontrolled powers, because he can make himself not mind the episodes but he can't make himself not mind being alone. Treville remembers the orphanage - Treville will never forget the orphanage - he remembers the intent dark eyes slipping away at every bend of the staircase he climbed, children vanishing as he reached each landing, there seemed to be dozens of them. And he thinks of Aramis happy in that tumble of children, Aramis who is so clingy and over-friendly so right in the middle of a pack of children, and then suddenly transported to a country on the other side of the world where he didn't speak the language and was surrounded by adults and could never again see everyone he'd ever known. He does know that most of the intentional chaos Aramis has caused has been down to the boredom of his loneliness; he does know that Aramis doesn't forget that orphanage either.
When Treville doesn't respond to his teasing, Aramis' face sobers, and he gives Treville one of his quiet looks, eyes dark and sombre, now. "I trust Porthos with my life," he says, calmly. "Captain, you trust me when I tell you that a building in a city I've never visited is going to house a rift, you don't trust me when I tell you that I would let Porthos put a gun to my head because he would never, never hurt me with it?"
The first thing Treville says, because he knows Aramis, is, "Don't let him put a gun to your head."
Aramis rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "Do you know how he got control of his rift? Because London isn't built for hurricanes, captain. He should have blown that building down with him and me in it, we should both be dead, along with a lot of other people. All that power would have taken him, the same as it would have taken me, if we both hadn't had something else we could hold on to to hold on to ourselves. I had Maria. And Porthos, Porthos got control of his rift as soon as I needed his help." Dark serious eyes, and Aramis is the worst liar in the world which is how Treville knows that he means every word of this, as a psychic and as a boy quite wise in the ways of the world. "The rift in him didn't care that I was having an episode in front of him, but Porthos cared. And it wasn't because it was me. He's not me, he doesn't have the future knocking down the door into his head all the time, he didn't have a clue who I was. But someone in front of him asked for his help so he contained enough power to flatten a city so that he could help them. He's a good man." He shrugs, open and sincere. "Best I've ever met. Among the best," with a deferential little half-bow. "I trust him, with everything. And you believe me when I tell you that a rift is opening at the other side of the world but you don't believe me now?"
Treville sighs out through his nose, and is horribly, horribly afraid. This is more than Marsac. Every time Treville watched Aramis watch Marsac it was like he knew that something would go wrong and he just didn't know what it was yet, this is not how it was with Marsac. Marsac was difficult, and his desertion shook Aramis to the bones. If Porthos leaves him now, there is not one level on which it won't kill him.
There is nothing more dangerous on this earth than trust.
*
Aramis' episodes continue calm. On Saturday they set fire to the kitchen trying to make fajitas; on Monday Treville discovers that they've somehow captured a wild rabbit and they're trying to keep it as a pet in Aramis' bathroom; on Wednesday he intervenes when he discovers them trying to make target practice more interesting by Porthos holding Aramis up by his ankles while he shoots upside-down.
On Thursday Aramis looks tired and jittery, but the episode in the night is manageable, and Porthos is practised now at holding his head, keeping himself calm, and telling an agent when they've got his wrist too hard.
On Friday he still looks too frayed, and Treville can tell that it's coming.
The alarm goes off just before eight o' clock that night. They're not in either of their bedrooms, where they usually spend their evenings, but in the corridor outside - maybe they were moving between rooms, or heading to the kitchen. They're already on the floor next to the dropped alarm, Porthos holding Aramis' head but the corridor isn't quite wide enough to keep him from kicking the wall, and the agents with Treville move in. He's broken his wrist on a wall before, they can't risk it.
It's not just that it's a violent one. Treville keeps a hand on Aramis' back to feel the tremors, because it's when they stop that he knows he's beginning to come out of it, but they don't stop. Treville looks at an agent who tells him in French, "Six minutes."
Porthos' jaw is hard and he's got Aramis' head tight even as he seems to try to yank it free, but he can't stop it getting into his eyes, and they can all hear the wind outside. When it gets past seven minutes Porthos says, "We should - should we get a doctor or -"
Treville keeps a hand on his back, feels the jumping and spasming of his muscles, and shakes his head. There's nothing a doctor can do, and this isn't even the longest they've endured.
"Eight minutes," an agent murmurs, and Treville doesn't know if he can understand the French but Porthos' face is pale, and his voice isn't entirely steady as he says, "Is he dyin'?"
"No." Treville says, which means that he doesn't know, not that he's definitely not. "Just hold on."
Aramis is making muffled keening noises when his breath sucks in around the leather, like he desperately wants something to stop.
Nine minutes and forty-three seconds: not quite his record, but not far off. When his muscles sag limp under Treville's hand he closes his own eyes, feels the relief in his own body, he hadn't known he'd been so tensed in horrible sympathy. Porthos' breath falls out of him shaking and he reels more of Aramis up into his arms, head stuffed under his throat, shoulders tucked in close, breathing into his hair, "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Treville can't even care to tell him not to swear. He presses Aramis' back, feels the over-quick beating of his breath at his ribs, the panic of his body restored to him, the agony of the muscle tension and he knows what it does to his head. "Aramis," he says, because he has to do this, this is what he has to suffer when Aramis suffers that, being forced to do this. "What did you see?"
Porthos is silent, arms folded around the back of Aramis' head, then he looks at Treville and Treville always knows, and unpeels a tissue from the packet in his jacket pocket for him.
Porthos wipes his mouth, and his eyes, but Aramis can't sit up, just slumps against his sturdier body, eyes still closed, breathing hard. "There's a boy," he whispers, rough thin voice and he doesn't lift his head. "In England. He's falling in love." Porthos' thumb runs over his hairline, and Aramis swallows like it hurts. "It's going to be the worst thing that ever happens to him."
Porthos looks at Treville, looks troubled and still scared. Treville just nods at him. He wants to see what Porthos will do when Aramis is his responsibility, not Treville's.
Porthos presses his fingers through his hair, says, "Bed." He picks up the saliva-wet cuff from the floor and scoots his legs out from under himself, and switches Aramis' limp body to his shoulder, to haul him up over it. "Come on, you smug little psychic shit. Knackered after that."
Aramis, head hanging down his back, eyes not even open - smiles, with a little breath, at the floor.
Treville holds the bedroom door open for them, and hands Porthos the alarm again when Porthos has dumped Aramis' body onto the bed (Aramis grunts his dissatisfaction at being so unceremoniously handled, but Porthos did catch his head in his hand to let it gentle to the pillow, and he just ruffles his hair about to mess it up before he stands up again). "Thanks," Porthos says. He looks shocked, still, like a sixteen year old still recovering from that. But he looks steady as well, still on his feet and not remotely afraid of Aramis laying exactly where he was put, perhaps already asleep.
Treville nods at Aramis. "There may be another in the night."
Porthos' face is still greyed, but he doesn't look afraid, doesn't explode at the unfairness of it - to Aramis or himself - doesn't do anything but take a steadying breath, and nod. Then he turns to Aramis and bats a hand at his shin, says, "Gettin' your boots off before we mess up your precious sheets, huevón."
Aramis' breath makes a quiet complaining noise, but he doesn't move.
Trust, Treville thinks, watching Porthos pluck open Aramis' bootlaces, is the most dangerous thing on this earth. Put it in the wrong place and it will do worse than merely kill you. Trust the wrong person and you have already given them both the poison and the blade for your veins.
Porthos drops Aramis' boots by the bed and then sits there, looking down at him, looking tired and drained himself.
"I would sleep while you can," Treville advises. Porthos sighs, slow, and nods. Treville turns to leave but Porthos says, "Captain -"
He looks back, and Porthos is looking at Aramis, who might be awake but can hardly be said to be present, really.
Porthos looks at Treville, nervous and maybe a little angry in the eyes. "They get worse than that?"
He nods once. "Sometimes." Particularly when air affinities leave him to die alone in the dark. Then they can get very bad indeed.
Porthos sighs again, and bounces his knuckles into the side of Aramis' shin again, says, "You just have to be fuckin' special, don't you, Aramis."
If Porthos is afraid, he's not afraid of Aramis. And if Aramis is afraid of anything, he's not afraid of Porthos leaving him. Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, trust is Aramis throwing his heart to the air, and Porthos knowing that Aramis isn't that violent, untrustworthy thing that sleeps inside him. Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, and there can be no circle without it. Trust is all they have.
Porthos kicks his trainers off and Treville says, "Goodnight," knowing he'll probably see them again in only a few hours. Porthos just grunts, tired, and stretches his long length out alongside Aramis on the bed, hooking an arm around his side.
Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, and Treville is leaving his water affinity helpless in the hands of a boy he hardly knows, because there's no safer place for him in the world.
He walks away. It's something he's going to have to practise. He's responsible for both of them, but he has to trust their trust in each other. Porthos isn't like Marsac, and even Treville can sense the circle that those two make now, trust the strongest muscle in both Aramis and Porthos. He walks away: it was something he was always going to have to do.
He trusts that they will need him for a little longer, and that he will know when to let them go.
Disclaimer: Aten't mine. Just faffing.
Rating: R? Maybe? Probably? I like R.
Warnings and spoilers: The main list's on part one, read sensibly.
Summary: There is nothing more dangerous on this earth than trust.
Note: This is my third attempt at writing this fic and is basically just the point at which I gave up ^^; Treville doesn't like co-operating with me, apparently. You can see why.
The first time Treville attends an episode in the night and Porthos is already in the room with Aramis - Porthos is clearly the one who pulled the alarm, already in the bed with him holding his head safe to his chest - he knows it's already too late. He gives no indication of having any thoughts about it at the time, because there's Aramis to deal with, teeth tight in that leather cuff and eyes wide open, making unsettled huffing noises against Porthos' t-shirt as his body jerks; there's Aramis to worry about, boneless afterwards, exhausted, mumbling that he doesn't understand what he saw; fields of green grass, splitting like the earth is wounded.
When Aramis has slipped unconscious in Porthos' arms Treville stands up again, reties the belt of his dressing gown, holds Porthos' eye - a little nervous, he knows what being caught in this bed implies - and nods, once. Then he leaves them, because this is something he has no authority over. Circles are circles: Aramis is Aramis. And this isn't Aramis, fourteen and cocky and infuriating, being informed that the next time he seduces a gardener Treville will have the man sent to prison for statutory rape. This isn't Aramis bored out of his mind and seducing people more than ten years older than him just for something to do and at least partially to see how insane it will drive Treville. They're the same age and they're half of a circle, and Treville has no right to interfere with whatever Aramis and Porthos mean to each other.
He can't help feeling bitterly that he has every right, all the same.
Treville is responsible for both of them but it's Aramis he's already been responsible for for two years, for two intensive and demanding years, because when Treville took on this job the last thing he anticipated was teenagers. When he first picked up a fourteen year old water affinity who'd somehow survived his rift, who shared no language with him, who was strangely adultly solemn in his medical bay bed with stitches in his cheek and restraints on his wrists because of the violence of his early episodes, Treville had had no idea what the hell to do with the boy. He had been, not that he could confide it in anyone, terrified. He'd prepared himself to deal with all the chaos and carnage of rifts but he'd prepared himself to deal with adults dealing with their rifts. What the hell was he meant to do with Aramis?
Over the course of two years, Treville has become very attached to his stubborn, stoical, unpredictable charge. He knows that Aramis is devoted to him, Aramis loves very deeply and sincerely and until Porthos got here, there was no-one in France he was more attached to than his 'captain'. But now there is Porthos, just as Aramis predicted. And now that he's here, Porthos is a problem.
'Isaac' is forgotten in less than a week, because Aramis always is right about these things: Porthos, who within a matter of hours becomes irreplaceable to him. Aramis follows him around the villa like an overexcited puppy, his eyes follow him around every room, when he wakes from an episode the first word out of his mouth is now always his name. Treville has watched this before, and of course he worries. Marsac's desertion nearly killed Aramis, and after so long without even another quarter of a circle, his ability to fight his own powers is failing. Treville doesn't think he could survive it twice. Treville is responsible for both of them but it's Aramis who's been his charge for two years, it's Aramis he's watched grow from a boy to a spindly young man already taller than he is, it's Aramis he feels protective towards in ways that Aramis himself would only find amusing. He needs to know that he can trust Porthos. Mostly he needs to know that Aramis can trust Porthos, and it's already far too late to warn him of that.
They're not just teenage boys. They're teenage boys with devastatingly volatile, emotionally-charged elemental powers capable of flattening cities, and there never was a chance for Treville to warn either of them, to tell Aramis to tread carefully because he won't survive it the second time around, to tell Porthos what Aramis is like and that he has to be careful in how he reads him. It would never have been appropriate for him to tell either of them, At least try not to sleep together until you're certain, because either one of you could cause unspeakable destruction but the both of you accidentally breaking each other's hearts could devastate half the country.
He wouldn't even pretend, if asked, that Porthos doesn't make him think of Marsac. Of course he makes him think of Marsac: another air affinity (Aramis really could have used an earth affinity to ground him a little, but they have to take what they can get, and surely better than pairing his rather over-fluid water affinity with a fire affinity . . . ?), another air affinity Aramis puts no defences up against at all. Another air affinity blowing into his life - but Marsac blew right out of it again and left him for dead, and Porthos -
You didn't say that would happen!
The test will not be the first rift they deal with together, rifts only ever made Aramis and Marsac closer. The act of surviving, trying so hard and failing but at least coming through it alive together only ever made them seem stronger. Aramis and Porthos will deal admirably with rifts, he already knows that. The first true test will be the first true 'bad one'. Because Aramis' episodes have been so manageable since Porthos arrived, and Treville remembers the first time he attended an episode in the night and Marsac was already in the room, pressed back against the wall, terrified because Aramis on the bed was contorted and bleeding from the nose and making an inhuman noise with his back bent like that -
The real test will be the way Porthos looks at him after that.
Treville doesn't want him to be another Marsac. Treville needs to hand his water affinity to a circle he can trust. He needs Aramis to be safe with Porthos.
He already knows that safety is the last thought on Aramis' mind.
*
In the practice room he watches them spar. They do, occasionally, get into tumbling physical fights - at first Treville had been horrified, had dragged them off each other, before he'd realised that he can't yet tell the difference between their silliness and their seriousness: mostly, they're playing. Only rarely do they actually bicker (walking past a room and hearing, "Fuck your fucking ¿qué? -" means that Aramis has overstepped in his teasing and it's time step in) but even then they seem to make efforts not to hurt each other in anger. The time Aramis gave Porthos a bloody nose and the time Porthos knocked Aramis out against the wall were both accidents, they swear, brought on by overenthusiastic horseplay. Neither of them has ever presented so much as a bruise gained through spite.
Still what Treville mostly sees is the size and weight difference between them, because even if Aramis is beanpoling up at an almost alarming rate (Treville remembers the first time, Aramis reaching over his head for a bread roll in the cafeteria, that they both realised that Aramis had grown taller than him; he remembers his own surprise, and the way Aramis paused before he grinned around the spoon hanging from his mouth), his body's still undecided as to how to fill out all that extra height, and Porthos, built like a young boxer, looks like he could crush him without even trying to. Porthos is a hell of a fighter, God only knows how he learned, Treville is better not asking. Aramis is quick and lethal but is clearly only admiring of the fact that in a genuine brawl, Porthos would wipe the floor with him. The only advantage Aramis has against him is speed: if he can do something inventively nasty enough to stop Porthos pinning him, he has a chance of winning, but he knows he's doomed as soon as he lets Porthos get his hands on him. And Aramis can be very inventively nasty, but he still only succeeds three times out of ten - and still, for some reason that makes sense to him alone, Aramis seems to think that as long as those statistics hold, all is right with the world.
They face each other on the practice mats, Porthos shifting all his muscles out, body swaying just a little like a tree in the wind, left and right, hands flexing, eyes on Aramis; Aramis stands loose and easy, weight held calm as water, just watching him.
Porthos moves like thunder, the impossible building horror of it, catches Aramis' lashed-out left elbow and gets his weight on him - Aramis' foot skids out, he goes down backwards with Porthos on top of him but -
They all hear the click, and Treville nods just slightly to himself. Porthos is very still, muscles very tight, pinning Aramis to the mat flat on his back with an arm over his throat but Aramis has his right arm free and a gun aimed right at Porthos' face, eyes dark and set.
Not a muscle moving, not even looking away from his eyes to the gun two inches from his temple, Porthos says, "Did you take the safety off?"
"¿Qué? Oh, sorry." He clicks it back on, and smiles. "Force of habit."
Porthos gives him the just pointed a live gun at me you crazy fucker look, again, and climbs off him, keeping hold of his arm to help-haul him up. "Draw?"
"I would have blown your head off."
"I would've crushed your windpipe."
Aramis shrugs. "Draw. Best out of five?"
They face each other again: looseness of water ready to flow with the world's tilt, in-breath silence of the air's stillness before the wind roars.
*
Porthos' Social Services files are sent from England. There are rather a lot of them.
Treville reads through them while, through the open window of his office, he can hear two boys squabbling without malice over how to hang a hammock between two trees in the garden. It's a blessedly warm spring day, playfully blustery but bright with sunshine. Porthos is still meant to be settling in before his schooling starts, but Aramis had pleaded to take his French outside for today, since the weather is fine, to teach Porthos too. He really can be so damnably pleading.
Treville flips through the files listing Porthos' foster homes, his stays in children's homes and institutions, his interactions with the police - many, though largely petty. Treville reads the files and tries to be rational about them. Possession (mostly pot), truancy, shoplifting, joyriding - a little arson, of the 'bored' rather than 'malevolent' variety. Nothing, he tells himself, that Aramis wouldn't have got around to, given half the chance. Nothing that Aramis wouldn't have topped just to prove that he could.
Every episode is Treville's breath wrung from his lungs, the sight of Aramis essentially already dead, leaving Treville with just his body's unfeeling throes. Every episode brings back too many bad memories, and Porthos let him -
Outside there's a raised pitch to the squabbling, a thump, and then after a pause, they both start laughing hard.
Treville does know how very persuasive Aramis can be, and he doesn't doubt that Aramis came up with the plan, that Aramis persuaded Porthos that it would be fine, he does know that Aramis tempts and that other people struggle not to be seduced. Treville can be really very rational about these things. Porthos is not a malicious boy. But he still let him . . .
He thinks of Aramis - still René, then - fourteen years old in the medical bay bed, looking very small and quiet, stitches in his cheek and hooked up to the drip that his seizures - he hadn't been awake and comprehensible enough to christen them his 'little episodes' yet - kept ripping from his wrist. He was philosophical even then, never cried about his condition, never looked obviously self-pitying even, just looked around at everyone so confused, as if he didn't understand why they were doing whatever it was that they were doing, as if his self-containment within his seizures was something they had yet just failed to grasp.
Treville remembers all his worst episodes, remembers the times Ferrand has gone quiet - a very bad sign - remembers him unable to wake after Marsac, remembers a time when he could physically pick the boy up himself to put him in his bed. He's not a boy now and Treville has no idea if Aramis even remembers any of those occasions, but he's not going to forget the drop of his dead limbs, the weight of his head rolled to his chest. He remembers his first ever face to face interaction with Richelieu, the violence of the episode - the first nosebleed, and he lashed so hard that the bedsheets and the wall were scattered scarlet -
Treville remembers all his worst episodes, and every new episode could always turn into the worst. Hurrying to Aramis on the floor in the corridor beside the pool, muscles jerking only slightly but face already wet with blood - every time, he remembers all his worst episodes, every time could be the last time. And Aramis did it to himself, for him, and still refuses to tell him half of the things he sees -
Treville can be very rational about these things: Aramis would die for Porthos. The only thing Treville isn't yet sure of is that Porthos will ensure that he doesn't.
There's silence, from outside, just birdsong and the distant hum of the lawnmower. He stands, leaving Porthos' files on the desk, and walks to the window.
The hammock barely swings, steadied by their weight. A foot hangs out from either side of it, one pale gold, one pale brown. They're very quiet, book held open between them. If Treville knows teenagers, they're looking up all the bad words first.
He hears Porthos' deep laughter, and Aramis' foot flicks from the pleasure of making him laugh. They've known each other a matter of weeks; already they might have known each other for years, for all their lives.
Treville is very rational. Aramis is always right. He and Porthos are meant to be a circle.
All Treville needs to know is that that circle will be safe.
*
He sends for Aramis from another session of teaching Porthos to shoot - he's no natural, not like he is at hand to hand fighting, but Treville grants easily that the boy works damn hard - and Aramis knocks, enters, and stands in front of his desk with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, giving Treville one of his patiently amused, quizzical looks.
Treville used to put a chair in front of the desk for him but something about Aramis has always suggested that he prefers to stand. He has a lot of oddly military habits - little modes of carriage and vocabulary that Treville, so long a soldier himself, is quick to spot and curious about. He doesn't think it's anything he picked up in the orphanage. Like his English - like his gun skills, terrifyingly accurate from the very first shot - it seems to be one of what Aramis terms his 'borrowed' memories. Sometimes he remembers things that have yet to happen, and sometimes he remembers things that other people know. What a curious existence it must be, Treville has always thought, riding the choppy surface of a present that can always drop you into the waters of the past or future with no warning and no defence . . .
"Three days," Treville says. Aramis quirks his smile. Treville checked the files but Aramis knows in a much more intimate way that it's been weeks - months - since regular three day gaps could be relied on. He can make it to four and five days, now. No wonder he's beginning to take some interest in his French, he finally gets at least a couple of days a week without either the prelude or the hangover of his episodes to deal with.
"Are you throwing me a 'congratulations' party?"
"How are you feeling?"
He shrugs, looking quite happy with himself. He does look happy, happier than Treville's ever seen him; he knows how hard Aramis has found his isolation here, both the only quarter of a circle and the only teenager in the building. "You must appreciate the unbroken nights."
"Is Porthos settling in well?"
Aramis looks across to the window, and they both contemplate the wind dragging hard at the trees outside. "He's concentrating very hard, he wants to be good." Aramis says, and shifts his shoulders a little awkward. "He doesn't like being so obvious. All - this." Lifting a hand at the window. "It feels unfair to him. It is unfair to him. But, he's fine, mostly. I like him."
Too much, Treville suspects. "Can you see any potential problems on the horizon?"
"I'm informing on my own circle?"
"I need to protect you and him."
Aramis rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "He's fine. He's working very hard to be fine. Captain, I know you worry, but I don't, not when it comes to Porthos. And I'm the one who's psychic, ¿cachai?"
"And not particularly able to control that."
"Three days," Aramis says, and touches his chest as if wounded. And again, even though they must have had similar conversations a thousand times, what strikes Treville is how genuinely happy, how easy he looks. It's so rare not to see him looking tired, drained, a little tight at the edges with keeping under control how worn down he is. He's always had that strangely adult habit of concealment, of acceptance. Right now he looks a great deal more sixteen, though whether that is really a good thing . . .
Loneliness has been the heart of so much of what has hurt Aramis. The episodes he can accept. His powers he can handle. The gruelling nature of so inevitably many failed rifts he can manage. But being without a circle has been slowing killing Aramis in more ways than just leaving him at the mercy of his uncontrolled powers, because he can make himself not mind the episodes but he can't make himself not mind being alone. Treville remembers the orphanage - Treville will never forget the orphanage - he remembers the intent dark eyes slipping away at every bend of the staircase he climbed, children vanishing as he reached each landing, there seemed to be dozens of them. And he thinks of Aramis happy in that tumble of children, Aramis who is so clingy and over-friendly so right in the middle of a pack of children, and then suddenly transported to a country on the other side of the world where he didn't speak the language and was surrounded by adults and could never again see everyone he'd ever known. He does know that most of the intentional chaos Aramis has caused has been down to the boredom of his loneliness; he does know that Aramis doesn't forget that orphanage either.
When Treville doesn't respond to his teasing, Aramis' face sobers, and he gives Treville one of his quiet looks, eyes dark and sombre, now. "I trust Porthos with my life," he says, calmly. "Captain, you trust me when I tell you that a building in a city I've never visited is going to house a rift, you don't trust me when I tell you that I would let Porthos put a gun to my head because he would never, never hurt me with it?"
The first thing Treville says, because he knows Aramis, is, "Don't let him put a gun to your head."
Aramis rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "Do you know how he got control of his rift? Because London isn't built for hurricanes, captain. He should have blown that building down with him and me in it, we should both be dead, along with a lot of other people. All that power would have taken him, the same as it would have taken me, if we both hadn't had something else we could hold on to to hold on to ourselves. I had Maria. And Porthos, Porthos got control of his rift as soon as I needed his help." Dark serious eyes, and Aramis is the worst liar in the world which is how Treville knows that he means every word of this, as a psychic and as a boy quite wise in the ways of the world. "The rift in him didn't care that I was having an episode in front of him, but Porthos cared. And it wasn't because it was me. He's not me, he doesn't have the future knocking down the door into his head all the time, he didn't have a clue who I was. But someone in front of him asked for his help so he contained enough power to flatten a city so that he could help them. He's a good man." He shrugs, open and sincere. "Best I've ever met. Among the best," with a deferential little half-bow. "I trust him, with everything. And you believe me when I tell you that a rift is opening at the other side of the world but you don't believe me now?"
Treville sighs out through his nose, and is horribly, horribly afraid. This is more than Marsac. Every time Treville watched Aramis watch Marsac it was like he knew that something would go wrong and he just didn't know what it was yet, this is not how it was with Marsac. Marsac was difficult, and his desertion shook Aramis to the bones. If Porthos leaves him now, there is not one level on which it won't kill him.
There is nothing more dangerous on this earth than trust.
*
Aramis' episodes continue calm. On Saturday they set fire to the kitchen trying to make fajitas; on Monday Treville discovers that they've somehow captured a wild rabbit and they're trying to keep it as a pet in Aramis' bathroom; on Wednesday he intervenes when he discovers them trying to make target practice more interesting by Porthos holding Aramis up by his ankles while he shoots upside-down.
On Thursday Aramis looks tired and jittery, but the episode in the night is manageable, and Porthos is practised now at holding his head, keeping himself calm, and telling an agent when they've got his wrist too hard.
On Friday he still looks too frayed, and Treville can tell that it's coming.
The alarm goes off just before eight o' clock that night. They're not in either of their bedrooms, where they usually spend their evenings, but in the corridor outside - maybe they were moving between rooms, or heading to the kitchen. They're already on the floor next to the dropped alarm, Porthos holding Aramis' head but the corridor isn't quite wide enough to keep him from kicking the wall, and the agents with Treville move in. He's broken his wrist on a wall before, they can't risk it.
It's not just that it's a violent one. Treville keeps a hand on Aramis' back to feel the tremors, because it's when they stop that he knows he's beginning to come out of it, but they don't stop. Treville looks at an agent who tells him in French, "Six minutes."
Porthos' jaw is hard and he's got Aramis' head tight even as he seems to try to yank it free, but he can't stop it getting into his eyes, and they can all hear the wind outside. When it gets past seven minutes Porthos says, "We should - should we get a doctor or -"
Treville keeps a hand on his back, feels the jumping and spasming of his muscles, and shakes his head. There's nothing a doctor can do, and this isn't even the longest they've endured.
"Eight minutes," an agent murmurs, and Treville doesn't know if he can understand the French but Porthos' face is pale, and his voice isn't entirely steady as he says, "Is he dyin'?"
"No." Treville says, which means that he doesn't know, not that he's definitely not. "Just hold on."
Aramis is making muffled keening noises when his breath sucks in around the leather, like he desperately wants something to stop.
Nine minutes and forty-three seconds: not quite his record, but not far off. When his muscles sag limp under Treville's hand he closes his own eyes, feels the relief in his own body, he hadn't known he'd been so tensed in horrible sympathy. Porthos' breath falls out of him shaking and he reels more of Aramis up into his arms, head stuffed under his throat, shoulders tucked in close, breathing into his hair, "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Treville can't even care to tell him not to swear. He presses Aramis' back, feels the over-quick beating of his breath at his ribs, the panic of his body restored to him, the agony of the muscle tension and he knows what it does to his head. "Aramis," he says, because he has to do this, this is what he has to suffer when Aramis suffers that, being forced to do this. "What did you see?"
Porthos is silent, arms folded around the back of Aramis' head, then he looks at Treville and Treville always knows, and unpeels a tissue from the packet in his jacket pocket for him.
Porthos wipes his mouth, and his eyes, but Aramis can't sit up, just slumps against his sturdier body, eyes still closed, breathing hard. "There's a boy," he whispers, rough thin voice and he doesn't lift his head. "In England. He's falling in love." Porthos' thumb runs over his hairline, and Aramis swallows like it hurts. "It's going to be the worst thing that ever happens to him."
Porthos looks at Treville, looks troubled and still scared. Treville just nods at him. He wants to see what Porthos will do when Aramis is his responsibility, not Treville's.
Porthos presses his fingers through his hair, says, "Bed." He picks up the saliva-wet cuff from the floor and scoots his legs out from under himself, and switches Aramis' limp body to his shoulder, to haul him up over it. "Come on, you smug little psychic shit. Knackered after that."
Aramis, head hanging down his back, eyes not even open - smiles, with a little breath, at the floor.
Treville holds the bedroom door open for them, and hands Porthos the alarm again when Porthos has dumped Aramis' body onto the bed (Aramis grunts his dissatisfaction at being so unceremoniously handled, but Porthos did catch his head in his hand to let it gentle to the pillow, and he just ruffles his hair about to mess it up before he stands up again). "Thanks," Porthos says. He looks shocked, still, like a sixteen year old still recovering from that. But he looks steady as well, still on his feet and not remotely afraid of Aramis laying exactly where he was put, perhaps already asleep.
Treville nods at Aramis. "There may be another in the night."
Porthos' face is still greyed, but he doesn't look afraid, doesn't explode at the unfairness of it - to Aramis or himself - doesn't do anything but take a steadying breath, and nod. Then he turns to Aramis and bats a hand at his shin, says, "Gettin' your boots off before we mess up your precious sheets, huevón."
Aramis' breath makes a quiet complaining noise, but he doesn't move.
Trust, Treville thinks, watching Porthos pluck open Aramis' bootlaces, is the most dangerous thing on this earth. Put it in the wrong place and it will do worse than merely kill you. Trust the wrong person and you have already given them both the poison and the blade for your veins.
Porthos drops Aramis' boots by the bed and then sits there, looking down at him, looking tired and drained himself.
"I would sleep while you can," Treville advises. Porthos sighs, slow, and nods. Treville turns to leave but Porthos says, "Captain -"
He looks back, and Porthos is looking at Aramis, who might be awake but can hardly be said to be present, really.
Porthos looks at Treville, nervous and maybe a little angry in the eyes. "They get worse than that?"
He nods once. "Sometimes." Particularly when air affinities leave him to die alone in the dark. Then they can get very bad indeed.
Porthos sighs again, and bounces his knuckles into the side of Aramis' shin again, says, "You just have to be fuckin' special, don't you, Aramis."
If Porthos is afraid, he's not afraid of Aramis. And if Aramis is afraid of anything, he's not afraid of Porthos leaving him. Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, trust is Aramis throwing his heart to the air, and Porthos knowing that Aramis isn't that violent, untrustworthy thing that sleeps inside him. Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, and there can be no circle without it. Trust is all they have.
Porthos kicks his trainers off and Treville says, "Goodnight," knowing he'll probably see them again in only a few hours. Porthos just grunts, tired, and stretches his long length out alongside Aramis on the bed, hooking an arm around his side.
Trust is the most dangerous thing on this earth, and Treville is leaving his water affinity helpless in the hands of a boy he hardly knows, because there's no safer place for him in the world.
He walks away. It's something he's going to have to practise. He's responsible for both of them, but he has to trust their trust in each other. Porthos isn't like Marsac, and even Treville can sense the circle that those two make now, trust the strongest muscle in both Aramis and Porthos. He walks away: it was something he was always going to have to do.
He trusts that they will need him for a little longer, and that he will know when to let them go.
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no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 09:11 pm (UTC)And Treville just about broke my heart. He's like a father who has to realize that his kid has grown up and fallen in love and started to make independent decisions. I just love everything about this.
I'm so glad this idea hit you and that you're writing this compelling Musketeer 'verse. Very much looking forward to the next part :)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-12 08:01 am (UTC)They are really innocently *happy* together and it feels really self-indulgent for me to write something that just pleases me so much ;) I'm really glad you're enjoying it too honey - thank you for reading it! Thank you =)
no subject
Date: 2014-04-10 06:38 am (UTC)Also, noooo, Athos baby ;-; (because I'm assuming that the boy falling in love is Athos) I wonder what will happen for his love story to turn into the worst thing to ever happen to him, but at the same time I don't want it to happen (oh, young carefree Athos who hasn't had his heart broken and isn't a grumpy brooder drowning his pain in alcohol - yep, if you hadn't realized, I'm definitely an Athos!girl, because I'm stupidly predictable like that).
I have a question, though: are Athos and d'Artagnan going to be the same age as Porthos and Aramis, or are they going to be respectively a bit older and younger (omg pre-teen!d'Artagnan)? Since turning them into teenagers already messes with canon, I'm wondering how far it goes...
no subject
Date: 2014-04-12 08:06 am (UTC)Athos! I took ages to warm to Athos (his accent is just something I *react* to, for reasons too numerous to go into . . .), but now I adore him so very much, because I love those two idiots but I *am* an Athos. Forget Hogwarts houses, we can be sorted by musketeer, and I'm introverted and melancholy and I like a drink, ahem ;)
In terms of their ages there's not much I can say because ack spoilers ;_; But, they're not going to stay at that age forever anyway - this will be a *long* fic, in terms of its internal timeline as well as very likely how long it'll take me to write it; so, we will find out, in due course . . .
Thank you for reading, as always honey, and being patient while we slowly gather our Inseperables into one place ;) Thank you! <3
no subject
Date: 2014-04-12 09:56 am (UTC)And yep, I do suspect I also like Athos because we have several character traits in common but I have nowhere near enough class to really compare (and I don't drink *gasp* - or rather, I fail at drinking). You'd have to add some very d'Artagnan-esque stupidity and clumsiness to get a more accurate picture.
And aw, thank you for avoiding spoilers, although it's nothing but intriguing. I guess I'll just keep cheering in the background while you write your way through this fic. I am quite impressed with how rapidly you're updating, by the way ^^
no subject
Date: 2014-04-13 07:39 pm (UTC)I've been ill for a while now and I'm pretty incapable of doing anything but writing coping fic - though I had a whole maybe eight hours today where I didn't feel like hell, it was great \o/ - and also when I get obsessed I get *fucking* obsessed is why all the updates ;) The worrying thing is, if this is how I'm filling the hiatus, um, we have like another year to go on that . . . ? ^^;
Thank you again for reading, honey <3