(no subject)

[somepoorsoul]

The smell of brewing coffee draws Athos from bed earlier than he might have otherwise pulled himself away. He might not have been awake at all, save that sleep had come only fitfully the night before. The melancholy of his first few months in Darrow had lifted, but fears old and new still plague him from time to time, sending him to stare at his mother’s ring (he cannot think of it as his wife’s) or the pages of his wedding speech where line after line is cut through with pen, deemed unworthy. This morning, he drags himself out from under blankets as a capitulation to a wasted night more than an early welcome to the day, but at least he has one thing to look forward to.

Porthos makes excellent coffee.

When he descends the stairs, he wears not his usual clothes, but one of the sweaters that Porthos has purchased for him - another capitulation, this time to the chill in the air. Between that and his half-laced boots, he cuts a downright disheveled figure, at least by Athos standards. The lower apartment is quiet, and Athos finds the coffee swiftly enough, though as he takes it into the living room, he stills with the mug at his lips.

The room is already occupied.

Comments

[du_vallon]

Porthos beckons him with a wave of his hand, legs spread wide. "Come sit across from me, put your feet to mine and you're gonna pull my hands while I stretch out my back," he says as he sits up straight. "Need the help otherwise its not nearly as satisfying."

[somepoorsoul]

“Is Aramis still abed?” Athos sighs, but he sets down his coffee (at this rate, he fears he will never have the opportunity to drink it) and ventures into the living room to stand before Porthos, looking down upon him. “I sit here?"

[du_vallon]

Porthos snorts derisively as he shoots Athos a dubious look. "Aramis is always asleep until right before I finish, at which point he mysteriously awakens to pester me. That's why he's not allowed to help," he confides, nodding as he gestures to a space six feet from him. "I trust you. I don't trust him not to turn this into an excuse to disrupt my routine." He wiggles his bare toes. "Press the palms of your feet to mine. You're gonna need it for leverage."

[somepoorsoul]

Eyes still narrowed with suspicion, Athos sinks to the floor, and after a thoughtful pause, tugging his boots off. As a soldier to the very marrow of his bones, he has awoken on his share of mornings with creaking muscles that will not obey until they have been stretched a bit, but Porthos has turned such a simple matter into something like worship. Dubious, he presses his socked feet to Porthos’ bare ones. “Very well."

[du_vallon]

With only their feet touching, Porthos doesn't feel himself moved to the sort of arousal he'd felt at the Kagura or so many of the other times thinking of Athos. The man had made it very clear that he doesn't want them in that manner and Porthos means to be the respectable sort of friend who obeys that. He reaches both his hands out. "Take my wrists and pull. I'm gonna press my chest to the floor and stretch out my back and shoulders," he explains, already aching to feel the pull.

"Don't be fussy," he warns. "Pull as hard as you can," he says, bearing his wrists pressed together to Athos.

[somepoorsoul]

Athos grasps Porthos’ wrists, but before he can do anything, catches the other’s man’s eye and stills, uncertainty flicking across his features. It isn’t even the way they are seated, or Porthos’ lack of clothing that makes the moment suddenly so intimate, but instead something about the trust Athos finds in Porthos’ expectant look.

Blinking a few times to dismiss the shiver that travels up his spine, he does as he’s told.

[du_vallon]

Porthos sees a flicker of it before he presses his nose to the carpet, swallowing hard and being grateful that he doesn't have to let Athos see what that exposes (hope and so much fear and more hope beyond that). He's been doing yoga for more than six months now, which means he's greatly lithe and flexible despite his size. It means when Athos is pulling, he's able to push his hips into the ground and line up his chest as he nudges his shoulderblades together and gives Athos all the power to pull and extend his spine.

When he finally feels the burn ebb away and turn into zen, he lets his fingers slip from Athos' grip to blissfully sit up, tugging his knees to his chest as he smiles with a daze. "That was perfect," he praises.

[somepoorsoul]

His own shoulders relaxing a bit with the effort and release, Athos shrugs and offers a faint flicker of a smile, drawing his knees together and resting his elbows against them. “So this is what you do every morning,” he murmurs, half to himself. He’s more curious than he expected to be, and more intrigued. He would not have assumed that something so careful and controlled would have become part of Porthos’ routine.

[du_vallon]

"This or some variation, yeah," Porthos agrees, reaching back for his book of poses that he holds up for Athos to see. "Usually, I flip through and find a few I like and run through them. Couldn't do half of them until a few months in, though. It's great for stress release," he praises.

Peering up past the pages, Porthos wonders if maybe with Aramis asleep, this is an opportunity he's been looking for. "Can I ask you something?"

[somepoorsoul]

“Mm.” Athos takes the book and flips through it idly in the silence, looking up when Porthos speaks again. He looks terribly serious all of a sudden. “Of course."

[du_vallon]

"When you told Aramis and I about your wife," he starts, knees still tucked in against his chest, fingers drumming his knees. "You mentioned that she was a thief." He gives Athos a searching look, refusing to look away in case he misses a reaction. "Is that part of why you hated her?"

[somepoorsoul]

Athos lifts a puzzled brow in silence, searching in Porthos’ face for the real question behind this one. It does not take him long to find, for Porthos has never hidden his feelings with any ease. His expression softens, and though his first instinct is to rise to his feet and busy himself somehow, he thinks there might be some things his friend needs to hear face-to-face.

“Porthos. You are nothing like her. Do you hear me?"

[du_vallon]

The look that Porthos gives Athos is laden with heavy meaning. "Except you're wrong," he points out. "You said she's a thief, liar, and a murderer. By my count, I've been all of those things," he says, knowing that they've all murdered, but the previous two are the parts where he really hits hard on all three of them. "I asked you if you hated her because of it." He needs to know if there are parts of himself that Athos finds distasteful.

[somepoorsoul]

Athos tightens his jaw, the strength and tension back in the way he holds himself, though he stays upon the floor before Porthos. “You have never lied to me about who you are. She manipulated her way into my marriage bed, pretending to be someone she could never be, and when that did not suit her purposes well enough, she killed my brother in cold blood.” Though he tries to hold Porthos’ gaze, by the end he cannot help but look away.

Had he once seen her thieving as just another dark mark against her character? Yes, in his rash youth, her every crime had contributed to her greatest one of all. Athos sees the world in more varied shades of grey now, and knows that there are those who merely commit crimes because they must, and those whose hearts are too rotten to be saved. “I do not hate her because of some petty thievery she may have once committed."

[du_vallon]

"You and Aramis both need to understand that I wasn't just a petty thief," Porthos says heavily, though there's no pride in it. Both of them seem so ready to dismiss what he'd done as light trinkets stolen or a few coins here and there. He didn't earn his reputation as the best thief in the Court with small bits.

He'd taken enough to potentially ruin lives, to hurt people and families, and often had taken from France itself to better his own life. He will always feel shame and regret it, but he'd done it. "I'm glad you don't hate me for it, but don't act as if I was honourable back then, Athos," he warns. "Not if you want to think me not a liar, as well."

[somepoorsoul]

“That only makes the honor you have constructed for yourself all the more valuable,” Athos murmurs, gaze settling unblinkingly on Porthos once again. “I know you are not an innocent man, Porthos. But you have proven yourself to be a good one. To me, to Aramis, to Captain Treville, and to anyone else who would care to pay attention."

He closes his eyes briefly, trying not to allow himself to think that Anne might have come to a better fate, too, if she had been given a chance. "And that is what makes you different."

[du_vallon]

It's enough for him to understand that Athos doesn't feel ill will towards him. He nods, firmly, and pries the book back so that he can pick one last pose for the morning. He's almost surprised Aramis isn't already up, but maybe he heard the conversation and has been holding back. "Thank you," he murmurs, rifling through the pages until he finds one he likes, grinning as he sets it aside.

"Go back to your coffee, I don't need your help for this one," he says, kneeling down and folding his back to the floor and grabbing his ankles as he bears his shoulder into the ground and arches his hips up.

[somepoorsoul]

Athos scoffs softly. What thanks could he require of Porthos? The man is right in one small sense: sometimes Athos does look at him and think, briefly but painfully, of his wife. Someone, somewhere - Treville, certainly, but likely others as well - had shown Porthos mercy, and allowed the goodness in his heart to grow. What if the same had been done for Anne de Breuil, or whoever she had once been? What if he had shown mercy?

Perhaps it would not have mattered. Perhaps the rottenness of her heart went to deep already. The question will always haunt him, just the same.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Athos pushes himself to his feet and goes to fetch his coffee that has gone lukewarm.

[afineseamstress]

"Have I missed it?" asks Aramis from the bedroom doorway, hair sleep mad and cheeks still bearing creases from the pillows. He rubs at bleary eyes, and then again, but when his hands fall away a second time, Athos is still there.

"Hello," says Aramis. Standing in only his boxers, Aramis smiles for the man's equally rumpled, if far more dressed form, and feels himself caught between the urge to pursue Athos and his coffee, or Porthos arching himself all over the floor. "Did you get him to do any, then?" he asks Porthos.

[du_vallon]

"One, yeah," Porthos confirms from where he's still on the ground, stretching his arms above his head, though still flat on the floor as he pushes his hips up a touch higher, drumming his fingers and nodding to the book. "The one on page twenty-four, except he was just pulling at me," he murmurs.

[somepoorsoul]

“Morning,” Athos answers from the kitchen, pouring himself a new cup of coffee, and another for Aramis. Passing Porthos, he offers the mug to their newly roused friend with a twitch of a smile. “Don’t look so surprised to see me."

[afineseamstress]

He accepts the coffee gratefully, feeling restored just for the smell of it. "I'd have been more surprised to have caught you bent into one of those evil shapes," Aramis admits, "And am sorry for having missed your assist."

He drifts closer to Porthos, unable to do anything but when he's got half himself pushed into the air like that, and smiles down at him. "You can terrorize him from now on with threats of mutual practice."

[du_vallon]

Porthos collapses back on the ground, peering up at Aramis from where he's staring at him like this, upside down, with a stupid fond grin. "But you hate it more," he counters, sitting up and plucking the skin-tight shorts from off his thighs as he adjusts his tank top and heads to make himself a cup of coffee, too. "It's much more fun wondering if you're bound to faint again."

"I told him," he informs Aramis sweetly. "And I'll never give up on the idea of you helping me. Especially with the one on page sixty three," he says with a smirk and a wink.

[somepoorsoul]

“He did tell me,” Athos echoes, rolling his eyes as they begin to make those looks at each other. Once, their flirting had made him uncomfortable, though that had melted soon enough into good-natured exasperation. Now, he has to turn away as carefully as he can to hide the new uncertainty on his face.

Athos makes for the sofa. “I would not have expected you to be bested by stretches, Aramis."

[afineseamstress]

"I see you have given a summation of events sorely lacking in detail," Aramis tells Porthos darkly, leaving him to take possession of the armchair. He pulls down both blankets draped over the back of it, not speaking again until he has formed a cocoon.

"It was Bikram class," he tells Athos. "Hotter than a summer's day at noon, with air so wet you could swim in it. Better men than I have fainted under such conditions."

And if none did that day save him, not even the slim shouldered women, Aramis does not mention it. "I was not dressed for the occasion."