For all his steady feet, this show of tenderness leaves Athos lightheaded. He looks away, but hooks his fingers around Aramis’ to keep him close. In all honesty, he cannot imagine that any arrangement among them could mean more than the depth of the friendship they have already forged, but he knows what Aramis means, even as he struggles to wrap his mind around it. What Aramis describes is everything Athos could want, and yet so strange and foreign that he can barely comprehend it. “You have given up other lovers,” he reminds Aramis, for he still cannot quite believe that he is some miraculous exception. He would never betray Porthos’ confidence, but Athos has not forgotten the man’s fears that Aramis will tire of him - unfounded though they might be. Athos would do himself harm before he stood in the way of what Porthos and Aramis have forged.