Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Signs of a serious spinal cord contusion include:

• Loss of bladder or bowel function.
• Difficulty breathing.
• Muscle spasticity.
• Difficult speaking or understanding speech.
• Inability to focus or lack of concentration.
• Memory loss.
• Spikes or drops in blood pressure or heart rate.
• Loss of sensation or movement below the injury site (spinal shock).”

(Continued from: Signs of a Spinal Contusion by Dr. David Chang)

It was obvious to anyone who knew half a wit about Aramis’s approach to personal crisis that he was guarding himself tonight. He was a sneaky actor, a skill that Treville employed with equal measures of smugness and exasperation, but when the excitement faded and darkness fell the mask would inevitably slip. The jokes would fall short, the teasing fade, the rakish smile glaze thin beneath eyes dimmed with exhaustion. A quiet Aramis was neither plotting nor sulking; he was merely tired beyond standards even a soldier could understand.

It came with the territory. As the only one in their group who had mastered the needle and tonic, Aramis was often the one staying up by their bedside, aware with one touch if a fever had worsened or if a wound needed to be lanced. He brushed off sleepless nights with the careless cheek of a sparrow, but the encroaching dusk stole his light hour by hour. On a good night he would still bid them adieu and scamper off with a willing partner. Some nights he didn’t have the energy to complain when Porthos bullied him under the covers like a child.

This was not a good night.

The tells began early, too soon for Athos to recognize. A weary slump in Aramis’s stance when they set out that morning. Careful dismounts and a casual hesitancy when swiveling. A faint pinching around the eyes when he moved too quickly. Something that Aramis could easily brush aside as too many days on high alert with little sleep. There was the matter of Porthos’s injury, after all, never mind bodies in the forest and the mental strain of defending the most unrepentant squalor in Paris.

Athos was no fool, however, and neither was Porthos. Even D’Artagnan tilted his chin when Aramis wasn’t looking, silently asking if intervention was called for. Porthos grunted dissent and refilled Aramis’s cup. Better for him to be surrounded by friends until he sorted himself.

‘Melancholy,’ Porthos mouthed to Athos as their frequent wanderer cast a sidelong glance at the serving girl.

‘Headache,’ Athos determined. Aramis hid his pain well, but tonight his attention wandered, dark eyes flickering distantly before centering on the closest speaker with a flash of uncertain laughter. D’Artagnan prodded him three times before he realized he had planted his elbow on his untouched plate.

“She’s pretty,” Porthos coaxed, looking back at the serving girl and winking at Aramis. It was a surefire gauge of the marksman’s wellbeing, proven when Aramis ignored the wench completely, drawing circles on the rim of his cup and rubbing his fingers together with a slight frown.

“Aramis. Aramis,” Porthos prompted, casting Athos a look when he was ignored. He jabbed at his friend's wrist with a fork and nearly took a butterknife to the hand when Aramis startled. “Yer touchy tonight.”

“Quivering in my boots, remember?” Aramis salvaged with a hasty smile, taking a hasty gulp of wine. He grimaced slightly and made a face at the bottle. “Not the best vintage.”

“Innkeeper’s cheap,” Porthos grumbled, carrying on the act. Aramis would slink out when the noise or the lights were beyond tolerance, and they would grant him the illusion that it was his own plan all along. “Company’s not so bad, though.”

He made another nod towards the serving girl, and Aramis passed her a brief glance before refocusing on the butter knife, balancing it on two fingers with a consternated expression. Porthos wasn’t sure which of his brothers looked more perturbed when it clattered onto the table within seconds. Headache, then. Definitely a headache. Porthos and Athos exchanged another glance. Second room it would be, the one without a window, furthest away from the night workers' suites. If Aramis didn’t call it first, one of them would find a reason to bundle him off early.

Porthos raised an eyebrow to volunteer, and Athos tapped twice against his cup. Bad idea, yeah. Aramis would only fuss over him if he turned in now; he'd probably spend another night sleeping in a hard-backed chair, checking his stitches a hundred times over. If Athos called it a night, on the other hand, Aramis would take the hint. It would hardly be subtle, but Athos knew how to settle a restless soldier, and he would prove the quietest companion.

“You’re with me, tonight,” Porthos murmured to D’Artagnan, certain now from Aramis’s flitting gaze that the marksman was missing half the conversation. “First room.”

The kid was headstrong and reckless, but he was smart. He leaned in, filling Porthos’s cup and bumping shoulders as though the injured musketeer was his sole concern of the evening. Raising his cup, he mumbled over the rim, “Should we say something?”

“Nah.” Aramis knew his limits, and he took it poorly when they hovered. “Just wait it out.”

Either Aramis was feeling worse than he let on, or Porthos had lost track of his cups. The hand that reached out bouldered into the wine bottle, a red cascade sloshing over bread and cheese and splattering Athos from crown to belt. Startled brown eyes met blue and Aramis rose hastily, mustering a shaky smile as he unwound his sash and tossed it to Athos to dry his face.

“Must be more potent than we believed,” Aramis said weakly, running a hand through his curls. “I believe that’s my cue. I’ll see you in the morning, Gentlemen.”

“G’night,” D’Artagnan said, raising his cup in a cheery toast. Cheeky brat was overplaying his role.

Athos pinned Aramis with a steady gaze, giving him the chance to make excuses for an escort. He was thoroughly ignored as Aramis swept up his hat and retreated, his stride nearly as shaky as his mock claim.

‘Now?’ Porthos prompted, pulling the wine bottle towards himself and D’Artagnan.

Athos snatched it back. All right, then. Leaving Aramis to himself with a headache wasn’t Porthos’s way of handling it, but this was Athos’s turn and he had different ways of handling the sharp moods and wilder swings of a man who couldn’t escape the pain in his head. Of course, Athos had probably experienced enough hangovers to sympathize. Maybe he figured Aramis would relish the space.

In Porthos’s experience, no man secretly wanted to suffer alone. If this was his charge he’d stuff blankets under the door crack, make the room extra dark and let Aramis burrow his head into his chest, hands twisting fabric until the marksman couldn’t hear a thing except the steady beat matching the throbbing in his own head. Athos wasn’t one for physical comfort, and Aramis would probably never ask. He just matched his routine to theirs until, eventually, each new spell passed.

Eventually took a long time on the bad days.

No longer interested in the wine, Porthos braced his shoulder and nodded goodnight to his companions. D’Artagnan wordlessly followed, hovering like a proper mother hen. They’d have to find him a routine with Aramis; kid was a natural coddler. All good things in their own time, though. For now, Porthos could do with a quiet corner himself, and a little more of that herb stuff Aramis had slathered on his shoulder last night. There was just enough left to take off the edge.

Athos gave Aramis enough time to settle as it took for the wine to warm his bones and the hearth to burn low. He imbibed contemplatively, letting the weak but palatable alcohol curl over his tongue in shallow sips as the shadows of past and present loomed unchecked. He could easily clean out the innkeeper’s supply, but tonight D’Artagnan would have his hands full enough with Porthos’s notoriously low pain tolerance. One of them needed to check on Aramis, and as grievous as the day’s tally counted up, Athos could not forego his wits for a little pleasant numbness.

The emptiness of the room finally cued him that he’d spent longer than necessary chasing the ghosts he couldn’t banish with a bottle.  A few drunks still lingered, half asleep on the tables, but the serving girl had ceased her rounds. It must be nearly dawn.

Knees aching from sitting too long, Athos rose and stretched, snagging two cups and the rest of the wine along with a lamp for the darkened halls. Sometimes wine helped, Aramis once told him. Caught in the early stages, he could drift just as easily from one mindless state to the next, and wake up pain free. Those were the lucky days.

When Athos approached the door and heard the ragged breaths inside, he knew it was going to be a long night. He should have come sooner. Knocking softly, he entered without waiting for a reply.

Aramis’s posture should have been his first warning. Normally he would be found huddled in the corner, pillows and blankets dragged over his aching head. The ginger perch on the edge of the bed gave Athos false hope that they had reached the upward swing.

“I can’t get up.”

Four words made his blood run cold.

Head injuries could tamper with the body, Lemay had warned him long ago, but it had been years since Savoy. Surely it wouldn’t rob Aramis of his mobility now.

“Where.” Athos’s tone remained level, a casual inquiry covering his fear. Aramis wasn’t the only one who could put up an act. (Although Athos often wished that the first generation of Musketeers had taught Aramis more about brotherhood than subterfuge. Aramis was young then, wandering and fervent and pliable, and his bilingual abilities had thrust him onto a harrowing stage where weakness was but one more blemish to conceal and the whole world was a subtle dance of beguilement and lies.)

When he raised the edge of Aramis's shirt and saw hot and swollen flesh, he didn't know who deserved his curse; the man who inflicted the wound, the rival who hired him, or the slaver who dragged them into the wretched forest. There were soldiers who were scarred by war, and those who had never known any other life. Athos faintly traced ropes of blackened flesh raised over red swells and flinched when the light touch crumbled Aramis’s facade. Lack of blood didn’t make this any less serious than Porthos’s shoulder, and the fool had spent a day and a half feigning mere exhaustion while the injury festered. Athos had seen marks like this before, usually in flogging victims when the sentence was allowed to carry on unchecked. Too much swelling, Lemay had told him, and it was the same effect as taking a knife to the back. More than one undeserving wretch was sent home in a wagon, doomed to stretch out his hands and beg for another to carry him where he wished.

Not Aramis, Athos swore, tearing through the satchel of precious herbs and silently ranting against Emile for bringing disaster on two of his finest soldiers. He never had the desire to study medicine, but he had often held a man down for Lemay, and he knew what herbs calmed a seizure or soothed pain. Nearly all of Aramis’s gleanings were versatile for inflammation, pain and infection. Chamomile, yarrow, lavender, thistle, comfrey, St. John’s wort, willow, peppermint, calendula. Athos selected a few at first and finally dumped the entire satchel onto the table, vouching that a concentrated dose of everything might prove as potent as the salves Aramis favored. 

He crouched low to stoke the fire and turned around in time to see Aramis raise trembling hands, counting off his fingers erratically, “Chamomile, and… and yarrow, and… and what was the one… the purple flower….”

Brown eyes went eerily blank. Athos lunged from the hearth, snatching at flying limbs and catching the dark head before it could smack the table. Aramis moaned, teeth clacking as his upper body clenched in rigid spasms.

“No, no, do not do this to me! Aramis!” Athos compelled, gripping the man’s shoulders and willing the light back into his eyes. “Tell me what I need to do! Aramis, look at me!”

A strained wheeze huffed once, twice, and the chest seizures stopped. Dark eyes fixed on Athos, murky with confusion and terror, and his throat seized as he recognized his own ragged breathing in an otherwise silent room. A piercing keen carried the last of Aramis's strength, lips parting in a silent plea for air.

“No. Not now. Not this time! I will not lose you to your own stupidity!” Athos hissed, bracing the younger man against his shoulder and feeling for the muscles he’d been shown years before, when the punishing rod had struck too close and a youth who was barely D’Artagnan’s age had succumbed to slow suffocation.

He dug in his fingers, mercilessly plying knotted muscles, shutting out the piteous keens that were muffled into his shoulder. Hot tears dashed against his neck and finally, finally the spasm eased enough for Aramis to draw in a shaky gasp. One breath became two, and with them returned the clarity of a body torn with anguish. Aramis screamed, batting feebly at Athos for release, and the stoic act was a burden he could not bear, grief entwining with his brother’s wails as he forced stuttering lungs to embrace each new breath.

The door slammed open, and Athos could only croak when D’Artagnan and Porthos nearly tumbled over one another, mirrored in ghostly pallor and gazes torn with dread.

“Get Lemay,” Athos begged them. “Tell the innkeeper we need hot water and linens!”

D’Artagnan sprang away like a bloodhound, trundling down the steps with an agility Athos envied. Five hitched strides brought Porthos to the bedside, eyes stricken with pity as he took in the vomit speckled sheets, sweat sopped curls and purple bands expanding into a black mass stretching from one shoulder to the other.

“When did this happen,” he growled, his broad hands ever gentle as he cupped Aramis’s face, holding him back from the mess on Athos’s shoulder.

“The ambush,” Athos said bitterly. “He didn’t think it was necessary to report.”

“How many times now?” Porthos snapped. His ire melted when Aramis whined, ducking into the closest source of comfort. Leaning into the mattress, Porthos looped his arms around the marksman's waist and smoothly shoved into Athos’s spot. “Ease up. He’s breathing. You did right.”

“He’s not out of danger,” Athos insisted, rising only to tear through the herb sachets as the bleary-eyed innkeeper ushered in two boys, one bearing a steaming cauldron and the other a bundle of rags. D’Artagnan slipped in from behind them, darting to the bed to tear off the soiled blanket and reposition the pillow so Aramis could be laid on his left side. The movement only jarred the man, feeble knees drawing up halfway, broken sounds tearing from his throat as he arched into Pothos’s hands, trying to brace his stomach. Porthos hushed him like a skittish colt, soft words of comfort rising over keens of distress.

“Tell me what’s going on,” D’Artagnan pleaded, hovering with useless hands and frightened eyes.

“Get Lemay,” Athos directed.

D’Artagnan nodded once, pressing a coin into one boy's palm. “Rouse the stable sweep and see my horse saddled, and there’ll be another one of these for you.”

Both urchins scrambled for the door. D’Artagnan crouched by the bedside, his trembling voice still carrying on cheerful act he’d been playing at all evening for their comfort. “I’ll be back soon, I promise. Don’t give Porthos a hard time.”

He touched Aramis’s shoulder in a wordless promise and ducked out of the room, his eyes damp and his stride determined. Athos waited until quick feet trampled down the steps before nodding at Porthos. Clumps of steaming, soggy plants were scooped into the empty washbasin and spread to cool. Chucking his doublet, Athos rolled up his sleeves and started tearing the rags into strips, steeping them in the foul tea. Porthos stationed himself at Aramis’s shoulder, turning the marksman’s attention away from the hearth. He kept up a steady murmur of trivial nonsense, knowing that Aramis wouldn't understand a word but would latch onto his voice nonetheless. He told him about the glimpse he’d had of the serving girl’s scandalously bright red stockings; of the old mare in the stables who was heavy with a summer foal; of the terrible mattresses that had him scratching at fleas before he even sat down; of the floorboards that creaked next door as two young gypsies danced like new lovers; of the pigeon that warbled incessantly until D’Artagnan threw his boot at the window. Brown eyes blinked dazedly, words rushing over without meaning, and Porthos clasped his brother’s neck in reassurance before bracing his curled shoulders.

He tried to be gentle, but Aramis gnashed and howled the moment he was turned onto his stomach. Athos went white, his jaw grit in staunch resolve as he packed down warm herbs and bound them with strips of tinctured cloth. Aramis cried out, floundering to escape this new torment, broken sounds hitching from stinted lungs. He flopped in Porthos’s grip, hands grasping uselessly, trying to kick out with legs that rebelled in listless, uncoordinated sweeps. Jaded eyes begged them for a reason, for mercy, and Porthos bent over in tears as he implored Aramis to let it go, take the easy way out, just pass out already.

“It never takes this long,” Porthos fretted, dismayed that he could pin their scrapper with only one hand, all fight draining away in piteous, soft cries. “He’s gotta pass out now.” 

“It’s not a head injury,” Athos murmured, his face as pale and strained as the brother he tended. “I don’t think he can.”

Porthos glanced up in horror, daring Athos to retract his claim. The haunted eyes that averted his gaze spoke of times before, of concealed hardships that years of trust would never unveil.  

“You can’t be serious,” Porthos breathed. “What do you mean, he can’t?”

“I’m not a physician, Porthos!” Athos lashed out. “I don’t pretend to understand the body and it responds to a wound! Now help me turn him so I can bind these.”

Aramis sobbed, bewildered eyes roving without seeing, and Porthos shook his head. “No. This ain't right. I can't leave him like this.” He braced Aramis’s head in one great hand and kissed his temple, fingers gathering into a fist.

“Porthos, wait,” Athos cautioned.

“I said that's enough; I’m putting him out,” Porthos declared. Just like they’d done for him. It wasn’t right, leaving a man to suffer while they forced a cure. He wouldn’t do it to a lame dog, let alone his friend. 

Athos acceded, tilting his head, but Porthos didn’t need his permission. He struck true and quick, a glancing blow to the back of the skull where there wasn’t any scar tissue. Brown eyes clouded and closed, and the strain melted into unconscious peace.

Athos breathed out shakily, the stoic mask slotting into place, but not before Porthos glimpsed a captain's despair. "We'll finish quickly before he wakes.”

Hands that could break a man’s neck trembled as Porthos carded back Aramis’s hair, fingers lingering on the scar that both saved his life and sealed his fate. “Tell me Lemay can fix it,” he said raggedly. 

A man could still fight with only one eye. A soldier was no good with a faulty arm or leg. Aramis wouldn’t accept such frailty. He’d spring up and shock them all, no matter the odds. He’d be fine. He was Aramis.

Deliberately avoiding the question, Athos wrung out fresh linen strips with unnecessary force. “Help me turn him.”