Chapter Text
Night swooped in quicker than Athos' could have imagined, and before he really knew it he awoke to shafts of sunlight breaking through little d'Artagnan's palace room. Shaking his head, and rolling his aching neck Athos rose, briefly noting how loud the boy's snores were before he left the room to check on the others. He grinned to himself as he found the pair propped up against each other in a comical manner, snoring softly. Feeling unusually cheerful, the older musketeer decided to wake his brothers in the cruelest way.
Stomping his feet hard on the ground Athos feigned having ran unto the hallway. "Attack! Aramis, Porthos, the palace is under attack!" He cried, watching on hysterically as the pair floundered to their feet blinking up at their mentor with disorientated gazes.
"Athos!" Porthos snapped, slumping back onto the floor. "You've aged me another 15 years..." He grumbled watching, looking very much so like a scolded child as Aramis slowly regained his senses and realized that there was in fact, no attack.
"Bastard." The Spaniard huffed, before chuckling lightly.
"What's going on?"
The three musketeers froze.
Turning slowly around to face the room Athos, mere moments ago, had left the three men gasped.
d'Artagnan stared straight back at them, stumbled back a few steps at their gasps, peered down at the thin sheet around his naked waist (out of fear that is had slipped, hence being the reason for his brothers pale faces) and then yelped as the three fully grown men leapt on him like a pack of wolves leaving d'Artagnan to desperately return the embraces with one arm, keeping the other holding up his dignity.
Confusedly, d'Artagnan allowed Athos to steady him, his mentor looking close to tears. "What in God's name is going on?" He demanded, flushed from being half smothered to death by the men before him.
But before the men could answer, a familiar figure dashed the corridor having dropped her washing and crashed into the Gascon.
"Constance?" d'Artagnan cried as she shoved him back into his private room.
"We'll leave you to it then..." Athos frowned, to which Aramis unhelpfully added. "See you at breakfast!" And dragged the older man away, ignoring the way Porthos mumbled something along the lines of "Or maybe later," under his breath.
***
Surely, enough, d'Artagnan joined his brothers for breakfast now full dressed, with a red flush to his cheeks and his lips swollen slightly.
Athos felt sorry for the boy man, Aramis had picked up on his ability to blush at the drop of a hat and teased him to no end about it. Athos smiled to himself as he remembered the first time Aramis embarrassed d'Artagnan over the fact he spoke to his mare, the Gascon had blushed so furiously he locked himself in the tack room and refused to come out again until Aramis ran across the Garrison naked...which the Spaniard was unnervingly willing to do...
"How's the head?" Aramis asked, surprising Athos as he didn't make a crude comment... "Hope it's not any worse after your morning's strenuous activities..."
Athos kicked himself mentally and internally planned whether the fall from the window would kill him at those leered words that fell from the Sharpshooters sickeningly smug mouth.
d'Artagnan didn't even bother to hide his disgust and instead chose to sit next to Athos instead "My head's fine...what do you mean worse?"
The three men fell instantly silent, questioning how on earth the wound had healed.
"So," The Gascon began, haunting the others from eating and shattering the uncomfortable silence that had settled as the three tried to grasp the fact d'Artagnan was no longer a child and instead had taken to staring at him unnervingly. "This morning," he began as he buttered his bread, "I have been tackled by you lot, Constance..well," he cleared his throat and refused to make eye contact with Aramis or Porthos, "Treville then practically kissed me, Lemay called me a miracle and started to cry because apparently 'I'd been blessed and shouldn't be alive'...the King and Queen have offered me an estate our near Gascony and I've been invited to a hanging later today" He paused to catch his breath before peering around the Garrison courtyard, "Oh, and everyone is looking at me funny...care to explain?" He asked, narrowing his eyes accusingly.
"It's, uh..." Porthos began, visibly breaking out in a sweat.
"Nothing that interesting, really." Aramis added. "We'll explain it to you once you're drunk tonight."
d'Artagnan looked like he was about to object when Treville approached them, he too looking weirdly happy to see the inseparables. "Gentlemen," he smiled, "the execution has been moved forward, we have been summoned to the Palace."
Before the Gascon could even asked, Porthos had dragged him to his feet and they were marching towards the palace, the others demonstrating a severely serious mood whilst d'Artagnan remained blissfully unaware of the slow brewing anger from his brothers.
The men, once they'd arrived at the Palace, were offered access on the balcony surrounding the scaffold to watch a man, d'Artagnan learned was Le Maitre...the man who'd given him the drink...
The Gascon also didn't fail to notice how his brother all protectively surrounded him when the man was marched to his scaffold, those piercing old blue eyes locked with d'Artagnan's the entire time.
As the floor dropped at the rope went slack, the man smiled at d'Artagnan, and icy cold hatred hovering in his eyes before the light left them all together.
***
Later that evening, in some dark overcrowded Tavern, d'Artagnan once again persistently asked the men what had happened, but each time he received the same response.
"It's a long story Little Gascon Boy, don't waste your time pondering on the past."
***