Gathering: Masquerade Ball

[concierge]

A large sign placed prominently in the Nexus lobby reads:

The Nexus Hotel
proudly presents the
MARDI GRAS MASQUERADE BALL

Event Location
Nexus Dining Hall
8 PM - 2 AM

Masquerade dress recommended, but not required for all guests

The Dining Hall's central table and chairs had been removed to create a dance floor wide enough to accommodate fanciful masquerade costumes. On one end had been placed a long bar providing free drinks, and on the other a small chamber orchestra providing the music for dancing. The entire room was bedecked in gold bunting and twinkling candlelight, and masks were available for those guests who hadn't brought their own.

Comments

[temperamentalsteel]

"I've had one, yes," he said. "The wine is stronger in the future." D'Artagnan didn't ask if Athos had noticed because he almost certainly had and found it to his benefit.

"Though I think I've found my particular in vice in coffee."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos had seen the stuff. He hadn't been sure what to think of it. The smell alone had been immensely off-putting and though a taste of it had quelled his head, it had been brief. "I find that it's a suitable cure for the night previously," he admits, though he prefers more wine, if it comes down to that. "Are you having fun?"

He asks, in the way that a man who is unsure of fun works.

[temperamentalsteel]

"It's a good change," d'Artagnan admitted. "Being a guest instead of a bodyguard on the edge."

He gave Athos sidelong smile, "And you?" Did Athos know how to have fun anymore?

[armedagainstlove]

Athos has not been in a position to enjoy and know of fun for a long time and he cants his head with consideration. "It's a difficult habit to break, guarding and protecting," Athos admits, knowing that he's doing it even now, keeping an eye on d'Artagnan and Porthos because they both are his duties and responsibilities and they have looked after him much in the past.

"How do they treat their guests here?" he wonders.

[temperamentalsteel]

"So far as I can tell, better than the last few inns that have hosted me." He still remembered, all too vividly, the "specialty of the house" at his first Parisian inn. That place had been in strong competition with the Chatelet for the worst accommodations in the city.

[armedagainstlove]

Athos has heard quite the tales of such places, having always found it amusing in a strange way to think of how other people had coped. Despite his money, he still requires little more than a room and has been content with it above his head, despite how awful it might be.

It's still far better than the ones that others have endured. "Would you care for another drink? I'm running low," he says, of his own.

[temperamentalsteel]

D'Artagnan couldn't help wondering, then, just what Athos would have made of the bowl of mutton stew he'd received before, where the "mutton" had been small, with four tiny paws and a bald tail.

"So long as you don't expect me to keep up with you, then I think I will," he agreed.

[armedagainstlove]

There are none who truly can keep up with him and while he knows that to be a point of shame, and not pride, he does not say anything in that regard. Instead, he merely moves them along to where a waiter is passing out product, taking two for himself and pouring them into one so he doesn't look awful.

"You must be grateful to see Porthos here," he notes. "More company for you when I'm not around for reasons."

[temperamentalsteel]

"Eventually, this place must let me go home, won't it?"

Then, perhaps, it was best that d'Artagnan drank with him for that very reason. At least Athos would have someone close if he crossed a threshold. D'Artagnan, himself, only took one glass.

[armedagainstlove]

"I'm surprised it hasn't allowed you," Athos confesses, given that he's had no trouble. He could walk up to a door right now and find his way back, but the difference is that for five long years, he's not sure he's really and truly wanted his life. After all, Anne had left quite the hole in it and Athos still has no idea how to fill it.

He sips at his glass and studies d'Artagnan. "Unless you're avoiding something?"

[temperamentalsteel]

"Only Constance's rejection, again." And that didn't require hiding in the hotel to avoid. No, the moment he was let through, d'Artagnan planned to gather all of his possessions and take up residence at the garrison like the rest of them. It seemed the safest way and the cleanest break.

[armedagainstlove]

Athos tilts his head to one side, aware that Constance and d'Artagnan got on famously, but he had not known that there had been rejection on the table. "Why did she reject you?" he wonders, given that he may be from a time earlier than the rest, but feels some things can be skipped ahead. He feels this hardly affects his future and thus, would not harm him in finding out.

[temperamentalsteel]

"Because she is married and I had neither money nor position and so she assured me, rather coldly, that there were no dreams for us to entertain."

The wound was still a fresh in his heart and it would be some time before d'Artagnan could cope with her lost love.

[armedagainstlove]

Athos is sorry to hear that. Aramis and Porthos had been so loud and adamant even in the early days about the torch that d'Artagnan seemed to burn for the married woman. Athos had dismissed it as reading too much into the situation, but he supposes they had been right. As always, they are better at reading human nature than he. "Then you must want for a drink more than I do, for once."

[temperamentalsteel]

D'Artagnan huffed a laugh at that and held up his half-drained glass in a mocking toast. Time trapped here, at least, had given d'Artagnan time to heal from the blow.

"Perhaps she was right. It was a fantasy."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos is unsure if he is the right person to give advice or even sympathy in the face of love gone wrong. He is, after all, not an expert on the subject apart from having a wife who is guilty of murder and shaming his family. "Do you still love her?" he wonders, partly for his own emotions towards Anne.

He wants to know if it's normal to still love someone, when they have all but ruined your heart.

[temperamentalsteel]

"Yes," he answered instantly. D'Artagnan had fallen in love with Constance gradually until it simply was. Not being able to love her made him burn for her all the more.

"I wish I could stop it."

[armedagainstlove]

So it seems he is not the only one who continues to love someone who does not love him back. Strangely, it makes Athos feel somewhat more normal. "Should I be on the lookout for someone to take your mind off all that, tonight?"

[temperamentalsteel]

"Now you sound like Aramis," he said, laughing a little. "And I'm not ready to go leaping from brothel windows to save my own skin yet. I had to jump from a second floor window my first day in Paris and I'd rather not repeat it. If it weren't for..."

Ah, there was that dull ache again.

"Had Constance not saved me, I'd have died before any of this began."

[armedagainstlove]

"I assure you, I am not in any position to talk you into any action that Aramis would approve of," Athos notes, but thinks that there might be something here that could help him. "Ah, see, if Constance had not saved you, I might have run you through. Or Porthos, or Aramis," he remarks evenly.

[temperamentalsteel]

D'Artagnan smiled wryly, thinking perhaps that the less time spent with a mind towards what Aramis would do might be the safest option.

"Even before then. I think I'd bruised a rib or something equally unpleasant."

[armedagainstlove]

"You see? You need a minder," Athos says, which is not a surprise. D'Artagnan's tendency to burst forward into things with little thought has not been a surprise to him, though it has been very exhausting keeping up with, at times. He is nowhere near as young as he used to be. "Which makes you all the more idiotic, trying to take me on to a battle to the death."

[temperamentalsteel]

"And are you volunteering for the role?" d'Artagnan shrugged. Of course it had been wildly stupid to go running after Athos, but he had been taught that honor was paramount and stood ahead of all reason.

[armedagainstlove]

Athos gives d'Artagnan a wary look, wondering if he has not already taken that role. "And here I thought I had been appointed such responsibilities the day we met," he deadpans, given how often he finds himself (and Aramis, and Porthos) making sure d'Artagnan stays out of trouble. "Perhaps I can entreat Treville to pay me for it and make it official."

[temperamentalsteel]

"Only if you intend to help keep me in bread and wine with that bonus," d'Artagnan declared, feigning protest, even though there was a very real question in that. Pay from his commission has finally made up for the losses of his farm, but not so much that he can spend freely.