all_inclusive | Grief is the price we pay for love

Athos doesn't even realize what's happened, at first.

Ever since Milady had arrived insisting that Athos had been on his way to meet her, ever since he had returned back to Paris and discovered Aramis' treason with the Queen and the result of such a coupling, ever since Rochefort's rearrival on the scene caused him to slouch back to the Nexus, he has been drinking like he hasn't since right after his wife's supposed death. It is in this state that he'd fumbled through a well-known door that he'd thought harmless to him.

Intoxicated with the red wine, he does not notice the shift of gravity in his body, nor the length of his hair different, swept up by the hat. All Athos knows is that he has drank two bottles and is eager for a third, lest he fall into the eager pit of grief and the other complicated affections that lie in wait for him, all coaxed on by the woman whose locket he no longer wears.

When he arrives at the bar for his usual, he's met with confusion. The bartender states that she hasn't been around enough to have a usual. Athos smacks his palm against the counter, his rage brought forward with the incense of it all. "Wine," he snaps, calming himself before his demands grow angrier and more frustrated. "Just bring me wine," he mutters, voice hoarse from the drink.

He slumps into his seat and peers down for the first time, unsteadily taking account of how his clothes now seem to sag and slump on him. Sighing with the inevitable realisation, he lifts an elegant long-fingered hand to the bartender. "Make that two," he adds, before allowing his forehead to collapse against that waiting hand.

How could he have thought this would pass him by forever?

He grasps both bottles of wine greedily when they arrive, eager to trudge back to his room and escape the prying eyes of the public.

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"Dark hair, murder in my eyes. I could look less like her," Athos has to say for it, given that he could see Milady anywhere, given the chance to look for similarities, however slight. He rubs a hand over his face and tries to cling to the bottles, only stumbling a few times in his walk towards his room. "Though, perhaps this is a kindness to help me hide from her, once I've changed my clothes."

Porthos keeps an eye on Athos, knowing first hand how difficult it is to walk in a woman's body when one is used to a man's, but knows better than to offer and carry the bottles for him. He's silent for a few seconds after Athos speaks up, and then he adds, "I'm sorry she's found her way here." He can only imagine that this must have felt like a shelter of sorts to his friend. Some place where, clearly, alcohol was the only requisite to leave it all behind, however temporarily.

Athos gives a responding noise that's more of an acknowledgement than anything else. He's not entirely sure what he's going to do about the situation, yet, and so drinking seems the best course of action. "Perhaps you might be able to help me," he admits, his mind stumbling upon the notion. "You could help me find out her true intentions."

Porthos slows down as they reach the hallway where their rooms are, and shoots his friend a clearly inquisitive look. "How?" He isn't sure anyone could get at Milady's true intentions, short of being a mind reader, and that is not a skill any door has seen fit to bestow upon him, for now.

"You're further along than me," Athos says. "And I know you to be resourceful and the most effective one of us to blend in, when truly needed." He has the highest of faith that Porthos will be able to get something from the situation. "I need someone to tell me whether she has honestly made an effort to change, this time," he pleads.

"You know her and you can't figure it out," Porthos remarks, and opens the door to his room, gesturing for Athos to go in first. (Truth be told, he mostly does so because Athos looks like a woman. It's insidious, the way something like that changes the way you act around your friends.) "I doubt I'll be able to tell. But I'll try. For now... I can tell you she risked her life for the King, but I can't tell you whether that was for his sake, or for her own."

He gets the trousers he had worn as a woman out of the cupboard, and holds them out to Athos. "They're called 'jeans', apparently."

"I have not known her truly in half a decade," Athos corrects. "The wife I thought I had is not the woman who I've known now," he says, taking the trousers from Porthos warily as he stares at them, unsure he likes the fabric or the texture, but aware he has little choice but to accept. "Very well," he notes. He takes them to the washroom in order to change. As he does, he gives a sound of thanks to Porthos. "Any help you might offer me is appreciated," he says. "I need to know what she's after."

"I'll keep an eye out, when next I go back," Porthos assures him through the door. It's an easy promise to make, although he will admittedly keep a closer eye on Milady than he otherwise would have, happy as he has been to let the ones who knew her best deal with her. He fingers the long strip of bandage still in his closet, winces slightly, but of course he should ask. "Do you want to -" well, there was no better way to say this than the blunt sort, "bandage your breasts? I found it more practical than any alternatives."

Athos blinks at the suggestion. It does not even occur to him what Porthos has said precisely until he has run it through his mind another two times, thinking it again and again. It occurs to him with a painful volley that Anne had never done so, because she had always used her sexuality as a weapon in itself. Swallowing back such thoughts, Athos nods rather than says any words, reaching out his hand.

"Give it here," he mutters bluntly.

Porthos does just that, putting the bandage in Athos's hand and praying that he won't need any help with that. He would do it, of course, but the less of his friend he sees in that form, the better for all involved, he feels.

"Do the jeans fit?" he asks through the door, hoping that that much, at least is settled.

Athos sighs when they're a decent fit. There's a touch of give at the waist, but hardly anything that he'll notice in the long run. He reaches out and takes the bandage in hand, beginning to wrap it around his chest while resolutely keeping his gaze upwards. "Everything fits," he agrees glumly. "I'm afraid to say."

He had half been hoping they would drown him and obscure his figure.

"I know the feeling," Porthos agrees, and steps back from the door so he won't crowd his friend when he wants to come out. "That's why I stuck to my shirts." They had covered everything he least wanted to show anyone, being so big on him.

Athos slides on his shirt when he's through, feeling rather restricted, but grateful for the binding. At least now he will not feel as though he is looking at a stranger with every look in the mirror. "I don't suppose you have something with which I might bind my hair back?" he suggests with hope.

"Hang on, I think I have one somewhere," Porthos mumbles as he looks through his things, and finally finds a small black ribbon. "Here," he says, and holds it out to Athos through the door, still without looking. There's no way to know whether his friend is decent yet.

Athos takes it and ties the hair back to get it out of his face, finding that as difficult as anything when it comes to this disastrous situation. He blows a spare strand out as he finishes with the buttons of his shirt, huffing as he stares down and sees the bandage and knows he cannot do anything about it. "It will have to do," he says, as if pessimistic about how it is.

"I suppose we ought to start looking for the proper door to return me to form."

Grief is the price we pay for love

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