sevenswells | [ONE-SHOT] A Tale Of Malta

Title: A Tale Of Malta
Author:

sevenswells
Beta: breathtaken
Rating: Mature
Fandom/Pairing: The Musketeers (2014), Athos/Aramis
Warnings/Tropes: Fake Relationship, sex in a hammam, erotic asphyxiation, mild Stockholm Syndrome
Summary: Athos and Aramis are sent to Malta on a delicate mission where the odds are decidedly stacked against them, involving a French aristocrat made hostage, pirates of the Mediterranean Sea, and Turkish baths.
Notes: Credits for the cover picture go to sweetrupturedlight on tumblr (original post here : http://sweetrupturedlight.tumblr.com/post/81175880240 ) who kindly gave me their permission to use it and associate it with this fic.
This fic is for the lovely

evildrem who asked for Athos/Aramis porn and I had this nagging idea about Turkish baths, so I asked the marvellous and precious

berylia for help and on the spot she whipped up super awesome ideas with Malta and pirates and Turks, so you have her to thank for the fact that there’s an actual plot in this fic – of course it is also dedicated to her.
As always, all my thanks to my beta breathtaken/crabsandlobsters, I consider myself extremely lucky to have her support.
I loved writing this, to me it’s the perfect summer fic: travel and exoticism and sunny places and pirates and political intrigue! Huzzah!
Word count: 7 635

Also available on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1924989

“It’s a shit mission, is what it is!”

Aramis was pacing the cabin and tugging on his hair under Athos’ unnerving gaze. His companion lay calm as ever, sprawled on his bed with a bottle in hand, watching him going mad. What had Tréville been thinking, sticking him on a boat with Athos – for days? He should have refused. Let Tréville handle his own personal business for once. He should have stayed in Paris. He should have –

His temper rose again, and he turned on Athos.

“We’ve got nothing to negotiate with, nothing, we have nothing! Just going up to the Turks and saying ‘pretty please’ – he really thinks that’s going to work? You’re the bloody strategist, didn’t you think to speak up when we were in Tréville’s office, to say it was a fool’s errand and that we would only be wasting our time in bleeding Malta, of all bloody places, while there’s – while the –”

He stopped dead, breathing as hard as though he’d been running for miles. He felt petulant and ridiculous and resented it, resented Athos for being so infuriating; but most of all, he resented his better self for thinking, a few days before, that he could handle it, for thinking it was indeed best for him to get away from Paris at the moment, and that this Malta job was as good a pretext as any.

He’d actually been able to control himself for the first days on the ship. He’d read his Bible because it was always good to freshen up your memory of the Scriptures a bit, he’d befriended the sailors and traded stories with them at night; but then some of them had started talking about their homes and their wives and Aramis had kept away from them after that, spending most of his time with Athos in the officers’ cabin and watching him drink. No wonder he was climbing up the bloody walls.

He knew there was no use blaming Athos, he knew this was not the time and place to be complaining about their assignment; it was too late now, they were in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and his son was being baptised in Paris today.

His fist crashed into the wall before he realised it.

Athos appeared immediately out of nowhere, put one hand on his shoulder and pushed him firmly backwards, until his back met the wooden planks behind him with a thud. Steady. Not as drunk as Aramis thought he’d be.

“None of that,” Athos said in a flat, definitive tone, holding Aramis’ stare.

The fight bled out of Aramis all at once. He let his back slide against the wall and ended up sitting on the floor, defeated, hand throbbing with pain.

“What do you want me to do?” Athos asked, and because his voice sounded slightly gentler, Aramis understood it was a real question and not a rhetorical one. By reflex, the immediate answer that formed in his mind was, Fuck me. When he was crawling out of his skin like this, he needed to be fucked. But he’d made passes at Athos before, and he didn’t think his brother would take this one more seriously than any other if he phrased it that way.

He tried for a more oblique approach:

“If I were in Paris right now…”

He swallowed, forced himself to continue while looking up at Athos, who hadn’t moved, and stood towering over him.

“I’d go find… someone. To help me think about something else. Or just… to stop thinking at all.”

They eyed each other for a while, and Aramis couldn’t stop the bitter smile that stretched across his face when Athos was the first to break eye contact, turning his back on him – of course.

To his surprise however, Athos came back to sit beside him on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, and, still without a word, handed him a bottle. Aramis shrugged and accepted it – better than nothing – took a sip, then passed it back. Athos spoke up after a minute of more companionable silence:

“We’re not too far from Malta now, but…”

Nothing more came after that, so Aramis prompted:

“But…?”

“But if I hear you’ve been sleeping your way through a harem or bedded every merchant’s wife on the island just to stop yourself from ‘thinking’ while we’re there, I’ll have your gonads, Aramis.”

That tore a helpless bark of laughter from him; a laugh that grew more genuine when he caught the characteristic little smile at the corner of Athos’ lips.

“You’re shit at comforting people, you know that,” Aramis said, taking the bottle from Athos again.

“I’m serious.”

“Yes…”

He let his head fall onto Athos’ shoulder, very lightly, barely weighing on it at all.

“You are,” he sighed.

+++

“Julien Gueilly, son and heir of the Vicomte de Rumigny. He was captured by pirates while travelling around the Mediterranean studying ancient manuscripts, and they’re asking for a ransom. It might not have posed a problem for any other family, but Roland Gueilly, the father, is a friend of mine, and he’s… without fortune. Not only that, the amount the Turks are asking for is ludicrous, even for a wealthy family. He can’t pay, but the Turks won’t accept it. So far, all negotiations through the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem have failed.”

“It doesn’t sound like the Turks’ usual modus operandi,” Aramis mused out loud. “They’re generally very well-informed regarding the power and wealth of a hostage’s family; they wouldn’t ask for a sum of money that they thought couldn’t be obtained. Why so… unreasonable?”

Tréville put his elbows on his desk, folded his hands in front of his mouth and frowned at thin air.

“I believe I am to blame, indirectly, for this situation. I gave Julien a letter of recommendation when he left Paris the last time… the Turks must have found it on him and believed his connection to the King, through me, is closer than it is in reality.”

He looked at both of them in turn, gravely.

“Athos, Aramis… I’m asking you to go to Malta and try to negotiate with the Turks one last time to bring the price of the ransom down. You’ll act as my representatives, speak in my voice and vouch for my honour, which is no small matter and the reason why I’m sending you, the best men I have. Here is another letter, with my seal and signature, to attest to Rumigny’s limited capacity for payment, and to confirm that the Gueilly family have no attachment to the King. I’m aware it’s more of a personal matter than an official mission, and I would have gone myself, were it not for the baptism of the royal prince next week…”

Aramis wished to believe he was not letting his inner turmoil show at the abrupt mention of that event. At the very least, he was sure Athos remained unreadable, and only Aramis knew that Athos was making a point of not looking at him, not even thinking about him, and the Queen, and the child… You had to be standing right next to him and know him like Aramis did to realise that Athos had stiffened, almost imperceptibly, and was standing very, very still – stiller than usual.

“One more thing,” Tréville said, making Aramis’ heart stop for a second.

“Rumigny’s health is deteriorating, and all he wants is to see his son before he goes. Do whatever is possible to bring Julien Gueilly back. The mission is delicate, possibly doomed to fail – scratch that, more than likely doomed to fail – but at least I’d like to say I’ve tried everything in my power to fulfil a friend’s and a dying man’s wish.

“You, gentlemen… are the last hope of a grieving father.”

Oh, the irony, thought Aramis.

+++

Malta was as hot as the eighth circle of hell on the day they disembarked. Since they were due to meet with the Grand Master of the Order as soon as they set foot on land, they had to remain in uniform, and both of them were boiling in their leathers.

Athos could rest easy, Aramis reflected, squinting up at the merciless sun from under the brim of his hat, already feeling the dust collecting in his throat; no merchant’s wife would ever accept Aramis’ favours as he was: near-preserved in his own sweat, and exuding a smell that would become toxic by sundown. He shuddered, disgusted by the thought. He liked to keep himself clean, a habit that was well-appreciated by his lovers. What he longed for right now was a dip in cold water and a bit of soap, although he doubted the business they had to conduct here would allow him either of those luxuries before long.

Christ, he hated this mission.

Fortunately, the Grand Master’s office in Fort Saint-Ange was cool and dark, and the gentleman himself, bless him, had a servant bring them refreshments of lemon water once they’d introduced themselves, before he proceeded to bring them up to date on the situation. They learned that the pirates’ intermediary in Malta was a man named Selim, a powerful and shady character if the way the Grand Master spoke of him was to be believed.

“I’ll send word to his house that you are here, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you: he might refuse to see you. There was nothing even we could do for the Gueilly boy. You have the support of the Order, of course, but I don’t know what more you can do about this whole mess. I do not want to lie to you: you might, in fact, be wasting your time here.”

“That may be true,” Athos replied smoothly, while Aramis just about refrained from throwing his arms up in the air, “and we thank you for your honesty, Eminence, but we are here in the name of Captain Tréville and we believe we have new points to bring to the negotiation; would you please be so kind as to mention this in your message to the intermediary?”

“Very well, I will,” shrugged the Grand Master.

+++

“What kind of man is this Selim, by the way?” Aramis later asked the Knight of the Order who was leading them to their quarters, where they would await the Turk’s answer over the coming days. He figured that any additional information they could get from other sources in the meantime might turn out to be a precious advantage. With the terrible hand they'd been dealt, they needed all the help they could get.

The Knight grimaced at the name, not even trying to hide his distaste.

“You know what they say about the Turks…? Well, all of it is true, for this one at least.”

With that he walked away and left Aramis to ponder this puzzling answer.

+++

The façade of Selim’s house in Gozo seemed very plain from the street, and certainly did not give away the richly-decorated marble courtyard and lush gardens with merrily-bubbling fountains that greeted them inside.

They were politely asked to leave their weapons at the door before being led through to the patio, where Selim received them in a relaxed pose, half-reclining on silk cushions, with a pretty male servant at his feet who was busy scribbling on parchment, on top of a portable desk made of precious and exquisitely carved wood. Selim himself was a handsome man by Aramis’ standards: at least in his forties judging by the salt-and-pepper speckling of his neatly-trimmed beard, he had arresting eyes of a clear, watery green colour, slightly drooping in their shape, which might have given him a permanent languid stare if they weren’t so sharp; too much nose, Aramis decided, but divine cheekbones.

“So tell me,” the Turk said without preamble, cutting into an apricot with a small golden knife and balancing a slice on the blade to offer it to his servant’s lips. The young man ate the fruit without lifting his eyes from his piece of parchment, and the Knight’s phrase from the previous night came back to Aramis. “Are Musketeers higher in your Rûmi hierarchy than Knights of the Order? Should I be honoured, or offended?”

Sly, provocative bastard it was, then.

Athos tilted his head to the side in that understated way he had of signalling, it’s on. At the game of sly bastards, Athos often proved himself to be a surprisingly valuable asset.

“We all serve different masters, of various importance,” Athos replied, in his worst bored aristocrat’s voice, possibly insulting the Turk right back.

“And do you think you can succeed where others have failed?”

“We have here a letter from our Captain, Monsieur de Tréville, which might shed new light on the situation, if you would care to read it,” Athos said, ignoring the question and handing over the document.

Selim opened up Tréville’s seal with the same golden knife he’d used for the fruit, and read the letter rapidly. His smile turned sardonic by the time he reached the end.

“Really? You expect me to bring the price down just like that, on the basis of your Captain’s honour?” He set the letter aside on the cushions and looked Athos in the eye. “Do you take me for a carpet-seller, Musketeer?”

Aramis intervened before Athos could answer. He could feel this conversation was rapidly going downhill, and an idea had sprung to mind while he’d been observing the pretty servant at Selim’s feet, who still remained completely oblivious to the power struggle taking place right above his head. There just might be a way of turning the odds a little more in their favour, after all.

“Pardon me Monsieur, but before we go on, I have a request…”

Selim raised an amused eyebrow at him, yet Aramis had his attention.

“The first of many, I assume,” the Turk retorted. “Ask away, but don’t think I shall grant them all.”

“My companion and I have been travelling for days at sea, and while the Order is very generous in their hospitality, we haven’t had a chance to purify ourselves from this long journey… You see, I’ve heard of Turkish baths – what you call ‘hammam’… do you think, perhaps, we could continue the negotiations in one of those?”

He ignored the stupefied look Athos shot him and kept his eyes trained on Selim, waiting for his answer. He had surprised the Turk as well, he could tell, and temporarily thrown him off his game, which was always good.

“I wouldn’t have expected Rûmi like you to know about hammam, let alone want to go there…”

Well, Aramis thought, you won’t expect what’s coming next either.

He put his hand on Athos’ back and said, eyes intent on Selim’s, “What can I say? Despite our differences, maybe we have a lot more in common than you think.”

Selim caught his meaning pretty quickly. Unfortunately, so did Athos, whose back tensed up under Aramis’ hand. He silently willed Athos to keep quiet and have enough faith in him to just go along with his plan. By some miracle, Athos did.

“Very well,” Selim finally said, after some consideration, “I’ll grant you this request, even if I don’t any other, so you won’t have entirely wasted your journey here. We can go right now, if you want.”

He stood and addressed his servant in Arabic, of which Aramis only understood the servant’s name, Ibrahim.

The young man immediately dropped everything he was doing and scrambled to his feet to follow his master.

Athos took hold of Aramis’ arm to slow him down as they walked, and leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Did you just heavily imply to this man that you and I were… involved?”

Here we go, Aramis thought.

“Please, trust me on this, Athos,” he whispered back, “it’s a good idea. Discussing business in the public baths is something I hear the Turks do, and maybe he won’t be as prickly there, or at least he might just be more amenable to our arguments. It’s a chance to start this conversation again on a better footing.”

Athos kept quiet, which Aramis took as a bad sign, so he rambled on, “Sorry about the, um, ‘involvement’ thing, but I thought that too could work in our favour.”

“How did you know? About him?”

Aramis couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“How did you not know? He seems quite taken with his servant to me, and the Knight who showed us to our rooms yesterday did say something to that effect, which helped me realise. At any rate, we need to make a good impression, and we weren’t exactly heading the right way just now. I rather think it can’t hurt if we let him believe we’re… kindred spirits.”

“Alright.”

“Listen, could we please go with my plan for o- I’m sorry, what?”

“Alright, it’s a good plan.”

Aramis couldn’t believe his ears.

“Wait. You’re not angry?”

It was Athos’ turn to roll his eyes at him – and, fair was fair, Aramis deserved it.

“Why, would you like me to be?”

“No, no, it’s… fine.”

“Good.”

Something wasn’t right about this, but Aramis would be damned if he knew what Athos was plotting – and of course, Athos wouldn’t exactly tell him if he asked. He shrugged it off, figuring he would know the truth soon enough.

+++

If power could be measured by how quickly a man could get a public place to empty, Selim was a very powerful man in Malta indeed: in mere minutes, they had the only hammam in Il-Fontana to themselves and two burly Moors in Selim’s employ were standing guard at the entrance – both to prevent other people from coming in, and to intervene in any incidents that may occur between their boss and his guests. Inside, the place was vast, clean and richly decorated with mosaics, and in the first room, where they were requested to take off their clothes, running water from the springs of Gozo was pouring out of gilded taps set into the walls.

“First you wash yourselves with the black soap under the taps, before going into the warm room. We’ll talk there,” Selim explained, seemingly at ease with the fact that he was standing naked before them. His body was lean, with taut, well-defined muscles despite his age; no wonder he wasn’t ashamed of displaying it. Meanwhile, Aramis was careful not to look at anyone in the room – Selim, Ibrahim and Athos – any lower than waist level. “Ibrahim will attend only to me, I’m afraid, but I trust you gentlemen are used to washing each other’s backs.”

Aramis blinked. Was this irony? Was Selim saying he knew they weren’t really together? If this was the case they could cut the bullshit directly and stop pretending, but who could really tell what this man was thinking? Would they lose an advantage here, or simply save themselves from playing into his hands? More importantly, if they had to continue the charade, what to do then? Could they avoid laying hands on each other and still keep up the pretence, or would it be too suspicious?

Athos had taken a long time to disrobe, which suggested he probably wasn’t as comfortable with their situation as Selim or even Aramis was; and if nudity was a problem, it was highly unlikely he would accept touching or being touched in front of the Turk and his servant either, even if it remained well within the limits of decency. Aramis regretted all of a sudden that Athos hadn’t killed his plan right back in Selim’s house: he was feeling horribly guilty for putting his brother in this situation, and without a clue how to remedy it.

He was still puzzling over their dilemma, frozen in indecision, stupidly holding a jar of black soap paste in his hand, when Athos cut his train of thought short as he suddenly took the jar from him.

“Leave it to me. I’ll do it for you, brother,” he said, and pushed Aramis under the jets of cold water before he could protest. From where he stood, Aramis could now see Selim across the room, already spreading soap all over Ibrahim’s body. Both were smiling at each other, and Selim’s rubbing really looked more like caresses, slow and sensual. Aramis turned and faced the wall instead.

Perfunctory as his touch was, feeling Athos’ gentle hands on his naked shoulders troubled Aramis more than he could tell. Troubling as well, maybe more so, was the feeling of Athos’ body radiating heat against his back, only inches between them; he tried so lean away from it, only slightly, so he could concentrate on other things, like the bitter yet refreshing smell of the soap, or the intricate mosaics on the wall in front of him – anything, really; but Athos pressed even closer, never stopping the movements of his hands which remained the only points of contact between them, and whispered in his ear:

“When we’re in the warm room, I will have to give all my attention to Selim, otherwise the plan might fail. In the meantime, can you keep an eye on the boy for me?”

Work. Work was good. A good thing to focus on.

“A-ha, so there is a plan. Care to share it with me?”

Athos’ only answer was to let his hands slide down the length of Aramis’ arms, then back up, and say nothing.

“Have it your way then,” Aramis whispered. “Can you just tell me if you think the boy is dangerous? Should I be prepared for violence?”

“We never know,” was Athos’ cryptic reply.

Aramis stepped out from under the jet and bent to retrieve the jar of soap Athos had set on the floor. Holding it up, he asked in a normal, more audible voice:

“Shall I wash your back in return, brother?”

“I’m fine,” Athos said with a half-smile, and stepped under the tap in turn. He closed his eyes as he let his head fall backwards to greet the flow of water, baring his throat to the glittering rivulets that cascaded down his torso and drenched his dark chest hair. Aramis blinked and looked away, unable to help this picture of abandon branding itself into his mind.

When Athos was ready, Ibrahim came over to their side of the room to hand them two pieces of white silk cloth, identical to the one he was wearing tied around his waist, and mimed that they had to do the same before entering the warm room.

Aramis took the opportunity to have a closer look at the boy. He didn’t seem dangerous at all, willowy and soft-looking as he was, eyes always downcast in an excessively demure attitude around them. But maybe appearances were deceiving, and he was actually a trained master assassin and spy – what the hell did he know, any more? His eyes would remain glued to him if that was what Athos wanted.

Thinking he could look more freely at Athos, now that there was cloth encircling their hips, was a mistake: the white silk clung to large wet patches on his skin, outlining the curves of his arse and thighs, and, yes, even the shape of his cock. Not good at all, but the thick steam that surrounded them as they entered the warm room would probably conceal most of Aramis’ unfortunate bodily reflexes until he could at least will them away.

He couldn’t believe he was behaving like such an adolescent. It wasn’t as though he’d never seen a naked man before, but sometimes suggestion could have a worse effect than full-on physicality, and the exoticism of Malta and the Turkish baths were probably all just going to his head at this point. Plus there was another problem, if he was completely honest with himself: this was Athos. He’d never seen him naked before, and he respected his brother too much to ogle like a boor, but still… There was a forbidden spice to it, and he’d always been weak in the face of the forbidden. He would stop himself from looking, but that didn’t mean inappropriate thoughts and images wouldn’t lurk in the back of his mind.

Selim was already waiting for them in the warm room, sitting on a plain marble bench; thankfully, he was also wearing a silk cloth. He gestured them over to the bench facing his, then offered up a phial of oil to them without a word. Aramis was overtaken by absolute dread for a second, before he understood Selim was proposing the oil for a massage, and not… God, he needed to keep himself in check.

Quick to react, he seized the phial, announcing, “I’ll do it!”

Athos raised a brow and Aramis felt the need for justification:

“Seamstress’ hands, remember?” he said with a reassuring smile, raising them in front of him and wiggling his fingers.

He didn’t think he could stand any more of Athos’ hands on his bare skin without some mortifying accident happening. Athos had already breached their unspoken boundary by laying his hands on Aramis, so there was no need for timidity between them now; besides, he could keep his touch just as platonic as Athos’ had been.

Athos gave a slight nod of acceptance and Aramis took his place behind him, already pouring and rubbing the oil between his hands. It was perfumed with musk, which mingled nicely with the other smell present in the vapour of the room: something green, herbaceous, with a touch of peppermint, a smell he couldn’t quite place. He had to say, the Turks knew their pleasure: this was indeed very nice. He applied his palms to Athos’ shoulders and started kneading with firm motions. Unsurprisingly, Athos’ muscles turned out to be one big mass of knots.

“Let’s talk then, Musketeer,” Selim began. “What more do you have to say that could change my mind? Your Captain Tréville says in his letter that the father can’t pay, but it seems far more likely to me that he just doesn’t want to. Why would I, and the people I represent, believe you?”

“Roland de Rumigny has no reason to lie,” Athos said, and cut off a strange breathy groan when Aramis worked at a particularly hard area. Furious, Athos whipped his head around to give him the evil eye. Aramis held up his hands again to convey that he would be less enthusiastic about it, he promised. He resumed when Athos turned to Selim again.

“Why not?” Selim scoffed. “And please don’t bring the word ‘honour’ into the conversation, the honour of some Rûmi I don’t even know has no currency here.”

“The ‘people you represent’ have kidnapped his only son, I would have thought that would make you quite acquainted by now – uuugh.”

Now, that one Aramis had done to him on purpose; they’d come here so the Turk would relax and consider their proposal reasonably, not for Athos to be sarcastic all over again. Maybe Athos got the message because he didn’t turn to Aramis again and simply dropped their bombshell: “He’s dying.”

The silence from Selim was deafening; maybe sensing something was wrong, even Ibrahim had stopped his massage, hands frozen on Selim’s shoulders.

“That…” Selim tried after a while. “That could also be a lie. Some trick of a penny-pincher.”

Ibrahim quickly said something to Selim then, which sounded like a question, with words in Spanish, Italian and probably Arabic. Aramis only understood the words ‘lie’ and ‘death’, the rest was too jumbled. Did the boy understand enough of their conversation to give his opinion on the matter? Was he trying to sway his master? However, it didn’t seem to work, as Selim replied to him only in Arabic, in a tone that sounded irritated or even fully angry, and Ibrahim clamped his mouth shut after that, eyes perhaps a touch too dewy.

“On my honour, believe me, then,” Athos said calmly when he had Selim’s attention again. “I’m right in front of you, you know me at least a little.”

“Even if you were honourable, Musketeer, maybe you’re not aware you’re repeating a lie. Do your superiors always tell you the truth? How could you be so sure?”

This conversation was turning bloody impossible, resembling more and more a religious debate between Jesuit scholars. How could Athos possibly prove a negative? What exactly did the Turk even want from them? Aramis could now see why the Order had failed before them: this was a Gordian knot that they’d never be able to solve.

“Very well,” Athos said, completely unfazed. “Then I propose an exchange: let me take the hostage’s place.”

Aramis and Selim both exclaimed “What?!” simultaneously, although Aramis’ shout resounded far louder.

“Athos,” Aramis hissed when he collected himself enough to be able to form words again, “what the hell are you saying? Have you gone completely mad?”

“Peace, brother. Indeed I can’t prove the truth of what I am saying, so we’ll proceed to an exchange. This way we won’t lose any more time and Julien Gueilly can go back to his father’s side before the old Vicomte dies. I have rank and a title,” he said to Selim, “I’m just as valuable as the boy, and I hear it’s quite a common procedure.”

“For monks of the Trinitarian Order, maybe,” Aramis spluttered, “not for Musketeers!”

“Tréville was quite clear on the fact that we were sent here to vouch for his honour, and it’s being put in question. As his representative, it is my duty…”

“What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense! Your duty is to your King, not to Tréville – may I remind you, you don’t belong to yourself, Athos! Can you imagine the consequences if a Musketeer –”

“Aramis, shut up.”

The order struck like a lash, stopping him in mid-flow. Meanwhile Ibrahim, visibly agitated, had started talking to Selim again, more and more rapidly, and Selim was left struggling to contain the flow of words assailing him and trying to reassure his young lover but couldn’t seem to manage to finish his sentences.

“Monsieur,” Aramis called, snapping out of his silence and immobility. The chatter ceased. “I need a word in private with my companion. Would you please be so kind as to excuse us…?”

Selim, looking weary all of a sudden and like he needed some privacy with Ibrahim himself, nodded his assent then lifted his chin to point at an adjoining room at the back. Aramis went there without a word, expecting Athos to follow. This third room was even hotter and steamier, to the point that you could barely see your own hand in front of your face, which was just as well: the steam might be useful in muffling their words to anyone eavesdropping.

As soon as Athos joined him, Aramis stepped straight into his personal space as though engaging close combat, his snarling face close to his brother's:

“Look, I don’t know if this is one of your stupid self-sacrifice fantasies, and I don’t give a fuck: it stops here and now, do you hear me? I won’t stand for it, and if you think I’m going to leave you to the fucking Turks, you can…”

“Did you watch the boy like I told you?”

Thrown off by the sudden unrelated question, Aramis forgot his anger for a second and replied, “Yes, I did, but…”

“What was his reaction when I said that the Vicomte was dying? Not when he started talking to Selim, but at the exact moment I said it, what happened?”

“He just sort of… froze, but… what do you care? How is the boy’s reaction relevant to anything?”

Athos grinned, put his finger to his lips and beckoned Aramis to follow him. They stepped back out into the warm room, keeping themselves hidden behind the columns there to secretly observe their host and his servant, who had changed position: now Ibrahim was sitting on the bench, gently caressing Selim’s head where it lay in his lap. The intimacy of the scene, the emotion on both their faces, as though their world had just ended, almost physically seized Aramis by the throat. They were still talking to each other, more quietly, but now the language they spoke was… French.

“You have to let me go, Selim,” the young man said. “I will come back to you. I will find a way.”

“You won’t. But it doesn’t matter,” Selim replied, in the voice of a condemned man. The he suddenly rose from his reclining position and took the young man in his arms, and proclaimed passionately, “What matters is what you wish, habibi. You’re free. I want you to remember that you were never a slave; not here, not with me.” He took the boy’s face in his hands, as though contemplating the face of God himself. “I’m the one enslaved to you.”

The kiss that they shared after this desperate declaration of love wasn’t for anyone else’s eyes, certainly not human ones; so Aramis let Athos take him by the arm and lead him back to the hot room.

Aramis could see, even through the thick steam, that Athos was looking indecently pleased with himself – which for Athos meant that his usual half-smile was turning into almost three-quarters of one.

“So…” Aramis began, hesitant to voice his thoughts out loud. Athos’ smile grew incrementally, waiting for him to come out and say it.

“Ibrahim is actually… Julien Gueilly.”

He knew what he’d seen and what he’d heard, and had drawn the obvious conclusion from that, but even to his own ears it sounded ridiculous.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Do you mean why? In fact, that’s the trickier part.”

“How? How on earth could you know?”

Athos propped a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms.

“Call it a hunch, at first. The age, the main physical traits fit… which made me look closer. He’s young, but with scholar’s hands, not a novice at writing, with an identifiable bump on his middle finger. They’re aristocratic hands, too; soft, pampered, not a servant’s. It added up with what we knew about Julien Gueilly: a young noble who travelled the Mediterranean in search of ancient manuscripts. Of course, Ibrahim could have merely been Selim’s secretary; but then I had confirmation that he was a convert, and a recent one.”

“A convert? Recent? How could you possibly…”

“How do you think?” Athos deadpanned, raising expectant eyebrows.

Aramis mulled this over for all of two seconds before the moment of illumination dawned.

“Athos…” he said slowly, almost with wonder. “Did you actually agree to play along with my Turkish bath idea just so you could have a long, hard look at his…”

“Yes, well. Like I said, it was a good plan.”

Aramis suppressed his desire to laugh out loud; there were still things he wanted to know, and if he started laughing he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

“You said ‘why’ was the trickier part…”

“Yes. Why did he convert? Why the ludicrous ransom when he most definitely knew his father couldn’t pay? Was it a scheme to steal money? Was he forced? What we heard and saw just now negated that possibility, at least, which was just the final confirmation I needed.”

“What would you have done? If you’d discovered he was being forced, I mean?”

Athos shrugged. “I would have probably run Selim through at the first available opportunity and then figured out some other plan.”

“Some other… I see. The proposition of exchange was a provocation, wasn’t it?”

“To make Selim and the boy understand I was more than serious about Julien’s father’s life hanging by a thread and to force the boy’s hand in doing the right thing, yes. I also needed your outrage to be as genuine as possible to add even more weight to my bluff, which is why I couldn’t tell you my plan. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“That could have backfired horribly. A Musketeer making himself a hostage of the Turks, especially one of your lineage… I shudder to think about the diplomatic incident it would have caused; and the Turks would have never let you go without an even bigger ransom. What if they had accepted your proposition?”

“They didn’t, did they?”

“The boy is not on a boat with us yet.”

“He will do the right thing. I would bet on it.”

“I would point out that he didn’t do the right thing before. If he wasn’t being forced, like you said, why the ludicrous ransom? Why isn’t he at his father’s side already?”

“It appeared to me the ransom was a scheme designed to fail from the start. Selim’s reticence and provocative attitude towards us also put me on the right track: he was a little too eager to not please.

“I can’t answer for the boy, of course, but maybe… he just needed a convenient excuse to stay away from his father. He leads a whole new life here, and perhaps he couldn’t deal with being an apostate in his father’s eyes… who knows? It’s all speculation unless the boy decides to confide in us, which he may or may not do.

“But I was counting on one thing: that he didn’t know about the state of his father’s health. If he hadn’t reacted at all when I revealed that, if he had been indifferent, then I would have known the boy was lost forever and there was no use trying to take him back with us. It seems now that we will be able to reunite father and son, though.”

Athos’ smugness didn’t come from revelling in his own cleverness, Aramis realised: it was the satisfaction of knowing he was doing the right thing. This was precisely why they were both Musketeers, after all: the strength of their principles, even more than their personal histories and hidden motivations.

Athos looked so handsome all of a sudden that Aramis’ heart gave a pang, like that – he wasn’t ashamed to admit it – of a young maiden. Mesmerized, he stepped back into Athos’ personal space, albeit far less aggressively this time. Paris was so far away. They were alone in this room which seemed to Aramis like the last remaining corner of all Creation, and they shared it together, more intimate than they’ll ever be.

“Kiss me,” he said.

Athos searched him with intensity.

“Why?”

Aramis tried for levity. “Because you forbade me to bed anyone’s wife or mistress while we were here and I’m feeling horribly frustrated.”

Athos huffed a laugh.

“You can hold on a bit longer until we return to Paris; that’s no excuse. Try again.”

“Because your brilliant plan has succeeded and will allow a family to be reunited: that makes me so happy I want to go down on my knees and suck your cock, so will you please accept my gratitude?”

He hadn’t meant it to come out quite so dirtily, but it had felt so right, especially when the first moment of shock in his brother’s eyes cleared to leave behind pure, burning lust. Aramis closed the distance between them and brushed his lips tentatively to Athos’, to which Athos reacted by throwing him almost brutally against the wall before kissing him in earnest, as though possessed.

Aramis was hot, too hot, heat surrounding him and inside his mouth where Athos’ tongue slid against his, caressing, slick, near-scalding. He was having trouble breathing through all the steam, but there wasn’t anywhere else in the world he wanted to be more than right here, in this foggy hell.

He broke the kiss and dropped to his knees, just as he’d promised. Pushing the cloth out of the way, he found Athos half-hard. He brought him to full hardness with his fingers and tongue, savouring the intensely salty flavour the ambient heat had brought out, moaning with the joy of finally filling his mouth with cock, Athos’ cock. He would have kept on sucking blissfully until he brought him off, but Athos made him stop by tightening his fist in his hair. Aramis loved that so much he couldn’t help but groan out loud: hair-pulling when he gave head was one of his greatest pleasures. Trust Athos to discover it on their first time together.

“Up,” Athos ordered with urgency, helping him to his feet again and pressing him back against the wall – ooh, someone else had a kink, apparently. Athos then attacked his throat, there was no other word for it: licking, biting, sucking, nibbling like he couldn’t get enough, and it drove Aramis positively wild.

“Yes,” he hissed, hips bucking, fingers digging into Athos’ nape, “yes! Dios, yes! Mark me.”

He surprised himself with how much he wanted it, this branding; not so much for the possessiveness of the act, but because he wanted to carry the proof of Athos’ lost control with him, on his skin. Lifting away the cloth around his hips, baring his cock, he put a hand in the small of Athos’ back and pulled their hips together to thrust his erection against Athos’ own. Despite the new skin on skin there still wasn’t quite enough friction to his taste, so he snuck his right hand down between their bodies and circled it around them both. Sadly, everything, his hand, their cocks, were too sweaty and slippery and he couldn’t get enough of a grip. He keened, desperate to get off. Athos, bless his still-functioning mind, found the solution: he knocked Aramis’ hand away, placed his forearm against Aramis’ collarbone, leaned against it for balance and covered their pricks with the wet silk, which gave a better grip when he moved his hand.

Aramis huffed a little laugh: how like Athos to jerk them off in silk, noble bastard that he was. It was good though, so soft and wet, Athos’ fist so firm and perfect around them both. He was getting close, his heartbeat like thunder in his ears and his breath quicker and shallower as his head grew lighter, which gave him a brilliant idea.

He pushed Athos’ forearm a few inches up on his chest, until it rested right against the base of his throat. Athos gave him a questioning look, but Aramis nodded and Athos finally pushed and cut off his air while the speed of his caresses on their cocks increased. Aramis came so hard he thought he’d pass out, his vision going black for a glorious moment. Maybe he did pass out, as he came back to his senses slumped on the floor without remembering how he got there, face against the tiles, with his lungs on fire. He tried to suck in more air and catch his breath, but it seemed there just wasn’t enough to go around.

“Shall… shall we…” he panted, voice so faint he himself could barely hear it, and made a vague gesture back towards the other room, altogether giving up on formulating an actual question.

Athos was flat on his back beside him, flushed red as a beet and not looking so well either.

“Probably… not,” he managed, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow, chest heaving. “It would be… rude… to interrupt.”

Only then did Aramis hear the moans and cries of pleasure coming from the other room.

“Fffuck,” he groaned.

“Quite.”

+++

In the end they stayed so long in the hot room waiting for the coast to clear that they almost did die in there. Once they were finally able to leave they didn’t make it further than the cold room, and had to lie down on wooden benches to recuperate, bodies heavy and completely drained of their vitality. Turkish baths were evil and Aramis swore off them forever. They were still lying there like pathetic slugs when Ibrahim came to find them and say in perfect French:

“Messieurs… I am Julien Gueilly, son of Roland de Rumigny. Please take me back to France, to my father’s side.”

Their reaction might have left the young man a bit disappointed: they barely had enough strength left to nod, let alone pretend they were surprised by this truly astounding revelation.

+++

The next morning they stood on the deck of a light frigate, watching the heir of the Vicomte de Rumigny say goodbye to his Turkish lover on the docks below. Selim was holding Julien in his arms, crying freely and looking like he never wanted to let him go.

Elbows propped against the rail, Aramis was peeling and eating a tangerine, letting the peel fall bit by bit into the sea, while he considered the heartbreaking scene unfolding on land. Emotions were running so high that he found himself automatically examining his own heart.

He doubted he’d ever have that kind of relationship with Athos. He even doubted whether he and Athos would pursue further what happened between them when they returned to their normal lives.

He glanced sideways at his companion, whose austere profile partly eclipsed the morning sun. He repressed a snort around a mouthful of tangerine. No, definitely not the adoring, cuddly type.

But he knew his brother would still be there by his side, constant as the northern star, when this brief Maltese reprieve was over, and the hard times would start again for him… and that would always be enough, wouldn’t it?

After bidding his last adieux to Selim, Julien Gueilly joined them on board and the captain called for the ship’s departure. Athos turned to Aramis with a thin smile, eyes as clear as the skies overhead.

“Onwards, then?”

Aramis smiled back at him.

“To Paris.”

+FIN+

__________________________________________________

End notes:

+ I went more or less historical AU with this one : as of now we don’t know if the show intends to make Aramis’ son be Louis XIV or if they’ll make that child die too. So I decided to keep the ambiguity : Aramis’ son may or may be not Louis XIV, I’ll leave it to you to decide.

+ Louis XIV was baptised at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1643 at the age of 5 ; that didn’t suit me for the timeline (too far ahead of the events in season 1), so the child in my story is baptised in Paris and not so long after his birth.

+The story of the letter of recommendation found on a hostage and turning the price of his ransom into a sum that his family couldn’t pay is actually… Cervantes’ story, and it really happened (thanks Berylia and her fangirlism for all things Cervantes :D )

+The Order and Knights of the Order and the Grand Master are of course the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, aka the Order of Malta. They often dealt with hostages situations such as this one.

+ Selim and Ibrahim were directly inspired by the Suleiman the Magnificent and his supposed « best friend » Ibrahim who was a Greek convert (yes I ship them very hard).

+ Gozo is an island of the Maltese archipelago, not far from the main island.

+ Rûmi is the term the Muslims used at that time to talk about Christians (derived from « Roman »)

+ To my knowledge, there’s never been a hammam in Malta historically, the one in the fic is entirely made up. I placed it in Il-Fontana on the island of Gozo (which is also where Selim lives) because it’s the only place where there are springs in Malta and contrary to Roman baths where the customers had a pool to refresh themselves in the « cold room » (frigidarium), Ottomans preferred running water in their hammams, hence need for it to be built near a spring (Roman baths also put the frigidarium as last in the architecture of the baths, whereas in hammams the cold room is the first one you go through). Anyway archaeologists did find ruins of a Roman thermal complex on Gozo in Ramla l-Hamra (http://mhs.eu.pn/mh3/19971.html ), so the idea of public baths in the Maltese archipelago (despite the well-known problems they have for gathering drinkable water as it’s very dry there), isn’t entirely far-fetched.

+ The Trinitarian Order is a religious order whose goal at that time was to help/save Christian captives and hostages around the Mediterranean. Sometimes there were volunteers from this order who would take the place of the hostage so he could go free until they found a way to pay the ransom, which is the « common procedure » Athos is referring to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitarian_Order

+ Don’t do what these idiots did, don’t have sex in hammams, not only is it unhygienic, it’s also dangerous because heat and steam elevate your heart rate and you shouldn’t do any form of, ahem, intense physical activity in there -- basically they could have stupidly died of a heartstroke, which would have been a whole new level of loser, even for them. Don’t do it kids.