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[armedagainstlove]

New to Paris, Athos is still learning the intricacies of a city after living so long in his home, removed from so much. And yet, he cannot go back there. There is death all around. He wonders, at times, how Catherine does it, but then, he has his own ways of coping and they resoundingly involve alcohol and plenty of it. Tonight has been no different, but after his third bottle, his directions grow muddled. The other Musketeers had left for their own devices (he recalls the big one citing a card game and the charming one leaving with a woman) while the others had merely ignored him.

And so, he has tried to follow the Seine back to the garrison.

He makes it to Rue Rivoli, but then doesn't recall whether he ought to be turning left or right. Eventually, he crosses a bridge and ends up in a quaint little courtyard in a place that smells of dyes and textiles. There is a seemingly comfortable pile of straw in the corner that Athos stumbles towards, clearing his throat as he curls his bottle in and beds down in this stranger's home. Surely they will take pity on him, if they were to find him.

If not, then he supposes it will only be one more reason that Paris will not work for him.

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[armedagainstlove]

He sits, but thinks that he would have done so regardless of her command or not. The day after so much alcohol, Athos' body often conspires to do him in. He knows that what he truly wants right now is another bottle of wine to chase away this headache, but will merely have to make do with the food she has kindly provided. She is under no orders to feed him or to take kindness upon him and Athos stares at her wondrously for such things.

He reaches out for the cheese to take a tentative bite, hoping his stomach will settle enough for him to eat it, running a hand through his sopping hair, beginning to curl at the ends. "I've intruded on your home, then," he realises. "You have my deepest apologies. I believe I took a wrong turn last night."

[at_your_side]

Had she considered for a moment that the man before her was anything like a that to her, Constance might have questioned the wisdom of her husband's decision to leave her at home alone in the company of the Musketeer. As unlikely as it was that Bonacieux could have done anything in a worst case scenario but splutter on protest, it would be a point of memory that would leave her mulling over what sort of man her was at a future date, but was more of a relief than anything else.

She did not need to have been told of her husband's low opinion of the King's Musketeers (not that he would have ever said so aloud in the presence of one, too aware of their status). Neither did she need him in attendance looking down his nose at the Musketeer who sat at her table who wore a raggedness about him in both the state of his uniform's seams and the trim off his beard.

"It's alright," she told him, her concern for him before absolving much of the need of his thanks. Not that such gratitude fell upon deaf ears, as she was too starved for such recognition to not tuck them away for later review. Constance could practically hear her husband's haughty insistence that, yes, this Athos had imposed on their respectable home. Her fingers twisted a napkin she had picked up as she told him, "I could hardly leave you out there. You do know how cold nights in Paris can get, don't you?" Aware she was chiding him as if he were one of her brothers, she could not help but add, "You should be more careful" all the same.

[armedagainstlove]

"I hardly feel them," he admits, given that his drunken, soppy state had prevented him from feeling just about anything but the warm burn of his skin and his stomach. "I'm from the countryside, just a few hours ride from here. I assure you it's just as cold out there, but I never had much chance to be found outside," he concedes, for he had always had warm fires and the comfort of his family to sustain him through it all. He does not think he should be more careful, however, because in his mind, it is no matter whether he lives or dies. He does not say this, but fears she will glean it from the look on his face which communicates as much.

[at_your_side]

The world as she knew it had little room for Musketeers, had featured them only in brief cameos of passing one or two of the king's guard on the street or seeing a small procession at a distance when her path happened to come close enough to the Palace to allow their worlds to overlap even so much as that. It might have been strange to think that the two of them could both walk the streets of Paris and see two very different worlds, but as that was the way it was, Constance had not thought overmuch on why it was that way. No more than she had wondered over the motivations or thoughts belonging to those rarely seen blue cloaks beyond the gossip of duels between the king's guard and the Red Guard, of the chaos they could create in either the street or the taverns they were well-known to frequent.

The distance between their lives should have added another layer of formality to an interaction already between two strangers. It should have kept her eyes from softening under the dawning understanding of what lay behind the flatness of his expression.

He was neither husband nor brother, neighbor nor friend, and still a spark of...was it unease? a strange mixture between sympathy and indignation? rose within her to think that he might not care whether he saw bottle or grave by the next day. Too familiar with people who scrabbled for every breath, every last mouthful of life, she was taken aback. After a moment gathering herself, she retrieved the cup of water she had poured for him and placed it in front of him with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary, the sound of the glass against wood a heavy sound. "You should be more careful," she repeated, with more emphasis on the words than she had before. There was much it wasn't her place to say, but she could not quite stop herself all the same. "Try and find yourself inside next time you've had too much to drink. I can't go searching every pile of hay to do it for you."

[armedagainstlove]

It's been some time since Athos had anyone to care for him the way Madame Bonacieux seems compelled to do. He isn't sure whether he can even trust Anne's love for him, for he'll always wonder how much of their marriage had been an act for her to achieve what she'd wanted. Caught off guard by the care of a stranger, Athos finds himself somewhat stunned to the point that he doesn't have the words to immediately reply to her.

"Perhaps it's a better sense of Paris I require," he admits. "Maps," he suggests. "Or a better internal sense of direction. Have you lived here long?"

[at_your_side]

The realization of how far she had stepped beyond what she had any right to say to a stranger occurred to her in that moment he sat staring at her. She should have apologized. The many lessons she had been given growing up should have dictated that she do nothing less for thinking so much as actually scolding him for not looking out for himself.

Instead she swallowed down any unease that might have flickered through her, and decided then and there that she was not the least bit sorry for saying what needed to be said. She might not have known him, but that didn't mean she wanted to see him get himself ill or frozen out in the cold because he wasn't taking care of himself as he should. She wondered, but did not ask, what sort of life could have led a man to care so little. What sort of family he had or hadn't that he didn't have someone tugging on his ear already for that very reason.

Constance knew too well that Paris drew in lost souls to ask a word of it aloud. "A few years now," she told him, leaving aside the fact of her having come with her marriage and the home and family she'd left elsewhere to move into her husband's house in Paris. "I could sketch out a map, I suppose," she began, considering the idea, "But you'd best be served to learn on foot the way the streets around here turn and twist."

[armedagainstlove]

"A guide, then?" Athos suggests, trying to calmly entreat her help while admitting he had little to no one to aid him. He also suspected that he would not shed the woman's worry until he did something about it. "I do not wish to occupy all of your time, of course," he is quick to insist. "But with the streets of Paris being so new to me, I presume the best way to learn them is with someone who is well suited to their twists and turns. And if you are not, I would be glad for the company."

All of this is a way for Athos to ask for this because he does not trust himself to do it on his own. He would find the first dark tavern and lose himself in the depths of its midst to wine, brandy, and the grief in his shadow. He would not learn the streets of Paris until he managed to get turned around and found himself another haystack -- though likely not in such a kindly courtyard, that time.

[at_your_side]

When her gaze slid momentarily from his to the door at his request, it was in neither embarrassment nor any hesitation she would have felt but for the memory of Bonacieux's previous chastisements. She knew well enough that she was too soft-hearted for her own good, had been reminded enough times that it, along with the temper that flared and sparked within her, remained one of her flaws best rectified if she wanted to be a proper wife. There was little room in Paris for those with soft hearts. Less still for those foolish enough to be drawn to sympathy at the suggestion that the Musketeer had no other avenue of help in becoming acquainted with the streets of Paris.

The brothels and taverns of Paris, she was sure, there would be guidance aplenty in the Musketeers' Garrison.

"I do have errands to run," she told him, the words drawn from her with more acquiescence than the stubbornness she was prone to, proof enough that she had already been won over to the cause. "But if you don't mind stopping off on a delivery with me, I could help you find your way."

Had he spoken over her or waved her aside, she would have surely let him walk out the door without interference. Allowed him to find himself a new spot to stumble over in a drunken haze some other night. It was a dangerous thing, being spoken to instead as if her opinion had weight on some matter other than cloth.

[armedagainstlove]

"I imagine I would be well-equipped to handle whatever fabric or clothing delivery you have," he says, having taken note of the business at hand. A clothier is a suitable profession to have in modern Paris and he imagines that Constance's position is a decent one, if she allows it to be. She seems a smart woman, too, so Athos imagines that she has the spoils of choice when it comes to running her business.

He acquiesces with a nod of his head, slowly to prevent his head from aching all the more. "That seems a fair compromise. Perhaps I might even offer a commission. I have been after a new doublet."

[at_your_side]

Gone were the days where merchants wives could live idly within the walls of their own homes. Even had her husband not had hopes as high as his ambition, the experience she had earned in her apprenticeship before her marriage was put to good use in her duties in support of her husband's business. It was, in all honesty, something of a godsend to be able to escape the reminder of what duty she did not have to attend to in her home.

The need to use both their time and skills allowed her a freedom away from her husband's supervision. One that had taught her the very familiarity with Paris Athos needed her help with.

She looked over him in all his ragged, hungover glory and knew that she would've known he was in need of her husband's business even had she not spent so many hours pricking her fingertips with needles and haggling over the price of cloth. "I'm sure my husband would appreciate that," she said instead, choosing to be a touch diplomatic where she had openly scolded him before. Then, after a moment, added, "Now finish your food, you look half starved. I can't have you collapsing on me before I so much as collect my things."

[armedagainstlove]

He has not had a mothering touch in years. It is now a surprise to him, almost a visceral shock how her words assault him. They are unexpected, now, and make him feel a strange sensation that he might equate with gratitude, were Athos inclined to understand precisely what he is feeling. He finally nods slowly, thinking that perhaps despite the ache in his head, he must be a good guest.

"Tell me of you?" he suggests. "And your husband's business, of course," he allows, inviting propriety upon the situation.

[at_your_side]

When she had been all of a slip of a girl, long before she had ever married and while she had still been on the verge of taking up her apprenticeship, she had had a habit of twisting a bit of her skirt or apron between her hands while nervous. It was a habit she had fallen into once already in front of the Musketeer and had to actively fight against doing so again. Which was ridiculous, as far as she could see. It was her home, where he was a guest. Well, her husband's home, where she lived, but all the same. She was the mistress of the house and should have total control over at least her kitchen and her table.

Constance was a touch surprised that he might have any curiosity at all regarding her, blinking once before admitting, "There's not much to say, really." Such was true enough, and for a moment she was all too aware that she had not lived anything like an interesting life. "I've lived in Paris since I married Monsieur Bonacieux three years ago. Three older brothers." The usual marriage arranged by her father when she came of age, perhaps a bit younger than most, but she was hardly going to state the obvious there. Marrying for love was a luxury few were allowed, and not one she had ever seriously imagined she would have in her life. Not a bad life. Peaceful enough, really.

"My husband's a clothier, as you seem to have guessed already," there was a wealth of things she could not say there in regards to the man's business sense or his refusal to listen to any of her advice on such matters where it countermanded his decisions. "He does well enough, still building his reputation in the trade."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos nods, taking in the information as he built up a life in his head for the woman before him, imagining all the details put together in one piece as if a puzzle come to life. He wishes to know of her husband's business and her life, given that her generosity has been so good to him so as to care for him when others might simply allow him to have frozen on the streets of Paris. "Now I know of you and something of your husband's business. I am afraid, however, I have little to offer you in turn beyond that I am Athos of the King's Musketeers."

There is a life in his shadows, but it is one he has turned away from and hopes to see banished forever.

[at_your_side]

Where she had not find Paris as wholly unwelcoming as it might otherwise have been, Constance had been made aware time and time again that the city was unlike any other place she had seen before. Not that she had seen many places before, really, but that she had learned quickly enough that there was a certain extra layer of order (and disorder) in the city in all her uniqueness.

All of which came to a total that saw that she was something at a loss of what to say when spoken to so evenly on matters of her husband's business, nevermind herself. She knew how Monsieur Bonacieux preferred to do all the talking himself, and would have had a lengthy and detailed speech about his business, his reputation, and most importantly of himself. She could not fault him for such, she supposed, being well aware that they all lived and died by the reputations they earned (or were given to them).

Constance held back from pointing out that she was very much aware of the company to which he belonged, as, for all that it was no more than a few years old (little older than her marriage, coincidentally), one could not live in Paris and not recognize the blue cloak and the pauldron with its fleur-de-lis impression. "It is good to meet you, Athos." 'Pleasure' would have been a bit heavy-handed, but it felt as if she had needed an answer of more than a nod in reply.

"If you'll give me a few minutes..." she trailed off, gesturing with a hand vaguely toward the storerooms and the tasks she would have to finish before she could head out on the combined mission of her errands and guiding him.

[armedagainstlove]

Athos watches her movement with a slightly stunned look in his eye. She is a flurry of activity, as if the storm is descending upon him when he does not understand how one woman can cause so much action. Still, he is grateful for both her kindness in the past and the kindness she is going to show him. In truth, other than Treville, he has not amassed much kindness and can use anything that she has to offer.

He nods as politely as he might. "Take your time," he assures her. "I am not going anywhere, certainly not in the state I'm in."