The world's more full of weeping than you can understand

Summary: Aramis can't recall how he got that scar on his head. He only knows because Porthos remembers the day very well. Athos, however, pretends to have forgotten; he can hardly bare to look at that scar because he knows, he hates, that he was the one to put it there.

A/N: I doubt I've kept them very much in character – I've only seen the BBC series – but I did try my best. Please review. I'll try to get the second part up as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything here. The title is a direct quote from W.B. Yeats.

Athos had been drinking far more than usual as of late, and for someone who drank to the excess already, that was a little worrisome for Porthos and Aramis.

They didn't know what had plunged Athos into his most recent abyss of hatred, guilt and self-loathing; they knew nothing of Thomas, or Milady, or her death.

Her death at his hand.

Athos had done his duty on that grey, pale day. He had done what was expected of him and Athos was a soldier – he would conduct his duty until the very end.

But that didn't dull the pain of the open, raw wound inside him; his very soul ached with the intensity of it.

Alcohol seemed to help, at least, for a little while.

It was a Friday night, or maybe a Saturday, Athos couldn't be sure.

He was in a tavern.

He didn't know which tavern.

There were cries of laughter, of remorse, of drunken rage and smoke rose high into ceiling from the fires and the smell of acidic wine permeated the air – Athos could barely see in front of his face.

For every occupant was an identical double who wavered in and out of his perception like light reflecting off the dark surface of a river.

Athos felt sick and numb all at once, and then he noted two cloaked figures slip stealthy into the ale-house, eyes sharp, brows pinched, lips fused tightly together.

Porthos and Aramis.

He supposed being left alone to slowly kill himself with the bottle was too much to ask.

They had to interfere.

They had to care.

And a part of his drunken self hated them for it.

"Athos."

Porthos towered above, his hands planted firmly on Athos' table; his expression was of dismay, disappointment, disgust.

Or perhaps it was concern.

A penetrating worry for one of his best friends, a desperate desire not to see him in the dirt, a futile hope that kind words could undo an eternity of pain.

Athos overlooked those particular emotions, however.

All he saw was the judgement and it made him angrier than he had felt in some time.

It was hard to feel angry about anything when you were lost in the dark depths of depression and sorrow; nothing matters there. It's all pointless.

Regret.

Bitterness.

Resentment.

They're all just emotions that come in with the tide and are washed up on the beach on a winter morning, left to rot and decay into emptiness.

So Athos enjoyed the anger.

He stood up, his chair fell backwards, his hand remained firmly on his wine bottle.

"Athos, you should come with us."

It was Aramis who had spoken, his soulful eyes round and alarmed at the state of his friend.

"Please."

And then Athos was laughing and he wasn't sure why; it certainly wasn't because anything Aramis had said was particularly funny.

Porthos drew himself up to full height – which meant he had the pleasure of looking down on Athos – and allowed his eyes to darken in something akin to fury.

Porthos was always a man of fire.

"And why would I do that, mon frere?"

Athos spat and Aramis flinched.

"Because we are your friends, Athos, and we're concerned about you. This…" Aramis gestured widely around the taverns with his arms, a single eyebrow raised, "this isn't you."

"Then you very little about me, Aramis," Athos' words were only slightly slurred and infused with a sharp tang of hostility, "this is exactly where I belong."

Porthos rolled his eyes and gestured to Aramis to come around the left side of their wayward friend.

Aramis had reached Athos first.

He'd placed his hands on the older man's arm, gently, kindly.

But the touch seemed to burn through Athos' sleeve, through the skin and sinew and muscle and bone beneath and he cried out in a fury that was unknown to him, an anger that had been simmering deep inside his gut for the last four years, a ferocious hatred of himself and the world and the woman who betrayed him.

He didn't hate Aramis.

He loved Aramis, his brother.

But Aramis was just there. He was a tangible, living, moving body. He wasn't an abstract emotion extenuated by the effects of alcohol. Athos couldn't hurt his own emotions because they were tangled together into one mass of absolute scorn and infused into his very being.

But Aramis was there.

And so before Athos had truly thought about what he was doing, he had seized Aramis by the collar of his cloak and shoved them both bodily forward – away from Porthos. The younger man tried to hide the look of shock – and the momentary flash of fear – from his expression and tried to remove Athos' hands from his neck.

But Athos had seen it and it took less than a moment for it to register in his brain before he had thrown – like a ragdoll to be discarded on the street – Aramis backwards with every ounce of strength he could muster from deep inside himself.

Aramis had twisted in the air, like a contortionist without joints.

Athos heard Porthos cry out.

He heard glass smash.

And he heard the sound of bone splinter against wood.

The sound of Aramis' skull splitting against the edge of the table, and then the stone floor beneath.

The tavern fell silent and Aramis remained where he had fallen.

Crumpled, broken, bleeding.