sans mots

“Signore Michelangelo Buonarotti,” Athos says, very quietly. “The man who made this.” Athos gazes up at the statue, “They called him Il Divino.”

“Yes,” Aramis breathes, “Surely only a man touched by God could…could do this.”

Aramis makes a small stuttered noise, and Athos turns to look at him. He blinks, a tear racing free of his eye and drawing a silvered line across his cheekbone in the moonlight.

“Aramis?” Athos asks quietly, his voice hesitant.

“It’s…my God,” Aramis says again, swallows harshly. “My God. Can I touch it?”

Athos shrugs. “I suppose so.”

Aramis reaches out a hand that shakes just slightly, and lays it above the statue’s leg, almost touching. For a wild moment Athos almost expects the stone to move to meet his palm.

But Aramis only halts there, his hand just shy of the marble. He shakes his head.

“I think,” he says, his voice small again in the vast and ringing silence. “I think I would like to go now.”

Athos’ brows tighten a little in concern. He nods. “Yes. Of course.”

Outside it could almost be day compared to the dark stillness of that room, though the hour must be somewhere around the Matins bells and the night is thick and dark. The air hangs low with damp that flares the lamplight into strange blurred shapes along the street and muffled through closed shuttered windows. There is only the usual noises of Paris at night - the odd dog barking somewhere, someone shouting in the distance, a vidangeurs cart collecting nightsoil on the next street over - but it seems almost obscene to Athos, transposed with the strange and beautiful vitality of that statue.

If there is one thing that Athos can be relied upon it is to understand implicitly when to remain silent. It is Aramis’ lack of voice that is more concerning. Did he do the wrong thing in bringing Aramis here? Is he angry? Sad?

They walk back along the Rue du Seine in utter silence. Athos is not at all sure what to do, and Aramis seems to be in some kind of daze, so Athos decides to lead them back towards the other man’s rooms.

“I am sorry,” Athos says stiffly, drawing himself in as they halt outside the building door, “If I was mistaken in thinking you would enjoy this evening.”

He shifts a little in the discomfort of Aramis’ uncharacteristic silence.

“I saw some of Michelangelo’s work in Florence when I was a boy.” Athos clears his throat. “My father…”

He glares at the slick-paved cobbles and shakes his head tightly, says only, “No,” reprimanding himself for letting his mind even stray to such places, let alone to speak out loud of his family.

“I thought perhaps…because of your understanding of anatomy…and that…you told me how much you like bodies, I thought…” Athos trails off. His frown is pulled tight, he can feel it like a slow ache at his temples. His uncertainty flattens into something almost like nausea in his belly.

“Athos,” Aramis manages, and his voice sounds strange. “Im not…it was wonderful. Thank you. It was…” He draws a breath, “I seem to have forgotten how to speak.”

“In Spanish?” Athos asks, “I might not grasp every word, but I could try, if it would help?”

Aramis shakes his head. “No language.” And then he corrects himself, “No language of words.”

“What other languages are there?”

Something dark and strange seems to swell between them in that moment, like a tide that might compel them towards each other or else rip them apart. In the end it is a third, more troubling thing that seems to settle over them both: complete inertia. They stand, staring at each other, neither one seeming able to speak. Behind Aramis’ eyes - even in the dark of the night - Athos can see something shifting and roiling. He cannot for the life of him decipher it.