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Percy woke drenched in sweat. Sunlight streamed through the fading keppel curtains, dancing across the bedroom in penumbral waves as it glanced off specks of dust floating in the late August air. Everything was calm, peaceful in the stillness of early morning. Everything, that was, besides his heart which hammered in his chest like the march of a battery. The scene was oxymoronic in itself. The rapid gait of his heart beat stood in stark contrast to the benevolent tranquility of the sweet summer morning. He tried to take a few calming breaths, and looked around. Monty lay in the bed beside him, sheets tangled in his legs, dark hair rumpled by the pillow and humidity. For a moment Percy let himself gaze at the stupid beauty that was Monty Montague. There was no other way to describe him. Even in losing an ear and gaining some harsh speckled burns, Monty was still unbelievably gorgeous. He had grown tanner after their weeks at sea, and months on Santorini, though his face had lost the wind chapped rouge he had gained working on the deck of the Eleftheria. His lips were as rich and rosy as a girls, laying slightly parted as he breaths came slowly in and out, lost to the soft confines of a dreamless sleep. In contrast to the rouge, his face had not lost the constellations of freckles gained during the months in the sun, a fact Percy continued to enjoy teasing him about. It was quite amusing to watch the slight pink creep up his neck as he swatted away the comment with a hasty, snarky remark, usually somewhere along the lines of “just how much more roguishly handsome it made him, complementing the jarring burns that lined the right side of his face”. Though, every time he brought up the burns or his ear, his face would pinch into a melancholic sigh. It lasted only for a second before flickering back into his trademark rakish smile, but the second was enough to set a leaden weight in his heart. The thought of the burns brought both Percy’s eyes and mind to Monty’s face as he scanned the scarred right side. A heavy ball of grief sat thickly in his stomach at the memory of just how it came to look that way. It was a sharp pang behind his eyes that reminded Percy of why he’d been woken up in the first place.
He had been dreaming again. Well, nightmaring really. The same nightmare he’d had for months, a memory gone wrong.
---
He was back on the island, the stupid, sinking island, and he Felicity and Monty were running for their lives as the ground beneath their feet crumbled into an abyss.
The sand bit into his bare ankles like black flies, and he struggled to keep up with Felicity as Monty leaned heavily onto him, crimson blood gushing from one side of his head.
“Come on, Monty, stay with me.” He pleaded as they staggered down the beach. His heart would not stop racing. Images whipped through his mind at a furious speed.
Helena Robles with her expression broken and sharp as shattered glass, her mother lying cold on the slab of marble drifting somewhere in the inbetween, the pulsating heart, raw and red as a newborn when Felicity peeled away its protective casing of skin and sinew, the Duke sneering and sharp, holding the gun to Monty’s head, and Monty. Christ, Monty. He'd been forced to his knees, hands behind his head, and the gun nestled in the hollowed line of his cheekbone. His body didn’t shake but his eyes had been filled with fear, clouds of terror coating deep cerulean. Some words were exchanged breathlessly between two parties. The power of choice falling into Percy’s hands. He chose. Then the shot. Monty collapsed on the floor. The whole room shaking as stone started to fall, crashing to the ground like deadly rain. Himself running towards the heap that was Monty Montague and yanking him from the ground - forcing him to get up and run. Vaguely he had heard the Duke screaming, and Felicity’s pleas to the Contessa to run and leave the man. It didn’t matter. Only Monty, and getting out of the tomb alive was allowed to take up space in his brain
They were down the beach and to the longboat before everything caught up with him.
“Get him in! Hurry!” Felicity shouted, and his body compiled without a second thought.
She took up the oars and began to row at a furious pace, Percy following her lead after setting Monty safely down. Monty was leaning slightly sideways and his hand covered his right ear. Short moans of pain escaped his lips in between heavy breaths.
“I think I’ve been shot,” He muttered, in a very Monty-ish way.
Percy’s stomach dropped.
“You have not been shot,” Felicity insisted, dropping the oars for only a moment to check his ear. Immediately her face turned ghost white, as if her body had been bled dry in an instant.
“Alright, you’ve been shot.”
Monty groaned, rocking side to side in tandem with the push and pull of the ocean.
“Keep your hand on it!” Felicity cried as his hand slipped lower and Percy could see the mangled remains of his ear, severed, mangled, and gushing blood. Christ. It looked terrible.
“Tight, Monty! Press it tight!” Felicity’s voice was strained, both from the effort of rowing against the current, and from the knowledge of how bad off her brother might really be.
Quickly, Percy moved his hand over Monty’s, pressing both of their palms to his ear. Blood started to bubble through their fingers, snaking down their arms in crimson rivulets.
“Come on, Monty.” Percy mumbled into his ear, but Monty seem to be fading in and out of consciousness. Worry sank a sickly hand into Percy’s stomach clenching his nerves into a fist.
What if...
What if he loses too much blood…?
What if he doesn’t make it...?
What if he dies?!
Christ! What if he dies and we never get to talk again?
What if he dies and I never get to apologize for everything?
What if he dies and the last thing we ever did was fight?
Images of a rain slick alley in Venice tumbled through his mind, unearthing painful memories of the fight that started the downhill snowball of events. Monty’s capture, Scipio’s breathless return, the pancrea pulsating in Felicity’s hands, the gunshot, the crumbling tomb, and finally the blood drenched deck of the Eleftheria and Monty’s lifeless corpse.
What if he dies and I don’t get to tell him that I love him?
No- that would be too much for Percy to bare. It couldn’t be...Monty had to survive.
A haze overcame his eyes as Monty drifted in and out of painful coherence. He was fading, the blood gushing from his mangled ear was leaving him woozy and light headed. Percy watched, helplessly, as his best friend and inamorato slipped further from the steady ground of life. The seconds passed like hours. He felt every single one of Felicity’s rough strokes in his feet, his chest, his teeth. Finally, they reached the ship. With the prow of the Eleftheria towering over them, he could almost breathe again. Almost. Scipio and the crew threw down the ropes, and Percy and Felicity furiously tied them. They turned scarlet beneath his palms, decorating in a vermilion coat of Monty’s blood.
“Heave!” Scipio shouted, and the boat was yanked upwards. Percy stumbled into Felicity as they were both thrown off balance. Monty groaned at the sudden movement, tearing Percy’s heart further in half. Seconds later, they were spit out onto the deck in an unceremonious tangle of limbs.
“Monty!” Gasping words were all that would part from his mouth, “He’s hurt!”
Monty collapsed beside him, his left side striking the deck with a muted thud.
“Christ,” Percy thought, “He looks so pale. So damn pale,”
The crew’s faces swam before him, eyes blurry with welling tears. All around them, bodiless voices of concern echoed, careening into each other,
“Christ!”
“A lot of blood!”
“On his side!”
“Is breathing?! I don’t think he’s-”
“LET MISS MONTAGUE THROUGH!” Scipio’s voice roared over the crowd.
Monty’s eyes were starting to cloud over, the full potency of the pain finally setting in. Percy grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly, trying to use their twined hands to tether Monty to this world.
“Monty. Monty, look at me, try to stay awake,” Percy’s voice shook worse than the deck under the beating of the crew’s boots. He was begging, pleading now, praying beyond belief that Monty would pull through, could pull through. “Keep your eyes open. Come on, darling, look at me, please.”
Numbly, Monty reached a hand up to pluck at Percy’s shirt.
“You’re hurt,”
The blood on his shirt must look like a wound. Christ.
“No,” Percy choked out, “I’m not,”
And then Monty’s eyes slid closed and his head lolled limply to the side.
Fear gripped Percy’s heart, a fist tightening like a boa constrictor.
“Monty?”
Monty didn’t respond, slipping farther and farther from consciousness by the minute. Tears fought through the thick veil of Percy’s dark eyelashes, tumbling down his face in rills.
“It’s alright...you’re going to be alright.” Monty’s life was slipping between his fingers, and the realization of how truly fragile life was knocked the wind right out of Percy. Monty could die, right here on the blood drenched deck of the Eleftheria, and he would be powerless to stop it.
“Just breathe. Please breathe.” He begged to the lifeless form of the love of his life.
“Percy. Percy, I need to see him. Please move.” Felicity’s voice was gentle but firm, commanding his body away from her brother.
Percy felt Scipio’s rough-hewn hands grip his shoulders pulling him away from the body, and cradling him in the pirate’s strong arms.
“He’s going to be okay,” Scipio’s deep voice was reassuring, but it was impossible to miss the note of uncertainty that wavered in the last syllable.
Percy tried to nod as hot droplets of liquid glass fought their way down his cheeks.
And this is where the dream began to differ from reality. In reality Felicity had rolled Monty onto his back on the deck and forcefully requested the medical kit, which was handed to her promptly after. In reality, she had cleaned the wound with water and cloth, cut away the mangled remains of his ear, and stitched the gaping mess together in a neat line. In reality, Felicity wrapped Monty’s head tightly in bandages, and kissed his forehead softly. In reality, Felicity stumbled over to Percy and they cried into each other's embrace. In reality, two crew members had carried Monty to a cot below decks where Percy sat with him until he woke up, many hours later. In reality, everything turned out fine- better than fine, actually. But this was not reality, this was the nightmare of a memory gone wrong. Novelties such as peace took no part in the makeup of this realm of consciousness.
In the dream, through a gap in the crew, Percy saw Felicity’s grief stricken face peel away from Monty’s chest. Tears poured from her hazel eyes as she desperately held up Monty’s limp hand, holding her thumb over the soft inside skin of his wrist, checking for a pulse. Her face crumpled. Rusted crimson stained the deck around Monty’s head in a bloody halo. Scipio’s arms tightened around Percy as a scream built its way up his throat. It choked him, strangling his breath like bittersweet around a sapling.
No.
“No!” He did more than mouth the word now. It came tumbling from his lips in a guttural cry.
“NO! Monty!”
With brute strength that only the bereaved possess, Percy ripped himself from Scipio’s iron grip pushing apart the crowd until he stumbled to his knees beside Felicity and the limp body of his beloved.
“No...Monty ...please...no…” His words came as sobs. Silent tears streaked Felicity’s face as she fell into him, collapsing from grief, shaking under the weight of their loss. Around them, the crew bowed their heads in solemn sorrow.
In that moment, Percy’s heart shattered as if it was made from blown glass, slammed into his ribcage until it broke into a million tiny shards, each a shivering, pulsating red.
“Please, please, wake up, darling. Wake up! I need you! I-I love you!”
He gave the limp body the slightest disbelieving shake.
“No, God, please...no.”
But the world didn’t care. Painstakingly slowly, he lowered Monty back to the deck. Rusting blood seeped into his palms, and all the sudden, the realization of what had really happened flew up at him hitting him in the face and knocking him down.
It was real.
His heart began to race in a nauseating mix of panic and terror.
It was all real.
The gunshot, and the blood, and Monty, and the deathly paleness of his skin, and the nonexistent rise and fall of his chest, and-
---
A beam of sunlight struck his eyes, startling him out of his twisted reverie.
Monty...Monty!
He quickly turned his gaze to the sleeping man nestled in the blankets beside him. Anxiety strangled his thoughts. He needed to see those brilliant blue eyes open. The steady rise and fall of Monty’s chest wasn’t enough. He needed to know that Monty was okay, that he would be okay. Tears he hadn’t even noticed had fallen grappled with his cheeks, carving small rivers in the smooth flesh. Percy turned away from Monty, hoping that the stifled sobs wouldn’t wake him up. He was not so lucky this time.
“Good morning, darling,” Monty’s voice was rusty from lack of sleep, and it floated jaggedly through the air to land on Percy’s shoulder. He tried to quickly wipe away the tears dripping from his face, but even in Monty’s groggy state he could sense something was wrong.
“Perc?” He questioned as Percy turned around to face him, stray tears still gliding in rivers down his cheeks. Alertness jumped in Monty’s cerulean eyes, and he closed the minute distance between them in half a heartbeat, bringing both hands up to cradle Percy’s face.
“What’s wrong, love? Are you hurt? Are you going to have a seizure? Did something happen?”
For a minute, Percy was so choked up on the smothering combination of tears and genuine concern that he was unable to respond.
“What’s wrong, Perc? Percy?!” The minute was clearly distressing for Monty, as his eyes furiously scoured Percy’s face and body for any possible sign of injury. Slowly, he shook the lump out of his throat and forced himself to speak in shards of sentences.
“It’s not...it’s not that...I was…” Monty waited patiently through every stuttering breath, his worried eyes never leaving Percy’s face. “I just had a nightmare...about the island, and the boat when you passed out and we didn’t know if you would make it, and how the very last thing we did was fight and-”
“Percy, stop.”
He did.
Monty’s eyes asked the question that never escaped his lips.
How long?
“It’s…” Percy started, then trailed off, but Monty’s expression hung onto his every word, giving him the courage to continue.
“It’s just been these past few months, since you...you know, lost your ear...I keep remembering that day on the boat and what could’ve happened. Christ, Monty, you could’ve died! You could’ve died and I would’ve been absolutely helpless to stop it and-”
“Percy,” Monty’s voice was warm and caring.
“And I know it’s stupid but-”
“It’s not stupid, Perc. And I’m sorry for putting you through that.”
“ ‘s not your fault,” He mumbled, the fervent pitter-patter of his heart had slowed to a normal beat.
“It’s just sometimes, I worry. We have it so good here, and sometimes I think I’m going to wake up and it’s all going to be an fevered daydream, and I’ll be in Holland... or worse, you’ll actually be dead, or-”
“Perc.” Monty quickly cut him off, but Percy already knew what he was going to say.
“I know. We’re here. We are both here, safe and sound. But sometimes it just feels too good to be true. And I think that everything is just going to disappear in a second, you, and me, and this house, and this life, and-”
He was cut off abruptly by the soft pressure of Monty’s lips on his face.
“Well I,” Monty kissed the sharp angle of his jaw, forcing Percy to a furious, blushing red.
“Am definitely,” His lips trailed upwards, caressing the soft skin, and landing in the hollow of Percy’s cheek.
“Right,” He nudged the tip of Percy’s nose with his own.
“Here.” Monty raised both of his hands to cup Percy’s face, and pressed their lips together.
His lips were soft and sweet, and Percy could’ve sworn he melted right then and there.
He reached his hands up to entwine his fingers in Monty’s bed swept curls, pulling their faces closer together, if that was even possible. After a solid 30 seconds of smushed lips and breathless kisses, Monty pushed away with a rakish smile.
“Now that’s better, darling.”
And Percy could only nod and laugh in reply.
All of the sudden a hollow grumbling noise emitted from Monty’s stomach. He flushed, embarrassed, but cracked a wide, toothy smile as soon as Percy burst out laughing.
“Hungry are you?” He teased, and Monty shrugged helplessly.
“Being this beautiful is a taxing effort, darling.”
Laughter danced across Percy’s face.
“I heartily concur. How do griddlecakes sound?”
Monty’s eyes dropped open, round and pleading as a puppy’s.
“Griddlecakes sound abso-bloody-lutely amazing.”
Monty hopped off the bed, sauntering towards the tiny kitchen with a light hop in his step. Percy watched in amusement, and he felt a knot deep in the pit of his stomach slowly unwind. With a sigh of happiness, Percy followed his completely dopey, totally adorable boyfriend into the kitchen for griddlecakes and a morning of what Felicity would dub ‘disgusting domesticity’.