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Adrian Montague is six years old when his mother tells him the bedtime story of Captain Henry, most feared pirate on the Mediterranean, swashbuckling hero, prince of the high seas. About how he left home on an adventure across the Continent and never returned, choosing a lifetime of freedom and unrestrained enjoyment over one of riches. How he and his kind first mate, Newton, travelled the world accompanied by Dr. Brilliant, who always kept them out of trouble.
“You mustn’t tell, of course,” she warns, placing a finger to her lips. “Captain Henry has enemies lurking in all corners of the world. You wouldn’t want to get him caught.” Adrian giggles, and clamps a hand over his mouth, nodding eagerly, and his mother smiles. “That’s a good lad. Now one day, Adrian, if you’re truly unhappy, run like Captain Henry did. Don’t worry about leaving me behind.”
“Why would I want to leave?”
His mother sighs. “Well, Captain Henry left because he didn’t get along with his father.”
“I don’t get along with Father.” Earlier that day, he wanted to go out in the garden, but Father got angry when he asked. “Does that mean I should run away?”
“No, love. Captain Henry’s father didn’t like—he didn’t like who Captain Henry spent time with and fell in love with, and he was cruel and hurt him because of things Captain Henry couldn’t change. It’s a bit different. But what I’m trying to say is, if you ever feel so truly trapped, and people are hurting you because of things you can’t change, it’s alright to run.”
“Maybe I’ll meet Captain Henry one day,” Adrian says with a grin. “He wouldn’t scare me. ”
“Maybe, love.” His mother brushes the hair out of his eyes and kisses his forehead with a small smile. “For now, sleep.”
…………
Seven hundred leagues to the south, on a small ship somewhere off the coast of Northern Africa, a different story entirely is playing out. The ship is not captained by the Henry Adrian’s mother had told him of, but rather Simma Aldajah, maybe not the most feared (but nonetheless feared) pirate on the Mediterranean, swashbuckling heroine, princess of the Crown and Cleaver, who is wondering why she will never have dimples as lovely as Monty Newton’s.
Or, at least, that’s what Monty thinks she must be stewing on, with the way she’s scowling at him. “You alright, darling?”
“You’re distracting my first mate,” Sim says, jabbing a thumb at Percy, who is perched on a barrel full of dragon scales and still recovering from a rather knee-weakening kiss Monty granted him. “You’re undermining the productivity of my crew.”
“Well, actually,” Percy begins, “this might’ve been my fault.”
Sim rolls her eyes. She picked up on the habit from Felicity. “Come on, Newton. Be better.”
“I’m just irresistible,” Monty says, grinning, both at Percy and at Sim. The dimples are out in full force.
Sim, tragically, is unaffected. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, white boy.”
Monty scoffs. “Percy, love, tell her I’m irresistible.”
“He’s irresistible”
“If you keep this up, I’ll have you demoted, Newton,” Sim says, no real bite to her words.
“Which one of us?” Monty asks. “There’s two mister Newtons, you’ll have to be more specific.”
“Percy. You’re white boy.”
“I’m barely a boy, though,” Monty protests. “I’m twenty-three, and I look better in this petticoat than Felicity ever could.” He’s pulled up one side of it and tucked the hem into the waistband so he can reach the pistol on his belt if need be, and that, paired with his tall boots, tight trousers, and loose shirt was enough to make Percy bitch about the lack of privacy for a full fifteen minutes that morning.
“Damn right,” Percy says, slinging an arm around Monty’s shoulders and haphazardly pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Monty leans up on tiptoes, and he’s just getting his hands on Percy’s waist when Sim groans.
“You two are the worst.” She gives Monty a once over, then decides on “White bread,” and grabs Percy by the sleeve and drags him across the deck, not even bothering to apologize for taking him out of kissing range. Percy shoots Monty a look equal parts exasperation and fondness as he disappears into the cabin to discuss the logistics of whatever it is Sim is trying to accomplish with sailing the long way back to Algiers. Monty could argue with this plan, (and has, extensively) but he’s only succeeded in getting a nasty look from Sim and an extra twenty minutes of sitting up in the crow’s nest to freckle and burn in the sun. When he complained, Percy only laughed.
“We’ll match then, darling,” he said, brushing a thumb over the spots that had begun to appear on Monty’s cheeks.
“No, God, yours are lovely. Mine look like a pox. There’s no comparison, really.”
And then Percy kissed a particularly noticeable freckle on the bridge of his nose, and Monty quietly decided he didn’t mind all that much.
“Where’s Sim?”
Monty jumps. “Jesus, Feli. A little warning? That’s the deaf side.”
“You wouldn’t have heard me even if I wasn’t on this side,” Felicity says primly, but she swaps sides anyway.
“She took Percy away.”
“Oh, however will you survive without him constantly by your side?” Felicity deadpans.
“You wouldn’t understand. I hardly see him anymore.”
“Monty, you sleep in the same hammock.”
“Yes, but that’s at night . Nights are for certain purposes, Felicity, and since we’re being considerate —”
“You mean not shamelessly disgusting —”
“—and withholding from nighttime activities, I am forced to stick to admiring him from afar.”
Felicity snorts, leaning against the barrel next to him. “Didn’t you spend most of supper in his lap?”
“And if I hardly see him during the day, how am I supposed to admire?”
“You’ve been ridiculous ever since you took his surname. You’re aware of this, right?”
“So what if I am?” Monty folds his arms. “Love is grand. I take it you and Sim are doing well?”
“Sim and I?” Felicity asks, her tone creeping towards annoyance.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you lurking about the captain’s chambers late at night.” Monty pokes her in the ribs, grinning, and she squirms. “And you’re asking after her.”
“I have a question about how she wants the samples sorted.” Felicity scowls. “And, I’ve told you, not all of us are enamoured with our best friends.”
“Yes, but you’re best friends with Johanna, and you don’t sleep in her bed.”
“I’m leaving. You’re being insufferable.”
Monty grabs his sister by the arm before she can slip away. “Wait, no. Explain? You said that you kissed, you write about her like you really care, you sleep in her bed, but you don’t touch. This is odd to me.”
Felicity throws her head back in a truly dramatic eye roll. “I don’t know. I don’t particularly care for kissing. I like Sim. She makes me happy. There isn’t much more to it.”
“If you did like kissing Sim, I wouldn’t be upset. That would be rather hypocritical of me.”
“It would be. But I don’t.”
“And that’s alright. As long as she’s good to you.” Monty pulls back his shoulders. “If she isn’t, I have plenty of years of being an absent older brother to make up for.”
Felicity laughs. “You are aware that she would kick your arse, right?”
“Oh, God, I know she would. She’s terrifying.”
“She’s not that scary. She read one of those amatory novels that I used to use the covers of to hide my medical books and cried.”
“ Really ?” Monty smirks. “I’m never going to let her hear the end of that.”
“Monty, you can’t tell her I told you.”
“Oh, I’m telling her.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Love you too, Feli.”
…………
It isn’t until the ship is docking in a harbor that Monty realizes why Sim was so insistent upon taking a detour.
“Shit, is this Oia?” he asks incredulously, turning to Johanna, who is busy stitching up a tear in her skirt while fending off Max’s attempts to lick her face.
She looks up from her work with a beaming smile. “We wanted to surprise you and Percy. Felicity said this place was special to you.”
Monty throws his arms around her. “Christ, thank you.”
Max stands up on his hind legs to put his paws on Johanna’s lap with an almighty bark, and she laughs, high and clear. “It’s nothing, really. Consider it a wedding gift.”
“Sorry, a what ?”
She squints up at him. “Aren’t you married?”
“Well, I…” Monty rifles through his memory. “I think we just skipped the ceremony. We’re together.”
“Obviously. Dunno how I didn’t realize when you showed up to save us from Platt, honestly.”
“Thanks, Jo.”
She beams. “You two are—”
Monty rolls his eyes. “—Disgustingly domestic, I know.”
“I was going to say sweet. I think it would be nice to love someone as much as you love Percy.”
“You’ve got to find a strapping young pirate lad, then. I’m sure the Crown and Cleaver has plenty of eligible bachelors.”
“Or bachelorettes. You haven’t got a monopoly on fancying men and women,” Johanna teases. “Felicity never stopped complaining about how you kept getting caught with Theodosia Fitzroy when we were girls. I can’t blame you though.”
Max barks as Percy glides to the railing, hair down and smiling. “What are you two on about?”
“Theodosia Fitzroy,” Monty says, reaching for his hand.
Percy presses his face to Monty’s shoulder. “God, I was jealous of her.”
“Now darling, you have no reason to be. She hasn’t got calves half as magnificent as yours.”
Johanna laughs. “Sim is going to be here to shout at you two for not working any second.”
“You’re not working either,” Monty says petulantly.
“Yes, but she likes me.”
“She likes us,” Percy says. “We have nicknames.”
Monty raises an eyebrow at him. “Newton and white bread?”
“Well. I think she likes us, anyway.”
“She hasn’t kicked you off her ship for knocking over a tin of samples because you were snogging. That counts for something,” Johanna offers.
Percy blushes. God, he’s adorable when he blushes. “Ah. I suppose it does.”
They dock within the hour, and Johanna, Percy, and Max wade out into the ocean, leaving Monty on the beach, sandwiched in the middle of whatever Felicity is calling her relations with Sim. He’s sprawled out on the sand, using Percy’s balled-up shirt as a pillow, and watching his sister and the captain hunch over a portfolio filled with maps.
“We’ll probably have to loop back around to collect enough to replicate the study,” Felicity says, tracing a path across the sea. “Especially given the samples we’ve lost.”
“We’re fine, Feli. You just want to go back to that library in Gibraltar.” Felicity huffs, and Sim laughs. “Next time out, alright?”
Felicity starts to argue, and they descend into bickering, but it’s only in jest. Monty is reminded of the way he and Percy coexisted before they fell hard, all easy smiles and playful nudges. He can’t imagine a world in which he isn’t madly in love with Percy, but maybe it isn’t the same for Sim and Felicity. The simple act of existing as a pair is enough for them, and Monty admires that. It’s not that he wouldn’t savor any type of closeness with Percy—there would just always be the undercurrent of desire for more.
Percy, God bless him, emerges from the sea, Johanna and Max following soon after, and Monty is reminded of five summers prior, when he first watched Percy walk from the water like a Goddamned siren. He was scared then, of if his happiness would hold up over time, if Percy would find someone better and move on. He remembers wanting to keep every bit of that gauzy month on Santorini wrapped up in cloth to keep it safe from the world beyond him and Percy.
Now, he’s better about voicing his fears, better at dismissing that bastard in the back of his head that tells him he’s not good enough for this kind of happiness, and yes, it’s been a long and messy and sometimes terrifying five years, but they’re also better than anything else he’s ever known. Because Percy is stretched out on the sand next to him, his hair loose and wreathing his head, skin shiny from the sea, and he’s giving Monty that gorgeous little half-smile saved for moments of extreme fondness.
“Hello, darling,” Percy breathes, leaning in to press a kiss to the soft spot where his jaw meets his neck. “Swim with me?”
“Not a chance, love.”
Percy pouts for a beat before another smile spreads across his face, this one far more devilish. “Well, then Felicity rented some apartments for the week we’re docked here.”
“Privacy,” Monty replies, shifting to rest his head on Percy’s chest.
“If you’re going to go, do it now, before we all want to eat dinner at the flat,” Johanna says, not even looking up from the map, which she’s crowded around too.
Percy gets to his feet, then holds out a hand to help Monty up. “Shall we, darling?”
Monty does a mock curtesy. “Of course.”
They’re laughing, and all at once it’s just like the last time they were here and they jumped off the cliff together, giddy and starstruck and so very in love. Monty pulls Percy up the beach towards the path, tripping over nothing, and wraps an arm around his waist to keep from falling. It’s comfortable and warm, being wrapped up in him, and Monty is at peace.
Behind him, Felicity shouts “And for Christ’s sake, lock the door this time!"