Work Text:
When Percy comes home from work, he doesn’t turn on the lights. It makes it easier to pretend that he doesn’t notice the mirror on the wall, the tattered red quilt covering it almost fading into the wallpaper. He knows he’s deluding himself; the gold frame still thrums with life and the uncovered glass sparkles when it catches the light. Still, he can’t bring himself to look into it again.
“Are you ignoring me?” Painfully and as if on cue, a voice echoes from the mirror. It’s teasing and soft, but Percy doesn’t miss the hurt undertones. Percy freezes, the words ‘no, never’ already flying to his lips before he bites the inside of his cheek to stop them. Fuck, that’s going to hurt like a bitch later.
“Not on purpose.” He eventually settles, feeling the heat creep up his neck.
“We both know that’s a lie,” the lackluster laugh that follows sends a shiver down Percy’s spine, the ease of it causing him to shudder. “Just let me see you. Please.” It’s the last word that does it, the voice breaking leaving it to float in the air, skidding to a stop in front of Percy as if to see what he’d do.
Unfortunately for them both, Percy is a creature of habit.
The distance between him and the mirror seems so much shorter now and before he can think better of it he’s tearing the quilt off and casting it to the side. He doesn’t look up. He can’t look Monty in the eyes or he’ll break all over again.
“I’m here.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so cold, he really doesn’t. But he can hear Monty’s wince and knows that what he meant doesn’t matter.
“Darling—” Monty starts, the word rolling off his tongue as easily as always and winding its way around Percy’s heart and squeezing.
Don’t look up.
He takes a deep breath. “Percy.”
“What?”
Don’t look up. “My name is Percy.”
“Darling, I know that I’m not stupid—”
Debatable, Percy would have said in simpler times, before giggling that Monty’s resounding glare and answering it with a kiss to the corner of the glass. But instead, he shuffles his feet against the ground awkwardly, rubbing one foot against the other. “You’re going to call me Percy. No more ‘darling’.”
“Why are you doing this, Perce?” Don’t look up. Don’t look up. “You’re acting like we were nothing—am I nothing to you?”
Percy feels his fists clench, his nails digging into his palms because that’s not fair. “I loved you. You were my everything, Monty.” Hot beads of salt prick at the corner of Percy’s eyes. “You still are. But my heart is here and yours is in another time. I can’t— fuck, I—we can’t go on like this. It’s not healthy.”
“Does it really matter? We still have each other, Perce. That’s all we’ve ever needed.” Monty’s voice is rising and the desperation in it is enough to drive a man mad. How does he not get it?
“Yes, it matters!” Percy hisses, slamming a fist on the mirror frame and completely missing how Monty jumps back about two feet. “This isn’t fucking enough. I can’t spend my whole life talking to a fucking piece of glass! You ever think that maybe I want more than that? That maybe I want to hold your hand and kiss you and…”
“You think I don’t want that too? But it’s not in our cards, love, and I’ve made peace with that because you know what? I just want you.” He makes it sound so easy. Like they can just have each other, and it’ll all be okay, but if Percy can’t prove that Monty even exists at all then what is the point? In Monty’s world, Percy doesn’t even exist, so how can they love one another?
“Monty, please—”
“You’re it for me, Percy!” Monty is screaming now, and Percy has to shut his eyes to prevent himself from meeting his gaze. “This is it. I’m not going to let you throw it all away, not when I need you most!” For a moment all they can hear is their own heavy breathing and creaking from their respective houses before Monty practically begs, voice hoarse from crying out. “Fucking look at me, Percy.”
And Percy does.
Shit.
Monty has pink and red bruises lining his shoulders and collarbones and his face is a mottled purple, dried blood poking out from under his nose.
“Fuck, Monty—what did he do to you, oh god?”
“It doesn’t matter, love, none of it matters anymore, just… stay.”
“I can’t do that, Monty.” Percy murmurs, scanning the room.
There’s a hairbrush on the counter from when Johanna was staying here last. He picks it up, holding it behind his back briefly.
“Yes, you can! Please just let things go back to how they were, let me love you again.” Monty is saying, his mouth running miles faster than his mind.
Percy knows he’s been crying properly for a while now, teardrops still dripping bead by bead against the bristles of the brush.
He allows himself to look at Monty again, to look past the bruises and the scars and to just see him again. It’s incredible how even the wounds on his face can’t ruin those perfectly blue eyes and still his hair is tousled so effortlessly Percy’s fingers ache once again with the urge to run through it. To touch him, all of him. To kiss his forehead and tell him everything is going to be okay, but it isn’t.
Percy will never be able to hold him or comfort him and it’s only hurting them both to keep pretending that they’ll ever get the chance because Monty will die before Percy is even conceived and they can’t afford to keep pretending to forget that anymore.
“Monty,” Percy whispers, his voice somehow louder in his ears than Monty’s cries. He presses his forehead to the glass for the first time in forever. He hears Monty’s gasp and shuts his eyes, not wanting to be awake for this. The hairbrush in his hand grows heavy as his grip tightens. “I love you, okay? And things will be alright. For you. For both of us.”
“Darling, I—”
He takes a deep breath and raises his throwing arm. “I’m sorry, my love.”
The shards clatter to the ground with an agonizing scream as the hairbrush makes impact. Percy’s sure he’s bleeding somewhere. The frame stops vibrating and there is no light for the glass to catch but in some cruel twist of fate Percy wants to pretend there is.
Just don’t look up.