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“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.”
-Maori Proverb
*
They haven’t been on Santorini long, but there hasn’t been a morning yet that Monty hasn’t woken before him. It is a marked difference from how it used to be- but then again, there are many things different from how they used to be.
Percy isn’t sure when, exactly, Monty wakes, but by the time Percy rises to consciousness, the sun is well and bright through their window curtains. And Monty is there, eyes open, looking at him.
Percy could swear his own heart has been pierced with some everlasting life source from that look in Monty’s eyes alone, from the sleepy smile that crosses his face when he sees that Percy has finally reentered the waking world.
“I would fall right into the same trap as poor Orpheus, I know it,” Monty says one morning as they dress, very carefully lowering a shirt over his head, mindful not to catch it on the bandaged side. They had been treated to a selection of mythological tales the night before, told by an old neighbor woman they’d met on their way back from a walk to the sea. She had invited them – Felicity and the crew included – to dinner as welcome to the island, and when she asked if they’d like to hear the stories, it had amused Percy to watch Monty’s barely contained dread slowly turn to ardent interest as he realized how very scandalous Greek gods could be.
“Oh?” says Percy, making as if he’s humoring him, but secretly waiting to be compared to Orpheus’ beautiful Eurydice, given a second chance at life by Hades. He’d set the condition that Orpheus must not set one glance upon her on their way home to the world of the living, else she be sent right back to the underworld.
“Oh yes,” Monty says, looking up at him, eyes sparkling and that wretched dimple making an appearance on his cheek. “You are far too beautiful to resist even one glance, darling.”
His stomach turned over pleasantly at Monty’s words. “Well, I hope you’d make the effort to resist,” Percy says, pulling his hair back and trying to keep the blush he felt creeping up his neck from reaching his face. “I don’t fancy being sent back to the underworld.”
“No,” says Monty, brushing a hand through his hair until it looks appropriately mussed up. “I wouldn’t like that. Plus, all the work of getting to Hades in the first place, wasted.” He scrunches his nose, and Percy makes a mental note to tell him how cute that is during a future conversation.
“I’d hate for you to go to the trouble.”
“And would you trust me to properly escort you?”
“Not one bit.”
They eye each other before they both burst out laughing. Sun dances on Monty’s face as he smiles and Percy wishes he could bottle it up and keep it with him forever.
He steps over to Monty, who looks up at him, the same sunlight catching on his eyelashes. The tiniest flush colors his cheeks as Percy lifts a hand to his face. His skin is soft; he’d only just shaved. Percy rubs a thumb along his jaw where the thief-taker hit him only weeks ago, bruise faded to nearly nothing now. He leans down and presses his lips to it.
Monty’s intake of breath is only slight, and he leans in just barely. This is still so new to both of them. In some ways, the transition to this feels like the most natural thing in the world. In others, they’re still treading unfamiliar waters, barely past their ankles.
Percy makes to proceed down his jaw, but Monty turns his head and captures his lips with his own. The kiss is gentle, and warm, and slow, like every morning Percy ever wishes to share with him. Sparks illuminate a trail down Percy’s back as Monty opens his lips against his, sensual and sweet, much like himself.
“You’re becoming cultured,” Percy says when they pull away, foreheads just barely touching, not ready to depart one another’s space quite yet. “First Bible stories, now this. It seems this Tour is enlightening you.”
“Shut it,” Monty says, squeezing Percy’s hip where his hand rests. “There’s only one thing I’m trying to enlighten myself with right now.” He reclaims Percy’s lips, and Percy is more than happy to partake in the sharing of such knowledge and enrichment.
There comes a morning that, when Percy wakes up, Monty is not there beside him.
When he glances at the window, the sun is barely yet up, and when he feels the sheets, they’re cold. He slips out of bed and pushes back the curtain from the window overlooking the courtyard. Pale rays of sun are only just cresting the cliffs in the distance, the sky a dull purple.
Percy grabs an extra layer to throw over his nightclothes and, on second thought, grabs a shirt for Monty as well.
He finds Monty in the courtyard, just as he’d seen him from the window, walking the same, repetitive straight line back and forth. Percy watches him only for a moment, the chill in the dawn air filling him with gratitude for grabbing the extra shirt, before he makes himself known.
Monty looks startled, and then, to Percy’s surprise, embarrassed. Monty’s had exactly no shame in situations far more ostentatious than walking around a courtyard.
Then Monty raises a hand to the side of his head, unbandaged and bare, and Percy floods with understanding.
“You must be cold,” Percy merely says, and holds out the extra garment.
“I think I’m alright,” Monty says, but he takes it anyway, and then, after a moment, slips it on. Percy hadn’t realized it was one of his; the sleeves slip clear past Monty’s hands. The sight does something funny to Percy’s heart.
Monty begins to fold the cuffs back sloppily, but Percy steps forward and takes the task into his own hands, and Monty lets him. He watches as Percy’s fingers work the sleeves back neatly.
“Did you decide to impress your manly stature upon me by putting me in this?” he asks after a moment.
“I don’t think I would put you in a shirt to do that,” Percy says, glancing up at him with a tight-lipped smirk.
“Glad we’re on the same page, then,” Monty says. “In fact, I’d suggest quite the opposite.”
Monty doesn’t look at him, and Percy begins to get the idea that he’s swaying the conversation very purposely.
Percy doesn’t try to ruin it. “I know you had some smarts in you somewhere.”
“Well, it is a subject I’ve studied intensely,” Monty says, but his smile isn’t quite reaching his eyes as Percy finishes the second sleeve.
Percy leans in and presses a small kiss to his lips, one hand still on Monty’s wrist. His lips are cold as the air, and again Percy wonders how long he’s been out here.
“Alright?” he asks quietly, keeping his tone just a shade on the lighter side.
Monty is quiet for a moment, as if he’s debating how to answer, and the tips of yellow morning sunlight edge over the highest point of the flat. Finally he meets Percy’s eyes, and Percy is surprised to find something shy there.
“I was practicing,” he says. “Walking right again.”
Monty’s wrist is still in his hand, and Percy slides it down to loosely thread their fingers together. “How’s that going?”
Monty sighs. “Better,” he says, and shrugs. “Better than a week ago, anyway.”
“That’s quick progress.” Percy gives his hand a squeeze.
“Yeah,” Monty says, and looks down at their intertwined fingers. A bit of dark hair flops down into his eyes. “I just- it’s hard to not try to make things how they were before.”
“I know,” Percy says, and he does, he knows completely.
Monty squeezes his hand back. “Sorry to leave you with a cold bed,” he says. He gestures to the injured side of his head. “Still aches. And you’d think sleeping would be easier with more silence, but…”
But Monty’s never been one for silence, really.
“Don’t be sorry,” Percy says. “How does it feel now?”
“The cold’s made it a little worse, to be honest,” Monty says with a small, dry laugh. “But moving helps me not to be so aware of it.”
It occurs to Percy that there is an easy, and rather obvious, solution to quell the pain, but there is not a cup or bottle in sight. He feels a small surge of pride and reaches out to push the hair from Monty’s eyes. “Would company help?”
“Absolutely.”
Percy makes to move away, maybe sit down on the other end of the courtyard where the sun is beginning to shine on the grass, but Monty stops him by hooking his arms around his waist.
“I thought you were offering company.”
Percy raises an eyebrow. “I am.”
“Do you know what kind of company would be a best distraction from the pain?”
“I can take a guess.”
“I’m sure you’d guess right, you’re quite smart.”
Their faces inch closer to each another throughout the short exchange, and Percy finds himself smiling nearly against Monty’s upturned lips.
“You’re a scoundrel,” he says.
“My lack of ear hurts, I'm in need of distraction,” Monty says, blinking coquettishly.
Percy kisses him until there’s the entire courtyard is bathed in bright, unfiltered sunlight.
*
On their last morning in Santorini, Percy wakes to find Monty still asleep beside him.
Rather, he wakes to find Monty still asleep on top of him, not that Percy minds at all. Usually Percy is the leech in bed. He can’t help that Monty is just that much smaller than he is. It makes it almost too easy for Percy to fit around him, to fold into him. His skin is soft and so is his hair, and he’s always so warm.
Percy is privately convinced that they’re puzzle pieces.
So when he wakes to a mouthful of Monty’s dark hair and a heavy weight flat against his chest, it’s a rather pleasant surprise.
Judging by the sunlight peaking through the window, it’s still early, but not nearly as early as Monty has been rising lately. Monty’s breathing is quiet and steady, and his good ear is pressed to Percy’s chest. Percy reaches up to play with the loose ends, careful so as not to wake him.
It’s like a dream, that this is his reality now.
There was never a moment that Percy feels he can pinpoint and say ah, yes, that was when I fell in love with Henry Montague. There was never a day he that wasn’t, and the next day he was. It was a slow progression, a mixture of friendship and attraction, laughter and tears, rough tumbles and gentle touches, throwing Monty’s love letters to everyone else in the fire and holding on to all the times Monty smiled at him.
For all the years he’d felt this way, there was always a constant reminder underlying every bout of racing heart and every vain, fluttering hope: he’ll never love you back.
Then: even if he does, there isn’t a world in which it is possible you could be together.
And yet.
“I just…I love you, Percy. I love you so damn much.”
Just the thought, the recollection of Monty’s voice, makes Percy’s heart contract.
Not only is he not getting shut away in an asylum, but he gets to be with Monty, and Monty wants it just as much as he does.
It’s going to be difficult, of course. Not every day is going to be a Santorini morning. The world is still hard and cruel, but with Monty in it, everything will be worth it, even when it feels like it isn’t.
The sun is well and truly risen when Monty finally stirs.
He lifts his head, leaning into Percy’s touch where his fingers rest in his hair, and he meets Percy’s eyes, blinking languidly. Immediately his mouth curves into a sleepy smile, and it’s so bloody adorable Percy is glad he’s not standing, otherwise his knees might give out beneath him.
“Hallo, darling,” Monty says, words loose and sweet. He pushes himself forward and presses his lips to Percy’s without a second thought.
His skin is warm and sleep-soft, his lips gentle, and Monty seems to revel in the feeling of being close even after he pulls away, nudging Percy’s nose with his. Percy’s heart nearly trips out of his chest.
“Good morning,” Percy says, and gently presses his hand to the back of Monty’s head to bring their lips together a second time.
“Hmm,” Monty hums, bunching the fabric of Percy’s nightshirt between his fingers. It continues for a time, warm and heady and sweet, before Monty pulls away again with one more kiss. He tucks his head back into Percy’s neck and takes a deep, contented breath, and then slides one of his hands down to intertwine it with Percy’s free one.
“Well this is nice,” Monty says after a moment, and Percy can feel the vibration of his voice through his chest. “Do you know, my head doesn’t feel quite so terrible today.”
“Good,” Percy says, and he feels genuine relief at that. Monty has always been so unabashedly verbal about so many things, but his serious pains were never one of them. Quite the opposite. He tenderly runs his hand through Monty’s hair.
Some moments of quiet pass, the only sound to be found in their soft breathing and the breeze outside the window.
Gently, Monty squeezes Percy’s hand. “Perce?”
Percy squeezes back.
“Do you remember,” he starts, “at the beginning of our Tour when you promised this year wouldn’t be a disaster? On our way to Paris?”
Percy snorts softly. “Fat lot of good that promise was.”
“No,” Monty says, and he lifts his head. He meets Percy’s gaze again. To Percy’s surprise, his eyes are clear and serious. “I was going to say you made good on it.”
Percy feels his insides often, and even though the events of the past few months are nothing either of them would have imagined in their wildest dreams – and they’d recounted some wild dreams to one another – he understands what Monty is saying.
“Yeah,” he says, brushing a bit of hair from Monty’s forehead. “So did you.”
Monty is silent for a moment, just staring at him, before he says, very softly, “I’m glad I’m alive.”
Percy’s heart beats once. “So am I.”
Monty smiles, just slightly, the barest upturn of his lips, eyes still focused on Percy’s. “That’s not something I could have said in truth for…a very long time.”
It’s strange, Percy thinks, how the heart can be so terribly sad and so ardently happy all at once. He cups Monty’s cheek with his hand. “I’m glad you can say that now.”
Monty smiles fully now, teeth and dimples and all, a tinge of pink coloring his cheeks. “If I could go back in time two years ago and tell my wretched self this would all be real, he’d never believe me.” He pauses, pondering. “He’d sooner believe that I truly traveled time before he would believe this. But I like to think it’d convince him to do something about all of it and save us some time.”
Monty makes to keep going, but Percy’s mind has caught on one thing. “Two years?”
Immediately Monty’s cheeks flush from pink to cherry red.
“Well- um. I mean,” he coughs and looks away, eyes darting along the wall behind Percy’s head. His eyes flicker back to his face. “Yes?”
“Two years,” he repeats.
“Well, yes!” Monty says again, face flaming. “You said you hated when I wrote to you about Sinjon back during school, so don’t act like you fell for me last week, Newton.”
“I’m not,” Percy says, shaking his head slightly. “I just didn’t know you’ve felt the same way for two whole years.”
“I am capable of prolonged emotions, you know,” says Monty petulantly.
“I know that,” Percy says, and he can feel himself beginning to smile.
“And how long have you felt this way for me, exactly?” Monty asks, turning the tables on him. Percy laughs and pokes at his cheek.
“I don’t know,” he says, grinning. “A long time.”
“That’s not fair,” Monty shakes his head. “I want years. Down to the month. The day. The hour. I want all the sonnets you’ve written in your diary about how swoon-worthy my dimples are.”
“Sorry, left that at home,” Percy says, unable to temper the grin on his lips. “Some poor sod’s going to dig that up in my floorboards two centuries from now.”
“Now that’s unfair,” says Monty. “I hope you included a drawing of my likeness so he doesn’t have to wonder at my good looks.”
Percy laughs loudly. He leans forward and kisses Monty’s lips. He feels Monty soften against him. He kisses him again.
“I know a fellow named Monty,” he murmurs when he pulls away, their foreheads touching, eyes closed. “Who is rather flaunty,”
“Hey,” says Monty. He pauses. “Well- fine. Go on.”
Percy smiles, eyes still closed. “His dimples are charming / His face quite disarming.”
“That’s better.”
“I don’t know how quite to resist him.”
“Good, good.”
“He’s brave and funny / Doesn’t have lots of money.”
Percy feels Monty hold back a laugh. He takes another breath.
“But I do know,” he says, “that I’ll always love him.”
He opens his eyes.
He feels Monty’s exhale rather than sees it, feels the close-mouthed smile he presses against his lips. Monty reaches up with his hands and places them on either side of Percy’s jaw, rubbing his thumbs gently against his skin.
“That,” he says, “is exactly what I’m talking about.”
Percy stares back at him, can see the light in his eyes. “I think the sod who finds my diary will be quite jealous,” he says.
“No doubt,” says Monty. And then he kisses Percy again, and again, and again, until he’s so deep in his pillows the back head knocks the headboard. Monty pulls away again, hair hanging around his face, looking down at Percy with such adoration Percy’s breath nearly hitches. He can feel his heart banging against his ribcage in his chest. He’s amazed Monty can’t hear it.
“Recite the last line again,” Monty says.
Percy lets himself take a breath. “But I do know that I’ll always love him.”
Monty presses his cheek to his. Percy can hear the sound of his breathing and his own heartbeat and the breeze brushing the curtains hanging in the window.
“And I know,” Monty says finally, quietly, into his ear, “that I will too.”
Percy presses his lips to his cheek, closing his eyes. His heart is so full it nearly hurts, but in the best possible way.
“Love you, I mean,” Monty says after a pause, pulling back slightly. “Not myself. Well, also myself.”
Percy huffs out a laugh, grinning. “You’re a bloody idiot.”
Monty laughs and presses him back into his pillow, and kisses Percy until his mind is a blur of light and love and him, him, him.