Page 125 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

Joe let out a gasp of laughter. “How can you ask me that? I love you. I love you so much and when I saw…” Joe’s voice broke. The grief was so close to the surface that it didn’t even need the words to uncover it. He turned his face away, tears sliding down his cheeks.

Percy pulled him back, the touch of his hand catching the tears. “It’s been a long night. It doesn’t have to be now. We can think about it?—”

“I’m done thinking. I just want to live. With you. I want this with my whole heart, but I don’t know…” He swallowed, gathering himself. “I don’t know what I did last night. I… I don’t know what it makes me now that I drank that blood. But I don’t feel different.” He took Percy’s hand and placed it on his chest. “Not in my heart. I feel like I love you, and I want you, and if you would share your life with me?—”

“Oh god, of course I would.” Percy took his face in both hands, kissing the trails of tears away.

“I’ve never told you enough,” said Joe, shaking his head softly against Percy’s kisses. “I always think you know already, because I never thought you’d consider me. Because you’re Percy. And I always thought you must know how much I love you, how grateful I am to have you, but if I didn’t tell you, just one day, then you were gone?—”

Percy kissed him and kissed him. “I’m right here. I would never leave you.”

Joe’s hands closed on Percy’s shirt. “I know. And that’s why I have faith. In you. I will always believe in you. And I will always love you. And now I’ve done this thing. And I don’t know what it means, but if it means I watch you grow old and die, and I don’t die, and I go on…”

“Joe, no. No.” Percy moved closer, taking Joe in his arms, holding him to his chest, letting his tears fall on his shoulder. “What did I say? Where you go, I go. There’s no stopping that. I meant every word. I won’t let you go. Not without me. And that’s why…” He took Joe’s chin in his hand, and brought his eyes up to meet his own. “Joe, I thought about this, straight away and on the walk over here and… That’s why you’re going to give me your blood.”

Joe’s lower lip quivered, his brow drew deep, and he whispered, “No… I can’t do that.”

“Eternity. It’s not just a pretty word, it’s a promise.”

“Percy, this isn’t something you do lightly.”

“You did it lightly.”

“You were fucking dead!” Joe shouted.

“And now I’m not fucking dead and I don’t want to be dead! I want to drink wine and smoke cigarettes. I want to drive fast cars and steal things. I want to do it all with you. Forever. If you’re going to marry me, if you're going to join our lives and our souls?—”

“It’s tilldeathdo us part,” said Joe.

“Fuck death!” Percy yelled. “Fuck parting. I’m yours and you’re mine and that’s an end to it.” He grasped Joe’s arms as he tried to pull away. “I’m not doing this lightly. I’m not doing this again with someone else ten years from now. You’re it, Joe. You’re my soulmate. You’re my only one. The way we fit together, no one else can fill that space. You’re my world. You’re my heart and my existence, and I’m never letting you go. I told you that. I promised you that. Even death can’t keep us apart. You said you want to get married, then let’s make it official. It’s you and me, Joe, forever. Us against the world, for all eternity. Do you want to marry me or not?”

“Of course I want to marry you. I just asked you to marry me!”

“Then marry me, goddammit. But do it properly!”

“Percy!”

“Joe.” Percy kissed him, a goading smack on the lips that ended in Percy’s hopeful, sly, gorgeous, irresistible smile. “I’ll make a great husband. You’ll see. Five minutes from now.”

As he so often did, Joe tried and failed to repress his own smile.

“Marry me. Do it now. Pronounce us.”

“But—”

“If you don’t do it, I’ll cut you and take your blood in the night, and I don’t care if that’s a consent issue.”

“Percy!”

“Come on.” Percy bundled Joe’s hands up against his heart. “I want your ring. I mean, obviously I want your ring, but specifically, right now, that one, there in your hand. Put it on my finger.”

Joe laughed, blushing that way Percy had always loved to make him blush. Would always love it. Would devote his life to making it happen and loving it again and again.

And that’s when he remembered.

He remembered the weight that had been burning a hole in his pocket some twelve hours earlier, and he slapped a hand down on his thigh to make sure it was still there. The small, round bump remained, despite the fight and the fire, the blood and the bones, the death and the resurrection.

And if ever Percy needed a sign, that was it.

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