The Coming Out of Percy Weasley

The Coming Out of Percy Weasley

Chapter Seven

Papery Dreams

When we were twelve, I found out how funny you were…

I can’t believe that you did what you did for me. Are you fucking crazy? Well, don’t answer that. I know you are…

I lost my leg, Perce. What am I going to do without my leg? How am I going to play Quidditch? Who am I without Quidditch anyway? That’s a fucking question I never thought I was ever going to have to answer. I can’t believe I did this to myself. I can’t believe that…

I found out what happened to your floor today. I feel so sick. If you’re dead, then I don’t know how I will ever believe in any good thing out there in the world. You are the good thing.

I think this is what it’s like to love someone.

Percy blinked repeatedly, finding himself in the middle of Oliver’s journal. Sentences caught his eye as he read as fast as he could as if he would fail an exam if he didn’t finish Oliver’s journal that night.

He hadn’t eaten anything the whole day. He had survived purely on the sole butterbeer that Oliver had brought for him, the syrupy taste of the soda still in his mouth. He checked his blood sugars through the night but got high blood sugar readings. His cough had come back, and his whole body ached. He kept on tossing and turning, barely able to sleep.

He was too tired to complain when his mother came in and helped him change the following day.

“You haven’t slept so well, hmm?” Molly said with a saccharine smile as she helped Percy slide into his oversized t-shirt. He was wearing sweatpants. He rarely wore sweatpants. If his mother found it strange, she didn’t say anything. He thought he could sleep when they did his dialysis if he wore comfortable enough clothes.

He slept on the way to the dialysis centre and was still groggy when the nurse woke him to check his vital signs. She frowned after she placed the thermometer under his arm.

“What’s wrong?” Molly said.

“He has a fever,” the nurse said. “Sweetheart, we can’t dialyse you if you have a fever. You will have to go to A&E so they can assess you. Make sure there’s nothing serious, and if everything’s alright, we’ll schedule you for another day.”

Percy already felt tired thinking about him having to come again. “Okay,” he said because what else could he say?

Molly reached over to feel his forehead. “He feels so warm,” she looked at the nurse and asked. “How high is his fever? Can we give him anything here before I take him to the emergency room?”

“Of course,” the nurse was already pouring out Pepper-Up for him in a vial to drink. “His temperature is almost 39.”

“Oh dear,” Molly said, rubbing Percy’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, rest here after you take the Pepper-Up, and I’ll go get your things from home. Maybe you’re going to have to stay in the hospital again.”

Percy did not want to stay in the hospital again.

But within the next three hours, they put him on the oxygen machine that they’d put him on the same day that they took him out of the ward, and he was admitted into the hospital as a case of pneumonia with decompensated heart failure.

He slept the whole day, barely waking up, even when nurses were pricking him with needles because his swollen body was too hard for them to cannulate. He’d heard healers say that he was close to being septic. He asked his healer why his blood sugar was high even though he barely ate, and his healer explained that it was because of the lung infection. Percy nodded as if the answers of the universe had been bestowed onto him and then went back to sleep. The next time he woke, his whole family was in the room with him. Even his father, though Percy didn’t want to think about that too much.

Percy’s heart started thumping loudly when he saw Oliver’s face. He’d come, too, for some reason that Percy couldn’t fathom. Maybe it had something to do with the fact he’d confessed his undying love for him via journal.

Oliver was so close to him that Percy could feel the nausea hit him again, but it wasn’t as bad as it was the day before.

Maybe we could be together, he heard Oliver’s voice in his ear. You’re getting better already, see?

Seeing Oliver in the same room as his father was something his mind couldn’t compute. He was waiting for something horrible to happen, but it didn’t. Percy reached over to feel for Oliver’s hand, but immediately after he touched him, the nausea intensified, and he threw up inside his oxygen mask.

The nurse had taken him off in time and suctioned all the vomit out of his mouth. They put him on nasal prongs for the time being. Percy’s face flushed from the heat, either from exhaustion or humiliation. He didn’t tell anyone he was probably throwing up because Oliver was too close to him.

“Perce, were you sick yesterday?” Oliver asked. “Did you know you were ill?”

 “I didn’t want to be in the hospital again,” Percy said through a wheezy breath.

“Perce,” Oliver sounded upset. “Perce, you shouldn’t have... you’re ill. They think that if you don’t get better by tomorrow, they might have to put a tube down your mouth and take you down to ICU. They think that…that maybe you would die. They said your blood pressure is really low even though they’re giving you all these potions and that-that your blood sugar is out of control. What the fuck happened?” his voice was urgent and there was great pain in it.

“You bought me butterbeer,” Percy said quietly, even though they both knew that had nothing to do with it.

“Yeah,” Oliver said. Percy felt nausea roll in his stomach again but didn’t move.

“I didn’t finish reading your journal,” Percy said.

“It’s okay,” Oliver said. “I know you read the most important parts.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell these things.”

“No, you can’t. You just thought to be cryptic.”

“Okay, I don’t know. I just know I once saw you finish a 700-page manuscript in like 2 days.”

“I could do it in one if the topic interests me enough,” Percy boasted.

I think this is what it’s like to love someone.

Thinking about those words put him in the highest plane of happiness that he had ever felt but at the same time, he felt an overwhelming dread that reminded him of when he had gotten his heart attack.

“You should’ve said you were sick,” Molly said. Percy hated looking at his family because he could see the lost sleep. He bet that he looked better than they all did. “Percival, this is not a game. Don’t you understand how fragile your body is? If you were feeling unwell at any time, you should say something. Is that understood?”

Percy tried to focus on the anger in his mother’s voice because that was better than seeing how scared she was. She was scared of losing him, and he was thinking about killing himself. He felt so immensely guilty. He was such a selfish prick.

“Do you feel alright? You’ve been asleep all day,” Molly said, reaching out to touch his forehead. Percy didn’t think he felt hot, but he was surprised when he placed his hand on his forehead. His skin felt like it was on fire. “It’s alright. They’ve just given you Pepper-Up. You-you should eat something be-before you sleep again.”

“Mum, they said we can’t give him anything because of the insulin infusion they’ve put him on,” Ginny said, and Percy didn’t know he had been on an insulin infusion until then. He looked over at the massive line that was in his body and his bruised arm. He bet they’d spent ages pricking him, but he couldn’t remember that either.

He knew he was going to be fine. He was always fine. But Percy could see his family looking at him like he was a dead man. He didn’t believe that he was any close to death than the following day.

“I want to talk to him,” Arthur finally said, his voice so firm that Percy was convinced.

“You’re not talking to anyone,” Molly said, her voice equally firm.

“Guys, can you please stop fighting? Mum, just let him talk to Percy. It’s not like Perce is angry or anything,” Charlie said, but his tone suggested that he thought Percy should be stark raving mad at his father for everything.

“I’m not,” Percy agreed.

“You should be,” Bill said.

“Don’t tell me what I should feel,” Percy said, puffing up his chest as he sat up straight.

Bill crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re pissed at me for telling you off but not at Dad for nearly killing you?”

“Would it make you feel any better if I was?” Percy asked. “Tell me, William, what I could do to validate you?”

“It doesn’t upset you what he did, Perce?” in contrast to Bill’s, Charlie's voice was calm and controlled as he spoke.

Percy didn’t even want to answer this with a question. He thought of the white walls that Charlie was telling him to paint and felt his blood boil. He opened his mouth to answer, but why bother? He couldn’t justify himself. What he thought and said didn’t matter to people. They had their own beliefs and expectations of him. Suddenly, he felt tired.

“Get out,” Percy said aloud. He was seething so badly that his hands were shaking. “I don’t want to see anybody.”

“Sweetheart, they were just trying to be helpful,” Molly said.

When he realised nobody was moving to leave the room, Percy grew infinitely small. He kept getting flashes of the white room over and over again; his head felt so heavy…

“Percy?”

A voice from an unknown void.

“Percy? Percival? Perce?”

He felt a hand shaking his shoulder, a rough hand with callouses and a broken nail. A watch, cold, made him shiver.

Percy opened his eyes to the new world. All he could see was bright white searing into his brain. His pupils dilated when he noticed his father standing over him, his hand on his arm. Percy looked down and noticed his disgusting skeletal arm that reminded him of a chicken bone after he’d eaten all the meat away. His arm was all white stringy tendons that smelled of antiseptic that hadn’t been fully wiped. The plastic smell of the hospital was all around him. This was real.

“It is you,” Arthur said.

He thought of the dream-like haziness he’d been in since he’d ‘left’ the hospital, his inability to ground himself back to reality, returning to the same four walls. His broken family, his painful life. It had all been a dream, probably fuelled by the neon potions he was taking that he knew nothing about.

His chest was on fire. He felt like there was a hot rod stabbing his back. His large stomach was compressing against his lungs. He wanted to move, but his arm just wouldn’t comply. He had no muscle tone. His head was pounding. Everything hurt so badly. The pain was so bad that he held his breath, paralysing, unfathomable pain.

“Let me help you,” Arthur said, standing up and trying to pull Percy by his arms. The pain in his shoulders made his eyes water, and he had to bite his tongue not to speak. When he pulled him to a standing position, his feet could not hold any of his weight. Arthur had to catch him from falling and breaking his face. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”

He called Charlie’s name, and in moments, Charlie stood before him; any humour that Percy associated with him was gone from his facial expressions.

“Perce,” Charlie reached out to touch his face. His hand was cold. Percy shivered. “Hey, it’s okay.” He looked at Arthur. “I’ll grab his legs, and you grab his waist, alright?”

“Alright.”

“I-I dreamed that I was already out,” Percy said. “And-and that I was back in the house and we were just talking and…”

Percy could hardly focus on anything in the room, what they were wearing, what their facial expressions were like because he was in so much pain. When Charlie grabbed his legs and pulled them up, Percy felt a sudden tearing pain in his knee and hips from the lack of use. Percy tried to bite his lip so that he didn’t cry out in pain, but when Arthur tried to pull him between his arms, he couldn’t help but let out a series of guttural moans.

“Shit,” Percy could barely register Charlie’s voice over the throbbing pain in his limbs. “Sorry, Perce.”

“We have to get him out of here.”

“I know that. That’s what I’m trying to do, Dad.”

When they started taking him out of the room, Percy wanted to cry. He whimpered and bit anything he could, his lips and cheeks, until he drew blood. He could hardly open his eyes; he was in so much pain. He wanted so badly to reach up and tear his eyes from his face, his mouth from his head, but his hands were too weak.

“Is that Percy?” Fred or George said, the lilt in their voices causing a vessel in Percy’s head to throb.

“Yes,” Arthur answered. “I think so.”

“Some Dad you are. Fucking think so,” Charlie said. “Look at his neck.”

Percy had a port wine stain on his neck that looked like a bad bruise. He vaguely remembered buying a twelve-sickle WonderWitch birthmark remover that never worked. There had been a time when things like that had mattered.

“He always hated that birthmark,” Fred or George said.

“I still do,” Percy said.

“It’s the best thing I’ve seen all year. That fucking birthmark,” Charlie said. “I miss that birthmark so much.”

“Us too.”

“Let’s just get him out of here. It’s cold here.”

Percy was suddenly freezing and in pain, since Charlie had mentioned that.

The world was a series of blurs as if he was staring through an unfocused lens whenever he tried to open his eyes. Shooting terrible pains continued to rake his body nonstop. He wondered if he was asleep or if he’d been passed out. He bet that it was the latter. He must have been unconscious to deal with such a pitiful existence.

When they unceremoniously ended up placing him on the bed, Percy heard every bone of his body start crunching to his ears. Another shooting pain when Fred or George made him sit up and drink water; his lips felt like they were on fire. His escaping tear mixed in with the taste of the water; salty, beautiful bodied life. Then they gave him a pain potion that Percy recognised as illegal, and he drank it without complaint. Relief was the most beautiful feeling in the world, right next to love.

Suddenly, all he could think about was Oliver. That dream was not Oliver’s admission of love to him, it was Percy’s admission of love. I think this is what it’s like to love someone. He had been writing a story.

“Perce,” George said. “Everyone is already dead from this ward. I-I think that you’re…you’re dying.”

“Oh,” Percy said.

“But it’s okay,” George said. “Because—okay, whatever. Fuck no. It’s not. I just don’t know what to say.”

He looked around and noticed he was connected to machines that gave numbers. From the looks of those numbers—though Percy did not know much, he did not think he could live with them, even if they put a mask on his face. Then he noticed everywhere else around them, there were other people in beds. Some of the men and women that he saw were deathly thin, some of them looked of average size, and some of them were so big that their bodies were spilling out of their beds. It didn’t look like he was in a hospital. He could smell dew and grass. He could feel the morning sun lightly touching his skin. He shivered despite how humid it was.

“We broke everyone out,” Fred said. “We don’t think it’s going to matter in a few months, but we couldn’t just sit at home and wait for people to say that they find that snogging blokes is fine after all. We had to…I don’t know…do something. But it was hard to break into the place that you were at. We were able to break into other places but…”

“This is all because of you,” George said. “We have this new group of people. They’re really good. Some of them are like you; some have siblings or parents or other family members like you. We have healers, nurses, and just plain old people like us who want to help. You helped us make this. Because of you, a lot of people are okay.”

“Oh,” Percy said, blinking away the tears in his eyes. This was real. He was dying. He blinked again. “Oliver?”

“Do you want to see him? He’s here. He helped us get some of the other people out,” Fred said. “But uh—that ward didn’t do so good. Most people there are already gone, Perce, or they’re like you, and they’re… they’re…”

“Do you want anything?” George asked.

He was probably too delirious to ever want anything. “What else can I possibly want?” Percy said with a smile.

Fred and George looked at each other and then cracked into toothy smiles. “Prat,” George said.

Percy had never been so happy to be called that.

“Don’t die, okay?” Fred said.

“Okay,” Percy said, unsure he had much choice. His head felt so heavy, and he hadn’t finished his dream. He wanted to ask about his mum and other brothers and tell them they shouldn’t be sad. But at the same time, his eyelids were so heavy. He wanted to ask about Oliver. He wanted to know what it was like outside. He wanted to know if what Charlie told him was true, that everything would change. He wanted to ask if he could read Martin Miggs one last time. He wanted a heated pillow. He wanted to ask Penelope if she did her extended reading. He wanted to hear his mother’s voice again.

“I forgive him,” Percy said.

“Dad?” Fred echoed.

“Yes.”

“Oh,” George said, blinking away tears. “Of course, that’s the kind of fucking person that you are. You can’t…”

“Yes, I’m not that kind of person,” Percy said. That was when he realised who he was. He was not just books and ambitions to head to the Ministry. He was also the kind of person that would forgive his father in a situation like this. He was the kind of person who would monitor his diet as he was planning his suicide. He was the kind of person who was okay with the idea of dying, even though he finally realised that he didn’t want to die. Not really. “I’m going to…take a nap.”

“Perce, no, wait, don’t—”

But his eyelids were so heavy.

“Goodnight,” Percy said and in a mostly delirious state, he added on. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No, I’m not going out,” Bill said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Look, Perce, I just want things to be easier for you.”

“You are not making it easier for me,” Percy said.

This was a dream, he thought. Or maybe a hallucination. A very complex hallucination. Or maybe this was just a passing fancy, a whimsy, a daydream. He could do whatever he wanted in a dream. He could make them all wear pink hats. He could have jazz music playing in the background and unicorns pop up on his hospital bed.

“But it doesn’t matter now,” Percy said. “I can make things easier for me.”

He imagined himself somewhere else, and instantly, he was there. He was in one of their regular Sunday dinners that he despised, and it was a normal day. His mother made roast gammon, which was his father’s favourite. Fred and George talked so loudly about something that Percy had not paid attention to, and Ginny and Ron fought about scores in a Quidditch game. The carrots were burned. Percy was sitting in his jumper, but it wasn’t Christmas yet.

He heard the doorbell ring. Percy went to get the door but knew who was outside before opening it. But when he did, his heart started racing in his chest. Oliver. But no, this wasn’t right either.

So instead, he imagined them in their dorm room, legs and arms entangled, smiling at each other. Warm. It was the warmest that he’d ever felt in his life. The best thing about this memory was that it was real.

“Hey, um… that wasn’t so bad,” Oliver said.

Percy rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up, Oliver.”

___

There was a wand-shaped bruise on Arthur’s face. Fred had hit him with various wand-shaped things, but what he wanted to do with the wand-shaped things was stick it up his father’s arse.

“You-you did this to him,” Fred said, his throat having a stabbing sensation that he hadn’t felt in a long time. “You-you didn’t have to send him here. This is-this is all your fault.” He closed his eyes. “He didn’t have to die like that. So… so miserable and alone and off his rocker. Mum-mum shouldn’t be burying him. Not like this. Nothing you could ever do that’s good could make up for the fact that he’s gone. And we never got to say anything to him. Nothing that mattered.”

“I know,” Arthur said.

Fred rubbed his eyes, which were filling up with tears. The problem was he couldn’t even muster up that much anger when he saw his father’s face because he did know. All this sadness was swallowing him whole.

“Hey, come here,” Charlie said, his voice far away. Fred felt like he was in a dream.

Fred stormed off to head to the room they’d put Percy in. Charlie had flicked the lights on, and it was so blindingly white.

“He found a quill,” Charlie said.

Fred blinked a few times and noticed the writing on the wall. “Oh,” he said.

When we were twelve, you first called me funny…

I can’t believe that I did that for you. Am I mental? Well, don’t answer that. I know that I am…

They said that I have heart failure. I’m forgetting things too. That’s not a part of it, but I think that my heart disease can give me a stroke. If I have a stroke, I will not be the kind of person that I was. What am I if those things happen? That’s a question I never thought I would have to answer. I can’t believe I did this to myself. I can’t believe that…

It’s your birthday today. I feel so sick. If you die, then I don’t know how people around me will ever believe in any good thing out there in the world. You are the good thing.

I think this is what it’s like to love someone.