Chapter Text
Monty had fainted, there on the altar, and Will had to tie off the stitches by himself, clumsily as best he could. He cleaned the wound again, using wine and holy water with some excess salt since that was all the church appeared to have. Dressing the wound of a sinning man collapsed on an altar in a circle of melting wax, it felt a bit like sacrifice.
Knelt there wiping clean the wound he cast out with his mind and beseeched in soft murmurs for forgiveness, for blessing, for help. As always he heard nothing for his prayers, and as always he sighed out a breath through his mouth and uttered a soft “Amen.”
Monty woke up when Will was carrying him to the back of the house, where his family had lived. Groaning as his pretty eyes fluttered open and Will looked down with the softest expression he could muster. Monty’s eyes flashed with fear at the sight of him, and his whole body flinched at the touches on him, convulsing and shaking and Will set him gently down and watched as he leaned heavy against a wall and gasped for breath.
“Wh-why-” He turned to Will as though to round on him but something in Will made him stagger back, eyes blown wide and Will’s mind was numb and he simply stood and watched him with a tilted head. Monty gasped out a few more breaths, grasping at his throat and pressing his thumb into the vein Will had held his teeth over.
“Where’s the- where’s the rest of that wine?” He gasped finally, looking up with something primal and posturing and scared in his eyes.
“Under the altar. But we should really clean you up first, you’re filthy,” Will explained with no real feeling in the words, but at the word filthy Monty flinched, harsh movement through his spine.
“I-” He looked to be floundering, eyes darting all over the room, looking at anything except Will. “F-fine, I’ll be in the tub but- bring the wine to me. Bitch.” At the last word his eyes flicked up to Will’s with something almost like trepidation.
“Of course.” Monty scrambled back like a rabbit let loose from a snare, desperate and zigzagging and fleeing desperate in the eyeline of the predator, limping and grasping at walls to keep himself upright and Will traced the curve of his legs with his eyes and thought he was beautiful.
The water was still miraculously running clear, though it was probably just the last thinning dregs from a pump, and when Will entered the bathroom, tiled and floral and beautiful, far more beautiful than anything else in this thrice-damned place, Monty was sprawled in a claw-footed tub, clear water turning red as it poured over him. He’d kept his boxers and cross necklace on, but was naked besides, and Will sat on the tiles next to him and tried not to stare at the scars and ink dappling his body.
Monty grabbed one of the bottles from him and pulled the cork, cocking his head back to drain it. Will sat and watched him, for a bit, eyes lingering on his bobbing throat and bloody hair and the tattoos patterning him.
A bleeding knife on his upper arm, a snarling wolf over his shoulder and down his back, a lamb curling dead and rotting across his hip and bleeding down past his waist to touch his thighs, flesh rotted away from ribs and small flies dotting it. All of them were uniquely grotesque, but beautiful too, and the wolf and lamb stretched towards each other, gore on the wolf’s maw and lamb’s eyes closed and long-lashed, head bent in supplication.
The tattoos were huge, intricate, and likely took a long time to finish. Will wondered as he stared at them what artist had done them, how much money they’d cost. Monty must’ve trusted the artist a lot, he knew, to let them work so long and intricately over his body. And there was a twinge of jealousy in the fact that Will had never been trusted like that. Never would be.
Monty tossed aside a drained bottle with a groan, and Will jolted out of his reverie. He set down the bottles for him and went to find a washcloth and some soap, returning and kneeling behind Monty’s head, asking gently if it was alright to touch him.
“Ohhh, can it,” Monty drawled, throwing his head back and staring up at Will with empty, hollow eyes. “Sss’not like you give a fuck what I want.” Will blinked at him, empty.
“Is it alright?” he simply asked again. Monty pulled himself to sit up, tugging at his necklace like it itched and turning his puffy face away.
“Sure,” he muttered, grasping for another bottle of wine and exposing his back. Will looked sadly at the scars, striping across him like an asterisk, a few cigarette burns dotted across him. Soaping the cloth he began to clean him, soft and slow as he flinched, careful over the back of the wolf and lifting Monty’s hair to get the back of his neck, and as he massaged gently his spine he felt him sigh, unwind a bit maybe. He checked the wound in his thigh, careful in cleaning it for a multitude of reasons and telling Monty in a soft mumble not to pick at or scratch the stitches.
The silence sprawled wide and yawning between them, and Will had to bite his lip into blood to keep from humming more hymns. It was habit, in this building, all the years of choir sewn through his bones, all the years of stifling quiet but for the drone of the preacher and the music of singing children, from his own throat.
He hadn’t sung in years, not really, just drunk screaming to the corroded CDs in Ada’s car and occasional mumbled lullabies when he found himself babysitting as a favor to some family friends (not the worst job, but he could never look a child in the eye lest he grow too attached and never set it down). But now, here, the half-remembered hymns sung so much in his youth that the shape of them remained carved in his throat returned, bubbling up from his lungs and fighting to get out.
Monty leaned back again with his wine, looking up at Will buzzed and empty and Will cleaned his face gently, swiping thumbs under his eyes and dipping his bloody hair in the water, kneading through it gentle with his fingers and so lost in the work he almost missed the contented sigh. Thick eyelashes fanning across tan cheeks as Monty closed his eyes and relaxed, holding loose his bottle as Will kneaded shampoo through his hair.
Will’s thumbs dragged from Monty’s temples to the base of his neck and for a moment the fleeting thought passed through him that he could snap his neck right now. Montresor Faust had lowered his walls and it could be the last thing he ever did. But it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. Will loved Monty, he did, he did, he always had. Without Monty he was nothing, he knew that, he knew that. His hands shook over Monty’s head, posed like a crown over red-stained hair and he reminded himself that he was nothing. He was nothing and Monty was everything and tears dripped numb from wide-open eyes onto a sinner’s forehead. Baptism.