Midnight erupts like a bolt from the blue and Monty's mind is still pacing in quaking agitation. He's as high as a kite; eyes catching, fingers scrambling, soul searching for purchase on something that'll stick. Monty hasn't taken any drugs- he wouldn't dare jeopardize his football career, even though it was pretty much done for already. Winston's car is idling before a 7-Eleven gas station when streams of oily, honest rain come running. Beads of rain bathe the world in the fresh scent of starting anew. Monty cries along to the soft little staccato of downtime downpour, mind shuffling and buffering with stifled agitation. He listens, harkening hard to hear the engine of Winston's posh ride whirring along to the offbeat orchestra of pouring rain.
The windows of Winston's car are kicked down, and Monty's seated shotgun. Stifled tears roll down his cheeks and exchange with the streams of chilling night rain. He would have closed the window if it didn't mean drowning in the eternal ocean of his own agitated thoughts. Needless to say, Monty had shit to air out— he couldn't help that it came out now—but fuck, did he need to get himself together before Winston came back. His foot taps in even quarter-notes to shake the bitter feeling of a future lost in the wind. The little staccato of light city downpour eases him just a bit, or maybe it was just the hope of it all. The dwindling, stupid hope that was hanging on by a thread thinner than the lines he makes a sport out of crossing. There was nothing left for him now— what college would take an athlete with sexual assault of a minor on his record? What the hell was he going to do now? Football was his entire life. Now all that is left is Winston, but is he enough? Monty grumbles to himself with a heavy head depending on the lowered pane on his car window. The world walks on without him, not bothering to sweet-talk or squeeze his hand. It's bitter. Really, really fucking bitter.
Winston's swinging by the fast food spots in the strip mall beside the 7-Eleven with high hopes and an insouciant disposition. Monty was shell-shocked from his run-in with the law, but Winston was as casual as ever. He even expected Monty to keep food down.
"Yeah, no way," He scoffs to himself, steadying his troubled vision and swiping the streaming tears away. He doesn't really mind the optimism, since he's in need of some to spare.
Monty stirs when he hears Winston's car unlock and lifts his head to see the devil himself carrying a paper bag and a casual warmth.
"You know," Winston says, propping the driver's door open with his vacant hand. "It sort of defeats the purpose of having a roof on the car if you're just going to roll down the windows and soak yourself." He rests the paper bag on Monty's lap before sliding into the driver's seat. The aroma of something that'd probably kill him before he saw thirty wafted through the car, but sickness still lingers in Monty's stomach. Fast food is tempting, but he isn't particularly inclined on ruining his clothes and/or Winston's car.
Monty snorts. He is showered with short little pinpricks of night-time's little leaden tears, but their piecemeal and offbeat patterns are enough to ease his mind.
"What if I don't want to shut it?" Monty replies, just to be difficult. Winston scoffs and withdraws the bag to filter through it. A sandwich is in his hand and he asks Monty if he can eat it.
"Only if you want me to throw up all over your car." Monty thought himself a great flirt.
Winston surrenders with a soft scoff and a smile. His lips fork and it lifts Monty's mind out of its dark rut. It takes him to late nights driving down dead ends, impromptu excursions to the oceanfront, and the promise of a morning sun that'd be forever brighter than his future. Monty's pretty far gone in his memory and he's troubled just to speak, what with the sickening tides of emotion ebbing away at his sanity and the stomach bug killing him from the inside out.
"Damn. Jail food's really that bad?" Winston murmurs with an air of careful thoughtfulness. Law's a hot topic, but it'd do them both better to tackle it now as opposed to later. Monty hooks his head away, glad that Winston wasn't one to badger him with questions but biding his time til it inevitably came up.
"Prison, actually.." he says, hanging his head and quietly fingering the stray threads that hang from the edges of his shirt. He'd been incarcerated just a few hours ago, but felt worse now than back then. Monty figures it's because he now has hope— and with it comes a wave of uncertainty. Thanks, Winston, Monty thinks to himself but he knows that he's better off out of prison than in it.
Winston nods knowingly, but he doesn't know anything. And he's content like that, but Monty's heart is beating out of time and he's itching to get his fix of reassurance. He opens his mouth to speak but Winston beats him to the punch.
"It cost me an arm and a leg to bail you out, you know," he says as sweat gathers on Monty's back and his arsenal of witty remarks fills with blanks.
"Sorry," Monty mumbles, skirting eye contact like it'd kill him. He doesn't know whether he feels guilty, or if he can't quite sense it over all the other heavy emotions eternally nested on his shoulders.
Winston swallows before speaking, covering his mouth politely like the urbane yet profane kid he is.
"It's fine, I mean... whatever. Not my money, anyways," he says, studying the red blotches hovering beneath Monty's eyes and tracing the tear stains that had been spilling from them. He keeps his silence— Monty wouldn't want to talk about it if it weren't on his own accord.
"Yeah. Can't imagine your parents will be too happy with you," Monty says, rolling up the windows now that he didn't need all the frigid sheets of fresh air.
"Needless to say," Winston chuckles as adoration crests between the bands of hazel in his eyes and they glimmer with amusement. "Did I tell you I got expelled?" His lips are parted in a thoughtless grin and Monty wants to tell him that if he smiles so much it'll stop meaning anything, but he doesn't.
"Ah, shit. Really?" Monty replies, but he's not all that surprised. Granted, Winston is charming but he's equally, if not more, sly. He says that's a skill he needs lest he dies, but Monty knows he's just saying that. It's inevitable that his devious behavior would eventually catch up to him, anyways.
Winston nods and downs the rest of his sandwich. "Yeah, got caught cheating on the SATs," he laughs, but it's not funny. "I am so fucked when my parents get home. Gonna be a shitshow, if not a bloodbath." Winston's head hovers over the back of his chair and he's relaxed. More relaxed than he should be.
"Shit, man," Monty veers his head to study Winston, the smug smirk in his eyes, his lush, reddened, split lips, his tempting collarbone where the top he wore gave way to his flesh. He'd be two rounds into sex with him already, if not for the kick of sickness in his stomach.
Winston's head rolls to face Monty's and he swallows a smile. He knows it's inappropriate, but his grasp on social rites is as loose as it comes for silver-spoon bourgeoisie. "Did you really rape that kid? Tyler?" He asks.
Monty scoffs and waves at him dismissively. "No. I did not rape that stupid Tyler guy."
Winston nods. It doesn't matter whether he believes Monty or not— he took everything everyone said with a grain of salt, anyways — he'll love Monty all the same either way. "Alright."
Monty looks at him, eyes so dependent and so helpless and so very vulnerable. "Look... I was just messing around," he mumbles, soft-spoken for once.
Winston exhales, looks into Monty's eyes, nods. "Okay," he says.
"Um," Monty says, settling himself on the world as it keeps pirouetting like a spinning top that doesn't care to stop when it fucks him up. "I can't go home... like, ever." Winston gives him slots of silence to continue with. "I'm pretty much homeless now," he stammers, harnessing all the strength he had so his voice wouldn't falter, but it does. His breath staggers and he's lost in the hurricane the spinning top brought.
Winston nods and Monty can just tell he's knee-deep in all kinds of thoughts and plots. "You can stay at mine," he offers.
"What about your parents?" Monty's eyes link with Winston's.
"Still in Spain," he shrugs. "They aren't going to be back 'til, like, the 30th." Three weeks, Monty thinks, biting his lip as hope bits into his soul and stains it like ink on paper. He's got three weeks to figure it out.
"Right on," Monty nods. He'd be stupid not to give it a try, at least. What happens after the 30th is up in the air, but it's better than nothing. It scares the shit out of Monty as his mind races and time-travels and he doesn't notice that the hour has shaved by. Winston pulls his car from its spot and starts for his parent's.
It stops before a small horde of pedestrians that pass them by and kick up clouds of smoke from the joint they are sharing. Monty's lips part and he's high off his head. Someone hellish next to someone seeming so pretty—the juxtaposition between the two of them must've been so funny to the horde, Monty throws himself into a small fit of laughter like a proper drunkard. Winston swats him and asks if he's lost his head. Monty replies, saying that he should look down his throat and Winston laughs.
And he feels home approach with a wonted warmth that only Winston could provide.
Like he hadn't been slumming it a couple hours ago.
***
if u didn't read the description, this is like right after winston bails monty out of prison and monty doesn't die in this version (however, bryce is still dead and his investigation is still going on)