Chapter Text
Carter is not moping, thank you very much.
He’s just… allowing himself to feel his feelings, like his grandmother always said to, poking the food around his plate as Harper’s words ring through his mind.
I’m dumping you. And you know what? I’m feeling pretty good about it.
The food is nice, he supposes. He’s barely got an appetite, but he already paid for the dinner and he hasn’t eaten since lunch. So he pokes and he nibbles and he tries to ignore the sympathetic look his waiter is giving him.
His only consolation is that the couple next to him seem to be having an equally unpleasant evening, if the way they’ve been eating in a stiff and total silence is any indicator.
The girlfriend stands and says something that Carter can’t quite catch, low-pitched voice drowned by the soft jazz and the rumble of the engines. She leaves the table, headed for the bar across the cabin, and Carter catches the eye of the man left behind.
He’s well dressed, in a high-collared sweater and short coat, and his temples and top lip are glinting with sweat. His dark hair is cropped short and he has a neat moustache and short, slightly patchy beard.
Catching Carter's eye, he offers a weak smile, then cranes his head and, apparently satisfied with how far away his date is, withdraws a small notebook and pen from his coat pocket. He writes fast, like he’s expecting the notebook to be yanked out of his hands at any second.
Which is revealed to be a reasonable fear as his girlfriend returns with a drink. Just one, Carter notes.
“Put that away,” she hisses. “We're supposed to be on a date.”
The tip of the man’s tongue is poking from between his teeth as he nods, brows furrowed in concentration. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just one more second, I’ve almost got it—”
She leans over the table and snatches the book from his hand. He doesn’t even try to get it back. The girlfriend skims down the page, then scoffs, “You really think anyone is going to read this? Seriously?” She drops the book on the floor, kicks it away with a glossy stiletto. It lands next to Carter.
He shoots another glance at the man, but he’s staring at his hands and doesn’t see.
Carter picks the notebook up and tucks it into his pocket as the waiter sets another dish in front of him—tuna steak of some sort. He’s not really paying attention as she explains it.
The rest of the night passes like a kidney stone, but eventually they’re pulling back into the berth and the captain announces to prepare for disembarking. Carter stands, puts his coat back on and withdraws his gloves from the inner pocket.
The girlfriend at the table next to him says something to the man, lost to Carter’s ears, and disappears again. As soon as she’s out of sight, the man ducks to one knee, searching the floor for—
Oh. The notebook.
“Excuse me,” Carter says quietly, trying not to spook the other man. He startles anyway, head jerking up like a prey animal in headlights. Carter holds the notebook out. “This yours?”
“Oh, thank god, yes,” the man says. He takes the notebook gently from Carter’s hands and opens his mouth to say something else—
The girlfriend reappears at his elbow, grip tight around his bicep. “Time for us to leave, baby,” she says, teeth bared in a forced cheer. The man nods again, then gives Carter another small smile and allows his girlfriend to lead him away.
Weird.
Carter makes it back to his car without incident or mime encounter. The spring night—or morning, he supposes, given his watch reads almost 1 o’clock—is pleasantly warm, and almost despite himself he enjoys the walk.
As Carter pats himself down in search of his keys, something rustles in his coat pocket. He frowns. He doesn’t keep things in that pocket—anything thicker than a CD case and it messes with the lines of the outfit.
It’s a piece of paper. This discovery does nothing to alleviate Carter’s confusion.
He turns it over. The handwriting blanketing this side is looping, cramped and overlapping, and he has to squint to decipher it.
roar of the flames is near deafening, but not so much that the sounds of hounds or hunting choppers are lost to it. They’re getting closer. Monroe can barely run. Broken bone juts ugly underneath his skin as he tries anyway. A roar rings loud behind him, sprung from nowhere, hot animal breath on the back of his neck. An iron grip locks around his collar and he screams, thrashing, as he’s pulled backwards, off his feet. The hunter laughs, a blur of red in the corner of Monroe’s eye. The pilot screams again, and the red explodes as golden spikes erupt outwards, tearing the man apart. Monroe falls. Bone breaks skin. Something laughs nearby, a low, hungry sound. There are distant footfalls growing closer. And
The writing stops. Carter turns the page back over, as if the rest will have somehow materialised on the other side.
It clicks, then, finally, where the paper has come from. It’s a page from the handsome diner’s notebook, knocked loose into Carter’s pocket. Shit.
His head snaps up, looking around for the other man.
There’s no sign of him. Of course not. As if there is any chance they’d have parked on the same street out of the six blocks surrounding the boardwalk.
Shit.
Carter folds the page neatly in half, writing on the inside, and tucks it back into his coat—the inside pocket, this time. He can’t articulate quite why he’s holding on to it, considering the chances of ever seeing the man again, but just tossing it away feels… wrong.
He unlocks his car, tosses the coat into the passenger seat, drops behind the wheel.
He’s miles away as he drives home, and when he collapses fully-clothed onto his bed, he dreams of broken legs and helicopter rotors.