(#29) The Sweet and Honourable Carter Tillinghast [Time For Chaos]

[elidelio]

Title: The Sweet and Honourable Carter Tillinghast
Author: timegoesby 
Fandom: Time For Chaos (Podcast)
Rating: General
Category: F/M
Relationship(s): Carter Tillinghast/Margarete "Margot" Sauer
Character(s): Carter Tillinghast
Word Count: 1,000
Spoiler: Season 3 cast change.
Summary: Carter doesn’t believe she’s really gone at first. Or rather, he doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t.
Maybe this was always how it was going to end.
Notes/Warnings: Alcohol as a coping mechanism. Cross-posted to vocab_drabbles 

Carter doesn’t believe she’s really gone at first. Or rather, he doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t.

It must be a mistake; surely she’ll realise that they’re stronger together than they could ever be apart, she’ll see that they’re all already in far too much danger to really back out at this point, she’ll come back to them —to him— once she’s calmed down.

But then a day passes, then a week, then a month, and Carter still hasn’t heard from her. All the while the note he tucked into his breast pocket grows heavier and heavier, like a pile of stones slowly being stacked over his chest, squeezing his heart and lungs until even breathing hurts.

‘I can’t do this to you. I can’t drag you into this any further than I already have.’

Logically, he knows she had nothing but good intentions when she left. Her sparse explanation hints at truths Carter always suspected, but never had the courage to outright confront her about. Maybe he should have. Maybe then he could have reassured her that they would face whatever this was together.

Or maybe this was always how it was going to end.

He drinks to try and get his mind off thoughts of her, but in truth the effort is largely in vain. The alcohol he gulps down does nothing to drown the spectre of her presence; he keeps coming back to her smile, her lips on his, her hands, the warmth of her body—then the cold of the morning he awoke to find her gone, that sobering realisation which prompts him to ask for another glass and start the process all over again.

A small part of him —the ugly, dishonourable part that he’s been trying his hardest to quash since resolving to be a better person— can’t help but feel resentment at her actions. Can’t help but want to take that note and tear it into a million tiny pieces to free himself from the burden of the memory.

‘I wish I could explain more, but it would put all of you in even more danger.’

Is he wrong to find that disingenuous? Is he wrong to feel anger at her secrecy? They’ve already faced so much together and yet this —this unknown threat she refuses to shed light on— is where she draws the line? He has a right to be indignant, whatever good intentions she may have had at the time mean little in the face of the road she’s already paved.

And yet, Carter cannot find enough resentment within himself to stoke the fire of his anger, and those sad little embers merely simmer far in the background of his muddled mind, sparking occasionally and dying back down just as quickly, smothered by parting words written in a familiar, shaky hand.

In truth, he feels hurt more than anything. Abandoned. Like a dog left out on the curb after it became too much trouble to deal with.

He feels pathetic.

Logically, he knows it’s not true—it can’t be. What they had together, however brief it may have been, was real. She had seen him for who he really was and came to love him anyway, or, at least, that’s what he chooses to believe. It doesn’t make the pain go away, in fact, knowing that he really had something makes it hurt all the more now that it’s gone, but it makes things somewhat bearable. In a strange way, thinking that she simply loved him too much to bear to see him in danger gives him hope that they will see each other again, some day. It’s a facile explanation, he knows, but it helps to soothe his drunken mind enough to make it back to his room at the end of the day.

He doesn’t bother changing out of his clothes as he flops down on the unmade bed, the space ever cold and empty, haunted by the presence of a ghost that was never there.

The note tucked away in his pocket somehow finds its way into his hand, and his eyes skim over the all-too familiar text, reading it again even after having memorised it already. It hurts just as much as the first time, somehow, maybe even more now that the words have had their time to sink in and burn a hole in his heart.

Carter wants to be the person Margot sees in him, he wants to be the sweet and honourable man she’s risking so much to protect, wants to be good enough to be the one to protect her instead, but he doesn’t know if he even can any more. Not without her. Maybe he never could.

All he is now is a sad drunk alone in a shitty room, waiting for his eyes and limbs to grow heavy enough so that he can’t keep reading and has no choice but to surrender to the pull of blissful unconsciousness that keeps teasing his tired mind.

Sleep, when it does come, is empty, void of any dreams or nightmares. Just a heavy blackness that sucks him in when he closes his eyes and spits him back out with the first rays of the morning sun.

Carter knows he should pull his shit together and sober up, he knows he should be doing something to prepare for whatever dangers come next, but he can’t just yet. Not when the sun outside mocks his dour mood and all he wants is another drink to bring back that pleasant, mindless buzz. He still feels too weak to refuse that tempting, self-pitying proposition.

All Carter is going to do today is drink some more and try to keep his mind from thoughts of her, though he doubts he’ll succeed. He knows it’s only a matter of time before the consequences of this binge catch up to him, but that’s a problem for another day.

He knows it’s neither sweet nor honourable, just who he is.