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demiwonder-a · 3 years

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take me back to the night we met // koncassie

WHO: Cassie Sandsmark & Conner Kent. @kxnel. With plenty of mentions of Erik Lehnsherr.

WORD COUNT: --- words. (i’ll count later no one look at me.)

LOCATION: Undisclosed location.

GENERAL NOTES: Kon’s lil roadtrip has been interrupted by Cassie. She shows up after finally packing up her things and deciding enough has been enough. Tears and break ups ensue. (my own tears actually)

WARNINGS: Toxic relationship behavior, mentions of past death/murder.

KON: The trip had begun to drag at this point. What once seemed like a valiant crusade to take down a coward who draped himself in nationalism, xenophobia, and hatred had turned into a series of personal squabbles. Deaths that were only vaguely and flimsily justified under the pretense of gathering information.

At this point Kon was tired, he wanted to go home but with each new memory of a heart slowing to a crawl and then weakly sputtering out he felt less and less like he really had a home at all.

It was a mistake to come here. That, Kon knew.

He had stolen a moment away from the group to try and clear his head, a cigarette that did nothing for him hanging limply from his lips as he let it burn down to tender skin of his lips before he spit it out and let another take its place.

The sound of rumbling disturbed his bout of self-loathing and his eyes drew up toward the noise only to widen in shock.

“Cassie. What are- where-how?” He tightened his jaw, glancing back toward where the group was making camp for the night before turning back to his girlfriend. “You shouldn’t be here, Cassie. It’s not safe for you.”

CASSIE: There was only so much bending one could do before the inevitable cracks started to splinter out. The foundation could only withstand so much with cracks in it before its falling apart. Red flags only looked like flags when you wore rose colored glasses. She could only look away so many times before she was forced to stare at the ruins of her favorite mess. Kon couldn’t see the smile she was faking, all because he wasn’t looking either. The shaky ground they stood upon finally had given way. The free fall that followed Cassie was almost welcome, at least she was feeling something again other than the steady ache.

It scared her how welcomed the devastation felt.

A decision had been made. Bags had been packed and she avoided Jon all together. If he had any inkling of what was happening she knew he’d tell his brother in a heartbeat. The wind blew through her hair as all the windows in her car were down, sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose and the unknown on the horizon.

It didn’t take long to find him, sunglasses pushed to the top of her head as night had started to fall. She parked the car and stepped out, taking in the shocked expression of Conner’s face with a sigh. “You still share your location with me. What are you doing, Conner? What are you doing with your life?” She asked, because she truly didn’t know at this point. “I can handle myself. I may not be able to punch a hole through a wall anymore but I still am trained.”

It sounded so tired. She was so tired. There was a resignation to everything about her that she couldn’t hide anymore. “When did it come to this? It never used to feel like me against you. I’m not your enemy.”

KON: His brows drew together as he studied her, the bob of his throat the only indication that her words had gotten through to him at all. He had no idea what he was doing. Trying to do something when it didn’t seem like anyone was doing much of anything, maybe. Trying to find a way to help her become her again? Trying to run, far from New York and its problems and its stresses and its stifling smog and even more stifling aura of hatred that seemed to grow each and every day. It felt impossible to explain and, maybe it was. Maybe there were just no words left to be said.

But he had to try.

“That’s not what I meant.” He tried, and it wasn’t. She had always been larger than life to him. Her dedication, her passion, her unyielding sense of who she was… they had been things he loved about her, they still were, even if they seemed to be drained from her now. It pained him to think that she thought she wasn’t anything without her powers, but it also made him *angry. Were they all defined by their usefulness to her? Was he?

The two men waiting for him were forgotten as he tried to step closer, his hands reaching out for her before dropping uselessly at his sides. “And I’m not yours, Cassie.”

It seemed fruitless to try and speak now, not when the canyon between them had shifted and grown to the point where everything seemed just a little distorted by the distance, an echo of an echo in a chasm. “Why are you so intent on making me the bad guy? Why don’t you trust me?”

CASSIE: The silence stretched and stretched like a rubber band, snapping back almost violently with Kon's words. Her heart had been broken so many times at this point, it felt like she felt nothing any longer because it was no longer breaking. How many times could you put back together something in pieces only for it to be an unrecognizable mess of what it once was? Her heart had broken with each growing divide between them. It broke with the way she longed to take to the sky once more. There was only so many times she could be punched into the ground before she stayed down.

"Why are you giving me so many reasons to not trust you? Why do you keep lying to me? Why do you keep making me feel like I'm insane for being angry at where we're at? What are you even doing here?! What is it that drove you here? Clearly you're doing something you shouldn't be if you're acting like this. It's not safe? Then what is it that's so unsafe about what you're doing?" She demanded to know.

Cassie's anger always burned bright and fast, a brilliant light like star only to die out. Her shoulders slumped down and she rubbed at her face tiredly. "What have we become, Conner?" Cassie asked quietly.

KON: Sometimes she could be so infuriating, so condescending. Did she think that he was genuinely too stupid to make decisions for himself or did she think that he was just a walking time-bomb like everyone else did. It certainly seemed like she wavered between the two rationalizations rather than just listening to him. He had tried to get her to come to his meetings in the alien district, begged her to come to a picket with him. He had tried so many times to reach out, to be there for her and now it all seemed for naught.

It seemed like just about everything was for naught, in the end.

“It’s not- look, Cassie I’m scared that you’ll see Erik and fly off the goddamn handle and he’ll kill you because he is not a man you want to fuck around with.”

And what was so wrong with that? Sure, Erik was a bit testy, and yes, Kon disagreed with his Machiavellian approach to most everything but Batman wasn’t someone to fuck around with either and traumatic brain injury was no more merciful than a painless death. Hell, how many people had Diana killed? How many sentient lives had been snuffed out by Clark’s heat vision? None of their hands were clean, not really, not in any way that mattered.

(Tim had explained the trolley problem to him once years ago. Kon had said that it was a stupid question because he could just lift the trolley off the tracks.)

“I am trying to help people, Cassie. I’m trying to help you! He could figure out how to get your powers back, Bruce brought Erik back to life I swear I’m not just running around the country for no reason.”

He sighed, his voice broken as his head shook. She wasn’t even listening to him, but what was surprising about that?

“I don’t know, Cassie. Why are you even here? To yell at me? To get in one last I told you so? To tell me that I-I’m what? Dangerous? Uncontrolled? To take me home like a good little boy?”

CASSIE: Everything seemed to halt. The world went all too quiet for a moment as Kon's lips kept moving, but Cassie didn't hear what he was saying. Erik. What did he mean Erik? Erik was...he was dead. He was dead because Scott killed him. He was dead because it was what was the right decision, a decision that seemed to have torn Scott to bits and pieces from the inside. A decision that wasn't taken lightly and Cassie had assured him she would never think he was a bad person for. He was dead, but now he wasn't it seemed, and that scared Cassie.

It scared Cassie far too much.

Cassie was brought back to the present and she shook her head quickly. "I don't want him coming near me. I don't want him trying to figure out what's wrong with me. I don't trust him, you shouldn't trust him either, Conner." Cassie said tightly, though she knew he wouldn't listen. He hadn't listened long ago when Cassie said she didn't trust him and she doubted he'd listen now.

And in that moment it's almost as if Cassie could hear the final nail being hammered into the coffin.

"No. I didn't come for that." Cassie said softly. "I can't do this anymore. I don't think we're—" And all the feelings of the multiple heartbreaks rose up like an impending wave and she could feel the water welling up in her eyes, "I don't think we're good for each other anymore. I can't do this. I can't do the lying and I can't watch you go down this path. I've tried...I've tried to tell you how I feel, but you're going somewhere I can't follow. I'll be out of the apartment before you get back."

KON: He barked out a laugh, his eyes a bit more manic than he would really feel comfortable under any other circumstance. He felt like, for a moment, he understood how Lex went insane. There was something about obsession that made you a little crazy and he had always, always been a little obsessed with Cassie.

But now, looking at her, it was a little hard to imagine why.

“You don’t even know him!” He said, his voice harsh. “You don’t know what he’s done for me, Cassie he isn’t all bad. He could help you! He’s trying, he was trying before-“ He huffed a breath. How much did she know? How much had she kept from him while pointing fingers and searching the nooks and crannies of his words to find incongruities and pick apart secrets.

At least his lies were for her, to protect her, to help her.

“Good for each other?” He repeated blankly, his mind reeling as it replayed the words over and over, “Cassie, you’re, what? You’re leaving me?” His voice was small, his shoulders drooping as his hands shook against his thighs.

“Cassie, wait, we can talk about this," He tried, the edge to his voice bordering on desperate as he walked toward her, "don’t leave, don’t- Cass, please don’t- don’t leave me.”

CASSIE: The 'I know enough' was on the tip of Cassie's tongue and threatened to fall between them. She knew she was at fault for the way things crumbled apart too. She was holding this secret firmly against her chest, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It had been weighing on her heavily. Though, she didn't know what else to do. The harsh truth of the situation was there was nothing left to do. They had gotten to a point of no return and it tore Cassie to pieces.

The way Kon curled in on himself and became so very small gripped at her heart tightly. It was her fault, she was going to break his heart and she had to live with that. She already had and knew it. She had long ago and was doing it all over again alongside her own heart. Her fingers were curling around something so delicate and crushing it. Though, her heart had been broken by him as well. He hurt her and she hurt him right back and this was for the best. Right?

The tears finally escaped, slipping down her cheeks as she took a step back in an effort to keep the distance between them. "Conner—" she breathed out with a weak noise, looking up at the dark sky as the rumbling of thunder sounded out. It wasn't her. So clearly Zeus had a sick sense of humor in vocalizing the hurt washing over her. "There's nothing more to talk about. I think we've said enough. I think this will be better in the long run. You can't tell me you haven't been miserable. You keep leaving and I just...I know. I get it. It's for the best." She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat and tried to open up the door to the driver's seat.

KON: He felt like weeping. A not insignificant part of him wanted to climb into the car with her and leave this stupid journey behind, to grab onto her hand and not let go no matter what, but as she stepped backwards unsteadily away from him all he could do was lean onto a nearby tree and try not to wince as it creaked and groaned as its bark gave way underneath his fingertips.

His heart thundered in his chest and he wondered if she cared even a little bit that he would, once again, be left alone. He glanced up, his lips twisting into a sardonic grimace as the rain pelted his face. How fitting a soundtrack the rain would make for his heartbreak. His life was a cosmic joke, he became more sure of it every day.

“I’m not. I love you- I” he buried his face into the crease of his arm, his shoulder hunching as he fought back the tears threatening to overtake him. If she wanted to go he couldn’t stop her. He wouldn’t continue to make a fool of himself for someone who clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, with him.

“Fine! Go then! I don’t need,” He took a shuddering breath, “I don’t need anyone.” He said softly, the tree falling with a thundering crash as he pulled his hand away.

CASSIE: There was a part of Cassie that didn't want to go. A big part of her. If she listened to that part then she'd stay. She'd stay a thousand times over. She'd let Kon kiss her fingers and she would try to forget about the permanent ache in her heart that resided there. She loved Kon, there wasn't a person in the galaxy, in any universe she'd love as much as she did the man standing before her. And sometimes that love meant walking away even though you wanted anything but that.

That's what she was telling herself at least as her heart screamed at her and the tears dripped down her cheeks with the rain.

She watched him and her feet tried to take her forward, to press her hands to his face and beg him to understand, but instead she stayed rooted to the spot as Kon seemed to fall just as loudly as the tree he had leaned again. It felt like there was some sort of sick metaphor in there that Cassie didn't want to look at too hard.

'I wish things were different," almost came.

'I'll always love you," threatened to fall from her lips.

'I don't want to go,' was trapped in the back of her throat.

"Okay," was merely whispered instead. Cassie knew she couldn't remedy this. It sat broken in pieces at her feet and the breath left her in a quiet exhale as her blonde stuck to her face with the downpour of rain. "I'm sorry, Conner. I love—" a moment of hesitation as she stepped back toward the door. "I do love you. I'm sorry. This is for the best. Please...just, be safe. Please." Slipping into the car, shutting the door behind her, her fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel for a moment before reaching down to start the car.

Cassie couldn't help herself. Her eyes briefly flickered up to the rearview mirror and watched Conner's hunched form get smaller and smaller. She wanted to ask the silence of the car if she'd be alright. She had a feeling the answer would be a mere 'I don't know' as she drove into the night.

#int: discord #discord: conner kent #int: conner kent #conner kent: 026 #death mention tw #murder mention tw

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