the out
Mal tells him to write it out.
"Best cure for heartbreak is to just write, I think," he says. "All the really good novels were written because of a woman. They ruin everything, but they make great inspiration for writing."
Conner has forgotten why they are even having this conversation.
"I read this book once by this Russian guy, I think I still have it, I'll check later. Anyway, it's about this guy who becomes completely obsessed with this woman, like she ruins his entire life but he doesn't even care because he's just, I mean, in the most insane way possible. And apparently, the author, the Russian guy, he wrote the novel to cope with his wife leaving him, which basically turned his life to shit, and you know what? That book is like, required reading for seniors. It's real popular. So, there is something good that can come out of this after all."
He beams Conner with a hopeful smile and it occurs to Conner that he requires a reply, so he says, "Huh."
He locks himself in his room and pulls out a pen and paper and stares at the blank, unblemished white that stares right back. He doesn't remember asking Mal for advice, but he does remember needing it, so here goes.
M'gann.
He glances at his watch and notes, with some surprise, that two hours have passed and all he has written is her name. What else is he supposed to write? What else is there? And how in the hell is he supposed to find a way to capture everything she is on a flat piece of paper with a pen that he can break with a single look?
He tears the paper up into a thousand little pieces and tosses them away from him, watches as they land, one by one, on a pile on the floor like so much snow.
.::.
Nightwing tells him to fuck it out.
Not in so many words, but that is what Conner gathers.
"You see," Nightwing says, putting his hands out in front of him and trying to convey his feelings with them but all he ends up doing is making a gesture like he's trying to twist something. "You need a rebound. The only way to get over a girl is to get with another one. Two girls, they cancel each other out. Result? A totally whelmed dude."
Conner has no idea why he's even here. Nightwing is the last person he should come to for advice about this, although he barely remembers how they even came to talk about this in the first place.
"It's not even hard, all you need to do is walk around campus for a while and some girl's bound to jump right in front of you, or even on you if you play it right. It's not hard, trust me. And the best part is that you don't even have to do anything. Girls are such a handful that you won't even be aware of how much energy you're spending not thinking about M'gann, it'll just move straight to all the attention the girl needs. Get me?"
"Huh," Conner says when Nightwing pauses for a reply.
He goes to his morning class the next day and sits by a girl he doesn't even know, and who greets him with a cheery, "Hey, Conner."
He thinks she'll do, and he takes her to a coffee shop after class is over and she talks, and he listens, and it's pleasant.
The best part is that she's nothing like M'gann. She has black hair that is long and curly and her laugh is quiet, she almost hides it behind her hand, and she talks about trivial things like films and travelling. Her mouth is different, not like the pink lips he knows so well, and her nose is a little longer, and she has no freckles and there are tan lines on her shoulders and a beauty spot on her chin—
"Hello!"
He starts, a little more than he should, and she's smiling at him knowingly, but she doesn't even know anything about anything.
"I'm sorry," he tells her.
"Oh, no, it's okay. I zone out all the time. So, what's on your mind?"
He's been asked that a thousand times by many different people, but never once by the only person that ever mattered because she didn't need to.
"Nothing," he says, and then, "I should get going."
He supposes that the purpose of the outing was to, in fact, fuck it out, as Nightwing had basically put it, but he doesn't stick around to see that outcome because she doesn't even look like M'gann and she still reminds him of her.
.::.
Wally tells him to drink it out.
"Granted, it might take a little longer for you to get wasted, but you're half human, so maybe just twice as much alcohol as normal? I don't know, but it works."
It is utterly beyond Conner that he has found himself in California, talking to Wally, of all people, about this, of all things.
"Alcohol solves everything, I swear. It's like liquid happiness. If you want, I could go with you. We could get hella drunk together. My fast metabolism and your super-ness make us ideal drinking buddies."
Wally nudges him and winks, and his red hair catches and scatters rays of sunlight and brings a tightening sensation to Conner's chest.
"Huh," he says. "Makes sense."
Wally throws an arm around Conner's shoulder. "We're going to get wasted tonight, and I'm going to pair you up with a hot girl, and you're gonna get all this angst out of you, and tomorrow you'll be right as rain."
"Sounds pretty straightforward."
"It's foolproof."
They take shots. Seven before he feels anything. Five more before he leans back in the booth he and Wally have annexed and all his muscles have loosened and after three more shots, Wally's lying across the length of the table sucking on a lime and Conner stares at the dance floor of the dim bar and sees a couple of girls moving in time to the beat he feels as though it's reverberating in his very bones.
"Why don't we hang out more?" Wally asked, his voice slurred, and he tosses the lime and it hits Conner's chest. "We should hang out more. I know a lot of places. Girls. Lots of girls. Artemis is the only one for me, I mean, come on, how could I let that go? But it's always nice to have them around."
"Hmm," Conner says. He blinks to regain focus but it's like there's a haze over everything, makes lights shimmer, air around girls vibrate, and Wally raises his hand to get the attention of the waitress.
She brings over four more shots. "You guys are bringing it all home, huh?" she says. She's blonde, and the top two buttons of her shirt are undone. Conner realizes he's staring when she snaps her fingers an inch from his nose but her expression is more amused than offended.
"This dude's really feeling it, Wall-man."
"Darcy, tonight's all about feeling it," Wally mutters. He pulls himself up long enough to down a shot before falling back down and takes another slice of lime to put into his mouth.
The girl sets the two glasses before Conner and walks away, glancing over her shoulder once to give him a smile. When Wally finally decides it's time to leave, his buzz being rapidly killed by his metabolism, they pass the bar and Wally tosses a bill onto the counter.
Darcy says, "Leaving already?" and she gives Conner another smile and that is enough, apparently, for Wally to toss Conner at the counter too and leave.
"I...might stay," Conner says, and her smile widens.
They walk down quiet, sleeping streets to her place and Conner's still a little drunk when she kisses him in front of her house and he freezes, thoughts mushing together into one blob of M'gann, her eyes, her smile, her kisses, her quiet presence in his mind and he jumps back, his heart beating so loudly in his chest that it's all he can hear, a deafening, crashing thud thud thud.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
He jumps and lands half a mile away and manages somehow to stumble to Wally's place to spend the night.
The next morning, his mouth is dry, his stomach is doing backflips, and his head feels like it's been cleaved open, and he is positive that he is going to die.
"It's just a hangover," Wally tells him, looking bright and ready for the day. He lists off symptoms and their cures, drink lots of water, wear sunglasses, here there might be a pair in Artemis's car and he jets off to find them.
He doesn't tell Conner the cure for the thing in his chest that feels like it's sinking in.
.::.
He sees it coming when a pinched sort of look falls over Clark's face and Conner just shakes his head.
"Please." He puts his hand up. "Please. Don't give me any advice. I've done it all already. I've eaten the chocolate frosting, I've slept for three straight days, I've worked out until the machines broke. There is nothing you could recommend that I haven't already done."
Clark smiles a little. "Huh," he says.
"So let's just finish this in peace," Conner says, and he digs his fork into his apple pie and moves it around his plate so he can look like he's doing something.
"Conner."
"What?"
"I was just going to say, maybe you should talk to her."
Conner can't believe what he's hearing. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because... just no. I don't need a reason. My pie's getting cold."
Clark reaches over with his fork and takes his entire pie. Conner sits back and folds his arms over his chest and feels like a child.
"I can't," he insists.
"Can't what?" Clark asks gently.
"I can't keep doing this." He doesn't know how he can explain what exactly 'this' was to Clark, isn't sure whether he even wanted to talk about it, doesn't even want to think about it. 'This' is a shadow he's under, a wave continuously crashing into him, a scream that sounds the moment he thinks he's about to fall asleep that jars him awake instantly, constant and everlasting hyperawareness that she is no longer by his side, as she had been his entire life, however short it is. There was only M'gann, and the rest was ashes and now there is nothing but ashes.
Clark nods like he knows what's happening and Conner takes his pie back while he is distracted but he doesn't eat it and ends up just wrapping it up and taking it to Gar.
At night, he slips into M'gann's room while she sleeps and stands by the door, listening to her heartbeat, and he feels her touching his mind almost absently, like fingers trailing over his skin, light as a feather, almost not even there at all.
"Conner," she sighs in her sleep.
"I'm here," he finds himself saying, and he crawls into bed with her and wraps her in his arms and thinks, really thinks, about whether he can even make it on his own, without her. All the drinking and the attempted fucking and the failed writing and jumping off buildings and everything he's done, he's done to get her off his mind but now he realizes, as he runs his hands through her hair and breathes in her familiar scent, that he cannot, will never be able to get her off his mind. She will always be there. He just has to get used to living like that.
He leaves before she wakes up and over breakfast, she gives him strange looks, like she knows something happened but she isn't quite sure what.
She pulls him aside on his way to the training room and asks, in a near whisper, "Did you come to my room last night?"
He thinks about how easy it would be to fall to the ground and beg her to take him back. She might, after a fashion, and he would get this ridiculous weight off his chest. They'd fall back into the old routine easily, like he never left. He could go back to sleeping in her room because his is too small and they would have conversations in their heads and he'd feel safe because she'd be there and together, they are unstoppable.
Her eyes bore into his. She could lift the truth right out of his head but she waits for a reply.
"Nope," he says.
She nods, her cheeks touched with pink, and she mumbles, "Sorry. Must have been a dream. Hello, Megan."
She goes back to the kitchen, he goes on to the training room, the feeling that he's a little lost is still there, gnawing at the edges of his consciousness like it's a part of him now, but his head is clearer and he's ready, maybe, for whatever it is that's left.
.fin.
A/N: Hi! So, this is the first of a series of one shots set during the time skip between season 1 and season 2, and while I have a few chapters lined up somewhere in my head, I would just die for some prompts from you guys. If there's something you want to see, PM me! Give me a pairing or a friendship or a single character and three word prompts or a song or a quote, and I'll see what I can dish out for you. :)
