WHO: Clark Kent and OPEN. WHAT: Superman has angst. WHEN: Early evening. WHERE: The park. RATING: PG for now!
Kon was falling apart. It had started with his memories slipping away at an on and off rate, then expanded outward into a major malfunction on his abilities, only to finally settle in a place where Kon was left completely wrecked, no longer able to sustain a steady stream of consciousness to the point where Clark had to leave him bed ridden back at the apartment complex.
He had stayed with him for over a day, waiting for change. None came. Unable to help and incapable of figuring out how to do so to begin with, Clark eventually took off. He needed a break. Needed to get away. Being trapped in that building with Kon like that, where he was steadily crumbling to pieces in such a way that even Clark himself did not understand, made it seem impossible for him to breathe. Sitting by Kon's bed, it felt like every corner of the room had been closing in on him, crushing him alive and drowning him all in one go.
He had needed to escape. He had needed to breathe.
As easy as it would have been to take that to an extreme, Clark decided to stick close to the complex rather than seeking out the lift from his burden in another country halfway across the world or even on some hunk of rock wedged onto the moon's surface. He was staying here. Lawrence, Kansas. Maybe not literally next door to the complex, but the park was relatively close for a person like him. If anything went wrong, Clark would know. He'd hear and he'd be there faster than lightning, because there was no way that he was going to leave Kon without keeping some form of attention on him.
That sort of mindset sort of destroyed the purpose of him trying to take a break to begin with, but Clark found that he was unable to leave the complex building without reaching some sort of compromise with himself. The tiny, crowded room was out of the picture, but Kon wasn't. He couldn't afford to be.
Seated at the center of a bench across from the lake, Clark leaned back, closed his eyes, and drew in a slow, calming breath. He expanded his senses outward, taking in the sounds of the world from every which direction, starting with the park, momentarily gripping a small town in Australia, then reeling back into the activities back at the complex. Clark ignored the sounds of the teenage couple shuffling around their apartment, trying to convince their baby to stop crying, and focused on the slow breathing of the younger man who carried his DNA. It was steady. Active. Good.