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❝pterodactyls are better than t-rex's❞
"We are going on a road trip," Tristan smiles at Cassandra as he strolls into her room. "Connor and I decided we should have a break from here and go somewhere for a few days."
"Where?" She mumbles, rubbing her eyes as she sits up on her bed.
"We thought you might like to see your family," Tristan smiles and her head shoots up in surprise. She often messaged her mum but she never actually got a reply, so Cassandra blames it on the service.
"And is, uh, Brad coming, too?"
It had been two days since Brad choked Cassandra to almost-death and he was always out in the woods doing his own thing, not that anyone was complaining. She had really bad bruises from where he strangled her and so she spent two days trying to heal and be ready to train again. It was all very inconvenient.
"No," Tristan's face falls. "He's not. I haven't really seen him these past couple days, either."
Cassandra nods, before Tristan tells her to get ready for their long trip back to South London where she lived. When she's ready, an outfit for the next day packed in case they stay the night, she meets Connor and Tristan downstairs by the front door.
Connor engulfs her in a hug while Tristan smiles at her, "ready to go?"
She turns to the blonde with a nod and they all walk out of the house, going to the garage to get into Tristan's Jeep. She climbs into the middle seat at the back of the car as the boys get into the front two seats and soon enough, they're off.
The journey wasn't mildly interesting and consisted of talks about training and mostly carpool karaoke. They stop at a service station after a couple of hours to fill up, before setting off for another two hours.
As they find their way around the roads of South London, they soon pull up to Cassandra's apartment. She wasn't embarrassed to live in a run-down, ugly, six story building and instead smiles at the thought of surprising her parents and younger brother.
She climbs out of the truck, a smile on her face as she guides the pair of boys up to her apartment. The boys look at each other with a frown, realising that having mould growing out of the elevator and the carpets of the corridors pulled up meant the building shouldn't be suitable for people to be living in.
They reach her door and she knocks on it, hearing bustling around on the other side. She hears three clicks and someone undo the slider before the door opens and her mother stands there.
For a moment, she doesn't really react and then she sees the two boys behind her and pretends to be excited to see her daughter.
"Cassandra!" She gives her a surprised, faux smile and pulls her in for an uncomfortable hug, which Cassandra sees right through but plays along with it anyway. Her mum pulls away and looks at the two boys. "And who are these handsome chaps, ey?"
"Connor and Tristan," she says as she points at each one respectably. "I'm just coming to say hi for a bit and then I'm gonna go back. I thought you might wanna see me."
"I know Charlie will!" Her mum fake laughs, referring to Cassandra's little brother as she steps to the side to let them in. "Come in, come in! We were just preparing some lunch."
Cassandra rolls her eyes as she walks past her mother, who gives the two boys a double take before closing the door.
"I'm gonna go say hi to my brother," Cassandra says to the boys behind her, smiling at them both. "Make yourself at home."
Tristan nods, looking for somewhere to sit and noticing the wallpaper curling back and spider webs in the corners. He was certainly thankful that Cassandra was at their house in the meanwhile, it wasn't safe to be living in such poor conditions.
"This place isn't great," Connor comments quietly, glancing over to the floor boards that were out of place by the open fireplace.
"You can say that again," Tristan hesitates to sit on the sofa and soon realises that it's probably the only comfortable thing in the apartment.
The boys both sit down, some reality show playing on the television while they try and hear what Cassandra is doing.
She knocks on the door of her little brother's room. She had saved up money from the motel to do it up since she wanted him to have proper walks and carpets since he always got ill because of the poor conditions.
She hears running around in her room and she smiles, he was probably putting his toys away because he didn't know she was back yet and thought it was one of her parents at the door.
Moments later, the six year old boy opens the door, barely able to reach the handle at his short height because, like Cassandra, he was small.
"Big C!" He yells in surprise, wrapping his arms around Cassandra's legs and she lets out a small laugh as she wraps her arms around him as best as she could.
The boys on the sofa look to each other with a smile.
"Hey, Little C," Cassandra picks him and rests him on her hips before walking into his room and closing the door behind her. She sits them down on his bed, smiling at her younger brother.
"I've missed you!" He exclaims, bounding up and down in excitement. "Where have you been for the past two weeks?"
"I'm travelling the world," she lies easily. "I'm grabbing some stuff to take back before me and my friends leave again."
"Where are you going next?"
"Wherever we want," she smiles, her arms over the boy's shoulders. "That's the beauty of travelling, you never know what's next."
He was about to say something but his eyes flick down to the bruise on her neck, "what's that, Big C?"
Her fingers trace over the marks on her neck and she purses her lips.
"I got into a fight with someone," she lies once again. It wasn't a fight, it was Brad almost choking her to death.
"Really?!" He raises his eyebrows, his eyes popping out as she tells him about how she got into a fight with a guy because he said that pterodactyl is better than the T-Rex and of course little Charlie believed her.
"Anyway, wanna go meet my friends?" She smiles, grabbing his hand and taking him out of his room after he says yes.
Tristan and Connor already knew she was coming and pretended to be interested in the show which caused Cassandra to hold back a laugh because they were so obvious that they were ear dropping.
"Boys," she gathers their attention and they turn around. "This is my little brother, Charlie. Charlie, these are my friends, Connor and Tristan."
Charlie bounces over to them excitedly, climbing onto Tristan's lap and bouncing up and down, "You know Big C got into a fight with someone because they said pterodactyls are better than T-Rex's? That's so cool!"
"We were there," Tristan laughs. "She was so bad ass—"
"Don't swear, Tristan," Cassandra scowls at the blonde and Tristan chuckles as the boy climbs on to Tristan's back. "Charlie, get down."
"No, take me flying Trissy! I wanna go to the moon," Charlie giggles as Tristan stands up. Tristan's abnormal height meant Charlie almost touched the ceiling.
She looks over to Connor with a small smile on her face as Tristan ran around, "at least we are normal."
