Ha'ina ka puana a lohe 'ia
Wrote this as a giftfic for batstalker a few weeks ago. I also posted an 8-track Kon FST, He inoa no Kon-El, as a sort of accompaniment, if you'd like some extra atmosphere.
Title: Ha'ina ka puana a lohe 'ia (Tell the verse 'til it be heard)
Fandom: Teen Titans
Characters: Tim/Kon
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,600
Summary: Conner abducts Tim to Hawai'i.
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“Henehene kou 'aka…”
Tim glances up warily at the sound of Conner's mumble-singing. His best friend approaches from across the sand, strutting in mid-air to the beat of his tune. His hair has started to grow out a bit, and even while most of it has matted down with wetness, a small twist plays at his bangs, threatening to spiral into a spit curl with time. He tries shaking out the seawater like a dog, but his hair still drips. A particularly fat drop clings to his bangs, just above his left eyebrow, then finally falls. It patters against Conner's chest and slides down the contours of the muscles there, accentuating their movement as he walks.
Tim turns away as though he hadn't been staring.
Sure enough, as soon as Conner reaches the shady refuge Tim has managed to set up, he's wrapping his sun-warm hands around Tim's forearms.
“C'mon, haole boy, the water's great!”
Tim goes dead-weight in response. He knows Conner can lift him without a thought, can lift about five hundred of him if he's concentrating. But at the very least, Tim is getting his point across.
Conner's grin drops into something approximating concern, as though he's only just realizing Tim's reluctance. Idiot. “Dude, you okay?”
Tim keeps a well-schooled grumble in his expression, despite the fondness that clenches his chest. “Conner, not that I haven't appreciated the past few hours,” he opens lightly, “but you can't just show up in Gotham, drag me thousands of miles away, and not expect me to be at least a little bit…flustered.”
As soon as he chooses the word, regret floods his senses. He digs his fingers into the beach towel beneath him, steeling himself. Conner's right eyebrow is already arching dangerously towards his hairline.
“Oh? Flustered? Did I hear that correctly, haole boy? I've got you flustered?” He crouches down beneath the umbrella, crossing into the shade. Tim can smell the salt of the ocean on Conner's skin. It's not the same ocean smell he's used to, the kind that mingles with boardwalk kettle corn and the acrid smoke of freight tankers. This is white sand and jasmine and Conner's sweat.
Even before training as Robin, his mind has always had a predilection for playing out alternate scenarios. It's a life-saving skill that allows him to juggle every contingency as it presents itself, but at the moment it's nothing more than a bad habit threatening to undo him. He swallows it back, clamps it down.
Don't think about what Conner's teeth would feel like against your neck, don't think about his fingers in your mouth. Don't think about a future that doesn't exist. Just focus on the present.
The kind of panic he's feeling is an old one. An utterly juvenile fear, uncomfortably familiar, like a recurring nightmare. It makes him strangely self-conscious, wishing he hadn't taken off his shirt, as though he's afraid Conner would be able to read his attraction off his chest.
Well, perhaps not from your chest, Tim's mind supplies, ever the traitorous bastard. He's not even hard, but he still feels the compulsion to close his legs as discreetly as he can manage.
“You're such a dick,” he finally replies, the best non-answer he can come up with in this pinch. “And if you need reminding, you're half Kansas white boy and half alien, so if anybody's a haole, it's you.”
“Ugh, whatever! Just have a little fun, yeah?” Conner flops down beside him, the heft of his enormous body flinging sand in every direction. Tim tries not to cringe when the grains stick against his own sweat-damp skin. “You said you weren't busy, so what's the big deal?”
Tim opens his mouth to reply, but no sound comes. There's nothing to say. He doesn't have a reason, or at least not one he's ready to share.
“I'm not sure,” he admits.
Despite the gnawing anxiety he's felt around Conner since his return, Tim can't deny that he's enjoyed their day so far. Watching the mists swirl off the slopes of Kauai, the surfers riding the waves at Waimea. Eating fruit from a roadside stall for lunch, then to the Big Island to listen to Kilauea's earth-deep rumbles. And Conner's genuine excitement through all of it. Tim hadn't known he could still accept that kind of earnestness; maybe Conner's just that good at offering it.
Finding Bruce alive, finally returning to his friends in Titans Tower-the past few months, even in their dream-like bliss, have been their own kind of trial. And right now, he's having to learn how to have a best friend again. He's still pushing away, keeping a safe margin of distance. Otherwise he fears that he might just give in to the desire to cling pathetically.
“Conner, why did you bring me here?”
In lieu of an answer, Conner places a warm palm against Tim's chest. Before Tim can protest, the force of the TTK field ghosts over his skin. A pressure, firm, but pliant.
Conner gives a light tap with his index finger and the sand blasts off Tim's body. Another tap and the beach towel is clear as well.
“There. I know how you get all anal about being clean and stuff,” Conner remarks, a smirk of accomplishment on his lips.
But Tim pierces through the evasion. He leans forward, intent, urging a response with his eyes. He knows it's unfair, to demand answers when he has so few himself, but they're both after clarity. Eventually Conner's hand drops back down to his side, confidence deflating to something more honest.
“The last time we were here together, you punched me in the face with kryptonite,” he begins, rubbing the back of neck. He glances at Tim tentatively. “I know I don't live here anymore, but it's…it's still special. And I never got to show it to you. I always thought that was messed up.”
This shouldn't surprise Tim. Conner has always been aggressively generous, needing to share his life whether in better moments or worse. Yet the familiarity doesn't seem stable. It tremors in a way Tim had thought he'd forgotten-not the way that makes him fear falling, but as if he could jump up off the quaking ground and stay airborne. Fly.
Tim feels the next question warming against his tongue, but Conner answers before he even asks. It's been so long since anyone has been able to read him that easily; it makes Tim's throat tighten.
“I wanted to show you. Because-” Conner's voice drops out. Deliberating. Or hesitating. “Tim, you're important to me.”
Tim holds his arms close to his chest. Tries his best not to fall apart.
He knows too well that there's no going back to the beginning. No way to start over, erase all the old memories; Tim has tried to bury them before, tried to cover them with the frail happiness of the present, but the past always wells up, bleeding through. Tim had spent most of the last two years driving his heart in dizzy circles, reworking all the pains of his life. He has only just recently changed direction-forward, he had finally understood, was the only real option. But maybe moving forward doesn't have to mean shedding the entirety of history. Doesn't have to mean being alone.
“Kon,” he says, very quietly to hide the strain in his voice. Even if it'll be heard anyway.
“Yeah. I know,” Conner answers. And Tim looks up, to make sure he's not mistaking the roughness in his best friend's voice. His eyes. Conner's eyes. They are a different kind of blue than the ones Tim sees in the mirror. But in this moment, he can recognize the same flecks of doubt, the same shades of wanting.
The words Tim has in response are silent, but he feels them spilling. It frightens him. He does not know where he's been cut, does not know where to place pressure to stem the flow. He has never been able to handle his affections without clumsiness.
“I know,” Conner repeats, his voice penetrating, but with certainty. Tim feels a swelling in his chest, a kind of burn that rouses him and reminds him that he is alive.
Conner's fingertips trail up Tim's sternum, slow, almost ticklish, until they find a place to rest against the thrum of Tim's heart. The rhythm quickens beneath the touch.
***
Later, as Conner flies them back to the mainland, he holds Tim close beneath him, chin tucked over his shoulder.
“Kou le'ale'a paha,” Conner sing-mumbles, stubble scratching against Tim's neck. He squeezes Tim faintly, unconsciously, like it's in his muscle memory. Holding one another this closely is not a habit of theirs, and in fact, is an entirely new occurrence in the history of their friendship. But it could become a habit. Could become one very easily, and perhaps it's already happened.
That's just the way of their relationship. They've worked tracks into each others' lives, tracks that run so deep they seem like wounds, so deep that each new moment slides along the well-worn paths, finding a place to remain. And in this fashion, even the strange can seem familiar.
“He mea ma'a mau ia,” Conner continues, craning his neck, so that his lips glance against the curve of Tim's jaw, “for you and I.”
And when they dip down low over the water, the currents rush as if joyous at their arrival, the ocean spray surging up to greet them.
.end
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(A/N): One of my favorite things about Kon seems to be one of the most ignored/forgotten/overlooked bits-which is all the time he spent in Hawai'i. Granted, it wasn't too long in canon-verse, but it was a major formative part of his life, when he was fresh out of the test tube. So, I wanted to revisit that, especially now that it's been completely obliterated by the Reboot :(