ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2012-04-06 12:57 pm
ratherastory) wrote2012-04-06 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
But World Enough, and Time (2/5)
Part 1
Kono is almost eight years old when she comes to understand that most little girls don't have a Steve in their lives.
"By then," she'll tell Steve when they are both much older and are lying tangled in each other on his bed, his fingers carding through her hair, "I was completely used to having this old naked guy appear in the water and demand clothes and food. I think you were more freaked out by your nudity than I was. I think you were worried you were going to warp my impressionable young mind," she'll say with a laugh, and watch as the corners of his eyes crinkle a bit in wry amusement.
At eight, Kono is well aware of what having an imaginary friend means, and she knows that Steve is far too realistic to be imaginary. She doesn't have to play pretend at all when he's there: he's solid and warm when she touches him, and he knows things that she doesn't, which an imaginary friend couldn't do. Last year Inge Wahlberg still played with an imaginary friend called Celia, and everybody else in the class laughed at her because she was too old for imaginary friends. Kono took that lesson to heart, and she is careful never to mention Steve to any of her classmates. Steve is her secret, he trusts her not to tell anyone about him, and she would rather be put to the flame than betray that trust.
Her days are spent divided between home and the beach. Mama doesn't approve much of her wandering off alone and unsupervised, but she promises not to go far on the days she doesn't lie outright about where she's going. Mama likes having her home, too, to help with the cooking. Even though Kono is a terrible cook for the most part, she knows how to make a killer spam fried rice, and whenever her cousins come over to eat they demand that she make some. Even on days when she'd rather be alone at the beach, she doesn't really mind being in Mama's warm kitchen, cooking eggs in the pan to mix in with the rice, breathing in the familiar smells of kalua pig and cabbage, laulau and chicken long rice. Long after she leaves home for good she'll associate this room with the taste of papaya juice licked from her fingers, the bright colours of melons and guava and bananas scattered across the kitchen table.
When she's well into her twenties, she'll always have a giant bowl of fruit in the middle of the kitchen table. Steve will complain that they can't possibly eat all that fruit before it goes bad and that they're wasting money, and she will prove him wrong every single time. She loves the way the sunlight looks when it streams through the tiny kitchen window and makes the fruit glow.
At eight years old Kono knows that she isn't like any of the other girls her age. She's not like any of the kids her age, and she doesn't care. She brings home report cards that simultaneously praise her for her grades and reprimand her for being continually distracted and lacking focus. Kono's imagination takes her to the beach every day, even when Steve isn't there, and she has adventures enough to fill three lifetimes.
~*~
January 1st, 2010: Steve is 34, Kono is 26
Steve is gone when Kono wakes up, leaving a warm spot in the bed beside her, the bedclothes just settling where he disappeared. She turns onto her side, places her hand where he was in order to feel the residual heat seep into her palm. The morning sun is streaming in through the window, and she has nowhere to be today, so she simply curls up and waits, pulling her novel off the bedside table to keep herself occupied.
Steve pads in from the hallway a few minutes later and slides into the bed next to her, pulling the sheets back over them both. He shivers a little, and she shifts over to cuddle up to him, enjoying the feel of his arms sliding across her skin.
"Where were you?"
"1992. You just got your first surfboard," he smiles down at her. "It was really cute. You were so damned talented, even then."
It's been long enough that she's not bitter about her destroyed knee anymore. Long enough that she can smile right along with him at the memory. "I remember that. You were very patient with me as I nattered on endlessly about stuff you've known for years."
"You have no idea how much I enjoy talking to you, no matter what age you are," he says, soft and low, breath warm against her neck, and goosebumps break out over her skin. "And you were always a precocious kid anyway. Perceptive as all hell, and so smart. Every time I go back I feel like a class-A idiot. You know I brush up on stuff so that I'll be sure to be able to help you with your homework now? I don't remember a damned thing about algebra, and I'm always afraid that one day you'll be fourteen and ask me to double-check your equations."
She laughs. "Poor Steve. It must be such a trial, being a little girl's hero."
"You have no idea."
His hands are in motion again, re-learning the curves of her body. She's lost some weight lately, weight she probably couldn't afford to lose to begin with, but while Steve insists on buying her as many malasadas as she's willing to eat, he's never once said anything about her appearance to her, except to tell her how beautiful she is. Sometimes, in her less charitable moments, she wonders what he truly sees when he looks at her, if he sees her at all or rather some crystallised ideal, trapped in a glass bubble.
His thumb brushes over her nipple, and she stiffens a little at the sensation, her body torn between wanting to pull away and push in closer, but when he pulls her toward him to brush his lips against the tender spot where her jaw joins her neck she turns into the kiss, wraps one leg around his. She loves these times, when he comes back from visiting her younger self smiling and relaxed, eyes free of the shadows that tell her that he's gone back yet again to the scene of his mother's death, or just narrowly escaped some other disaster. At times like these all he wants is to be as close to her as possible, and because he's often been with her when she was just a child, he's especially gentle with his touches. She doesn't always want him to be gentle, but these moments are special, something she knows that only they have.
Steve kisses her, slow and hot and easy, and she tugs his hand down until she can feel his fingers tease past the tangle of public hair and move to circle her clit, teasing at first, then rubbing a little more insistently until she can't help herself and thrusts against him in small, urgent circles. He keeps kissing her languidly, his tongue lambent against hers, almost matching the movement of his fingers, his erect cock pressing against her thigh. He's in no hurry to finish though, moving his hand lower to work his fingers in deeper, pressing against that sweet spot that no one but him has ever been able to find. She arches into his touch, moaning quietly as she feels the familiar tension of orgasm beginning to build deep in her belly.
"God, Steve..."
It's not the kind of climax that comes like a tsunami, blindsiding her and tossing her like an insignificant piece of flotsam to be tumbled ashore, winded and gasping desperately for air. She sees the wave coming from a distance, rides it the way she would if she was surfing, feeling the thrum and power of the ocean beneath her, carrying her along but giving her the illusion of control. Steve lets her set the pace, moving against his hand and his tongue, her hands on his shoulders, fingers digging in so hard that her fingernails leave indentations the shape of a half-moon in his skin that will take hours to fade entirely.
She gasps into his mouth when she comes, barely leaves herself time to recover before she presses up more tightly against him, lining herself up with his dick and letting him slide in easily, while she's still relaxed and almost boneless with pleasure. He smiles against her mouth, still moving slowly, excruciatingly so, and she wants him to hurry up as much as she wants this to last forever, every single nerve ending alight with desire, and she pulls away from the kiss in order to lick and suck her way along his neck and jaw, urging him along. She feels him shudder when he orgasms with nothing more than a quiet sigh, face buried in her shoulder, then slowly relax in her arms, utterly spent. She strokes his hair.
"You good?"
"Better than."
He doesn't move, and neither does she. In a few moments, they're both asleep again, sated and warm in the morning sun.
~*~
December 24th, 2002: Kono is 17, Steve is 33
Chin Ho Kelly is coming out of the hospital room to which Steve was kindly directed a minute ago by a helpful nurse. He starts a little, obviously not expecting to see anyone else in the place at this hour. Visiting hours are pretty much over, now, and Steve is wearing hospital scrubs that he stole out of a supply closet, along with a white lab coat. He doesn't look like a doctor, he knows―still sporting a five o'clock shadow, hair unwashed―but he's hoping Chin won't question it. Of course, he's never so lucky. Chin is too good a cop for that, even this early in his career.
"Howzit?" Chin greets him, casually stepping in front of him and blocking his access to the room. "Whose room you looking for, brah?"
"Is this Kono's room?"
Chin's eyes narrow. "You her doctor?"
It's not a good idea to lie. Chin knows all of Kono's doctors, knows exactly who performed her surgery and who provided consultations. Lying at this point is only going to get Steve in more trouble, and he doesn't know how long he's going to be here. Somewhere out there in Honolulu, his twenty-six-year-old self is on the point of passing out at a bar downtown for alcohol poisoning, having tried very hard to drink himself into oblivion rather than face Christmas Eve by himself. He's going to be admitted into the ER of this same hospital in a matter of hours. Somewhere deep down inside, Steve thinks it's really unfair that he has to relive another Christmas Eve on top of all the regularly allotted ones.
"No, I'm a friend. Not a close one, or anything," he allows himself a small lie. "I got admitted for a stupid accident earlier, and they're letting me walk around a bit, get the pins and needles out. I remembered she was supposed to have surgery, thought I'd look in, see how she was recovering."
Chin nods, apparently satisfied with this answer filled with half-truths. "Visiting hours are nearly over, the nurses will probably kick you out in a minute, but I think she'll enjoy the company. Family went home nearly an hour ago. It's hard, spending Christmas on your own like this."
"Yeah."
Kono isn't sleeping when he's managed to get past the dragon at the gate and slips into her room. She's gazing listlessly at the tiny television in the corner of the room, showing a grainy animatronic Christmas special that Steve has never watched in its entirety. The adventures of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, if his memory serves him right. She brightens when she sees him, though.
"You came!"
He shrugs and smiles sheepishly. "It wasn't deliberate, but... yeah. I don't have flowers, sorry." He pulls up a chair next to her bed, takes her hand when she reaches for him. "How are you doing?"
She bites her lip. "The surgery went fine. As well as anyone could have hoped for."
Steve caresses the back of her hand with his thumb. "That's not what I was asking," he says gently, and isn't surprised at all when she bursts into tears and sobs as though her heart is breaking.
It's a combination of exhaustion and pain and the side effects of being under general anaesthesia for the surgery, and most importantly the realisation that she's never going be able to surf professionally ever again. Thus far it's been the one thing she loves in life (apart from Steve, and that's an entirely different kind of love). Steve has never had anything like this, never had a ruling passion in his life the way Kono does, but he still knows how much this hurt her. He slides over to sit on her bed, perched with one hip on the edge, and pulls her into his arms. It's not often that she lets herself be comforted like this, but this time she melts against him and cries until the shirt of his green hospital scrubs is completely soaked through. He doesn't try to say anything, just strokes her hair and traces circles on her back with his fingers, waiting for her to cry herself out.
"I'm sorry," she gasps finally, scrubbing at her face with the back of her wrist.
"Don't be," he tells her firmly. "You're perfectly entitled to sob and scream and throw things. In fact, I will volunteer to have you throw things at my head, if that's what it takes. I make a very tempting target," he says, and it earns him a watery, half-choked laugh. "For what it's worth, you'll be fine."
She looks up, eyes swollen from crying, face blotchy and tear-stained. "Will I surf again?"
He tucks her hair behind her ear. "Yes, but you won't compete. I promise, you find something else that you'll love just as much, though, and you'll get back up on a board, too."
She takes a shaky breath, and nods. "Chin was telling me about HPD. I was thinking, if I can get through rehab, I might try out for the Academy."
Steve kisses the top of her head. "I think you can do anything you put your mind to," he tells her truthfully. He can't tell her all the details, because knowing the future messes everything up, but there are no hard-and-fast rules about giving someone hope.
"Will you stay this time?" she asks.
He still can't promise her anything. "As long as I can manage."
~*~
July 17th, 1989: Steve is 12, Mary is 7
Living with Dad is like living with a ghost after Steve's mother dies. At first Steve thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad―Dad grabbed him and hugged him so hard he almost suffocated after the accident―but soon he realises that was wishful thinking. He stands next to Dad at the funeral while Mary buries her head in his shirt and wails, and wonders why neither he nor Dad are crying. He hopes it doesn't mean that he's being disrespectful to Mom, but it feels like he can't remember how to cry properly.
After the funeral and the wake at which he gets very drunk, Dad spends all his time at work. When he does get home, often long after dinner is over, he doesn't so much as look at Steve or at Mary, just disappears in his study for hours. One night Mary ventures past the closed door only to flee back in tears to seek refuge in Steve's arms. He holds her close, kisses the top of her head.
"What happened?"
Mary is hiccuping too hard to make much sense, so Steve picks her up even though she's nearly eight years old and is getting way too big for him to manage properly and hauls her into the kitchen. He sits her down on a stool, wipes her face roughly with a dishcloth until she stops snivelling.
"Is Mommy in Heaven?" she asks him, and he guesses that was the question that got her thrown out of Dad's office.
"Sure, peanut," he deliberately uses Mom's nickname for her. Steve isn't really sure about God or Heaven these days, but he's twelve years old now, nearly thirteen, (Mom promised him a cake, but she's dead now, it seems unfair to resent the fact that he never got to celebrate his birthday) and he knows that little kids need reassurance. "She's going to watch over you now."
"Like an angel?"
"Like an angel."
Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise, but Steve is still shocked when, one morning shortly before his thirteenth birthday, Jack McGarrett sits both him and Mary down and explains to them calmly that he's sending them away. Mary cries, because that's what Mary does best, but Dad isn't even looking at them, just staring at a spot on the wall somewhere above Steve's left shoulder.
"Why can't we stay here?" Steve asks, even though he knows it's pointless. Arguing with Dad never got anyone anywhere.
Dad sighs. "It's because I can't take care of you properly, Steven. You're growing kids, you need someone who's going to be home, who's going to be able to cook you meals and help with your homework. You need stability, and I can't give you that. I'm sending you to Aunt Krissie's on the mainland. You'll like it there, you'll have cousins close to your age to play with, and you'll even get to have snow in the winter. You'll like it," he repeats, and he makes it sound almost like an order. Steve wonders what would happen if he disobeyed the order.
"I've been taking good care of Mare," he says stubbornly, his heart thudding in his ribcage. "My grades are still good, Dad. We don't have to go!"
"You'll do as I say, and that's that," Dad snaps, and Steve knows that tone well enough to know better than to try to argue. "Go and pack your things. Take only what you absolutely need for two weeks, I'll have the rest shipped."
"We're going now?" Steve's voice betrays him and cracks, but Dad is already on his feet and walking toward the door.
"Plane leaves tomorrow."
Mary wails and calls for her daddy, but Steve holds her still in his lap to keep her from running after him, lets her cry and scream and sob until she's exhausted. In a minute, he tells himself, he'll take her upstairs and help her to pack, and then he'll put her to bed so he can pack his own things.
In a minute.
~*~
November 2nd, 1992: Steve is 15 and 17
"I hate it here," his younger self tells Steve. He remembers this, remembers hating juvenile detention with every fibre of his being. It's not that long ago, even though it feels like a lifetime has passed, like he's a different person now. He remembers the smells most of all, the cheap cleaning products, the smell of bleach that clung to everything without anything ever really getting clean. He felt dirty the whole time he was in this place, with its drab wall, the institutional paint, the grey floors and the dingy windows in the classrooms.
"I know," he says, though what he really wants to say is: 'It's going to be fine, I promise.'
"What's happening to you now?" his younger self wants to know. He remembers this, too. Remembers wanting to be held and reassured that it was all going to be okay, but he knows he's not going to say anything of the sort.
He shakes his head. "I tell you, it'll drive you crazy. It's not so far away, anyway. You'll find out soon enough."
His younger self reaches around to rub a hand over Steve's bare stomach, lets his fingertips trail along the faint line of hair all the way down to tangle in his pubic hair, tugs in a way that goes right to Steve's cock. He still hasn't met anyone else who time travels, but he figures if anyone else were to be able to do it, there's no reason they wouldn't have sex with themselves. When he bothers to think of it at all, he figures it's just a more complicated form of jerking off. He shifts backwards in the bed a little, feeling the other Steve's dick nudging him in the back, hot and hard and insistent. They're lucky that Steve hasn't been assigned a bunkmate, that he gets a comparative amount of privacy by all standards of juvenile detention.
"It's not even my fault," the younger Steve mutters mutinously into his shoulder. "Wasn't trying to cut class."
"You know that and I know that, but it's not like you can just go up to them and explain that you actually traveled in time and that's why you weren't in class. Oh, and turning up naked on school grounds."
"Not my fault," the younger Steve protests, and he knows himself well enough to know that he's never going to shut up about this, indignation boiling hot in his veins. So Steve just turns around and makes him shut up by kissing him and bringing him off without so much as spitting in his own palm. He's nearly eighteen years old now, and he's got way more stamina than his fifteen-year-old counterpart who's only just beginning his stint in juvie. It takes next to nothing to get him off, and for a moment Steve is almost jealous of how quickly it happens.
They're almost caught one time, but in a funny twist of irony the younger Steve gets so stressed at the thought of being caught and punished that he simply vanishes right out of his bed, leaving Steve by himself to stammer his way through an explanation during the otherwise routine bed check.
"Be less fucking loud when you beat off, McGarrett," is the amused response, before the door slams shut again and the key turns in the lock.
Steve is laughing to himself by the time his other self returns, and he's treated to a glare that might very well peel the paint off the walls. "You knew!" Steve accuses him. "You knew the whole time and you didn't say anything! Why didn't you warn me they were going to do the bed-check?"
He shrugs. "Because it already happened. Because there's nothing I can do about it. Because nothing ever changes, and you should get used to it."
"Fuck you. They're going to hassle me for weeks now."
He shakes his head. "No, they're not. You want to know things ahead of time? Fine. Tomorrow Joey Reichner is going to hassle you in the dining hall, and when he doesn't let up you're going to break his nose for him with your elbow. After that, no one's going to bug you again, because they think you're crazy. You're also going to get a week's worth of punishment for that―no privileges, curfew one hour earlier, and you're going to be scrubbing toilets during your free time. How's that?"
Steve glares. "What'd you tell me that for?"
"Aren't you the one who wanted to know the future?"
Steve lets out an explosive breath, clearly exasperated, but the point has been made. "Teach me to pick a lock?" he asks instead. He looks weirdly vulnerable, sitting cross-legged and naked on the bed.
Steve doesn't answer him at first, just pulls on the pants that his younger self lent him while he's here. "I don't know how."
"You said last time we saw each other that you'd teach me."
He shakes his head. "I remember that conversation. Haven't learned it yet. But I will, I promise. I'm still figuring it out. I'm getting better at picking pockets, too. A little more practice, and maybe I'll be able to teach you."
It's Steve's dirty little secret, all these petty crimes. He's never been caught except for once, and that's why he went to juvie to begin with. The unfairness of it still stings, because it was his first offence, at least in the eyes of the law, and any other time he might have gotten away with it. This time, though, he fell on a judge who wanted to set an example, who thought tough love was the way to go with wayward teenagers. And that's how Steve ended up in this tiny, cramped room with only himself for company and nothing to look forward to except two years' worth of the occasional visit from his aunt, who to this day views both him and Mary as more trouble than they're worth. It's not like he can explain to her that stealing clothing and food temporarily is the only way he can cope with time traveling and not end up starving or freezing to death while he's waiting to go back to wherever it is he came from.
"You promise?"
"Do you have to ask?"
"It's weird. It's like you have a script, now, because you've already had this conversation, so you know how it's supposed to go. What happens now?"
"What would you like to happen now?"
Steve licks his lips. "If you take the pants back off, we can fool around until you go."
Steve can't think of a single reason to refuse. After all, he tells himself, in another few months this will technically be illegal, and besides, it's already happened.
~*~
July 17th, 1993: Steve is 15 and 30
John McGarrett is well into his fifth glass of bourbon for the night, and Steve knows for a fact that he's probably supplemented it quite a lot with whatever alcohol he had on hand at home. For once Steve's got a set of clothes that don't look entirely ridiculous and all the cash he lifted from the wallet some guy left in his unlocked BMW. He was anxious to get back from whenever the hell this is―Kono is about to graduate from the Academy, and he desperately wants to be there for the ceremony―and since alcohol usually makes his little problem worse, he decided that a couple of stiff drinks wouldn't hurt.
So he stepped into the nearest bar he could find that wasn't a total dive, only to find himself sitting not three feet away from a younger version of his father. He knows the date thanks to a discarded newspaper by the door, and a half-remembered conversation with his father runs through his mind. He picks a stool next to his father, leaving one stool between them in a silent show of respecting the man's personal space. He knows his dad well enough to know that he'll appreciate the gesture.
He orders himself a drink―the same as his father's having―downs it in one gulp and motions for another. He can feel John's eyes on him now, curious in spite of himself. Steve has drawn just enough attention to himself that he knows his father is trying to place him but can't quite figure out why he seems familiar.
"Have we met?"
He turns his head. "Don't think so. The name's Steve. You obviously have good taste in alcohol," he extends his hand, and his father shakes it readily.
"John McGarrett," he says, apparently not noticing or perhaps not caring that Steve didn't provide him with a last name. "My son's name is Steve."
"Good taste in names too, then," he grins, and they clink glasses, seemingly of a common accord. "He a good kid?"
"The best," his father says, and Steve is tempted to down his drink in one swallow again. Somewhere on the mainland, his fifteen-year-old self is crying into his pillow in juvenile detention, convinced his father hates him. "Having problems, though. Probably because his mother's gone," he says, staring into the bottom of his glass as though maybe it holds the answers to some imponderable question.
"Divorced or passed away?" Steve makes himself ask the question, even though he knows the answer.
"Door number two," John swirls the liquid around in his glass. "Boy needs his mother, you know? She was better at keeping him out of trouble. I'm a pretty lousy father by most standards. Worked too much, and then Jillian died..."
It's odd, hearing his mother's name like that for the first time in years. His father doesn't seem to notice his discomfiture, though, just keeps talking to the contents of his glass.
"And then I drank too much. I nearly hit my girl, you know. She burst into my study without knocking and, God help me, I nearly smacked her, even though she was eight years old and didn't know any better. I had to send them away, keep them safe. As much from myself as from everything else that was happening."
"Sounds rough." He can't think of anything else to say. This is the only time he'll ever truly know what's happening behind John McGarrett's tough facade, the one moment in which his father is being entirely honest, and that's because he has no idea who Steve is. It's a depressing thought.
His father snorts. "Yeah, well. Got no one to blame but myself, I guess."
"Nope. But... it doesn't make you a bad person either. It's funny―more of a strange kind of funny―but you kind of remind me of my own dad." Understatement. "He hit the sauce after my mom left, and I got into a dozen different kinds of trouble while he wasn't around. He cleaned himself up, though. Brought me back home after―well, after a while."
His father takes a sip of his drink. "You suggesting something?"
He shakes his head. "Not my place. I'm just saying, it's probably not too late. Sons never stop loving their fathers, same way you'll never stop loving your kid. It's the way the world works." He finishes his own drink, feels a familiar sensation beginning to coil somewhere between his spine and his stomach, drops a bill on the bar and gets up. "I have somewhere I gotta be, John, but it was nice meeting you. Take care, okay? I hope you and your son work things out."
They shake hands, and Steve barely has time to make it to the bar's restroom before time lurches and sends him back to where he started, less than three feet away from the good suit he'd donned for the ceremony. He begins pulling his clothes back on, thankful that he was somewhere out of the way when it happened, when Kono pokes her head around the corner. Her face creases in a frown.
"Where'd you go?" she comes up to him, helps him with the buttons on his shirt when his hands shake too hard to be effective. "Have you been drinking?" a note of disapproval creeps into her voice.
"Saw my dad. And yeah, a little. Not drunk, though, promise. Was trying to get back here. Didn't want to miss your ceremony." Somewhere, fifteen years in the past, John McGarrett is picking up the phone to call his son, to let him know that he wants him to come home when he's finished his time in juvenile detention. Steve leans down to kiss Kono, wrapping his hands around hers. She tastes of breath mints, and smiles into the kiss.
"You're just in time, in that case."
~*~
April 20th, 1995: Steve is 18
"Your father is worried about you," Mamo says to Steve one night, coming by his tent to sit outside in the sand and watch the sun set over the ocean, dappling the waves with orange and red and yellow.
"You could have fooled me." Steve doesn't care if he sounds bitter. His father may have allowed him to come home to Hawaii after sending him and Mary packing like a couple of unwanted house cats, but it was only because he thought he could keep a better eye on his delinquent son if they were under the same roof. "He doesn't care about me, he's just worried I'm going to ruin his reputation as a cop."
Mamo sighs, and Steve feels just a little guilty for taking out his anger on the old man. He's the only one who's shown Steve any measure of decency since he came back. Hell, without Mamo he wouldn't have a place to stay at all, let alone a tent all to himself here on the North shore, where there's nobody to come butt too closely into his business. Mamo set him up with a tent, with a cot to lie on and blankets and a couple of pots and pans, the minimum he'd need to survive out here. He even gave him an introduction to Jonah Kent, who made some of the best custom surf boards on the island, and much to Steve's surprise Jonah agreed to take him on as a sort of apprentice, teach him some of the tricks of the trade so he'd be able to earn a living.
"Kid's got a lot of potential," he'd agreed with Mamo after letting Steve handle some of his tools―with a lot of guidance.
He owes Mamo more than he can ever repay him, is the long and the short of it, so Steve shrugs a shoulder by way of apology. "He thinks I'm a delinquent, Mamo."
"You ever try telling him the truth?"
"Once, when I was a kid," Steve says, with all the conviction of his seventeen years. "He told me I was too old to be making up stories, that liars ended up in jail. I guess he sort of got that right." He still sounds bitter.
"Have you tried telling him now?" Mamo insists gently, and Steve shakes his head.
"There's no point. He's not worried about me, but if you think he is, you can tell him I'm fine, for what it's worth. Mostly thanks to you."
Mamo claps him on the shoulder. "No sweat, kid. Your daddy's a friend of mine, you know. We go way back, way before you were even a twinkle in your mother's eye. If he can't do it, I figure it's up to me to keep an eye on you for him, make sure you stay safe."
"Nowhere is safe."
There's another sigh that serves better than any lecture on the subject of Steve's pessimism. Mamo is the first person aside from Steve's mother who thinks that being able to travel in time isn't the terrible curse that Steve's always believed it to be. For his part, Steve can't figure out how Mamo doesn't see it as a curse. Not being able to stay where and when he is when he needs to, landing naked and freezing and alone in times and places he doesn't know, surrounded by strangers―it should be anyone's idea of a nightmare, but Mamo seems to think that it's all some kind of gift from the gods. Steve once angrily offered to let him have the damned gift, if he thought it was so special, but the old man just smiled gently and told him that gifts from the gods were not something to be lightly transferred.
"You'll see," he'd said. "Someday, you'll find out what it all means, what all this was for. Great joy is not possible without an equal amount of suffering."
"In that case," Steve had muttered, "I'm going to spend some really ecstatic moments in my future."
Mamo had beamed at him as though he'd just handed him the moon on a silver platter. "Exactly. Now isn't that something to look forward to?"
~*~
August 30th, 2004: Steve is 28, Kono is 20
Kono is sitting on Steve's bed, dressed in nothing but her panties and one of his shirts. It's hanging mostly open on her, three buttons fastened in front for modesty's sake, and her hair is comically mussed and hanging about her shoulders in a black-brown haze. If Steve were a painter, he'd want to paint a portrait of her just like this, caught in the early morning light.
"What are you thinking?"
He snorts. "Why do women always ask that? Most times, men aren't thinking anything."
She flops onto her stomach, propped up on her forearms, kicks her feet in the air, toes pointed toward the ceiling of his tent, and grins unrepentantly. "You have your thinking expression on. I can always tell if you're thinking or if you've just spaced out."
It's eerie that she knows him this well. "I don't have a 'thinking expression,'" he says defensively.
"You so do. You have no poker face at all, never have. So, tell me what you were thinking. Or have you forgotten already?" she charitably offers him a way out, just so long as he admits that he's already going senile.
"I was thinking that you look really pretty in the mornings," he confesses, already knowing that it will at once please and infuriate her.
She throws a dirty sock at him, quickly snatched up from the floor to be used as a projectile weapon. "I'm not just here for you to stare at, you know."
He doesn't bother ducking, just catches the sock as it flies at his head. "I know. Please tell me I didn't stare creepily at you when you were a kid. I didn't, did I? I'd hate to have to shoot myself in the head for being a pervert."
Kono swings her feet some more, and he can hear the faint whisper of flesh against flesh as her legs rub together. "No, you were always incredibly proper with me. It was infuriating, sometimes. I spent a lot of time trying to seduce you after I turned fifteen, and you stubbornly refused to have sex with me."
Steve feels his cheeks grow warm in spite of himself. "Well, it wouldn't have been right. I'm glad my older self appears to have retained his sense of decency, though."
Kono props her chin on her hands. "I think you were worried that what we were doing was already too weird. You were actually kind of paternal, in a way that my own father never was. You showed me things about the island that my parents aren't interested in: the flora and the fauna, the way everything flows together here. You taught me how to balance on my surfboard―so well that my cousin Ano decided I was worth keeping around, even as little kids go."
"I bet you were a natural, though."
The corner of her mouth quirks up into a smile. "You even helped me with my homework. You have beautiful handwriting."
"So you've said. I never really paid attention to my calligraphy."
"I used to ask you to write things down for me. Lists and poems and quotes, and I used to keep them all in an envelope, until I was about twelve and realised that my mother would inevitably find them during one of her prolonged snooping sessions in my room, so I took them to a bonfire and burned them. By then I'd mostly gotten over my handwriting fetish."
"But not entirely."
"Not entirely, no," she laughs. "But then, I was the only girl my age who had a mysterious dark-haired man who visited from the future and showed her the hidden treasures of the island. I was the star of my very own adventure novel. I watched Dr. Who for a while, but I stopped because the Companions always got to travel with the Doctor, and I always got left behind with people who wouldn't understand what I was talking about."
For a moment Steve can only manage a stricken silence
"I'm sorry," he says, as soon as he's found his voice again, but she's still smiling.
"Don't be. I was a little strange before I met you, and I grew up stranger, but I wouldn't trade it. I can't imagine a life in which I grew up to think only about boys and partying and dating guys who only wanted to get into my pants. I think I was twelve when I decided I was going to marry you."
"Are we going to get married?" Steve is startled, but the thought isn't an unpleasant one.
"I don' t know. You never told me, but you did tell me we'd be together for a long time, and that's good enough for me."
"Must have been frustrating, not knowing all those years."
She shrugs, unconcerned. "I was used to it. I never knew anything else, you know? Although there were lots of times I wished you would tell me what was happening. You visited a lot when you were older, and you were always sad, even though you were happy to see me. There are bad times ahead for you, and I hate not being able to do anything about it."
Steve bites his tongue to keep from asking her exactly when those times are. Knowing the future makes you crazy. He's said it enough times to other people, he knows it's true. "I guess that's why I visited so often. I must have found being with you... pleasant. That's not really the right word."
"I know what you mean. I thought you couldn't control it?"
"I can't, but I tend to revisit the same places, the same events sometimes. Over and over."
"Doesn't sound too bad."
Steve closes his eyes briefly against the image of his mother's car exploding. "Not most of the time, no."
"This is what I was talking about. Why bother dating other guys when I had this enigma who appeared and disappeared like magic throughout my life? Everything else was boring by comparison."
"Kono..." Steve isn't even sure he wants to ask, isn't sure which answer to his question he wants to hear. "Didn't you ever go out with anyone else?"
"Oh, sure. I even slept with a couple of them," she says easily, and Steve's stomach twists nastily. "But it never lasted. I'd be at dinner with them and I'd know it wasn't ever going to amount to anything, and it felt pointless to really pay attention to what they were saying, and no one likes being treated like they're insignificant, you know? It wasn't fair of me to do that to them, to drag things out. I stopped, after a while, and no one ever questioned it anymore."
"You were waiting for the guy who helped you with your math homework?"
"You didn't help all that much. Apparently you suck at algebra."
"I hate theoretical numbers," he mutters darkly.
"So you've said." She's laughing at him, eyes sparkling merrily, and he can't help but grin at her.
"It's not nice to laugh at the mathematically-impaired," he says, getting up so he can nudge her backward onto the bed.
She keeps laughing. "You're not mathematically-impaired and you know it. I've seen you calculate wave trajectories in your head, don't pretend otherwise."
He bites at her lip, but doesn't try to remove the shirt. Truth be told, he kind of likes it on her. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Why are we still talking about math?"
"You started it."
Kono shakes her head. "You started it, but I'll forgive you if you finish what you started."
Steve is more than happy to accommodate her request.
~*~
February 19th, 2002: Kono is 17, Steve is 3
Kono is already pacing along the beach when he lands in the water this time, queasy and dizzy enough that it takes some effort for him to wade to shore. She doesn't look at him, just thrusts a bundle of cloth at him. It's all clothing his size―she's gotten better at gauging what will fit him, though he doesn't dare ask her where she gets this stuff―black jeans, a black shirt, black socks and a pair of dark grey running shoes.
"I brought you coffee and a sandwich," she jerks her head toward the far end of the beach, where she's left her picnic basket. It's the same basked she's been bringing for at least six years, maybe more, once she understood how to put basic meals together.
"Okay. I still feel sick, so I'll wait a bit," he says, but she's already walking away from him, sits down on the sand and wraps her arms around her knees.
He sits next to her, lets her hand him a sandwich. She's dressed too warmly for the weather, long sleeves and long pants, and her hair is tied back in a pony tail.
"Kono, are you―?" he stops before finishing his question, because it's obvious she's not all right. It's obvious she's been crying. "What's wrong?"
"If I asked you to beat up a guy for me, would you do it?"
He pauses. She knows that he's had to develop a pretty violent skill set in order to survive when he travels, so it's not surprising that she's not questioning whether he could, but rather whether he would. "Yeah, probably," he says. It's true. Somewhere along the way he's gotten rid of a lot of the scruples that would otherwise have gotten him killed or put in jail. He supposes he should be more worried that it's so easy to agree to hurt a person he's never met just because Kono asked him to. "Anyone I know?"
She shakes her head. "I don't think so. Maybe you meet him in the future, but I don't think so. He's older than me. Nearly twenty."
"Did he rape you?"
"He tried. He put something in my drink, but whatever it was, he didn't put enough."
He reaches over to tug down the collar of her long-sleeved shirt, catches sight of a dark bruise on her jaw that hasn't yet begun to heal. There are similar bruises peeking out from the sleeves of her shirt, circling her wrists.
"He cut me," she lifts her shirt, showing a laceration that's been neatly stitched.
Steve traces the outline of the bruises gently with his forefinger, feeling a familiar anger begin to boil just under the surface of his skin. Whoever this guy is, Steve vows to himself, he's going to rip his face right off his skull. He'll rip him limb from limb and then feed the bits to scavengers and dump the rest in the ocean so the sharks will finish him off.
"You want him dead, or you want him mutilated so he'll keep suffering?" he asks quietly, and that makes her laugh even as her eyes fill with tears again. "I'm not actually joking."
"I know. It's nice to know you mean it. Actually, I, uh... I need you to back me up. Would you just come with me?"
"You know where he is?"
"Yes. I just want you there. Please."
"I'll come with you."
He takes a bite of the sandwich, washes it down with coffee. He doesn't feel sick at all anymore.
The guy's name is Tobin. It's a stupid name even by modern standards, and Steve is kind of glad that the guy's parents obviously hate him just as much as everyone else, which is the only possible reason they would have given him such a stupid name. Either that or it's a family name, which is still kind of stupid. Kono has a small leather case that looks a little like an oversized version of those old doctor's bags, but he doesn't ask her what she has in there. He figures she'll tell him when she's good and ready. He has kept so many things from her over the years, she's entitled to her own need-to-know moments. The sun has long since set, but the moon is out and illuminates the guy's front door―he lives in the shittiest-looking apartment building Steve has ever scene, which is saying something―when Kono strides up to it and bangs on it with her fist. Without being told to Steve hangs back, just out of the line of sight from the door, waiting for Kono to give him a sign.
The door opens a crack, then all the way, revealing a tall blond haole, all long muscles and the lean frame of a surfer. He seems surprised, but then, it's not too many victims of attempted rape who return voluntarily to their attacker, Steve supposes.
"Kono! What are you doing here?"
"Tobin," she gives him the smallest of nods. "Can you come out here for a second?"
He steps out gingerly into the building's courtyard. It's filled with garbage and littered with empty beer cans, doubtless the detritus of the college-age dropouts who've all congregated here in order to keep down the cost of rent. It's a pit, even by Steve's standards, and right now Steve lives in a tent on the beach.
"Look, if this is about last night, it was a misunderstanding, okay? I mean, you had a lot to drink, and―" Tobin starts, and that's as far as he gets, because Kono decks him.
It's not the powerhouse kick that's going to become her trademark in the years to come, but Kono's already taken a few classes, and she and Steve have sparred on the beach since she was a little girl, and she knows how to handle herself. Her fist connects solidly with his face, and there's a glint when she moves that tells Steve that somehow, somewhere, his Kono got her hands on some brass knuckles. Tobin's howl of pain is cut short as she drives one bony knee into his crotch, folding him in half. An elbow to the back of the head drives him to his knees, and by then Steve is actually kind of impressed that the guy isn't curled up in a ball on the ground.
He steps up, puts two fingers gently on her arm. "So what do you need me for, exactly?"
"I need you to help me carry him," she says grimly.
It's not enough to break the guy's face and make it a very real possibility that he'll never father children again. Steve's inclination is toward cutting off his dick, because who knows how many other teenagers this asshole has raped in the past? Or will try to rape in the future, for that matter. Kono isn't quite that bloodthirsty, but her solution to the problem is almost as permanent, and Steve has to give her points for creativity. He's only too happy to hold Tobin down while she works, and takes particular pleasure in punching the guy a few more times when he starts struggling to get away.
"Now Tobin," he says calmly, leaning over him and enjoying the look of fear in his eyes. "Is that any way for a gentleman to behave? You roofie a girl and try to rape her, and now you're objecting to her expressing her displeasure? Tsk. Hold still, or I will hurt you a lot more than you are hurting right now, you got me?"
Tobin holds still.
"Good boy."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm nobody you know, Tobin. I'm a friend of Kono's, and if you know what's good for you, when this is over, you will pretend that you and I have never met. With any luck, that will be 99 percent true, because if I ever lay eyes on you again, I will kill you. You get me?"
"Are you kapu?"
It's a valid question, but not one Steve is prepared to answer, because Kono doesn't know that about him. Not yet, and she won't need to know that for several years to come. Besides, he's not in the mood to answer any of this guy's questions anyway. "Do us both a favour, Tobin, and shut up."
Tobin shuts up.
They leave him by one of Honolulu's most heavily-trafficked areas. When he begs them not to leave him exposed like that, tears and snot dribbling down his face, Kono kindly offers to tape his dick up for him, and that makes him shut up.
"You know, I think I like your writing better than mine," Steve opines, looking at her handiwork.
She nods, though not because she's agreeing with what he said. "I practised. I wanted to make sure everyone would be able to read it."
Tomorrow morning, when the little boutiques around here open again, everyone who goes by will be treated to the sight of a naked haole duct-taped to a palm tree with the word 'rapist' tattooed prominently across his chest. Steve had been a little surprised when she pulled out the little starter kit from her bag, but he didn't question it. Points for ingenuity, he thought. For good measure, Kono tattooed an 'R' on Tobin's forehead.
"See if any girl lets him buy her a drink now." She spits at his feet.
They walk back to the beach in silence and sit by the shore, watching the waves. Kono is shivering so hard it almost feels like she's convulsing, and so he wraps them both up in the blanket they keep in the watertight box for emergencies and holds her against his chest until the sun comes up, and the pull of time takes him away from her again.
~*~
Part 3
Kono is almost eight years old when she comes to understand that most little girls don't have a Steve in their lives.
"By then," she'll tell Steve when they are both much older and are lying tangled in each other on his bed, his fingers carding through her hair, "I was completely used to having this old naked guy appear in the water and demand clothes and food. I think you were more freaked out by your nudity than I was. I think you were worried you were going to warp my impressionable young mind," she'll say with a laugh, and watch as the corners of his eyes crinkle a bit in wry amusement.
At eight, Kono is well aware of what having an imaginary friend means, and she knows that Steve is far too realistic to be imaginary. She doesn't have to play pretend at all when he's there: he's solid and warm when she touches him, and he knows things that she doesn't, which an imaginary friend couldn't do. Last year Inge Wahlberg still played with an imaginary friend called Celia, and everybody else in the class laughed at her because she was too old for imaginary friends. Kono took that lesson to heart, and she is careful never to mention Steve to any of her classmates. Steve is her secret, he trusts her not to tell anyone about him, and she would rather be put to the flame than betray that trust.
Her days are spent divided between home and the beach. Mama doesn't approve much of her wandering off alone and unsupervised, but she promises not to go far on the days she doesn't lie outright about where she's going. Mama likes having her home, too, to help with the cooking. Even though Kono is a terrible cook for the most part, she knows how to make a killer spam fried rice, and whenever her cousins come over to eat they demand that she make some. Even on days when she'd rather be alone at the beach, she doesn't really mind being in Mama's warm kitchen, cooking eggs in the pan to mix in with the rice, breathing in the familiar smells of kalua pig and cabbage, laulau and chicken long rice. Long after she leaves home for good she'll associate this room with the taste of papaya juice licked from her fingers, the bright colours of melons and guava and bananas scattered across the kitchen table.
When she's well into her twenties, she'll always have a giant bowl of fruit in the middle of the kitchen table. Steve will complain that they can't possibly eat all that fruit before it goes bad and that they're wasting money, and she will prove him wrong every single time. She loves the way the sunlight looks when it streams through the tiny kitchen window and makes the fruit glow.
At eight years old Kono knows that she isn't like any of the other girls her age. She's not like any of the kids her age, and she doesn't care. She brings home report cards that simultaneously praise her for her grades and reprimand her for being continually distracted and lacking focus. Kono's imagination takes her to the beach every day, even when Steve isn't there, and she has adventures enough to fill three lifetimes.
January 1st, 2010: Steve is 34, Kono is 26
Steve is gone when Kono wakes up, leaving a warm spot in the bed beside her, the bedclothes just settling where he disappeared. She turns onto her side, places her hand where he was in order to feel the residual heat seep into her palm. The morning sun is streaming in through the window, and she has nowhere to be today, so she simply curls up and waits, pulling her novel off the bedside table to keep herself occupied.
Steve pads in from the hallway a few minutes later and slides into the bed next to her, pulling the sheets back over them both. He shivers a little, and she shifts over to cuddle up to him, enjoying the feel of his arms sliding across her skin.
"Where were you?"
"1992. You just got your first surfboard," he smiles down at her. "It was really cute. You were so damned talented, even then."
It's been long enough that she's not bitter about her destroyed knee anymore. Long enough that she can smile right along with him at the memory. "I remember that. You were very patient with me as I nattered on endlessly about stuff you've known for years."
"You have no idea how much I enjoy talking to you, no matter what age you are," he says, soft and low, breath warm against her neck, and goosebumps break out over her skin. "And you were always a precocious kid anyway. Perceptive as all hell, and so smart. Every time I go back I feel like a class-A idiot. You know I brush up on stuff so that I'll be sure to be able to help you with your homework now? I don't remember a damned thing about algebra, and I'm always afraid that one day you'll be fourteen and ask me to double-check your equations."
She laughs. "Poor Steve. It must be such a trial, being a little girl's hero."
"You have no idea."
His hands are in motion again, re-learning the curves of her body. She's lost some weight lately, weight she probably couldn't afford to lose to begin with, but while Steve insists on buying her as many malasadas as she's willing to eat, he's never once said anything about her appearance to her, except to tell her how beautiful she is. Sometimes, in her less charitable moments, she wonders what he truly sees when he looks at her, if he sees her at all or rather some crystallised ideal, trapped in a glass bubble.
His thumb brushes over her nipple, and she stiffens a little at the sensation, her body torn between wanting to pull away and push in closer, but when he pulls her toward him to brush his lips against the tender spot where her jaw joins her neck she turns into the kiss, wraps one leg around his. She loves these times, when he comes back from visiting her younger self smiling and relaxed, eyes free of the shadows that tell her that he's gone back yet again to the scene of his mother's death, or just narrowly escaped some other disaster. At times like these all he wants is to be as close to her as possible, and because he's often been with her when she was just a child, he's especially gentle with his touches. She doesn't always want him to be gentle, but these moments are special, something she knows that only they have.
Steve kisses her, slow and hot and easy, and she tugs his hand down until she can feel his fingers tease past the tangle of public hair and move to circle her clit, teasing at first, then rubbing a little more insistently until she can't help herself and thrusts against him in small, urgent circles. He keeps kissing her languidly, his tongue lambent against hers, almost matching the movement of his fingers, his erect cock pressing against her thigh. He's in no hurry to finish though, moving his hand lower to work his fingers in deeper, pressing against that sweet spot that no one but him has ever been able to find. She arches into his touch, moaning quietly as she feels the familiar tension of orgasm beginning to build deep in her belly.
"God, Steve..."
It's not the kind of climax that comes like a tsunami, blindsiding her and tossing her like an insignificant piece of flotsam to be tumbled ashore, winded and gasping desperately for air. She sees the wave coming from a distance, rides it the way she would if she was surfing, feeling the thrum and power of the ocean beneath her, carrying her along but giving her the illusion of control. Steve lets her set the pace, moving against his hand and his tongue, her hands on his shoulders, fingers digging in so hard that her fingernails leave indentations the shape of a half-moon in his skin that will take hours to fade entirely.
She gasps into his mouth when she comes, barely leaves herself time to recover before she presses up more tightly against him, lining herself up with his dick and letting him slide in easily, while she's still relaxed and almost boneless with pleasure. He smiles against her mouth, still moving slowly, excruciatingly so, and she wants him to hurry up as much as she wants this to last forever, every single nerve ending alight with desire, and she pulls away from the kiss in order to lick and suck her way along his neck and jaw, urging him along. She feels him shudder when he orgasms with nothing more than a quiet sigh, face buried in her shoulder, then slowly relax in her arms, utterly spent. She strokes his hair.
"You good?"
"Better than."
He doesn't move, and neither does she. In a few moments, they're both asleep again, sated and warm in the morning sun.
December 24th, 2002: Kono is 17, Steve is 33
Chin Ho Kelly is coming out of the hospital room to which Steve was kindly directed a minute ago by a helpful nurse. He starts a little, obviously not expecting to see anyone else in the place at this hour. Visiting hours are pretty much over, now, and Steve is wearing hospital scrubs that he stole out of a supply closet, along with a white lab coat. He doesn't look like a doctor, he knows―still sporting a five o'clock shadow, hair unwashed―but he's hoping Chin won't question it. Of course, he's never so lucky. Chin is too good a cop for that, even this early in his career.
"Howzit?" Chin greets him, casually stepping in front of him and blocking his access to the room. "Whose room you looking for, brah?"
"Is this Kono's room?"
Chin's eyes narrow. "You her doctor?"
It's not a good idea to lie. Chin knows all of Kono's doctors, knows exactly who performed her surgery and who provided consultations. Lying at this point is only going to get Steve in more trouble, and he doesn't know how long he's going to be here. Somewhere out there in Honolulu, his twenty-six-year-old self is on the point of passing out at a bar downtown for alcohol poisoning, having tried very hard to drink himself into oblivion rather than face Christmas Eve by himself. He's going to be admitted into the ER of this same hospital in a matter of hours. Somewhere deep down inside, Steve thinks it's really unfair that he has to relive another Christmas Eve on top of all the regularly allotted ones.
"No, I'm a friend. Not a close one, or anything," he allows himself a small lie. "I got admitted for a stupid accident earlier, and they're letting me walk around a bit, get the pins and needles out. I remembered she was supposed to have surgery, thought I'd look in, see how she was recovering."
Chin nods, apparently satisfied with this answer filled with half-truths. "Visiting hours are nearly over, the nurses will probably kick you out in a minute, but I think she'll enjoy the company. Family went home nearly an hour ago. It's hard, spending Christmas on your own like this."
"Yeah."
Kono isn't sleeping when he's managed to get past the dragon at the gate and slips into her room. She's gazing listlessly at the tiny television in the corner of the room, showing a grainy animatronic Christmas special that Steve has never watched in its entirety. The adventures of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, if his memory serves him right. She brightens when she sees him, though.
"You came!"
He shrugs and smiles sheepishly. "It wasn't deliberate, but... yeah. I don't have flowers, sorry." He pulls up a chair next to her bed, takes her hand when she reaches for him. "How are you doing?"
She bites her lip. "The surgery went fine. As well as anyone could have hoped for."
Steve caresses the back of her hand with his thumb. "That's not what I was asking," he says gently, and isn't surprised at all when she bursts into tears and sobs as though her heart is breaking.
It's a combination of exhaustion and pain and the side effects of being under general anaesthesia for the surgery, and most importantly the realisation that she's never going be able to surf professionally ever again. Thus far it's been the one thing she loves in life (apart from Steve, and that's an entirely different kind of love). Steve has never had anything like this, never had a ruling passion in his life the way Kono does, but he still knows how much this hurt her. He slides over to sit on her bed, perched with one hip on the edge, and pulls her into his arms. It's not often that she lets herself be comforted like this, but this time she melts against him and cries until the shirt of his green hospital scrubs is completely soaked through. He doesn't try to say anything, just strokes her hair and traces circles on her back with his fingers, waiting for her to cry herself out.
"I'm sorry," she gasps finally, scrubbing at her face with the back of her wrist.
"Don't be," he tells her firmly. "You're perfectly entitled to sob and scream and throw things. In fact, I will volunteer to have you throw things at my head, if that's what it takes. I make a very tempting target," he says, and it earns him a watery, half-choked laugh. "For what it's worth, you'll be fine."
She looks up, eyes swollen from crying, face blotchy and tear-stained. "Will I surf again?"
He tucks her hair behind her ear. "Yes, but you won't compete. I promise, you find something else that you'll love just as much, though, and you'll get back up on a board, too."
She takes a shaky breath, and nods. "Chin was telling me about HPD. I was thinking, if I can get through rehab, I might try out for the Academy."
Steve kisses the top of her head. "I think you can do anything you put your mind to," he tells her truthfully. He can't tell her all the details, because knowing the future messes everything up, but there are no hard-and-fast rules about giving someone hope.
"Will you stay this time?" she asks.
He still can't promise her anything. "As long as I can manage."
July 17th, 1989: Steve is 12, Mary is 7
Living with Dad is like living with a ghost after Steve's mother dies. At first Steve thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad―Dad grabbed him and hugged him so hard he almost suffocated after the accident―but soon he realises that was wishful thinking. He stands next to Dad at the funeral while Mary buries her head in his shirt and wails, and wonders why neither he nor Dad are crying. He hopes it doesn't mean that he's being disrespectful to Mom, but it feels like he can't remember how to cry properly.
After the funeral and the wake at which he gets very drunk, Dad spends all his time at work. When he does get home, often long after dinner is over, he doesn't so much as look at Steve or at Mary, just disappears in his study for hours. One night Mary ventures past the closed door only to flee back in tears to seek refuge in Steve's arms. He holds her close, kisses the top of her head.
"What happened?"
Mary is hiccuping too hard to make much sense, so Steve picks her up even though she's nearly eight years old and is getting way too big for him to manage properly and hauls her into the kitchen. He sits her down on a stool, wipes her face roughly with a dishcloth until she stops snivelling.
"Is Mommy in Heaven?" she asks him, and he guesses that was the question that got her thrown out of Dad's office.
"Sure, peanut," he deliberately uses Mom's nickname for her. Steve isn't really sure about God or Heaven these days, but he's twelve years old now, nearly thirteen, (Mom promised him a cake, but she's dead now, it seems unfair to resent the fact that he never got to celebrate his birthday) and he knows that little kids need reassurance. "She's going to watch over you now."
"Like an angel?"
"Like an angel."
Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise, but Steve is still shocked when, one morning shortly before his thirteenth birthday, Jack McGarrett sits both him and Mary down and explains to them calmly that he's sending them away. Mary cries, because that's what Mary does best, but Dad isn't even looking at them, just staring at a spot on the wall somewhere above Steve's left shoulder.
"Why can't we stay here?" Steve asks, even though he knows it's pointless. Arguing with Dad never got anyone anywhere.
Dad sighs. "It's because I can't take care of you properly, Steven. You're growing kids, you need someone who's going to be home, who's going to be able to cook you meals and help with your homework. You need stability, and I can't give you that. I'm sending you to Aunt Krissie's on the mainland. You'll like it there, you'll have cousins close to your age to play with, and you'll even get to have snow in the winter. You'll like it," he repeats, and he makes it sound almost like an order. Steve wonders what would happen if he disobeyed the order.
"I've been taking good care of Mare," he says stubbornly, his heart thudding in his ribcage. "My grades are still good, Dad. We don't have to go!"
"You'll do as I say, and that's that," Dad snaps, and Steve knows that tone well enough to know better than to try to argue. "Go and pack your things. Take only what you absolutely need for two weeks, I'll have the rest shipped."
"We're going now?" Steve's voice betrays him and cracks, but Dad is already on his feet and walking toward the door.
"Plane leaves tomorrow."
Mary wails and calls for her daddy, but Steve holds her still in his lap to keep her from running after him, lets her cry and scream and sob until she's exhausted. In a minute, he tells himself, he'll take her upstairs and help her to pack, and then he'll put her to bed so he can pack his own things.
In a minute.
November 2nd, 1992: Steve is 15 and 17
"I hate it here," his younger self tells Steve. He remembers this, remembers hating juvenile detention with every fibre of his being. It's not that long ago, even though it feels like a lifetime has passed, like he's a different person now. He remembers the smells most of all, the cheap cleaning products, the smell of bleach that clung to everything without anything ever really getting clean. He felt dirty the whole time he was in this place, with its drab wall, the institutional paint, the grey floors and the dingy windows in the classrooms.
"I know," he says, though what he really wants to say is: 'It's going to be fine, I promise.'
"What's happening to you now?" his younger self wants to know. He remembers this, too. Remembers wanting to be held and reassured that it was all going to be okay, but he knows he's not going to say anything of the sort.
He shakes his head. "I tell you, it'll drive you crazy. It's not so far away, anyway. You'll find out soon enough."
His younger self reaches around to rub a hand over Steve's bare stomach, lets his fingertips trail along the faint line of hair all the way down to tangle in his pubic hair, tugs in a way that goes right to Steve's cock. He still hasn't met anyone else who time travels, but he figures if anyone else were to be able to do it, there's no reason they wouldn't have sex with themselves. When he bothers to think of it at all, he figures it's just a more complicated form of jerking off. He shifts backwards in the bed a little, feeling the other Steve's dick nudging him in the back, hot and hard and insistent. They're lucky that Steve hasn't been assigned a bunkmate, that he gets a comparative amount of privacy by all standards of juvenile detention.
"It's not even my fault," the younger Steve mutters mutinously into his shoulder. "Wasn't trying to cut class."
"You know that and I know that, but it's not like you can just go up to them and explain that you actually traveled in time and that's why you weren't in class. Oh, and turning up naked on school grounds."
"Not my fault," the younger Steve protests, and he knows himself well enough to know that he's never going to shut up about this, indignation boiling hot in his veins. So Steve just turns around and makes him shut up by kissing him and bringing him off without so much as spitting in his own palm. He's nearly eighteen years old now, and he's got way more stamina than his fifteen-year-old counterpart who's only just beginning his stint in juvie. It takes next to nothing to get him off, and for a moment Steve is almost jealous of how quickly it happens.
They're almost caught one time, but in a funny twist of irony the younger Steve gets so stressed at the thought of being caught and punished that he simply vanishes right out of his bed, leaving Steve by himself to stammer his way through an explanation during the otherwise routine bed check.
"Be less fucking loud when you beat off, McGarrett," is the amused response, before the door slams shut again and the key turns in the lock.
Steve is laughing to himself by the time his other self returns, and he's treated to a glare that might very well peel the paint off the walls. "You knew!" Steve accuses him. "You knew the whole time and you didn't say anything! Why didn't you warn me they were going to do the bed-check?"
He shrugs. "Because it already happened. Because there's nothing I can do about it. Because nothing ever changes, and you should get used to it."
"Fuck you. They're going to hassle me for weeks now."
He shakes his head. "No, they're not. You want to know things ahead of time? Fine. Tomorrow Joey Reichner is going to hassle you in the dining hall, and when he doesn't let up you're going to break his nose for him with your elbow. After that, no one's going to bug you again, because they think you're crazy. You're also going to get a week's worth of punishment for that―no privileges, curfew one hour earlier, and you're going to be scrubbing toilets during your free time. How's that?"
Steve glares. "What'd you tell me that for?"
"Aren't you the one who wanted to know the future?"
Steve lets out an explosive breath, clearly exasperated, but the point has been made. "Teach me to pick a lock?" he asks instead. He looks weirdly vulnerable, sitting cross-legged and naked on the bed.
Steve doesn't answer him at first, just pulls on the pants that his younger self lent him while he's here. "I don't know how."
"You said last time we saw each other that you'd teach me."
He shakes his head. "I remember that conversation. Haven't learned it yet. But I will, I promise. I'm still figuring it out. I'm getting better at picking pockets, too. A little more practice, and maybe I'll be able to teach you."
It's Steve's dirty little secret, all these petty crimes. He's never been caught except for once, and that's why he went to juvie to begin with. The unfairness of it still stings, because it was his first offence, at least in the eyes of the law, and any other time he might have gotten away with it. This time, though, he fell on a judge who wanted to set an example, who thought tough love was the way to go with wayward teenagers. And that's how Steve ended up in this tiny, cramped room with only himself for company and nothing to look forward to except two years' worth of the occasional visit from his aunt, who to this day views both him and Mary as more trouble than they're worth. It's not like he can explain to her that stealing clothing and food temporarily is the only way he can cope with time traveling and not end up starving or freezing to death while he's waiting to go back to wherever it is he came from.
"You promise?"
"Do you have to ask?"
"It's weird. It's like you have a script, now, because you've already had this conversation, so you know how it's supposed to go. What happens now?"
"What would you like to happen now?"
Steve licks his lips. "If you take the pants back off, we can fool around until you go."
Steve can't think of a single reason to refuse. After all, he tells himself, in another few months this will technically be illegal, and besides, it's already happened.
July 17th, 1993: Steve is 15 and 30
John McGarrett is well into his fifth glass of bourbon for the night, and Steve knows for a fact that he's probably supplemented it quite a lot with whatever alcohol he had on hand at home. For once Steve's got a set of clothes that don't look entirely ridiculous and all the cash he lifted from the wallet some guy left in his unlocked BMW. He was anxious to get back from whenever the hell this is―Kono is about to graduate from the Academy, and he desperately wants to be there for the ceremony―and since alcohol usually makes his little problem worse, he decided that a couple of stiff drinks wouldn't hurt.
So he stepped into the nearest bar he could find that wasn't a total dive, only to find himself sitting not three feet away from a younger version of his father. He knows the date thanks to a discarded newspaper by the door, and a half-remembered conversation with his father runs through his mind. He picks a stool next to his father, leaving one stool between them in a silent show of respecting the man's personal space. He knows his dad well enough to know that he'll appreciate the gesture.
He orders himself a drink―the same as his father's having―downs it in one gulp and motions for another. He can feel John's eyes on him now, curious in spite of himself. Steve has drawn just enough attention to himself that he knows his father is trying to place him but can't quite figure out why he seems familiar.
"Have we met?"
He turns his head. "Don't think so. The name's Steve. You obviously have good taste in alcohol," he extends his hand, and his father shakes it readily.
"John McGarrett," he says, apparently not noticing or perhaps not caring that Steve didn't provide him with a last name. "My son's name is Steve."
"Good taste in names too, then," he grins, and they clink glasses, seemingly of a common accord. "He a good kid?"
"The best," his father says, and Steve is tempted to down his drink in one swallow again. Somewhere on the mainland, his fifteen-year-old self is crying into his pillow in juvenile detention, convinced his father hates him. "Having problems, though. Probably because his mother's gone," he says, staring into the bottom of his glass as though maybe it holds the answers to some imponderable question.
"Divorced or passed away?" Steve makes himself ask the question, even though he knows the answer.
"Door number two," John swirls the liquid around in his glass. "Boy needs his mother, you know? She was better at keeping him out of trouble. I'm a pretty lousy father by most standards. Worked too much, and then Jillian died..."
It's odd, hearing his mother's name like that for the first time in years. His father doesn't seem to notice his discomfiture, though, just keeps talking to the contents of his glass.
"And then I drank too much. I nearly hit my girl, you know. She burst into my study without knocking and, God help me, I nearly smacked her, even though she was eight years old and didn't know any better. I had to send them away, keep them safe. As much from myself as from everything else that was happening."
"Sounds rough." He can't think of anything else to say. This is the only time he'll ever truly know what's happening behind John McGarrett's tough facade, the one moment in which his father is being entirely honest, and that's because he has no idea who Steve is. It's a depressing thought.
His father snorts. "Yeah, well. Got no one to blame but myself, I guess."
"Nope. But... it doesn't make you a bad person either. It's funny―more of a strange kind of funny―but you kind of remind me of my own dad." Understatement. "He hit the sauce after my mom left, and I got into a dozen different kinds of trouble while he wasn't around. He cleaned himself up, though. Brought me back home after―well, after a while."
His father takes a sip of his drink. "You suggesting something?"
He shakes his head. "Not my place. I'm just saying, it's probably not too late. Sons never stop loving their fathers, same way you'll never stop loving your kid. It's the way the world works." He finishes his own drink, feels a familiar sensation beginning to coil somewhere between his spine and his stomach, drops a bill on the bar and gets up. "I have somewhere I gotta be, John, but it was nice meeting you. Take care, okay? I hope you and your son work things out."
They shake hands, and Steve barely has time to make it to the bar's restroom before time lurches and sends him back to where he started, less than three feet away from the good suit he'd donned for the ceremony. He begins pulling his clothes back on, thankful that he was somewhere out of the way when it happened, when Kono pokes her head around the corner. Her face creases in a frown.
"Where'd you go?" she comes up to him, helps him with the buttons on his shirt when his hands shake too hard to be effective. "Have you been drinking?" a note of disapproval creeps into her voice.
"Saw my dad. And yeah, a little. Not drunk, though, promise. Was trying to get back here. Didn't want to miss your ceremony." Somewhere, fifteen years in the past, John McGarrett is picking up the phone to call his son, to let him know that he wants him to come home when he's finished his time in juvenile detention. Steve leans down to kiss Kono, wrapping his hands around hers. She tastes of breath mints, and smiles into the kiss.
"You're just in time, in that case."
April 20th, 1995: Steve is 18
"Your father is worried about you," Mamo says to Steve one night, coming by his tent to sit outside in the sand and watch the sun set over the ocean, dappling the waves with orange and red and yellow.
"You could have fooled me." Steve doesn't care if he sounds bitter. His father may have allowed him to come home to Hawaii after sending him and Mary packing like a couple of unwanted house cats, but it was only because he thought he could keep a better eye on his delinquent son if they were under the same roof. "He doesn't care about me, he's just worried I'm going to ruin his reputation as a cop."
Mamo sighs, and Steve feels just a little guilty for taking out his anger on the old man. He's the only one who's shown Steve any measure of decency since he came back. Hell, without Mamo he wouldn't have a place to stay at all, let alone a tent all to himself here on the North shore, where there's nobody to come butt too closely into his business. Mamo set him up with a tent, with a cot to lie on and blankets and a couple of pots and pans, the minimum he'd need to survive out here. He even gave him an introduction to Jonah Kent, who made some of the best custom surf boards on the island, and much to Steve's surprise Jonah agreed to take him on as a sort of apprentice, teach him some of the tricks of the trade so he'd be able to earn a living.
"Kid's got a lot of potential," he'd agreed with Mamo after letting Steve handle some of his tools―with a lot of guidance.
He owes Mamo more than he can ever repay him, is the long and the short of it, so Steve shrugs a shoulder by way of apology. "He thinks I'm a delinquent, Mamo."
"You ever try telling him the truth?"
"Once, when I was a kid," Steve says, with all the conviction of his seventeen years. "He told me I was too old to be making up stories, that liars ended up in jail. I guess he sort of got that right." He still sounds bitter.
"Have you tried telling him now?" Mamo insists gently, and Steve shakes his head.
"There's no point. He's not worried about me, but if you think he is, you can tell him I'm fine, for what it's worth. Mostly thanks to you."
Mamo claps him on the shoulder. "No sweat, kid. Your daddy's a friend of mine, you know. We go way back, way before you were even a twinkle in your mother's eye. If he can't do it, I figure it's up to me to keep an eye on you for him, make sure you stay safe."
"Nowhere is safe."
There's another sigh that serves better than any lecture on the subject of Steve's pessimism. Mamo is the first person aside from Steve's mother who thinks that being able to travel in time isn't the terrible curse that Steve's always believed it to be. For his part, Steve can't figure out how Mamo doesn't see it as a curse. Not being able to stay where and when he is when he needs to, landing naked and freezing and alone in times and places he doesn't know, surrounded by strangers―it should be anyone's idea of a nightmare, but Mamo seems to think that it's all some kind of gift from the gods. Steve once angrily offered to let him have the damned gift, if he thought it was so special, but the old man just smiled gently and told him that gifts from the gods were not something to be lightly transferred.
"You'll see," he'd said. "Someday, you'll find out what it all means, what all this was for. Great joy is not possible without an equal amount of suffering."
"In that case," Steve had muttered, "I'm going to spend some really ecstatic moments in my future."
Mamo had beamed at him as though he'd just handed him the moon on a silver platter. "Exactly. Now isn't that something to look forward to?"
August 30th, 2004: Steve is 28, Kono is 20
Kono is sitting on Steve's bed, dressed in nothing but her panties and one of his shirts. It's hanging mostly open on her, three buttons fastened in front for modesty's sake, and her hair is comically mussed and hanging about her shoulders in a black-brown haze. If Steve were a painter, he'd want to paint a portrait of her just like this, caught in the early morning light.
"What are you thinking?"
He snorts. "Why do women always ask that? Most times, men aren't thinking anything."
She flops onto her stomach, propped up on her forearms, kicks her feet in the air, toes pointed toward the ceiling of his tent, and grins unrepentantly. "You have your thinking expression on. I can always tell if you're thinking or if you've just spaced out."
It's eerie that she knows him this well. "I don't have a 'thinking expression,'" he says defensively.
"You so do. You have no poker face at all, never have. So, tell me what you were thinking. Or have you forgotten already?" she charitably offers him a way out, just so long as he admits that he's already going senile.
"I was thinking that you look really pretty in the mornings," he confesses, already knowing that it will at once please and infuriate her.
She throws a dirty sock at him, quickly snatched up from the floor to be used as a projectile weapon. "I'm not just here for you to stare at, you know."
He doesn't bother ducking, just catches the sock as it flies at his head. "I know. Please tell me I didn't stare creepily at you when you were a kid. I didn't, did I? I'd hate to have to shoot myself in the head for being a pervert."
Kono swings her feet some more, and he can hear the faint whisper of flesh against flesh as her legs rub together. "No, you were always incredibly proper with me. It was infuriating, sometimes. I spent a lot of time trying to seduce you after I turned fifteen, and you stubbornly refused to have sex with me."
Steve feels his cheeks grow warm in spite of himself. "Well, it wouldn't have been right. I'm glad my older self appears to have retained his sense of decency, though."
Kono props her chin on her hands. "I think you were worried that what we were doing was already too weird. You were actually kind of paternal, in a way that my own father never was. You showed me things about the island that my parents aren't interested in: the flora and the fauna, the way everything flows together here. You taught me how to balance on my surfboard―so well that my cousin Ano decided I was worth keeping around, even as little kids go."
"I bet you were a natural, though."
The corner of her mouth quirks up into a smile. "You even helped me with my homework. You have beautiful handwriting."
"So you've said. I never really paid attention to my calligraphy."
"I used to ask you to write things down for me. Lists and poems and quotes, and I used to keep them all in an envelope, until I was about twelve and realised that my mother would inevitably find them during one of her prolonged snooping sessions in my room, so I took them to a bonfire and burned them. By then I'd mostly gotten over my handwriting fetish."
"But not entirely."
"Not entirely, no," she laughs. "But then, I was the only girl my age who had a mysterious dark-haired man who visited from the future and showed her the hidden treasures of the island. I was the star of my very own adventure novel. I watched Dr. Who for a while, but I stopped because the Companions always got to travel with the Doctor, and I always got left behind with people who wouldn't understand what I was talking about."
For a moment Steve can only manage a stricken silence
"I'm sorry," he says, as soon as he's found his voice again, but she's still smiling.
"Don't be. I was a little strange before I met you, and I grew up stranger, but I wouldn't trade it. I can't imagine a life in which I grew up to think only about boys and partying and dating guys who only wanted to get into my pants. I think I was twelve when I decided I was going to marry you."
"Are we going to get married?" Steve is startled, but the thought isn't an unpleasant one.
"I don' t know. You never told me, but you did tell me we'd be together for a long time, and that's good enough for me."
"Must have been frustrating, not knowing all those years."
She shrugs, unconcerned. "I was used to it. I never knew anything else, you know? Although there were lots of times I wished you would tell me what was happening. You visited a lot when you were older, and you were always sad, even though you were happy to see me. There are bad times ahead for you, and I hate not being able to do anything about it."
Steve bites his tongue to keep from asking her exactly when those times are. Knowing the future makes you crazy. He's said it enough times to other people, he knows it's true. "I guess that's why I visited so often. I must have found being with you... pleasant. That's not really the right word."
"I know what you mean. I thought you couldn't control it?"
"I can't, but I tend to revisit the same places, the same events sometimes. Over and over."
"Doesn't sound too bad."
Steve closes his eyes briefly against the image of his mother's car exploding. "Not most of the time, no."
"This is what I was talking about. Why bother dating other guys when I had this enigma who appeared and disappeared like magic throughout my life? Everything else was boring by comparison."
"Kono..." Steve isn't even sure he wants to ask, isn't sure which answer to his question he wants to hear. "Didn't you ever go out with anyone else?"
"Oh, sure. I even slept with a couple of them," she says easily, and Steve's stomach twists nastily. "But it never lasted. I'd be at dinner with them and I'd know it wasn't ever going to amount to anything, and it felt pointless to really pay attention to what they were saying, and no one likes being treated like they're insignificant, you know? It wasn't fair of me to do that to them, to drag things out. I stopped, after a while, and no one ever questioned it anymore."
"You were waiting for the guy who helped you with your math homework?"
"You didn't help all that much. Apparently you suck at algebra."
"I hate theoretical numbers," he mutters darkly.
"So you've said." She's laughing at him, eyes sparkling merrily, and he can't help but grin at her.
"It's not nice to laugh at the mathematically-impaired," he says, getting up so he can nudge her backward onto the bed.
She keeps laughing. "You're not mathematically-impaired and you know it. I've seen you calculate wave trajectories in your head, don't pretend otherwise."
He bites at her lip, but doesn't try to remove the shirt. Truth be told, he kind of likes it on her. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Why are we still talking about math?"
"You started it."
Kono shakes her head. "You started it, but I'll forgive you if you finish what you started."
Steve is more than happy to accommodate her request.
February 19th, 2002: Kono is 17, Steve is 3
Kono is already pacing along the beach when he lands in the water this time, queasy and dizzy enough that it takes some effort for him to wade to shore. She doesn't look at him, just thrusts a bundle of cloth at him. It's all clothing his size―she's gotten better at gauging what will fit him, though he doesn't dare ask her where she gets this stuff―black jeans, a black shirt, black socks and a pair of dark grey running shoes.
"I brought you coffee and a sandwich," she jerks her head toward the far end of the beach, where she's left her picnic basket. It's the same basked she's been bringing for at least six years, maybe more, once she understood how to put basic meals together.
"Okay. I still feel sick, so I'll wait a bit," he says, but she's already walking away from him, sits down on the sand and wraps her arms around her knees.
He sits next to her, lets her hand him a sandwich. She's dressed too warmly for the weather, long sleeves and long pants, and her hair is tied back in a pony tail.
"Kono, are you―?" he stops before finishing his question, because it's obvious she's not all right. It's obvious she's been crying. "What's wrong?"
"If I asked you to beat up a guy for me, would you do it?"
He pauses. She knows that he's had to develop a pretty violent skill set in order to survive when he travels, so it's not surprising that she's not questioning whether he could, but rather whether he would. "Yeah, probably," he says. It's true. Somewhere along the way he's gotten rid of a lot of the scruples that would otherwise have gotten him killed or put in jail. He supposes he should be more worried that it's so easy to agree to hurt a person he's never met just because Kono asked him to. "Anyone I know?"
She shakes her head. "I don't think so. Maybe you meet him in the future, but I don't think so. He's older than me. Nearly twenty."
"Did he rape you?"
"He tried. He put something in my drink, but whatever it was, he didn't put enough."
He reaches over to tug down the collar of her long-sleeved shirt, catches sight of a dark bruise on her jaw that hasn't yet begun to heal. There are similar bruises peeking out from the sleeves of her shirt, circling her wrists.
"He cut me," she lifts her shirt, showing a laceration that's been neatly stitched.
Steve traces the outline of the bruises gently with his forefinger, feeling a familiar anger begin to boil just under the surface of his skin. Whoever this guy is, Steve vows to himself, he's going to rip his face right off his skull. He'll rip him limb from limb and then feed the bits to scavengers and dump the rest in the ocean so the sharks will finish him off.
"You want him dead, or you want him mutilated so he'll keep suffering?" he asks quietly, and that makes her laugh even as her eyes fill with tears again. "I'm not actually joking."
"I know. It's nice to know you mean it. Actually, I, uh... I need you to back me up. Would you just come with me?"
"You know where he is?"
"Yes. I just want you there. Please."
"I'll come with you."
He takes a bite of the sandwich, washes it down with coffee. He doesn't feel sick at all anymore.
The guy's name is Tobin. It's a stupid name even by modern standards, and Steve is kind of glad that the guy's parents obviously hate him just as much as everyone else, which is the only possible reason they would have given him such a stupid name. Either that or it's a family name, which is still kind of stupid. Kono has a small leather case that looks a little like an oversized version of those old doctor's bags, but he doesn't ask her what she has in there. He figures she'll tell him when she's good and ready. He has kept so many things from her over the years, she's entitled to her own need-to-know moments. The sun has long since set, but the moon is out and illuminates the guy's front door―he lives in the shittiest-looking apartment building Steve has ever scene, which is saying something―when Kono strides up to it and bangs on it with her fist. Without being told to Steve hangs back, just out of the line of sight from the door, waiting for Kono to give him a sign.
The door opens a crack, then all the way, revealing a tall blond haole, all long muscles and the lean frame of a surfer. He seems surprised, but then, it's not too many victims of attempted rape who return voluntarily to their attacker, Steve supposes.
"Kono! What are you doing here?"
"Tobin," she gives him the smallest of nods. "Can you come out here for a second?"
He steps out gingerly into the building's courtyard. It's filled with garbage and littered with empty beer cans, doubtless the detritus of the college-age dropouts who've all congregated here in order to keep down the cost of rent. It's a pit, even by Steve's standards, and right now Steve lives in a tent on the beach.
"Look, if this is about last night, it was a misunderstanding, okay? I mean, you had a lot to drink, and―" Tobin starts, and that's as far as he gets, because Kono decks him.
It's not the powerhouse kick that's going to become her trademark in the years to come, but Kono's already taken a few classes, and she and Steve have sparred on the beach since she was a little girl, and she knows how to handle herself. Her fist connects solidly with his face, and there's a glint when she moves that tells Steve that somehow, somewhere, his Kono got her hands on some brass knuckles. Tobin's howl of pain is cut short as she drives one bony knee into his crotch, folding him in half. An elbow to the back of the head drives him to his knees, and by then Steve is actually kind of impressed that the guy isn't curled up in a ball on the ground.
He steps up, puts two fingers gently on her arm. "So what do you need me for, exactly?"
"I need you to help me carry him," she says grimly.
It's not enough to break the guy's face and make it a very real possibility that he'll never father children again. Steve's inclination is toward cutting off his dick, because who knows how many other teenagers this asshole has raped in the past? Or will try to rape in the future, for that matter. Kono isn't quite that bloodthirsty, but her solution to the problem is almost as permanent, and Steve has to give her points for creativity. He's only too happy to hold Tobin down while she works, and takes particular pleasure in punching the guy a few more times when he starts struggling to get away.
"Now Tobin," he says calmly, leaning over him and enjoying the look of fear in his eyes. "Is that any way for a gentleman to behave? You roofie a girl and try to rape her, and now you're objecting to her expressing her displeasure? Tsk. Hold still, or I will hurt you a lot more than you are hurting right now, you got me?"
Tobin holds still.
"Good boy."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm nobody you know, Tobin. I'm a friend of Kono's, and if you know what's good for you, when this is over, you will pretend that you and I have never met. With any luck, that will be 99 percent true, because if I ever lay eyes on you again, I will kill you. You get me?"
"Are you kapu?"
It's a valid question, but not one Steve is prepared to answer, because Kono doesn't know that about him. Not yet, and she won't need to know that for several years to come. Besides, he's not in the mood to answer any of this guy's questions anyway. "Do us both a favour, Tobin, and shut up."
Tobin shuts up.
They leave him by one of Honolulu's most heavily-trafficked areas. When he begs them not to leave him exposed like that, tears and snot dribbling down his face, Kono kindly offers to tape his dick up for him, and that makes him shut up.
"You know, I think I like your writing better than mine," Steve opines, looking at her handiwork.
She nods, though not because she's agreeing with what he said. "I practised. I wanted to make sure everyone would be able to read it."
Tomorrow morning, when the little boutiques around here open again, everyone who goes by will be treated to the sight of a naked haole duct-taped to a palm tree with the word 'rapist' tattooed prominently across his chest. Steve had been a little surprised when she pulled out the little starter kit from her bag, but he didn't question it. Points for ingenuity, he thought. For good measure, Kono tattooed an 'R' on Tobin's forehead.
"See if any girl lets him buy her a drink now." She spits at his feet.
They walk back to the beach in silence and sit by the shore, watching the waves. Kono is shivering so hard it almost feels like she's convulsing, and so he wraps them both up in the blanket they keep in the watertight box for emergencies and holds her against his chest until the sun comes up, and the pull of time takes him away from her again.
Part 3