Warning: Slash-if-you-squint
Pairing/Characters: Nathan, Charles
Word Count: 1320
Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I started writing this without any idea of where it was going, besides what the title already tells you. (Hilo, Hawaii, is the pinkest little beachfront town I have ever seen. Seriously.) So, ah… since I didn't know what's going on, neither does anyone else. Nathan is still confused and firmly settled on trying to ignore whatever he might be confused about; Charles, after this, will have to weather the dangers of the power of suggestion.

Hilo Is Brutal

"This is not brutal," Nathan muttered as they walked down the main street through Hilo. "This is the opposite of brutal."

"It is a bit… pastel," Charles agreed.

Nathan scowled. "It's fucking pink. The whole damn town is pink."

Charles sighed. "That's a slight exaggeration…"

When Nathan had burst into his office a little over a week ago and announced that he wanted to go on an anti-honeymoon, Charles had had his suspicions. First, that this had something to do with the recent extravagant wedding of Rebecca Nightrod (still in a coma) to the latest teen heartthrob actor Hollywood had to offer. And second, that he was going to end up with a bad sunburn, because Nathan insisted that he come along and wouldn't be talked out of it. So Charles had booked an entire floor of a resort hotel in Hilo, Hawaii – specifically because it was no longer the tourist hub of the island. Relative privacy was always better when any of the band members insisted on a vacation, and particularly with this one because he didn't quite know what to make of it.

Still wasn't sure, in fact.

"We could cross the street and walk along the beach," Charles suggested. "There's bound to be less pink over there."

"Yeah… Okay."

The big singer stepped casually out into the road without so much as looking for cars. Charles silently thanked whatever higher power was looking over Dethklok that there was no traffic as he followed.

"There's less pink," Nathan confirmed, looking around. "But there's more sand."

Charles sighed again. "I know how you feel about sand, but you did request a tropical island vacation."

"You could have picked an island without sand!"

"I don't believe there are any."

"What about that one somewhere around here that's just a volcano? Like, literally a volcano."

"…You mean Lo'ihi?"

"Yeah, that one."

"That's still underwater."

Nathan frowned. "Oh."

Whatever an anti-honeymoon was supposed to be, Charles was wondering if this was what Nathan had had in mind. He'd been complaining ever since they'd stepped off the plane.

"If it makes you feel any better about this place, it has a history of destructive tidal waves," Charles offered. He noticed Nathan perk up a little, and forged ahead. "In 1946, waves as tall as fifty-five feet destroyed the entire waterfront along here. Houses were ripped from their foundations and hit other buildings, that sort of thing. One hundred and fifty-nine people died. The peninsula – that area over there – wasn't too badly damaged so, when there was a warning in 1960, not everyone evacuated. Sixty-one people died."

"Brutal."

They walked in companionable silence for a while. Charles kept to the sidewalk in an attempt to avoid getting sand in his expensive shoes, but with Nathan kicking up a spray of sand with each step that proved more difficult than he'd expected.

There was work he should be doing – and would be doing as soon as they returned to the hotel, but Nathan had wanted to go out for dinner. Plainclothes klokateers had done some scouting and reported that there was a decent restaurant with the high water lines of various natural disasters it had survived marked on the walls, which seemed like something Nathan would appreciate. And that was pretty much his game plan, insofar as he had one: keeping Nathan happy. Or at content enough not to throw a tantrum and cause a scene.

I suppose this is about as anti-honeymoon as one could get, Charles thought. No wedding, no big send-off, and no company but a lawyer and a protective detail. There has to be some sort of point to it, though…

"Hey," Nathan said suddenly, "when does the sun go down?"

The sun had been low on the horizon and in Charles' eyes ever since they'd started walking. "Ah, soon."

"Let's watch it. The sky looks all bloody and shit."

That was certainly true. Charles pursed his lips in disapproval as Nathan stomped out closer to the surf, then let out a resigned sigh and knelt down to take his shoes off. (No need to take the beach home with him.) He took of his socks and tucked them into the shoes, and then rolled up his pant legs for good measure. They would probably be late for their reservation, but so be it. The assigned time was more of a suggestion than a deadline; money always saw to that.

Nathan watched him out of the corner of his eye as Charles caught up with him, and they both stood watching the sun sink low enough to where it was almost bearable to look at directly for more than a few seconds.

"That's quite a color palette," Charles remarked after a few moments had passed. "Lots of red and orange."

"Yeah," Nathan grunted, glancing at him, "like its on fire or something. Pretty cool to look at." He sounded like he was waiting for a response, but Charles couldn't have begun to guess what he wanted to hear. The last time they'd both seen a big fire he had walked away 'dead.'

"A postcard would be as well," Charles replied. "Nathan… Would you like to tell me why you wanted me to, ah, tag along with you here?"

The big man shifted uncomfortably – but Charles knew him well enough to know the difference between Nathan not liking a question and Nathan not knowing how to respond to one. He waited patiently.

"Uh… Because," Nathan said finally.

Charles raised an eyebrow. 'Because.' That was all he had to go on? Seriously? That was an evasion usually reserved for reporters. "Nathan, your pitch for this trip included the word honeymoon—"

"Anti! That means the opposite. Of. I checked."

"Still," Charles said firmly. "I honestly don't know what kind of conclusion you expect me to come to with language like that."

Now Nathan was glaring at him, and Charles could tell that this was definitely an 'I don't like where this is going' sort of discomfort. By this point Charles was starting to get the feeling that Nathan was practically spelling something out for him in big, easy to read letters, but…

The surf rolled up, higher than before, and got as far as Charles' toes. He glanced distastefully down at the water. It was cold. It didn't look it, and with the day's warmth still hanging in the air it didn't seem like it should be, but it was. Just like, to the casual observer, two people, who had known each other for a long time going off in secret, booking an entire hotel floor, and pausing on the way to dinner at a nice restaurant to watch a beautiful tropical sunset together would look like a couple. But they weren't. He knew Nathan too well to take that nagging suspicion seriously, but.

Honestly, he didn't have any good theories.

"So, just… don't have a conclusion," Nathan snapped. "There isn't one. Fuck." He stomped off, abandoning the rest of the sunset in favor of violently spraying sand everywhere.

Charles closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Another wave rolled up over his toes, reminding him that no matter what he was going to end up with sand in his socks, for reasons he didn't understand. And he was pretty sure now that Nathan didn't even understand – because he knew what moody, 'I don't want to think about this' look all too well.

Personally, Charles agreed with that sentiment. If he'd learned anything from his years of managing Dethklok, it was that some things were simpler if left unanalyzed. Eventually the boys would get distracted and forget about crying in their dressing rooms or trying to lose weight or hiring a yoga instructor or whatever half-formed ideas had come into their heads.

And anyway, this was supposed to be a vacation.

He followed Nathan down the beach towards the restaurant.