Kon-El and Bart Allen have a completely ordinary afternoon's interaction. Well, ordinary for any interaction that involves Bart.

WARNINGS:
Plotless and pointless and cute and fluffy. Written just for the fun of it.
Slight hints of a relationship that's more than just 'best buds 4-eva'.
Did I mention it was totally pointless?

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Kon plucked the iPod off Bart's chest and looked incuriously at the screen, and all Bart did was blink rapidly. After a moment, so did Kon. "Cole Porter?" he asked, in much the same tone of voice he might have used to say 'it's bubonic plague and it will make me bald?' or 'so you're saying I can't ever have sushi again ever?'. "You're listening to Cole Porter?"

"Eh?" Bart whipped one hand up and yanked the earbuds out. "What?"

Unwilling to let this go, Kon grabbed one and stuck it in his own ear. "Cole Porter!" he repeated, suspicions confirmed.

"What about him? That's unsanitary." Bart yanked on the cord again, snapping the earbud out of Kon's ear. It bounced off Kon's fingers and hit Bart in the eye. Bart yelped, clapping both hands to his face. "Owww ow ow that's so unsanitary I'm gonna die of alien clonebaby earwax germs in my retinaaaaa ow call the Weekly World News ow ow ow--"

"That's what you get," Kon said distractedly, spinning through the iPod's menu. "Why are you listening to Cole Porter?"

"Ow ow ow ow checked the CD out of the library and ripped it ow super dork."

Kon thumped Bart's stomach with one fist, still watching the songs scroll by on the little screen. Bart said "Oog!" and folded up, trapping Kon's hand. "Quit complaining," Kon told Bart, scritching at his belly, since it was there and all. "You're completely faking. And a criminal and a music pirate. I'm telling the RIAA on you. Why did you get a Cole Porter CD?"

"I liked the cover," Bart said sullenly, a wadded-up lump of speedster around Kon's hand, his belly quivering under Kon's fingers, his face half-smashed into the couch cushions. "Gimme back my 'pod."

"You got the CD just because you liked the cover gah!" Kon dropped the iPod and snapped the spinning CD case out of the air the instant before it could smash into his nose. Not that it would have actually hurt, but it was the principle of the thing. Bart, who (as far as Kon could tell) hadn't moved, flicked out a hand and caught the iPod neatly as it fell. "Brat," Kon informed him before turning his attention to the CD. 

Bart beamed, suddenly and utterly serene again now that he had his iPod back, and his hand and the iPod vanished back into the pile of him. "It's pronounced Bart, superstupe."

"Same difference."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"No," Bart said, content now that the ritual of name-calling had been completed, and he oozed off the couch to splat out on the floor instead, earbuds already back in his ears.

Kon's fingers trailed down Bart's leg as he went, and he ended up with Bart's foot jittering in his lap. Kon absently fiddled with the cuff of Bart's jeans, studying the cover of the CD. "So what's so special about this cover? I don't get it."

"The guy in the picture looks really happy."

"... happy." Kon flicked the CD over and eyed the track list, then put it down. "So you got the CD because the guy on the cover, who I can only assume is, you know, Cole Porter, looked happy."

"Hey, it's a free loaner CD, for that kind of price I can be as irrational as I want hey quit that!"

"What?" Kon said, all innocence, pulling Bart's sneaker the rest of the way off. "Shouldn't wear your shoes in the apartment. Bad for the carpet."

"Hawaiian," Bart said, as if this were somehow devastating, appropriate, and/or insulting. He wiggled his toes at Kon. There was a hole in his sock. There was always a hole in his sock. It was probably a law of the universe, all speedsters must have at least one hole in their socks at all times--the toe of Bart's other sneaker poked Kon's thigh. "Might as well get this one too, you're being so anal..."

"Oh, you think this is anal? I'll show you anahahrmngrk."

Bart's beaming grin was all innocence. "We'll explore your ass issues later, SuperOverShare. Shoe now."

"Shoe," Kon muttered, and yanked Bart's other sneaker off, throwing them both in the general direction of the front hallway with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary. There was a loud hollow-sounding thud. Plaster flaked gently to the carpet. "So, anyway!" Kon said brightly, grabbing one of Bart's ankles and squeezing hard. "Cole Porter!"

"Cole P-owwwww!" Bart yelped and kicked Kon smartly in the ribs with his free foot. It didn't hurt, but it succeeded in getting Bart's general disapproval across. "That's my tarsus, I totally need that, you don't get worker's comp in this business, quit it, I'm sorry, ow ow ow ow OW ow..."

"Tarsus," Kon sniffed, easing up slightly but not letting go. "Library. Cole Porter. Intellectual."

"He was totally gay, you know."

Kon's expression slid rapidly from 'blank' to 'hunted'. "Wha--"

"Cole Porter!" Bart yanked his ankle free with one great backwards heave that sent him somersaulting over to land on all fours on the carpet. Instantly he was up, standing on one foot and scratching the back of his calf with the other. His battered iPod rattled about as he gestured, caged in his fingers. "They totally made a movie all about it, right? Just recently? Kevin Kline? Named after one of his songs? D-something?"

"D-something? One of Kevin Kline's songs? What?"

"No, doof, here, gimme--" The CD vanished off the coffee table and Bart squinted at it. "Here, De-Lovely, that's it, totally about him being gay, Cole Porter I mean not Kevin Kline, Kevin Kline just played him, and his wife being way okay with it, I mean Cole Porter's wife in case you forgot, I read a review--"

"What does any of that have to do with anything?" Kon asked hopelessly. Conversations with Bart always ended up like this.

"I dunno." The CD was back on the table and Bart was thumbing rapidly at his long-suffering iPod. "The music's kinda neat."

"Huh." Kon eyed the CD like it might bite him. "It doesn't seem like your kind of music, you usually like stuff that's..."

"Louder? Faster? More with the bass and the gyrating dancers and the heavy drum tracks?" Bart finished for him, still poking at his iPod. "Come ooooon--"

"Yeah," Kon said. "And less with the totally lame."

"It's not lame."

"It's completely lame! It's Cole Porter! This isn't 1820 or whatever." Kon shook his head sadly. "They're going to take away your membership in the cool kids' club for this. Mine too, because I'm still speaking to you, you Lame Scout of America."

"I refuse to be a member of any club that would have me!" Bart stabbed at the iPod one last time. "Actually, that's not true, I just refuse to be a member of any club that would have you. Ahh." His face screwed up in something like a smile, only demented and crooked, and he sang at the top of his cracked little lungs, "You'd be so nice to come home to... you'd be so nice by the fire..."

Kon immediately slammed both hands over his ears and collapsed into a thrashing huddle onto the couch, kicking at one armrest and yelling "AUUUUUGH EARDRUMS NOT INVULNERABLE ENOUGH THE PAIN THE PAIN! MAKE IT STOP!"

Bart's ripsaw laugh stuttered out under the mangled lyrics and he pounced on Kon, arms and legs splaying out everywhere as he made a pretense of pinning him to the couch. "YOU'D BE SO NICE, YOU'D BE PARADISE TO COME HOME TO AND LOVE!" he half-sang half-shouted directly into Kon's ear. Kon screwed up his face and clawed at his ears and bellowed a wordless roar in between sniggers, not quite managing to drown Bart out. Only the sound of their upstairs neighbor banging on the ceiling made them quit, and by that point they were both laughing more than anything else. Bart eventually rolled off Kon to fall to the floor with a thud, still breathless from laughing. "See, that?" Bart wheezed, holding his belly with both hands. "That was totally cool."

"Totally awful, you mean," Kon gasped, sitting up and scraping his fingers through his hair. "Why do you even try to sing? It's like a biological weapon or something. Uh. One that, I dunno, targets the ears."

"Oh, like you could do so much better, superjerk." Bart sat up a moment later, his floppy hair a total loss for the day, and glanced around. "Hey, where'd my 'pod go?"

"Shut up! I'm a great singer!"

"Oh, yeah? Prove it. Where's my 'pod..."

Kon scowled, took a deep breath, and sang, "We're all alone, no chaperone... can get our number, the world's in slumber--let's misbeAWK!"

His voice cut off abruptly, as Bart pounced on his knees, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. (Privately, Kon generally labeled this Bart-expression the 'OMGOMG' look.) Bart shot out one trembling finger to point straight at Kon's face. "YOU KNOW COLE PORTER SONGS BY HEART OH MY GOD YOU TOTAL FAKER YOU ARE SO LAME!" (Kon couldn't help but mentally add 'OMG!'.)

Kon promptly flushed red. "Ma Kent likes Cole Porter," he muttered, crossing his arms defensively and staring off over Bart's head at the far wall.

Bart folded his arms on top of Kon's lap and dropped his head into his arms, his shoulders shaking. "Oh my God... you totally had me going... and here you totally totally know those songs already..."

"Shut up!" Kon covered his face with one hand. "Oh my God could this get any more embarrassing?"

Bart's face popped back up, pink and flushed. "Sing it again."

"I had to ask! No."

"Please?"

"No!"

"C'mon, please?" Bart settled in at Kon's feet, resting his cheek on his crossed arms. "I wanna hear you sing it again."

"I said no."

"Pleeeease? If I promise not to ever tell anybody ever? Pleeeeeease?"

"AUGH GOD NOT THE PUPPY-DOG EYES okay okay okay."

"Yay!"

Kon sighed, took a couple of deep breaths, and sang, "Every time we say goodbye I die a little..."

Bart, for a miracle, was quiet all the way through the song, despite it being the wrong one. Once Kon was done Bart blinked once or twice and then said, "I was totally lying, you know?"

"Huh?"

"I already knew you were a great singer. Like, before you even started."

"... shut up."

"Make me."

"Brat."

"That's still not my name, Kon."

Anyway. I was listening to the CD and reading a book and little bits of this fic kept popping up in my brain, so after an hour or so I went upstairs and wrote it down. It took maybe two hours. Not exactly my most involved effort, no. But it's cute and silly and maybe a little funny and hey, that's all it needed to be.

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