Kaldur didn’t know how they even got here. Something about locked ancient doors always having some riddle or secret as the key. And, of course, the mission came first. So he’d admitted, in his quietest voice and to his and Wyynde’s dismay that he harbored feelings for another.
And then they were swimming inside, and Wyynde was silently pleading “Who is it? Why didn’t you tell me?” with his big eyes, while Delphis probably wished she hadn’t followed them now. La’gaan—the nice guy—offered encouragements, each more grating than the last. “Wyynde, you know Kaldur still loves you. The heart doesn’t always want just one person. Kaldur, I’m sure whoever it is likes you back.”
And then the catacombs were caving in, and La’gaan held the ceiling above them like Atlas holding up the world. Kaldur knew all that, but he still didn’t know why he opened his stupid mouth.
“I love you!”
Wyynde was shocked enough to drop his spell, and La’gaan shook under the weight of 12,000 years of ruins and Kaldur’s confession. Which one was heavier, he had to wonder. “Neptune’s beard!” La’gaan roared, puffing up more, “You’re telling me this now? I have a baby on the way!”
Rejection had always stung Kaldur into paralysis before, but somehow, this pierced him all the way through, impaled his insecurities, and broke them in two. Whipping out his waterbearers he created solid liquid columns to push the ceiling up to a greater height than La’gaan could hope to achieve.
“I’m sorry, La’gaan,” bit out Aquaman, “When would have been a better time? When you left the Team to avoid M’gann? Or perhaps when you became a professor at the Sorcery Academy? Maybe I should have told you on the day of my inauguration as Aquaman into the Justice League while you stayed home kissing your fiancés!
“You do not speak of them in that tone!” With an ounce more provocation, La’gaan might drop the ceiling just to pummel Kaldur.
“Woah! Maybe we should just-” now Delphis tried to interject, but it was too late. She dodged a piece of falling debris.
“No, I had my turn, allow La’gaan to say his piece.”
“So this is what you’re really like?” La’gaan eyes widened as if truly seeing Kaldur for the first time, and Kaldur felt suddenly as bare and vulnerable as he did with M’gann and Artemis in his broken mind, “You pretend to be mature and take the high road, but really you’re counting each little slight and stewing in petty resentment?”
Dolphin’s hands pressed against Kaldur’s back like she was trying to catch him—or perhaps he flinched backwards into her. He couldn’t tell. His ears felt hot with embarrassment, shame, and rage all swimming together in a feeding frenzy on his heart.
“Maybe it is-“ Kaldur had tried to say, but Wyynde has shaken himself from his stupor enough to summon a current so strong it righted the falling structures while knocking La’gaan backwards.
“You do not speak of my boyfriend like that!” grabbing La’gaan be the fins, Wyynde surprised them all by headbutting the fishman and screaming, “Kaldur is the most selfless, humble, caring man in sea, land, or sky! If he wants to be a little bitchy about unrequited feelings, you are going to sit there and take it! He’s earned some Hades-damned selfishness!”
At the end of his speech, Wyynde sat back, out of breath and shaking. Delphis grabbed his arm and pulled him further away. La’gaan remained puffed up and defensive, but he said, rubbing his now sore forehead,
“Who said it was unrequited?”
Kaldur felt his hold on the protective bubble around them waver, and his heart dropped like a stone in a trench. “But you…”
Dragging his hand across his head, La’gaan groaned, “I was trying to keep the roof from crushing us! I never said I don’t like you!”
From where Kaldur’s adoptive sister still hung onto him, Wyynde asked—sounding hopeful instead of self-conscious, “So you like him?”
“Of course I do. Since—like—forever. Literally everyone loves Kaldur!”
“That’s not,” Kaldur mumbled, but the others said in unison.
“It’s true.”
“But you,” Kaldur repeated himself, now finishing his sentence, “were so mad. And your baby...”
“Yah, Kaldur, having a new baby is a really carp time to start dating someone.”
The former leader of the League rocked back on his heels. In preparing so thoroughly for rejection, it was mutuality that stunned him now. Kaldur darted his eyes to his boyfriend. He and Wyynde would need a longer conversation than meaningful eye contact could convey. And La’gaan would have to talk to Coral and Rodunn. Even after confessing and being accepted, nothing was guaranteed.
But, the regret he’d felt the moment the words spilled out, like so many cats from a bag, dissipated as La’gaan patted the top Kaldur’s hand, “But, thank you for telling me how you feel.”
Wyynde reached for Kaldur’s other hand, thumbing his skin icon. “You can do that more often,” he whispered. “Like when we’re not in mortal danger.”
“Speaking of which,” Delphis piped up, by now surely regretting her tagging along, “We’re still trapped under a giant statue of Wyynde’s great-great-great-something grandfather, so you all should talk after we’re out of here.”
Garth going to hang out with Kaldur and seeing his random underclassman La’gaan clinging to his best friend like a remora: Who the fuck are you?
La’gaan looking Garth over, unimpressed at this human-looking diplomat who can barely get the UN to pass minimal ocean protection policies and who passed up both the chance to be Aqualad AND to have a threesome with Kaldur: Who the fuck are you?
Only one thing can bring Garth and La’gaan together:
Garth and La’gaan bickering as they swim behind Kaldur. They stop when they realize Wyynde has come up to Kaldur all flirtatious smiles and pick up lines and even a hand placed “innocently” on his shoulder.
A hand they promptly smack away, Garth and La’gaan each hugging one of Kaldur’s arms and glaring daggers at Wyynde until he leaves. Kaldur remains oblivious that it was even flirting and is just happy Garth and La’gaan aren’t arguing anymore.
Garth and La’gaan nod at each other. They may have their differences but they’ll be damned if they let fucking Wyynde swoop in and woo Kaldur.
“Wonderful to finally meet you, Wyynde. Kaldur has told me so much about you.” Will offers his hand to the Atlantean.
“It is good to finally meet Kaldur’s best friend on the surface.” Wyynde shakes the earther’s hand, even though that is not the Atlantean way. He is on his best behavior tonight at the Atlantean diplomatic gala. Will, as the adopted son of one of the billionaires hosting the event, would have had an invite even without his connection to Kaldur.
The two enjoy a pleasant chat before Kaldur returns from the restroom and sweeps Wyynde away to meet the infamous Dick Grayson.
Will turns around to grab another drink, only to find two different Atlanteans in his path. Garth and La’gaan, who both clean up quite nice in their formal Atlantean attire, glare at Wyynde’s back.
“You two seemed real chummy.” It is hard to read the Atlantean’s scaly expression, but his voice holds clear distaste.
“How can you be so nice to him?” Garth asks, aghast. He is well aware of how Will and Kaldur had once been closer than just friends.
“He makes Kaldur happy, and that makes me happy.”
“You’re seriously okay with this?” La’gaan asks, pointing to where Kaldur and Wyynde talk with Dick, Wyynde’s hand low on the small of Kaldur’s back.
Will gives the jealous Atlanteans a smile. But behind his eyes, La’gaan and Garth are suddenly reminded of his deadly ex-wife and the time he spent training under the League of Shadows.
Okay so like! A major theme of this season was basically representation and how being out can serve as an inspiration to others like you. Garfield and Eduardo inspiring metas and teens, Brion inspiring Markovians (yeah we’re not gonna talk about where that went), M’comm trying to inspire revolution in White Martians, Forager deciding to live openly as an alien, and Conner finally becoming a public hero to help the Genomorphs.
Kaldur meanwhile already served as inspiration in season 1! Other not-human-passing (I don’t want to call them “impure” that’s fucked up) Atlanteans saw him fighting beside their King on the world stage. La’gaan says Kaldur was an inspiration to him! But La’gaan has also struggled and resented not being able to participate fully in surface life because of his appearance.
So if instead of human-passing Wyynde (who is otherwise fine but his history I really have a hard time overlooking), it was La’gaan dating Kaldur? La’gaan serving as an advisor to the king? La’gaan going to the surface again to help to save the world and ease a bit of its weight from Kaldur’s shoulders, it would all serve to imply that La’gaan has continued to work for the equality of all Atlanteans, and if it were La’gaan with his arm around Kaldur in that diner, surrounded by all their friends, it would have shown that the surface world is changing and growing more accepting of those who don’t look human AND it would have been a soft and beautiful conclusion to La’gaan’s arc.
My personal canon is Kaldur is dating La’gaan, who upon introduction to Dolphin, immediately takes her under his wing and she quickly becomes his favorite pupil at the Conservatory of Sorcery.
