Title: To The End

Author: Growly

sesshou_maru@yahoo.com

Fandom: Lion King, Lion King 1

Pairing: Timon/Pumbaa

Rating: PG13 (at most)

Disclaimer: They don't belong to me. All the Lion King characters belong to Disney.

Warnings: Spoilers for Lion King 1 1/2. Intimations at a romantic relationship between males of two different species.

Archive: Of course. If you dare.

Notes: Watch 1 1/2. It's too obvious. Really.


To The End
by Growly


Friends stick together to the end
- Timon (Lion King 1 1/2)


Pumbaa could never pinpoint the exact moment when things changed between himself and Timon. Despite what anyone else might have thought - the meerkat included - he ws far from being stupid. He noticed a lot of things; it was just that he wasn't nearly as outspoken as his friend. It didn't bother him most of the time, just as many of the things that others saw as faults in Timon didn't bother him. After all, it wasn't something that could be helped. Without his faults, he wouldn't be the Timon that Pumbaa loved.

It was a strange concept on the surface: a warthog loving a meerkat, but the pig took it in stride. Hakuna Matata, after all. It also wasn't a subject he had ever broached with Timon either. Knowing his friend as he did (and after the years they had spent together he could honestly say that he knew the meerkat better than anyone) he was quite aware of what Timon's likely view on the matter would be. And it wasn't that Timon didn't - or for that matter couldn't - love him. It was simply that the meerkat was likely to deny it merely on principle. Such was the plucky little animal's nature.

No. He couldn't say anything to Timon. All he could do was wait for Timon to realize it on his own and work his way up to admitting it.

Hakuna Matata. They had time. They had all the time in the world.

~

Fate was a funny thing. When Pumbaa had caught his first glimpse of the solitary meerkat, he'd almost turned and gone the other way. After all, it wasn't like he hadn't approached other animals before. What could be different about this time, this animal?

He didn't think he'd ever know for certain. Maybe it was because Timon was small and apparently defenseless. Maybe it was the way he seemed lost. Or maybe it was just that he was so alone - like Pumbaa was so alone. Of course, their initial meeting had been something less than a screaming success. Well... screaming anyway. Both of them had done a fair share of that. Yet when the meerkat had stretched his skinny little body out on the ground and pleaded with Pumbaa to just "eat him quickly", the warthog had ceased being scared with startling rapidity.

'Poor little thing.' It hadn't taken much to push his presence on Timon - the meerkat had leaped on the offer immediately, although he didn't bother with any pretense of friendship. They were, in his words, acquaintances. It was a start.

Timon's quest for his dream home had led the pair on a journey that encompassed the length and breadth of the pridelands. Throughout their travels Pumbaa had learned a lot about his high strung companion. The meerkat was talkative, easily persuaded, at times quite selfish and self-centered and he was inwardly immature despite being nearly fully grown by the standards of his species. But he was also oddly soft-hearted, creative and a dreamer - as well as being oddly innocent despite his facade of worldliness. It was these qualities that the warthog found himself drawn to.

When they had pulled themselves out of the river and Timon had made up his mind to quit in all his childish despair, Pumbaa realized that he was about to be alone. Again. He had almost cried himself, trying hard to be steady for both their sakes. Tears could only serve to make their parting that much more bitter.

Then Timon had taken hold of his hoof and confessed - "Truth is: I'm all alone too..." The warthog disbelieved his ears for a moment, until the little meerkat had said the words he'd been waiting to hear before. "Pumbaa, you're the only friend I've ever had."

He couldn't help it then. He'd cried happy tears. A friend, at last!

Years later he would still remember the feeling and Timon's words.

"Friends stick together to the end." Indeed.

So they found their hakuna matata, and it was unreasonably perfect - their jungle paradise and their blossoming friendship. If there was a greater happiness to be found then Pumbaa could not fathom it.

Then there came Simba...

The warthog and the meerkat had not been well-suited for parenthood. Pumbaa had the greater success at it for the most part, but he had to admire Timon for trying. He knew it was more difficult for the meerkat because he was still so much a child inside, himself. How could he hope to raise one?

Of course, Timon wasn't really aware of WHY he had such a problem, but he knew that it existed. That in itself rather surprised the warthog.

The meerkat had come up to hime one day after the lion cub had settled in for a nap. Pumbaa looked at his smaller friend, felt the brush of soft fur against his belly as Timon climbed to his normal perch and listened to his friend's heaving breaths as he struggled to quell his exhaustion. Long after the point he'd thought Timon had finally dozed off, he felt the meerkat uncurl and rest his tiny head belong the curve of the warthog's throat.

"I tell you, Pumbaa," Timon sighed, "getting through my own childhood was hard enough... surviving Simba's is gonna take a miracle."

Neither of them had ever really brought up the subject of their pasts before, despite their time together. Pumbaa hadn't sought to pry, and this small hint was enough to make him wonder. Yet he couldn't ask. It had been an unspoken agreement between them - to leave the past where it belonged. Behind them.

A promise that had only come into being to save them from the pain of any unpleasant memories that might be lurking. A promise that Timon was the first to break - Pumbaa had already realized a while ago that such would have to be the case. Timon always needed to know it was his choice. The warthog could not deny his friend that right, no matter the cost.

"I'm turning into my mother." The comment was so quiet that Pumbaa could almost be sure that he hadn't heard it at all - if Timon hadn't given a brief, humorless laugh afterwards.

"Timon?"

That laugh again, and it was almost bitter this time. "She was always so protective. 'Don't go there, Timmy!', 'That's too dangerous, Timmy!'" The meerkat shifted restlessly. "I used to hate it, you know."

Pumbaa didn't know, but he nodded anyway, not trusting himself to words. This was the Timon he had sometimes glimpsed beneath that feckless exterior. This Timon was carrying around the hurt that made that OTHER Timon necessary for self-preservation.

The meerkat's voice had gone soft again. "I think I get it now. She was just scared to lose me. Like she lost Dad." He was quiet for a moment and Pumbaa sought to comfort him, feeling the hurt in his friend as if it was some tangible object lurking beneath that pale fur.

"Gee, Timon... I'm sorry abo-" He never finished. The meerkat cut him off, his voice suddenly sharp.

"Don't be!" The 'tough' Timon was back in force. "I didn't really know him anyway." He was trying to bury the subject, and such was the desperation in his tone that Pumbaa let him. Sooner or later it would come out, it had to, but not now. Now when things were so fragile. He let it drop and just lay quietly while Timon curled into a ball and pretended to sleep. Pumbaa knew better from the little quivers that ran through the meerkat's frame.

'My poor Timon...' The warthog grieved too, for whatever pain it was that his friend could not trust him with.



*end part 1*