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now through & through i’ve come undone
She had come in, after the fight, because she needed to lick her wounds. Like a wild animal, you had to go to your den to do that. This was hers: the back room at Cobra Kai, where Cobra Kai Never Dies glowered at her from the wall, and everything smelled of sour old sweat with a faint coppery underpinning of blood.
She had lost it. She knew that: it was not a fucking joke to have looked at Sam LaRusso the way she had, the way she always did. If Hawk and the others had not come in to stop her who knew when it would have ended? Tory would have gone on until the end of her body, until she was crawling. LaRusso was the better fighter; she knew that. But she did not have Tory’s bloody mouth, the curse that Tory carried with her every moment, which bayed for LaRusso’s throat between Tory’s teeth.
It was not fucking healthy. If it had been her looking upon it, from a distance, from the safety of outside of her body with its clenched fists and screaming heart, she might have done what Hawk had done, and fled with her tail between her legs. Miyagi-do would never have taken her. She would never belong with those soft children.
With Miguel.
When she closed her eyes, even now, she saw him fall. The sickening crack of his spine lulled her to sleep. The way he’d just - lain there . She had known it was bad from the sound, of course, and the fall, but it had been the curl of his fingers that really hammered it home; a half-curl, the kind nobody’s hand naturally fell into. Like he’d been trying to grab onto something, and had not made it.
Even now, even in that fight which she had been at the front of, where her blood had risen up in her like the way they spoke about Vikings going to war - even then, maybe, if Miguel had put out his hands and caught her - maybe that would have calmed her. Maybe then she would have been able to breathe.
But he had not, and she had remained asphyxiated that whole long fight, vision blurring at the edges from oxygen deprivation. Now her fists hit the bag one after another, in a staccato melody that vibrated up her knuckles and into her chest, rolling through her in wave after wave. She imagined that the bag was LaRusso, and that it was Hawk, and her fucking dad, and every guy who had looked at her and let his hands wander. Mostly fucking LaRusso, though. God: she would love to get blood all over her hands. She would love it to stick beneath her nails, and get into her teeth. It would have run down when she showered, turned the whole shower floor bright red.
Yeah. Fucked up. Call someone who cares, why don’tcha?
She heard him come in - a slow creak of the door, the soft sound of bare feet on the mats - but he did not speak so she didn’t stop punching. Her knuckles had moved beyond hurt long ago into simple sensation . Her chest hurt when she breathed, on fire, but that didn’t mean she needed to stop. That was what Sensei was teaching them: you struck first, and then you kept on striking .
Finally the sweat stung her eyes and she had to pull off to wipe it out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “Good show?”
Robby Keene turned his mouth up at the corner. “Pretty good.”
She’d always thought of him as some insufferable pretty-boy, happy to ride LaRusso’s coattails and probably her candy-cane flavoured cunt. Then he’d kicked Miguel over the railing and that was game over for both their lives.
But they’d left him like trash, just like they’d left her. She knew what that was, what that made you into. How you thought someone good wanted to touch you, and how it was like ripping off your skin when you realized it had been bullshit all along.
And he’d stolen the fucking snake with his bare hands. That was fucked up.
“Sensei’s asleep,” he said, like an offering. He stood with a straight back and his hands behind it; parade rest. “I can get him if you want.”
“I’m good,” she said, taking it for the warning it was. “You want me to get out?”
He shook his beautiful head. “Don’t stop on my account. Your hand’s bleeding, though.”
She looked down. She had broken the skin on the right hand; the left was just red from impact. She was going to have to wipe down the bag with real bleach, not just the sani spray. Not now, though. She wiped the back of her hand against her thighs; it might have hurt but she was so raw nothing hurt distinctly. “I wanted to kill your girlfriend,” she said. "Or seriously injure her, at least."
“What stopped you?” he asked. He took slow, careful steps towards her. She had noticed this about him: he didn’t move like other men, or even other boys, who took her space like it was owed to them. Robby Keene was careful; he offered her enough distance to see that he was coming, and watched to see that she was not pulling away.
“Jesus,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be saying get fucking therapy? ”
“Probably,” he said. He came to a stop two persons' widths away from her: close enough that she could see that there was an enormous bruise on the side of his face, and a cut over his eye that had been bandaged shut. His lip was swollen, too. “She was here, before. She seemed fine.”
“Sounds about right,” she said. “No apologies either?”
He inclined his head a few degrees to the left. “Nope.” He popped the p like he was chewing gum and then she saw him wince, a fraction of a moment’s worth of hurt flashing through his face.
That wince had been a real moment of agony, so she stepped forward, hands out flat and empty so he would know she wasn’t coming with knives. When she looked closer she saw that the bruise extended up into his hairline. “Hope the other guy looks worse.”
“You mean my dad? ” he asked. “Nah, he looks fine too.” He said it so easily that it must have hurt. Nobody talked like that without it being dragged out of them.
She thought: my dad’s a real piece of shit , and I’m fucking sorry and I never would have thought Sensei Lawrence would do that . She said none of those things.
“I was outnumbered,” she offered, returning to his first question. “Hawk switched sides. I wanted to keep going.”
“And she’s better than you are.” This was an even observation, without malice. Just the fact of the thing, and even though she knew it herself she still scowled to hear it.
“She doesn’t follow through,” she said. It was a weak bitch thing to say, and she knew that . No fucking excuses in this dojo, Nichols. “I want it more than she does.”
“One day that’ll count,” he said. “Not yet, though.” When he spoke little tremors racked his body. It must have hurt his split lip when he talked.
“Hold still,” she said, moving slowly, like she was approaching a hurt animal. Like a horse girl in some bullshit movie would reach out to a hurt horse to stop it kicking her in the face.
(She wondered if Sam LaRusso had been a horse girl. Probably. Nobody had hair that stupid without having been a horse girl in her formative years.)
Tory was a hurt animal enough for the both of them. But she knew better than to think the world stopped piling shit on you just because you’d had enough.
“He threw me head first into the lockers,” he said, holding himself in that same parade rest, stiff enough that she knew her gaze must have had him unsettled. “He said, I’m not going to fight you, and the next thing I know I’m blacked out. Dad of the year, right?”
“This year,” she said. “For sure. When my dad was around he’d give yours a run for his money, but the last time I got a postcard he was in Arizona and I was fifteen, so who the fuck knows?”
He looked at her for a long moment, and then he laughed. That must have fucking hurt, because he put his hand to his side and buckled at the knees a little. “Fuck.”
“Sorry,” she said. She could have offered him a hand to steady himself but she didn’t. “How long were you out?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Not long. Nobody called an ambulance.”
She thought traumatic brain injury . She hadn’t been taking care of her mom long enough to not know some first aid. It wasn’t bright in her mind but she knew enough to know that losing consciousness was not a good sign. “That doesn’t mean shit,” she said. “Sensei Kreese would fireman-carry you to the ER before he’d call you an ambulance.”
“Probably for the best,” he said, “considering my insurance.” She noticed for the first time his bare feet; his toes curled into the mat, like he needed help to hold himself upright, to the earth.
“Fair enough.” She flexed her bleeding hand. Now some of the adrenaline had bled out and she could feel that it was beginning to sting. “You’re sleeping here?”
He looked like he was considering a lie, some kind of dignity to be defended, and then he shrugged. “Yeah.”
“My couch is okay,” she said. “And I know first aid. Like, from this century. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
He took a long breath. His eyes searched her face, and she searched his in exchange. She wondered what she looked like. Sweating, bloodied, feral maybe. Like something pulled out of the dark underneath Sam LaRusso’s bed. “Thanks,” he said finally. “That would be okay.”
-
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. He looked away, out the window of her piece of shit car into the cold city night. “He’ll - I have to be there in the morning, anyway. I said I’d help with the mats.”
Her stomach turned. She knew better than to ask anything about anyone’s deal with Sensei Kreese - she sure as hell wouldn’t answer if anyone asked for any details about hers. “I’m not fucking around with head trauma,” she said. “I know what Sensei says, but you were out cold. They made me take first aid before they let me be primary caretaker for my mom.”
“Your mom?”
She sighed. “Dialysis,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t end up where you did. I take care of her, and my little brother.”
“Oh.” He tipped his face against the window. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.” She drew her gaze back onto the dark road. “How was juvie, you make any friends?”
“Oh, tons.” He grinned, a wide dimpled smile that did not meet his eyes. “It was like summer camp. We made friendship bracelets. We’re going to the spa next week.”
She let herself laugh, a little bark, sharp with teeth. “Yeah,” she said. “Sounds about right.”
She had not turned the radio on. She was thinking about arrangements, about the things you accepted when you were desperate.
Aisha had told her about the tournament, on their way home from the beach club, that first day. How Robby Keene had fought unaffiliated until the last match, when Daniel LaRusso had emerged to claim him, like the last puppy in the litter. How Hawk had hit Keene so hard and so dirty they had been sure he would not keep going. He had kept going, while LaRusso watched him.
She knew what it was like to want to do anything if only you would be looked at as a person. He had put his bare hand in for the snake. She had done - fuck. So many things.
She had told Hawk to break Demetri's arm. That was on her. It had driven him away; she had judged him wrong. She'd thought they were alike.
It wasn't like Sensei Kreese had saved her from it. She'd let him think he had, not just because it made him smug and patronizingly benevolent, but because when she stepped inside the walls of that dojo she became that girl, the one who had been saved. The one for whom that offer of the rent deferral had been the first one, not one of many.
Sensei Kreese had not looked at her like that. She'd been grateful. She was still grateful. To be seen as a person who fought was, she was realizing, an especially precious thing when you were also a girl.
But she saw the way he looked at Robby. She saw the way Sensei Lawrence flinched when he was touched. Two golden boys, the jewels in Sensei Kreese's trophy case.
It was nothing of hers to say. She had never saved anyone and she wasn't going to start now. It was only intuition. It would be better if she was wrong.
"Pull over," he said, suddenly. "Now. Please."
She didn't protest, just did it. Before the car had stopped rolling he was pushing his door open, crawling out onto the sidewalk to throw up.
She gave him the dignity of her averted gaze, watching the cars streak past them. It had begun to rain. She and Miguel had watched Blade Runner with Hawk, in the summer, before everything went to shit. Hawk had slapped them both when they drowsed, saying this is the best part . The android standing in the dark, the rain falling endlessly around him, listing a life of military accomplishment before his inevitable death. All these moments are gone, like tears in the rain.
She thought about that now, when it rained.
He finished retching and hovered at the passenger door.
"You good now?" Good. Okay, she thought. Like that happens to people like you.
"Close enough," he said, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. "I can - go back to the dojo."
"C'mon," she said. "You think that's the first time someone's puked out of this car? Look at it."
"Thanks," he said, again. He got back in the car. "Good reflexes."
"Good warning," she countered. She flipped the indicator and got back onto the road.
-
He looked younger when he was asleep, less dangerous. He had curled into himself on the couch, turned his face against the cushions and pulled his knees into his chest. He wasn’t tall but he wasn’t a small guy; she was impressed by how small he had made himself. She knew what it took to make you sleep small like that. She bet LaRusso had never slept that way, not once in all her charmed life.
She padded around him, on the balls of her feet like Sensei Lawrence had taught her, going to the kitchen to start the motions of the day. Coffee, first. Seth would be up any time; she was lucky he hadn’t woken Robby. Mom wouldn’t. Tory would have to go and wake her, and check on the machines, and see if any laundry needed to be done.
She didn’t have work until later. She was scheduled for the lunch rush, she’d come in for eleven. She poured cereal for Seth, just enough milk on top. Maybe if she asked him nicely he’d stay in his room: she didn’t want to introduce him to Robby. It was too much work. Sometimes he still asked about Miguel.
She was sore as shit. Her hands were screaming. She'd felt worse after the fight in the high school, but only then. Her arms ached like she had been dragged behind something.
The pile of blankets stirred. The dark head emerged, green eyes blinking at her. "Hi."
"Morning," she said. "How's the head?"
"An absolute motherfucker," he confessed, sitting up to press his palm against the side of his scalp. "Worse than when he hit me, honestly."
She shook out Tylenol next to a glass of water. "Here you go."
"Thanks."
She looked at him and then handed over the bowl of cereal she'd meant for her brother. "Don't take pills on an empty stomach."
"Don't I know it," he said. "I'll be out of your hair -"
"Eat your cereal," she said. "You're doing me a favour. The super's a creep, he'll back off if there's a guy over."
He looked at her carefully, too alert for this early in the morning. "Yeah?"
"And you still need to rest. Win-win situation. I have work later so I'll take you back to the dojo on my way. Sound good?"
"Careful, Nichols," he said. "I'm gonna think you have a heart."
She grinned. "Spread that around and I'll feed you your tongue."
Despite himself he fell back asleep. She brought Seth his cereal and went to deal with her mom. She was so caught up in the routine that she almost forgot he was there, until she passed by the couch and saw him there again.
It startled her every time. She did not want him there, no matter how softly he looked at her or how bad the bruising looked. Her gut did not trust him, not in her home , where nobody else was allowed to step.
But he was here. She tucked the blanket around his shoulders and told Seth to be quiet. Her hands continued to throb.
-
She parked in front with a screech of rubber. Part of her didn't want to go in. Wanted to never go in again, wanted to run screaming.
She stamped on it fiercely, as she always did. She got out of the car and followed him in.
The dojo smelled like cigar smoke. They toed off their shoes and bowed to the mat. Sensei was not there to stare at them but it was an ingrained thing.
"You don't have to stay."
"It's fine," she said. "I don't have to be at work for another hour."
"Thanks."
She nodded. "I don't pay dues, either. So I help out too."
His gaze changed, considering. "We should start in front."
"Okay."
It was never easy between them. They were both too rough around the edges, splintering. His proximity made her nerves revolt, her hackles rise. It must have been the same for him, because he kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, with his jaw clenched.
But they got the mats done and moved to the back room to do the equipment there. He was moving slowly, but so was she. So it was a stalemate, and nobody could ask them to fight to the death.
Sensei's presence came upon them there, like a stormcloud. "Miss Nichols. How unusually lovely to see you here so early."
"I have work soon," she said, bowing to him. "But I'll be here for class tonight, Sensei."
"Good." He turned his gaze to Robby. He looked at Robby like he was a thing. "Welcome back. When you weren't here this morning I wondered if you had made a bad decision."
Robby flinched. It was barely perceptible, except that she had spent the past twelve hours staring, in case of a brain bleed or something else apocalyptic that WebMD was thrilled to tell her about. "No, Sensei. I'm still here."
It was a stupid thing to do. She didn't know what possessed her, except maybe the strike first on the wall. The knowledge that Robby thought that nobody cared about him, not a single other person. "Sensei, we were just having a little fun. Weren't you young once?"
He looked between them. The air was tight. She was sure he was going to say why are you lying to me, Nichols? But he didn't; he just looked at them and then he laughed. "All right," he said. "As long as you remember that in here, you're mine."
"Yes, Sensei." If she could have she'd have held out her hand for Robby, and maybe he'd have taken it. But she couldn't, so they just stood there, with all that distance between them.