Chapter Text
Hawk just finished watching a YouTube video of two scrawny kids sparring, his face showing no signs of amusement. If Hawk had physically been in that space, he’d pummel those dorks in a heartbeat. He could take everyone down in three minutes tops.
But of course, he wasn’t.
He closed the tab before any more of these ludicrous matches show up on his recommended feed.
It's been a few days since Hawk did any karate-related antics, which he figured was the most ideal way to spend this small break—even if it felt like something inside him always ached to come out.
It was also exactly two days before Christmas, and Hawk couldn’t care less. He figured the bruises that needed to heal were more important than spending the rest of his days preparing for the celebration of some silly tradition. Eventually it boiled down to screwing around with whatever was in his room.
Just the other day he tried styling his hair every which way besides the usual mohawk, until he got frustrated and left it alone. By nighttime, he wore what he calls a “usual house beanie” to hide his high-contrast hair. His folks never bothered to question this fashion choice, only that it was a “look”.
Whatever.
He kept trying to deny the fact that his brain was barely holding the capacity to contain the thoughts that seemed so fresh and out the window. He could count out just a few of the fresh ones:
The LaRusso residence, trashed and with furniture mended.
The Cobra Kai dojo, for obvious reasons.
Brucks’ bloody face.
And all the other parts of where he (or his fists) have been the last few months. He grimaced to himself as he thought of more, spacing out into the pixels of his monitor. Some winter break this was, he said to himself, but he had to admit that it was— in a gratifying sense— more time than he’d ask for. At least it served him physically, mentally, and (a little bit) emotionally.
Hawk downed his third beer can for the night, and had about three more at his disposal before he went to the next six-pack. How he kept the cans ice cold was another story: before 7PM every other night, he would run down to the nearest convenience store and buy an ice bag, rush back to his home and hoped he wasn’t too suspicious as he went up and dumped all of it in his ice box.
And it’s not like he was committing some shady crime for chrissakes. All he thought of doing these days was let some 90s alternative band’s album echo and bounce around the four corners of his room, and then drink. Usually both. Inner voices asked why he kept putting up with this front, nobody was watching.
But at the same time, it was all he could get from the sanctuary that saw both Eli and Hawk. Sickening how he felt like his posters had eyes, those that witnessed just how much of a wimp he was, and how that quickly seemed to flip as soon as Hawk came in the picture, albeit repressed and unconvincing. He might as well feel like anything but these two separate personalities; live like the beer can in his left hand: cold, bitter, and unapologetically made to be consumed in celebration of a good or bad time.
He was teetering on either side of the two, but now he seemed disassociated from himself. His hands worked to balance the can of beer on his desktop. It fell with a soft clang. Goddamn it, he cursed internally. Get it together, pussy.
A smile to himself. He needed to liven this party.