Work Text:
Robby was in the backroom of Cobra Kai, where he had been living the past couple of weeks. Being there in the dark room made him lonely, and he had been there for hours. Robby longed for any kind of human contact. He decided that he would leave the dojo, just for a few minutes. Maybe he would go to the small store that was also in the strip mall. There would be a cashier there, so he would at least get to see another person, even if he wouldn’t actually end up speaking to him or her. Robby didn’t have any money, so it wasn’t like he would be able to buy anything, but maybe, if he was really sneaky, he would be able to steal something to eat. He hadn’t eaten lunch. That was what he would do. He would go to the shop on the strip and steal something to eat and confirm that other humans still exist.
That’s how lonely he was back there. He wasn’t even sure that other people even existed anymore. How sad was that.
He stood up from the cot that Kreese had set up for him and walked to the door. Robby tried to open the door, but the knob wouldn’t turn. He knew that it had nothing to do with the knob itself, because he would close himself back here at various times during the day and the door would always open and close just fine then.
Robby felt fear building up. He was trapped. He knew that he was trapped. Robby tried the back door desperately, even though he knew for a fact that the door was also locked. Kreese left that door locked intentionally so that people couldn’t sneak out the back door during class. Robby knew this, but he was so desperate to escape that he tried anyway.
The door, of course, did not open.
Robby collapsed to the ground, fear overwhelming him. His breathing began to speed up and his heart was racing, but not as fast as Robby’s mind was. He was more scared than he had ever been in his whole life, even more scared than he had been when he had kicked Miguel over that banister at the school.
That thought sobered him up really quick. He shouldn’t be more afraid of this than he was after nearly killing the other boy. It occurred to Robby then that maybe he deserved this. He deserved the fear, and the pain, and the loneliness for what he had done to Miguel. He wasn’t sure if that was right, it probably wasn’t, but he thought maybe. And if this was his punishment, then he would have to endure it for as long as he possibly could because that’s what he deserved.
So, Robby sat on the cot that Kreese had put there for him and started to try to calm himself. Robby hadn’t had a real panic attack like that in a long time, so it took a while for him to remember how to calm himself. Once he did and his thinking was cleared, Robby began to think about why the door to the outer dojo was locked. Then it occurred to him that the lock on the door really should have been on the other side of the door, because all of the valuable equipment and stuff was in there. There was no reason that the door should be locking Robby in the room.
Unless Kreese had intentionally done it this way in order to keep him in.
Robby’s fear built up again, but he managed to keep it from devolving into a full-blown panic attack. He needed to think this through. Why would Kreese want to lock Robby in this room? It was clear that Kreese wanted Robby on his side. Maybe he simply thought that Robby was a flight risk, that he would leave in the night and never come back. But where exactly would Robby go if he could run away? He wasn’t ready to forgive Mr. LaRusso for making him turn himself in, so it’s not like he could go there. Robby certainly couldn’t go live with his father, right across the lot from the boy he had crippled, possibly for the rest of that boy’s life. And his mother was in rehab, so it's not like he could go to her either.
Robby came to the conclusion that it didn’t really matter why he was locked in the backroom of the Cobra Kai dojo. It only mattered that it happened. Robby was beginning to see that Kreese wasn’t exactly who he claimed to be. But Robby knew that he would stay anyway. It’s not like he had anywhere else to go. And, besides, it was becoming clear to Robby that he had known from the beginning that Cobra Kai was bad news, but he came anyway. This was just giving him more proof.
But if Robby had known from the beginning that Cobra Kai was bad news, why did he come? Maybe he really was subconsciously punishing himself. That’s the only real answer that Robby could think of at the moment. Maybe he did deserve to be trapped in here like an animal.
Just like Miguel was trapped in that wheelchair.