Chapter Text
There is something to be said about being the only person in the bar at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday. Sure, some people might not the find comfort in it that Johnny has found. Those people might go as far as to say that it’s “weird” or “kinda depressing man” (and sure, maybe those people sound a lot like Tommy) but Johnny knows that those people have just never experienced what it’s like to be the only person in the bar at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday. Especially at this bar, The Black Horse Tavern, a perpetually empty and consistently under-lit establishment that serves beer on tap, basement-shelf spirits, and a food menu consisting of steak fries, chili, and nachos (nachos that come with or without chili — Johnny always gets his with). A pair of heavy swinging saloon doors separates the staff from the rabble and said staff have come to recognize Johnny like he’s on some episode of Cheers. (And, far be it from Johnny to argue with the premise of that theme song because dammit sometimes you do wanna go where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.)
Sherry is wiping down the bar perfunctorily when Johnny arrives, the wet rag leaving bubbled streaks on the dark, cherry-glazed wood of the bar top. Johnny can see the haze of boredom behind her eyes as she leans over, chin resting in her open hand as she gazes out blankly into space. She doesn’t even flinch when he pulls out his bar stool (third one in the row from the door).
“Long night ahead?”
Sherry straightens up at his voice, the bright bubblegum pink of her lips twisting upwards into a forced smile.
“Heya Johnny,” and she’s all customer service sweet as she pours a beer from the tap without Johnny even having to ask. “Holidays, you know? Whole place gets deserted around this time of year. I’m licking the walls until your pretty face comes by to keep me company.”
Johnny blushes a little at the compliment, at the easy, near-flirtatious vibe she gives him. He likes Sherry. She’s older, mid-forties by the crinkles around her eyes, always lined in thick streaks of navy blue. She wears too much makeup; it settles into the roadmapped lines of her skin around her mouth, across her forehead. She must have been a babe when she was younger though, Johnny can tell. It’s the way she carries herself. Petite frame and thick permed hair and all the confidence of a woman whose youth was filled with guys like Johnny bending over backwards for only a minute of her time.
“Anyway I’m training a new kid this weekend. Jennifer’s replacement. She decided to move back to…Ohio? Oklahoma?”
“Omaha,” Johnny corrects.
Sherry snaps her fingers quick, eyes alight at the recognition. “Damn! That’s right, Omaha. Gonna miss that girl,” she sighs. “But I think you’ll like this new boy. Got a runaway mouth, just like you do.” (Johnny frowns; his mouth has never really been the thing that’s got him into trouble.) “He’ll be picking up Jennifer’s shifts so I’m sure you’ll see him around.”
“You know I only come in here to see you, Sherry,” Johnny flirts.
Sherry scoffs, lands a light handed and playful slap on Johnny’s arm before the saloon doors swing open and Carlos is carrying a giant tray of glasses that need to be stacked behind the bar and Sherry gets back to work.
Johnny drinks two more beers and leaves a crisp $20 bill as a tip for Sherry’s troubles.
The lie Johnny was fed went something like this: college was better than high school in every way. There were more babes — hotter babes, babes who were adventurous and experienced and hotter than high school babes. Attendance wasn’t mandatory. Sure, it might help to show up every once in awhile aside from the mid-term and final but actually going and actually staying the whole time and actually paying attention wasn’t monitored by the professors. Not in the way high school teachers would; Mr. Peterson slamming a hand on Johnny’s desk to startle him awake. The parties were crazier too. More beer, more liquor, more drugs, more babes (did he mention the babes already?) — just more . It was all so much more. An experience , Jimmy and Bobby kept saying. “You just gotta experience it, man!” they’d say, the pair of them like they were in on this cosmic inside joke that Johnny was outside of.
So, after four years of aimlessly roaming around the Valley, four years of getting day drunk on Sid’s couch and night drunk in bars that kept throwing him out for starting one fight too many, Johnny said fuck it. He could go for an experience. And Los Angeles Valley Community College let anyone in, which included Johnny Lawrence and his C- average.
Maybe it was because he waited too long. Maybe it was because he enrolled in the only school that would take him. Maybe he should have gone to Bible School like Bobby, or hung out with the fucking squares at Irvine like Jimmy. Fuck, maybe he would have had more fun at Valley Tech like Tommy. Learn a trade, do something useful with his hands again that didn’t involve violence. (Well, not necessarily, he’d seen Tommy’s knuckles after getting into a fight with a washing machine.)
But Johnny saw through the lie the moment he stepped on campus and no one greeted him by throwing rose petals at his feet or putting an ice cold beer directly into his hand. Sure, there were babes, but none of them wanted anything to do with him. Most of them ignored him and the ones who didn’t made their disinterest very, very clear.
He spent most of his first semester on the couch, books unopened and notebooks unused. Ignoring the constant commentary Sid ran out of the side of his mouth about laziness and ungratefulness and blah blah blah, same old same old. He’d pop a tape in his Walkman and turn up the volume on his headphones until Sid’s voice had faded to nothing but a dull throb beneath the electric guitars wailing in his head.
By the time midterms came around, he was in serious danger of flunking out. His mother hadn’t even acknowledged it — and she had been so proud too when Johnny had floated the idea by her in the first place. If he’s honest with himself, it was her apathy that hurt more than anything else. The lack of reaction to his failing grades and laissez-faire attitude towards his education. She didn’t even ask, “Hey, how’s school going?” anymore. Just breezed through the living room on her way to grab lunch or her nail appointment or hair appointment like an apparition.
Semester two he did better. Marginally. Didn’t fail (he still considers that an accomplishment) but was placed on an academic probation which, community colleges have “academic probations”? Seriously?
“So, what? You’re gonna actually try the whole college thing this time around?” Dutch asks, voice tight around a thick inhale of smoke.
They’re in Dutch’s bedroom, Johnny with his limbs spread out on Dutch’s bed, Dutch with his limbs scrunched up on the floor in the corner, knees to his chest and his free arm squeezed between his body. He stretches his other arm out slowly, passing the joint back to Johnny who takes it with nimble fingers and fumbles with it on its way to his mouth. He sucks on it quickly, the joint dwindling down to a roach so quickly it nearly burns his fingertips.
“If finals don’t kick my ass,” Johnny says, lungs filled with smoke. “Got one more shot before they won’t let me back in.”
Dutch shakes his head. His hair’s gotten longer now, darker at the roots. He shaved off all that bleach after senior year. He had looked ridiculous with that buzzcut, too harsh and mean, meaner than he really was. Johnny prefers his hair longer. Not that it matters what Johnny prefers, he guesses, a thought that burns his cheeks a little when he thinks too hard on it. (So he doesn’t. Think too hard on it. He buries it deep in his chest and doesn’t imagine much more beyond the faint touches of their fingertips as they pass a joint back and forth.)
“Man, I dunno why you even bother with that. Should have stayed a degenerate like me,” Dutch says with a smirk.
Johnny shrugs and passes the last spark of the joint back to Dutch. Holds it out so Dutch has to pry it from Johnny’s grip. Their knuckles knock together when he takes it, a frisson of heat running all the way up to Johnny’s spine. “You never thought about it? The whole college thing?”
Dutch fixes him with a look. “They wouldn’t let me in even if I wanted to,” he grumbles, hint of bitterness to the words. “Besides, I like being…what’s the word for it? Nomadic?”
“Nomadic?”
“Yeah, College Boy. Nomadic. Like. Free. I can go anywhere and do anything. Not tied down to anything.”
Johnny laughs. “You live at home, man. You don’t go anywhere or do anything anyway.”
“Yeah but that’s only ‘cause it’s convenient. I’m saving up. Travel the world. Take the bike on a trip across all fifty states.” Dutch looks up at Johnny beneath a fan of lashes, lids heavy from the pot. He wets his lower lip — dry mouth — tugs it between his teeth for a minute before letting it go. “You could come with me, ya know. You still got your Honda? Just the two of us on the open road.”
Johnny’s chest feels tight. Too much weed and not enough oxygen. He takes a giant gulp of air and holds it in, lets it fill him up like a balloon before slowly deflating. It doesn’t ease the feeling.
“Let’s see how the semester ends, Dutch,” he settles on.
They both know it’s an empty promise. Dutch stubs the roach out on a makeshift ashtray of balled up aluminum foil. He doesn’t say anything until he asks Johnny if he wants to watch something on Laserdisc and Johnny’s too high to say no.
4:00 PM on a Tuesday and Johnny’s back at the bar. He brought his backpack with him this time, has plans to study for his Biology I exam which, in theory, should be easier this time around considering he failed it his first fall semester. He must have retained something from the lectures he actually attended.
Sherry is there, as usual, but she’s got a dark-haired kid trailing around behind her like a lost puppy. Johnny can’t really get a good look at him, can just see the olive-tan of his skin peeking out from the back of his neck and the wiry arms draped in a cozy flannel as he starts setting up glasses.
“Ahh, and here’s one of my favorite regulars now,” Sherry says. Her lipstick is red today and her perm is piled high atop her head. Johnny smiles warmly at her, wrapped up in all the familiarity of the place he’s hidden himself away at the last few months.
The kid turns around at Sherry’s introduction and Johnny’s smile fades fast. It morphs and twists into a scowl as the kid’s brown doe eyes widen impossibly large. Johnny knows that face, knows those eyes. Couldn’t forget them if he tried.
“LaRusso?”
“Johnny?”
The bar feels small all of a sudden. Electrically charge and heated and Johnny’s hands curl into fists, nostrils flaring and teeth grinding together so hard his temples throb.
"Of all the bars in Southern California," LaRusso says, far too lightly. He shakes his head, pieces of his hair falling into his eyes. He pushes them back and shoots Johnny a grin, the kind you learn to wear in hospitality. A little fake, a little flirty. Infuriating. "What can I get you?"
“Oh, you two know each other!” Sherry says. “God, I forget how small the valley is sometimes.”
“This is my bar,” Johnny announces, ignoring Sherry completely. He vaguely catches her smile drop. Her eyes are curious but guarded.
LaRusso crosses his arms over his chest, puffs himself up so he can look at Johnny down his nose. All of that faux customer service charm has frozen over into something icy and real. “Is that so? Didn’t see your name signing my checks.”
Johnny ignores the barb. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I work here.” His tone is so bitchy it makes Johnny’s teeth itch. Good to know nothing’s changed since high school.
“I figured that . I mean what are you doing here ? At this bar?”
LaRusso blinks. “Seriously? They were hiring. I needed a job. Now, are you gonna order something or do I have to throw you out for loitering?”
“Loitering!?” Johnny’s face goes red hot, anger simmering beneath his skin until it reaches a boil. He staggers up on his feet, nearly kicks the stool backwards as he does so. “Listen here you little —”
“Fellas!” Sherry interjects. Her hot pink nails flash before Johnny’s eyes as she puts distance between the two of them. “Look, I don’t know what history you two have but,” she turns to LaRusso, puts a manicured hand on his chest, “Johnny is one of our regulars. Never gives us any trouble.” She turns to look at Johnny then. “Right, Johnny?”
Johnny forces himself back down onto his barstool, tries to control the rolling tidal waves of anger back to shore. Sherry knows all about Johnny’s reputation in the seedier bars on this strip. She’s even seen him get thrown out once or twice, tossed on his ass too drunk to drive home and covered in cuts and bruises. Does him the solid of never asking about them when he turns up at the Black Horse the next day looking a little worse for wear.
“I’ll take my usual, Sher,” he mumbles. He keeps his gaze locked on LaRusso, eyes sharp and cold. Hopes LaRusso can feel them like ice shards on his skin.
Ever the professional, Sherry replies with a soft, kindhearted smile. “One Coors Banquet coming right up! They’re in the fridge, Danny boy.”
LaRusso tightens up at that, bending down to grab Johnny his beer. “Don’t call me that,” he says, stilted. “Daniel is fine.”
He pries the cap open for Johnny and sets it in front of him. It’s the last Johnny sees him of him before he turns through the saloon doors into the kitchen. Johnny finishes his beer and leaves so quickly he almost forgets his tip. He grabs Sherry by the wrist and slides it into her palm, just to make sure that it doesn’t go to LaRusso at the end of the night.
So. LaRusso got a job at the Black Horse.
Johnny should be fine with that. He hasn’t seen the kid in five years. (Four years? Honestly, everything after the All Valley is a blur to Johnny. How he won Prom King when he was barely present the back half of senior year is a mystery to him.)
The thing about the Black Horse is that he meant what he said; it’s his bar. His haven. His little hole-in-the-wall that he’s never shared with anyone. Not Bobby or Jimmy or Tommy or Dutch. Not his mom. It’s his Cheers! It’s the place he goes where everybody knows his name and they’re always glad he came dammit and now LaRusso is there and it’s a repeat of senior year all over again. In waltzes LaRusso, Bambi-eyed, dark haired, cocky little asshole LaRusso with his long legs and his Jersey accent, traipsing in through those silly little saloon doors ready to take over yet another sanctuary in Johnny Lawrence’s life and crane kick him in the face. Again.
Johnny takes a deep breath. Stares at his open Biology textbook. Stares at the clock on the wall in Sid’s living room. Slams his Bio textbook shut and shoves it into his backpack.
Fuck it. This is not going to be a repeat of senior year. This is sophomore year of (community) college. It’s gonna be different.
It’s not that different.
For one, everyone seems to love LaRusso. Johnny walks into the Black Horse at 4:07. Sherry isn’t there but LaRusso is tending bar and Carlos, Penny, and Manuel are standing by the saloon doors hanging on every word that comes out of his wide open mouth. He’s gesticulating all over the place, hands flying as fast as his lips move. Johnny feels like he’s walking through lava — slow and maybe even a little sweaty, heat prickling the back of his neck and up the skin of his arms. A heat he can’t quite name. He watches LaRusso’s animated face light up and laugh and he can’t tell if he wants to punch him or —.
“I’ll take a Coors,” Johnny says.
The laughter behind the bar comes to a screeching halt. Carlos and Manuel practically sprint back to the kitchen and Penny makes a move to grab Johnny’s beer but LaRusso stops her. “I’ll get it,” he says, and dips down below the bar to the fridge to grab an ice cold Banquet before prying the top off. His movements are as icy as the beer itself, the cold air from the bottle wafting through the top of it.
Johnny drinks it in slow, greedy draughts. He keeps his eyes on LaRusso who is doing his best to keep his eyes on Johnny. Neither of them blink, an unofficial staring contest, and Johnny’s not going to fucking lose.
He finishes it with a loud belch and slams it on top of the bar. “Another.” LaRusso grabs him another.
“So,” LaRusso begins, drawing out the word for far too long. “Is this just how it’s gonna be now? You gonna come in here every day and bother me now that I work here?”
Johnny puts the bottle down. “I came here every day before you started working here you know.”
LaRusso doesn’t say anything to that. He hangs his head and scoffs, which is kind of a response, but he doesn’t say any words. Just gets back to work, pretending to clean glasses and wipe down the bar until Johnny leaves, placing a smooth twenty dollar bill on the counter before he does so.
He forgets to open his textbook. Fuck it. He’ll study at Dutch’s. Maybe.
It becomes routine. Johnny shows up at 4:00. Orders one beer. Drinks it down quickly, wordlessly, finishes it off with a loud belch that makes LaRusso’s nose scrunch, then orders another one that he actually savors while LaRusso pretends like Johnny’s presence isn’t bothering the shit out of him. (It is, Johnny knows it is, and he gets the sickest little thrill out of it — bees buzzing up and down the collar of his shirt, little lightning bugs flickering on and off in his belly.)
When he’s not at the bar, he’s at Dutch’s house, smoking weed in Dutch’s bedroom or watching movies on his couch. Sometimes he passes out and wakes up slowly, the haze of the weed still fogging his eyelids, bits of California-winter sunlight streaming in slowly through the living room windows, dust mites floating in and out of his vision. His head in Dutch’s lap, Dutch’s hand resting in his hair. Johnny’s cheek warm from its place atop Dutch’s thighs.
And when he’s not at the bar, and he’s not at Dutch’s house, he’s in class. Three more weeks and three finals and then it’s a month of going to the bar and going to Dutch’s house and doing anything he can to stay away from Sid until the spring.
He’s not studying enough. Studying was never a skill he learned in high school and the years off between high school and college certainly didn’t help. He remembers getting his first “bad” report card, one with more C’s and D’s than A’s and B’s. He had brought it home with red-rimmed eyes and a sniffling nose, ashamed to show his mom what a semester of the valley’s public education system had gotten him. She had simply put an arm around him and slid the piece of paper into the pocket of her diner apron.
The library on campus is too quiet, the flourescent lights too bright, and there’s too many people there that are talking in hushed voices in every corner and it makes him feel uneasy and he doesn’t even really know why. He’s a fish out of water, a round peg in a square hole. And it’s like everybody in the library can see it — they know he doesn’t belong.
He slams his textbook shut so loud he swears it echoes throughout the library. Youthful faces turn their heads his way and he ignores them. Fuck it. He’ll go to the fucking bar.
The Black Horse is surprisingly busy tonight. And surprisingly festive. In all of his focus on his finals, Johnny sort of forgot about the upcoming holiday. There are Christmas lights, the big blinking ones in primary colors, strewn all about the windows and over the bar. A miniature fake tree with lights that blink in random patterns is placed right in front of where Johnny usually sits. His seat is occupied, which is fine, because he’s not there to antagonize LaRusso tonight.
LaRusso, it seems, doesn’t have time for Johnny to antagonize him anyway. Johnny watches him, a light sheen of sweat on his creased brow as he shakes a sloppy martini for the two girls hanging on the edge of the bar. It’s pink and frothy when he pours it out and the girls giggle their thanks at him as a guy shoves in between them. Johnny watches him roll up the sleeves of his ratted flannel, sees the muscles in his forearms work as he wrenches open a beer for the impatient patron. The jump of the vein in his neck as he shouts “Who was next?” to the crowd of people in front of him.
Johnny finds an empty booth in the corner and slides himself in. He pours out the contents of his backpack and pops the headphones of his Walkman over his ears. The guitar intro to “Running With the Devil” drowns out the noises of the bar just barely. He already feels more comfortable here than he did at the library, surrounded by degenerates like himself who are out looking for a good time.
He clicks his pen a few times to the beat of the song. Penny swings by his table with a Coors he didn’t ask for and he gives her a wink as a thank you. She says something to him he doesn’t hear — maybe she asks him a question? He just smiles and turns back to his textbook and notebook and tries to make sense of his scribbles and notes.
There are papers all over the table of his booth. Old workbook pages, a wrinkled copy of a syllabus he maybe looked at twice the whole semster. It’s all chaos but it’s controlled chaos: Johnny works best in controlled chaos. People weave in an out of the corners of his vision but he keeps his eyes trained on the papers in front of him. Penny brings him another beer when he finishes the first one and he thanks her out of the side of his mouth without looking at her.
He doesn’t know how many hours he sits there studying but eventually he feels like he has a decent handle on the War of 1812 once the bar thins out.
A third beer bottle is placed on the edge of the table, this time accompanied by a body sliding across from him. Johnny looks up, startled to see LaRusso, exhausted and red-cheeked. The flannel he was wearing earlier is gone, nothing but a thin black t-shirt over his thin frame. His eyes look tired, deep and warm brown, but something hot and fiery behind them.
“You’ve been here all night,” LaRusso states. He drums his fingers on the table, a little fidgety movement. Like he’s nervous. Johnny’s not sure what he has to be nervous about.
“Yeah, so?” he asks.
LaRusso leans in, elbows on the table, face contorted in suspicion. “So? You haven’t bothered me once!”
Johnny blinks.
“Uhm. What.”
“You come in here every single day just to bother me!” LaRusso yells, his exhaustion heavy in his voice. “You think I’m not gonna notice when you come in here and completely ignore me?”
“You were busy. And I was busy.” Johnny flushes, hot under his collar. His eyes flit down to the mess of papers in front of him and he makes to organize them, hastily stacking one on top of the other.
LaRusso shoots his hand out and snags a paper from the side, pulls at it too fast for Johnny to grab it without ripping it (and he doesn’t want to chance a rip — fuck, what if he needs that later). LaRusso inspects it, eyes roaming the page back and forth over each and every line before he stops, head cocked to the side.
“Johnny? What is this?”
Johnny makes a move for the paper but LaRusso pulls it back. There’s something light dancing behind his eyes. Johnny sighs, runs a hand over his face. He doesn’t even know why he’s embarrassed but shit, yeah. This is fucking embarrassing.
“Homework,” he mumbles.
LaRusso laughs, not unkindly. Surprised a little, but there’s no condescension in it.
“You’re in college?” he asks. Johnny nods and thanks god for the beer he can hide his face behind.
“What are you studying?”
Johnny hates that question. Year two and he still doesn’t have an actual answer. And he’s in his twenties now, so people always assume he’s getting his Master’s when he’s barely getting through an Associate’s Degree in. Something.
“What did you study?” Johnny asks instead, changes the subject, takes the spotlight off of himself for a change.
LaRusso’s eyes widen just for a fraction of a second before casting them down. His fingers trace the wood swirls of the dark table. “I didn’t go to college,” he answers without looking up.
“You didn’t?”
LaRusso laughs again, a low quiet thing from the center of his chest. “You say that like you’re shocked.”
“I mean. A little? Thought you were good at the whole school thing.”
“I wasn’t. I wasn’t bad but. School’s not for everyone, you know?” And yeah, Johnny does.
“Okay, so. What did you get up to after high school?” Johnny asks. He’s genuinely curious now, how the kid went from All Valley champion to slumming it at the Black Horse for tips.
LaRusso squirms a bit in his seat. He chews on his bottom lip, worrying at the skin so hard Johnny’s sure it’s about to start bleeding soon. He can practically see the thoughts flying through his head at warp speed and Johnny’s about to open his mouth, ask a different question, give him an out. Show him some mercy.
“I started a business,” LaRusso tells him, releasing his bottom lip from the clutches of his teeth. “My friend and I, we started a business. Took my college fund to start it, actually. But it, uh, well. I guess maybe I should have gone to business school or something because it didn’t last all that long. Closed it last year, actually.”
“That’s what brought you to bartending?”
LaRusso shrugs. “Something to pass the time,” he says.
Johnny watches his eyes. Something about them is so expressive but guarded all at once. Subtle changes of emotion so vividly painted in them but hard to decipher, like the reflection of a stained glass window on a sidewalk. Little fragments of color and light. They flicker shades of disappointment and regret.
“Can you drink on the job?” Johnny asks. He watches the change in LaRusso’s eyes at the question. Something lighter and freer breaking through. “Come on, grab a beer. Hang out awhile.”
“Not tonight, Johnny. Maybe next time.” He smiles through the rejection, something sly and covert that makes Johnny’s chest tighten.
“Sure. Maybe next time.”
LaRusso gets up from the booth, taps both hands on the table lightly as he does so in a funny, awkward little movement. Like he’s trying to break some tension that’s not really there.
Johnny follows close behind, shoving his papers into his backpack and fishing out enough bills to cover his three beers and then some.
It’s easier after that. Johnny feels less guarded, less walled up and closed off and keyed up for a fight every time he walks into the Black Horse at 4:00 PM. The principle cast is always there, either behind the bar or walking through the tables with trays of glasses and nachos. Penny and Manny and Carlos and Sherry. And Daniel “Don’t-Call-Me-Danny” LaRusso, goofy grinned and doe eyed, leaning against the bar and thanking patrons for the wet and crumpled dollars they leave on the bar top.
He always grins at Johnny when he comes in now, something small and soft that makes Johnny’s limbs feel lighter at the sight of it. And he leaves Johnny alone, for the most part, either too busy or too preoccupied the both of them to bother each other anymore after that other night.
Johnny starts studying in the booth — easier to sprawl out all of his papers and pens without drawing any attention to himself. He had liked flipping through his textbook at the bar, a little dim lighted reading with a cold beer in his grasp, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks he ever got any actual studying done up there.
And the times he thought he’d be studying at Dutch’s place. Well.
The Dutch of it all. It’s complicated.
It’s not complicated, actually, is the whole thing. Because it just sort of happened one day. Night. One night. They were drinking and smoking in Dutch’s bedroom just the two of them alone, lamenting a little to each other, in the safe and quiet dim of the bedroom, that they were the only ones left. That Bobby and Jimmy had abandoned them for the greener pastures of the white collar working class and Tommy had been so focused on going to a trade school that was kicking his ass. “And for what?” Dutch had asked through a cloud of heavy smoke. “So he can become an electrician like his dad? Okay, sure Tommy, sounds glamorous.”
And it was just the two of them, warm and buzzed and alone, and Dutch had said something to Johnny about looking pretty that night. No, he said his eyes were pretty, Johnny’s sure that’s what it was. “I never noticed how pretty your eyes are,” he said, slurred and thick-tongued. And he was staring into Johnny’s eyes like he was seeing them for the first time, picking out all the different facets of blue in them, how they were lighter and then darker and then lighter again as they circled around the black pupil in the center. He had licked his lips, a signal of a dry mouth that was desperate to be wetted. And Johnny lunged forward, trapping Dutch’s wet bottom lip between his own until they were making out on the floor of Dutch’s bedroom, trading needy and animalistic kisses between them.
Nothing changed when it was all over. Johnny had thought that maybe it would. That he’d have to run out of that house and never look back. That he’d lose the only friend he had left, and he’d spend the rest of his days hiding between Sid’s pool house and the Black Horse and Dutch would never want to look at him again. But Dutch was fine. Laughed about it, a little bit, but didn’t try and shove Johnny or punch him or kick him out of the house. And the next time Dutch invited Johnny over, Johnny’s palms sweat until he could get his hands back on Dutch which happened faster than he thought it might. Dutch had leaned in the doorway, hips cocked, eyes hooded, and pulled Johnny in through the doorway with no preamble.
So. They do that now. Not every time, but often enough. It’s nice, Johnny thinks. It feels good. And he trusts Dutch and there’s nothing really more beyond that for either of them and that’s good . That works. (And if sometimes, Johnny thought about LaRusso — before, during, after, interspliced the fantasy of his image with the reality of the body beneath him, around him — that wasn’t anyone’s business, right?)
Two weeks left. Three finals. He can do this, he’s just gotta focus.
Johnny can focus. He spent years training under Kreese learning exactly how to focus. Studying for a history final couldn’t be all that different from practicing a new move, right? He could take that same focus and apply it to…pre-Civil War American History.
He sighs, alone in the booth with his textbook and notes strewn about him, he hangs his head over the pages and sighs all of his frustrations out until he feels a warm hand fall atop his shoulders.
He looks up, head still bowed, eyes connecting with the tan hand and the thumb that’s gently sweeping at the collar of his sweatshirt. There’s a beer in the other hand landing on the table. A beer Johnny didn’t ask for but is incredibly grateful for.
“Looked like you could use this.” LaRusso’s smile is warm. It reaches his eyes and Johnny’s reminded of the embers of a fireplace, radiating heat.
“Yeah, I could,” Johnny says, taking the beer bottle from LaRusso’s unoccupied hand. He gestures to the open seat across from him and feels LaRusso tense.
“Come on, it won’t kill either of us to take a break,” Johnny teases. LaRusso looks back to the bar, sees Penny and Carlos flirting shamelessly back and forth. Sherry nowhere to be seen (Johnny wonders not for the first time if she’s the manager or just takes her bartending job really seriously).
LaRusso slides in tentatively, the harsh line of his shoulders still tight even as he sits. He clasps his hands together on the wood top of the table and looks around, eyes flitting to the dark corners of the bar nervously. His knee is bouncing under the table. Johnny wants to touch him. (Johnny’s always wanted to touch him. That’s always been half the problem between them.)
The radio crackles out that one Wham! song from high school, the Christmas one. Last Christmas, I gave you my heart .
“I hate this song.” (A lie; Johnny loves this song.)
“Susan used to play this song all the time,” LaRusso says. “Even well into the spring. Used to drive me nuts.”
Johnny breathes out a short laugh. “God, she was really into George Michael for awhile. Remember she used to decorate her locker with all those pictures after Make It Big came out?”
“She tried to get me and Ali to go on a double date with her and Tommy to see them at the Forum,” LaRusso says, grimacing at the memory.
“Couldn’t have paid me to go along to that,” Johnny grumbles, still smiling and picking at the label on his Coors.
“You still talk to the guys?” LaRusso asks.
“Yeah, I do.”
And he catches LaRusso up on what everyone’s been up to since high school, watching the tension drain from his body in increments with every tale. And soon they’re laughing, really laughing, and Johnny’s watching the way LaRusso throws his head back when he laughs. How his eyes squint a little, crinkle up at the edges, like his face is making room for how big is smile can get.
They pass the time that way, making each other laugh. Making each other yell, too, because LaRusso is really good at getting underneath Johnny’s skin even when he’s not trying to do it maliciously. In fact, Johnny thinks he’s reveling in it, enjoying the way he can make Johnny jump and jolt and react to the little pushes and prods he throws Johnny’s way. Johnny’s textbook is forgotten and he should care, at least a little bit, that he’s not studying for his History final but he doesn’t. Not at all. Not when he’s got Daniel LaRusso sitting across from him like this, easy and comfortable and soft.
“Hey, Danny boy!” Sherry yells across the empty bar. “You gonna get back to work anytime soon?”
LaRusso looks down at the beaten leather strapped watch on his wrist and huffs. “I’ve got like, ten minutes left of my shift and all my side work is done! Consider this me clocking out a little early. And don’t call me 'Danny boy' I told you!”
Johnny quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that about?”
LaRusso waves his hand dismissively. “She’s just a bit of a hard ass and takes this job way too seriously —”
“No, the. The ‘Danny boy’ thing.” Johnny doesn’t miss the quick electric reaction the name elicits from the guy. A twitch in his muscles hearing Johnny use the moniker. “You really don’t like that, do you?”
All the easiness of their time together sucks out of the room like a vacuum, LaRusso tenses up, hands back in a clasp on the top of the table that makes his shoulders tighten. Johnny wants to ease it all out of him.
“Story for another day,” LaRusso says with a faux casualness to it that Johnny sees right through. He looks down at the open textbook and notebook pages Johnny’s left on the table. “Guess you should get back to work yourself, huh?”
Johnny follows his gaze and shrugs. “Yeah, guess so.”
LaRusso makes a move to get out of the booth, sliding all the way to the edge before turning around. He drops a hand to Johnny’s palm just sitting open over the flurry of notes. “This was nice though. Thanks, Johnny.”
Johnny smiles at him, tries to reign it in a bit, not come off so over eager. Wonders what he looks like to LaRusso through his eyes. Wonders if LaRusso can see the eagerness written on Johnny’s face anyway. “Do it again sometime?” Johnny tries.
LaRusso slides out of the booth with a soft chuckle. “You know where to find me.”
Johnny does. 4:00 PM every Tuesday through Saturday.