Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sunday, December 22, 1985

It’s a pretty small thing, apparently.  Smaller than he expected.  Ten or so people, some spiked eggnog, and some dumb Christmas music in Barbara’s basement.  Whatever.  Johnny supposes he’s just lucky to be here.  He’s only invited because Bobby and Tommy are.  Bobby’s real friendly with Susan and Barbara, and Tommy's apparently kept in touch with Ali for whatever reason, so Johnny gets to tag along to the girls’ little winter break reunion party by extension.  Jimmy’s off on vacation with his family and Dutch got himself locked up.  Bobby’s been trying to convince Johnny to visit him, but Johnny hasn’t felt up to doing much of anything lately.

He especially doesn’t really want to be here.  At a party thrown by his ex-girlfriend and her friends.

At a party that Daniel fucking LaRusso is apparently the life of.

Johnny’s spent most of the evening on the ratty old loveseat in the corner, willing himself to sink into it, while LaRusso is in the center of the room, charming the hell out of everyone he talks to.  And yeah, he’d known LaRusso was gonna be here— apparently Ali made Tommy make Johnny promise that he’d be cool about it, whatever that means— but he wouldn’t have actually come if he’d known it’d be like this.  He was expecting a bigger crowd and a few more drinks— a partier it’d be easier to blend into the background at.  Not this.

He had been wondering what LaRusso was up to.  Still, he isn’t sure sitting in this basement with him all night was quite worth satisfying his curiosity.  He doesn’t bother much weighing the pros and cons though— it wouldn’t do any good, he’s already here.  So instead, he says:

“Hey Bobby, pass me one,” and Bobby hands him a beer from the cooler a few feet away, and just like that, the night gets a little bit more bearable.  “Why’d we come here anyways?” he asks for what probably isn’t the first time.

“To have fun,” Bobby responds, unhelpful as ever.  “You can do that without blacking out, you know.”  He says it like a joke, but Johnny doesn’t find it very funny.

“Whatever dude, seriously, what are we doing here?  You aren’t even talking to anyone but me.”  He shoots a quick glance to the opposite corner of the room, where Tommy is scarfing down a slice of pizza with Ali, Eddie, and a few girls whose names Johnny doesn’t remember.

“Maybe that’s because you’re not talking to anyone but me.”

“So, what, you’re stuck babysitting me now?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did.  You know, I’m not gonna throw a fit if you go talk to someone else.  Look, I’ll go talk to someone else right now, see?”  He stands dramatically, making a fool of himself, no doubt.

“Well, I don’t wanna just leave you—”

“Dude, go on— seriously, I’m not your girlfriend, am I?”

Bobby throws on a mock-scandalous voice and throws a hand over his chest as he gasps and begins to stand.  “I should be so lucky.”

Johnny throws a pillow at him and smirks.  Bobby throws a hesitant glance his way before gravitating over to Susan and Barbara.  Johnny figures he may as well make good on his promise and look for someone to talk to.  He turns around and the first person he sees is—

“Johnny, hey!”

— beaming back at him in all his smug, perfect, face-kicking glory.

He sits down on the couch, beckoning for Johnny to re-take his seat beside him.“How are you doing, man?”

“Like you care, LaRusso,” he bites back.

“Yeah, whatever, okay—” he huffs, standing up about as quickly as he’d sat down.  “Don’t know why I—”

“Wait.”   Johnny puts his hands up in the air in surrender and reluctantly sits down.  He promised he’d be cool, and apparently this is what that meant.  Stupid fucking party.  “Wait… I… I’m fine.  How are you?”

LaRusso’s lips quirk up a little.  He looks almost amused— Johnny’s trying to be civil and this kid thinks it’s fucking funny.  He can’t win here, can he?

“I, uh, I’ve been better, man.  I’ve been better.”

“Yeah?  I heard you just won the All Valley again, so… not that much better.”

He snorts at that.  Like actually fucking snorts at him.  Johnny wants to kick that smile off his face.  But he doubts Ali would take kindly to him kicking her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?  He’s not sure, actually) in the face at her Christmas party.

“Yeah, well, it was… difficult.  Um… what have you been up to?”

“School.”  He answers as bluntly as possible.  He really hopes it’s clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh, cool, man, where at?”

“UC Santa Barbara.  Live in a dorm.”

“Oh neat, what are you going to school for?”

“Pre-med,” he answers.  He’s not sure why his cheeks flush a little at that; why he feels so ashamed to admit it.  He’s sure LaRusso can see through him clearly.  That he knows, just like everyone else had, that Johnny didn’t belong at that school.

“Wow, so you’ll be fixing injuries instead of dishing ‘em out, huh?  Good for you.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, almost as a reflex, before he has time to really think through the implications of thanking him.  Like Johnny needs his approval to be a doctor.

“Hey, look,” he points above Johnny’s head.  “Mistletoe.”

Johnny snaps his head upwards, and it takes his eyes a few seconds of scanning to land on the small object in question.  He’d been sitting here for nearly an hour and not even noticed it.

“You a good kisser?”

“Yeah, I’ll kiss you in your dreams, LaRusso,” he bites back before it even really occurs to him what he’s saying.  Once his brain catches up to his mouth, though, he feels his cheeks start to redden.  He’s not even sure why.  What kind of guy points out mistletoe like that?  To another dude?  A dude he hates nonetheless?  Yeah, sure, if Johnny noticed one of the guys under it— if it had been Bobby, or Tommy— he might get a laugh out of it, but LaRusso?  What business did LaRusso have talking about kissing him?  Putting that thought in his head?

At least he isn’t the only one uncomfortable.  Daniel’s tan skin seems to pale instantly and he stammers.  “I mean— I wasn’t.  I was just— I was kidding.  Sorry.”

Freak.

“Yeah, weird joke.”

He clears his throat.  “So, um.  How are your classes?  School?”

He’s cut off before he can open his mouth to answer, and he’s never been so grateful to hear Susan in his life.

“Hey everyone!  Come here real quick!” Susan shouts, her voice cutting over Last Christmas on the radio.  It’s maybe the thirtieth time they’ve played that song tonight, and that’s a conservative estimate, Johnny thinks.

He stands, a bit reluctantly and follows LaRusso to where everyone else is starting to gather in the center of the room.  Barbara’s holding a big plastic bowl and Susan has a couple pencils and slips of paper.

“So,” Ali announces, “we’re doing another party for New Year’s; same time, same place.  And we’d thought it’d be fun to do a little secret santa.”

“Ah, sweet!”  LaRusso reacts, for some reason, before asking: “How’s it work?”

“Well,” Barbara answers, “everyone who wants to participate writes their name on a slip of paper.  We put all the papers in the bowl and then everyone picks one out.  Whoever’s name is on your paper, you have to bring them a gift at New Year’s.”

“I’m in,” Bobby grins, taking a little slip of paper and a pencil from Susan.  Tommy follows suit, and so does everyone else, so now Johnny will look like a total asshold idiot if he doesn’t.  It’s fine.  It’s whatever.  He was gonna get gifts for the guys anyways, and he can spare a few bucks to get something for one of the girls if he has to.  What do girls like?  Make-up?  George Michael?  He’s not sure, actually, but he can figure something out.

They pass the bowl around, and Johnny dips his hand in, crossing his fingers he gets Bobby.  He pulls out a paper, unfolds it, and stares at the name written there in a neat, tiny scrawl.

Daniel.

Fuck this.  Just his luck.

Monday, December 23

The next morning, Tommy calls him up.  Or maybe he calls Bobby— Johnny’s crashing in Bobby’s guest room, so it could be either, he supposes— but Johnny’s the one that answers when he calls to invite them to the movies.  According to Tommy, a big group is going tonight, meeting at Eddie’s before.  Ali will be there and so will LaRusso, apparently.  Whatever.  He supposes he should get to know the guy a little better if he’s gonna have to buy him a gift.

“Who’d you get for that dumb secret santa thing?” he asks.

“I thought it was a pretty neat idea,” Tommy defends.  Johnny resists the urge to call him queer.  “I got Ali.  What about you?”

“I got LaRusso,” he informs him, trying to play it cool.  He doesn’t know why he feels the need to; it’s not like he chose to get stuck with the kid.  Still, it feels like an oddly vulnerable secret.

“Oh, man.  That’s karma or something,” Tommy laughs at him.

“Shut up,” Johnny rolls his eyes.  “It’s no big deal.  At least I know what he likes, I’ll get him a punching bag or something.  Easy.”

“Yeah, help him practice for the next time he wants to beat you.”

“Yeah, well he’ll need the practice, man.  My skills are sharp.”  

That isn’t true, though.  He hasn’t been on a mat in over a year.  Other than a few half-baked sparring sessions with the guys in Jimmy’s backyard before graduation, all the practice he’s had has been bar fights, and the drunks at the dives and frat houses near campus haven’t exactly given him a challenge.  The idea of training had begun to feel pointless— and maybe even sacrilege— without a teacher.

“Sure they are, man.  So, you guys coming?”

“Just a second,” Johnny responds, covering the receiver and shouting off down the hall: “Bobby!  Movie tonight?”

*

Johnny’s not actually sure he’s ever been to Eddie’s house when there were less than fifty people in it.  He used to throw the wildest parties, and the cobras were always gods because Jimmy had a fake, and Dutch had a cousin who could hook you up with pretty much anything, and Bobby could break more boards drunk than sober and everyone really seemed to be entertained by that.  The nights at Eddie’s that Johnny could remember had been some of the best of his life, and the ones he couldn’t remember, he’s sure were even better.

But Jimmy isn’t here, Dutch is locked up, Bobby doesn’t drink so much anymore, there are only six people in this basement, and Johnny’s fallen pretty damn far from heaven.

It’s just him, Eddie, Bobby, Tommy, Ali, and Daniel, passing a joint around the room.  LaRusso doesn’t smoke at all, though, says it's so that he can drive them there, but Johnny’s not sure he’s ever seen the guy smoke.  Pussy.

Bobby asks Ali about Susan and Barbara and she says that they had other plans, but doesn’t really elaborate.  Ali boasts that she’d already gone to the mall and picked out the perfect gift for her secret santa.  Tommy gushes over Eddie’s new leather jacket.  Overall, nothing really interesting happens until Eddie asks Johnny about school.

He feels like a deer in headlights.  “I don’t know.  It’s okay.”

“Just okay?” Ali asks.

“I don’t know.  I might quit.”

“Why’s that?” Bobby asks.  He’d been trying to get him to open up on the subject for weeks, to no avail.  Johnny’s really not sure why he’s even talking about it now.

“I don’t know, man.  It’s just kinda shit there.  I mean yeah there’s parties and shit, but it’s still just more school.  And like, what do I need a degree for, you know?”

He needs a degree to be a doctor.  But that doesn’t really seem like it’s going to happen anymore.  Because Johnny’s pre-med, and his roommate’s pre-med, and everyone in all of his classes was pre-med, and the rest of them all seemed to fucking know what they were talking about.  What they were doing there.

Unlike Johnny.

Johnny sat in lectures and felt like he was drowning.  He was no one in a sea of faces, and he couldn’t throw a punch, or win a tournament, or do anything to set himself apart.  He felt invisible.  He didn’t feel real.

College Johnny, moreso than high school Johnny, lived for the weekend.  Yeah, he partied in high school, but it was just to pass the time; just for fun.  He didn’t need it like he does now.  Because when he’s fucked up, he knows how to be himself again.  When he’s fucked up, he can yell, he can boast, and he can fight.   So he didn’t study at all at college, didn’t write any of his papers, showed up late to lectures or just didn’t go.

No one seems to know quite what to do with this, though, as they’ve all been sitting in silence a few seconds longer than is comfortable.  So Ali speaks:

“I heard you won another tournament, Daniel, congrats.”

And if Johnny had rolled his eyes— as he was so kindly restraining himself from doing— he would have missed how pale LaRusso went at the mention of it.  And something familiar in his gut pangs, because as much as he hates to admit it, he knows that look.

“That old sensei of yours teach you some new moves?” Bobby teases.

“Yeah, I heard you fought that Mike Barnes dude,” Tommy adds excitedly.  “Been seeing his name everywhere, how the hell did you beat that guy?”

“I uh, don’t know,” LaRusso deflects anxiously.  “I don’t know, I guess I just…”

This is pitiful, so Johnny doesn’t even think it through before asking: “Hey, Daniel, you wanna help me check out something on my car?  I know you’re good with ‘em, I was meaning to get it checked out.”

Oh, fuck him.  He regrets that immediately, and everyone is staring at him like he’s just sprouted a second head.  Whatever.  He stands and beckons for LaRusso to follow as he heads up the stairs.  He doesn’t check to see that he’s behind him; he knows he is.

“So, uh… what did you want me to look at on your car?”

“I didn’t.”  He plants himself up against the wall of the house once they make it outside, looking up at the sky awkwardly and suddenly wishing he smoked cigarettes so he had something to do.

Sensei always said they were bad for him, but that asshole smoked cigars like they were meals, so what did he know?

“What—?”

“You looked like you didn’t want to talk about it,” he explains.  He says it as definitively as he can; making it clear that this isn’t an invitation to keep talking to him, or God forbid thank him.

“Oh.  Thanks, man.”

“Like I would let your ass near my car.”

“Hey, I am good with cars!  Mr. Miyagi and I have fixed up a bunch.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Daniel joins him on the wall, leaning against it, clearly also trying his best to pretend this isn’t weird.

“I have seen that yellow Ford you got.  That thing’s alright.”

“Yeah,” he lights up all of a sudden.  “Yeah, it’s pretty great, right?  It was a birthday gift from Mr. Miyagi.  Got it the night before last year’s tournament.”

“Oh.  Happy late birthday, then.”

“Thanks.  I guess I’m lucky the tournament landed just before my birthday this year, huh?” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he feels very lucky about it.

“Guess so.”

“Hey, uh.  I’m not going to college, by the way.  I get it, I guess.  Was never good in school, I can’t focus just sitting still like that.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he exhales.  “Even if I don’t drop out, they probably won’t let me come back.  I didn’t do too well there.”

“Well either way, good luck, man.”

He doesn’t thank him.  Can’t bring himself to.  But the silence doesn’t feel as awkward after that.  They stand together for a bit, staring up at the dark December sky.  And it’s actually kind of nice.

The door opens a few minutes later.  Johnny quickly pulls away from the wall, shamefully, as though he’d been doing something wrong.  Ali is the first out the door, and she gives him a funny look, but doesn’t say anything.  The others follow a few seconds after.

“You figure out what’s up with your car, Johnny?” Tommy asks, quirking a curious eyebrow.

“Yeah, LaRusso helped me confirm what I already knew.  Figure I probably need new spark plugs soon.”

“Well, we woulda told you that,” Bobby scoffs.

“Like hell you would’ve.  You idiots don’t know shit about cars.  LaRusso may be a total pussy, but at least he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Whatever, man, you ready to head out?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“I’m driving,” LaRusso announces, holding up his keys and heading towards that little yellow car as the others hurry to pile in.

The movie, it turns out, is a Sherlock Holmes flick.  But in this one, he’s a kid at a boarding school and the killers are part of some kind of cult.  It isn’t a bad movie on its own, but the booze definitely helps it.  They’ve got two flasks of Jack to pass around and it’s all mostly gone by the last hour of the movie.  Johnny’s sat square in between Ali and Daniel— probably the worst seat he could have taken, but what’s done is done and it’s not like he was gonna make a big scene of switching seats.

Johnny fumbles around in the popcorn bucket for the last piece, and his hand knocks into LaRusso’s.  Maybe it’s the booze, or maybe it’s his innate desire to compete with LaRusso, but rather than pull away, Johnny makes a show of pushing other boy’s hand away with his, battling him for the last few kernels.  LaRusso laughs a little and fights back until he finally grabs the remaining handful at the bottom, shoving them into Johnny’s face before he can even see it coming.

“Ah— what the hell?” he spits, LaRusso laughing as an old man a few rows down shushes them.

LaRusso is still fucking laughing.  All Johnny can think about is that his hands touched Johnny’s lips and, call him crazy, that feels a little too close.  Like a little bit too much.  LaRusso shouldn’t be touching him like that.  He shouldn’t be okay with LaRusso touching him like that.

And now he’s acutely aware of the other boy’s leg pressed too close to his, his hand that seems perfectly content still brushing up with Johnny’s in the popcorn box.  And suddenly, his chest feels tight, and his face feels hot, and he lets out an involuntary gasp for breath.  He needs to get out of here.

He stands up and hurries out of the theater, not bothering to look behind him, practically tripping on the stairs down the aisle, cheeks hot with embarrassment.

The hall outside the theatre is empty, so he lets himself crouch against the wall for a minute, knees spread out, hands folded behind his back, arms above his head, the same way he did the time Dutch kicked the wind out of him at training.  It doesn’t feel quite the same, this thing that’s been happening lately— it’s almost like getting the wind knocked out of him, in that he feels like he can’t breathe.   Something in his chest feels like it’s constricting and his lungs feel useless.  It’s been happening less than it had last year.  He thinks maybe that something in his lungs is still fucked up— maybe Kreese bent his whole fucking esophagus out of shape or whatever.  Left a permanent mark somewhere that Johnny can’t see and can’t do anything about.

But it’s been happening less; it comes and goes.  So whatever it is, it isn’t killing him.  It’s just really fucking inconvenient.

He sits there and breathes for as long as it takes to feel like the damn walls aren’t closing in.  He’s not sure how long he’s been there, but however long it’s been is apparently long enough for LaRusso to come looking.

“Hey, Johnny, you okay?”

Go away go away go away.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?  Because you look—”

“What’s it fucking to you, man?  Seriously, why do you care?”

“Well— I don’t know— I guess because we’re kind of—”

“Hey, just because I did you a favor earlier doesn’t mean we’re friends, ” he snaps.

“...why do you hate me so much?”

“What do you mean?” Johnny sneers.  Because it’s a stupid question, isn’t it?  They’ve always hated each other.  That’s just how this works.

He isn’t sure how, but this anger— this rage— it’s done what rage does best, and replaced that hollow, fearful feeling in his gut.  He feels better.

“I mean— I thought we were good.  When I won, you were like— hugging me, and congratulating me, and— I thought we were cool.  Then… I don’t know, you don’t talk to me the rest of the year, now we see each other a year later, and… it’s like that never fucking happened.  What gives?”

Johnny’s quiet for a minute.  He’d almost forgotten that part.  The brief momentary joy— the pride that, even though he hadn’t won, he’d been part of this.  He was disappointed yeah, but for a moment he’d been swept up in the crowd, all the cheering and hugging and that look on Daniel’s face.  That look made him feel like he was on top of the world, regardless of the lingering sting in his face.

He doesn’t think about that part when he thinks of that day.  The parts he remembers, the parts that haunt his dreams, are the kick— the loss — and the parking lot.  He remembers the worst day of his life.  Losing his title, losing his idol, and then losing his dignity as everyone watched him be choked half to death and thrown to the ground.  That’s what he remembers of Daniel, how he thinks of him— the kid that took everything.

He doesn’t tell him any of that.  Instead, he tells him: “I barely talked to anyone the rest of that year.”

“I, uh… yeah, I kind of noticed that, I guess,” Daniel admits.  “I guess I didn’t know if that was because you lost the tournament, or because of…  You know.”

He won’t even say it.

“Because I almost fucking died.”

“I’m sorry about that,” LaRusso offers.

“It’s not your fault,” Johnny responds, difficult as it is to admit.

“Still.  I’m… sorry I didn’t reach out.  I should have… I wanted to… I wanted to try to talk to you, or something.”

He isn’t sure how he would have responded to that; to LaRusso attempting to reach out to him.  To be his friend, after what happened that night.  It had been hard enough to let the other cobras look out for him, initially.  But none of them had relented, showing up at Johnny’s every day to check in, offering their couches and spare rooms when Sid was getting to be too much of an asshole.  Bobby had done most of his homework for him, Tommy drove him around late at night when neither of them could sleep, Jimmy listened to him rant and rave, and Dutch ensured he never got drunk or high alone.

They all sparred with him when he needed it; none of them ever went back to Cobra Kai, but they’d spar pretty much anywhere they could.  It kept Johnny sane, he thinks.  Being able to talk with his fists whenever words failed him.

He wonders what comfort from LaRusso would have looked like.  The smallest part of him wonders if it’s not too late to find out.

“Do you wanna fight?”

“What— no, dude.  I don’t want to fight you, I was trying to be—”

“No!” He corrects quickly.  “No, I meant— do you wanna spar?  You know, like, for fun?  I just thought… we could go outside, and… it might be…”

“Oh.”  LaRusso relaxes a little, but he still looks uncomfortable.  “Nah, um.. Maybe not now.  But you’re right.  It could be… nice.  Sometime.”

“Okay.  Cool,” he notes that for later and tries not to wonder why it means so much to him that he and LaRusso spar and he doesn’t even really care about winning.

“You wanna go finish the movie?”

“No.  Not really.  You can go back in, though.  I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Eh.  I’ve missed enough of the end already, won’t know what’s going on.  Maybe I’ll come see it again with Mr. Miyagi.”

He bites back the remark that it’s really fucking weird that his only friend is some old dude.  Partially because he has a feeling that that might actually be what pushes him to anger, and partially because he really doesn’t even think it’s true.   LaRusso’s spent the last few nights laughing it up with pretty much everyone they know— with people Johnny once called friends, and even with Johnny’s actual friends— whereas Johnny can barely make it through a real conversation with even Bobby anymore.  So maybe LaRusso has more friends than Johnny does, and he doesn’t want to dwell on that.  So he doesn’t say anything.  Instead he says:

“I need a drink.”

“You don’t have a flask?”

“All out,” he answers.  “Tommy’s fucking fault, he drank most of it.  I’m way too sober right now.”

“Sorry, man.  I think Eddie’s got the other flask.”

“You wanna drive me to the liquor store down the block?”

“What?”

“I mean, if we’re not going back to the movie… I’ve got a fake and you’ve got a car.  Gotta kill time somehow.  We can stock up for the afterparty, since Eddie was getting on us about drinking up all his parents’ booze.”

He seems like he’s thinking for a second— Johnny can tell because he does that annoying thing where he shuffles his feet and readjusts a little before he smiles.  It’s honestly kind of… well, it’s kind of cute.  Fucking sue him.  “Yeah, okay.  Sounds good.”

Johnny grins.  “Let’s go then.”

*

It feels weird to be in the passenger seat of LaRusso’s car, just the two of them out on the road.  Johnny rolls the window down and sticks his head out slightly, letting the wind whip his hair into his face.  The sting keeps him feeling upbeat.  It takes him a second to realize that Daniel’s turned the radio on.

“Hey, I love this song.  Turn it up.”

“Of course you do,” LaRusso snorts, obeying and turning the radio up anyways.

“What, you got something against Styx?”

“No,” he smiles.  “Just makes sense that you like it.”

“Shut up,” he punches him lightly on the shoulder without even thinking about it, the same way he would one of the guys.

Everything about this night feels weird.

He gives a second look to the shiny new radio in this old-ass car and it occurs to him to ask: “You put that radio in yourself?”

“Yeah, nice, right?  We just put it in last week.”

“Yeah, man, it’s nice,” he agrees.  He reaches over to crank the volume up a little louder and manages to catch LaRusso’s slight smile.

When they pull into the liquor store, Daniel turns the music down and turns to Johnny a bit nervously.  “So, uh… do I come in?”

“You can if you want.”  He looks him over once more for good measure.  “Though, it might look a bit more suspicious if you do.  No way anyone’s gonna believe you’re twenty-one.  I barely believe you’re eighteen,” he laughs.

“Shut up, man!” he retorts, but he doesn’t sound too upset about it.  “I think I might just wait out here, then.  If that’s cool.”

“Yeah, it’s fine.  Want me to grab anything specific?”

“No, I’m fine with whatever,” he smiles back, and Johnny gets the idea in his head to buy nothing but the shittiest beer he can find and some straight liquor to see how fine LaRusso is with that.  He doesn’t, though.  If only for Ali and Eddie’s sake; they can’t drink like he and the cobras can.

*

They get back to the theater just in time to meet the others on their way out.

“Where the hell were you guys?” Eddie laughs, swinging open the door to the backseat and climbing in with Bobby and Tommy.  Ali, to Johnny’s surprise, hops into the front seat next to him, forcing him to sidle up even closer to LaRusso.  He really needs to stop being in the middle of these two; it’s all sorts of confusing.

“We went to the liquor store,” Daniel answers happily.  “Johnny got us all booze.”

“Yeah, Johnny!” Eddie whoops, reaching up from the back to clap him on the shoulders.

“So where we going?” Tommy asks.

“How about the beach?” Daniel asks.  The others agree loudly, and while Johnny isn’t quite sure why they can’t just go back to Eddie’s, he supposes he doesn’t really have a problem with the beach.  But now, the beach just reminds him of last year.  The day he met LaRusso and everything went to shit.

Then again, he’s been hanging with LaRusso all night and it’s been surprisingly decent, so maybe LaRusso wasn’t actually the problem that night.

Maybe.

*

While everyone else is kicking around a soccer ball, Johnny busies himself by building the fire and, after that, standing over it, stick in hand, poking and prodding it every few minutes.  If Jimmy were here, he’d be making fun of him for sure.  He’s big into camping and can make a fire quicker than any of them, as upset as that makes Johnny.  He always laughs at Johnny’s incessant poking.

You just gotta leave it be, man, he can practically hear it now.  

Johnny’s never let anything go, Dutch responded one time, laughing and throwing back a beer.  Johnny had bitten back the anger at that statement, because picking a fight might only prove the point.

He misses Dutch.  He apparently got busted on possession with intent a few months after Johnny left town.   Which is fucking stupid, because Dutch wasn’t a drug dealer.  Yeah, he’d get stuff for kids at school sometimes, but he wasn’t a fucking dealer.

Bobby’s been to visit him apparently— been bugging Johnny to do the same.  It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Dutch.  It’s nothing he can really even explain.  Just something about the idea of really going there; walking into the county lockup and seeing his friend— the guy who Johnny beat on kids they didn’t like with, and snorted coke in Eddie’s bathroom with, and danced to goddamn Blondie with at prom while the other guys laughed— locked up.

When no one else got it, hanging out with Dutch had sometimes felt a bit like looking in a mirror.  He’s worried that it still would.

He sets down the stick and sits by the fire, legs crossed, hunched over and resting his face in his hands.  There’s another voice in his head scolding his posture, stop slouching, Mr. Lawrence, but when he screws his eyes tight enough— and takes another pull from the bottle of Jack in his hand— that voice gets a bit quieter.

He barely notices when LaRusso comes to sit down next to him mid-swig, until the other boy is nudging his shoulder and holding his hand out.  Johnny hands him the bottle and LaRusso takes a pull, making a face after that Johnny can’t stifle his laugh at.

“Shut up,” he smirks.  “We’re not all functional alcoholics.”

“Real funny,” Johnny bites, trying not to make it noticeable that that one managed to sting.

“You, uh, built a nice fire,” Daniel offers.

“Yeah, I did,” Johnny nods quietly in agreement.  He’s always liked fire— not in a crazy pyro way like Barb’s cousin who went to juvie— he just likes to look at it.  It’s kind of nice, watching the flames dart around like fighters on the mat.  Sometimes he used to imagine watching a little match inside the fire, but one time he got crossfaded out of his mind and started crying — like tears in his eyes crying— because when the fire went out, it meant the fighters were all burnt up to ash.  The guys didn’t let him forget it for weeks, and he’d actually had to beat Tommy’s ass over it, but after that he hadn’t thought about it in years.  Until he went to school.

“You uh, you ever think about phoenixes, man?” he asks, taking another drink and offering the bottle back to Daniel.

“Phoenixes?”   He drinks and winces again.  “Isn’t that like, a kind of bird?”

“Well yeah, but not a real one,” Johnny answers.

“Huh.  I guess not.  Do you?  Think about phoenixes?”

“I took this class.  At school.  Greek mythology.  Don’t know why I took it actually, but… the professor didn’t talk about it a lot, but in the textbook, there was this whole page about phoenixes.  They like… when it’s time for them to die, they burst into flame.  And then a new one rises from the ashes.  So really, it just… it never dies.”

“Hey, that’s pretty neat,” Daniel smiles.  “What, you wanna be a phoenix?” he asks, and Johnny can tell that he’s joking.

But it’s not a joke, really.  He takes another drink, and debates saying—

“I think maybe I already am.”

“Oh.”  LaRusso’s quiet for a minute, staring hard into the fire for a minute.  Johnny idly wonders what he’s thinking about, until he says: “Hey, Johnny— let’s um— let’s fight.  Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” he grins.  He stands up and brushes the sand from his jeans.

“Yeah.  You’re right.  It’ll be fun.  I wanna fight the new Johnny.”  He winks and steps away, moving a bit more towards the others and Johnny can see him start to draw a circle in the sand with his foot.  That almost makes him laugh, but he happily follows LaRusso to the center of their new makeshift ring.  “Ali!  Wanna ref?”

The guys are whooping their support once they realize what’s happening and Ali is rolling her eyes as she steps towards them.  “Okay,” she sighs, trying to hide her smile.  “You two idiots know the rules.”  Then, she grins.  “Face me!”

“Seriously?” Johnny asks, almost amused by the amount of decorum that she and LaRusso are bringing to a beach sparring match.

“Seriously!  Face me.”  LaRusso obeys without complaint, so Johnny gives in.  “Bow.”  They do.  “Face each other.  Bow.”  They do.  “Fight!”

They do.

Johnny springs into action quick, darting towards him with a front kick, but LaRusso blocks and takes the opportunity to move behind him.  Johnny tries to use the opportunity to greet LaRusso with a round kick, but he circumvents it easily and gets Johnny with a jab.

Despite all the formalities they’re playing at, this still doesn’t feel real to Johnny.  It feels less real than it had even with the cobras in their backyards.  Maybe because there had always been a reason then.  It was the extra training for tournaments, at least once a week after practice, improving their skills to show their sensei the next day.

And after the tournament, it was fighting to forget.  Working through all of their collective anger, stress, and confusion by pummeling each other until it didn’t matter.

And this… there isn’t a reason for this.  He isn’t fighting LaRusso to prove anything, or impress anyone, or fix anything.  It’s just for fun.  He can’t even bring himself to feel upset when Ali raises her hand in the air and dramatically awards the other boy a point, when he knows he probably should.  He misses his rage; he feels a little lost without it, and he’s not entirely sure where it’s gone.

They get back into stance and Johnny tries hard to lock his focus in on the match, but there’s such a calming chill in the air and he thinks that maybe the whiskey is finally starting to hit him where it matters.

He charges forward with a series of kicks that seem to startle LaRusso, and he dodges backwards rather than countering.  Johnny laughs as Daniel stumbles out of the ‘ring’, falling back and landing flat on his ass.

He pops up quicker than Johnny can prepare for, though— especially not with the alcohol slowing his reactions— and nearly lands a solid punch on him before Johnny dodges in the nick of time.  He’s really gotta start anticipating that move quicker, he supposes.  He counters quickly and manages to land a roundhouse.  After Ali declares the point they reset, though, LaRusso smirks at him, and when Johnny goes in for a kick, LaRusso slides in instead of stepping out of the way.  Before Johnny knows it, he’s on his back, leg swept out from under him.

That little punk.

Johnny doesn’t think twice before sitting up and charging forward, tackling LaRusso to the ground with him.  And then they’re not really fighting anymore, so much as… grappling.  Grabbing at each other and knocking their bodies together without as much force as usual.  Johnny hears the laughter before he realizes it’s coming from him, and as soon as he realizes it, LaRusso is laughing with him.  And then they’re just laying there in the sand, on top of each other, laughing like madmen.

Ali is laughing too, and the guys are drunk enough to seemingly not care that Johnny is totally pussying out of a fight right now, and everyone’s just… happy.

This is nice, is the first thing Johnny thinks.  And it doesn’t even occur to him to question that thought, because it is nice, there’s no harm in admitting that.  LaRusso is laying over him, and he can feel the other boy’s breath on his face when he laughs.  And then he remembers that smile at the tournament, and their hands in the popcorn bowl, and that exchange at the party.

(“Yeah, I’ll kiss you in your dreams, LaRusso.”)

And then, all of a sudden, his chest is tight.  He can feel his face drain of color, and it's as though all the wind has been knocked out of him again.  He hadn’t even realized that that’s what he’d been feeling.

He wants to kiss LaRusso.

Oh, fuck.

He pushes the other boy off of him with a bit more force than he intends to, much more force than they’d been using as they playfully shoved at each other the last few minutes of their fight.

“Woah, what–”

“Sorry,” Johnny stammers, trying to keep his cool.  “I have to— I can’t…”  All he can think about, though, is LaRusso’s stupid, beautiful face.  He wants to kiss him.   “Fuck!” he shouts.

“Hey, what are you—?  What the hell, dude?”

Johnny balls his fists and doesn’t turn around as he storms out, up the hill and almost back to the road.  He hopes Daniel doesn’t try to follow him, because he’s quite literally the last person he wants to talk to right now.  Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this, fuck this.   Stupid LaRusso ruins everything.  But despite that, he can’t get that stupid smile out of his head.

“Johnny!” a voice calls after him once he’s back up at the top, interrupting his thoughts as he once again sits with his hands above his head, desperately trying to calm down.  “Johnny, what the hell is wrong with you?”

He jumps up quickly, turns around and feels his stomach drop.  He stands corrected.  The actual last person he wants to talk to is standing in front of him and looking pretty pissed.

“Seriously, what the actual hell is wrong with you that you can’t be decent for a day?” Ali spits, and he’d say he’s never seen her this angry before, but that’s probably a lie.  He always had a knack for making her angry.

He has a knack for making everyone angry.

“Ali, I’m really not in the fucking mood right now–”

“Johnny Lawrence not in the mood for a fight?  Call the pope, it’s a miracle.”

“Fuck off, okay?”

“Seriously, Johnny?” she asks, tone a bit softer.  “What’s wrong?  I mean— you’ve been cool this past week.  You and Daniel are actually getting along, I thought he was crazy for wanting to invite you, but—”

“What?”

“I said you’ve been cool.  Like, actually cool.  I thought maybe college straightened you out or something, but—”

“No, I mean— LaRusso invited me?”

“He told me to invite you.  To the Christmas party.  Tommy asked if you could come and I was going to say no, but Daniel told me to invite you.  And then— he was excited to see you again tonight.  God knows why.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, Johnny, maybe he’s got brain damage from all the times you beat on him.”

“Well… that might explain a few things.”

He’s prepared for Ali to yell at him when he smirks, but he’s bracing for a lecture that doesn’t come.  “...yeah,” she smiles the slightest bit back.  “It might.”  The smile fades as quickly as it appeared, though.  “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

No.   He doesn’t.

“I just— I don’t know.  Getting too friendly with LaRusso is weird.  It— it feels weird.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously!” he bites back.  “We spent a whole year beating the shit out of each other and now— now we’re just buddy-buddy?  And I want… I want to be his friend, okay?  But I kind of don’t?”

“Jesus, Johnny, it doesn’t need to be that complicated!”

“Well maybe I want it to be complicated!”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says, because he can’t say that he’s been thinking about kissing LaRusso, about the feeling of their bodies pressed against each other, about that stupid fucking smile.

What does that mean?  Does he want to be LaRusso’s girlfriend or something?

No, LaRusso would be his fucking girlfriend.  LaRusso is a tiny little thing and he laughs like a girl.  Yeah, if he and LaRusso were gay together, Johnny would be the guy.  So maybe LaRusso could be his girlfriend or something.  And that might not be too bad.

But he thinks he may have spent too much time thinking about this, because Ali is staring at him with a funny look on her face and he really isn’t sure how she’s still able to read his mind.

“...Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Johnny are you—?”  She lowers her voice to a whisper.   “Are you gay?”

“What the fuck?   No!” he spits back loud enough that he even surprises himself.  Ali jumps back a bit and Johnny feels the shame start to spike up from his gut.  He hadn’t meant to scare her.  He takes a step back too, trying to apologize with his eyes, because he was never very good at doing it with words.

“Okay.  Fine,” she raises her hands a little in surrender.  “But whatever your issue is, sort it out, okay?  I mean it.  I want to leave all this drama behind in high school, and if this is what being your friend is gonna be like—”

“Yeah, I get it,” he murmurs.  “I’m sorry.”  Then, wait— “Friends?  Are we friends?”

“We’re hanging out, aren’t we?” she asks, raising her eyebrows a little.  “I’d like to be friends.  If you’re going to stop… picking fights and being an ass, then I’d like to be friends.

“I’d like that too,” he admits.  He’d never actually really considered just being friends with Ali, but he misses her.  He doesn’t think he loves her anymore— not like that— but he misses being around her.

“Good,” she smiles, turning back towards the beach.  “Work your shit out, Johnny.”