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Mortal Kombat: The Beginning of the End for Johnny Cage?
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It hasn’t been a good month or so for Johnny.
What was supposed to bring his career from the dead, propel him forward, make them respect his name again,
…basically just pummeled it further into the dirt. Deader than it already was.
Johnny Cage. Washed up at 35. What a joke.
Most nights end with him staring at the mirror after his shower, caught in a stalemate with a reflection he doesn’t recognize anymore. He’s not eating, he’s not sleeping, he’s really not looking good.
He’s starting to look 35.
It doesn’t help being inches away from the mirror, able to see every single imperfection of his crystal clear.
He’s lost that boyish glow from forever ago—he’s got wrinkles, crows feet, five o’clock shadow, a little bit of a tummy…
What gets him the most for some reason is the gathered skin around his elbows that wasn’t there two years ago. Something tabloids never mention about anybody, but he sees it, and he knows… he’s not the young hot moviestar he used to be…
And suddenly his eyes are welling up, and he doesn’t even have time to blink before the first tear falls.
It’s all just too much. He knew this day would come, obviously, he just didn’t realize it would be so soon .
He can’t remember the last interaction with a fan where they didn’t say something along the lines of, “I used to love you!”
Used to.
And they’re always well-intentioned with it, but all Johnny hears is the ‘used to’—how they lost interest somewhere between then and now.
He’s a thing of the past. An antique. A source of nostalgia. Nothing new.
That thought kills him, making the tears fall with more urgency, and his throat start to hurt, and now it’s harder and harder to stand upright, so he grips the edges of the counter, body convulsing from his silent but powerful sobs,
And because his brain loves to torture himself, it keeps replaying over and over, talk show hosts, movie critics, news reporters, everybody in the media discussing how he’s worn out his welcome in Hollywood,
And holy shit, it’s his dad all over again—
No, no, stop —
A high, loud hiccup escapes him before he can stop it, followed by a few soft sobs before he tightens his grip on the counter as hard as he can, willing himself to pull it together.
Fuck, he really hopes Kenshi’s knocked out right now. The last thing he needs is for—
“Johnny?”
…oh, god damn it.
He looks up and sees his love in the mirror, he’s groggy and holding himself up against the doorway, stifling a yawn.
“Hey baby,” he tries to say, voice coming out high, raw, and pathetic. He wipes his eyes, takes a long, deep breath, blows it out, managing to be presentable before Kenshi. “Did I wake you up?” he tries again, somewhat better than the first time. Audible, at least.
Kenshi slowly approaches and reaches out, feeling for Johnny until he lands on a shoulder. “You should come to bed,” he whispers, feeling out the rest of his boyfriend’s body, mapping his shoulders, his back, his waist… then settling his arms around Johnny’s middle, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I miss you. It gets cold in there all by myself.”
Johnny shuts his eyes and just lets himself be held for a moment, then places his hand over one of Kenshi’s. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” he whispers.
Kenshi slowly maneuvers his head to kiss Johnny’s pulse point. Then again. And again. “What’s got you up so late, ダーリン?” Again.
A small, sweet hum of satisfaction, if only for a moment. “Just this one project coming up,” he says, which isn’t wrong . “You never get used to it, doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the business.”
“...You and I both know that’s not the whole truth.”
…
Other nights, he would fight him on this. Insist that’s all that’s bothering him, then go to bed with a weird feeling in his stomach while Kenshi pretends to believe him. But… something about tonight makes him unable to do that. He’s not quite as strong tonight as he is on those other nights.
And maybe he wants to hear what Kenshi has to say to rebut his anxieties about aging. And get him to keep kissing that sweet spot he loves so much.
Ah, just like that. It’s like he read his mind.
“I found a grey hair the other day,” is all he says. He’ll let Kenshi open that up to a bigger discussion if he wants to.
Kenshi doesn’t say or do anything for a moment, then tightens his grip and nuzzles in further. “I’ve had grey hairs since I was a baby,” he says plainly. “A nice natural highlight.”
Johnny sighs. “You know what I mean.”
A small beat. He does.
The man doesn’t say anything for a while, just feeling up and down Johnny’s body, sliding up his waist, around his shoulders, down his arms, back up…
“D’you need me to tell you how young you still feel?” he starts, trailing up to his face, and mapping out his features like he has a million times before, this time from behind. “Because you do. Or do you just want me to be quiet?”
“First off, I never just want you to be quiet—”
“ That’s a lie,” Kenshi playfully rebuts before he can say anything else, startling a laugh out of Johnny.
“What–? Okay, no– I… I have… uh…” And the argument dies faster than he can come up with one, so he sighs and sinks back down into Kenshi’s hold. “Can you actually feel how young I am?” he asks meekly, a little dumbly. A little desperately.
Kenshi chuckles softly. “Saying it like that sounds insane. But, yes. You’ve got good skin, good bones, great muscles,” he embellishes that last item, obnoxiously caressing Johnny’s biceps, making him flush.
“Alright, alright , ” he gets out between bouts of flustered, incredulous laughter. “ Eugh, ”
“Not to mention a tight ass,” he adds, with a squeeze to said ass.
“ Kenshi!! ” Johnny squeals, grinning with delight. “Good lord, you’ve been spending too much time with me.”
“You love it.”
“...I do.” He does.
They settle back down after that, sitting in each other’s presence for a bit.
Johnny lets his eyelids fall, reminds himself how incredibly fortunate he is. He’s in his life partner’s arms, in their home, their fully paid off house might he add!!
Slow breath in, slow breath out.
A soft, warm, dreamy smile spreads across his face as his eyes open back up, and he takes in all of Kenshi’s reflection, and…
Just… wow.
He’s so effortlessly gorgeous. Even in the middle of the night, hair a mess, in his skivvies, he could still be on the cover of Vogue right now.
God, Johnny is so lucky.
Like it’s the easiest thing in the world, Johnny tells Kenshi, “I love you.”
Kenshi hums fondly, nuzzling the nape of his neck. “I love you, too.”
“... you wanna come back to bed and I can tell you how handsome you are as you doze off?” Kenshi offers lightly with a couple kisses behind Johnny’s ear. “...Or we can stay like this all night looking at ourselves in the bathroom mirror and freezing our asses off,” he points out, getting the both of them to laugh.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to say anything, but he is starting to get a little cold. Being basically naked standing on tile, and all.
He presses back into Kenshi’s hold, nice and warm. That man runs hot . And oh , it feels real good.
“I know you’re kidding, but that would actually be really nice.”
A small hum. Another kiss. “Tonight was really hard, huh?”
“Yeah… yeah, it was.” Kenshi’s hand comes up to smooth over his hair, making him sigh. “Gotta get off social media. Nothing good on there.”
He hums in agreement. Squeezes a little tighter. “You need to start reading books like a normal adult.”
Johnny huffs. “I read! I’ve read so many books, so many different authors…”
“Yeah? How many of them don’t have a movie adaptation?”
Johnny’s silence for a little too long is enough to answer.
“...okay, they’re still books! Jurassic Park, the Godfather, Jaws— they were all books before they were movies!! And they’re phenomenal!”
Kenshi just laughs softly. Then kisses Johnny’s cheek a couple times with fervor. “I’m sure they are. Wouldn’t hurt to… find some non-movie books, though.”
He doesn’t have it in him to argue how that doesn’t make any sense since the movie comes after the fact , and instead takes Kenshi’s hand and strokes up and down with his thumb, saying, “That’s not a bad idea.”
“I’ve got some good ones back from when I could still… yknow, read.,” the blind man remarks, making both of them chuckle a little bit. ‘You’d like them, I think.”
“I bet I would,” Johnny agrees, then lets the two hang in the silence for a moment.
“...I love you,” he says for a second time, finding one of Kenshi’s hands and stroking the back of it with his thumb.
“I love you too,’ Kenshi says with no hesitation. “...you ready to come to bed?”
“Carry me?” he asks facetiously, with no real expectation that Kenshi would even entertain that thought, then startles as he’s quickly swept off his feet and carried back into their bedroom, no protest or anything from his love.
Kenshi put him in a damn fireman’s carry. Just might be the least romantic way to carry somebody, Johnny thinks, blood already starting to rush towards his head.
“Babe, I was kidding!” he squeals, breathless, giddy, flustered, still processing now being six feet in the air, before he is thrown down onto the bed, eliciting an “ oof!” out with the impact.
“Who am I to deny Johnny Cage anything?” Kenshi flirts, getting into bed beside him. Chuckling softly at Johnny’s playful retching in response. “Johnny, my love, my life, my soul, my everything,” he embellishes, more and more, punctuating each item with an increasingly more passionate kiss to the cheek, leaving Johnny beet red, giggling like no other.
And once again, all amped up, he counts his blessings.
Kenshi had a very hard time navigating their relationship the first couple of months they started dating. Johnny’s heard him mention a few times how he’d never heard his parents say they loved each other, or really seen or experienced any form of affection from anybody besides his mother.
Johnny, ever the history/culture buff, wanted to surprise Kenshi by learning some Japanese pet names and/or terms of endearment, only to find out that’s not really something they do over there, at least not as much as Americans.
But now here he is, comfortable and vulnerable enough to carry Johnny to bed, to litter him with kisses, to call him every name in the book—he’s damn near unrecognizable from the grumpy ex-Yakuza of yesteryear.
And that, once again, helps him ground himself, and remember that aging isn’t all that bad.
“You’re thinking again,” Kenshi points out, ripping Johnny out of his thoughts he didn’t even realize he was so far deep into.
“Hm?” How does he even notice ?? How can the blind man possibly tell he’s lost in thought by the vibrations on the bed— anyway. “Oh, just… thinking. About you.” Once again, not wrong.
Kenshi’s smile gets a little bigger. “Good things, I hope.”
“Always,” Johnny answers without missing a beat.
A small chuckle. “Cmere,” Kenshi tells him, spreading out on the bed to accommodate for Johnny’s whole frame, the way he likes it.
And, well. Who is he to not take that invitation and smother his boyfriend with his whole body?
He sprawls out on top, releasing with a nice easy little sigh.
Kenshi hums, delighted, and runs his hands up from the curve of Johnny’s back to his shoulders. “Do you still have any… lingering… bad emotions?” he attempts to check in.
Johnny smiles, and nuzzles his head deeper into the crook of Kenshi’s neck. “How can I when I’m pressed up against you?”
The swordsman pets the back of his head, content with that answer. “Good.”
They’re both asleep in a matter of minutes.