Archive of Our Own

1. 

The dojo feels like a tomb when John unlocks it and steps inside.

It's only been three months since he was last here, but already it feels musty, old, out of place. It's a strange sensation. He used to come here every day. Every day for years, when the dojo would come alive with the holler and cry of his students. The sound of skin hitting the mats. The smell of sweat in the air. It was something organic, like an animal uncurling its claws, slinking through the trees. 

Now it feels dead. In the dark and quiet, it was a decaying palace.

He doesn't linger. Nostalgia made you soft. He does what he came here to do: he guts it.

Though it's impossible not to let his mind tick back as he does. To things he had done, and couldn't undo.

He hasn’t seen the Cobra Kai since the night of the tournament. Not his champions, his five best boys. After the defeat at All-Valley, he expected them to come begging for his forgiveness. But there had only been absence and silence. On those first nights he thought the cops would come banging on his door, but there had been nothing. He'd thrown the other boys out of the dojo too, and hadn't stepped foot in it since. 

The nights had felt darker since then.

It's nights like this that he thinks about what he did. The moment he wrapped his hands around Johnny's neck and squeezed the breath out of him. Not that he feels regret over it. It’s been a long time since John has felt anything like regret, or considered things like penance. No, not since the war. And there hadn't been much time for thinking like that either. Not if you didn't want to bleed out in the jungle, forgotten and alone.

But sometimes he does think about it: remembers the betrayed flutter of Johnny's eyes, the tear tracks on his cheeks. His throat one giant bruise in the shape of his hands. And if John loses himself in a bottle of bourbon afterwards, that's for him to know and no one else. 

He wouldn't need to be forgiven if it was something he couldn't feel.

For now he’s busy gutting the dojo. Tearing down the trophies. All the photos of the boys from over the years. There was another photo he kept in his office: one taken of him and Johnny, just after he’d won his first trophy two years before. He looked incandescent in it, his grin so wide it looked painful. It had been a proud moment for John. After training the boy for three years, he'd looked at him and thought, he's the one. 

John throws it in the trash with everything else. 

Clearing out the dojo takes longer than he thought it would. It spills into a second night, then a third. As he works, collecting its history in his hands and ripping it up, he expects to feel lighter. He doesn't. The dojo gets emptier, but the rock in his stomach only grows larger.

On the third night, he's throwing out the trash bags at the back of the dojo when he feels someone lingering in the distance.

He knows who it is instantly. It’s Johnny. He knows it as much as he knows the beat of his own blood. 

My golden boy, he'd called him at moments when he'd allowed himself to feel something like fondness.

Days like that had tasted like a feast. Nothing like the ash that lingered in John's mouth now. 

"Sensei," the boy says as he approaches, half-hidden in the shadows.

John turns to face him. Tries to make out Johnny's expression, but can't see it in the dark.

"Don't just skulk there," he says. "Come into the light so I can see you." 

Johnny does as he's told. He's wearing jeans and an oversized denim jacket, the glint of his pendant on display against his collarbone. His neck isn't the violent wreck of bruising it had been that night, but he does look pale. Ashen-cheeked, devoid of his usual colour. 

John would say it was good to see him, but it wasn't. 

"What are you doing here, Lawrence? Make it fast." 

Johnny comes closer, until his golden halo of hair glints under the dim lights.

"I wanted to talk to you." He eyes the garbage bags and the wreck inside the dojo. “What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm clearing out the dojo." 

"But why? Is it... because of me?"

"Don't flatter yourself, boy. How did you know I was here?"

"I come around sometimes. You haven't been teaching classes."

"I don't see how that's any of your business." 

Johnny swallows, the long line of his throat rippling. He looks unsure, frightened. 

“What did I do wrong, sensei? I did everything you wanted. Everything you told me to do.”

John feels his upper lip curl back into a sneer. Even after all this time, Johnny was still a sodden rag of emotion. An open, bleeding heart. The vulnerability etched into every line of the boy's face makes him feel sick.

“You’re pathetic, Lawrence. You're nothing but a stupid little boy."

Johnny's chin crumples, like he's about to cry. It had always been a weakness of his. Wearing his emotions so openly, his jugular exposed. John had tried to train it out of him over the years - had done numerous things to harden him, to burn the weakness out and tourniquet the bleeding edges, but it had only done so much. No matter what he did, Johnny had always been a naked bundle of nerves.

"I just wanted you to be proud of me," Johnny mumbles.

"Spare me the theatrics. Why don't you go sell the sob story to your little boyfriend instead?"

Johnny steps back, eyes wide. "What?"

"Yeah, the fatherless little Italian greaseball you've grown so fond of." 

Johnny’s jaw tenses. And there it was, that old fire. The one that had made Johnny the strongest of the Cobra Kai, and the one that John had stoked over the years. Making it fiercer, brighter. There had been times when John looked at the boy and thought he'd obliterate the whole goddamn Valley with it. It was beautiful. Until LaRusso had shown up, making him stumble, making him stupid. As if LaRusso was a girl who had Johnny on a leash. At least Johnny could have fucked a girl and got her out of his system. LaRusso was different. He turned Johnny into a fucking moron.

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“Why shouldn't I? I'll say what I goddamn like."

“You’re wrong about him.”

“Which part? That he’s a momma’s boy? Or that he’s a dickless little faggot who offered his ass up to you in exchange for the trophy?"

Johnny flushes a deep, patchy red. "That's not what happened." 

"So it's worse then. You really did lose to a fairy who can't fight for shit."

Johnny's hands clench at his sides and he leans closer, like he's about to punch him. "Shut up."

"You don’t think I noticed? The way you sniffed around him like he was a bitch going into heat?"

The worst thing is, John isn't saying this to prod at Johnny's vulnerable spots. The places where his plates of armour don't quite meet. He'd seen the way Johnny looked at the other boy. The thinly disguised admiration at the way he moved. His genuine concern for him at the tournament. 

And there had been something else too. Something like desire tightening his jaw and darkening his eyes. 

That night he'd watched Johnny go soft in all the places he'd once made him strong. He was weak. He wasn't a Cobra. Not a killer.

"I didn't do that. Daniel didn't-"

John grins, the flash of his teeth making Johnny flinch. "Oh, Daniel, of course."

"You don't understand."

"I understand everything. You were putty in that boy's hands the entire time. That's all there is to it."

Desperation floods Johnny's face. "No, I wasn't, and if you'd just let me prove that to you-" 

"Get out of my sight, Lawrence. Maybe if you're lucky you can join another dojo, maybe the one in Topanga where they're happy to take gay boys and spineless losers. Maybe you can get dressed up and fight girls at the mall, because that's all you're fucking good for." 

Johnny shakes his head, the fire melting out of him. When he looks at John it's with big, pleading eyes.  

"Please just tell me what I have to do. I'll do anything, sensei. Just please don't turn me away."

John strikes him. It's fast, a backhand to his cheek, but it still makes Johnny's head crack to the side, his cheek blooming red. 

If there's any pleasure to get from the sight of it, it's a dull, muted one.

"Don't call me that," he seethes. "I'm not your sensei anymore."

"Please don't leave me," Johnny whimpers, his cheek a fierce red, "please."

"I said get out of my sight. You're nothing, Lawrence. You were born a loser and that's all you'll ever be."

John thinks a number of things could happen then. Maybe Johnny will start crying in earnest, falling to John's feet and begging him not to leave. It was possible for a boy who'd never had a father and had on more than one occasion looked at John like he finally had one. Johnny could hit him, but he'd be flicked to the side as easily as a tin soldier. Maybe he'll run back into the night, back to the boy who'd ruined their lives.

What he doesn't expect is for Johnny's eyes to flicker over his shoulder.

That's when he feels it - someone behind him, creeping closer. He thinks, you idiot, never keep your back exposed . 

He turns fast to knock the hand away, but it’s too late. It clamps around his mouth, pressing a damp cloth just under his nose. Before he can shake it off, Johnny lunges at him, knocking him back against the door to the dojo.

They grapple for a moment, two against one. John is bigger and stronger, and usually he'd have no problem getting the two of them off him. He's fought more men than this before. Except there's a fog unfurling at the edges of his vision, weighing down his arms and legs. He manages to lash out, his fist connecting with the other boy's chin, making him yelp and jump back. But there's no time to take care of Johnny. He fights, but it’s no use. As Johnny lets him go, he slumps boneless to the ground, feeling like he's been scooped out and filled with concrete.

He tries to say something, but can't work his mouth in the right way.

Johnny stares down at him, his melancholy dropping like a mask. Turns out the little boy lost had been feigned. All an act. He stares at John impassively, as if he were nothing more than a wounded bird that had fallen out of the nest. 

John would have been proud if he wasn’t so angry.

The other boy approaches again, rubbing his hand across the dark bruise blossoming on his chin. 

"You okay?" Johnny asks. 

"Yeah, fucker always had a mean right hook." 

And he knows that voice. It’s Dutch. Johnny had brought the strongest of the Cobra Kai with him, which meant he planned ahead.

Dutch turns his head to spit blood onto the sidewalk. “You think we used enough? What if he wakes up on the drive down there?"

“It doesn’t matter,” Johnny says. “He’s not going anywhere.” He looks back at John. "Are you, Kreese?"

The last thing John sees is Johnny’s foot coming towards him fast. He hears a crunch, sickening and wet, and his face explodes into a flare of agony, so bright and iridescent he makes a noise like a strangled howl. But there's no time to do anything about it. He passes out cold. 

⸻⸻⸻⸻

John wakes some time later.

At first he thinks he's woken up from a nightmare. That the pain is from him falling out of bed. 

Usually his sleep is heavy and dark. He hardly ever dreams these days. But every now and then a nightmare will come to him unbidden, perching at the edge of his bed like an unwanted guest, skeletal fingers reaching out to curl around his ankle. 

He tries to throw an arm out, to grab the foot of his bed, but finds he can't. His wrists are tied.

He blinks in the dark, and with a lurch realises he isn't at home. This isn't his room, it's not his apartment.

A flash of colour later - golden hair, crying eyes - and it comes rushing back with the force of a tidal wave.

Johnny. And Dutch. His boys attacking him outside the dojo. Knocking him out.

He's not sure how long he's been out, but the sky outside is still dark, a slice of moon visible through the clouds.

He isolates the pain to three places. His head and nose, which he's pretty sure is broken, and in his wrists, which have been bound behind the chair he's sitting on. Then there's that fog in his head. He's not sure what he'd inhaled, but it's enough to have knocked him out pretty good. Chloroform maybe, or a homemade cocktail that emulated it. It makes him drowsy and drooping at the edges. 

Even through the fog, John's military training kicks in. He quickly scans his environment. He’s in some kind of large building. An old warehouse maybe, or disused factory. The air feels sharp, smells salty. He must be near the ocean. He quickly feels along the rope, trying to work out if there's a weakness in the knots. They feel tight but amateurish. If he worked at them long enough he should be able to undo them.  

He goes still when he sees a silhouette emerge in the doorway leading outside.

"Johnny," it says, "he's awake."

A moment later, Johnny walks through the door. 

The boy looks the same as he did before, but he's taken off the jacket despite the chill in the air, stripping him down to a white t-shirt. His wide-eyed look of sadness has also evaporated, leaving his face cold and hard. In the moonlight he looks etched from marble.

Stupid, John thinks, to have fallen for such an obvious act. 

As Johnny approaches, four more silhouettes come through the door behind him. He knows who they are instantly: it's his Cobra Kai.

“That’s not going to help you," Johnny says, gesturing at John's arms. "You can pull at the knots all you want, you're not getting out of them."

John tries to speak, but all that comes out is a thick slur, more mud than words.

“Shit, sorry, do you feel sick?" Johnny asks, though he sounds anything but sorry. "We might have given you too much. It’s the first time we’ve ever knocked someone unconscious, so we weren’t sure how much to use. Or maybe it’s because I broke your nose."

John swallows, manages to focus enough to say, "Where are we?"

"You don't need to worry about that."

"This just doesn't seem like a very hospitable way to treat guests."

Johnny snorts. "Sure," he says.

John looks over the boy's shoulder, to where Bobby's standing a few feet away, arms crossed. 

He's surprised to see him; Bobby had always been the most level-headed of the Cobras. Cool and calculating, he was a calm ocean where Johnny was a raging storm. The perfect antidote to boys like Dutch, and the one who usually kept them out of trouble.

“Bobby, come over here and untie me."

Bobby stares back at him but he doesn't say anything. There's a hard light in his eyes. One that was reflected on all of their faces. 

John had taught them all for a long time - some of them even longer than Johnny - and he knew this particular look. It was the steely, determined look they got at a competition or tournament, just before they got on the mat.

John had just never seen the full force of it directed at him before. 

A wave of nausea hits him and he doubles over, trying not to puke. 

Johnny steps back, grimacing. Of course the Encino prince would want to keep his sneakers clean.

The thought makes him chuckle. "Sorry," he says, "I don't mean to ruin the tea party before it's even started."

Johnny's mouth dimples in annoyance. "You think this is just a joke, don't you?" 

"What else would it be? For you to jump on me like a couple of ninjas and drive me all the way out here. It's very dramatic. All you had to do was knock on my front door if you wanted to talk to me. You know where I live, you've all been to my apartment." 

"Like you would have answered if we came to you."

"My door's always open to you, Johnny, you know that."

Johnny scoffs, eyes rolling. "Whatever, man. Stop bullshitting us for once."

He takes them in again: all five of his Cobra Kai, their form tense, as if preparing for a fight. They looked different, somehow. It had only been four months since the night of the tournament, but they all looked rangier, scrappier. Like jungle cats that hadn't been getting enough meat.

"So, what? You boys brought me out here to beat some sense into me? I'm touched at the effort, really."

"You really don't get it, do you?"

"Show him, Johnny," Tommy says from behind them, his eyes bright and foxlike. 

"Yeah, Johnny," Dutch urges. "Show him we're not fucking around."

He eyes the boy's dark bruise. "How's the jaw, Dutch?" he asks. "That's going to hurt like a bitch if you don't ice it."

Dutch's mouth twists into a mean little smile. "You'll be getting much worse than that, old man."

His eyes flicker back to Johnny, who's reaching into the back of his jeans. When he brings it into the light again, he's holding a knife. It's no kitchen knife either, but an ugly, vicious thing with a blade that curves at the tip. It glints in the moonlight, as if begging for blood. 

Johnny gives him a smile that matches the blade.

“It’s a beauty, right? It’s for gutting animals usually. Deer, boar, that kind of thing. A hunting knife."

John feels his first real spike of fear then. It had been muted when he woke up. What were the boys really going to do? Kick the shit out of him? All it would take were a few soft words to get them to untie him and apologise. He'd make promises he wouldn't keep, about taking them back, about opening the dojo again, and they'd drive him home. They were just kids, after all. Kids he'd hand-reared for years. They'd never hurt him. 

But now, with the knife in Johnny's hand, John feels the situation veer sickeningly into unknown territory. 

“This place used to be a slaughterhouse," Johnny continues. "Kinda fitting really." 

"We found it for you," Bobby murmurs. "Thought you deserved somewhere special."

John's eyes flit to Jimmy, the only one out of the five of them who looked unsure, who was hanging back near the doorway.

"Did he force you to do this, Jimmy? You're a good kid, I know you'd never do something like this on your own."

Dutch, who's been pacing behind Johnny, stops dead. He snarls, "Don't talk to him like that, he's not an idiot!"

Kreese ignores him, craning his neck to look at Jimmy. "You can speak for yourself, can't you, Jimmy? Tell me what he promised you." 

Jimmy cringes in on himself. He shakes his head, hands shooting up to cover his ears. 

"Shut up!" he cries. "We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you! This is all your fault!"

"Don't listen to him, Jimmy," Tommy says gently, reaching out to nudge the other boy's shoulder. "You know he does this."

"Tommy," John tries next, the other possible weak link. "Come on, you don't want to be involved in this."  

Tommy's face turns stony as he faces him. "Fuck you," he says, "don't tell me what I want."

He blinks, surprised. None of them had ever talked to him like that before. For years they had all looked at him with complete reverence, had never uttered a word against him. Not until the night of the tournament when Johnny had sneered at him and said, "You're sick, you know that?"

Everything from that moment was a red blur.

He looks back at Johnny, who's starting to look flushed, a feverish gleam in his eyes. 

"That's what you want, isn't it?" Johnny asks. "For me to have forced everyone? But everyone's here because they want to be."

And maybe that was true. But Johnny had always been the ring leader. They wouldn't be here if Johnny hadn't asked them.

He continues to work at the knots binding his hands, trying not to wince at the way they bite into the thin skin at his wrists. It would be a challenge to take down all five of them, but he could do it. Could knock the knife out of Johnny's hands. He just had to distract him for long enough.

"Do you think this is heroic, Johnny? Skulking around in the dark outside the dojo, waiting for my guard to go down? Tying me up so I can't fight?"

Johnny squares his chin petulantly at him. So much a boy despite the big man he was pretending to be.

"As if you know a goddamn thing about being a hero."

"Well I sure as shit didn't teach you to be a coward."

Johnny grins at him, all teeth. "But you did teach us to show no mercy, right? Isn't that why you made Jimmy kill that stray cat, because he was too soft? Or when you made Dutch beat up that kid until he had to go to hospital? Or making Bobby almost break Daniel's leg?"

And there it was, that name again. It swells inside John's head like a sickness.

"Is that what this is really about? Daniel fucking LaRusso?" 

It's a mistake. As soon as LaRusso's name flies off his tongue, firing like a gun in the dark room, Johnny's face contorts. He lunges forwards, pressing the knife to John's chest. He doesn't push in, but the threat of it lingers in the tight line of his shoulders and the tremble of his hand.

"Don't say his name," he hisses. "Keep it out of your fucking mouth, hear me?"

"The boy's infected you, Johnny. Can't you see that?"

"Shut up, you piece of shit." 

"Johnny," Bobby says from behind him, "calm down." 

The knife tears through the material at John's chest, pricking at his skin until it beads blood. It's a small cut, a promise of things to come.

Johnny doesn't drop the knife until Bobby comes over, folding a gentle hand around his shoulder and pulling him away. 

"Don't let him get to you," he says quietly. "We knew he'd do this, remember? We prepared for this." 

A muscle ticks in Johnny's jaw, eyes blazing, but finally he deflates, nodding. "You're right."

They look at each other - communicating something with their eyes that John can't decipher. It had always been like this, though. His two strongest wolf cubs with a bond that matched brothers. As the blood drips down his chest, something bright flares inside him.  

"Everything I did was to make you boys strong," he says. "Everything."

They look at him again, but the adoration that once lit up their faces has drained away, leaving them pale and cold.

"How noble of you," Bobby says flatly. 

"You know you don't have to do this. You're good kids."

Johnny shakes his head, untouched. "We're just ending what you started."

An eye for an eye. 

That's what John had always taught them. To always finish the fight. To never keep their backs exposed. To eliminate any potential threat. 

A surge of mangled pride hits him then. It's potent, almost debilitating in its intensity. He was telling the truth when he said he'd wanted to make them strong. He'd learned the hard way that softness was no good in this world. Not if you didn't want to end up knifed in an alley, left at the bottom of a dumpster, shot to ribbons walking down the street. If you didn't want to be ignored and trampled over your entire life. 

He'd wanted them to be indestructible. Had poured everything of himself into building them up. 

But there's something he could never have predicted, and it's in the unhinged light of Johnny's eyes. 

He says, "You really think you have what it takes?" 

Johnny's lip curls up in that smirk of his. "I'm feeling in a betting mood."

"It's not like it is in the movies, you know. The blood. The smell of it. You have no idea what you're getting yourselves in for."

Johnny turns the knife in his hands. "Too much for a pathetic little boy? That's what you said, right?"

"I underestimated you." 

That cracks through some of the ice. "Yeah," Johnny says. "You did." 

"Untie me then, and we'll fight like men."

"Nice try, but we're not playing by your rules. You're not our sensei anymore, you said it yourself."

"Like equals then."

Johnny laughs a little. "We're way past that. You're irrelevant, Kreese. You're a fucking relic."

And yeah, that hurts. Gets John in the weak spot under his ribs, as if Johnny had just slid the knife between them.

"And what are you planning to do? You think you can replace me so easily?"

Johnny blinks at him, guileless, like a shark. "I already have."

John looks at the other four Cobra Kai again. All of them were staring at Johnny like he heralded a new dawn. 

Yes, he thinks. I suppose you have.

Johnny's eyes stray to his bound arms and narrow. "Dutch," he says. "Come check the knots."

Dutch does as he's told, slipping a length of rope from his pocket as he approaches. John looks at the bruise at his mouth again, where his fist had connected outside the dojo. Thinks about what Dutch had said, you're going to get a lot worse.

Dutch spits out, "Motherfucker," when he sees the loosened knots. He squats down to tighten them again. 

He thinks, maybe he can surge up, charge at Johnny and knock him down, but then Dutch is whispering into his ear. "Don't even try it, I swear to god, I'll do it," and John realises with a fresh wave of nausea that maybe Johnny's not the only one who came here with a knife. 

He grimaces as the rope bites even harder into the hamburger meat at his wrists. 

"You boys really did your homework," he says. "The location, the chloroform, the rope."

It must have taken a long time. Finding somewhere isolated, where they knew they wouldn't be interrupted. They must have been watching him too. Tracking his movements. Maybe Johnny had been at the dojo for the last couple of nights, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Johnny slides the knife along the denim at his thigh. "You're a slippery bastard, Kreese. We weren't going to risk you getting away."

And there it was, laid bare. The boys hadn't brought him all the way out here to just scare him.

He swallows down the lump in his throat. For the first time in years he feels fear in its purest, most base form.

"Tell me why you're doing this."

"You know why."

"For what I did after the tournament."

Johnny's head shakes a fraction. "For everything," he says.

John watches, pulse ratcheting up, as Johnny lifts the knife again, slowly, as if the sparkle of it has put him in a trance. 

"For days afterwards I didn't understand. Why Daniel's sensei didn't do it. But now I know, this is something only I can do."

He drags the tip of the knife down John's bloodied shirt. It shreds under the blade as easily as a paper towel. 

“We thought about getting a gun,” Johnny says as he tracks the knife, his voice faraway. “I stole the money from my stepdad’s wallet. We had enough. But we knew it would be too fast. And you don't deserve for it to be fast." 

John's nerves prickle with each whisper of the knife along his skin. A drop of sweat oozes down his temple.

Johnny moves the knife to his arm, tracing along the outline of his tattoo. “We were going to take the cobra first. It’s not like you'll need it."

“But maybe we’ll cut your balls off instead," Dutch says at his shoulder. "You don't need those either."

An icy slick seizes him then. Like blue fire. He hasn't felt like this since the war, when he'd been young and green. A perfect, punchable target who had once hidden among the trees and cried when his platoon wasn't looking. It's something he'd never told anyone.

“I understand, Johnny. I do, I was just like you too once.”

Johnny pauses his slow trail of the knife. And then, as fast as lightning, he flips the knife to his left hand and punches John in the face. The force of it busts his lip open on the inside, and his mouth fills with the rusted taste of his own blood. 

Dutch laughs, and he circles round to look at him, like a man who'd bought front-row seats to a blood match.

“I’m nothing like you,” Johnny says, chest heaving, fist still clenched.

Kreese turns his head and spits out a mouthful of blood, his face on fire. “Yes, you are, and you know it.”

"Doesn't matter. Soon no one's going to even remember who you are."

"But you will. You'll remember this. You'll remember me."

"Guess again, asshole. My dad walked out on my mom before I was born, remember? You're nothing special."

You're nothing. That's what John had said to him outside the dojo, wasn't it?

Jimmy makes a soft, whimpering noise behind them. Like a puppy that had been kicked in the belly.

"Get him out of here," Johnny says to Dutch without taking his eyes off John. "He doesn't need to see this part." 

Dutch heads back, but Jimmy shakes his head at him. "I want to stay," he whispers. "I have to."

Desperation claws at John now. He looks from the raised, curved knife to Johnny's maniacal eyes.

"I was wrong, Johnny. Is that what you want to hear? That I'm sorry? Because I am."

Johnny's upper lip curls into a sneer. "I don't believe you."

"I was wrong for the way I treated you. I was cruel and I hurt you."

His pleas fall on deaf ears. Johnny says, "You really do buy into your own bullshit, don't you?"

"You don't want to do this." 

Because John knew how intimately killing a man changed you. Knew from the nightmares that woke him in the middle of the night, his sheets tangled around his legs like a backwards noose, dragging him into the dark. That first one always stayed with you.

"What I want? What I want is to see you bleed out, old man. That's all I've thought about for weeks."

And John knows then, with clarity, that if he doesn't get through to Johnny now, that this was it for him. 

He reaches deep inside himself. To that small spot that he kept obscured, hidden. The one that still felt something for the boy. He'd tried to snuff it out in the weeks since the tournament, but hadn't been able to kill it completely. It lingered, prodding at him in the dead of night like fingers against a wound. He hated that tiny spot, but he brings it forward now. Cracks it open and lets himself feel it for the first time in months. 

"Johnny," he says, voice soft. "Don't do this." 

Johnny hesitates, the knife trembling in his hand. His face softens like candle wax under a flame.

"You're my special boy, Johnny. My beautiful, special boy." 

Johnny's bottom lip crumples again. Like he's about to cry. But this time John won't turn him away. 

"Untie me, and we can start again. I promise. Just put down the knife."

For a moment, John thinks he's broken through. That Johnny's about to drop the knife and fall to the floor. He'll put his head in John's lap and cry, and the others will untie his hands, and they can start again. Kreese and his champions, his five beautiful boys, all together again.

But it's a fantasy. A breath later, Johnny lifts the knife again, and his face floods with rage.

"Fuck you," he snarls, the flush in his cheeks going crimson. "That's what you said to all of us, isn't it? That we were special? That you had chosen us?" His voice rises until it's almost a scream, eyes so blue they burn. "But then you just thought you could get rid of us, didn't you? That you could throw us away like we were fucking trash? Well you're not going to get away with it, I'm not going to let you."

Behind him, the others all inhale. Like the split-second of silence before an explosion.

Johnny drags the knife down his sternum. He doesn’t press it in, but John can still feel how sharp it is.

“Johnny, don’t-”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish. Johnny grimaces and pushes the tip of the knife to his throat. 

“Don’t beg," he says, voice so low it's almost a whisper. "Don’t you fucking beg.” 

In the moonlight, he's unrecognisable. Not the boy he found crying that day outside the dojo. Not the kid who had grinned at him so happily the day he won his first trophy. And not the young man who had struggled when John wrapped his hands around his neck, frightened and betrayed.

No, this was someone else. Someone John doesn't know. And the sudden knowledge fills him with terror.

“Johnny,” he says, and his voice, for the first time in his life, cracks. “Don’t. Please.”

Later, when it's far too late, he realises that he was wrong. Johnny was a killer. He just hadn’t seen it in time.

⸻⸻⸻⸻

2. 

Afterwards, when Kreese is dead, they weigh the body down with rocks and dump it. 

It’s harder than they expected it to be. Alive, Kreese had been a pillar of muscle and sinew. Dead, he's practically immovable. Johnny thought the blood loss would help. There had to be more of Kreese's blood on their clothes and over the floor than there was left in his body, but it still took the five of them to drag him outside and over to the cliff edge. 

Typical of Kreese. Making them work for it even when he was dead. 

They were silent as they did it. Maybe it was out of respect, Johnny guessed, like being at a funeral. But it was probably more like shock, blocking their throats like the spells cast on girls in fairy tales. Not that they were princesses. There wasn't anything pure about them now. 

Once it’s done and they've trudged back to the barn, Johnny catches his reflection in the car window. His face is streaked with blood, his hair so matted in it he can hardly see any of the blonde. Against the blood, the whites of his eyes look luminous. He doesn’t look human. 

The others don't look much better either. They're all so red it's like they had showered in it.

Reality starts to hit them then, bleeding back in with nothing to catch it.

Tommy stumbles away from them, and pukes on the grass, bent at the waist as his entire body lurches with it. At the same moment Jimmy trembles violently and begins to cry, arms curling around himself like he’s desperate to be held. There was a cluster of red high up on his pale cheek, like he’d been marked. Splatter from where Johnny had driven the knife down hard. Over by the barn Dutch pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, but immediately grimaces when he gets blood on it. He flicks it away, looking disgusted.

“He’s dead,” Jimmy says in a desperate, whispered wail. “He’s really dead.” 

Bobby strides over and pulls him into the crook of his arm.

"Hey bud," he murmurs, "don't cry." But his skin is deathly white under the blood and he looks like he's on the verge of crying too.

He can't blame them for their reactions. They had just killed their father after all. 

Johnny doesn't need to grieve. He'd already spent weeks sick with it after the tournament, when his throat had been so badly bruised he could hardly speak. When he finally let his mom drive him to the hospital, the doctor had looked at him gravely and said his vocal chords were impaired, that he'd be lucky not to be left with permanent damage. When asked who did this to him, Johnny cut his eyes to the side and said, "Some punks jumped me in the park." He'd gone home afterwards and cried until his eyes were swollen and he'd smashed every trophy in his room.

Now he feels nothing. 

He looks down at the knife in his hand. The one he'd used to kill Kreese. The others had taken their turns with him, but Johnny had been the one to finish it. He swallows and wipes it against the denim at his thigh until it gleams again.

“We need to move,” he says. “We can’t stay here.” 

Bobby looks over at him. "Come on, Johnny, just give us a minute."

"We don't have a minute, we need to finish and leave." 

The Cobras had spent two weeks scoping the place out, making sure no one was going to come nosing around. The barn was an hour’s drive from the Valley, so close to the ocean you could smell the salt, and more importantly, it seemed completely abandoned. There was a farm about 20 minutes away, but the boys had never seen anyone out here. Had taken turns driving out here, day and night, to make sure. 

Still, Johnny doesn’t want to spend any more time here than he has to. Doesn’t want to push their luck. 

They strip out of their bloody clothes and take turns washing themselves at the water pump just outside the barn. It takes a long time for all the blood to sluice away, so they stand there patiently, trembling, chilly, waiting for their skin to grow white again. Jimmy’s still crying, so Tommy throws an arm around him, and the rest follow. Naked, huddled together, arms slung loosely around each other’s waists and shoulders.

When they're clean, they build a fire and burn their bloodied clothes. Change into fresh ones from a duffel in Bobby’s car.

Bobby looks at him, face amber against the fire. “What about the knife?” 

“I’ll take care of it,” Johnny says. 

Bobby nods, his eyes unreadable.

He wanders over to the cliff edge, ready to throw the knife into the darkness. He hesitates before he can drop it, eyes catching on its sharp, silver edge. He thinks of the way Kreese had looked at him when he held it. Like Johnny had been something powerful. Something transformed. 

He tucks it into the back of his jeans instead.

On his way back he finds Dutch leaning against the door to the barn.

He's finally managed to light a cigarette, and it hangs limply from his lips as he stares inside. They had filled a bucket with water and washed the floor as much as they could, but the scent of Kreese's blood still chokes the air.

"We need to go," Johnny says to him. "I don't want to hang around any longer than we need to." 

Dutch nods, eyes narrowing as he hollows his lips around the cigarette. "We'll be fucked if anyone snoops around up here."

"No one's going to do that. No one saw us at the dojo and no one saw us driving up here."

"Yeah, that's true. Besides, I'll die before I say anything." 

Johnny nods. He knew Dutch meant it. 

Dutch looks at him, eyes dark. "It was a rush, right? Can you feel it?" 

Johnny thinks back to what it was like killing Kreese. Driving the knife into his chest for the last time. Rush didn't feel like the right word to describe it. It was more of a release. Like popping the cap off a bottle just before it shattered into a million tiny pieces.

Dutch curls his hand around the back of Johnny's neck and pulls him in, knocking their foreheads together gently. 

“We did it,” he says shakily. “We really fucking did it.” 

"Yeah," he replies. He doesn't trust himself to say anything else.

Dutch presses the cigarette to Johnny’s lips and he takes it, inhaling gratefully. His eyes slip to Jimmy over Dutch’s shoulder. He’s over the worst of his shivering, but he looks pale and sick where he's hovering near the door to his car.

"I'm worried about Jimmy," he says. "Drive him back and make sure he gets home okay."

"And what about you?"

"I'll go home too. Sid won't even notice I wasn't at the house."

"Let's go then."

As they approach, the others all turn to look at Johnny, a strange look in their eyes. It isn't fear, but something else. Something insurmountable. Johnny doesn't try to work it out. His entire body hurts and the hand he used to kill Kreese won't stop trembling. 

“Let’s drive back,” he says. “You know the plan."

And they did. Had gone over it countless times in the days leading up to tonight. Bunker down. Don’t say anything. Go about their daily lives as usual. They had stories already in place - a couple of girls from school had seen Bobby and Tommy at the drive-in earlier that night; Jimmy had been at home with his sisters. Johnny and Dutch had been over at the arcade with some guys on the soccer team.

None of them had even noticed the boys slipping away.

“Remember,” he says to them. “We were never here. We were never together.”

They all nod and murmur their agreement. 

Tommy suddenly comes barrelling towards Johnny, almost knocking him backwards as his arms come around him. 

"I love you, Johnny, man," he says into his shoulder, eyes scrunched shut.

Johnny brings his arms up to hug him back. "You too, dude. It's gonna be okay." 

"We're brothers," Dutch says next to him. "And we're all gonna stick together, no matter what happens."

"Brothers," Jimmy echoes. He swipes the back of his wrist against his snotty nose. "Yeah." 

"And what we did to Kreese," Johnny says, "he fucking deserved it. Don't forget that."

Bobby nods, looking resolute. "He did. He had it coming for what he did to us." 

"An eye for an eye," Dutch says.

That hangs in the air between them. The feeling of vengeance earned.

If only Johnny felt better about it.

After a final clench, Tommy lets Johnny go, stepping back and rubbing at his eyes.

"I'll call you in a few days," Johnny says to them. "Act normal and nothing's going to happen."

They knew nothing would. No one was waiting for Kreese. No wife, no kids. All he'd had was Cobra Kai. And as far as the other boys knew, Kreese had skipped town. He'd already done them a favour by clearing out the dojo. All they had to do was keep their heads down. 

Bobby lingers behind the others, his hand straying to Johnny's shoulder. "You gonna be okay?"

Johnny puts his own hand on Bobby's and squeezes it. "I think so." 

"And you'll call me if you need me?"

"You know I will. Now get out of here before I kick your ass."

Bobby gives him one last smile - one that looks small and sad - and leaves too. 

In his car, Johnny watches as they drive away. Down the dirt road, until their lights are just a smudge in the distance. 

Exhaustion hits him then. He hadn't been able to sleep the night before, too keyed up about what they were about to do. Finally, after planning it for months. Now, it's done, and his skin feels too tight. His muscles ache. And his hand, the one that killed Kreese, keeps trembling. 

It's just a little past 2am. Six hours since they'd picked Kreese up at the dojo. 

His eyes flicker to his side mirror, where the entrance to the barn yawns behind him. If Johnny walked in there now, he'd still be able to smell the thick clog of Kreese's blood. Maybe if he found a way down to the beach, he'd find his body there too. Could see it broken, smashed against the rocks. Or maybe it had washed out to sea already, pulling Kreese down to a dark, watery grave.

Johnny starts the ignition and drives away. Leaves Kreese behind where he belongs. 

⸻⸻⸻⸻

It's only on the drive back that he starts to fall apart.

Nothing triggers it. One minute he's driving and the next his skin is prickling hot under his clothes. He turns on the radio to distract himself, but it's no use. The buzzing grows until it's an agonising blare under his skin. His throat constricts; he feels like he can't breathe. 

Johnny ends up parked on the side of the road, leaning out the door with his head in his hands, shaking all over.

He knows what this is - he's been having these episodes on and off since the tournament. Panic attacks, Daniel had said. He thinks he might vomit, but he doesn't. Just sits there dry-heaving for a few minutes, the wind blowing his hair back from his clammy forehead.

Kreese was dead. He was dead and he was never coming back.

And Johnny was the one who killed him. 

The thought makes him shiver, even though his jacket. He thinks of the knife stowed away in the glove compartment, blood-specked and glittering. Why did he keep it? It was fucking stupid. He thinks about burying it here somewhere on the side of the road, where no one would ever find it. But he doesn't. He pulls himself together and starts driving again, trying to ignore the way his hand tremors violently on the wheel.

A few minutes later he spies a pay phone at the side of the road. He thinks stupidly, violently, Daniel. 

He knows he shouldn't. He was supposed to drive straight home and go to bed.

But now he's thought of him, he knows he has to see him. He'll drive to Reseda and climb through his bedroom window if he has to.

Johnny’s thought about Daniel every single day since the tournament. Ever since Daniel had lunged at Kreese despite his sprained leg, so stupid and beautiful and brave. Kreese had batted him aside easily, sending him crashing into a car where he crumpled like a paper flower. Johnny's eyes had locked on him then, and something between them had shifted. It was instantaneous, not something Johnny could ever put into words.

Afterwards, when Johnny had refused to go to a hospital, Daniel insisted on bringing him back to his crummy little apartment in Reseda. Wouldn't let him go home with his bruised neck and shell-shocked eyes. When they got there he pulled him into his room, away from Mrs LaRusso who kept fluttering nearby with the phone in her hand like she was about to call the police. He didn't try to make Johnny talk about what happened, but he did stroke his fingers along the bruising at Johnny’s neck, his brown eyes huge and concerned.

He disappeared for a few minutes, leaving Johnny sitting on his bed, morose and exhausted, staring at the nerdy Star Wars poster on his wall. When he came back it was with a cup of hot, honeyed tea and a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a dish towel. The tea he pushed into Johnny's hands and the bag of peas he pressed to the worst of the bruises on Johnny's neck. Johnny had jerked back and hissed at the pain, but when Daniel made a low, soothing noise in the back of his throat - the sound you might give a spooked animal - Johnny submitted to the touch.

Then, in a moment of tenderness Johnny could never have seen coming, Daniel pulled Johnny's head down into his lap, carding his fingers through his hair as Johnny cried. He'd cried messily too, all snot and tears and ugly sobs, but not once did Daniel push him away or tell him to stop. He stroked his fingers through his hair, and when Johnny was finally done, had pushed him back against his bed and said, "Sleep."

The road's still quiet when Johnny parks up, not a light or sound in either direction.

Inside the phone booth, he gets his hand inside his jacket pocket to the matchbook he keeps there and flips it open to the numbers scrawled inside in cheap black pen. It was Daniel's phone number, which the boy had written down for him the morning after the tournament, saying, "Whenever you need me, just give me a call." His smile so genuine it made Johnny's chest swell. 

He'd looked at it a lot since then, pressing his finger to the numbers so many times they were mostly faded. But after weeks of calling Daniel - the two of them sometimes talking all through the night, Daniel whispering so not to wake his mom - he knew the number almost by heart. 

He dials it now and presses the receiver to his ear, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. He doesn't expect anyone to answer, it's way too late, so when they do he tenses. On the edge of hanging up in case it's Daniel's mother. 

He settles when he hears Daniel's husky, sleep-thick voice on the other end. 

“Hello?”

“Daniel," he says, hand tightening on the phone, "it's me."

“Johnny?" Daniel immediately perks up, losing his sleepy fog. "Are you okay?"

“Yeah, I'm fine." 

"Why are you calling so late? You're so lucky I had the phone in my room and my mom didn't pick up!"

Johnny looks over his shoulder, but there weren't any cars coming down the road.

"What's the phone in your room for?"

"You said you were gonna call this afternoon. I guess you forgot?"

Shit, he had said that. But he'd forgotten to cancel, his head so taken up with tonight being the night. He pictures Daniel dragging the phone into his room and sitting on his bed, waiting for Johnny to call, his long tanned legs stretched out on the bedspread. He bites down on his bottom lip. Even now, over the phone, he gets that stupid fucking fluttery feeling in his stomach. 

"I lost track of time," he says honestly. "I'm sorry."

Daniel's silent for a moment. "Are you sure you're okay? You sound funny."

Johnny swallows. Feels the entire story crawl up his throat, wanting to be let out. All of it. The knife, the blood, how Kreese looked on the inside. 

Instead he blurts, “Can I see you?”

More silence. And then, "What, right now?"

“Yeah. Can you meet me?”

But Johnny thinks he’ll say no. It’s too late, and calling like this is too much. He's called at weird times before, sometimes after midnight when Johnny's having a bad episode and he needs to hear Daniel's voice to calm himself down, but never this deep into the night.

But then Daniel’s making a soft, agreeable noise in the back of his throat and he's asking, “When do you want to meet?”

Relief hits Johnny hard. “In 30 minutes? At the park near yours?"

“Okay, I’ll need to be careful sneaking out or my mom will wake up and go bananas, but I’ll be there.”

They say their goodbyes and Johnny hangs up. Presses his face to the phone for a moment, breathing in. 

Somehow he manages to drive back to the Valley without crashing his car, or being pulled over by the cops. 

⸻⸻⸻⸻

3.

Daniel isn't there when he arrives, so he gets out of the car and waits at the entrance to the park.

He's been meeting Daniel here for the last couple of months. Ever since the night of the tournament, when he slept in Daniel's bed, surrounded by his action figures, his smell in his nose. And it wasn't in the way he'd felt drawn to him before. When he wanted nothing more than to smack Daniel bloody, until the grin fell off his face and he couldn't talk back anymore. These days he just wanted to be close to him. Smell him. Hear him. Know he was okay. He couldn't explain it. Had tried to justify it once to Bobby, who just looked at him like he thought it was a bad idea

Sometimes they took walks, and sometimes they sat on a picnic blanket that Daniel brought with him. They would talk and Johnny would cut up an apple with his pocket knife for the two of them to share, fingers kissing as Johnny passed him pieces. Other times Daniel would sneak wine out of the apartment in a water bottle and they'd pass it between them, Daniel's lips getting redder and stickier with every swallow. Dick-sucking lips, he'd think to himself as he watched him. Wondering if they'd get just as red if he pushed his fingers inside. His cock. 

His fingers start trembling as he waits, so he gets a cigarette out to calm his nerves.

He’s still smoking it when Daniel arrives, appearing across the road in a faded sweater over a pair of loose jeans. He looks soft and rumpled, like he’d just rolled out of bed. He walks faster when he catches sight of Johnny’s car, skin glistening in the moonlight, but his limp slows him down. It's been almost four months since the tournament, but his leg still bothered him when he pushed himself too hard. 

Johnny flicks the cigarette away and pushes off the car to meet him.

"Hey," he says, "stop running, you're going to hurt your leg."

Daniel ignores him, looking concerned. “Johnny, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I already told you. I just wanted to see you.”

"Did you know it's 3am? Why aren't you at home in bed?"

"Wow, sorry, mom, I didn't know I needed your permission to stay up."

Daniel makes a face like he has a quick retort ready, but then grimaces. "Ah!" he says, looking down at his leg. 

Johnny feels a spike of worry. "Shit, are you okay? Sit on the hood, come on." 

"I'm okay," Daniel says, but he lets Johnny slide an arm around his waist and guide him down onto the car. He laughs a little when he sits, his injured leg so thin and delicate where it dangles off the hood. "And here I thought you'd kill anyone who treated your car like this."

"I would, but I'll make an exception for you this one time."

"My hero," Daniel says lightly. He frowns when he sees the red mark on Johnny's cheek. "Did someone hit you?"

Johnny keeps his tone casual as he says, "I was sparring with Dutch, he managed to get a punch in." 

"And what did you do to him? Put him in a wheelchair?"

"Hell yeah I did."

Daniel smiles and tips his head back to look at the stars. "Are you gonna tell me why you called me this late?"

Johnny shrugs, feeling some of that angry buzz under his skin go quiet. Being close to Daniel always helped. Seeing his profile in the amber streetlights and smelling the warm, cosy swell of his bed did too.

"I was just driving around, and then I started thinking about you. I wanted to see you, that's all."

Daniel's dubious expression drips away. Turns into something tentative and soft as he tilts his head to look at Johnny.

"Idiot," he scoffs, though it lacks any bite. "You could have seen me tomorrow like a normal person."

Johnny tries not to stare at the long, naked curve of his throat. How his skin was the colour of a milky coffee.

"You're really going to give me a hard time about it?"

"I guess not... I mean, maybe I was thinking about you too."

Johnny looks at him, drinking in the way his cheeks have gone slightly pink. "You were?"

"I said maybe."

Johnny shakes his head with a smile. "Now who's the idiot?" 

"Definitely not me. I'm not the blonde, remember? So are we going for this ridiculous night-time walk or what?"

Johnny glances down at his leg. "Are you sure? We can just sit here if you want."

"I'll be fine, I'm not a cripple yet." 

Daniel jumps off the car and tugs on Johnny's sleeve, grinning at the way Johnny rolls his eyes.

They walk into the park together, Daniel's hand slipping from his sleeve to the crook of his arm where he curls it around Johnny's elbow. It's a loose, easy touch, so different to the way they used to touch each other.

They head towards a grassy incline where the two of them sat sometimes, their shoulders brushing as they walk. Daniel murmurs to him about his day - he helped his mom with the grocery shopping that morning and made a mess of the kitchen when he tried to make pancakes from scratch. Then he visited Mr Miyagi in the afternoon and helped the old man get his pond ready for the new fish that were arriving next week. 

Johnny listens and lets Daniel run his mouth. When they hung out Daniel did most of the talking - initially because it hurt Johnny too much to talk, but then it continued. Not that he minded. It was a relief not to be the centre of attention for once. To have to perform. 

Daniel stops suddenly, and Johnny looks at him. "What is it?"

"Nothing, it's just, it's kinda creepy out here, huh?" 

Johnny looks around at the park. At the dark silhouettes of trees and the grass rippling in the wind. 

He gives Daniel a little sideways smirk. "I'll protect you, LaRusso, don't sweat it."

Daniel frowns at him, though he presses in closer. "Oh yeah? And how do I know you're not actually bringing me out here to kill me?"

He says it jokingly, voice light, but Johnny can't help grimace. He thinks about the way Kreese had begged. The sound he made when Johnny had driven the knife into his chest. He wonders suddenly, for the first time that night, if he did the right thing. 

His vision blots at the corners and his throat constricts again.

"Johnny?" Daniel's suddenly in front of him, his eyes wide and concerned as he reaches out to touch Johnny's face. "What is it? Tell me what's wrong." A beat of silence and then, "Oh shit, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean- I wouldn't joke about that."

And Johnny knows what he's thinking. Daniel's thinking about the way Kreese strangled him that night. 

"I'm okay-"

"God, I'm such a moron," Daniel continues. "I don't even know why you hang out with me. Seriously, I'm such a schmutz-" 

"Daniel," he says, and this time the other boy stops his nervous rambling. "I said I'm okay." 

Daniel nods, but doesn't look convinced. He reaches out again, this time to stroke Johnny's hair back from his forehead. "You're so warm," he says softly. "If you were drag racing with Dutch again, I'm gonna slash your tyres, man."

They stand like that for a moment, Johnny leaning into Daniel's touch.

In just a few months Daniel had gone from visibly recoiling when he saw Johnny to always having his hands on him. They were just small touches, but Johnny still noticed them: a punch to the shoulder, digging his fingers into his shirt, curling his foot around Johnny's ankle when he wanted his attention. Sometimes Johnny let him sit on the back of his bike so they could go for a ride together, and Daniel's arms felt so warm when they curled around him, the press of his chest against Johnny's back making his breath catch. It was like Daniel had to be close to him. 

He thinks back to what Daniel had said earlier. How he'd been waiting for Johnny to call.

"Were you really upset that I didn't call this afternoon?"

Daniel drops his hand, looking awkward. "I mean, I wasn't crying into my Coke about it or anything." He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "But I like talking to you, I guess. You make me feel like no one else does." He flushes the second he says it, eyes fixed on the grass.

"What about Ali?"

Daniel sifts his hand through his hair. "Ali hates that I hang out with you. She thinks you're bad for me."

And she was probably right. Pretty, sweet Ali, who always kept Daniel close like he was a prized possession, eyes narrowing when Johnny came over to talk to them. As if he was about to snap Daniel up and take him away from her.

"Do you love her?"

Daniel gives him a sharp look. "What kind of question is that?"

"Do you? I just want to know."

Daniel's eyes fire up with that dark, angry glitter. The one he always got when Johnny and the Cobras cornered him last year. "What's with you tonight? You really dragged me out of bed so you could talk about Ali? I thought we were passed that."

And Johnny knows he should stop. But now he's started he can't stop. Maybe killing Kreese had broken something inside him.

"I hate seeing her with you," he says.

"Yeah, no shit. You're about as subtle as a neon sign."

Johnny shakes his head. "No, I don't mean it like that. I mean the other way around."

That makes Daniel tense. "What are you saying?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Believe it or not, I'm not fluent in the various ways you scowl."

Johnny sighs, frustrated. He's never been good at this stuff. Has no idea how to articulate how he's felt around Daniel these past few months. How to describe the way his anger shifted after the tournament, like all the red, jagged rock inside him was melting. When he saw Daniel now, he still wanted to crowd him up against his locker. But it wasn't to hit him. It was to see if his dumb mouth really did taste like a cherry slushy. 

He's being a pussy, he knows that. Thinking such soft shit. But he can't help it. He thinks about Daniel all the time. Sometimes counts down the minutes and hours until he can see him again. He hasn't been like this since he dated Ali. Doesn't even think he was that whipped with her.

Not that it was something he'd ever planned to act on. He was okay with keeping those thoughts locked away, only to be brought out when he was alone in his room. But with Daniel next to him now - alive, pink-cheeked, pressed so close - he can't think of anything else.

So he does the only thing that feels right: he leans down and kisses Daniel right on his pouty, annoying mouth.

Daniel goes perfectly still, his eyes as wide as a cartoon deer.

Johnny only has time to think, his lips are soft, before Daniel's jumping backwards, breaking the kiss.

He lifts his hand to his mouth like he'd been burned. "What the fuck are you doing?" 

Johnny swallows, his own mouth tingling. "What I've wanted to do from the second I first saw you."

Daniel makes a shocked noise. “Johnny, you hated me the second you saw me.”

"No I didn't. I was mad about you and Ali, but I didn't hate you."

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure I remember you beating the shit out of me more than a couple of times."

Johnny flexes his hands, feeling raw. Kreese had always told them to keep everything on the inside. Telling Daniel this was like lying on the ground and exposing his throat to him. But he suddenly doesn't care. It all comes rushing out of him like foam from a champagne bottle.

"Because I knew if I didn't, I was going to do something like kiss you. And I do want to kiss you. It's all I've been thinking about for months."

Daniel sucks in a shivery breath. "Is this a joke? Because it's not funny."

"It's not a joke. You don't feel it too?"

Johnny knows he does. Because he's seen the way Daniel looks at him. He'd seen flashes of it last year too. But now they were friends it was fully on display. He recognises it because he used to see it on Ali's face too. Knows the signs, like an intricate set of rules from a book. The lingering looks when Johnny was in his vicinity, the flirty downward cast of his lashes, the way his body changed whenever Johnny talked to him, one leg sliding behind the other shyly, fingers twisting. How he bit down on his bottom lip after Johnny made him laugh.

Daniel stares at him, looking like he's about to bolt at any second.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Johnny says. "I'd cut my hands off before I ever hurt you again."

Daniel swallows, says, "You don't have to do that. How are you going to touch me without them?" 

Johnny's stomach flips. Fucking butterflies. "So... I can touch you?"

Daniel wanders back, looking tentative. But before Johnny can tell him it's okay, they can forget about it, Daniel pushes up on his tip-toes, his hands on Johnny's shoulders. He gives him a coy little smile that makes the bottom of Johnny's stomach go tight. 

"Yeah," he says as he leans in, "I guess you can."

When their lips meet this time, Daniel slots against him softly, his dark lashes sweeping his upper cheek. And Johnny was right: Daniel does taste like a slushy. He tastes like cola and sugar and spit, all hot and warm like caramel at the back of his throat.

The kiss doesn't stay chaste for long. Not like the quick, closed kisses Ali had allowed when they first started dating. Daniel kisses him hungrily, heated, his mouth blooming like a wet flower as Johnny's hands creep around his waist. When Johnny pushes his tongue along the plush lining of Daniel's mouth, he opens himself up for Johnny's tongue, fingers playing with the baby hairs at the nape of Johnny's neck. 

He's a good kisser too, all wet and soft, moaning so sweetly when Johnny sucks on his bottom lip. He doesn't even break the kiss when Johnny - drunken, greedy, wanting every inch of Daniel pressed against him - pulls him down on the grass.

Johnny tries to be careful of his injured leg, but Daniel doesn't care. He winds his long legs around Johnny's waist and does this sexy little ripple with his hips that should be fucking illegal, rubbing against Johnny in a way that makes it immediately clear how hard he is.

Fuck, Daniel's hard, and he's hard for him. The thought hits Johnny like a fist, heating his blood like a fever.

Johnny grinds down against him, just to see how it feels, but it still makes Daniel buck up hard. 

“Johnny,” he gasps against his mouth, but Johnny doesn't give him time to say anything else. He swallows his moan with another kiss, pushing his tongue inside Daniel as he grinds his hips against him, his own dick a hard, agonising line against his jeans.

He can't remember the last time he got this hard this fast. 

Maybe the first time he got his hands on an issue of Playboy when he was 13. Or the first time he saw Ali in her bikini. But even that wasn't this intense. It didn't make him want to bury his teeth in Ali's neck and rut his dick against her until he came. 

The thought makes Johnny pulse. He leans back to look at Daniel, who's already red-cheeked and mussed beneath him. 

"Fucking vixen, huh? I should have known."

Daniel just shudders. "Don't stop, wanna kiss," he whines, fingers flexing like he wants to dig them into Johnny's back.

He tries to lean up on his elbows, but Johnny pins him back down. He's always been stronger than Daniel, it's easy.

"What's wrong, LaRusso? Never made out with anyone before?"

"Shut up, Johnny," he says, blushing even harder, "you're such an asshole."

Johnny grins and stares at Daniel's mouth, all swollen and spit-wet. He leans down to kiss him again.

And there's part of Johnny that feels scared. Scared of touching Daniel like this when just a few hours ago he was covered in Kreese's blood. But Daniel wants this. He wants it. His mouth is hot and wet under his, and his legs fall in a wide, slutty arch around his hips, making room for Johnny’s bulk, like he’d change his entire shape to fit Johnny inside. It’s not like at the tournament, when he flitted around, evading Johnny's blows. Now he presses up for it eagerly, wanting everything Johnny gives him, like his tiny bird bones are going soft and moulding to him. 

Daniel suddenly unwinds his arms from around Johnny's neck to push impatiently at his jacket.

"Off," he orders against Johnny's mouth.

Johnny pulls back just enough to mutter, "Huh?" 

"Your jacket, wanna feel you."

And actually that's a great idea. He's never felt Daniel's skin before. At least not the pieces of himself he kept hidden under his clothes.

Johnny sits up to pull his jacket off, throwing it to one side, and swiftly pulls his t-shirt off too.

"Oh my god," Daniel says, eyes fixed on his bare chest. "You really, um, take the Adonis thing seriously, don't you?"

But Johnny doesn't have time to work out what the hell that means. He's too busy digging his fingers into the soft material of Daniel's sweater. "You too, get this off," he says, as he bunches it up under Daniel's armpits and pulls it over his head. 

As he tears it off, Daniel's thin chest and coffee-coloured nipples are revealed for his hungry eyes - the ones he'd seen the night of the tournament when the Cobras had walked in on Daniel changing into his gi. Part of him had wanted Daniel then too. Had quickly thought about what it would be like to push him against the wall and suck on them, tugging on them with his teeth, while the others urged him on. 

Maybe he'd thought about it afterwards too, stripping his dick with his hand as he mouthed at his pillow, so turned on he wanted to die.

Daniel squirms under his gaze and says, "Stop staring at me, weirdo," pulling at Johnny's neck with his greedy fingers.

Johnny lets the weirdo go; bites down hard on Daniel's puffy bottom lip in retaliation.

They make out like that, grinding sloppily against each other, Johnny's nipples prickling hard against Daniel's warm chest.

It feels fucking awesome. Nothing like grinding up a girl at a party and having to stop to make sure she was enjoying it, if she was wet. Daniel's visibly hard and he's clinging to Johnny like a wanton mess, making noises he'd never heard before. Like he's been punched in the stomach, like he's starving, like he's being tortured, like he's never experienced any of the things Johnny's giving him.

It goes straight to his head and his dick. A rush, he thinks. Isn't that what Dutch had said? But this was the fucking rush. 

And Johnny realises dizzily that he wants to fuck him. Like he’s been thinking about secretly for the last six months. Wants to work him open with his fingers and slot his body inside. Maybe then they wouldn’t have to be apart anymore. How could they if they were the same person? If Johnny opened him up and made a space for himself inside the narrow bracket of Daniel’s hips. 

He trails his lips down to kiss Daniel on the long line of his throat. Thinks about how fragile he is. How easy it would be to kill him. 

But he doesn’t want to kill him. He wants to feel him here, alive, gasping his name, heartbeat fluttering under Johnny’s chest.

He sucks a bruise into his throat instead. Where he knows it’ll bloom purple against Daniel’s skin, dark and intent. 

When he thinks about Ali seeing it the next day he bites down harder, sinking his teeth into all that warm skin.

"Ngh, Johnny," Daniel moans, tipping his head back so obediently. 

He jerks back when Daniel pushes his hand between them to palm at Johnny's dick. But Daniel makes that noise in his throat again - that soft, soothing noise he made when he touched the bruises on Johnny's neck, like he wants to take the pain away.

It gets him so hard it hurts, his dick pressing up against the denim. 

Daniel bites his lip as he looks up at him, his hand working gently at Johnny's dick. "Is that okay? Can I touch you like this?"

Johnny swallows. He knows he could come like this, with Daniel's hand cupping him, kneading him through his jeans.

But he doesn't want to come in his pants like a virgin. He wants more. 

He pushes Daniel's hand away so he can tug on his zipper and push his jeans and underwear down.

"Oh my god," Daniel says again, and his entire body shudders as he stares wide-eyed at Johnny's hard dick.

And Johnny should be used to the reaction - girls have said similar things to him before. In bedrooms at parties. In his car when they're parked up at lover's lane. Even Ali the ice princess had gone pink all over the first time she'd seen it. But it's never made Johnny feel like this before. Like he's a god. Like he's pure sunlight about to burst out of his skin. Like he could do anything to Daniel and the other boy would still ask for more.

"Yeah?" he husks as he watches Daniel's reaction, "Yeah, you like it?" 

As Daniel nods, Johnny gets his hands around the waistband of his jeans and pulls. They're loose, sliding down Daniel's thin hips easily, and Johnny sees instantly that he's not wearing underwear. It's probably because he got dressed in a hurry after talking to Johnny on the phone, but the sight of it goes straight to that molten part of his brain, the one that thinks, slut, coming round here just begging to get fucked.

He looks down between their bodies, comparing them. Daniel's not as big as Johnny, but he's the perfect size for his smaller, slender body. And Johnny's never thought about another guy's junk as pretty before, but Daniel's is. He's mouthwatering. Fucking pretty as a peach all over.

"I guess you win this round," Daniel says, cheeks so red he looked sunburnt. 

But Johnny doesn't give a shit about that. "Fuck, you have a pretty dick," he says. 

Daniel throws his head back against the grass, looking humiliated. "Stop," he says, eyes clenching shut. 

He can't help his smirk. "What, you don't like that? Don't want me to tell you what a pretty little dick you have?" 

Daniel shivers, skin breaking out in goosebumps. It spreads down his chest, pebbling his nipples. And fuck, he wants to suck on them so bad. Wants to know what sound Daniel will make if he bites them, but he can't because Daniel's pressing his hips up and he's making a strangled noise in the back of his throat when their dicks touch. Even Johnny hiccups, eyes rolling back. He should have done this to LaRusso a long fucking time ago. Should have grabbed that tiny body in the locker room at school and humped his ass in the showers when no one was around. 

As they rut, hips working harder, Daniel starts to babble, high-pitched, "God, ngh, yes, oh my god, Johnny."

And Johnny would laugh, but his mouth has gone dry. The thought of humping Daniel's ass hooks him, spilling into his head like a watercolour, as smutty and vivid as one of the centrefolds in the magazines Johnny keeps under his mattress. 

He reaches down to grab his dick and with the other hand pulls Daniel's hips up, so he can slot it under him. The head of his dick bumps up against Daniel's ass, and he groans at how soft he feels, pressing close like he's going to push inside. 

Daniel arches his back at the feeling, the slats of his ribs jutting darkly in the streetlight. Johnny thumbs at them hard, digging in like he wants them to bruise. He twitches at the way Daniel sighs, like he’s relishing the pain. If Johnny had known he liked it like this, he would have done it a lot sooner. Would have pushed him down into the sand that first night, when Daniel had sprung up out of nowhere and mouthed off at him, all leggy and tanned like something from Johnny’s fantasies. If only he knew that all Daniel needed was a hand on his throat to submit so softly. 

He thrusts against him again as he pushes his thumb deeper into Daniel's ribs.

“Have you ever given this to anyone else?”

If Daniel says yes, Johnny doesn't know what he'll do. Maybe track the guy down and gut him with the knife he used to kill Kreese. 

But Daniel shakes his head, throat trembling. He’d look frightened if his dick wasn’t so hard, glistening wet at the tip, as wet as every girl Johnny’s ever fucked. But this felt different. Daniel wasn’t just some girl he picked up at a party or who hung around the dojo watching him practice. 

“Do you want me to take it?”

He thinks about it. Getting his fingers wet and fingering him open. Popping his cherry. Being the first to ever do this to him. The thought makes his mouth grow thick with spit, his dick so hard he’s already on the cusp of coming. 

Daniel quivers like a leaf, mouth open on a silent cry.

"Come on, LaRusso," he says, "don't go shy on me now." 

"M not shy," Daniel says, eyes so glossy he looks drunk. 

"Tell me then." 

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, looking suddenly nervous. "Will it hurt?"

And yeah, he realises, it would hurt. Daniel wasn’t a girl. Wasn’t going to get wet for him, ease the way.

Johnny wants it, he wants it so fucking bad, but he wasn't going to hurt him. He promised he wouldn't.

So he settles down and grinds against Daniel, thrusting his dick against the soft swell of his ass while Daniel rubs up against his abs. Wondering, if someone came across them now, how it would look. If they saw Johnny's pants down around his thighs, pushing against Daniel like he was fucking him. He'd only let himself imagine it abstractly last year, when he jerked off, half hurting, half furious, Daniel's grin mocking him at the back of his head. But he wants it now. Wants it in a vivid, frenzied way he's never let himself want it before. Wants to get Daniel’s long legs over his shoulders and sink into him. Maybe look down and that secret little place between his legs bloom pink around his dick. 

"Say you're mine," he says against Daniel's throat. 

Daniel jumps, his little dick blurting wet against Johnny's stomach. "W-what?"

"Tell me you're mine. Please."

He has to hear it. Has to know Daniel's his. Or he's going to fall, unanchored, come apart at the seams. Because if Johnny doesn't belong to Daniel then it means he still belongs to Kreese and all of this was for nothing. And he can't bear that.

"I'm yours," Daniel moans. "Johnny, I'm yours."

Johnny shudders hard, wants so badly to feel them connected. He's never wanted to fuck someone so badly in his entire life.

He reaches between them so he can thumb around Daniel's hole. Where he’s tight but needy. Warm against his fingers like he wants to pull Johnny inside. And Johnny wants to so badly. Wants nothing more than to open him up and push inside, where he belongs. 

That's all it takes. As soon as Johnny pushes the tip of his thumb inside, it's like pressing a button.

Daniel clenches up and comes instantly.

Johnny stares at him as he does, drinking in how gorgeous he looks. Johnny's made girls come before, but it's always felt hollow, performative. Over in seconds. Like the dying embers of a doused candle. In contrast, Daniel comes with his entire body, back arching hard against the grass, mouth open wide on Johnny's name. He comes like it hurts him. Like a bright blurt of agony has seized him, pulling his limbs tight, coming wet against Johnny's stomach. And Johnny's never wanted to lose himself in someone so badly before. Has never heard someone shape his name in their mouth like a prayer. But Daniel does. He comes, and he cries, and Johnny can't take his eyes off him. It's overwhelming. 

Finally, after seconds or years, Daniel goes limp, totally spent against the grass.

He opens his eyes and looks at Johnny, mouth open on a pant, eyelashes a dark flutter against his cheek. 

And Johnny feels it. Feels his mouth start to open, to say, "I love you. I killed him for you."

But he can't, so he doesn't. Swallows it down as he starts to pull away, sitting up between Daniel's legs. Daniel blinks, looking panicked. He tries to sit up, arms coming up to draw Johnny back, as if Johnny's just going to leave him there. Fill him passion and then abandon him. 

Johnny pushes him down again with a gentle hand on his collarbone.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says. 

That obviously calms Daniel. He falls back against the grass, watching Johnny with his bottom lip between his teeth.

"You're beautiful," Johnny says as stares at him. 

Daniel goes shy, pushing his face sideways against the grass. "I'm not," he mumbles. 

"Yeah you are. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

And usually Johnny would never be this open, that honest. But tonight has cut him open like butter under a hot knife.

Eyes locked on Daniel's, Johnny brings his mouth to his hand and spits in it.

"Johnny-"

Johnny shushes him. "I'm not going to fuck you," he says. "I just want to feel you."

He rubs his spit-slick hand down his dick - teeth catching on his bottom lip as his hips buck - and settles back between the sprawl of Daniel's legs. Slots his dick under Daniel again, like he's about to fuck him, right up against that little dark place between his legs, and thrusts against him. He knows he's rubbing against his sensitive, soft dick but Daniel doesn't complain, legs coming up to wrap around Johnny's hips again. 

"I want you to," Daniel says, softly like it's a secret, "fuck me, I mean."

Johnny groans against his neck, tongue darting out to lick across all that salty-soft skin. 

"I'm going to," he says. "As soon as I get you in my bed, I'm gonna fuck you." Daniel moans, canting his hips up like he's desperate to be fucked. And Johnny's mouth starts to run, like a broken spool of tape, his hips snapping against Daniel's ass. "You're mine," he says again, "you're mine. No one's ever gonna have you but me. I'll kill anyone who touches you, I'll fucking kill them-"

Daniel moans then - a high, thin, reedy moan that sounds broken and desperate - like he wants Johnny to do that. And Johnny comes, his orgasm cracking through him like a gunshot. Building in his hips and shooting through him, obliterating everything. 

It's so intense it hurts, and he buries his teeth in Daniel's shoulder as he rides the crest of it, relishing the high-pitched sound he makes.

When he comes back to life, it's to Daniel stroking his fingers through his hair, murmuring his name. 

Johnny unlatches his teeth from Daniel's shoulder, wincing a little when he sees the blood-red bite mark.

If it hurts, Daniel doesn't show it. He stares at the sky, murmuring, "Wow, I mean wow..."

"Yeah," he manages to say, honey-thick. If he could purr he probably would. His head feels blissfully silent for the first time in months.

He makes himself sit up before he falls asleep, stomach sticky with come, and Daniel dutifully drops his legs from around his waist. Johnny wants to pull them back up. Doesn't want them to be separated even for a second, but he knocks the urge away.

He drops down beside Daniel instead, the grass cool under his skin. 

Daniel rolls over to face him, face half hidden behind his outstretched arm. One brown eye stares at him. 

"Hey," Johnny says.

"Hi," Daniel replies sleepily.

He looks beautiful like this, eyes glassy and cheeks flushed. Like one of those dreamy boys from the old paintings his mom liked. Johnny worries suddenly about him being cold, so he grabs his jacket from where he'd dropped it on the grass and drapes it over Daniel's back.

"That better?"

"Yeah, thanks. Feels nice."

“You okay?"

Daniel nods, smiling into his arm. “Yeah," he says. "I’ve never done anything like that before."

And Johnny feels a visceral kind of satisfaction over that. He wants to be Daniel's everything. Wants his heart and body in knots over him. Never wants him to share this with anyone else. Johnny was the only one who deserved it.

"Did you like it?"

"Yeah," Daniel says again. He presses his face against his arm, looking shy, cheekbones going pink. When he peeks over at him again, his expression is so open and vulnerable it makes Johnny ache. "Did you enjoy it too?"

"No, it was the worst," Johnny says, trying not to laugh.

Daniel buries his face in his arm. "Don't laugh at me," he says, voice muffled against his skin.

"I can't help it, you're such a dork."

"I'm the dork? I wasn't the one who called you at 3am and dragged you out of bed."

"I think I made it worth it." 

"Kinda cocky, aint'cha?"

"No idea what you mean. I'm the most humble kid in the Valley."

That makes Daniel laugh stupidly. "As humble as pie, got it."

The wind suddenly picks up, and Daniel's skin pebbles up into gooseflesh. He shivers slightly under the jacket. 

Johnny leans down to kiss his shoulder, relishing how soft Daniel's skin is. “We should get back. Let me drive you home."

“No, wanna stay with you," Daniel murmurs. "Don't wanna go yet."

"We can't sleep in the park, come on."

Daniel sits up and draws Johnny in for another kiss. Turns out he was clingy. It was cute. Johnny kisses him back gladly, letting his lips linger. When he finally pulls back, he looks at Daniel's shoulder and winces again. It looks like he'd been mauled. 

"Shit, I didn't mean to bite so hard," he says. "Does it hurt?"

"It's okay, I don't mind." Daniel pulls his knees to his chest and smiles against them.

"What are you smiling at?"

"I just never thought you'd like me too."

Johnny quirks an eyebrow. "Who says I like you, LaRusso?"

That makes Daniel laugh a little. "You said I was beautiful". He looks around at the park, so still and quiet at this time of night. "Or maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and none of this will have happened." 

Johnny strokes his fingers down Daniel's neck, at the purple hickey on his throat. "You'll still have this." 

Daniel quivers under his touch. "And what about you? Was this just... a one-time thing?" 

It should be, Johnny thinks. After what he's done. He should push Daniel away. Stay away from him, for Daniel's own safety. But the thought of not doing this again makes Johnny feel sick. He can't not see Daniel. Can't not touch him. Especially now, when he knows how his skin tastes. Knows how he looks when he comes. When he's heard the way his name can sound in Daniel's mouth. Like it's something precious.  

He plays it cool instead. "Not if we don't want it to be." 

Daniel sucks on his bottom lip for a moment, something he always did when he felt insecure.

Finally he says, "I'd like to. Again. I mean, with you." 

"I would too. If I can find some free time, I mean."

Daniel grins at him. And it's so heartbreakingly wide and genuine that Johnny wants to push him down on the grass again. Wants to pull those long legs around him and rub up against him. See how fast he can make him come. Maybe he could even push his finger inside him this time. 

As if he can read his mind, Daniel says, "You're kinda intense, huh?"

Johnny doesn't know what to say to that, so he just says, "I guess."

He eyes Daniel's bruises again. They weren't the kind that were going to fade after a day or two.

"How are you gonna hide those from your mom?"

"Um, I'll just say a vampire bat attacked me or something."

Johnny snorts. "In Reseda? Good luck with that."

"Oh, okay. So I'll just tell her that the boy she invites over for dinner every week pushed me down and bit me in the park."

Johnny cringes. "On second thought, maybe you're right, go with that."

Daniel smiles and pushes his head against Johnny's shoulder. "Take me home then, Romeo."

They stand up and pull their clothes back on - Daniel turning away with a flush as Johnny's come drips down his thigh. Johnny remembers he has a napkin scrunched down in the pocket of his jeans and he hands it to Daniel, who mumbles a quick thanks and wipes between his legs. The sight of it makes Johnny's face burn, but he can't look away, even when Daniel looks over his shoulder and calls him a pervert.

Johnny doesn't deny it. 

Back at the car, Daniel pauses as he's opening the passenger door. 

"I don't love Ali," he says. "I mean I do, but not like that."

"Okay," Johnny says, keeping his voice even. Anything else feels would feel too loaded, too intense. Too much like, good because when I see you with her, I want to pull her by the back of her hair and rip her away from you. 

Instead he says. "Get in the car, we can talk about that tomorrow." 

⸻⸻⸻⸻

Johnny drives Daniel home, down the dark, quiet streets, until they get to South Seas, where they share a goodbye kiss.

He sticks around to watch Daniel walk down the street towards his apartment complex, his skinny legs like miles Johnny had mapped. Except Daniel stops at the doorway, shoulders tensing, and suddenly he runs back to the car. Johnny's about to ask him what he's doing when he ducks his head through the open window to kiss him again. As if he's afraid Johnny's going to evaporate the second he walks through the door.

"I'm sorry," Daniel whispers against his lips. "I'm just so scared you're gonna drive away and I'm never gonna see you again."

"That's not going to happen," Johnny says fiercely. "You can't get rid of me that easily." 

"It's just, I meant it, you know?"

"What?"

Daniel's fingers tighten on the window. "That I'm yours. I think I always have been, from the second we met."

Johnny tries his best to keep his face blank. But knows he fails spectacularly when the vulnerable downturn of Daniel's mouth curls into a laugh. Before he can say anything that'll make Johnny die of embarrassment, he fists his hand into Daniel's sweater and pulls him back in, their lips crashing together in a hungry kiss, all teeth and tongue.

"Shut up," he says when he pulls back. "You shouldn't say shit like that. You don't know what it does to me."

But Daniel just smiles at him. That cocky little smile that always made Johnny want to hit him before.

"I think I do," he says, licking at Johnny's bottom lip. "I like it. I like you."

"You're all right too." Johnny plants his hand against Daniel's chest and pushes him away from the car. "Go on, get out of here."

Daniel slides his hand through his hair, says okay, grinning goofily. He finally waves and disappears through the door. But Johnny sits in his car for a long while afterwards, until the sun begins to peek over the horizon, bathing the streets in a deep amber gold.

On the back of his hand he notices a red smudge. Kreese's blood. He rubs at it with his thumb until it fades into his skin. 

He thinks about how peaceful Kreese's face looked beneath the blood. Johnny had stared at it until his lips and eyelids turned blue. 

Eventually he drives home. Falls into bed and for the first night in months dreams of nothing but Daniel. 

A week later Daniel breaks up with Ali. 

Kreese’s body is never found.