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“Everything a fucking fight with you,” he snarls, kind of under his breath, kind of to himself.
Daniel watches him shake his head and squeeze his eyes shut, broad shoulders tensed up and hands clenched into white-knuckle fists. Daniel sets his jaw in the way that says ‘I know we are going to argue because I want us to,’ and he doesn’t say anything.
Sometimes Johnny scares Daniel, when he gets all soft and sweet. The gentleness makes Daniel skittish, like a too-light touch to the ribs, ticklish and squirmy and more than uncomfortable. He knows it hurts Johnny’s feelings a little when Daniel shuts down or pulls back, when he can’t stand the kindness. Daniel wonders sometimes about what it would’ve been like three years ago – before Cobra Kai.
Daniel’s still not saying anything because – suddenly – Johnny looks real sad.
The bared teeth and growling snarl and wide-sweeping hands are gone, and all that’s left of him is an almost-man. Guilt floods Daniel’s chest. Johnny owes Daniel an apology, but he’s trying – real fucking hard. Daniel pushes. Push and push until his teeth latch onto Daniel’s throat because Daniel needs it, because he wants it, because he deserves it.
“I’m –” Daniel starts to say, but Johnny holds up a hand, and his teeth audibly clack together because – fuck – that fucking stings.
Johnny walks over to him, and he’s half-convinced that he’s about to get hit, hard, across the face, just fucking laid out. Hit, actually, not hit on the mat in a spar, but hit. With malice, like how it used to be before. It’s scarier than Daniel cares for it to be. His pulse quickens and the separate urges to run or snap or apologize all sort of fight for dominance in his stomach. No one wins, so he just stands there. He feels stupid and mean, and he almost wants Johnny to hit him.
A firm hand is placed on his shoulder. He’s looking very hard at the little cross Johnny wears on the thin gold chain around his neck. Daniel says a Hail Mary in his head. His fingers twitch with the impulse to cross himself, the impulse to beg for forgiveness, to crawl on hands and knees to the altar and to repent, to be saved. Ever-so-gently, Johnny tugs Daniel in – just a half-step. Johnny kisses his forehead, and Daniel’s brain is racketing with some confusion and a little fear.
“I’m sorry,” Johnny says.
Daniel presses his face into Johnny’s chest. His hands spasm at his sides.
“That was mean,” he says into the top of Daniel’s head. The words are absorbed by Daniel’s hair, and Daniel lets them travel through his skull into his brain.
Daniel makes a little noise, his heart rackets in his chest, his blood pounds in his ears. They’re ringing with it – with the confusion and the left-over panic. Slowly, so Johnny has plenty of time to decide if he wants Daniel to touch him in return, Daniel raises shaking hands to Johnny’s ribs.
Johnny hooks an arm around Daniel’s neck. There’s no tugging closer to be done anymore, as Daniel wraps his arms around Johnny and clings onto his broad back.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Johnny says, and means it.
His nose hurts from how hard he’s pressing into Johnny. He waits to get thrown off. He’s so fucking clingy – but Johnny doesn’t ever seem to mind. Still, he waits – sometimes he feels like he’s waiting for something – even though Johnny’s never once pushed him or dismissed him with the wave of a hand or a palm to the cheek.
“Are you mad at me?” Daniel asks.
“No,” Johnny answers, and Johnny doesn’t lie. Says he’s not smart enough to, but Daniel knows he’s just not mean enough to, Daniel knows that Johnny knows that Daniel would believe him, and that’s scary, too. “Just wish you’d tell me what was wrong ‘stead’a pickin’ a fight.”
He runs a big hand over Daniel’s head, cups the back of his neck, traces a line down his spine, then back up and over again. There’s an antsy feeling in Daniel’s chest, like how he’d get when they’d get snowed in back in Newark. But there’s no snow here. Daniel can leave if he wants. He pushes against Johnny’s chest and is immediately released. He doesn’t look Johnny in the eyes.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says.
“I don’t think there’s something wrong with you,” Johnny says. “I mean, you’re super weird, but I don’t think there’s something wrong with you.”
“You’re one to talk,” Daniel bites.
“Come on, honey,” Johnny says. “Work with me here.”
Guilt rises in Daniel’s throat like bile. He swallows it down. His face is on fire, his chest hurts, and the desire to run away – just to prove that he can, maybe – is clawing at his brain, begging to be obeyed.
“I’m sorry, too,” Daniel says. There’s a bluejay on the branch outside the kitchen window.
“S’alright,” he says. He’s so easy, Johnny. It’s so easy to get forgiveness from him. He’s so much calmer than he was in high school. Daniel’s so tightly wound that one day he thinks he’ll snap, break apart and crumble away into nothing.
“I got scared,” Daniel tells him – not really meaning to. The bluejay flies away.
“Of me?” And Jesus fuck – that’s a tone Daniel never wants to hear again: shocked and wounded, like a dying deer.
Daniel shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He wants to reach out and take Johnny’s hand. His hand twitches at his side – an aborted motion. Johnny’s fingers press the inside of his wrist. When he doesn’t pull away, Johnny takes his hand.
“Of what, then?” His voice is softer now. “Was it what I said?”
Daniel shrugs. He doesn’t know why he was scared or what Johnny said that made him so upset, he just knows that he was scared, and it felt safer and easier to dig and rile Johnny up then to admit his feelings were hurt. He thinks he might’ve wanted some retaliation, an almost-punishment for being too sensitive. For not taking the comment like a man. His eyes burn.
“Well, I’m sorry I scared you,” Johnny says, all unsure. Daniel is being so fucking weird – Johnny has no clue how to handle him because he’s so weird and there’s something so wrong with him.
“You –” his voice breaks. Tears start to fall. He yanks his hand away from Johnny, presses it over his mouth.
“Daniel?” Johnny says. His hands hover around Daniel like he’s not sure what to do. “You okay, baby?”
“You didn’t scare me,” Daniel manages to push it out through his sudden sobs. It’s very important that Johnny knows that. “I got – got scared. You didn’t scare me.”
He’s having a heart attack, surely. He doesn’t know why he can’t just calm the fuck down, he doesn’t know why this is such a deal, why he’s being such a fucking girl – he inhales sharply through his nose, chokes on a sob.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, you didn’t scare me.”
He’s not sure if any of it’s coherent. He can’t stop crying, he needs to stop fucking crying. Johnny puts firm hands on his shoulders.
“You need to breathe.” Johnny says.
He can’t, though. He sobs louder. He needs to stop crying. He’s so fucking sensitive – always has been. Too fucking sensitive.
“Take a breath,” Johnny’s voice is firmer, authoritative. Daniel latches onto that.
He sucks a breath in through his nose, pushes it out through his mouth.
“Good,” Johnny says, and a different part of Daniel latches onto that too. “Again, your stupid breathing thing. Meditation. Circle breathing.”
Daniel takes another breath. Another. Another. Johnny presses Daniel’s palm to his chest. Johnny’s heart’s beating just a little too fast. Daniel works really hard at calming down. He focuses on the pressure of Johnny’s hand in his and the pressure of Johnny’s hand on his shoulder and the pressure of his eyelids pressing together.
Another breath. Another. Another.
“Box breathing.” He says on an exhale.
“What’d I say?”
He giggles a little. It’s all wet and gross. “Circle breathing.”
“Same thing,” Johnny’s got a sweet grin on his face, the charming and handsome one that’s currently – somehow – reserved for Daniel.
Daniel’s face is all tight and itchy, and he’s positive it’s flushed and splotchy. Johnny kisses his forehead again.
“If you get scared like – like that again,” Johnny says into his skin. Daniel feels more than hears the words. “Just tell me, and we can figure it out. If I make you upset, or whatever, just tell me.”
Daniel doesn’t say anything.
“Please?” Johnny asks, sweet as ever. “Okay, baby? Please?”
“Okay,” Daniel rasps. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Good.” He presses another kiss into Daniel’s forehead, then cups Daniel’s face and tilts it back, keeps him in place when he presses onto his toes to try and kiss him, laughs when Daniel whines, then really kisses him – slow and sweet and deep, so much so that Daniel’s head spins.
There’s love in it, Daniel thinks.