Chapter Seven
"I'm gonna have to do what?"
Daniel didn't mean what Johnny thought he meant, did he? He couldn't.
"Fix my knee."
Yeah, that's what he'd thought he meant.
"Nope," he answered quickly. "No way, man."
"You don't have a choice," Daniel said. "We don't have a choice."
"No, I do have a choice. And I choose not to go yanking around on your leg when it looks like that." He gestured toward the swollen, misshapen joint with his right hand, then wiped the back of it across his mouth. He hadn't even seen it yet, but the way it looked through the jeans … God, it was going to be gross.
"Johnny."
"No."
"Okay," Daniel said with a tired shrug. "I guess I'll just … stay here then."
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Well, that's not happening, either."
"Look, you can fix my leg, and we can leave. Or, you don't, I stay on the ground, and you leave without me. Not seeing a third option here."
The pain on Daniel's face, in his eyes and voice made Johnny feel guilty about stalling. The guy couldn't even finish a sentence without stopping to breathe in the middle. But, damn it, he couldn't do it. Yeah, maybe he could improvise enough first aid to keep someone from bleeding to death, but he was pretty sure bones were meant to go in very specific places. When they weren't where they belonged, he should definitely leave it up to someone who knew what they were doing to put them back. He shrugged and looked away.
"I'll just carry you."
Daniel snorted. "You're not carrying me."
"You saying I can't carry your skinny ass, LaRusso?" Johnny's insulted tone was only partly feigned.
"My ass isn't as skinny as it used to be," Daniel shot back. "But, no. I'm saying there's no reason for you to carry me. If you fix my knee, I should be able to walk."
Johnny dropped his head and stared at the ground. "You're beat up enough," he said. "No point in me making it worse."
"You won't." Daniel was being way too patient. He was the one who was hurt, damn it. Why was he comforting and reassuring Johnny? If anything, it should have been the other way around.
He shook his head and tried to talk his way out of it again, anyway. "You can't tell me it's not gonna hurt."
"Oh, no," Daniel admitted. "It's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. But it'll hurt a hell of a lot less than it does now when you're done."
Johnny bit his lip.
"My leg, it ... it hurts, Johnny," Daniel said softly. "It really, really hurts. And I'd really … like you to make it stop." There should have been tears in his eyes, but there weren't. Johnny definitely remembered him crying from the pain when they were kids. Just how many times had he been through it in the years since, to be able to hold it in like that? "I'm asking … I just … I need your help. Please."
Johnny knew how hard it had been for him to say those words to Daniel. It had to have been just as hard for Daniel to say them to him. What he'd been asking for hadn't been half as important, hadn't had nearly as much riding on it, and Daniel had still ended up saying yes. Who the hell was he to say no to him?
Daniel was in pain, and he was the only one who could stop it.
He rose up slightly on his knees, nodded his head slowly, and finally looked Daniel in the eye. "You sure about this?"
Daniel grinned tiredly and leaned his head back. "Come on, ya big baby," he said, not unkindly. "You're wasting time. Just get it over with."
"Okay," he agreed reluctantly. "Okay, yeah. Let's do this." He moved to his left, positioning himself next to Daniel's knee, and he ran his hands down his face. "I can do this." He rubbed his thighs a couple of times, and then he reached for the knife in his back pocket.
"Don't." Daniel's voice stopped him cold. Oh, yeah. He had a problem with knives. At least, he had a problem with that particular knife. How'd he forgotten about that so fast?
For a few seconds, he considered indulging him. Daniel had been through more than enough for one day, with the promise of more ahead. If there was anything Johnny could do to make it easier for him, he would do it. But one look between the leg of those jeans and the shape and size of that knee, and he was shaking his head.
"No," he said. "There's no way I can pull it up high enough, and you know it."
"These are my favorite jeans." The casualness in Daniel's voice was forced, and it was too obvious to miss, but Johnny pretended he didn't hear it. "Besides, I don't want to walk around with my pant leg flapping open." There was an almost innocent hopefulness in those words, and Johnny found himself wanting to give in. But he couldn't.
They both knew the real reason Daniel didn't want to see that knife again. They both knew why he didn't want it close to him. But they also both knew what he was asking Johnny to do was impossible.
"I get it," Johnny said. "I do. But I'm not even going to try to get them past that. It would …" He stopped himself short of saying it would hurt Daniel too much. Why that suddenly mattered to him, he wasn't exactly sure, but that was one more thing he didn't have either the time or inclination to think about. "I can't do that. I have to cut them. So, just ... close your eyes or something, okay?"
Daniel took a deep breath. "Okay. You're right. Okay." He nodded slowly and closed his eyes. "Just, please, don't let it …"
"I won't," Johnny promised.
Daniel dug his fingers into the dirt.
"You can do this," Johnny said. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Daniel or himself, but he didn't think it really mattered. They both needed the pep talk, anyway. He started slicing the denim, slowly, carefully, breathing deeply as he did. "We can do this."
Daniel tensed and groaned as the blade got closer to his knee. Johnny wondered if it was the occasional tugs he was having to make on the knife causing that, or if the whole idea of it being less than half-an-inch from his skin was screwing with his head that badly.
"I'm probably gonna scream. Ignore me."
Johnny nodded. "I can do that." It wouldn't be the first time. "Not a problem."
"No matter what I say. Once you start, do not stop until you feel ..."
The higher the knife got, the less room there was between the jeans and Daniel's leg, and the harder it was to move it forward without letting it touch his skin. Every move of Johnny's hand resulted in another violent yank on that knee. It didn't matter how slowly he moved; it didn't help. He started cutting faster, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible, and suddenly, Daniel's hand was wrapped around his wrist, fingers tightening with bruising force.
"Christ," Daniel gasped out, lifting his shoulders away from the branch. Johnny stopped, but Daniel shook his head forcefully. "No. Don't … don't stop. The faster, the better. I'm fine." He leaned back again, biting his lip and closing his eyes. "It's fine. Keep going."
Johnny gave the knife one last, quick pull, and the denim gave way, splitting open like an over-ripe tomato. He flinched and sucked in an involuntary gulp of air when he finally saw what had been hidden beneath it. Daniel's knee wasn't just swollen and bent wrong. It was a grotesque, distorted, red and black and purple mess. It didn't even look like it belonged on a human.
"Jesus fuck, LaRusso," he breathed. He put his left hand on top of the fingers Daniel still dug into his wrist. "Are you really sure about this?"
Daniel lifted his head and looked down at his leg with another deep, shaking inhale. "Oh, yeah," he said. He smiled half-heartedly. "But that … was the easy part."
"Shit."
Daniel released his grip on Johnny's wrist and dug his fingers into the dirt again. Johnny closed the knife and put it back in his pocket, hoping he'd never have to make Daniel look at the damn thing again.
"Now what?"
"Okay. You see that big lump on the side there?" Of course, he did. At that moment, he didn't see anything else. "That's my kneecap. It's not supposed to be there."
"Figured that out already."
"So, you're gonna put it back. Where it belongs. In the middle. Have to do it fast. Do it slow, you'll be … torturing me. Got it?"
Johnny nodded again, still transfixed by the sight in front of him. "You really fix this by yourself?"
Daniel shook his head. "Not this bad. Mr. Miyagi always ..." His voice faded away. "Dislocated joints … prone to re-injury. Bump it on something, twist it wrong, step on it wrong, it goes out. I got used to it. But he never ..." He took another deep breath. "Learned to fix it. But when it was bad, he did it. Never let me watch. Never even let me see it. So, this … this is a first."
"I'm honored," Johnny deadpanned.
"Just remember, once you start, can't stop until you feel it."
"Feel what?"
Daniel smirked. "Hard to describe. Believe me. You'll know …" He tapped the side of his left thigh. "Put your right hand here."
Johnny did.
"Gonna use the heel of your hand, side of your thumb. Gonna push it sideways."
That was all he had to do? That didn't sound so hard.
"Should move pretty easily. May have to use some force … if it doesn't want to go."
That really didn't sound that bad.
"You'll feel it. And hear it. You'll know about … half a second before I do."
Johnny didn't know if the pain was worse or better or the same, but Daniel's breathing hadn't slowed down any. He also wasn't always bothering with complete sentences anymore, almost as if the effort to form them was too much for him. He was looking off into the distance, apparently trying to distract himself from what was about to happen, even as he was explaining how to do it.
It was easier to do that kind of stuff while the person you were doing it to was preoccupied, wasn't it? That's how it always went in the movies anyway.
"First, you ..."
Johnny pressed his hand against the protruding bone and pushed it toward the inside of Daniel's leg as hard as he could.
"Stop!"
It was like someone threw a switch. One second, Daniel was calm and talking, and the next, he was screaming bloody murder. He'd said it would hurt, right? He'd said he'd scream, to ignore him, to keep going no matter what.
Johnny kept going.
"No! Not yet! Stop! Stop!" Daniel threw his head back again, bellowed in agony, and grabbed Johnny's wrist hard enough to grind the bones together. Then he reached across himself and punched him in the chest. "Fuckin' stop!"
Johnny's stomach clenched. Daniel wasn't just reacting to the pain. Whatever he'd just done, he'd done it wrong. Despite Daniel's belief that he wouldn't, he'd made it worse. He knew he had. He pulled his hand away like he'd been burned.
Daniel let go of Johnny's wrist again, jerked his whole body to the right, and threw up.
"Oh, Jesus," Johnny muttered. He leaned forward and put his right hand on Daniel's back. "Shit, LaRusso, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't … I … God ..."
Daniel reached back blindly with his left hand, grabbed the front of Johnny's shirt, and pulled himself up. He lifted his right hand shakily and swiped at his mouth with the back of his arm. Johnny moved his hand to Daniel's upper arm as he tried to steady himself.
"That ..." he gasped, "... was wrong."
Yeah, that was pretty fucking obvious. "What'd I do? I screwed it up."
"Remember … torture thing?"
"Shit."
Daniel shook his head to clear it. "No, s'okay. I just … didn't finish telling … what to do. My fault. My fault. S'okay." No, it wasn't Daniel's fault. It was Johnny's fault. Anybody with half a brain could see that. "Try … again."
Johnny shook his head and kept his hands as far from Daniel's leg as possible.
"Listen to me. Do exactly … what I say. It'll work." He sounded so sure, but the pain in his voice was something Johnny couldn't ignore. "But … do that again … punching you in the face." Johnny looked up, horrified, and he was surprised to see an exhausted but somehow playful grin on Daniel's face. "Okay?"
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay. If I torture you, you can punch me in the face. That's fair."
Daniel tapped his thigh again. "Right hand here. Thumb against the bone. Don't push yet." Johnny did as he was told. "Left hand on my ankle." Johnny wrapped his fingers around it. "You have to … pull the bone down. Not far. Give the kneecap … room to move. And have to … straighten my leg. While you're pushing. That's what … what was missing."
"How long does it take?"
"Do it right … couple seconds. Do it wrong … never work."
Johnny heard the shaking in his voice, looked up at him, and saw the pinch around his eyes. He was trying to downplay how much pain Johnny had just caused him, but he couldn't hide it all. In truth, he couldn't hide any of it. Johnny pulled his hands away and sat back again.
"What … are you doing?" Daniel asked. "Got it now."
"Yeah," Johnny admitted. "I think I do. But I just fucked it up a whole lot worse, didn't I? And that's not gonna go away like it would have. Is it?"
Daniel shrugged reluctantly. "Probably not. But unless you've got … morphine ..."
Johnny leaned forward and grabbed the front of the jacket he'd draped around Daniel's shoulders. "Not quite," he said as he reached into the inside pocket. When he sat back, he had a flask in his hand and a smile on his face. "But close enough."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "What is this? Some kind of … bad buddy western?"
Johnny snorted, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to him. "Just drink it."
Daniel sniffed it and turned his head away. "God. What is that?"
"Strong," Johnny answered. "Drink it." Daniel put the flask to his lips, threw his head back, and pulled a face. "More," Johnny said.
Daniel took another swig, and that one made him cough. He grabbed his side and almost doubled over, then flopped back, panting. "S'awful. Gonna puke … again."
"No, you're not. You're gonna like it in a minute," Johnny promised. "Finish it. All of it."
Daniel tipped the flask twice more, finishing it off in two big swallows. Johnny knew what the man looked like when he was drunk, though he preferred their first drinking experience – even as badly as it had ended – to the way the second one was starting. He knew what to watch for. He didn't know how much Daniel drank normally, but he knew he was buzzed after two martinis. The whiskey he'd just tossed back was stronger than any martini. When Daniel's eyes fell closed and the flask slid out of his hand, Johnny took it away from him and smirked.
"You're a cheap date, LaRusso."
"Been called worse," Daniel muttered. "By you."
He hadn't expected it to take long, but had it actually hit him already?
"Yeah, well." Johnny shrugged and put his hands back on Daniel's thigh and ankle. "I'm an excellent judge of character."
"You're mean."
Yeah, he was drunk. It had only been a couple of minutes. How'd that happen so fast? It had happened too damn fast. No, Daniel wasn't a big guy by any definition, and he had just puked up his lunch, but ...
'You didn't think that through, did you?'
'Crap.'
Johnny closed his eyes. Four or five shots of whiskey at a bar after dinner left him staggering and stumbling in the streets. And he'd convinced a man who was at least thirty pounds lighter than him to down almost that much, in barely a minute, on an empty stomach.
'This is going to be ... interesting.'
'You can shut up and go away again.'
"And I … am not trash."
His stomach dropped at the words. He thought about all the names he'd called Daniel through the years. Had he ever called him that? He didn't remember. He didn't really want to remember, but he had to keep the conversation going. He had to keep Daniel talking, even if it was a lousy topic to get into at that moment.
"I never called you trash." For all he knew, that might be true. He was going to pretend it was, even if it wasn't. He tightened his hand around Daniel's ankle, running his eyes up his leg, trying to figure out where the middle of it actually was. It was harder than it should have been. "I called you a twerp. A worm. Definitely an asshole. Probably a prick. Said I don't trust you. Called your family rotten."
He regretted the words the second they passed his lips, but he couldn't take them back. He was supposed to be taking care of Daniel's current wounds, not digging up old ones and making them worse.
'You're not helping, Lawrence.'
'I'm shutting up. You should, too.'
"Not rotten, either."
"I know." It wasn't enough to make up for everything that had happened, everything he'd done and said, and he knew it, but he didn't have time for anything else. He took a shaky breath, steadied his grip, and focused.
It was time.
Johnny pulled down on Daniel's ankle, felt his whole lower leg move, and the kneecap slipped out from under his thumb. Johnny followed the shifting bone with his hand, pulling Daniel's foot toward him as everything below his knee slid to the side.
Drunk or not, that had to hurt. Daniel's head shot up, eyes first wide-open and then squeezed shut. His right leg was shaking violently, and his fists were slamming into the ground by his hips rapidly and repeatedly. Why he didn't just let it out, Johnny didn't know, but he was going to put another hole in his lip if he kept biting it like that.
Johnny heard a slight pop at the same time he felt a snap beneath his thumb, and the scream finally escaped. But then it was over. The leg in his hands was straight, the protruding bone was back where it belonged, and – the best part – Daniel had stopped screaming, and his whole body had gone slack.
He'd done it.
He couldn't make himself look up, though. The words still hung in the air between them, and he wasn't ready to face them. He'd spent so much of the past thirty-four years blaming Daniel for everything that had gone wrong with his life, spent more than three decades hating him. But it wasn't all Daniel's fault, and he'd been wrong to think it was. He'd been wrong to say Daniel LaRusso was rotten to the core. He was beginning to realize he'd been wrong about a lot of things.
Daniel had been willing to sacrifice himself, and had almost done it, to protect Johnny and the boys. He'd refused to let Johnny look at his injuries until he knew the boys were safe. He hadn't let him tell Robby he was hurt because he wanted to make sure the boys got away from Mike. He'd been more worried about Johnny's head than he was about his dislocated kneecap and the bleeding hole in his side.
'Rotten assholes don't do stuff like that.'
'I know they don't.'
"LaRusso, I ..." He lifted his head only to see Daniel shaking his.
"Hey, Johnny?" The grin both surprised him and made him smile a bit in response. "Know what?"
"What?"
"You don't … trust me … but I … trust you …"
Johnny didn't know what to say to that, and even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered.
Daniel had passed out.
"We did the right thing."
Miguel's voice took Robby by surprise, and he glanced over at him. Neither of them had said much in the ten minutes since they'd left the mountain. The stereo wasn't even on. Robby had been using the silence to focus himself on the task they'd laid out for themselves. He'd assumed Miguel was doing the same.
It appeared, however, that Miguel had other things on his mind.
"Didn't we?"
Robby nodded as he turned his eyes back to the road. "We did," he said. "I don't like it, either. I want to be up there with them more than anything. But you were right. We did the only thing we could."
Robby was struck by how quickly they'd changed places, and he wasn't comfortable with it. He'd only just started believing that leaving had been the best of the two terrible choices they'd had. That it would work. That it would be worth it. That it was the only way they could help the two men they'd left behind. As uncertain as he'd been, and still was, he didn't know if he was the best person to convince Miguel of any of that. If the guy who'd decided what they needed to do was starting to doubt what they'd done ...
"We couldn't do it alone."
Miguel was staring out the window, watching the trees fly by as they sped down the two-lane highway. "Yeah. I guess." He didn't sound very believable.
"They need us, but we need help. This is how we get it." He was repeating the words Miguel had said to him, the same words he'd been saying to himself, trying to persuade his heart to shut up and listen to his head. The whole thing had been Miguel's idea. He'd known exactly how to apply the Cobra Kai philosophy to their situation. He'd believed they could help, if they did it his way. He'd talked Robby into it in the first place. If he needed a little of that same reassurance from him, well, Robby guessed he could give it to him.
He owed him at least that much.
"Are you listening to me? Miguel?"
"No," Miguel said. "You're right. We had to." His voice was growing stronger, and the faith he'd shown in the plan from the start was coming back. "We wouldn't have had a chance. It'll be better this way." He pushed himself up straighter in his seat, and Robby let out a silent sigh of relief. "Yeah. We got this." Then, after a few more seconds of silence, Miguel said, "Who do you think that Mike guy is, anyway?"
"Someone Mr. LaRusso knows that my dad doesn't." He shook his head and shrugged. "Why does it matter who he is? What matters is what he's doing."
"It would be easier," Miguel said. "If we knew something about him, I mean. If we knew what we're gonna be up against. We need to think about what we're walking into. Does he do karate, too? Is that how Mr. LaRusso knows him? Is he any good at it?"
"He has to be," Robby pointed out. "Mr. LaRusso's afraid of him, and I've never seen him be scared of anyone."
"I guess that's true. Sensei was on edge, too, and he's not scared of anyone, either."
Robby bristled inwardly at Miguel trying to tell him about his own father, as if he didn't know him, but he took a deep breath and pushed the feeling down. After all, until that afternoon, he hadn't had a real conversation with the man in more than six months, and that had been just another fight. Miguel spent time with him every day. He knew Mr. LaRusso better than Miguel did, didn't he? It would make sense for Miguel to know Johnny better than Robby did, too, and for the same reason. But Robby still thought he was wrong about something.
"I don't think Dad was so much scared," he said. "I think, weird as it sounds, he was almost as worried about Mr. LaRusso as I was. As I am."
"And as I am about him." Miguel shifted in the seat and turned to face him for the first time since they'd been driving. "Do you think ..." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. "No, never mind."
"Do I think what?"
"Well, I was just wondering. Why didn't they tell us the truth, either of them? Mr. LaRusso lied to us about Mike, because he didn't want us to know he was scared, but we really need to know, right?"
Robby nodded again. "Yeah, but, he didn't exactly have a choice, did he? I mean, the guy was standing right there. Who knows what he'd have done if Mr. LaRusso had said anything."
"I guess," Miguel said, thoughtfully. "But then, Sensei didn't tell us why we should leave, only that we had to. And if you're right about Mr. LaRusso being hurt, then they both lied to us about that. So why did they do that? Don't they trust us?"
Robby had thought about that a few times himself, wondered why they hadn't told them the truth, and he'd come to a conclusion that made a lot of sense. "I think that was my fault," he said.
"How is it your fault?"
"Because I had this ... this stupid dream," he admitted. "Nightmare. About Mr. LaRusso. And it's been messing with me all day. So when I heard him saying the things he said, when I thought it was coming true, I ... I kinda flipped out."
Miguel smiled crookedly. "Kinda?"
"Okay, fine. I freaked the fuck out. But, anyway, I think they probably thought that if they told us the truth, I wouldn't leave. And if I didn't leave, then you probably wouldn't leave. And then we'd still be there, and we'd all four be in danger, and I ... I think they were right." He shook his head again. "No, I know they were, because I almost didn't leave." He glanced over at Miguel once more. "If it wasn't for you, I would have stayed. And I'd have gone running off after them. And as bad as the whole thing is, I'd have made everything worse."
"It's not just you, ya know," Miguel said. "I wanted to stay, too. And for what it's worth, part of me kinda wishes we had. It's like, I know we didn't have a choice, and I know we're doing the right thing, but I still feel like we ..." Miguel stopped talking and turned to stare out the window again.
"Ran away and abandoned them." Robby finished the sentence for him. "Yeah. So do I."
"Does it make you feel better to know they wanted us to?" Miguel asked. "That they ordered us to?"
"No," Robby answered, shaking his head. "It doesn't. Not really."
"But ..."
"But we're going back." He spoke the words forcefully, both for his own sake and for Miguel's. "We're not leaving them there. We're going to go back, and whatever the hell went wrong up there, we're gonna fix it. We're gonna help them." As he spoke the words, he found himself finally, honestly, truly believing them. "We're gonna strike as hard as we can, and we're gonna save them."
Miguel turned back toward him, a confident smile on his face and a determined look in his eyes. "Damn right, we are."
A sudden ding from the dashboard took them both by surprise. It was followed quickly by another, then, a few seconds later, two more.
"What's that?" Miguel asked.
Robby looked down at the display, and he wrinkled his forehead at what he saw. "Tire pressure gauge," he said, pointing at the red numbers in front of him. "We've got a flat tire."
Miguel looked out the window and down at the road, as if he could see the tires from where he was sitting. "Which one?"
"Um ..." That couldn't be right, could it? How was that even possible? "All four of them?"
"What?" Miguel spun back around in surprise.
"Mike must have slashed the tires." It was the only answer that made any sense. There was no other way all four of them could have gone flat at the same time. "He had to have. I bet he was trying to keep anyone from leaving."
"Why did it take so long? And shouldn't we pull over?"
Robby shook his head. "There's no point. Even if we could change one of them, we'd still have three flats. And it doesn't matter, anyway, because Audis don't come with spares."
Miguel's eyes widened. "Who the hell thought that was a good idea?!"
"No, it's okay. They're designed that way," Robby explained. "They've got run-flats. We can go at least 50 miles on them."
"How far are we from the city?"
Robby glanced out the window, looking for something that would tell him exactly where they were. "Probably another twenty? No more than twenty-five. We'll make it back. We'll be okay."
"Okay, yeah," Miguel said. "So we can get to the Valley. But what do we do then? How are we supposed to get back up there with four flat tires?"
Robby smiled confidently. He finally had an actual part to play in the whole fiasco. Car problems were something he knew how to fix. "We just need to get new ones."
"On a Saturday? And how much do tires for this thing cost, anyway?" Miguel was getting frustrated and anxious, but Robby's smile didn't fade. For the first time since he'd gotten out of bed, he actually felt like he could control something. "They can't be cheap. How much money do you have? Because I've got maybe ten bucks in my pocket."
"We don't need it," Robby said. "I know a place we can get them. There's plenty of them there. And we don't need any money."
"What the hell are you talking about? How do we get tires with no money?"
"I'm talking about a car dealership," he said. "It closed at noon, but that's not a problem. Because I know how to get in." He looked over at Miguel and raised his eyebrows. "And I just happen to know the guy who owns the place."
"Johnny?"
Daniel's eyes weren't open, his voice was wobbly, and even though he'd only said one word, it managed to be slurred. But at least he was awake. He wasn't trying to stand up, he wasn't fighting, and he knew who else was there. All of those things were a vast improvement over the last time he'd woken up.
"Whatchya doin'?"
Johnny was wiping the gash above Daniel's left eye, trying to get the dried blood off his skin and out of his eyebrow. He paused briefly when Daniel spoke, but he resumed the task as he answered. "I'm trying to fix your face," he said.
"Oh." Daniel responded like that was the most logical thing in the world for him to be doing, despite how absolutely surreal and bizarre it sounded. A few seconds passed in silence. "Wha's wrong with it?"
"You mean other than it's yours? Or the blood and cuts and bruises all over?"
"Oh. Yeah. Those." Daniel's forehead crinkled slightly, but his eyes remained closed. "Yer washin' m'face?"
"Yes, LaRusso." Johnny filled his voice with a patience he didn't feel, and he glanced around as he talked. In the time that had passed since Daniel had been out, a pit had been growing in the center of his stomach. He'd ignored it at first, thinking it was just anxiousness still hanging around after having had to put Daniel's leg back together, but it hadn't faded. If anything, it was growing stronger, and it seemed to be warning him of an impending danger he couldn't see.
He had zero doubt about what, or rather who, that danger was. His gut was telling him it was time for them to move, and he was going to have to listen to it soon. But he had to give Daniel a few minutes to get his bearings before they even tried.
"I'm washing your face. You decided to take a nap, and I didn't have anything better to do."
He did have other things to do, but he'd already done them all. His first order of business, after he'd realized there would be no waking Daniel up until he was damn good and ready to do it, had been to get the red jacket on him instead of just wrapped around his shoulders. Once they started moving, there'd be no way it would stay there, and it would work better, and keep him warmer, if he was actually wearing it. He hadn't thought it would be all that hard to do. He'd dressed a sleeping Robby more than once, when he was little, but putting pajamas on a napping toddler was nothing compared to trying to put a jacket on an unconscious, full grown man. It hadn't been easy, but Daniel hadn't moved or flinched or groaned, not even when Johnny had pulled him up from the ground and all but manhandled his arms into the sleeves.
After that, he'd searched the immediate area for a couple of small, sturdy branches. It hadn't taken him long to find what he'd needed. Both were no more than an inch and a half in diameter and a little under eighteen inches long. He'd used four leftover strips of t-shirt to tie them securely in place on either side of Daniel's leg. The makeshift splint started halfway down his calf and went halfway up his thigh. That should give his leg the extra support it would need to hold his weight, plus keep his knee from bending, which would hopefully stop his kneecap from sliding out of place again. As a bonus, it was holding most of the sliced-open pant leg closed. One more strip, wrapped around Daniel's ankle, would make sure it stayed that way.
"Oh," Daniel said again. "Whatchya washin' it with?"
Johnny glanced down at the small square of wet fabric in his hand – yet another piece of Daniel's sacrificed t-shirt – and smiled to himself. He'd found the creek while he'd been looking for branches. It was just behind the tree line, no more than ten feet from them, and when it came time to start cleaning Daniel up, he hadn't even questioned how he'd do it. He knew it wasn't fair to take advantage of Daniel's weakened and highly inebriated state, but he just couldn't help himself.
"Spit, of course. What else do I have?"
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in to Daniel's brain, but when they did, Johnny got the reaction he'd been looking for.
"Gross!" Daniel opened his eyes and started batting Johnny's hands away like he was swatting a fly. "Get 'way from ... shit, man!" He started rubbing his face with his own hands, trying to wipe what he thought to be a very offensive substance off.
Johnny fought the urge to laugh, enjoying his humor but unwilling to ruin it. Then he realized Daniel's cheek, which had taken the longest to stop, had reopened and started bleeding again.
"Hey!" he called out. "Quit that!"
"I can' b'lieve ... dude ... tha'so fuckin' gross!"
"Calm down, Princess," Johnny said. He pushed Daniel's hands aside and dabbed at the cut on his cheekbone again. "I didn't give you a damn spit bath. It's water, from a creek over there." He gestured toward the trees impatiently. "It's just water." He sighed as he kept working. "I just got this messed up face of yours to look almost human, and now you've screwed it up again. I swear, LaRusso, you are such a pain in my ass."
"Ya said ya spit on me."
"Yeah, it was a joke. It's not my fault you're drunk enough to believe me."
"Is too!" Daniel protested. "Stupid whiskey ... yer stupid idea."
"Can you even feel your face right now?"
Daniel had to think about that for a second. "No."
"Do you hurt anywhere else?"
"Well ... no. Can' really feel ... an'thing."
"Then it wasn't such a stupid idea, was it?"
Daniel's cheekbone had stopped bleeding again, so Johnny sat back and looked Daniel's face over one more time. That and his eyebrow had been the worst of it, but they didn't look so bad once they were cleaned up. They were wide, but they weren't very deep. His nose had stopped bleeding without any intervention, so all he'd had to do was clean under and around it. The blood running out of his mouth had come from a gouge on the inside of his lip, and that had stopped on its own, too. Daniel still had all his teeth, it didn't look like Mike had knocked any of them loose, and his nose wasn't broken. All in all, and considering what else had happened, his face had gotten off easy.
Relatively easy, that was.
"You're gonna look like a lopsided raccoon," he announced.
Maybe the bleeding parts weren't that bad, but the bruising was going to more than make up for it. Daniel's right eye looked like it had stopped swelling, and he could still open it, but it was already starting to turn a spectacular shade of purplish black. His left jaw was doing the same, spreading more than halfway up his face, along the outside of his eye. He had a large bruise on his right cheek, under and around the cut, all the way from his nose to his ear, and another on his chin. His face was a kaleidoscope of varying shades of red, purple, blue and black, and it was only going to get worse. Cracked or broken bones were a very real possibility, but he had no idea how to check for those.
"You didn't have to catch his fist with your face every time he threw it, ya know."
"Too busy to duck," Daniel answered.
"That doesn't make much sense." Johnny tossed the rag aside, dried his hand on his jeans, and pushed himself to his feet. "If you're in a fight, you should never be too busy to duck. Kinda hard to win if you let the other guy keep punching you in the face."
"Yeah, well ... din't win. Did I?"
Johnny tipped his head and looked down at him. "Actually, I kinda think you did. At least, you were winning. Until you decided to walk away. Speaking of which ..." The pit in his stomach had crawled its way up his neck and into his shoulders, and he looked around again. "It's time to get up, LaRusso," he said. "On your feet. We gotta get moving."
Daniel just laid there and blinked up at him.
"Come on. You said you could walk if I fixed your knee. I fixed it. So walk."
Daniel sighed and rolled to his side, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows and right knee. His left leg, held immobile by the splint, stuck out behind him. He should be able to get up anyway; Johnny had watched him get up from that exact same position at the tournament when they were kids. He got his hands under him, but then he pitched forward, landed back on his elbows, and dropped his forehead to his hands.
"What's wrong?"
"Ground," Daniel mumbled. "S'movin'. Gimme ..." He tried again, but he didn't have any more luck the second time. "Nope," he said. "Still movin'. 'll jus' ... m'good here."
Johnny slapped his face with both hands. "You gotta be kiddin' me."
"S'yer fault."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Johnny added Daniel's drunken inability to stand up to the ever-growing list of things that had been his fault in the last hour, and he dropped his hands to his sides. Then he bent down, reached under Daniel's arms, and wrapped his own arms around Daniel's chest. "Up ya go, Dannyboy," he said. He steadied himself, stood, and hauled Daniel bodily to his feet.
Daniel bit off a cry of pain, groaned, and stumbled backwards. He ended up half-slumped against Johnny's chest, with the side of his head on his shoulder. Johnny looked down to see his eyes starting to roll back again. "Oh, no, you don't," he said. He tapped Daniel's cheek lightly. "Hey, look at me, LaRusso. Stay with me here."
Daniel jerked his head up and pulled away, far too quickly for his brain to compensate for what his body was doing. Johnny jumped forward, turned, and stepped in front of him, grabbing his shoulders to keep him from faceplanting. "Hey!" he shouted. "You in there?"
Daniel nodded slowly. "Gimme ... minute ..."
Johnny glanced around nervously. That feeling of danger was getting too strong to ignore. "I don't think we've got a minute, Daniel. We have gotta go. Now."
Daniel forced his eyes open and made himself focus on Johnny's face. Johnny knew the second he'd caught his meaning. Those blood-shot brown eyes widened and filled with fear, his left hand wrapped around Johnny's arm, and his right hand grasped at the front of his shirt.
"Mike ..."
"He's not here," Johnny said. "Not yet. But we've been here too long. He'll be back sooner or later, and we can't be here when he shows up."
Daniel nodded slowly. "Okay. S'okay," he said. "Got this." Johnny moved to the side, giving Daniel enough room to take a step but still keeping one hand on his arm for balance. "Got it." Daniel stepped forward with his right leg, and his knee didn't buckle, which was a good sign. But when he tried to do the same with his left, swinging it to the side to compensate for not being able to bend it, it slid out from under him, and he toppled forward. "D'n't got it."
Johnny caught him before he hit the ground.
"Yeah, you don't got it." Johnny pulled him upright again. "Ya know, we're not gonna get very far very fast if you're gonna fall down every other step."
"Don' get up, Daniel," Daniel muttered. "Don' fall down, Daniel. Make up ... yer damn mind, Johnny."
"How the hell did you fight on that leg when you can't even stand on it?"
"Could bend it. 'N sober. 'N sixteen."
Johnny nodded. "Got it. You're crippled and drunk and old now."
"Younger'n you."
Johnny shook his head, grabbed Daniel's wrist, lifted it up, and ducked under it.
"Whatchya doin'?"
"Making up my damn mind," Johnny replied. He pulled Daniel's left arm across his shoulders. Then he put his right arm around Daniel's back, wrapped his fingers around and through his belt, and pulled him both straighter on his feet and tighter against his side. "We're doing this my way."
"'kay," Daniel actually giggled as he said that. What the hell was so funny? "Ya say so ..."
"Yeah, I say so." Johnny stepped forward, and Daniel did the same. It took them a few steps to get into a rhythm, but once they did, they fell into it more easily than Johnny had expected.
"Three-leg'd race. Jus' like … kids. But slower." Daniel snickered. What could he possibly think was funny?
"I'm glad you find this amusing," Johnny said.
"D'n't," Daniel answered. "D'n't laugh, 'll cry. 'm n't g'nna ... cry ..."
"Yeah," Johnny said softly. "I kinda noticed that."
Daniel's leg didn't seem to be giving him much trouble, other than being awkward, but Johnny was also holding him up, so he wasn't having to put much weight on it. But at some point, he had moved his right hand back to his side. The first time they stopped to rest, Johnny would have to check to make sure that hadn't started bleeding again. He didn't know that Daniel would tell him if it did. Hell, as drunk as he was, he wasn't all that sure he would even notice.
"So," Johnny began, as they walked – well, he walked and Daniel limped – out of the clearing. "Let me recap my day so far. I came here to ask you for a tiny little favor and do a little camping. We almost got in a fight. The boys almost got in a fight. You chewed my ass for everything I've ever done wrong. Some asshole I've never met knocked me out with a tree branch. You ran off and got yourself stabbed. I followed you up here to save your ass from your own stupidity. And now, I'm dragging a drunk with a gimpy leg, a hole in his side, and a damn case of the giggles down a mountain." Daniel chuckled again, and Johnny couldn't help it. He smiled. Maybe Daniel was onto something with that whole 'laugh so you don't cry' thing.
"We should go camping together more often, LaRusso. I'm having a fucking blast."
The sound of Daniel's laughter echoing off the trees was, strangely, the greatest thing Johnny had heard all day.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a blurry blanket of green.
He blinked a few times, and that one big fuzzy thing sharpened into a thousand smaller ones. Leaves. Blue sky behind them. Trees.
He was lying on his back. On the ground. In the woods. He didn't know how he'd gotten there. The last thing he remembered was ….
"Daniel."
He pushed himself to his feet, turning a few times to get his bearings. His mind cleared quickly, as it always did. His memories returned a few seconds later. All of them.
He'd found somewhere to hole up to recover from his injuries. He'd taken too many. He'd been unprepared. His target had some tricks he hadn't revealed before. But none of that mattered. It was the end of the game that mattered.
He was going to win. He always did.
He turned to his left, found his own trail, and followed it back the way he'd gone to get where he was.
He'd been on a job for the better part of a year – a personal one. He'd been back in California since he'd first heard a rumor that someone had reopened the Cobra Kai dojo. His Cobra Kai dojo. He'd gone there to take it back. He'd been sitting in his car, waiting for the spic-kid to leave and that blond guy to come out alone.
He'd seen a lot in his fifty-one years. He'd done a lot. He'd watched blood be spilled, and he'd spilled it himself. He'd witnessed the rise of kings and the fall of saints. He'd been the beginning and end of more than one. Very few things surprised him. But he couldn't believe his eyes – or his luck – when the dark-haired man pulled up and went inside. A few minutes later, he'd come back out, gotten in his car, and taken his own sweet time leaving.
He'd smiled for the first time in years.
He'd forgotten about the blond guy, the kid and the dojo. They were nothing. He'd followed the sedan out of the parking lot and onto the streets of the Valley. And he'd stayed behind him. Everywhere he went. For months. He'd been to his home. His business. His country club. Restaurants. Bars. The grocery store. The cemetery. The All-Valley Arena.
The mountain.
He'd stayed just out of sight. Just around the corner. Just behind the door. He'd done his job perfectly. He'd watched him. Observed him. Studied him. Learned him.
He knew Daniel LaRusso better than Daniel LaRusso did.
He'd enjoyed the hunt. He always did, but that one had given him more pleasure than any of the others. That one was personal. He'd taken his time. Savored his secrecy. Planned his moves meticulously. All that was left was to decide on his final strike. His last move. His killing blow.
Then, his phone rang.
'I have a job for you, Mr. Barnes.'
'I don't work for you anymore, old man. I'm not interested.'
'You haven't heard who it is.'
The prospect of payment was always a good thing. That he was going to be paid to do something he'd been doing for fun was even better.
'Why now? After all these years?'
'He's corrupting someone who is very important to me. I want you to save him.'
He wasn't in the business of saving people. Sometimes, it was a side effect. But it was never the objective.
'We both have an interest in this, don't we, Mr. Barnes? Tell me you don't want it as badly as I do.'
'You know I can't say that. You know what I think. What I've always thought.'
He'd never lied about his hatred when asked. But very few had ever asked. He'd always held it close to his vest. Kept it just beneath the surface. Never let it interfere. He'd channeled all of it into one point of focus. One memory. One defeat. One person. He'd held it where he could direct all emotions at it. He'd poured everything he'd ever felt, never felt, and never wanted to feel into it, leaving nothing else to cloud his mind.
There was good money in hatred. There was better money in apathy.
'I should have let you do it when you asked.'
'Yes, you should have.'
He'd missed his first chance to rid himself of Daniel LaRusso. He wouldn't miss his second. Even if taking it meant that his dojo would remain firmly in someone else's hands.
'The future of Cobra Kai rests on your success. Johnny Lawrence must stay true to us. To himself.'
'What is he? What is he to you? To me?'
'He is everything.'
He'd done his best to keep Blondie out of it. He'd chosen the perfect location for his attack. The only possible collateral damage was a brat who'd latched on to Daniel LaRusso and refused to let go. That he was Blondie's son was of no consequence.
In all the months he'd been stalking his prey, he'd never seen Blondie and the brat together. Then, he'd coached the beaner. He'd stood there and watched him beat on his own kid. He wouldn't care if that same kid got caught in the crossfire.
'Mr. Lawrence is not to be hurt. That is the only demand I have.'
'If he stays out of my way, he'll be fine.'
He hadn't expected Blondie and the spic-kid to show up. But he'd adapted. He'd overcome. He'd improvised. He'd made it so Blondie couldn't get in his way. He'd figured out how to use both brats to his advantage.
Weaponizing the three of them against his real target had been too easy.
'Do you have a preferred method? How do you want it done?'
'With blood, Mr. Barnes. I want it to be as bloody and painful as you can make it.'
It couldn't have worked any better if he'd planned it. Daniel LaRusso had played the game perfectly, exactly the way he'd known he would. He'd been only too eager to offer himself in exchange. He'd do anything to protect them. He'd walked into his fate willingly and without hesitation.
'Make him suffer, Mr. Barnes. No mercy.'
'Gladly, Sensei.'
A man sacrificing himself to defend the innocent was something most would call honorable. Courageous. Righteous. He called it useless. Futile. Stupid.
Perfect.
'Will he interfere?'
'He's not the type to risk himself for other people. Especially not this one.'
But he had. For some reason, be it humanity or compassion or some other useless emotion he himself would never understand, Blondie had risked himself. He had actually attacked him. To protect an arrogant, undeserving, worthless piece of filth.
The old man was never going to believe it. His sainted, golden boy had turned traitor. He'd showed up at the wrong time. Stepped in when he shouldn't have. Allied himself with the wrong side.
Blondie was too far gone to save. He'd made his choice. He'd chosen Daniel LaRusso. Over his past. Over his future.
His betrayal would cost him.
'You will be well compensated.'
'You know what I want, old man.'
And he would get it. Cobra Kai was meant to be his. And it would be. He would regain his rightful place at the old man's right hand. It would be well worth the price of some blood and bruises.
'It's mine. It will be his. You can't change that.'
'And if he doesn't deserve it?'
'He does.'
The ancient fallen tree loomed above him, but it was alone. The clearing was empty. He was the only living being there.
Where was he? Where were they?
Daniel LaRusso hadn't walked out of there on his own. He knew that. He was too good at his job. The man had help.
'He won't play hero?'
'I can't imagine why he would. He never has before.'
He glanced down at the disturbed earth. That was where he'd left him. That was where he'd last seen him.
Handprints in the dirt. Two smooth indentations – knees – near them. A puddle of red-tinged vomit. Splashes of darker red on the dried leaves. He knelt down. Discarded strips of cloth littered the ground. Someone had been bandaged there. Someone was bleeding.
He looked into the trees and smiled.
Daniel LaRusso had left a not-insignificant amount of his blood behind.
'You'll take the job?'
'Of course, I will. You knew my answer before you called.'
He hadn't missed. He'd hit his mark. He'd hurt him. Badly. It was only a matter of time.
His target had been painted. His prey had been weakened. His victim had been marked.
The hunt was on again. The game had begun anew. Daniel LaRusso may have played the last one to a draw, but there was no way in hell he was going to win. Blondie could help him all he wanted. It wouldn't matter.
One was injured, damaged beyond repair, dying. The other would be preoccupied, concerned with protecting him, distracted. When he found one, he would find the other. Both would pay for what they had done. Neither would leave the mountain.
Mike Barnes had a job to do, after all.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are ..."
