Chapter Text
Johnny takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Kreese is the one who cares about wars. Not me.”
Daniel meets his gaze steadily. Johnny’s eyes are clear and blue and there’s something vulnerable in them, something he’s glimpsed before but that Johnny’s letting crack wide open for him tonight, as the music seeps through the wall behind them and bands of red light flicker over his face from the neon of the sign above them. He looks like the kid from ‘84 all of a sudden, not the one from the beach, or the one on the asphalt in the parking lot after the tournament, but the one who picked himself up from the mat and grabbed the trophy from the referee.
Daniel holds out his hand.
After a long moment, Johnny takes it, curling his fingers around Daniel’s hand, his thumb brushing along Daniel’s knuckles gently. Daniel can’t look away from Johnny’s face, caught by the lines around his eyes, the curve of his lips, the warmth in the pit of his stomach from a night of more fun than he’s had in years–at least, with anyone but his wife.
Amanda always makes fun of him for not having friends, but there’s an undercurrent of worry in the teasing, like she thinks there’s something missing from his life, from him . He’s always told her she’s all he needs, and besides, they have plenty of friends. She usually rolls her eyes at that and says my friends’ husbands don’t count.
But yeah. Tonight was more fun than Daniel is willing to admit, and filled a hole inside him he didn’t know was empty.
The silence stretches, and Daniel can’t look away.
And then a car horn sounds around the block, and the shutters drop over that vulnerability in Johnny’s eyes, leaving nothing but sparkling mischief, and that’s an expression Daniel is intimately familiar with. Johnny’s fingers tighten and he leans in, swaying like he can't help it, like he's pulled in by Daniel just like Daniel is tugged in by Johnny, warm shoulder bumping against Daniel’s, and he catches a thread of his cologne mixed with beer and tacos and a hint of sweat.
“Good grip,” says Daniel, feeling Johnny’s palm pressing against his own and blotting out the music, the street, the rumble of a car pulling up. It’s hot and tight, and Daniel must be drunker than he thought he was because his fingers are tingling. Either that, or it’s Johnny cutting off the circulation. He’s being an asshole, as usual, squeezing as hard as he can.
“Wish I could say the same.” Johnny grins at him. His eyes are sparkling and bright fucking blue.
Amanda and Carmen burst out laughing a few feet away, but Johnny’s eyes don’t leave Daniel’s face. That openness is back, like he can’t keep it down anymore, like something’s broken free. Hiding your light under a bushel basket, Daniel’s brain supplies, and he momentarily wonders if he’s going insane.
And Johnny’s still holding Daniel’s hand in his, though his stranglehold has loosened.
“I’m serious,” he says, thumb brushing over Daniel's knuckles again, a light touch, and Daniel can’t look away. “No more fighting. Enough people have gotten hurt.”
Daniel nods, searching Johnny’s eyes for–what? He’s not sure.
“You boys getting along?” asks Amanda, breaking the moment. Daniel drops Johnny’s hand and looks at her.
“You know, we can act like adults when we need to, honey.” He wraps an arm around her, his fingers fitting against her hip, and she leans into him. She always knows when he needs that little bit of reassurance that somebody’s with him, that somebody’s on his team. God, he loves her.
“Would you like to come back to the house for another drink?” asks Amanda, and Daniel turns his head, tries to meet her eye, but she’s looking at Johnny and Carmen.
“Oh, I have a shift early in the morning,” says Carmen, and Daniel can hear genuine regret in the words. “But thank you, this was a lovely evening. Johnny, I’ll see you later, okay?” and she leans up and kisses his cheek. “Let’s do this again, though. I had fun.” She gives Daniel a quick hug, all fluttering fabric and bright perfume–she’s younger than he thought, he realizes as she pulls away, and wonders how old she was when she had Miguel–and embraces Amanda more closely before getting in her car.
“How about you, Johnny?” asks Amanda.
Johnny glances at Daniel, his eyebrows going up in question. Daniel shrugs minutely. He’s not sure what she’s up to, but he’s a little bit drunk and honestly, he’s having a really great time and he’s not ready for the evening to end.
“Yeah, I could have another beer,” he says finally. He looks back to Amanda, and Daniel sees his eyes stray to her bare shoulders, then back up, looking, as Demetri would say, respectfully.
Daniel watches this and—why isn’t he angry, jealous, offended, something ? His high school karate rival is checking out his wife and Daniel is self-aware enough to know the only thing he’s feeling about it is. Well.
His stomach is hot, his fingers still tingling where Johnny’s had brushed them as he released, his mouth open in a way he had thought he’d trained himself out of around his mid-twenties.
Amanda smiles back at Johnny and oh, Daniel is definitely drunker than he thought.
The valet hands Johnny his keys, and that’s when Daniel remembers that they’d taken an uber to the restaurant because they’d planned for margaritas, and now because of Amanda’s invitation for Johnny to come back to their place, he was going to have to go home in Johnny’s–
“Oh, you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he says, because the valet is opening the door of Johnny’s car. Daniel honestly didn’t know what he expected Johnny to be driving besides this matte-black, yellow-trimmed, cobra-themed monstrosity. He thinks he can just barely make out the shell of the perfectly respectable--even a little flashy!--red Challenger he’d given him last year under the truly horrific paint job.
But Johnny’s beaming at the car and he turns that megawatt grin on Daniel. “What? It’s badass.”
“It’s something, all right.”
“Wow, Johnny,” says Amanda, finally noticing the car. “That’s commitment to your theme.” She shakes her head, but there’s a smile creeping over her lips and into the corners of her eyes. “I’m actually kind of impressed.”
“See, LaRusso,” says Johnny. “Chicks dig it. Even your wife digs it.” He waves magnanimously at the open passenger door. “Need a lift?”
Amanda pulls away from him and turns her smile on Johnny, cheeks dimpling as she swings herself into the bucket seat. “If you’re going my way.”
“You can sit in the back,” Johnny says, looking at Daniel. “You’ve got little legs. You don’t need much space, right?”
He pretends he doesn’t hear the snort of laughter from his tipsy wife as he awkwardly climbs behind the drivers’ seat into the back.
Johnny’s eyes catch his in the rearview mirror. “Buckle up, man,” he says.
Daniel opens his mouth to make a snide comment, but then Johnny turns the ignition and the car rumbles to life, and the vibration shakes him to his drunken bones.
In the front, Johnny leans over the gearshift and says something to Amanda that Daniel can’t hear over the sound of the engine. And he’s not going to lean forward between the seats like a nosy kid, because he can already see the twin pairs of blue eyes laughing at him if he does, so instead he just crosses his arms and watches the line of Johnny’s cheek curve up as he leans toward Amanda.
Daniel loses some time in the car, and suddenly they’re pulling into the driveway. The sudden stillness and silence of the car’s rumbling is shocking and he startles, feeling like he’s just been woken up even though he’s pretty sure he wasn’t asleep, just–as the kids say– vibing.
(Sam hates it when he uses teen slang and honestly? That’s mostly why he does it. He is, as the kids once again say, kind of a troll)
The door opens suddenly, the driver’s seat dropping forward, and Daniel startles again.
“Whoa there,” says Amanda, sticking her head into the car. “You okay, sweetie?”
“Yeah,” he says, taking her hand. “Hell of a car.” He means it to come out sarcastic or snide but when Amanda’s eyebrows go up, he’s pretty sure it didn’t work. He should drink some water, probably.
(He’s probably going to have a beer instead, one of Johnny’s shitty ones Amanda bought months ago and has had in the back of the fridge)
“No, I think probably water,” says Amanda.
(and oh shit, he’s drunk enough his internal filter has turned off, and that’s always a terrible idea, especially around Johnny Lawrence, who was one of the reasons Daniel figured out how to keep his inside voice inside in the first place. And sometimes when it’s drunk, he forgets how to keep it turned on. Like now. It’s definitely turned itself off now, because he can hear himself talking. Is he talking out loud?)
“You sure are, babe,” says Amanda.
(fuck.)
Johnny is peering over the gate into the backyard, towards the dojo, blessedly out of easy hearing range. “Hey, wanna spar?”
“No,” says Amanda.
“I mean, I wasn’t asking you,” he says, a slow grin spreading over his face. “But I wouldn’t say no.”
“She literally just did, Johnny,” says Daniel, but he can picture it: Johnny circling Amanda, Amanda striking, Johnny blocking, Amanda sweeping his leg and landing on top of him, and the alcohol is warm in his belly and getting warmer.
“Maybe next time,” he says. “Beer was the goal here, not physical injury.”
“Next time,” Johnny agrees easily.
Daniel fumbles his key into the door and pushes it open, Amanda and Johnny crowding behind him. He’s glad the kids are out tonight–Anthony at a sleepover-slash-video game.. Party? Raid? Do they still call them that? And Sam at a party at Moon’s, and staying the night. Because it’s never a quiet night when it’s him and Johnny. And while some people might think Amanda would be a calming influence, those people are people who don’t know Amanda very well at all.
Currently, she’s waist-deep in the fridge, pulling out an assortment of beers to offer to their guest. Johnny’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed, still grinning at her.
“A water for you to start,” she says, tossing him a bottle. He catches it, thank god, because he doesn’t even want to imagine the shit the two of them would give him if he’d fumbled it.
And he can’t believe Amanda’s teaming up with Johnny against him.
“I’m not teaming up against you, babe,” she says, popping the cap on a Stella and handing Johnny a Coors. “You’re just easy.”
“I’ll show you easy,” says Daniel.
Johnny raises an eyebrow. “You’ll show us what now?”
Okay. That sounded better in his head. He opens the water.