Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Let’s bond, they said. It’ll be fun, they said,” Demetri grumbled as he ducked under a low hanging branch jutting into the path. “They never said anything about being out in nature or getting eaten alive by mosquitos! I would have passed.”

“Shut up, Demetri, or they’ll make us go for longer,” Hawk hissed, easily side stepping the branch.

“That doesn’t even make sense. There’s a specified place we’re camping for the night. Mr. LaRusso sent location out to all our parents yesterday. Which means there’s a set path to get there.”

“Are you sure about that?” Johnny asked from over Demetri’s shoulder, startling him. Just in time too. He wasn’t sure he could listen to any more of Demetri’s, or anyone else’s, whining.

He had been as surprised as anyone when Daniel had suggested taking the kids out into nature for some team bonding. Sure, he knew Daniel trained out by Big Bear sometimes, but there was a big difference between taking one kid for a few hours and a dozen plus overnight. But Johnny didn’t mind. He loved nature and being outdoors… it was just… he hadn’t been camping since Tommy. It had been his choice though, going out on his terms, but the memories clawed at the back of Johnny’s brain all the same.

“How much farther until we make camp?” Mitch asked, tearing Johnny from his thoughts.

“Just another hour or so,” Daniel said from the front of the pack. “It’s only a few more miles.”

“I don’t know if I’m gonna make it,” Dakota grumbled. “My feet hurt.”

Nathaniel whirled around so he was facing Dakota, thrusting his finger in his teammate’s face. “I told you to wear better shoes!” he exclaimed. “But you didn’t listen. You said those Chucks were fine.”

“They’re sneakers!”

“They have no traction!”

“They do so!”

“Do not.”

“Do so!”

“Next person who chimes in owes me twenty pushups,” Johnny said through gritted teeth. “Nature is supposed to be quiet and peaceful, not whatever you two are doing.”

“Sorry, Sensei,” the two of them muttered as they continued down the path after Daniel, bickering with light shoves and dark looks instead.

At the next water break, Johnny pulled out a pack of moleskin and handed it over to Dakota, who easily fit a piece around the blisters forming on his heel using the trauma scissors from the first aid kit Daniel had brought. Johnny had promised himself—or more accurately, he’d promised Sam via Miguel—that he wasn’t going to make fun of Daniel’s clearly new khaki outfit, floppy hat, and oversized walking stick. He’d been biting back quips all day, and thankfully so, since some of that stuff Daniel was hauling around was coming in handy.

“It’s just down this hill and then about another mile,” Daniel said as he shucked his massive pack back onto his shoulder and began walking.

“Be careful going down the hill,” Johnny instructed the kids as they trailed after Daniel. “Get your bearings, turn sideways, plant your—”

Nathaniel, who had clearly not been paying attention to Johnny’s safety briefing, slipped. His feet went out from under him and he crashed into Johnny, sending them both tumbling down the stepper side of the hill.

Nathaniel stopped before Johnny, who under the weight of his backpack, rolled all the way down to more level ground.

“Mr. L!” one of the kids called, pointing, and Daniel quickly readjusted course. Miguel was hot on his heels but Daniel motioned for him to stay back. He didn’t know how badly Johnny was hurt and didn’t need someone else falling today.

He stopped by Nate first, but the kid was already on his feet, motioning for Daniel to go help Johnny. Daniel paused to do a quick examination, determining Nate was blood-, bruise- and broken-bone-less before he made his way over to Johnny, who still wasn’t moving.

By the time Daniel dropped into a crouch beside Johnny, his co-sensei’s eyes were open and tracking but his breathing was short and stilted. He’d probably gotten the wind knocked out of him. Daniel hoped it wasn’t anything worse.

“Are you okay? What can I do?”

Johnny shook his head then hauled himself into a sitting position. Twigs stuck out of his hair and his clothes were smeared in dirt but there was no visible blood in sight.

“Never better,” he rasped, clapping the flat of his right hand over his heart and rubbing hard.

“Are you okay, Sensei?” Miguel called. His voice was distant, seemingly from where Daniel had left him.

“Yeah,” Johnny replied. He coughed hard once then looked over at Daniel. “Nate alright?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny nodded, letting his gaze drop down the leaves around him. Then he rolled himself onto his hands and knees, holding there for a second longer than Daniel would have liked.

“You need help getting up?” Daniel asked, holding out his hand, but Johnny shook his head and pushed himself to his feet with a muffled groan.

“I’m sorry, Sensei,” Nathaniel called from farther up the hill.

Johnny shook his head. “It was an accident,” he said somewhat breathlessly. “But next time, remember to go sideways down a hill so you can plant your feet.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

Nathaniel then held out a hand as if to help Johnny back up the hill but Johnny waved him off.

“Be careful. Plant your feet,” he repeated as he and Daniel started walking the long way around the base of the hill. As they moved, Johnny kept an eagle-eye on Nate, Dakota and a few other kids who were still heading down the path the normal way. Thankfully, they were following his advice this time.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Miguel asked, hurrying over to Johnny’s side once he’d made it to the bottom of the hill as well.

“I’m fine, Diaz.”

“Promise?”

Johnny nodded then looked around at the Migayi-Fang students, all of whom were on flat ground and staring at him with unease. “Well, what are we standing around here for? Camp is that way,” he said, pointing.

Behind Johnny, Daniel made a shooing motion and with some reluctance, the Miyagi-Fang students continued on toward the campground.

“You sure you’re alright?” Daniel asked Johnny one last time, once all the kids were out of earshot.

“I’m fine, LaRusso.” Then Johnny pointed to the space between Daniel’s eyebrows. “You know if you keep that up, your face is going to stick like that.”

“Keep that up and that’ll be the last time I care about you,” Daniel shot back, adding a well-deserved eye roll for good measure.

Johnny grinned, showing off a ridiculously perfect set of teeth, before heading off behind the kids.

Daniel watched him for a few seconds, studying his gait. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Johnny, but they weren’t kids anymore; the fall had probably hurt more than he’d care to admit. Sure enough, if Daniel wasn’t mistaken, Johnny was limping slightly. The terrain wasn’t particularly even though so he couldn’t be sure, but he filed it away to keep an eye on, just in case.

Later than night, after the fire had been started, the kids were laid out, and Johnny had read them the riot act about staying in their assigned tents, Daniel came back from emptying his bladder to find Johnny sitting alone around the second campfire. His shoe was off and he was poking at a rather purple ankle.

“I knew it,” Daniel hissed—softly so he wouldn’t disrupt the kids, who were playing some sort of digital charades game around the main fire a few yards away.

Realizing he’d been caught, Johnny yanked up his sock and tried to stuff his foot back into his shoe, with little success. “It’s not broken,” he was quick to say.

“Considering you spent the rest of the day walking on it, I sure as hell hope not.” Daniel sat down beside Johnny and held out his hand. “Let me see.”

“It’s just a sprain,” Johnny replied, pulling his leg in closer. “It’ll be fine.”

“Let me see it, Johnny.” Daniel had guided his kids, particularly Sam, through their terrible twos. He could outlast Johnny if it came down to it.

Johnny seemed to realize this as well since after a long minute, he sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Daniel shook his head.

Johnny groaned, then pulled off his shoe again and tugged his sock down to his heel. He wiggled his toes, then flexed and pointed his ankle with only a slight wince. “See, it’s just a sprain.”

Daniel reached out and caught Johnny’s ankle, waiting until Johnny had started breathing again before he gently guided it around. The joint was definitely swollen and the outside of it was warm to the touch.

“I think you’re right,” Daniel said after a minute as he lowered Johnny’s foot to the ground. “But we should still wrap it.”

“—keep the swelling out of it. Sleep with your shoe on.” Johnny grinned thinly up at Daniel. “I know the drill.”

Daniel could only guess where Johnny had learned that. “Anywhere else?” he asked before he could get too far lost down that path.

“What?”

“Did you hit anywhere else on the way down?”

“My pack took most of it.”

“Most?”

Johnny cursed then shucked up the side of his shirt. He ran his fingers over the bruises running from mid-ribcage to hip, pressing the pads of his fingers into them with more force than Daniel thought necessary. “They’re just bruised,” he said when he was done.

True, his ribs didn’t seem broken, but Johnny wasn’t exactly batting a thousand in the honesty category tonight. “Can I?” Daniel asked, holding out his hand.

“If it means you’ll realize I’m fine and stop nagging me, sure.”

Daniel ghosted his hand up Johnny’s side, feeling how Johnny tensed the minute his fingers made contact. He went slow, only pressing as hard as he had to to determine if the bones were broken. The warmth and swelling was obvious, but the bones didn’t shift at all under his fingers.

“It wouldn’t kill you to let yourself go like the rest of us,” Daniel said as he pulled away, “but I think you’re right and they’re only bruised.”

“Rest of us.” Johnny scoffed, letting his shirt fall back down. “You’re the one who got carded the last time we went to a bar.”

“It’s genetic! LaRussos naturally look young.”

“Are you sure it’s that and not all the products under your sink?”

Daniel glared at Johnny as he asked, “When were you in my bathroom?”

“You had a leak and Amanda asked me to fix it.”

“We what? When?”

“Last month, I think?” Johnny replied with a shrug. “I was picking up Miguel since Carmen’s shift was running late and she asked.” Then he paused for a second. “I thought you’d be cooler about it, man. Less pipe-snaking and under-the-sink crawling for you.”

“I am—I mean, thank you. Yes, thank you, Johnny.”

They stared at each other for a moment until Daniel remembered where the conversation had started. “They don’t really help all that much, but I’m not willing to risk it, you know?”

Johnny shook his head. “I couldn’t afford all that crap even if I wanted to.”

Their once lighthearted banter had taken on a darker edge, one that was hardly ever discussed after Johnny had insisted they needed to start charging at least some for Miyagi-Fang since teaching was a significant source of his income. The two definitely didn’t need to get back into that tonight.

Letting that conversation die, Daniel stood and fetched his backpack from the other side of the fire, from which he pulled a compression wrap and a tube of arnica.

“Can you do it or do you need help?” he asked as he handed them over.

“I got it.” Johnny uncapped the tube of arnica, squired a liberal amount on his ankle, then wound the compression bandage in a perfect zipper pattern first time around.

The ease at which he did it, and his overall familiarity with ankle injuries, would have been impressive, had Daniel not known the reason why Johnny was so self-sufficient at caring for his injuries in the first place.

“I know you don’t want to make a big deal about it, but will you at least wake me up if it gets worse?”

Johnny rolled his eyes but he was smiling as he did it. “Sure, LaRusso. If it gets worse, which it won’t, I’ll wake you up.”

“Good.” That was pushing it enough for tonight. Daniel didn’t want to overstep, not after they’d covered so much ground. “So you want to join their game?” he asked, gesturing to the kids who were roaring in laughter.

Johnny shook his head then tugged on his shoe, flopped onto his sleeping bag and stared up at the stars. “I’m just gonna do my own thing.”

A coyote howled in the distance, causing a shiver to run down Daniel’s spine. “I still can’t believe you aren’t going to use a tent,” he couldn’t help but say to Johnny, who didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.

“I can’t believe you are! It’s beautiful out here!”

“There are wild animals.”

The coyote howled again as if to prove Daniel’s point. In lieu of response, Johnny gestured to the fire with both hands.

“Suit yourself," Daniel said. "Just know you’re not crawling into my tent if they get closer.”

“They won’t.” Thankfully Johnny's tone was as light and loose as Daniel’s had been. Maybe they really could do this co-leading thing without all the arguing.

That thought ringing in his head, Daniel rose from the ground, grimacing as his back popped at least three times.

“Enjoy your own thing,” he said as he headed into his tent to check in with Amanda and make sure no parents had called him. He’d texted them all when they’d arrived and dropped a pin from his phone, but he couldn’t be too cautious.

“You too. See you in the morning."

As Daniel zipped the tent closed, he had to admit Johnny did look rather peaceful lying there, staring at the sky, while the Miyagi-Fangs’ howling rivaled the coyotes’.

Daniel let their collective joy wash over him for another moment then set about making his phone calls.