#kreese fighting johnny in a cave in his mind for what

[johnnylawrencetrash]

the showrunners absolutely destroyed cobra kai like i'm sorry this season is so baddddd-- this show was in the toilet after season 2 tbh.

[usaonetwothree]

First of all thank you thank you thank you so much for the johnny whump!!!

Also wondering if there's any chance you will be writing any johnny whump featuring more johnny/Carmen? Maybe an extension of that part of The Agreement where she's examining his injuries? The thought just gives me total whumperflies!

Thank you so much for the message, Anon!! And you're most welcome! The show is just teeing it up so nicely. I'm really just continuing what they started :)

I hadn't thought about an interlude to The Agreement, but now my plot bunnies are going. Give me a few weeks to see what I come up with! I'll post it here for sure, and if it's long enough, I'll copy it over to ao3 as a second chapter.

In the interim, I have the start of a whumpy two-chapter fic that I don't know if I'm going to finish. Working summary is "Johnny doesn't have time to get sick. Besides, it's just food poisoning... right?" I'll post the completed first chapter below, and the plan for chapter two would be from Carmen's point-of-view from the ambulance ride through surgery and Johnny finally waking up. I wrote a lot of the ideas I had for her part into Conflict, which is why I think I'm stalled on it here in coming up with something different. I don't know how long it'll take me to figure that out (if ever) but at least you'll have the first chapter. Hope you enjoy!

Thank you again for the kind message!

Pain exploded in his side, worse than he’d ever felt before. He had reference for this: he’d torn, strained, bruised, strained, dislocated and broken many things in the past. This pain blew them all away. It was he’d been stabbed with a hot knife up to the hilt, and someone was twisting it around in his guts.

His hand went to the area, came away warm, but he wasn’t bleeding. Felt like it. Felt oozing and wet and raw.

Somehow, above the nausea, above the stabbing ache in his head, he knew this was serious. And he needed help.

He couldn’t remember where his phone was. Didn’t have time to stop and think.

With every inch of his skin on fire, he leveraged himself off the couch and almost screamed as utter agony raced up his side. His knees buckled but he didn’t let himself fall. If he did, he knew he wouldn’t get back up.

Partially hunched over, he stumbled forward, careful not to jar his torso. He caught the door before the handle, barely cracking it open before he almost fell through. He jabbed his right elbow into the stucco wall, used that as a guide.

Elbow on the wall, left hand on his abdomen, trying to hold whatever was wrong in. One foot in front of the other.

It was the only thing going through his head.

Left.

Right.

Left.

A chill tore up his spine. His brain went fuzzy for a second and his elbow came away from the wall.

He almost went down again, caught himself at the last second. Leaned so far right he almost bashed his head into the stucco.

But he was vertical again.

He kept going until he hit another door.

The door that could help him.

Everything hurt now. He was sweating, burning up. His eyes felt like they were bulging out of his head, and his limbs were trembling.

He tried to knock, lost his balance. Went down in a heap of limbs.

His side crashed into the ground and fire tore through his abdomen, pain so sharp and intense he couldn’t speak—couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think.

He thought he smelled something familiar. Heard something close. Felt something against his forehead.

But it was lost in a wave of blackness.

A * A

Twelve hours earlier…

Daniel LaRusso walked into Miyagi-Fang to hear a sound he was uncomfortably familiar with. As his own stomach churned in sympathy, he stepped closer to the small wood door leading to the bathroom and rapped on it.

“Everything okay?” he asked, scrunching up his nose as the stench filtered out into the dojo.

“Fine,” a thin voice gasped.

“Johnny?” Daniel rapped harder on the door. “Let me in.”

“‘m fine.”

Daniel then heard the toilet flush and someone heave themself upright, before the faucet was turned on.

“Johnny, what’s wrong?” The worst-case scenarios were flashing through Daniel’s head: Johnny had gone after Kreese and gotten his ass kicked, he was drunk and trying to sober up before class…

But when the door slid open and a pale-faced and miserable Johnny stepped out, Daniel knew both were wrong.

“Are you sick?”

Johnny shook his head, then winced. “Don’t think so,” he said as he shuffled to the inlaid bench and sat down, propping his head against his hands with his elbows braced against his knees. “Bologna might have turned."

“I told you you should stop buying that stuff,” Daniel said as he fetched a water bottle from the small fridge and sat down beside Johnny, sliding it between his side and forearms.

“Then what am I going to have for breakfast?” he groaned, ignoring the bottle of water.

Daniel lightly wiggled it so it tapped Johnny’s arm and side. Groaning, the other man straightened up so his head was leaning against the paneling and took the water. “Cereal.”

Johnny took a small sip of the water and grimaced. “Milk goes bad,” he said faster but in a much steadier tone.

“Drink it faster. Or have eggs and bacon.”

Johnny groaned and clenched his jaw as his chest heaved painfully. “No more… food talk,” he ground out.

“Duly noted.” Daniel stood again and grabbed a towel, wetting it in the sink and laying it over Johnny’s forehead as he sat back down.

At first, Johnny pulled back in surprise, the towel slipping, but then he caught it and visibly relaxed.

“Thanks,” he muttered, closing his eyes and resituating the towel.

“How are you going to teach like this?”

“It’ll pass.”

“Uh huh.”

“Weren’t supposed to... be here this early,” Johnny mumbled as he shifted in his seat. He winced again then slowly lowered himself so he was lying on the bench, bringing his socked feet to rest on the wood as well. Daniel, who had originally been in the way, just shifted so Johnny could lie down unimpeded.

“That’s not making me feel a whole lot better.”

“’ll be fine by four,” Johnny replied. “Got like... an hour right?”

“Thirty minutes at best, and you know Miguel is always early.”

“’ll be fine by then,” Johnny repeated, somehow sounding so sure that Daniel found himself believing him.

He stood, then lowered the singular shade over the window. “I’ll come get you before class starts.”

Johnny just shook his head, though Daniel had yet to see his posture actually relax.

And yet, twenty minutes later, Johnny was standing in the backyard, dressed in his gi, looking… surprisingly normal. He was still a little paler than usual, but had clearly tried to push some color back into his face, judging by a few fading streaks on his cheeks.

“How?” was all Daniel could ask. The last time he’d had food poisoning, it had taken him four days and a trip to urgent care before he could leave his bedroom without puking.

“Mind over matter,” Johnny mumbled, straightening up as the kids began to stream in through the door.

That was… bullshit? Unbelievable? Incredible? But at the core of it, so very Johnny.

The kids were so caught up in the latest non-karate drama at the high school that none of them shot Johnny another glance. He did look at Daniel, grinning genuinely, and mouthed, “Thanks.”

Daniel just nodded, then set out doing the last bit of preparations for class.

A * A

If Johnny was being honest with himself, he should have known something else was wrong. His stomach had been hurting all day, even though he’d barely eaten anything since dinner yesterday: fried bologna, ketchup and some leftover rice Carmen had brought a few days ago.

But there was too much going on for him to be sick. There was getting the kids ready for the All-Valley, so they could once and for all remove Kreese from Cobra Kai—not that Johnny would be reinstating that name anytime soon anyway; his budding relationship with Carmen—which Miguel still did not know about; and the knowledge that Robby and a handful of his other students were doing who-knew-what under Kreese’s command.

There wasn’t any time for his problems.

So he’d taken a Tums last night, not really understanding how that had shown up in his medicine cabinet, and tried to sleep it off.

He’d shot awake somewhere around two, tangled in a thin sheet, sweating so badly it felt like he’d just come in from a run. But something else was wrong. His face felt too hot, the skin too tight, and his stomach continued to flip lazily, despite him begging it to stay where it was.

He’d cranked up the fan, and sipped some water, which was a mistake.

His stomach had rolled and he was puking up his meager dinner not long after. He sat there for a long time, head leaning against the cool seat, until he’d fallen asleep. He’d woken again when his forehead slid off the toilet and thudded into the vanity.

He was cool this time, freezing, and shit, that was signs of a fever. That much he knew.

He did not have time for this.

Still on his knees, he managed to reach the shower dial and turn it on. Then he crawled into the tub, clothes still on, and sat there, letting the cool water beat on him while he shivered uncontrollably.

He could not get sick. This had to be a twenty-four hour thing. The kids all came in with their runny noses, who knew what they got into at school. Maybe it was time he caved to LaRusso wanting hand sanitizer stations on the way out for those germ-minded kids.

Eventually the freezing water had become unbearable and he barely managed to reach back high enough to turn it off. Then came the more difficult task of stripping off his wet clothes, which he ended up doing still sitting in the tub, because the act of fighting with his clothes while standing seemed rather exhausting.

But then, he did have to get up, and it took everything he had to stay that way. His head swam and his stomach lurched.

That was when he felt a stabbing pain in his stomach around his navel.

No way this was some sort of flu.

He was reminded of Miguel pulling the package of bologna out of the fridge and frowning at the date. “This is over a week old, Sensei.”

“It’s fine,” Johnny had said.

Miguel had looked a split second away from pitching it, but had put it back in the fridge and chosen the bag of pretzels on the counter instead.

So this was food poisoning. It had to be.

He’d be in for a rough night, but it should be over by tomorrow, when he needed to be at the dojo, when he needed to be on.

The knowledge didn’t make his illness any easier, but it had made it manageable. He’d thrown up a few more times; felt his stomach cramp so severely, it doubled him over; and had eventually fallen asleep on the bathroom floor, ankles bracing the toilet, head leaning back against the far wall.

He didn’t feel better, per say, when he woke, but good enough to haul himself out of the bathroom, change into a loose shirt and sweats, and into the kitchen where he sipped at some OJ, literally the only thing in his entire kitchen that didn’t send his stomach rolling again.

At some point, he’d passed out on the couch watching TV and had jarred awake two hours before class.

He had to be there.

So he’d dry swallowed some aspirin and chewed another Tums, begged whoever was up there to keep them down, and headed out with the OJ tucked under his arm.

He’d barely made it to the dojo when his stomach began to cramp again, induced by the shifting horizons while he was driving. LaRusso found him and his once-nemesis had been surprisingly gentle. When he was better, Johnny owed him more than just a quick thanks for being decent about it, instead of leaving him to suffer on his own.

He’d had to pull over on the way home to puke again. Though he didn’t know what he was bringing up at this point. It was all acid and gunk from what he could see.

He was less than a mile from his apartment complex and he sure as hell wasn’t walking, so he slid back into the car, focused with all his remaining energy and went approximately ten miles an hour in the righthand lane the remaining way.

His fever was kicking up again as he parked, and his stomach began to ache with new intensity. He barely made it to the couch before he was retching again into the bowl he’d so left there earlier for just that purpose.

His head was pounding, his ears ringing, and the pain in his stomach had shifted so it was on his lower right side. He’d bruised a kidney before and it’d hurt in its own way, but it had been nothing like this. He hadn’t even fought anyone since Kreese. Couldn’t risk injuring himself and getting benched. Not with everything that was at stake.

It felt like he was getting the massage from hell, but inside, down in his guts. They were churning, dancing, twisting, oblivious to the pain they were causing. His actual organs hurt, however that was possible.

He sipped at the water, and immediately retched it back up.

Somewhere deep down he knew that was bad. Knew he needed to stay hydrated. Knew he hadn’t drunk enough the past eighteen hours. Knew he could replenish some of it from the shower, but it was so far away.

He just leaned his head against the arm rest, shifting until he found an angle that didn’t make him violently nauseous, and must have passed out.

It was only when he woke up that he knew something was seriously wrong, and that he had to get some help, and ended up passing out again in front of Carmen’s door.

Only it hadn’t been Carmen who answered.

“Sensei!” Miguel shouted, trying and failing to catch the older man. “Mama! Yaya!” he shouted as he dropped to his knees beside his Sensei, whose face was red and flushed but otherwise seemed uninjured.

“Sensei, please.” Miguel begged, tapping Sensei’s face and feeling the heat radiating off it. “MAMA!” he yelled again as he jabbed his fingers into Sensei’s neck, finding a thin pulse.

Then arms were on his shoulders, pulling him away, as his mom replaced him.

“¡Llame una ambulancia!”

Yaya was telling him to back up, was shoving her phone into his hands.

He didn’t remember making the call, but he must have. His mom was trying to rouse Sensei, had unbuttoned his shirt, and was swearing.

“Qué pasa?” Miguel demanded, but she didn’t answer.

“Ice, Miguel,” his mom was ordering, still bent over Sensei. “Quick!”

His feet were moving, grabbing whatever frozen vegetables they had in the freezer and handing them to his mom, who was placing them around Sensei’s neck, under his arms, around his groin.

Sensei groaned, flinched, but didn’t rouse.

“What’s wrong?” Miguel heard himself ask, but his mom was telling Yaya to take him in the apartment instead of responding.

“No!” he shouted, planting his feet. “I'm not leaving.”

His mom turned to look at him, a bit of panic in her eyes before she could hide it. “Go inside, Miggy. Please,” she said very carefully.

As much as Miguel didn’t want to, he did. Until he heard the sirens. Then he was outside the door again, watching as the paramedics swarmed Sensei.

They were asking his mom a bunch of questions and she was rattling off the answers. Then Sensei was on a gurney and they were rolling away and his mother was climbing into the ambulance with him, and then they were gone.

Miguel felt Yaya’s arm wrap around his upper back, not tall enough to reach his shoulders, and he turned and buried her head into her shoulder, letting the tears fall.