Work Text:
On a hot summer night, Johnny’s out riding dirt bikes with his guys. It’s innocuous, as normal as they get. Predictable. Johnny likes things predictable. He likes having control over everything.
God, does that ever get turned on its head.
It shouldn’t be anything, really. He and Ali haven’t been together for months. He’s gone through the stages—he cried and everything—and he doesn’t feel that annoying clench in his heart when he looks at her anymore. He should be fine.
But when he’s up at the top of the hill, when his ex falls laughing onto some scrawny newcomer, something about it is irresistible. He has to get in there and fuck it up.
The scrawny newcomer, scrawny indeed though he is, has the kind of fire on his face that Johnny feels after hours of running the same punch or kick. It’s an expression of aching muscles and a racing heart. It’s a restless anger that he immediately knows could set him and everything he knows aflame. Has Johnny Lawrence ever claimed to be sensible? No. He pokes the bear.
The boy hits the sand in a viscerally satisfying way, gets back up with more energy than he started with. It intrigues and delights Johnny in a way that feels too pure, too animal to be allowed. Should the others be watching this? It’s just a fight. It’s just a fight. It’s not supposed to remind him of Biblical war, of gold and marble and old gods. It’s not supposed to make him want to howl at the moon or sink his teeth into something warm and writhing. It’s just some punk kid from out of town who thinks he’s tough.
That’s all Johnny can let him be. He can’t risk any alternative.