#axel hawk just showing up too was funny. he was only there to get beaten up. sad. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bobbylovesalex · 5 years

Text

The Lighthouse

Robby is a good kid. He doesn’t talk much but he works hard and has yet to object to anything I’ve told him to do. Except for the horses. He still refuses to get on a horse. Kind of funny that the kid who was brave enough to stand up to Kreese and Dutch fears a horse.

I sip my coffee and watch him through the kitchen windows. He’s playing fetch with Lexie and Axel. I would say he and Lexie are playing fetch with Axel, but Lexie keeps forgetting the objective and running after the ball herself.

Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, to tell Johnny about what Kreese had done to Robby. I’m pretty sure that when he finds out, he’ll never tell me anything again. Probably never tell anyone anything again. I just thought that maybe if Robby knew, if Johnny could tell him about what he’d suffered at Kreese’s hands, maybe it’d help him feel less emasculated and defeated by the whole thing. No wonder he fell for Dutch’s trap.

And, if I’m being honest, another part of me wants to scream at Johnny for letting it happen. How did he not see it? How could he not notice his kid being beaten and bruised for weeks? He had to know that Robby would have naturally been a target for Kreese and that was even without Robby offering himself up as a sacrifice for ‘the friend who wasn’t a friend’ he’s mentioned a few times.

That’s something else he refuses to talk about. That and Johnny. He clams up at the mere mention of either.

But, last night, he did start a joke with Johnny, teasing him about his out of date lifestyle, so maybe there’s hope yet. I finish my coffee and go outside.

“Hey, Lexie-girl,” I say, bending down to her level. “Can you take care of Axel for Robby while we work today?”

“Yes, Pop,” she answers, seriously.

I can’t help but smile. I may have never been a father, but being a grandfather is pretty damn great sometimes. “Grandpa is upstairs. I’ll see you later.”

“What are we doing today?” Robby asked.

“I thought we’d go out to the lighthouse.”

“I told you I wasn’t getting on a horse,” he laughs.

“You don’t have to,” I admit. “We use them for guest, but if you don’t mind getting a little wet, we can take the ATVs too. The channel’s not that deep.”

“What do we need to do out here?” He asks once we’re on the little island.

“Nothing really. I just like to come out here and make sure everything is okay,” I say. “And I knew you wanted to come out.”

Watching Robby explore the lighthouse reminds me of me the first time Alex brought me out here. It’s kind of amazing.

In the tower, he’s leaning against the rail, staring out at the waves crashing against the rocks below.

“He wasn’t there,” he says softly.

“What?” I have to step closer to hear him.

“Johnny. He didn’t know what Kreese was doing because he wasn’t there,” he says. “You can’t blame him for that. It was all my doing. I thought…, I thought I could save someone. He was being destroyed.”

“Your friend?”

“He was never my friend.”

“That’s Kreese talking.”

He shrugs. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It’s not Kreese talking, though he was right. It’s me finally seeing myself for the sucker I am. Anyway, like I said, I was on my own. Nobody even cared if I was alive. If Kreese had killed me, no one would have known until Mom needed me to get money out of Dad for her.”

That’s literally the first time he’s mentioned his mother in the week he’s been here. “Where was Johnny?”

“He was hurt, had a broken knee from some of Kreese’s goons. You’ll have to ask Dad for that story. I wasn’t exactly in his life right then. He was staying with the LaRusso’s, then Dr. Ali while he recovered. I was staying at his place by myself,” he said. “It was easy to hide. I just never went over. When I had to face others, I made up some bullshit story about falling off my skateboard. Everyone bought it but Mr. LaRusso…,”

“Why was Johnny staying with Daniel?” I ask.

“Another story you’ll have to get from him,” he says. “Anyway, Mr. LaRusso didn’t buy my story. He’d been training me in karate, but that all stopped when… when Dad got involved. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. People can’t help it. They’re just drawn to him and they’ll forget everything else. I’m used to it. My mom has done it my whole life. The only person who never threw me away for Johnny was Granpa. Maybe that’s why I liked him. I knew he was a fucking awful person to most everyone. Hell, he was probably only nice to me to be an ass to Dad. More of showing him what he could never have. Jason hasn’t. But then, he’s only ever had two conversations with Dad, so who knows what will happen with that.”

“Jason?”

“Jason Schwarber. My boyfriend.”

That does surprise me a little. “You’re dating Ali’s son?”

He nods. “For now. I’m sure that he’ll either go like everyone else. Or just realize what a fucked up person I am in general and leave,” he shrugs again. “Dad doesn’t mean to do that, or to be that way, but he can’t help it. It’s just like, when he’s around, he’s the center of the universe and everyone just gravitates to him. He can’t help it. And they can’t help it. It’s just the way it is. I can’t even get mad at him about it anymore.”

“I don’t think a truer statement has ever been made about Johnny,” I say. “Is that what happened with the guy you thought was your friend?”

He shakes his head. “He was already Johnny’s. Johnny’s better, smarter, less fucked up son. Or at least that’s what he wanted him to be. Miguel is…, well he’s a better person than me by every measure. No wonder Johnny wanted him over me.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “Johnny loves you more than anything. He’d do anything for you.”

“Yeah, he probably would,” he says. “If he knew what I needed. But he usually doesn’t. You don’t know him anymore. He has huge blind spots where he can only see one thing, and I’m usually standing smack in the middle of where his vision ends. Again, he doesn’t mean to. It’s just how it is. I’m used to it. I handle myself so that I don’t need to depend on him. That way I can’t get hurt and I can still love him.”

“What happened with Miguel?”

“I just realized that I was being used. Again. So, I split,” he says.

I sigh. Getting this kid to talk is like unraveling Christmas lights. Everything is tangled up in knots and just when you’re ready to give up, out will come another line, but there’s a new knot at the end of it too. “How was he using you?”

He turns red and looks out at the ocean again. “He…, I liked him…, he knew that…, he didn’t like me, not like that anyway…, but he…, I don’t know, he said he liked being chased. He liked the feeling that someone wanted him enough to go after him because that had never happened to him before. He fucking humiliated me time and again and I kept going back for more and that was before Kreese was even involved.”

“You loved him.”

He nods. “God, I’m so stupid. He was using me, and I knew that he was, and I still let him over and over. This is why I don’t get close enough to love anyone. It’s nothing but humiliation. Giving people the power to hurt you and happily smiling while they do it. I’ve watched my mom do it a hundred times. I should have known.”

“And I bet you didn’t make it easy for him, did you?”

“What?”

“To use you. You didn’t start trying to fix all his problems. You didn’t start trying to give him things he didn’t have. I’m sure you didn’t try to make him love you by trying to make his life perfect for him,” I say.

He glares daggers at me, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. “What would you know about it?”

“Kid, I was in love with your Dad before I even knew what love was,” I say. “And I thought that I could make him love me if I could fix everything. I confused dependency for love. I made myself a doormat for him and he took advantage of it. I don’t think he even meant too. Just like I don’t think your friend meant to do that to you. It’s just human nature especially when you’re making it easy for them.”

“So, what happened?” He asks.

“I reached my breaking point. Like you did. I realized I could live like that, it was hurting me too bad,” I say.

“What was it?”

It’s my turn to be embarrassed for the boy I was. “I guarded the locker room door in the dojo so Ali could…, give him a surprise…, Yeah. I did that. Got my ass beat by Kreese for being there after hours because I was the one who stuck around to lock up. Johnny laughed and told me I should have ducked when he saw my black eye. I’m sure he didn’t even know that I was Ali’s decoy, or that her surprise was what I got in trouble over. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him. Anyway, that was the moment I broke. I went home, spent a few days hovering between anger and crying. Except for Cobra Kai, I didn’t speak to Johnny for a month or better. Then I realized I missed him. Not the him that I’d made practically into an idol, but the guy that had been my friend. The guy who had my back when Kreese was on me. The guy who sat beside me in the courtroom when my parents’ divorce turned nasty. I knew that if I wanted to keep him in my life, I had to let go of the pain, and accept what was.”

“How did you do that? How did you stop loving him?”

“I realized that I deserved love too. I wasn’t going to get it if I couldn’t love myself first and I wasn’t being very loving to myself,” I say. “I dropped him off the pedestal I had put him on and started being a real friend to him again.”

“I haven’t loved Miguel in months. If I ever did. I care about him, but it’s not the same way I feel about Jase. Maybe I never was in love with him. Maybe I just wanted to take someone from Dad so badly, I confused my feelings of friendship for love. If I loved him and he loved me, then he’d pick me over Dad. God, that’s more pathetic than just being rejected,” he rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He made it clear where I stand in his life and I’m through hurting myself too. He and his idiot friend were playing with an M-80 firecracker and blew up a mailbox. He got hurt. Broke his nose, chipped his tooth, probably had a concussion due to how out of it he was…, Hawk ran off. Miguel came to me at Granpa’s and I hid him. Tried to help him. Tried to convince him to call Dad or his mom. He knew I could get in trouble for that. And he knows that if I get in trouble again, it’ll be real trouble. I’m not getting community service. I’m going to jail. He knows that and he still came to me. He said I made him feel safe. Whatever. The next morning, I convinced him to let me call Dr. Ali. He told her what happened and I said Hawk was involved…, it wasn’t fair that he was going to get all the blame when that moron was just as guilty. He blew up at me. Then lied and said Hawk wasn’t involved. Hawk left him wandering around, drunk, hurt, and disoriented to save his own ass and he was protecting him. I hadn’t done anything but try to help him and he didn’t give a shit that I was risking juvie to do it. He’s never going to care as much about me as I do for him, so I’m done. I can’t be his friend anymore. No matter how much I may miss him. Because he was never that much of a friend to me.”

I nod and pull him into a hug. “Well. Only you can know that. But if you’re saying he’s not your friend because of that incident, I think you may be discounting your whole friendship. You should maybe try to see things from his side before you throw it all away.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Especially since it seems Dad is hitting on his mom pretty hot and heavy. Not speaking to my stepbrother might get a little weird and I’m running out of places to run.”

“Well, you’re always welcome here,” I say, hugging him again. “You’ll want to come to visit Axel anyway. Because I don’t think you’re going to be able to get her away from Lexie and Alex when you leave.”

He laughs again and we head back to the house.

I send Robby up to his room to change and go in the kitchen to talk to Alex.

“How did it go?” he asks.

“Pretty good,” I admit. “I finally got him to talk. But damn. Everything that kid says makes me want to give him a hug and a cookie. Maybe I helped him though.”

Alex put the knife he was holding down and wiped his hands on a towel before coming over to hug me.

“Even if you didn’t help, you cared enough to ask, and he’ll remember that. And maybe he’ll come back to you before he goes off the rails again, and that is something.” He kisses me. “You can’t save the world, Bobby. But that you try is why I love you.”

I smile. “I love you too.”

@everyonesfavoritegoldenboy @chickskickasstoo @therunawaystudent @dr-ali-mills (Just so that you all see it because some of the Bobby posts aren’t showing up in the timeline.)

#cobra kai rp #finally talking #advice #hug and cookie at the ready

9 notes · View notes