In My Blood (Eli Moskowitz/Hawk FF) (Cobra Kai)

Chapter 41: Ready? Set Fire

CHAPTER 41:

The additional voice jars Zelena more than her boyfriend who seems more annoyed as they mutually pull away from one another. "Zelena's my girlfriend. You would know that if you actually checked in even once in a while." The shifting roud of his upper torso to wriggle into his shirt surprisingly doesn't muffl his tension filled words much.

Zelena couldn't fault Eli for being so openly angry at his father, especially when he ahd been exhibiting the absence of the male figure in tears of sadness and crying sessions she knew she hadn't been told about by him. They were seventeen now-at least going to be very soon- and while Eli had always understood his father was away to provide comfortably (and a little more) for their family, his father was a stranger to him still. Mr. Moskowitz had missed out on most of his life without making an effort not to.

Just to remind him that he isn't standing alone, Zelena slips her left hand slowly into his half-curled right hand. The simple handhold grounds the mohawk sporting boy from the overwhelming accumulation of all his previously left unspoken emotions. Dark haired, tall, seemingly successful- everything he had once wanted to be, now stands before him in his own bedroom doorway. And all he can think is 'stranger'. To poorly attempt moistening his suddenly cotton filled mouth that's dry as the Sahara, Eli swallows a couple of times.

"Your mom is making dinner for all of us." The tension impossibly thickens in the room at the slightly chilled invitation.

Eli clenches his left hand into a tight fist at this off handed, nonchalant revelation of information, knowing fully his mom was out at a house down the street. "Funny because I told her I would be out late with my friends on a group date. You know," His anger increases more by the second at his own father's foolishness- reckless advantage taking. He releases Zelena's hand and inches sl0w step by slow step toward this strange man in his room. "Bowling." Step. "Movie." Step. Close enough they are pretty much chest to chest. "Dinner."

The man in the doorway takes a step back from this boy-young man- he clearly no longer knows. "Make your own fucking dinner for one because you're eating alone. Mom's having a well-deserved good time and so am I." Noting his own edge, dwindling on the line between cool and somewhat calm and action-taking fury, he slams the door shut in his father's face and quietly turns the lock.

The built up tension in the remains thick in the air, suffocating both parties willingly locked in this room for different reasons. A pained expression, familiar to those which she had seen before while discussing the absent man is now tainted by a darkening anger that makes the oncoming outcome unpredictable. She can't tell if he is going to cry or just break something.

He can feel her physical hesitation of movement and although he is listening to the part of his brain trained by Daniel LaRusso to do breathing techniques to clear his head, the rest of his brain is flooding with fear that he has scared her. Again. Pieces- partial memories- of his palms shoving against her body flash across his vision though his eyes remain open and knowingly gazing at the flattened surface of his bedroom door. In hopes it'd truly remind him that he isn't capable of that. That he isn't that person, he turns on his heels to face her.

It cracks him even more.

Tear brimmed eyes, wide and currently envisioning him as a threat, stare back at him. Every emotion he never wanted to be a cause of, faces quickly into one another in her irises; disbelief, fear, and internal agony, anguish. "I'm sorry." He quietly whispers, digging his nails into his palms to ground himself and stop them from reaching out for her. His sub-conscience cackles at the futile attempt to reconcile what's already been done. 'How many times had she heard that from her father?'

Zelena notes the glaze of his eyes, swimming with the ghosts of his past that clearly haunt him. He's extremely apologetic and her eyes avert to the sudden movement of his hands curling toward his palm. She watches the small wince he does and the slight jerk of his body at whatever thing has just happened. In a split second her hands run across his back in soothing circles following her arms tightly wrapping around him and pulling his body into hers.