Karate Kid/Cobra Kai one shots/drabbles

ck Johnny/Daniel--the silver secret

i would like to blame my trauma for my obsession with terry silver...mans has tom riddle vibes

From @/RosaMacchio on ao3:

"hello, I would like a fic where adult Daniel tells Johnny about silver when he sees him with silver and Daniel has a huge panic attack obviously Johnny will always be with him"

so I rewatched that point in cobra kai where Silver was at the dojo and Daniel did explain his trauma to Johnny...but Johnny only cared about the finals?? he's so shitty lmao

warnings: panic attack, discussion of trauma, there's a dick joke in here at one point but that's just me so you're welcome

*the Larussos are swingers in this because it's cannon, apparently. lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"To you, I'll be a memory," Silver had said, thirty years before, to an 18 year old Daniel. "I'm in your mind, see. And once I'm in, I don't get out. You're like my little robot. All programed up and ready to roll. Rudy gets you angry. You break his nose. You're mine, Danny boy. Mine."

Daniel had gotten to a point, several months to a year after the events of Silver, where the nightmares ceased. He had still punched and kicked with violent tenacity, which Miyagi had to gently train out of him.

"The world not your enemy," Miyagi had told him. "Seek violence make violence more often than peace."

Daniel knew he would never reach a point of where he was, mentally, before Silver's abuse. He'd grown to see how he was a victim of Silver's twisted desires: to touch the young, doe-eyed boy, to put him through relentless torture only to lick the blood off his knuckles and see the tears welling up in Daniel's baby browns. Any impression Silver pretended to have with his strength was a lie used to rile him up, make him toxic and damage himself.

And now, here he was, in his own living room. It had been over thirty years, and Daniel thought he'd forgotten how it felt. He'd remembered how it felt, to fear Silver above all else, but that fear hadn't been relevant to him for decades. He had worries, worries about the dealership, or where the kids would go to college, or how to ensure his students would learn the best qualities of karate beyond the fighting.

His worries never made him feel like this. Like his world were shattering, falling into some kind of hellish world made to be a lie.

"Jesus, Larusso, you look like you're gonna throw up."

That was Johnny, ever the sensitive gentleman. Daniel had tried to calm down, but his confrontation with Silver in his yard, on his property...the interaction had terrified him so much, he lost feeling in his very bones.

Johnny had been the one to tell the kids to go home ("Unless you runts wanna stay here and do 50 pushups on your knuckles!"). Amanda was at the dealership, and Sam decided to go out with Miguel, giving her dad a gentle kiss on the head with wishes for him to feel better before she left.

"Do you wanna tell me why you look like a soggy stray kitten, or is this just one of those things you're not talking about?" Johnny asked, more like demanded, but his tone was a hair softer than usual.

Daniel couldn't seem to be able to open his mouth. He'd never felt his muscles tense in such a way before, he couldn't seem to get enough air in. "Do you--have you ever--" he starts, and he's scared to say the least, the words gathering something daunting on his tongue. It's even more so to collect them, to say them out loud, to Johnny Lawrence of all people.

Some trauma was easier to talk about than others. Johnny knew about the death of Daniel's father, which saddened Daniel to think on, but he felt no fear. He was comforted by the fact that his father was a good man, and he loved his family. Terry Silver was no such man; Daniel was confident he'd never known love, in any normal sense.