camp triple pine//lawrusso

7. cookies the kitten

Three full days go by before Johnny visits Daniel in the nurse's office.

Everyone else has came and gone already. Bobby was first, the first evening he was here with a cold can of Coke. He was a good conversationalist, and amused by the fact that at least he had not been the one to injure Daniel's leg this time.

Tommy came in the morning after, and it was awkward because he clearly felt weird being there, but he was being dragged by Samantha and Robby. Ali came in next, offering a few cards the kids had made. Strangely enough, there was a card from Johnny in there ("I can't believe a tree root kicked your ass. Get well soon, xoxo."). Daniel didn't know why Johnny hadn't given it to him himself, but it was such an awful card, Daniel supposed he understood.

(Jessica came in every moment in between, probably annoying the nurse to no end. She'd visited him earlier that morning, the third day he was in there, giving him a flower crown Samantha had made.)

About two hours after Jessica, Johnny came in, and it didn't even look as though he meant to visit him.

Johnny approached the nurse, bundling something fuzzy and black and white in his hands. Daniel sat up, watching in silent interest, as if worried of scaring Johnny off. At first, Daniel thought the fluffy thing was some kind of keychain one of the girls had, and he wouldn't be surprised Johnny broke it. Then again, he wouldn't be holding it with such care; Daniel didn't think Johnny Lawrence held anything with such care, not even when Daniel first got injured.

"Found her this morning," Johnny was saying to the nurse. "When I was taking the kids on a hike. Obviously, she's a stray from one of the farm cats nearby, but Ali said I should get her checked out."

The nurse nodded and hummed with thought, taking the fluffy black and white thing from Johnny's hands. It then poked a head up, black ears pointing out, and let out a high mewl.

It was a kitten.

Though Johnny hadn't even spared Daniel a look since coming in, he locked eyes with him that very moment. He smiled politely, eyes sparking with interest as he approached Daniel, sitting by his bed. He looked up at Daniel's hair, where the crown of wildflowers currently rested. Daniel felt like taking it off then, at the sight of Johnny's smirk, but he sat defiantly unmoving.

"I guess laying around here all day's really gotten to you, huh, Larusso?" Johnny asked, picking the flower crown off of Daniel's hair with a surprising amount of care, all things considered. He looked it over curiously, the tips of his fingers delicately toying with the petals.

"Sam and Jess made it for me," Daniel fired back, sounding a little too whiny, a little too 'give me back my lunch money, man! don't give me a swirlie!'. He wants to add to be careful with it, but Johnny already is, and he never seems to do what he's told anyway.

"It's...cute, I guess. For a fairy prince," Johnny comments softly, putting the flower crown back on Daniel's hair. Daniel doesn't know if he's saying fairy prince as in actual fairies or if he's calling him gay; perhaps it's better to take the veiled compliment.

"You're a character, Johnny Lawrence," Daniel says, because he can't outright say 'you're fucking bizarre' in front of the nurse. "How come you haven't visited me yet?" He asks, and he hates how no matter how he voices it—in this case, he spares no disdain—it sounds as though he's missed Johnny.

Johnny grins like a shark at that, all pearly white teeth as though he can't help himself. He goes in for the low-hanging kill: "You wanted me to visit you?"

And there's a tension in the air like that first night on the beach, only this time, it doesn't make Daniel's stomach swoop south when he realizes Johnny's a bully. Because Johnny may not be a bully anymore, but he's still hungry for something, still a pain in the ass.