cobra kai secret santa 2022

Beaver Fang

Johnny’s teeth-in-lip face can mean a million different things.  Usually it’s an invitation to rumble. Sometimes it’s born out of mundanity, like when he’s flicking a bottle cap.  Playfulness.  Bittersweetness.

Sometimes he bares all his teeth when Daniel is slowly pumping inside him. 

Daniel has seen him do it many times when he’s sparring, and today on the deck, he finally brings it up.  “You know…it’s kinda hard to concentrate when you make that face.”

“What face?” 

“Biting your lip with all your teeth and scrunching your nose.” 

“Pffft. I hate it.  There’s this candid pic on the soccer field in the ‘82 yearbook. Look like a damn beaver. ”

“Bullshit. Not on your worst day.” Daniel’s cheeks are as red as Johnny’s gi all of a sudden. “I have a favorite context, you know. When you make that face in bed, which I’m sure you’ll deny...”

“UH, of course I cop that face in bed. No doi, LaRusso.” 

“Sometimes I’m afraid I’m hurting you.”

“Glad you’re that full of yourself,” Johnny snickers. “Nah. It’s not that. Just a little…overwhelmed.” 

“So you’re holding back.” 

“I dunno. Maybe.” 

“You know what….next time, no lip biting.  No closing your eyes. No composure.  We’ll face it together.”

That night,  Johnny presents himself with everything but a giant bow. Lays on the bed with his legs splayed, beckoning. Daniel just watches for a moment, on his knees at the end of the bed.

“No teeth face,” Daniel says gently but sternly, stroking himself.

“Yes, Sensei.” 

“The only beaver around here is that tight little hole of yours.” 

Johnny snorts a laugh. “Uh…okay?”

“Just relax.”

Daniel is the king of foreplay, and Johnny is dying to bear down hard on his lip, but does as he’s told. He keeps eye contact with Daniel as the brunette sucks his nipples, gliding back and forth from one to the other.  He lingers on Johnny’s favorite—his left—and looks up to finf him fighting to keep his blue eyes open, and the guillotine of his top teeth still.  

Daniel kisses down his belly, tracing his nose in a soft thatch of dirty blond hair, and swallows him whole. He watches Johnny’s fiercest struggle not to snarl yet. He’s panting in and out with his mouth gaping.  He’s trying to focus on his shallow breathing, and Daniel’s melting from it.

“That’s good. That’s really good,” Daniel nods. He climbs on top of him and bites his own lip teasingly.

“Oh, fuck you,” Johnny pants.

“Never said I couldn’t do it.” He slowly coaxes Johnny open with one finger at a time.  “Eyes on me.”

“Fuck,” Johnny gasps. He’s never wanted to sink his teeth into his lip more than he does right now. When Daniel brushes his prostate, the most beautiful, uninhibited songbird moan escapes Johnny that he’s ever heard.

“So that’s what you’ve been holding in,,” Daniel hisses. “I want more. A lot more.”

As Daniel pushes inside achingly slowly, he hears every sound Johnny never wanted him to hear. He rocks inside him, making sure his mouth is wide open.  He relents when he looks close to the edge. “Bite your lip til you come, baby,  it’s okay.”

Daniel holds his breath in anticipation, his own climax finding roots in his light-headed bliss. Johnny is on the verge of tears as he bites down hard, his eyes rolling back in his head.   As his orgasm tears him apart, he un-clenches his teeth and lets out a high-pitched scream that Daniel will be daydreaming about at the wrong moments for the rest of his life.

“...so,” Daniel sighs as they lie in a tangle of arms and legs. “I think we’ve reached a compromise. Two beaver faces per session. Never when you come. I want you to break glass next time.”

“It wasn’t that high-pitched.” 

His Decembers have really always just been another month.

Sid’s house was always decorated December 1st, all tinsel anywhere tinsel could be put and pinecones and green and red and the huge awful fireplace in the drawing room being the center of attention. A huge obnoxious wreath on the door and a decked-out tree even bigger than the man himself. At least one big stupid dinner with all of Sid’s big stupid friends. Johnny got presents on Christmas morning before he was sort of told to clear off and play with his new stuff so Sid and Laura could be alone for the day, but none of it ever felt like routine or tradition. It felt like stuff that just happened. Like being in a play in elementary school, being told what scene was next between each one because they were all dumb kids who couldn’t actually be trusted to know or remember. He was just going where he was supposed to be, no real idea or care what was coming next.

His holidays have always been like that since, although perhaps a little closer to the ones he’d shared with his mother, pre-Sid. No tree, no decorations, no dinners. Just observing the holidays through the actions of others in decorated shop windows and stuff being sold that they couldn’t afford. A treat, perhaps, on December 25th, as the one real mark of a “special” time of year, but ultimately letting it pass by like something on the other side of a window.

With Daniel and all of his traditions, such a thing is impossible.

Johnny wakes up on the 1st of December, some time nearer noon than Daniel seems to know how to get, to a scent he doesn’t recognise filling the pleasantly warm house. Venturing to the kitchen, half-asleep in his boxers and a threadbare t-shirt, reveals it as cookies - trays and trays of them, little roundish sugar cookie looking things doused in white icing and Christmas-coloured sprinkles.

“Christmas cookies,” Daniel clarifies, briefly glancing up and smiling when he notices Johnny stood watching. “They’re Italian.”

Johnny hums and approaches, swipes one up from the tray nearest him and eats it immediately. It’s…almond-y, soft like cake, still kinda warm. It’s good.

“Yeah?” he asks, still chewing. “What makes ‘em Italian?”

Maybe it’s the effect of the Christmas season that Daniel doesn’t admonish him - doesn’t even give him A Look - for his thievery. Or maybe he’s just finally used to it, but either way he simply keeps attending to the tray of cookies he’s still icing with a steady, experienced hand.

“The same thing that ties anyone and anything to a nationality.”

Johnny hums, wrinkling his nose briefly in consideration as he watches Daniel work. “Can’t be Italian if they were made in America.”

“I was made in America, Johnny.”

“Yeah, but—what, these cookies got a bloodline?”

Daniel laughs then - that beautiful, sincere laugh like Johnny amuses him now instead of just pissing him off, though Johnny’s sure he still does that plenty - and shakes his head.

“Just come help me ice these.”

Obediently, Johnny walks over, but wrinkles his nose again when he’s handed the weird, unwieldy plastic bag full of icing that tries to flip right out of his grasp and promptly explodes a glob of icing onto the counter when he grips it hard to compensate.

“I’ve never iced cookies before,” he decides to admit before he fucks it up entirely. Daniel’s putting his oven gloves on with his back to Johnny - the cute red tartan pair Amanda got him.

“What, you never helped your mom when you were a kid?” he asks, distracted.

“My mom didn’t bake, LaRusso.”

Any other time, Johnny’s sure that sentence and bitter tone would earn him one of those godawful looks from Daniel, and follow-up questions. Daniel’s always trying to learn more about Johnny’s childhood where he can, but as it is he’s thoroughly engaged getting yet another tray of cookies out of the oven and safely onto the overcrowded counter.

“Jesus. Are you baking for the whole of California?” Johnny asks, grateful for the out. Daniel grits his teeth in playful bashfulness.

“No, just half of New Jersey. I’m sending these to family,” he says, gesturing to a few of the completed trays. “…And the kids are all getting some. And Amanda, Chozen, Jessica…”

Johnny huffs a laugh as a smile grows on Daniel’s face. “Yeah, alright, my mistake.”

Daniel leans over and shoves Johnny in the shoulder to direct him back to the tray of uniced cookies in front of him. “Look, I’m not seein’ much icing goin’ on over there. You gotta do it before they get too cool or—“

“Okay, okay!”

They don’t turn out good. Johnny’s icing is a disaster, all lumpy and uneven, some drowned and some barely grazed - and his sprinkle application goes about as well, but when he says he’s done Daniel comes over and looks at them and smiles like the sun, all eye crinkles and dimples, and suddenly Johnny forgets about everything his childhood was filled with instead of baking as Daniel kisses him hard on the cheek.

They keep a few of that batch, shared between the two of them and eaten right there in the kitchen by the counter, stood all close together and giggling like they’re doing something sneaky. Daniel insists they’re not as good as the ones he used to make with his Ma, even promises that he’ll ask Lucille to send some so that Johnny can have some “real” ones, but Johnny tells him honestly that they’re good. Daniel credits Johnny’s icing and decorating technique with making them special, so the rest of that batch - “our batch”, Daniel calls them - are divvied up into cute, expensive glass tupperware containers - with matching lids! - to go to Amanda, Sam, Anthony, Robby, and Miguel.

Their family, Johnny realises. They made cookies for their family.

“I’ve never done that before,” he mumbles.

“Done what?” Daniel asks, clicking the lid into place on Sam’s container. It’s pink, with little flowers on it, like a little girl’s lunchbox. Miguel’s and Robby’s, piled on the side, have blue splotches of paint and little cartoon lions respectively. Amanda and Anthony’s are next up - leaves and cartoon game controllers. Johnny remembers buying them all, some time soon after he and Daniel had moved in together. Picking which one from the store’s selection fit each person.

“I don’t know,” Johnny says, suddenly a little overwhelmed by the big feeling taking root in his chest. “I was talkin’ about the cookies again, but…All of this.”

It doesn’t really make sense. Too disjointed to really be a thought, but Daniel looks up at Johnny like he understands. Bumps their shoulders together.

“I’ll take more of your firsts,” he says. Johnny snorts.

“I was being wholesome for once!”

“You were, you were,” Daniel grins, “But I mean it. We’ll do more stuff. Got the whole of December to go.” He neatly clicks the lid onto Anthony’s box of cookies and piles it on top of Sam’s. “We go ice skating on the second Saturday.”

“Never done that either.”

“It’s a learning curve.”

“Always is.”

Daniel smiles. Amanda’s box joins the pile atop Anthony’s, and finally Daniel’s hands settle on Johnny’s waist, thumbs running gently back and forth over the worn fabric of his t-shirt. “I’ll teach you,” he promises. “And then when we go next year, you’ll be a pro.”

And for the first time in his life, Johnny’s looking forward to the rest of the holidays. Looking forward to next year’s.

“You’re helping me bake next year too.”

“That mean I have to get up early?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh.”