summer luck
jimmy/dutch
@ogcobrafest
ao3 link
summer before sophomore year, johnny decides plain bikes are too childish for them.
“we’re gonna be in our second year of high school,” jimmy remembers him proclaiming one evening, “we need an upgrade; something that’ll really show these bitches we’re cobra kai.”
after ruling out cars on the notion that there’s no point in each of them buying a car, and then skateboards on the notion, “what the hell makes you think skateboards are any better than bikes, tommy,” the answer seems to materialize before their eyes: motorcycles — a motorized upgrade of what they’re used to, and something their parents wouldn’t bother throwing a fit over.
after a bit of begging for money and a whole lot of arguing over what brand, what model, and, hell, even what color, they pick out their bikes together; then the journey begins.
it’s fun, if not a bit grueling, but despite johnny’s clumsiness; bobby’s nervous nature; tommy’s apparent death wish with how careless he is; and dutch’s… well, nothing, their shortcomings never become genuine downfalls.
however, it takes them a bit over a month of practice before they can even think about riding in front of the public eye… as a group. see, jimmy’s just plain bad, the worse of them all; he’s rarely ever kicking off properly, and when he can, he’s never balancing enough to go more than a few feet.
jimmy is their downfall. no one is labeling him as such, but he knows. when everyone’s cruising for what feels like miles ahead of him while he’s stuck in the dirt — elbows and knees skinned half to death — it’s not something he can ignore.
yet, strangely enough, dutch of all people is always the first one there when jimmy falls. he’s always the first one to throw his helmet in the dirt (if he’s even wearing one to begin with), and the first to rush to jimmy’s side. he’s the person tasked with patching up jimmy, pushing bobby aside with the insistence that, “i know what i’m doing, man, falling off bikes was my childhood!” — something jimmy finds hard to believe considering how riding seems second nature to him.
and if jimmy were honest, the attention is overwhelming; never in his life had he been on the receiving end of such raw displays of empathy, and it being from dutch — the one who picked and prodded at his insecurities the most upon joining cobra kai — made navigating a response towards these actions so much more difficult.
he’d spent so much of his past longing for attention like this. present day, however, jimmy can only barely spit out, “thank you,” before mentally collapsing under the pressure he’s built for himself.
he wishes he could say more, he always intends to, but then dutch is responding with, “quit it with the sentimentality — you’re not dying, are you now?”
(jimmy supposes he should praise his luck for being regarded as the silent one — he gets away with the bare minimum, even when he doesn’t want to.)
and dutch patches him up with unwavering care every time, handling jimmy like he’s a porcelain doll instead of a boy who attended classes at the most brutal dojo in the valley; a boy who has taken what seems like a million falls onto asphalt in the last week alone.
he wipes jimmy’s cuts down with alcohol, always giving a mumbled warning about the incoming pain no matter how many times they’ve repeated this routine before. then, with shaky hands, he applies bandaids as smooth as he can over jimmy’s torn skin. these sessions always end with dutch’s heavy eyes boring a hole into jimmy’s soul, and sometimes — if jimmy is lucky — a chaste kiss on the last bandaid applied, followed by the usual cocky grin.
(lucky? why would that be a reward of jimmy’s luck?
lucky?
fuck.)
but eventually, when school rolls around in late august, jimmy can finally, and consistently, ride without falling. everyone celebrates the night jimmy falls zero times, his ears ringing from screamed praises and arms covered in red handprints from loving slaps — he swears bobby even tears up a little bit.
and when jimmy gets a moment with dutch alone, all he sees is dutch’s wide, goofy grin before being pulled in towards his chest.
“don’t get any better at riding,” dutch teases. “i’ll miss playing nurse for you too much.”
the first day of their sophomore year kicks off with fiery excitement, the confidence flowing through johnny palpable to everyone in the whole valley. stares linger on them when they enter the parking lot; dutch, who rides next to jimmy that morning, bathes in the attention like it's his sole source of energy.
jimmy never really gets to the point the others are at — where they can speed faster than what seems fathomable, or stand up in the middle of riding to get that extra rush of adrenaline — but jimmy can ride, and that’s all that matters.
he’s covered in bruises half the time, from karate and soccer and the fall off his motorcycle he has at least once a month, but dutch is always there to patch him up; dutch is always there to kiss him better.
