#taughtmercy

❝ That's the thought that came upon me when we both reached for the gun! ❞

a study in: BEING REPLACED, JEALOUSY, LOVE SQAURES, & TURNING INTO A DIFFERENT PERSON. ( featuring the episodes of 1x05, 1x08 & 1x09. )

( $4.99 ! )

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YOUR CALL HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO AN AUTOMATIC VOICE MESSAGE SYSTEM.

ETHAN WILSON, ROBBY KEENE, MIGUEL DIAZ, SAM LARUSSO, ELI MOSKOWITZ & TORY NICHOLS ARE NOT AVAILABLE.

AT THE TONE, PLEASE RECORD YOU MESSAGE. WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED RECORDING, YOU MAY HANG UP, OR PRESS ONE FOR MORE OPTIONS.

@taughtmercy asked: ‘ teach me that move. ’

Ethan is distracted today.

Dad sees it. Doesn’t bring it up directly—not to him—but Ethan hears him murmur something to Dami mid-stretch. His twin doesn’t push. Just nods, mouth tight, and meets Ethan’s eyes for a beat too long. Lexa notices too. Her gaze lingers during warm-ups, concerned but careful. She’s never been the type to prod when Ethan walls off, but she sees it. They all do. He’s not subtle, not anymore. The more he tries to bury it, the more obvious the silence around him becomes. He’s been drowning in it since the school fight, since Miguel—

No one says anything out loud. Not during drills. Not when Cosette accidentally knocks over the wooden post with her roundhouse. Not when Seth gets a little too aggressive in partner work and Gracelyn yells at him from the other side of the dojo for him to dial it down. Harper is trying to balance on one foot while Henry flops backward into the grass, declaring himself a “karate pancake.” Demetri, arm still in a sling, is lounging on the steps giving unsolicited commentary like he’s auditioning for ESPN.

And through it all, Sam is steady.

Not loud or perfect, but present. That’s what matters.

When Ethan’s timing slips on a form, she doesn’t correct him. She just steps in front of the class and re-demonstrates it like that was the plan all along. When Little Red loses track of the count during partner drills, she calmly redirects—“Pair with me, I’ve got you”—like she’s not also covering for the person who usually steps in. She never says Ethan’s name. Never glances his way. She just fills the space he’s not occupying. Quietly. Precisely. Like it’s instinct.

They’ve always done that for each other.

When she’s spiraling, he handles warmups. When he burns out, she corrals the chaos. That’s how they’ve kept Miyagi-Do from crumbling under the weight of its own history. It’s not written down anywhere, but everyone in the dojo knows it: Sam and Ethan are the ones keeping this place alive.

Dad leads warmups. Mom keeps the kids laughing. Daniel still holds the title of Sensei. But it’s Sam and Ethan who keep the center from falling out.

Not because anyone asked them to. Because they’ve always known when to step in—without needing permission.

But Ethan isn’t keeping anything alive today.

His punches are sharp but lifeless. His footwork is fast but sloppy. His voice stays in his throat. He doesn’t correct Saffron when she botches the same combination for the third time, or snap when her twin, Oliver, starts overanalyzing the force of his punches on the heavy bag. Doesn’t call out Henry for sword-fighting with a stick. Doesn’t even blink when Rhydian challenges him to a “fun” light spar.

He doesn’t want fun.

He wants Robby.

But Robby’s not here.

Not beside him during stretches. Not leaning against the wall between rounds. Not tossing him a look across the dojo that said you’re getting better without needing to say a word, or crouched beside Henry during bonsai exercises, or quietly correcting Harper’s stance without making her feel small. The absence is everywhere. It’s not quiet—it’s suffocating and crushing and it just fucking hurts. A scream without sound. A wound that hasn’t stopped bleeding.

Ethan checks his phone more than once.

Nothing. No texts. No missed calls. Not even a typing bubble. Just silence—and a phone that feels heavier every time he checks it.

He still hears his own voice in his head from before training started a few hours ago—his cracked, uneven attempt at not sounding desperate: Just call me back, okay? Please. That last word still claws at him. He meant it. Still does. Please.

But Robby didn’t call back.

Why would he?

Ethan—eldritch weapon, co-leader of a dojo built on balance after Robby’s absence left a power vacuum that had to be filled—especially with Robby clearly not coming back anytime soon—walking contradiction in taped knuckles and hoodie sleeves too long for his arms—can’t do a damn thing about it.

So he trains.

Not to teach. Not to lead. Not for discipline or clarity.

Just to stay in motion. Because if he stops, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. In his other existence, he’s never been good at standing still. The mountains and mountains of corpses—arms dealers, traffickers, things that don’t stay down unless you make them—is proof of that. That, and the way Deadpool Dad grins like it’s art once second, then scolds him about restraint over bodega-bought snacks and those special chimichangas from that cool restaurant near his and Mom’s apartment, already knee-deep in a rant about Their-Universe-Robby. Bartender-of-The-Sisters-of-Quiet-Mercy Robby. The one who is in love with that other version of Ethan.

Not this version of Robby—this version of Ethan—that he can’t stand to be around.

It’s been like that ever since Robby caught him, Miguel, and Sam in this very fucking dojo a few nights ago. The way Miguel had looked at Sam—then at Ethan—

Just monsters everyone else still calls Sensei—and no one Ethan’s allowed to kill outright or rewrite the existence of. Just kata and stances and cans of wax or blue paint and white gis. Balance. Kids who look at him like he’s not a loaded weapon trying to stay quiet.

And some days—like today—he doesn’t know if the version of him that could sit still is even real anymore. Doesn’t know if that Ethan’s dead or just buried somewhere he can’t reach.

Because if he ever stops moving, he’s not sure which part of him is gonna surface.

And he’s pretty sure this dojo—no, this universe—won’t survive it if it’s the wrong one.

Ethan doesn’t look at Daniel—not directly. He doesn’t want to see the part of Daniel that still believes he made the right call. Doesn’t want to look at the man who handed a hurting kid over to a system that was never going to protect him. Who set off the chain reaction that took Robby from him—not physically, but piece by piece.

The Robby Ethan remembers always carried tension in his shoulders, even when things were calm. He only ever seemed to breathe easy when no one was watching. Like maybe—for half a second—he believed in forgiveness. Even if he didn’t think he deserved it.

And for a second—just a second—during that last visit in juvie, under the cameras and being unable to reach over and touch Robby without the stupid freaking sensors going haywire and the people who work at the center throwing him out, Ethan thought he saw him again. That look in his eyes. Mercy. Restraint.

But it was already too late.

Ethan’s fists curl slightly at his sides, even after the drills are done.

Harper latches onto Henry’s arm and drags him inside for juice boxes. Demetri finally rises from his sun-warmed perch and walks past Ethan, slapping him on the back like he’s congratulating him for surviving the hour. His hand lingers for just a second. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

Sam doesn’t leave.

She doesn’t follow the others inside. Doesn’t call after Harper. Doesn’t turn to Ethan, either. She just nods to Daniel as he heads out—something he has to finish up at the office, some new project for one of the LaRusso Auto dealerships Ethan’s never been to—and then walks toward the koi pond like her feet are on autopilot. Drops down to the stones without ceremony. Cross-legged. Elbows on her knees. Hair coming undone. Dirt streaked across one cheekbone—maybe from potting a couple of the bonsais earlier—that she hadn’t bothered to clean off.

Ethan watches her.

She doesn’t wipe it off. Doesn’t sit with posture. Doesn’t tuck the loose strands behind her ears. Doesn’t do anything except breathe and stay still. Not the kind of stillness that means composure. The kind that means collapse in slow motion.

She looks different like this. Real, maybe. Raw around the edges. Like she forgot to keep the walls up. But he doesn’t know if she actually feels any of that—or if he’s just projecting. It’s easier to believe someone else is breaking too. That he’s not the only one losing shape in the middle of his own body.

Either way, she’s the first thing that’s felt real all day.

Not the girl with a dojo in her name. Not the one who co-leads drills with the weight of Miyagi-Do’s legacy in her spine. Not the polished teammate who puts on a smile for Henry or Adora or Bennett or Lexa like they won’t believe things are okay unless either he or Sam say so.

Just Sam.

No armor. No performance. No script.

And for some reason, that makes him pause.

He stares without meaning to. Not because he wants anything from her—no comfort, no answers. Just because she looks like herself again. Like someone who stopped holding her breath for long enough to just be. Like someone who forgot, for a second, that this was all supposed to mean something. That they’re caught in a karate war her father started—because of a thirty-year-old grudge.

It makes something in his chest shift.

Not a crack. Not a break. Just… a shift.

He misses this. Not just her. Not just Robby. Not just the way it used to feel when they all showed up to training and knew who they were to each other.

He misses the version of himself who might’ve been able to sit next to her and let the silence be silence—not grief.

But that version is long gone.

He doesn’t look away fast enough.

@taughtmercy turns.

Her gaze meets his—direct, unflinching, too human for either of them—and, eldritch abomination that he is, he can’t reconcile that without wanting to choke up.

“Something on my face?” She asks.

Her voice is light. Or trying to be. It doesn’t quite land. There’s a threadbare tiredness beneath it. Like she’s trying to tease without the energy to commit.

Ethan freezes.

It’s not the question that stuns him. It’s the way she’s looking at him. Like she sees something he’s trying to keep buried. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe he’s just desperate to be seen by someone.

His mouth opens. Closes.

No armor for this. Not now. Not with her sitting there like she’s not going to flinch if the truth bleeds out of him in pieces.

He blinks, slow. Then says, almost too quiet to count as speech:

“No. You just looked like yourself again.”

The words hang there. Honest. Unedited. Real.

And suddenly, there’s no dojo. No drills. No titles or kids or obligations. Just two teens—one is too human, the other never has been—who’ve been holding everything together long enough to forget what it feels like to be held themselves.

Because she understands.

"I   heard   you   dropped   from   the   tournament."   A   moment   of   silence   as   he   finds   himself   in   a   similar   setting   to   that   of   them   meeting   in   Barcelona.   A   beach   and   the   night   and   one   of   them   doing   kata.   The   news   had   already   reach   most   of   the   dojos   and   he   had   been   berated   already   by   Silver   and   Wolf   for   allowing   that   to   destabilize   him.   There   is   a   small   glowing   red   sign   upon   his   cheek   where   he   had   been   hit   and   he   can   only   hope   she   ignores   it   or   doesn't   ask   about   it.   His   hands   rest   upon   his   pockets,   as   the   Croatian   is   unsure   what   to   say.   "I'm   sorry   you   felt   like   you   had   to   get   out.   You   could've   won."

@taughtmercy asked: "happy birthday!" she comes bearing gifts and cake.

the moment your feet touched the familiar ground of the valley & you stepped off the plane, it hit you like a freight train—bone-deep exhaustion, the kind that no amount of rest can fix. the others seemed to be still caught in the aftermath of barcelona, not that you blame them. there was no winner, no celebration—just the trauma of what happened. of what it cost. as for you?

you’re just… here.

physically present, mentally elsewhere.

because of everything, you find yourself unable to turn your mind off & sleep—not that you really need it, given your eldritch nature, but that’s beside the point. so, you walk through the larusso house at some odd hour of the night, when everyone else is asleep. you keep track of everyone’s scents, emotions, & heartbeats: aspen, bennett, calla, charlie, chase, cosima, demetri, emma, hawk, icarus, kenny, lina, lian, paze, renee, scarlett, seth, sophie, stef, & taip—most of them scattered throughout the house, taking up every available space.

thanks to your eldritch nature, the living room & dining room have been rearranged to accommodate everyone. now, there’s nothing but a massive pile of bodies, sleeping bags, blow-up beds, & pillows.

you slip out of your old bedroom, carefully untangling yourself from miguel’s & robby’s warm arms—wrapped around you & nearly each other. down the hall, tory is asleep in sam’s room, tossing & turning. in another room, vana is curled up in bed with talia & nova. anthony, mr. & mrs. larusso are asleep in their own rooms further down the hall.

it’s almost too easy to navigate the darkened larusso home. after all, it had been home for over two years—until it wasn’t. until everything changed. but tonight, it feels distant. like you’re floating through it instead of inhabiting it. the hum of thoughts from the others fades into the back of your mind, & before you realize it, you’re standing in the backyard, wincing as the motion light turns on & shines through the curtains in sam’s bedroom, the cool night air grounding you more than anything else has in weeks. maybe months.

you’re physically in the place where you once lived with sam (& robby, when he came along), but it doesn’t feel like home. maybe it could have been years ago, in some other world where the karate war never took over your life & the lives of your friends & family. but emotionally, you’re lost.

you stand outside for a while, quietly looking up at the stars—& airplanes—that you can see from down here. jupiter’s shining brightly almost directly overhead. you’re caught up in your thoughts, some good, most bad—but you recognize the set of footsteps approaching from behind you. you already know who it is before she even says anything.

@taughtmercy .

just having her here eases the weight in your chest—just a little—but it doesn’t disappear.

you shift your weight, almost instinctively pulling off your jacket & draping it over her shoulders. you don’t feel the cold in the literal sense, but you know she does. after, you take her hand, guiding it to your chest so she can listen to your heartbeat. it’s something you’ve been doing with miguel, robby, & tory too, ever since you woke up in the barcelona hospital. a quiet reassurance—for them & for yourself—that you’re still here. still breathing. still you.

“hey, honey,” you murmur, pressing a soft kiss to your wife’s forehead. “sorry if i woke you.”

once you pull back & exhale, your fingers slip gently through her dark hair, tucking a few stray strands behind her ear. you’re so tender with your husbands & wives. it’s everything you were never meant to be—not with your eldritch nature. but somehow, it’s what you’ve become.

“i… i’ve been thinking about this ever since i woke up in the hospital.” you hesitate, conflict flickering across your face like you’re debating whether to say it at all. then, softly, like admitting it makes it real—

“i—i think i’m done with the tournament, sam.”

after everything that’s happened…

“i think i need to step back from it,” you clarify, swallowing down the lump in your throat.

you don’t even know where to start explaining yourself properly. maybe it’s the fact that you died. again. that for a moment—an agonizing, endless moment—you weren’t here, weren’t anywhere. & maybe you could process that if it weren’t for the fact that kwon isn’t here, either. that when you came back, he didn’t. even if his death was by his own hand accidentally, that whatever bullshit kreese had been telling him (probably the same old, tired stuff that tory’s mentioned—that fucking karate is a war, that a fight isn’t over until your enemy is finished), that doesn’t make you feel better.

you think about the way he looked at you before he stabbed you—the rage in his eyes, the borderline feral grin, the way everything slowed down in that instant as the blade cut through you. the way you forced yourself to keep fighting, because your spouses, friends & family needed you in the chaos of the brawl.

self-preservation has never been your strong suit.

you think about the moment it hit you—when the pain sharpened, when the warmth of your own blood spread too fast, too much. when you realized you were losing. not just the fight. but too much blood.

you think about what that fight cost both of you. what it almost cost your spouses, your friends, your family. & if you start to spiral again…

you think about how—before the brawl—robby, miguel, tory, sam, & even taip had stepped into that arena. how they fought, how they pushed forward, how they carried everything they’d been through onto that stage & still made it mean something. even if tory & taip had chosen cobra kai again. you were proud of them—god, so proud. but you also knew that you couldn’t do it again.

not like this.

you drag a hand down your face, shaking your head. “i just…” the words tangle in your throat. “i don’t know if i can keep doing this. not after everything. not after me. or kwon.”

you breathe out, staring at the ground. “i don’t know who i am without it.” the words feel too big, too heavy in your mouth. your throat tightens. you force out a laugh, but it’s empty. “it’s… it’s stupid, right?”

but the second the word leaves your lips, you regret it. because it’s not stupid. it’s terrifying.

you shake your head, dragging a hand down your face. “i don’t know. maybe it’s all i’ve ever been good at. maybe without it, i’m just…” your voice catches, & you don’t finish the thought. you don’t want to.

the thought scares you more than you’d like to admit.

because for so long, fighting wasn’t just something you did—it was a constant. a foundation. it was how you protected, how you expressed yourself, how you connected with people. it was how you survived. & now, after everything, it’s like you’re standing at the edge of something unknown, & you don’t know what’s waiting for you on the other side.

your stomach twists. “i don’t want to regret it.”

a beat of silence stretches between you, but sam is still there. close enough that you could reach for her if you needed to. you want to. you almost do.

you don’t have the answer. not yet. but for the first time, you think that maybe… maybe you don’t have to figure it out by yourself.

then, softly: “i’m so sorry you had to see that.”

you mean when you were dying, bleeding out on the mats, your head swimming, voices swirling above you. miguel’s & tory’s hands shaking, their eyes wide with fear, & your parents’ with grief. horror. helplessness.

your dad—who’s always known how to fight, how to take a hit, how to get back up—frozen, fists clenched so tight his knuckles went white, because this wasn’t a fight he could win for you.

your mom—who’s always been the strongest person you know—her voice breaking, her hands pressed to her mouth like if she let go, she’d shatter completely.

because they’ve seen you bruised, battered, bleeding before. but that? that was different.

that was dying.