#togetherstrong

Early on a Saturday morning, I was in a nail salon having my Disney themed nails touched up, and this tall black woman walks into the salon. She was wearing a beautiful dress that gently brushed the tops of her knees as she walked. The woman asked for a polish change and a pedicure, nothing special. The salon was nearly empty and she was soon seated in a pedicure chair. Immediately after she sits down the near silent salon erupts with chatter in a language I do not understand. The woman in the pedicure chair was rushed a towel to hold in her lap. After I looked from employee to employee trying to figure out what was going on, the woman who was doing my nails and speaks very good English leaned into the table and whispered to me "that is a man in a dress" and then continued to chatter in the language I do not understand. I presume that the pedicurist could see up the dress of the woman in the chair and noticed her bulge. I assume that the woman in the chair is trans. I would have had no idea had my manicurist not told me. I say all this because even though I know she will probably never see this I have some things to say to this trans woman. 

1. Your dress is really pretty, where did you get it and does it come in XL?

2. I am sorry that the employees in the nail salon gossiped about you. 

3. I am sorry that I didn't stand up for you. 

4. I want to grow up to be as confident as you are. 

Us Against Everything — Always

he remembers the way the icy cold seats had sent ice straight through his hollow, guilt-unhallowed veins. it was freezing in that cramped, disgusting place, all of the hope & life sucked out of its muted pale walls. ethan had felt like that after the school fight. he felt… well, like a zombie, in shock, desperately trying to keep a traumatized sam safe, to comfort her, pushing away his own feelings about everything in the process. he couldn’t afford to be angry, he had to keep his friends safe from cobra kai. miguel had kissed ethan at moon’s party, confessing his feelings for him in a drunk haze, & ethan didn’t know that miguel was in love with him. then sam & miguel had kissed too, apparently, but only after ethan let miguel down as gently as humanly possible. ethan’d gone back inside & tried to calm down before he did something really fucking drastic. but, tory had seen both incidents—

& then… well. everyone knows how that story ended.

but ethan had been warmed by the embers of anger—amassing into a wildfire once he realized robby could get hurt again. he felt insanely guilty for not being able to protect the one (out of two) people he’d swore to himself to protect, to matter what. he couldn’t stop miguel’s accident, he couldn’t stop sam being traumatized, he couldn’t stop his brother, preston, & own karate rival—nolan—from ganging up on him during the school fight. he failed, he failed, he failed. he’s omnipotent, the third strongest being in any & every universe, & yet he couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop—

HE FELT LIKE HE FAILED HIS CRUSH BEST FRIEND. ethan couldn’t even fucking touch robby at any point during his visit(s), couldn’t grab his hand or anything like that—the sensors would have gone crazy, & he’d have been barked at to back off by the guards, if not pushed out of the building entirely by those that run the institution. nothing. the fact that he couldn’t touch robby had felt like slow torture, like every atom in both human vessel & eldritch form alike were scrubbed raw, nerve endings exposed & then dipped in acid.

after he’d left & got into his car, a single thought played on a loop his mind: ROBBY KEENE DIDN’T DESERVE THE HAND HE WAS DEALT. & he didn’t. that was the void’s god’s honest truth. it’s not his fault, for anything. he couldn’t help johnny’s neglect, the school fight, miguel going after him. & then… eventually, he couldn’t stop the fight that broke out between johnny & kreese, & then mr. larusso & kreese after, the scar, him fucking choosing cobra kai after almost everyone abandoned him ( ethan had been the only one in his corner CONSISTENTLY, & then… )—

❝ are you always speaking on behalf of your boyfriend? ❞ @togetherstrong spits at him, abruptly derailing his spiraling train of thought. maybe it’s for the better.

ethan nearly rolls his eyes at shawn’s question, but his eyes remain locked with the shorter boy’s. he’s not going to look away first. always look your enemy in the eye, son. if you look away, that might make them think you’re scared. he remembers wade’s instructions clearly, & like all of wade’s instructions, he always takes his dad’s words like its gospel.

ethan isn’t scared. not this time; not of shawn. there’s far more dangerous individuals than him, lurking in the shadows of the valley, or running a fucking flagship dojo in the heart of the valley, poisoning minds, turning them into weapons.

he’s ANGRY. that makes him dangerous.

he’s destroyed entire dimensions for less.

❝ speaking on behalf of him? rarely. defending him, though? even preemptively? i’ve been doing that since day fucking one. ❞ he responds icily, his fingers flexing to try & quell some of the annoyance rushing through his body. not that shawn could possibly know that. ❝ or when someone who hurt him in the past shows up out of the blue. ❞ he adds pointedly, venom coating his words. he ignores the silver voice, whispering to him that he should get his revenge. he won’t throw the first punch. not unless shawn does anything first.

❝ give me one good reason why i shouldn’t fucking walk away. ❞

❝ look, man- i just want answers. ❞ he responds.

you & me both. ethan thinks bitterly, his stance nor expression changing in the slightest. the most glaring one, the one that burns on the tip of his tongue.

he stays silent, allowing the anger in his blood to poison him, just a little more.

❝ i sent my brother to keene in hopes that he'd help him out. ❞ if one doesn’t look close enough, they’d miss the way ethan’s eyebrows very subtly furrow at shawn’s words. help him out? when did that conversation happen? he’s almost tempted to ask, but doesn’t. ❝ teach him a few of his tricks. show him how to defend himself. ❞

okay. one point at a time.

shawn wants to understand why something bad happened. get in line. ethan counters mentally.

❝ you’re not the only person who wants answers here. ❞ ethan snaps, frustration bleeding into his voice. he’s a little glad that none of his friends are around… or maybe that’s a bad thing. no one’s really around to calm him down. his anger is only growing. but he isn’t shouting. not yet, anyway.

it’s… weird, talking about this with someone who doesn’t know the ins & outs of the karate gang war. technically, shawn is an outsider in all of this. in ethan’s opinion, his only relation to the current state of violence is the fact that he’s kenny older brother. despite being an older brother himself, ethan feels no such urges to keep his siblings safe—because, except for damiana, seven out of eight of his siblings want to slaughter every version of him. he knows his twin sister can handle herself just fine, he doesn’t need to protect her from the full violence. especially because they’re on opposite sides of the war. that was her choice.

personally, ethan thinks that shawn has no direct, immediate part in the violence that has both suffocated & captured the attention the people in the valley as a whole. he’s not in cobra kai, he’s not in miyagi do, he’s not in eagle fang. he beat robby up in juvie, he’s an older brother to someone directly involved in the feuding.

but ethan can’t just forget nor forgive the facts, as is his curse: shawn hurt robby, kenny is currently a severely warped version of himself after going to cobra kai—if the attacks on anthony & hawk at the water park are anything to go by—as nearly all cobra kai students turn into: soldiers, monsters, no longer fully human. miguel, tory, scarlett, cosima ( before she defected to eagle fang ).

ROBBY.

the list is already too long, goes on, & it won’t ever stop. not unless mr. larusso, johnny, chozen, wade, vanessa & all of their students can put an end to silver’s rein of terror.

❝ and what do i hear when i finally get back home? that keene beat the shit out of him at some stupid ass karate tournament. ❞

it’s a grim reminder. ethan had been watching the livestream of the tournament from his hospital room, going nonverbal & catatonic because robby wasn’t at his side anymore & he didn’t have to fucking pretend—hooked up to an iv & bruises all over his body, his busted-up ribs, & a black eye from silver’s physical assault still fresh, still aching with every beat of his heart. he could still feel the katana silver stabbed him with going into his torso like it was still happening. the injury on his torso covered in medical grade stitches & wrapped up in gauze. it’s a scar now, a physical reminder he’d died clinically twice. if the silver voice, the paranoid anxiety disorder, & the nightmares weren’t enough of an indication that he’s traumatized.

he can still taste his own blood on robby’s lips as he was dying in the back room of the dojo, finally telling robby that that he loved him, he’s always loved him, because he wasn’t sure he’d ever get another chance to—

ETHAN CAN’T FORGET.

it’s a miracle the paramedics—hen & chimney—resuscitated him the first time in the back of the ambulance. never mind the doctors & nurses the second time on the operating room table at valley general hospital.

he remembers all-too-well the feeling of absolute horror at robby’s actions during the all valley, during the fight with kenny. it made ethan ill, so viscerally fucking sick to his stomach it made him wish he—

IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING… & then it wasn’t.

❝ what he did to kenny was overkill. all of that for what? a trophy? i just want to understand why. ❞

❝ i’m not going to refute that point. ❞ ethan responds, his tone honest & a little calmer. ❝ what he did wasn’t… warranted. i don’t know what possessed him to make him go to such lengths. ❞ he has a theory, but no exact confirmation. whatever kreese said to robby while he was on the brink of losing to kenny… well, it made robby’s entire personality warp dangerously. that version of robby wasn’t the same robby that ethan was familiar with, felt safe around.

ethan shifts his weight slightly, tilting his head to the side a little bit. ❝ no offense, man. i don’t think you know what robby’d had been through at that point in time to make him… go dark side like that. or the people who made him turn in that. ❞ silver & kreese, obviously.

but he has a slightly more pressing concern: shawn showing up again, & talking about robby like he’s nothing but a punk, & figuring out the why of shawn attacking him.