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Who: Daniel and Pyrrha.
What: Two responsible adults having a Talk about the problematic John(ny)s and adoptable children in their lives.
When: Early september.
Where: Over in an establishment with drinks!

Content Warnings: Consumption of alcohol, likely talk of child abandonment/neglect, talk of the stuff John and Johnny do on the regular, more specifics tba.

It seems that September has decided to bring along its own complications.

And it's not even anything in particular that's going in town - quite yet, anyway. Nor is it even this month's effect on Daniel's blood. No, it's Johnny being Johnny, though that is nothing new, and then the sea deciding to throw Robby into their laps as well this month. And while it's a relief to see the kid again, it also brings along a whole slew of complications of its own, especially while Robby doesn't seem to want to talk about the past for now.

It leads Daniel to at least want some company he doesn't have to think so much around, if not just for a while. Just someone he likes enough to sit around and have some drinks with, and on top of that know he can have a good conversation with. And at this point that person is definitely Pyrrha. Sure, the other has her quirks, but she's been great to have conversations with so far. It feels kind of rare to have the feeling that you're talking to another (relatively) responsible adult in this place, anyway, so Daniel is glad to be able to treasure that where he can.

It's why he's already sitting in the bar he invited her over to, just to hang out and talk. The moment he sees her, he'll raise his hand to show her where he's sitting, and smiles when she approaches.

"Glad you could make it." It's kind of a fun role reversal compared to the way she invited him (and Ozpin) last time around, Daniel only now realises as he looks at her. "Come on, sit down. I waited for you before ordering."

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It has been so long since Pyrrha has had anything resembling a simple, adult friendship if she's had one at all (perhaps in memories she's lost). In the web of responsibilities, she still takes time for herself and, as part of that, for Daniel. Some feeling flavors the invitation. She saw, but did not comment, on a certain network post that seemed keen to imply no one offer at least one teenager a mature parenting relationship. Given how many more—

It's easy to see that post as a part of this.

Daniel gets a small headnot, and Pyrrha walks through the other people easily. Part of her wants to order a hot toddy or another heated beverage, given the weather. They've met in public, however, not anyone's home, so she opts not to acknowledge the discomfort in her bones and the way they reflect the weather. She doesn't show it while working, she doesn't have to show it here. John knows, but John always knows.

"Glad to get your message," Pyrrha acknowledges. She sits, ready for the double shot of whiskey on the rocks. It takes a lot to affect a lyctor. None of her smoking harms her lungs; until she goes through multiple bottles of whiskey, her liver doesn't much blink.

As they order drinks, Daniel can't help but let the corners of his mouth curve upward in a way that's just a bit bigger than the tiny smile from a moment ago. More genuine, perhaps.

Sure, it's hard to feel fully happy in the face of the post he just witnessed, but there's something in another expressing some glad sentiment when it comes to seeing you that's hard to beat. Especially when making adult friends has been a rough task so far for Daniel in this place - and thinking about it, even back home, where basically all of his recent relationships ended up all wrapped up in karate.

It's nice, having something more simple. Just sitting here, having drinks. Having a listening ear when you need it.

(Because he knows that he'd be right there for Pyrrha too if she had something to talk about. Hell, even just if she had something to bring up here as well.)

"I guess you kind of got the intention behind my message already," he admits as they wait for the drinks.

A statement he's mostly basing on the fact that Johnny is the least subtle person in the world ever, the fact that there was a 'fuck LaRusso' in the middle of that post, and just the sheer fact that Pyrrha has seemed like a sharp person so far.

"I felt like just hanging around with a friend and talking after seeing that." He pauses, and then adds: "You know.. Since the alternative is sitting around by myself and thinking about it."

Not quite as helpful. Even Daniel "king of needing therapy and yet not going for it ever" LaRusso understands that.

Pyrrha looks over at Daniel, slightly amused. It'd take a blind spot the size of Johnny's ego to miss that. Yes Daniel and Johnny are the kind of friends to say "fuck that guy," but they're also friends who say, "fuck that guy" in public. It would be a rare thing for that not to cause feelings, concerns, problems. They're both human.

"We all have our guys," Pyrrha says, a nod to one of her own friends, to someone with his own temper problem and two thirds of the same name.

This is clearly a table conversation, not bar stools near other patrons and bartenders. The details anyway. They'll get there. She asks, "What do you expect would happen if you sat around by yourself thinking about it?" Humorous but tinged with serious curiosity.

Edited 2022-09-13 07:25 (UTC)

When Pyrrha asks that question, Daniel opens his mouth, as if to answer.

The man lingers like that for a moment, but then said mouth just shuts itself again, without him having said a word. Something about the look in his eyes and the way he glances away from her for a moment make it pretty clear that Daniel just had the realisation that what he was about to say might have been a little too embarrassing.

(Because the truth is pretty embarrassing, and not in a fun embarrassing way. More in a sad, eternally repressing things he shouldn't be repressing sort of way.)

Which is why when he does answer, and the answer is more light and joking, it's a way to cover up that embarrassingly sad reality. "I don't know.. Drunk texted Johnny? That would have been a disaster."

No matter the exact nature of said drunk texting.

"Have you never done anything dumb towards someone you were frustrated with?" .. honestly, it's the sort of question where he could expect the answer to go either way. If Pyrrha did, it's because it's a very human thing to do. But on the other hand, if Daniel would make a list of the people he knows who are the least likely to do something dumb, Pyrrha would be pretty high up.

As long as we're not counting reckless sea diving trips, anyway.

"Especially when there's also a lot of other stuff going on at the same time?"

Edited 2022-09-14 06:24 (UTC)

The ease with which Daniel nearly tells her the answer lets Pyrrha know the issue isn't one with her. It's by, about, and with Daniel himself. Life is short. There's no need to be embarrassed, but John has a purely impressively human ability to be embarrassing to those around him. It likely helped during his time as Teacher.

She lifts one eyebrow at the blithe answer Daniel provides. Trench is more connected for that than the last places she's been. If she got drunk after work on the refugee planet, Camilla, Palamedes, and Nona had to wait until she got home to say anything, if she did at all. Here, it's far easier, everyone simply a relic message away. Even if it's misplaced or typing is too difficult a task, Sleepers have omens to connect for them.

When their drinks come, Pyrrha picks them up and moves them back to a table mostly out of the way but enough in the hub and bub to have the noise as cover.

For most of her existence, she's waited. Nothing more. Just waited. No matter how dumb, no matter how frustrating, no matter how important the events. Even beyond shooting, swordfighting, construction, cooking, farming, any number of skills, waiting is her top skill. No matter the provocation. No matter anything. She can wait. With rounding error, the answer is no.

Around those edges is the time she's spent living, something more like living even when it feels like a shadow. The time before lyctorhood doesn't need to be excavated here. Trench it is. Pyrrha shrugs, "You'd probably call it dumb. I'd call it warning shots."

A sip of whiskey before she says more. Waiting is a part of life.

"I shot John in the face," she says. Six words, easily appropriate for Duty, but Duty and Gideon have it right sometimes, and she too like them often goes with only a few words. They do more than a whole paragraph of them, spelling everything out about the lies, the slushie, the refusal to listen, the rest of it.

Honestly, waiting a moment for a friend is never the problem. Daniel will gladly give her a moment to think, and a moment to talk.

.. but what Pyrrha ends up saying is completely different. It's a good thing that they did move over to a table that's a little bit more out of the way, because otherwise the entire place would have been treated to the sight of Daniel lifting up his glass to take a first sip, only to look like he's actively choking on it.

It's only by the mercy of some higher power that he doesn't actively spit it out. But the look on his face is comical all the same until he does manage to send the liquid down the right pipe a moment later.

"Shot?" .. Pause. "In the face?!"

It's like Daniel's brain needs a moment here to decide which of those two parts is more outrageous..

Not that he blames Pyrrha necessarily, given who she's talking about and what he's heard about that person, but to say that so casually while drinking together? It catches him off guard entirely, looking stunned.

"Back home? Or here?"

Is this a recent thing, or is Pyrrha just recalling an old memory? Daniel has no clue, given the fact that it's not like that guy has exactly been sitting still in this place either recently..

His face is delightful, and Pyrrha laughs deep and low and a little raspy. Daniel's face gets committed to memory, and that moment that serious and comical both moment continues to pay off.

Most people cannot survive a shot to each eye. It's not a move she'd pull, say, on Daniel even if he were being an absolute asshat. Bullet wounds hurt but are temporary inconveniences to John, as one might expect from someone who calls themself God.

"Here," Pyrrha answers, amused, "He wasn't listening to me." Honestly, John still didn't listen, not everything she said. Not fully, not fully to any of it. She's sure he still considers her his, and in many ways that's wrong. She's not a person to collect or to own. However, they're working on that. He's getting better, and their bond is part of that. Yes, Pyrrha is John's—in the same way John is hers. Equals. Some kind of partner. It's a mess they're still working through, but they are working through it.

"He was fine less than a minute later," she adds, "you don't need to worry I'm going to shoot you in the face before you go full beast." She has no idea what Daniel would look like as a beast. There's so much variation. Preferably, no one will ever know. Not that she builds her world off wishes.

"Before that if you get fairly corrupted, I'll probably aim for your chest with a bullet made of my blood," Pyrrha says. Coldblood bullet, meant to kickstart the process from a safe distance. One of her guns has regular bullets, the other those made of her blood. She doesn't mix them up.

She takes a sip of whiskey still looking at his shocked face. "Dumb, not dumb? What's your judgment?"

Daniel's jaw drops, his mouth opening.

A moment later it closes without a word being said, like his brain still needs an additional moment to process all of this. Really, Daniel considers Pyrrha one of his more reasonable friends, but there's a very low bar there when you look at what the adults surrounding Daniel generally are like.

Case in point. He manages to finally find his words enough to frown like he just swallowed an entire lemon in one go, saying: ".. you know, we can save the talk of murdering me for another time."

Please. He's begging you, Pyrrha. He would prefer to not think of these things when there's already so much on his mind!

At least the idea of John getting shot is.. a little less strange? In the sense that everything in this place is so freaking weird that it puts everything on the same ridiculous level. Daniel did see the guy pull a bone straight out of his arm and be fine, so it makes sense that being shot in the face wouldn't do much for him. (Glad to know though that Pyrrha is aware it's not exactly a solution to most problems with other people. Please don't shoot random people in the face!)

"I don't know though, that feels a little.. extreme?" Daniel has people he hates to hell and back, but he hasn't considered shooting them in the face. (Mostly. Mostly.) Especially when it's just to make them listen. "I kind of get it, considering the person we're talking about.."

He may not have experienced boatgate himself, but he's heard enough about it.

"But it's not exactly a solution in my case."

Daniel LaRusso: at least a good enough person that he won't shoot Johnny Lawrence in the face, no matter how much the guy annoys him.

Edited 2022-09-18 06:58 (UTC)

Life in Trench is peculiar compared to where Pyrrha's from. It surely is compared to where Daniel's from. Death is only temporary. While that doesn't make it nothing to kill someone, they will be back, and people have to coexist. While corruption and beasthood can make anyone a threat, Daniel isn't like—some people in Pyrrha's life. If it has to get handled, he's easier handled. However, that also means the prospect hasn't crossed his mind the same way. That's fine. Pyrrha's a hunter. It's her job to be ready to handle it.

She laughs, lightly. "I never meant it as a solution to your problem, whatever the situation is," Pyrrha smiles, "A solution has to match the person and the problem. My guy let someone torture him all day because they were upset about— everything." A reference to boatgate, something she thinks neither she nor Daniel were here for.

Pyrrha sighs. As frustrating as they both are, John and Johnny operate on different levels for a lot.

"Tell me about your case," Pyrrha says, curious. Daniel called her here. Something's on her mind. That it doesn't involve god-emperors and sith lords is possibly refreshing. Normal in a good way. She's here for him. It isn't the John Show or the Pyrrha Show. It's friendship.

Daniel does spend a brief moment of time thinking about whether it could really be worse to deal with some sort of maniac - the way John seems to be - over Johnny's antics.

.. at least Johnny is relatively harmless in comparison, but.. it comes close, really. Dealing with Johnny as much as Daniel does just gets that tiring.

He doesn't remark anything about it out loud though, instead grabbing his drink and having some before he starts to talk. Daniel has never been good at fully getting stuff off his chest, and while he's complained plenty about Johnny to other people before - that's the easy part - there's certainly a factor here that complicates things which he doesn't discuss as often with others. But he should at least try. Maybe Pyrrha can understand.

"Johnny is.. his own entire thing. But it's nothing new, I guess. I've dealt with him being this way ever since I first showed up here." When he realised Johnny's character development had been set back by nine or so months, which is a lot by Johnny Lawrence standards. It's made things certainly more tiring, and it shows on Daniel's face as he speaks. "But things have gotten more complicated now."

And that's the part he has to force himself to talk about. He stares at his drink like he's building up the courage, but then slowly starts.

"Johnny's kid showed up the other day. Robby. I--" Daniel seems to run out of words already. It's hard when you're a dumb man who doesn't know how to communicate. Let him try that one again. "I say he's Johnny's kid, but Johnny hasn't.. exactly been in his life much. It seems like he's trying to do a little bit better now, but.. you know."

Daniel shrugs. Johnny and Robby are the ones who go over what exists between them, not him. That's not his problem here - not necessarily, anyway.

"But I also know him. He started working at my car dealership one day back home, and without realising he was Johnny's son, he and I grew pretty close. I started teaching him karate, and when he had no other place left to go, I let him live in my house." Daniel frowns. "Things got.. complicated for a while, due to a myriad of reasons, but it seems like we might have a chance to patch things up between us again here. And I want to do that. Robby-- he's a good kid, but he tends to push away all help, even when he needs it. That's why I want to be there for him."

.. is he rambling? He kind of feels like he's rambling - but maybe it's just since he isn't used to talking about stuff so openly. It feels weird. Like he has a hard time getting to the point.

"But now Johnny's suddenly saying that I'm.. 'weaseling my way between him and Robby', or whatever. Making a big deal out of it, even though I've done more for that kid than he ever has. And it's not like I'm not going to approach Robby because of that, because he was-- is like family to me too." He sighs. "But knowing Johnny is causing such a fuss over it also doesn't feel great. Especially if Robby might notice Johnny throwing fits over it, and if it'll end up bothering him."

Despite her knowledge and experience with Johnny being limited, Pyrrha sees a problem immediately. If there's one thing, in her corner of Trench, that Johnny is known for, it's for 'stealing' John's kids and becoming their new father figure. A whole group of kids have hung their parental hopes on Johnny's shoulders, and he's welcomed it with open arms. They live in his dojo and call him sensei. It's part and parcel with John's deadbeat dad reputation. Pyrrha and Daniel discussed it the first time they met.

Into that walks Johnny's own kid. Robby is witness to all these other people looking up to his dad and his dad looking after them. That would be enough of a minefield on its own.

Pyrrha sips her whiskey, taking her time with it. Even if she needs to drink far more than that to get tipsy or drunk apace with Daniel, she's not here for that.

Parents being protective of kids makes sense. Sometimes bad influences can work at making inroads, and even if your kid hates you for it, it's your job to do what's right for them. Parents being possessive of kids doesn't make sense. They're people, not possessions, and successfully controlling and isolating them is bad parenting, not good. They'll connect with who they'll connect with. It isn't always who or what you'd want for them, but that doesn't make it bad or bad enough to interfere. Everyone has to make some mistakes of their own.

She sighs. "That's a powder keg getting kicked around a parking lot," Pyrrha comments. Eventually, it will explode. "What's your record with getting Johnny to listen to you?"

The moment Pyrrha arrives at that assessment, Daniel is already nodding. It is. It sure is exactly like that. And if the outcome were something a little less explosive, or something that would mean less to Daniel, he might have been able to let it slide. But he's way too invested in Robby's happiness to allow himself to just stand back and watch things explode.

(Maybe it's not what he really wants for Johnny either, even though he at least would have done that to himself like an idiot.)

"Not great," Daniel admits when he answers the question, the look on his face saying enough to fill entire books. "We did reach some sort of agreement back home on some things, but.. it was hard to get there."

Deep down Daniel might be willing to admit that it was partially due to him too.

But still mostly due to Johnny, he thinks, in his totally and clearly unbiased view.

"But Johnny got dragged to this place from almost a year before our last interaction I remember. The disconnect in time only makes things harder, and they weren't easy in the first place. Even when I try to give him advice, he thinks I'm just some prick who's out to ruin his life."

Time gaps, real and perceived, are a familiar problem. Pyrrha blows out some air. Honestly, she doesn't know their history. Trench is a clean slate for people most of the time. People you know and baggage you bring with you are the only weight. The second often ties itself to the first.

"He's not the Johnny you last knew back home, he's not the Johnny of a year before that," Pyrrha says, "he's that second Johnny with everything he's gone through here. You can't kick him in the face and get the Johnny you prefer back." As tempting a thought as that might be, their lives would be more chaotic if people changed every time they got hit in the face.

"You have to reach some sort of agreement here, and it's going to be hard to get there," Pyrrha says, "It's not going to be the same agreement or the same route. By the time you get there, you won't be the same Daniel. You can reflect on what happened back home and use that to make it a little easier, hopefully.

"You work on you because you're what you can control."

She takes a sip of whiskey. In some ways, she wishes they had this conversation a couple months ago, so Daniel had more headway on that before Robby came into it. Kids make it so much harder.

"Any chance you teach Robby karate?" she asks. The best way is to speak Johnny's language. Their dojo culture isn't something she's exactly familiar with, but she's seen what he's like with the kids.

There's so much Daniel could say when it comes to the Johnny thing. That he feels like he's been trying so hard on his end to reach an agreement, to be kinder than Johnny than he usually would have been under the current circumstances, or in the face of the other's treatment of him. That it makes it extra frustrating that he's getting nothing back from the other man's side when Daniel is trying so hard. That he's stuck in place he doesn't understand, and one of the few familiar things in it, someone he thought he managed to work together with and rely on back home, turned into something he can't rely on at all.

It feels whiny though, saying any of that. And it sure doesn't help that Daniel isn't too great at entrusting his feelings to other people in the same thing. So he doesn't say anything, but perhaps the man's expression says enough by itself. His eyebrows drawn together into a troubled frown, staring at his drink rather than directly at Pyrrha.

(It doesn't help that she says something that sounds so much like something mister Miyagi would have told him, but controlling himself here doesn't feel like it'll be enough. It's never felt like Daniel would ever be enough.)

"Yeah," he instead says, opting to answer the relatively more safe part of this conversation, carefully tucking away his other feelings in that way he always does, letting them fester within him. "He was my first student back home, if you don't count my daughter."

Look, she had an unfair advantage with having such a karate-obsessed nerd dad. There's no way Sam was ever not going to learn karate from him.

"That's how Robby and I got close in the first place."

The quiet evasion presses on the exhaustion of ten thousand years of watching people suffer in silence when that only made things worse. At her most cynical, Pryrrha would. Even last month, given the effects of the artifact keeping her blood magic under control, she might have. Somehow, she's gathered enough fucks to let it be. Give it some time. Circle back.

"He'd take it poorly if someone tried to get between him and one of his students," Pyrrha says, confident in that, "End of the day, the student chooses the teacher. Everything else falls apart. That's the first thing you two need to agree on.

"Robby will only resent Johnny more the more he fights it. He doesn't undermine you as Robby's teacher. You don't undermine him as Robby's dad. Should the day come Robby wants his dad to teach him, you suck it up, pat him on the back, and support it because that's what a good teacher does."

She takes a sip of whiskey before the next part, but it's what a good parent does. No matter what Gideon thinks of her or considers her, Pyrrha will do her best by that kid. "If you doubt you two can get there on your own, I'm willing to help out," Pyrrha says, and her smile is wistful, somewhat sad. "He's training my kid after all."

That part, at least, is something Daniel doesn't have to say anything about. It's because he already knows it. He can't imagine Johnny and Robby suddenly growing close again, not that quickly, but.. they might in the long run. It'd be better for both of them. Daniel can acknowledge as much, even though it does hurt him to think about the possibility of Robby turning his back on Daniel in favour of someone else. Like staring at the kid as he stands by Kreese's side all over again.

But Daniel would do it. Even though it's hard for him to do sometimes, in the end - he just wants to do what's best for the kids. At all times. Even when it hurts him.

He exhales, and then sips his drink as well.

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea." Daniel shakes his head, before quickly adding: "I mean, that has nothing to do with your qualities."

Pyrrha is fine. She's reasonable. She's smart. Daniel doesn't feel like she would do anything to make the situation worse, it's just--

"Johnny seems to take just about everything badly. He might even get mad over someone 'intervening' in some way." That's been the problem, right? It feels impossible to bridge this dumb gap with Johnny, no matter what he does. He tried treating the other so well, and that didn't help. He finally got mad at him this time around, and obviously that didn't make things better either. "It's starting to feel like there's no fixing it."

He doesn't ignore Pyrrha's remark about her kid, mind you. Daniel's mind is actually going over all the kids he's seen in Johnny's care, while Daniel spent a few weeks making them breakfast and dinners as he was initially helping Johnny take care of them. But since his mind is a little more occupied with the Johnny-shaped problem at this moment, he doesn't voice any guess out loud yet.

Especially since there's something that radiates about Daniel in this moment, even if he doesn't say it. Something in his words, in his tone, in his posture as he sits here. He wants to fix things with Johnny, but doesn't know how. It's not like he can somehow get the other to remember the same stuff Daniel himself does, after all.

Pyrrha holds one hand up. She gets it. There's no avoiding someone being the bad guy. The bad guy needs to be someone else—not Daniel, not Pyrrha, not anyone Johnny needs to reach some sort of civil relationship with. Someone who can take it. Someone Johnny can rage and throw himself at until he wears himself out. Someone who won't give a damn about Johnny.

"Sure, you two could always fight it out on the mats or the streets or even in the Gate," Pyrrha says, "but that won't solve your issue. You guys aren't a cathartic fight away from a good relationship. You guys are a bad fight away from a string of bad fights that continues this cycle of misunderstanding and bad blood."

She leans back, still calm and easy about all this. Other people's problems are enjoyable sometimes. People as complex as any theorem and as simple as a necromancer's first spell. "You need to get stuck in something together, something where neither of you is the bad guy," Pyrrha says. "Lets see...

"Not stepping backwards. That's endless bland corridors, which will frustrate him, and a monster you cannot fight. You fight, you die. That'll just get you guys killed.

"Memory books. People near you get sucked in. The right book, if you can get your hands on it, could work. They're always dangerous.

"The Great Hunt. If you'd both be into hunting the Bugge, it's a difficult fight and the bloodier the better for the crops.

"River of regret. If you can both touch raven feathers at the same time, you may very well have to face the demons of your past together.

"I've heard rumors about some other version of Trench, but I haven't been, and I don't know how you'd get back."

Pyrrha takes a sip of whiskey, mulling it over. "Choice depends on your priorities. The river has the biggest payoff. You each have to face something you regret and talk about it. The horror amps up until that convinces almost anyone it's the best option. However, it's the hardest to arrange, and you'd have to decide whether to come clean about doing so.

"The hunt and the books are easier on the trust, but it's harder to get the payoff you want."

She shrugs. The choice is his. Pyrrha can keep his secret.

Daniel is quiet while the other talks. He just sits there, staring at Pyrrha, almost.. kind of flabberghasted over here. After all, the ease with which the other is rattling off apparently everything that seems to be happening in town this month sure is something. Daniel has heard about some of this stuff, but certainly not the entire list.

Then again, it suits Pyrrha, being so on top of all of this. She's just that type of person.

And it's exactly why it's so hard to dismiss her advice either. Because Pyrrha is smart, and reasonable, and she does genuinely seem to be thinking about this for Daniel's own sake as well. After all, if it wasn't for the fact that she knew Daniel, Pyrrha wouldn't have a stake in this situation in the first place.

"I think it's saying a whole lot about how dire things are that you're seriously suggesting we dump ourselves headfirst into a dangerous or terrible scenario created by this place," Daniel dryly points out.

Mostly at his own expense, though.

"There's no way I'm going to convince Johnny Lawrence of all people to join me on any of those things though." And that's even aside from whether or not Daniel would like to go through any of it himself. Talking about past regrets isn't something he particularly likes doing either, let alone to someone with whom things are awkward in the first place.

But that's a secondary problem, since Daniel feels like the barrier he just named out loud is already basically too high to overcome to begin with. It shows in how his expression is almost pained as he's trying to imagine it. Too much of a pain in the butt to arrange.

"And it's not like I want to deceive him either. That'd just make everything infinitely worse."

Besides, Daniel is not a deceitful man in the first place.

.. unless a situation really calls for it. But this isn't quite on that level.

The choice for honesty makes things easier for Pyrrha, and its better in the long term for Daniel and Johnny themselves. A level of maturity for taking the harder path. He has to walk it, walk the walk and talk the talk and preferably not solve all his problems with karate. If that solved all his problems, they wouldn't be here.

"That's hardly unique to Johnny Lawrence," Pyrrha says. "I have thoughts on events happening around Trench, but that's another conversation." Another conversation where those events Pthumerians orchestrate are, generally, meant to teach a lesson, to encourage growth the patron Pthumerian finds important, and to force people to reflect, often with those they wouldn't normally confide in. That isn't all bad. Even Bloodsports started off as something... promising, though Pyrrha isn't a fan of it in its current iteration.

"I recommend you both, at least you, complete Never Mind's challenge—Knowledge is Power. It gets you a handy bracelet to clear corruption from four square feet of land for growing food. You and Johnny cannot complete it together, it's one that's with strangers. That's why I didn't mention it before, but each of you connecting with someone and opening up about something..." She shrugs. Indirect progress is still progress.

"For you and Johnny, you're back to good old fashioned communication and relationship development," Pyrrha smiles. "That's always what it comes back to. Talking, listening, breaking the habits and cycle that leads to problems. Tell me, what are you bad communication habits with Johnny." There's no question of whether or not Daniel has them, only what they are. Voicing them aloud is good for him.

It may be good for him, but it sure isn't easy for him.

Especially since Daniel just.. doesn't talk about things. It's like he's incapable of doing so. Every time he tries, it's like he just clams up, or like he keeps repeating the same lines over and over without actually explaining anything at all. It's like he never grew beyond that time when he was so young and so frustrated by getting bullied that he kept repeating over and over to his mother that he just wanted to move back to their original home, but couldn't explain to her why.

It's the same feeling that threatens to make Daniel clam up here. He can feel it on the inside, a feeling that sits uneasily inside of his chest. His fingers curl around his glass, holding on to his drink just to have something to desperately hold on to as he swallows hard.

Daniel probably looks way more troubled about trying to talk than he ought to, but.. he's trying. Pyrrha is a friend, and he's trying to not be dismissive here. He knows she means well, that she means to help.

It's just that accepting help is so hard. It's not even pride necessarily, it's just-- just something inside of him that's been messed up for a long time now.

"I.." Even now the words come out slowly. But it's already so much by Daniel standards that he tries to talk about this at all. "I let myself get agitated by him far too easily. Sometimes I should-- I should really think about what he's saying before I angrily reply, but it's.."

Daniel breathes out. Slowly.

".. hard. Hard to stop that-- impulse."

Doing something means doing it right. Pyrrha waits. Her drink sits before her, relaxed and ready. The sounds of the pub surround them, and Pyrrha filters through the broken web of conversation out of long habit. Nothing immediately alarming comes to her ears, and her eyes stay on Daniel, her friend, as he struggles with a clearly long term long time coming problem. Something with old grooves to follow that aren't productive. Turning a new leaf can sound simple, but it isn't. She sees that time and again.

Pyrrha nods when Daniel speaks. That's a common problem, especially as habit. "Recognizing that with me is an important first step," she says. First, implied to be followed by others. "It's harder to recognize in the moment. It always is."

Her smile is genuine and pleased. "When people are injured or hurt or shocked, they lash out," Pyrrha says, "you've probably seen it a thousand times in karate. Words are like that. You two know how to hurt each other, and when Johnny hurts, he'll lash out whether with words or fists. The key is to recognize that's what he's doing, like you said, to stop that impulse before you reply.

"If you think about his words as wild punches, telegraphed far and wide, maybe it can help. Look behind the words, behind the attacks, at the pain they come from. Even when lashing out, he's telling you he needs something and cluing you in. When you see a punch or kick from an injured person, you can tell where they're hurt. Practice the same with his words.

"Instead of hitting him where he's injured, you can help him. Helping him also helps you. It's hard to forget who hurts you when you're in pain, even if you attack them first."

God, Pyrrha is so on point with some of the stuff she's saying here that it almost makes Daniel feel a little pathetic that he has to hear it from someone else. It's not like he doesn't know, after all. When he thinks about it logically, when he analyses every single interaction with Johnny after he's had it, pieces always fall into place. It's just Daniel's impulsivity in the moment that ruins it, his hairpin trigger always going off.

".. Yeah, I know why Johnny does the things he does."

He picks up his glass, taking a firm sip this time around.

He needs it for this kind of talk, honestly. Daniel doesn't do therapy, even though it might be better if he did.

"I know.. what's made him the way he is." It's always hard to not think back on that moment after the tournament, standing there in the parking lot, watching Johnny getting choked out by the man who was supposed to take care of him.

Part of me actually felt bad for you at one point, but you make it so easy to remember who the bad guy is in all of this.

"But it's so hard to cut him that slack when he never seems to do the same for me." Maybe a bit of a petty thing to say, though Daniel really sounds more pained than angry as he says it. Purely objectively speaking, Johnny was the one who first hurt him, all those years ago. And while Daniel has surely done stuff back to the other by now, it's still hard to be the better person when you were the initial victim.

When Daniel, too, has his own past demons haunting him.

(He's trying to not feel pathetic as he says it. Trying to remind himself he's speaking to a friend, to someone he trusts. He trusts Pyrrha, even if talking about this stuff is hard. He just has to remind himself of that.)

"I'm.. trying, though." Which doesn't mean he's perfect. It's Daniel, after all. He knows his attempts are never perfect when it comes to anything. But considering he's speaking to a friend, he does want to put this on the table, maybe wanting a bit of reassurance. That young part of Daniel still left within him, desperate for acknowledgement, for someone to tell him it's okay when the man who always told him that is gone now, leaving behind a hollow void within him.

He breathes in, and then exhales, trying his best to keep his voice even, though he can't fully stop the hurt from sneaking in. "I really am."

Though not terrible tactile a person, Duty thinks that anyone who relies on karate for much of their identity and well being likely is, even if they are only used to that in the form of karate. He reaches out, gently, squeezes Daniel's shoulder once and lets his hand rest there a warm weight for a few moments. Nothing much but human contact.

"It's hard," Pyrrha says softly, "to do the right thing, to be the mature party, to live according to the code you believe in when most if not all people don't follow it and don't have an interest in following it.

"You'll fuck up because you're a person. That's not an excuse to fuck up more or a reason to throw in the towel. It's just what is. You want a better relationship with Johnny, so you're working at it.

"The end of the day, Daniel, we all have to live with ourselves. You by your code. Johnny by Cobra Kai or Eagle Fang—the fact he can handle changing the name's a good sign he's open to growth, along his own terms. Me by mine. We might not all agree on the right thing to do every time, but we can respect and hope we're all on the best trajectories we can manage."

She knows what it's like to go thousands of years without support or encouragement. It might be possible, but it's harder. Pyrrha doesn't want that for him. So she lets that be a moment before another serving of advice and call for introspection and action because he is trying.

"You've been through any number of these hotheaded interactions," Pyrrha says, "I'm not your sensei, I'm your friend, so you don't have to do this: I recommend reflecting on them. We can get granular if you need to; I trained spies after all. The point is to figure out what you wish you had done to handle it better each and every time. Write it down. Have flashcards. Review them. God, we know we'll face situations we can't predict, so every time it happens here, make another one. Even if it's too late for that moment, that practice will make it easier next time. You train your head when it's easy so it's easier when it's hard. You're not inventing a new kick, you're executing it for the thousandth time."

Pyrrha looks at him and smiles. "You know it's not easy for me either, right? Being this awesome?"

When she smiles like that at the end, Daniel stares at her for a moment - but then he starts to smile too. It's a small smile, but it's not fake in any way, and there's even a breath that sounds not too far off from a laugh as he momentarily bends his head before looking back at her.

"Alright, alright, let's not get too far carried away now."

He does think she's pretty awesome, honestly, despite the joke. Like the way she's willing to just hear him out on this, even though Daniel is so bad at talking about anything and it makes his wording feel so clumsily the entire time. Like the way there's a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Daniel doesn't move away from it in the slightest, gladly accepting the reassurance in this moment. He's always someone who's thrived under praise and reassurance of any kind, after all.

"Besides, Johnny already calls me a nerd often enough without me pulling out a bunch of flashcards." But something about the idea behind it isn't so bad, even if it's just the very idea of.. slowing down, trying to breathe before he reacts, no matter how much people like Johnny specifically make him want to lash out instinctively.

There's a brief pause, and then Daniel starts talking again. Slower this time, and his gaze momentarily drifts away from Pyrrha, considering this is a little harder to say again.

".. Thank you, though. Just.." His voice trails off, and he uses a free hand to gesture at the table they're sitting at. ".. for all of this. I'm not really used to it."

After all, it's not like Daniel really had many friends back home. Kids to watch over? Sure, plenty. And then there's his wife, and his mother, and even mister Miyagi before he died, but.. that's all different. It's love, it's family.

Just plain pure friendship is something he hasn't had often, and he finds himself immensely grateful for it in this foreign place.

"But it's nice. Just being able to sit down together like this and talk about this stuff.. It really does make me feel better." Daniel smiles and this time does properly look at her. Sure, it won't make everything go away, but it's a momentary relief. It's still something that helps, even in the long run. "You know you can always talk to me too when there's something going on with John, right? Which I imagine is.. always."

Look.

If there's anything Daniel took away from his brief introduction to the shenanigans of the people from Pyrrha's world, it's that fact.

"Or with anyone else. I want you to feel like I help you out just as much as you help me."

Pulling out the flashcards in the middle of an interaction isn't her idea. Pyrrha can see how that'd go—derailing everything in another unproductive direction. Entertaining but not the point. "Would love to see him call me a nerd," she jokes. Besides, where she's from, nerds rule.

She sighs and sips more of her whiskey. "We all need friends," Pyrrha agrees, "Often, early twenty-somethings are oversized teenagers." Despite societies having to choose something, there's no age anyone's guaranteed to be mature by. No one entirely even agrees what that maturity looks like. In Trench it's something else than the Sixth House, say.

"August was a hard month for him," Pyrrha says, "He didn't really do much—pulled up a wall of bone to keep the floodwaters at bay and sat at home." She's the one who climbed over it day in and day out. Another normal facet of life.

"I asked him for some bone ballistae for the Outpost, and he delivered. In true John fashion, it came with bringing him along for delivery." She huffs a laugh. "Something our John's have in common, I suspect, the ability to turn almost anything into a dick measuring contest." That time, with D.

"We're friends, Daniel," Pyrrha says, "I won't forget that. I know who I can call to responsibly take risky choices with." She smiles, remembering that beach dive and how shocked he'd been... and how quickly that had turned into doing the same himself.

What a thing to remember. Daniel isn't too sure how to feel about that specific interaction sticking out in Pyrrha's mind, though he at least seems a little amused about it himself as he takes a sip of his drink.

"That's me, alright. Daniel "responsible risky choices" LaRusso." Hey, it's not like he was lying back there. He likes to at least try to be responsible in everything he does.

.. even when it's taking risky choices.

Still, it's not the thing his mind lingers on as he turns over everything Pyrrha is saying. August was a hard month for him, she says about John, and.. well, yeah, that's kind of what happens when you cause general chaos, Daniel thinks.

He's at least too tactful to say that out loud, knowing how close Pyrrha and John seem to be in their.. unique way.

"I feel like you've got it harder than me though." Even without knowing how their interactions go specifically. Honestly, he figures that Pyrrha and John probably interact better than him and Johnny, but-- "I mean, Johnny is.."

His voice trails off, and Daniel replaces any explanation here with a gesture of his hand. As if that makes it clear.

It's Johnny Lawrence.

"But at least he's matured to a point where he won't nearly beat people up to death while bullying them." Unlike the good old fun times at the Halloween party when they were kids.. "He isn't out there getting people killed."

That's what keeps Daniel's faith in Johnny, after all. The entire reason he still bothers with the other, even when Johnny annoys him to hell and back. Despite everything, Daniel does have an inherent belief in the goodness at Johnny's core.

Pyrrha listens. John has earned the verbal browbeating everyone gives him, and she trusts Daniel to do more than through John in her face—her friendship, her loyalty, their bond. Everyone, including John, may prefer he weren't here. Tough luck.They have a community where they don't get to pick the members, only what to do together. So that's the thing. If everyone kicks, screams, shoots, punches, and stabs him back into the Most Hated Man in Trench box, he's not going to get far outside it.

"It helps Johnny hasn't spent ten thousand years as the most powerful being in the universe," Pyrrha says, "That was the equivalent to getting beaten up in the parking lot behind a diner, Trench style. Stupid as fuck and avoidable, but what's done is done. Let it be a lesson."

It's going to be one of those sore spots that never goes away. She's witnessed those for ten thousand years, the same old arguments. So be it, if they can coalesce more or less around the tolerable kind instead of the fucking up the universe kind. "He was killed three times in July, tortured multiple days, and demonstrated remarkable self-control for a fuckton more vengeance attempts," Pyrrha says, "Fuck, most of the torture wasn't even for anything he did himself."

She waves one hand. It's not water under the bridge, but that's backward not forward. "He's helping the Outposts defenses. He's still offering healing, normal and soul fuckery flavors," Pyrrha says, "and he's generally letting the kids be. If there's anything else you'd like him to be doing for the community while he works on himself, let me know."

"He's a bit banged up, I'll admit," she says, "but he's my friend, my person, and my partner. We're working through our shit. I feel good about it." As much as his hand print on her shoulder, visible in moonlight, the scar over her heart makes her smile.

After hearing her out, Daniel slowly pulls his shoulders up into a shrug.

"I don't have a real horse in this race." He's willing to admit as much. It's why he could bring up what he just did in the way that he did it - relatively calm. Daniel is a guy who gets worked up much more easily than he'd like to admit to, whether that's to anyone else or to himself. But he's hardly experienced any of the hurt John has been throwing around himself. His only take in all of this is that he saw that hurt reflected in the eyes of way too many kids. (It weighs on him, even now, knowing that he was able to do so little for them since he had been a complete stranger, a man who had only been thrown into this strange place for days when it all had gone down, Johnny dragging him into helping out.)

But it also means he sure doesn't have any suggestions for things for John to do. As long as he's mostly leaving the kids alone, then Daniel doesn't really have anything to complain about.

If anything, the only reason he brought it up was so show the line here, the parallel in their experiences, dealing with men who are particularly apt at causing chaos everywhere they go. And willingly involving yourself with such a person is not a stone Daniel can throw, given.. Johnny.

"So if you feel good about it.. Then I'm just glad for you, Pyrrha." Daniel even gives her a slight smile as he says it, showing that he means it. He's got much more of a horse in the Pyrrha happiness race than any race involved with John. "It's good to have that sort of thing going for you here."

Pyrrha lets out a long slow exhale. She leans back in her seat, the front legs lifting from the floor. It's a mildly dangerous perch, but she only tilts her head back a moment before sitting up again. "Most of Trench doesn't have a real horse in this race," Pyrrha says, "but they sure are placing bets and kibitzing loudly in the peanut gallery. Don't get me wrong, I get it. It still makes it harder to relax. So there you go, spending time together and getting to set that down a moment is so damn nice."

She finishes her drink. Ironically, how well things are going with John prevents her from relaxing. It will only last only so long before the other shoe drops, regardless of source. Pyrrha cannot predict what the shoe will be in Trench—too many chaotic variables—but it's not her nature to sit back, enjoy it, and leave the problem to her future self. Calm periods are when you plan, prepare, and gather resources.

She smiles back. "One step forward, two steps back, one step forward, one step back, two steps forward," she says. "So long as we keep lurching in the right direction, I'll manage."

Another parallel right there, huh. Both John and Johnny sure love making a dumb spectacle of themselves on the network, somehow not expecting (or maybe exactly expecting) everyone to fall over them like that. How come there's multiple of these sorts of people out there even in just Trench alone?

Daniel watches as Pyrrha finishes her drink, before raising his own glass to drain the last sips into his mouth and put the glass back on the table. There's a relief in her words on his side too. Knowing that this isn't just Pyrrha helping him - because Daniel would hate things being so one-sided, it feels too selfish in a way that doesn't sit quite right with his very nature - but that just hanging out with him and talking is nice for Pyrrha too. A moment away from everything, to relax.

"And you don't have to do it by yourself," he adds once she arrives at that last conclusion.

He figures that this is probably something that already hung in the air between them, even if it went unsaid. But saying it out loud - it can't hurt.

"If you ever need help with anything, let me know." Daniel is well aware that there might not always be a whole lot he can do. He's just a very regular guy with karate skills and now ice powers, which is nothing in the face of what other people here can do.

But being there for Pyrrha? That much he can do. Just doing his best for her.

"I'll always be right there if you need me."

"God," Pyrrha exclaims, aware of the irony, "I've had to do that long enough." Before Trench, she means. Before living with Nona and Camilla and Palamedes. The myriad that covers most of her existence. She briefly mourns the lack of whiskey left to down, the middling stuff not Augustine's upper shelf tastes.

She smiles, "Moments of sanity like this go a long way, Daniel. Home is home. It's a lot of things, and it's a Lot. Imagine if you and Johnny lived together." There's a mental image.

Eyeing their glasses, Pyrrha holds her empty one up, "You interested in another round?"

That sure is a mental image. One Daniel would prefer to not think about too hard. Just sticking around Johnny's dojo for a while to help him out with the kids was a total nightmare.. He's pretty sure all the process he made in cleaning that place up has been entirely undone at this point.

He can only imagine what kind of chaos Pyrrha must deal with at home, given John, and.. well, what the rest of the people from their world seem like.

Still, when she finishes with that question instead, it's hard for the ends of Daniel's lips to not curl up slightly.

"Definitely," he answers, getting ready to order a second round for them.

They can definitely use some more drinking time together.

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there we go, a wrap! c: