Chapter Text
Daniel glanced out the corner of his eye at his mother singing in the driver's seat. Even after days of motels and push starting the car and his own sullen silence Lucille LaRusso still looked happy and invigorated to navigate the bustling streets of Reseda. She was laughing and chatting enthusiastically, her warm smile a sharp contrast to Daniel's sour scowl. She’d promised there would be palm trees and swimming pools where they were going; a whole new life. Daniel had to admit the California sun did agree with her auburn hair and rosy cheeks, but even more so with her soulmark.
Along the shell of his mother’s ear was a vine of golden oak and maple leaves, all twisted and sparkly trailing down the lobe to her neck. It was where his father had touched her for the first time, moving to brush her hair away from her face before going in for a kiss. Daniel could vaguely remember a similar pattern of gold foliage that trailed along his dad’s fingertips and knuckles, making his hand twinkle when it caught the sunlight.
Not everyone's soulmarks looked the same. Some people had flowers or river maps bumping along the bend of their knees. Some even had lines of poetry dripping down their arms, tracking where their soulmates had first brushed against them skin to skin. Daniel had asked once, after his dad was gone, why his mom thought the two of them had gotten maple and oak. She’d contemplated it for some time, her eyes glassy and distant the way they always were when she discussed her late husband, but eventually she’d said that their first date had been in Branch Brook Park which was filled with lots of gorgeous trees but mostly oak and maple.
“I guess it was just a big part of the moment,” she’d concluded, shrugging. “I remember it was fall, just before Halloween, and the leaves were falling down all around us. Hardly even felt the mark form before he kissed me.”
The Larusso’s had left Branch Brook and maple leaves all behind on the East coast though. As they’d driven cross country, the scenery had changed from congested city to grassy fields to barren deserts to sprawling mountains and then right back to a congested city. It was different though; shinier. Everywhere Daniel looked there were slick cars and blonde girls and signs calling them towards Encino or Hollywood. In August it was still swelteringly hot and so people walked around in barely their bathing suits, their tanned skin on full display. Daniel caught the golden glare off people’s marks as they cruised through with their windows down.
When they pulled up in front of the South Seas Apartments, Daniel entertained his mothers gushing about the weather and the palm trees and the swimming pool for what felt like the hundredth time as they moved to start unpacking. They hadn’t crammed too much into their station wagon, but it was clear it’d take more than one trip to get everything settled in. Daniel struggled with his bike as his mother grabbed the first box and made for the gate.
“We’re in apartment twenty! One floor up!” she called back to him, already moving on ahead. Daniel huffed and puffed and decided to grab at least one suitcase before trudging after her, his hands full with his handlebars. His skin was hot and tight from the long drive and sweat stuck to his back and arms. As he moved towards the gate his mother had just walked through, he realized his hands were full and decided a standing kick would do the job. Open the thing and also let out some pent up frustration; two birds, one stone and all that.
Of course it was just Daniel‘s luck that right behind the gate was a new neighbor who promptly fell to the ground with a shout when he was hit with the swinging door. The Newark native grimaced with embarrassment and immediately started dropping apologies as he pushed his way into the apartment complex. He stood by awkwardly as the young man struggled back to his feet. He looked about Daniel’s age and actually had a very similar complexion and coloring. He could’ve been a LaRusso. Once he was standing straight, the other teen apologized again.
“Sorry about that, really,” he insisted, moving a closed fist forward only to be met with an open palm. They both shuffled awkwardly, not knowing how to proceed.
Way back when, when soulmarks were still new and exciting, people touched without thinking and boom, now you had a flurry of snowflakes all along your back from a friendly pat. When society started catching up with the phenomenon, touches became a bit more intentional. You didn't lay your hand on anyone unless you thought you’d strike gold, hence Daniel’s parents being friendly for years before his dad dared to brush his mom’s cheek on their first date. Now, the general consensus was you could meet your soulmate anywhere, at any time and so you should try to greet everyone with a neutral touch the first time you met them, just to be sure. In Newark, new friends said hello with a closed fist, bumping knuckles together, but apparently in Reseda strangers greeted each other palm to palm.
After a time, Daniel acquiesced and delivered a sliding slap to the other boy’s hand.
Nothing happened; not a soulmate match.
“No worries,” the guy assured, pulling his hand back as quickly as he had offered it. He didn’t seem put off by their lack of connection and only shrugged introducing himself, “I’m Freddy Fernandez, apartment seventeen. You must be the new people in apartment twenty?”
“Daniel LaRusso, and yeah we must be.”
Freddy nodded amicably before glancing down at Daniel's suitcase. “Let me help you with that!”
Daniel tried to beg off, but before he knew it, he and Freddie were walking through the lower levels of the South Seas Apartments. There was the usual small talk of where they were from, what they were doing here and Daniel only half considered his answers as he noticed the near empty pool right in the middle of the courtyard. Freddy asked about his karate and he pretended to know more than he did. At the bottom of the stairs, he met an old woman from Parsippany and felt homesick as they briefly discussed the many Louie’s that could be found in the area. He pet her dog and was halfway up the stairs when he glanced back and noticed that her soulmark twisted up the back of her neck. It looked like the jagged lines of the mountain ranges he and his mother had driven past on their way from New Jersey. Freddy called her crazy, but Daniel decided then and there that he quite liked the old woman. And her little dog too.
As they reached the second floor landing, Daniel paused, glancing around at the unfamiliar surroundings. Freddy was still hauling the suitcase. He asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel replied lamely, palms sweaty over his handlebars, “I guess nothing.”
“We’re having a beach party, sort of an ‘ Adios, Summer ’. You wanna come?”
The young Italian’s brows picked up in surprise. He hadn’t expected to meet anyone his own age until school on Monday, and he really hadn’t expected to be invited out. He’d always figured making new friends would be slow and awkward, but here was his new neighbor offering a leg up. “Yeah, sure, sounds cool.”
Freddy smiled. They were at apartment twenty now. “Great! I’ll come get you in the morning, alright?”
“Alright.”
The two teens shook hands again and then Freddy was gone. Daniel let himself into his new home, suitcase now weighing down his arm, and barely heard his mother‘s note about the pool as he looked around with interest. With sparse furnishings and the boxes they’d shipped ahead stacked against the walls, it was bigger than their place back in Jersey. However, it didn’t have the little homey touches he had gotten used to while growing up. There weren’t any pictures of them enjoying winter with his cousins hanging up. All the cushions didn’t subtly smell like a million home cooked meals from his grandparents and there certainly weren’t any pasta sauce stains. None of his dad’s things were there. It just wasn’t home.
And the faucet was broken
The youngest LaRusso kept his several opinions to himself. He didn’t want his mother to worry anymore than he knew she already was. Deep down, his bad attitude aside, he knew it hadn’t been easy for her to decide to move them. He was bitter she hadn't asked him, sure, but he knew everything she did was to give them a better life. So instead of complaining any more he told his mom about the party, filled a bowl of water for the old woman’s dog, and agreed to hunt down the maintenance man.
Back down the stairs, back to the woman with her dog. Left then right then left again? Behind a set of green doors he found a tiny room with tiny trees and only a tiny bit of light to help him see. Daniel saw an older man, short and somewhat frail-looking, in faded work clothes, poking at the air with chopsticks. His movements were deliberate, each gesture precise as he jabbed at something Daniel couldn’t see from behind the screen door. He could hear the buzzing of a fly somewhere.
Curiosity and apprehension battled in Daniel’s mind. He wasn’t sure if he should break this man's concentration on…whatever he was doing. Maybe he was as crazy as Freddy thought the old woman was. Maybe all the old people in California were crazy. Clearing his throat, he ventured, "Hey, are you the maintenance man?”
“Hai.”
Yes?
“Yeah, our faucet’s really leaking there,” the teen informed, pushing his way through the screen.
The man finally turned, revealing a weathered face. He was some kind of Asian and his eyes, sharp and observant, assessed Daniel with a calm scrutiny until he carefully stepped back over the threshold. He had a scarf wrapped around his forehead, but just beneath it Daniel could see the very edges of a shimmering soulmark. The man turned away again.
“Can you come fix it?”
“Hai.”
Silence.
Daniel frowned.
“Well, can I tell my mom when?”
“When what?”
The man had an accent.
“When are you gonna fix the faucet?”
“After.”
“After what?”
“After, after !”
Sweaty and exhausted, Daniel decided this conversation was going next to nowhere and so huffed and left. The old man seemed annoyed anyway and he didn’t want to risk him not coming at all. There was stuff to unpack and rooms to clean and apparently a party to get ready for tomorrow. He didn’t have time to sit around, trying to make sense of the maintenance man's mood. Fuck it, he could wait for after after .
Back passed the old woman, back up the stairs, back to number twenty. The evening sun cast a warm glow through the window, painting their new living room in hues of orange and gold, but it hadn’t changed anything. The apartment was still empty and strange and not a home and Daniel sighed tiredly, hearing his mother moving around in the rooms somewhere down the narrow hall.
She called out to him, “You know, I really think we're qonna do good here! I never felt so positive about anything in my life. This was really the right move, I’m tellin’ ya, Dan!”
Daniel didn’t agree.
The next day Daniel was tired and homesick and cranky and sore, but also open and thoughtful and busy and free. The beach wasn’t like anything they had back in Newark and the second generation Italian thought the smell of the ocean without the smog of the city was actually kind of nice. Freddy and his friends had brought them to a secluded strip of sand at the bottom of a steep brush covered hill. Secluded because there were no prying adults around, but several teens splashed in the waves and kicked a soccer ball around. Danny chased after a wide kick and spotted a group of pretty girls gathered on a blanket.
One of the girls, blonde and sweet looking, tossed him the ball and Danny made a show of bouncing it from knee to knee, onto his head, and back off his foot. She looked impressed enough. When she scampered off to the water with the rest of them, Daniel watched her go with a smile. He nudged Freddy when he got back to the group. “Who’s that?”
Freddy glanced over and gave an amused scoff, “The hills.”
“What’s the hills?”
“Rich,” one of the others, Alan, informed before rushing off to start the game again.
Hours passed and they played and swam and snacked and drank. Everyone that came seemed to know each other and it was a little clique-y, but Daniel supposed they were friendly enough. Everyone talked and everyone shared and everyone liked the same songs on the radio; it was just teenagers. Some of them had soulmarks cradled in their palms and the Jersey native took note of those pairs with interest. The cute blonde from earlier didn’t have one, at least that he could see, and he found opportunities to wander into her eyeline or catch snippets of her conversations. Her name was Ali.
When the sun went down some of the boys fed long dead fire pits they all huddled around for warmth, still damp and cool from swimming. Daniel watched with interest as some older kids pulled beer and weed out of hidden stashes and passed them around. He declined, but didn’t begrudge Freddy and the others for indulging in the joint that started to make a quick pattern around the circle. He noticed Ali didn’t take a hit either and smiled to himself. There was lots of talking and laughing and it was surprisingly loud for a breezy beach night. Still though, the approaching rumble of motorcycles was hard to miss and Danny’s interest peaked as he saw a group of riders come speeding over the hill.
Plenty of people quickly gathered their belongings and started to slink away as the bikes pulled right up to their small fires, sand kicking up all around. It was more teenagers Daniel was surprised to notice, none of them looking much older than anyone else once their helmets were off. One guy in jeans and a red jacket had a tie wrapped around his head kind of like the maintenance man at South Seas. Daniel watched him approach Ali and felt his stomach flip as the two got to talking; it didn’t sound friendly.
“We’ve been over this, alright?” she grouched, pretty face marred with a frown, “I don’t wanna talk.”
“Well, I wanna talk to you, alright?”
The guy was tall and broad, not like really any of the boys Daniel had grown up with back home. Skinny and sly with dark foreign features. The blonde looked made for the ocean waves and sunny days. He had a proud nose and big hands and the Italian suddenly felt inadequate by comparison. He watched the apparent old flames bicker back and forth, Ali’s radio being flipped on and off and snatched hand to hand before being smashed into the sand.
“You just broke my radio!”
That was about as much as Danny could stand to watch. For whatever reason everyone else was acting like they didn’t see the guy acting like a total prick and it didn’t sit right with him. He hated a bully and even more so when they bullied a girl. Stepping over to the situation, he picked up the boombox and immediately earned the blonde’s ire. Eyes as blue as a summer sky glared at him. If not for the radio between them, they’d be chest to chest and Daniel was embarrassed and intimidated to have to look up into those eyes. Guy had a few inches on him.
“What’s your problem, man?”
“Oh, what, you want it?” His voice was higher and more grating than Danny had expected. At least he had something to smile about.
Behind them people were watching and the other guys were holding Ali back. Her friends looked unimpressed. Daniel huffed, “Yeah, just give it!”
“You got it!”
The radio wasn’t heavy, but having it shoved back into his chest by this musclehead sent the newcomer tumbling into the sand. Freddy and the others were there then, yanking him up and pushing him forward and telling him to use his karate moves. His first lunge found him sprawling face first in the sand. The blonde had tripped him, his ankle hooking the smaller boy’s easily. His next attempt ended much the same and then there was a spinning kick to his gut that dropped Daniel like a pile of bricks. Hunched there, breathing in huffs of sand, it occurred to him that this kid actually knew karate and he grimaced. Even if he hadn’t been totally exaggerating his own prowess with the sport, the brunette knew there was no way to beat this guy in a fair fight.
His sucker punch caught the jerk right in the nose.
Pain lit across his knuckles.
Daniel spun away, shaking out his hand because shit- shit ! Had he busted a knuckle? A searing sting was dancing over his fingers and the teen skirted the small crowd to get to a fire. The other guy -his friends were calling him Johnny- had reeled back from the hit, hand to his face, and now seemed to be processing the building pain of it. His head was thrown back and his too blue eyes were squeezed shut. Good. Daniel hoped he’d broken his stupid, perfect nose as he got close enough to the firelight to get a good look at his hand.
Gold glinted up at him, smattered over his pointer, middle and ring fingers in tiny specks that looked like stars.
A soulmark.
The strangled gasp that escaped Daniel sounded like something from the made-for-TV chick flicks his mom liked to watch and his only comfort was that not a single person on that beach gave enough of a shit about him to be listening in. Freddy and his group had started to clear out when they realized their new ‘friend’ was a total loser. Ali’s posse were trying to coax her away from the drama, stating neither boy was worth the trouble. Then there was the blonde, Johnny, hand still over his face, and his goons trying to convince him to get back into the fight.
“Come on, Johnny, no mercy!” one of them crowed.
His voice sounded like it was coming from galaxies away as Daniel watched his opponent come back to himself. His eyes were open now, scrunching and unscrunching as he adjusted to what the New Jersey native now knew was the burning ache of a soulmark appearing. No one had come over to see his hand, but he was too far away to tell the guy to not uncover his stupid fucking face. Daniel watched, trapped in a vacuum with no air, as Johnny whateverhislastnamewas dropped his hand to get back into a fighting stance.
Gold was sprinkled all across the bridge of his nose and cheeks like sun-kissed freckles.
“Holy shit.”
It was impossible to know who had said it; who had noticed the golden glitter on the boy’s face first. His gang all staggered away like it was a disease that was catching. Daniel stepped back and around when they stumbled into his space, still watching warily as Johnny blinked confusedly across the circle. Everyone who caught sight of his face gasped in shock or looked totally gobsmacked. Ali looked like she was about to throw up honestly and she was the only one to look from Johnny to Daniel, eyes brimming with an odd sort of accusation. The blonde followed her gaze and then the two soulmates locked eyes.
“Dude,” Johnny scoffed, fight momentarily forgotten amidst everyone’s incredulous staring. His nose was bleeding. He couldn’t see his own face; he thought this was about just Daniel. “Who the hell are you?”