Honor or Brutality {Cobra Kai}

|V|

Scout eventually walked back into their little room with many of Storm's words echoing through her mind, and she was unsuccessfully trying to keep pushing them out of her mind.

"Girls have killed for this."

"You don't have to be the Serpent Queen, but just take a second and think about, just what exactly it is that, you are leaving him to go through alone."

Asher stood up immediately once Scout had entered the room, which meant that Scout had her emotions on full display, all over her face. She was quick to make her facial expression into what she was hoping, was a cold sheet of no emotion whatsoever.

"Come on, I'll take you home. You have school tomorrow anyways." He said and she followed him quickly out of the room, only stopping to grab her jacket off of one of the hooks, which was strange since she didn't remember even taking it off, in the first place.

She shrugged into the familiar leather, and Asher, he stopped a couple of feet down the hallway away from the room, and he looked quietly down at her.

"What were you--"

"What did Storm--"

They both went to speak at once and Asher sighed, shakin' his head slightly in the darkness, which was Scout's one indicator of where exactly he was standing, out in the dark hallway with her. "What did Storm say? You looked shaken up." He said and she looked at her feet as she tried to figure out what to say.

"She told me what her experience was, at the beginning of her Serpent Queen spot. Girls tried to kill her, Ash, so why the fuck would anyone want a position like that?" Scout asked and she heard his sharp inhale of breath, and she looked up at his face, looking to his eyes since she couldn't see any other part of his face.

"She wasn't wrong. But I never had any intention to tell you about it, or even to have a Queen. I swear to you, that this was them, not me." He said and she sighed, pressing her forehead against his chin, at this point, without any words needed from either of the teenagers in the hallway. He quietly lowered his forehead to meet hers, as she shut her eyes.

"I know that you had nothing to do with it, Ash. Did you really think that I would doubt your words, for even half a mere second?" She asked and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I mean, you did think that I was leading you somewhere to kill you earlier." He mumbled and she looked guilty, as he was quietly laughing at a expression of clear defeat. "Okay, I'm sorry." He said and she shrugged her shoulders.

"What were you two adorable brothers arguing about, while the two of us girls were talking in the hallway, just outside?" She blurted out on a big impulse that usually got her into a ton of shit at home and everywhere else.

There was a dark cloud that seemed to pass through Asher's eyes, and he quickly released her from the hug and backed up a couple steps. "Hey, what's wrong?" Scout asked and Asher shakes his head, and she dimly could see him turning away, turning his back on her. One of the things, he had sworn never to do, except when her parents were around. "Asher." Her breath hissed through her teeth, and he still refused to look at her.

"He didn't get why I hadn't told you about him, or why you weren't mad at me for it. When I told him that your natural impulse is to just be really all in, and understanding to the extreme? He just laughed at me, said it was something more. We would have been throwing punches soon enough, that is, if Storm hadn't come back in when she did." Asher said with a quiet scoff and Scout shakes her head.

"Are you deliberately hiding things from me now? You know that never works, it just tears people apart. You should know, of all people." She said and by now, she didn't even have to be looking at his face to see the agony in it.

"I hide things from you, so people won't hurt you. There are still those of the Serpents who are among Cobra Kai and..."

"So what? I can take care of myself, Ash! I've always been able to before, so what the fuck makes this situation any different?!" She didn't mean to start shouting, but it was hard to resist the urge, when her best friend was hiding shit.

"Because my fucking goddamn FATHER is involved this time!" Asher finally exploded, being more angry in the moment, then Scout had ever seen him before. "My father is involved, all right?" She found herself fighting all of her instincts that said to run like her life depended on it, and she hugs him instead.

"You can't blame yourself for being your father's son. Just because your name is the same, doesn't mean that you have to become him." She said as he had tears rolling down his face. "I mean it. I won't let you become him, a monster. You won't become your dad, I swear to god. I'd die before that ever happened." She murmured and he was nodding slightly.

"Let's get you home." He murmured and she shook her head slightly. "Hey, what do you mean, no?" He asked and she looked around.

"I can't go back home, not tonight. I can't face my mom for another second of a day, can I stay at yours?" She asks, and he looked at her with a sigh.

"You're serious?" He asked and she gave him an 'uh, duh!' look, that was very common for her. "All right, it's a shorter drive anyways." He mumbled and she wiped tears off of his face in a moment of surprisingly gentleness, as she usually would have probably just smacked him.