A/N: LONG TIME NO SEE YALL! So here's the scoop: I know it's been nearly three years since the last time I published, so let me start by saying sorry. I 100% understand if I have lost everyone who cared about my writing. I guess part of it was lack of inspiration, but I was crippled by my perfectionism. I never want to publish anything before it's perfect, but I'm starting to realize that I just need to get my shit out there so I don't get forgotten about. If you read my other story, Panic, first of all: thank you. Thank you so much. Without you, I never would've had the confidence to stick with writing. Second: fuck, I'm sorry. That shit was bad, it was cringey, and it's nothing compared to what I can do now. If you came here looking for more of that author, I'm sorry, but she's dead. She was a high school freshman, she had no idea how the world worked, and I guarantee you won't miss that sub-par writing. I'm hoping you'll be able to give me a second chance, because I'll repeat: that shit was bad. But if you have read Panic, you should know that this is an in-depth backstory of the Dean Ambrose character.

I'm using the first chapter of my current favorite project as an experiment. If it does well, I'll go back to posting regular updates to this website. If it does poorly, I'll be more than content to live in my own little universe writing to make myself happy. Please review, good or bad. I want to know what you're thinking.

Thank you for everything, and love, as always.

-SOSXE

Jonathan Good was someone you had to try really hard in order to notice. He blended right into the shadows, which he seemed to be afraid of, just like he was afraid of everything. Nobody really knew why because he hardly ever talked to anyone. He was a genius, but never raised his hand in class. Dark, raccoon-like circles were always around his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in a thousand years. He was so small and thin it was unhealthy, and anyone who paid attention would've known something was up, something was wrong.

Thing is, no one did.

Some days he'd show up to class with a black eye, the really bad kind where the blood vessels pop. Other days, he'd wince with every movement and wouldn't put his backpack on, instead carrying it by his side. On the worst days, if you watched him closely enough, you could see the way each breath was a struggle as he stuffed a fist in his mouth to keep himself quiet. He was the kind of kid who jumped when the bell went off, who looked at the whole world with an impossible amount of fear, as if he assumed that everyone had the intention of hurting him. He was the kind of kid who was always surrounded by rumors, whispers, and nasty insults behind his back. He was the kind of kid who you just knew had a hell of a story to tell, but would never, ever, tell it.

This is his story.

1/7/00 (Friday)

"Nick. The kid can't even stand. He's had enough." Still struggling to get my feet underneath me, Slade's hand clutching my collar is the only thing keeping me from crashing to the ground. Staring more at the dim streetlight illuminating our 11 pm plight than anyone else in particular, I feel suffocated by the knowledge that no one with a conscience will come anywhere near this street until at least eight. We're alone. And somewhere far away in my pain soaked brain, it occurs to me that someone just stood up for me. Instead of relief, it only brings dread front and center. Not only am I even more screwed, so is whoever magically developed a conscience. Once Slade is done reducing that poor sap to a quivering pulp, he'll take his residual anger out on me. Whoever this magic man is, he best run as fast as his legs will carry him, because nothing good will come of this for either of us. I can't get away. But he still can.

Problem is, this guy is almost as stupid as he is brave. And to him, they're basically the same thing.

And who is Nick?

Suddenly his cold, piercing eyes aren't on me anymore. They're focused on someone just behind me, and his grip on me goes nearly slack. I stumble a bit on jelly legs, because as mystery man has stated, I under my own power cannot keep my feet underneath me. And while I do agree with his assessment that I've taken an adequate amount of beating, I still maintain that he needs to shut his fucking mouth if he wants to get out of here alive.

Through my half-lidded vision, I can tell in Slade's body language that he knows this guy. I can feel the anger surge through his body, and while it's clear that he's forgotten I'm still in his clutches, I know fleeing is a terrible idea in this situation. My legs are not up for standing right now, let alone the full-out sprint I would need to outrun the gang.

The best hope I have is that I can try to recover while Slade ruins the guy who stood up for me. With any luck, Slade will be tired out by the time he's done and when they're through with me I'll still be conscious. What this kid is doing is real nice, but if he has to be the sacrifice tonight so I can get out alive, so be it. He had to have known what he was getting into.

Blood in my eyes, I slowly turn my head towards the direction Slade is looking. Breathing hard and coughing with every few breaths, I squint to see him through the stinging crimson affecting my vision. The cloud of indignance surrounding Slade makes it hard to see what he's looking at. He sighs exaggeratedly and shakes his head. He takes a sudden step towards the boy he's looking at, and the boy flinches a bit. Slade laughs, a cold, joyless sound.

"Some tough guy you are."

"I mean it. Put him down. You've made your point. Walk away."

"What difference does it make to you?"

"This is wrong. You know it's wrong. He can't even defend himself."

"That's the best part, dude. You gotta stop being so soft. Unless you want to take his place, I suggest you stand there silently and watch the real men work."

"So being a man is beating a little kid to a pulp for no reason?"

"Chris, you're supposed to be the smart one. I was very clear to you about how tonight was going to go down. You were gonna come with us, keep your mouth shut, and try to learn something. But you just can't fucking do what you're told, can you? You and your conscience, thinking you're better than everyone else because of course, of course you know what's right. Can't you for once in your life just keep your pretentious two cents out of it?"

"You mean to tell me that you don't think it's wrong to beat kids within an inch of their lives ten on one? You've always been messed up, Nick, but I didn't peg you as that delusional. You have to understand on some level that causing someone's blood to drip onto the sidewalk and taking their legs out from under them is cruel." How long have they known each other? Is Slade not his real name? The way they talk, they act like they're... no. No way.

"He fuckin' deserves it, you think he's innocent?"

"What could a kid possibly have done to a 19-year-old man that warrants a shit-kicking like this?"

"None of your fucking business, that's what." I'm slightly relieved by this, as the actual reason, while stupid and petty, is one I don't really need to hear out loud.

"Nick. You have to have a reason. And if you don't tell me, I'm calling the police." He's bluffing. I can hardly even see him and I know he's bluffing. His voice has the subtle tremor of a distant earthquake. I'm sure Slade will see through it. For all the things he's terrible at, he's awful good at sensing fear. Slade glances back at me and rolls his eyes when a shudder runs through my body.

"He owes me money. I've given him chance after chance to pay me back, but he just needs to get the message."

"That's a lie." I croak out. If I keep this up, I'll be dead before I'm legal. I'd do myself a lot of good if I kept my heart in my chest and my pride in a locked box under my bed. Er, my "bed". He shakes me hard and my head snaps forward and back as if my neck was broken. I know he's gonna fuck me up. He might talk about it before he does it, but oh boy, is he gonna fuck me up.

"I'm disappointed in you, kid. Even if my baby brother doesn't get it, I thought at least you would follow my rules. They aren't hard to remember." His brother. His brother? Since when does big bad devil-may-care Slade have a family outside of the dad who makes all of his problems disappear? I hold my breath and stare down at the ground, not wanting him to see how much every breath sends sonic waves of pain through my body. "Street rat! I'm talkin' to you!" I wince but keep my silence.

"Nick, fucking hell, leave him alone!" Slade tenses all over.

"Call me that one more time, fag. Go ahead." Through my blurry vision, this Chris guy recoils as if Slade had hit him, then does his best to cover it up. "Oh no, did I hurt your feelings? Do you not like being called that name? Then maybe don't fucking call me by one I don't like to hear either then, huh?"

"Mom named you Nick. Mom did not name me fag." The last word comes out shaky. This guy is a fucking puzzle.

"Yeah? Well, Mom's dead, Chris. Would you like to join her?"

"Really? After all she did for you, you're gonna stand there and make fun of her death? Man, who the fuck are you?"

"Someone who's not afraid of telling your secret if you don't do what I say. That's how blackmail works, brother."

"But—"

"And you know," Slade starts.

"Man, would you—"

"You know," Slade raises his voice, "that dad would beat the piss out of you if he found out." That sets off all kinds of alarms in my head. Slade just said that his dad hits his kids. And that can't be right. It's a logical impossibility. Slade's dad has done everything for him since day one. He pulled every string. There's just no way. I'm familiar with dads who mistreat their children. That's not how they act.

"You think that scares me?" Obviously, it does. Man, this guy is a terrible liar.

"I know it scares you. More than basically anything else in the world. And you gotta live with that bastard, Chris. You don't have an emergency exit. You gotta stay in that house with him. Do you really want to give him another reason to resent you?"

"I've taken a hundred beatings from him, and I'll probably take a thousand more. I'm not going to stand idly by while you lay waste to another human being just to avoid one."

"Dammit, Chris. Don't be a fucking hero. That's gonna get you hurt by someone someday." By someday, Slade means today, and by someone, he means himself. He tears his eyes away from his brother and stares me down. This time, I don't let myself look away. I stare right back at him. I can see it in his cold blue eyes that he takes this as a challenge. He smirks and lets go of my shirt collar. Despite my best efforts, I tumble to the frozen ground. They fucked me up bad tonight. I'm not going to be able to get away unless they let me. I push myself back up to my knees, but then a kick hits me square in the chest. I fall back to the ground, flat on my back, gasping. "Is that… all you got?" I breathe. Another kick with the added force of anger catches me in the ribs and I curl up into myself, pain coursing through my body. I close my eyes in anticipation for his foot to connect again, but suddenly a warm hand has a death grip on my wrist and is pulling me to my feet.

I get a good look at this Chris character for the first time. He looks like a version of Slade from an alternate universe. They have the same features, similar hair, and a similar build, but Chris comes from a different world. One where happiness exists outside of hurting people. A place with ambition and good decisions instead of gangs and taking advantage of people. Slade has no idea that universe exists and even if he did, he probably would think it was for pussies and want nothing to do with it. Chris' black hair, blowing in his face in the crisp winter breeze, is longer and softer looking than Slade's rat's nest, and instead of piercing, clinical blue, his eyes are a light, warm brown. They're sad eyes, but they've been lit on fire with hatred and contempt and a distant sort of fear. Around the edges is a rough, heavy black rim of eyeliner, which Slade would sooner die than wear. He's draped in a black Linkin Park shirt that meets acid washed skinny jeans at his waist, and on his nervous, tapping feet are purple and blue checked Vans. Chris is a good deal smaller than Slade, and it's pretty clear that Slade has 20-30 pounds of pure muscle on him. Bad news for my chances of survival. But at least he's bigger than me.

He pulls me behind him. I wish I could say that makes me feel safer. But as I lean heavily against the building beside me, I am reminded that I'm in a very bad way. I can hardly stand. How am I supposed to get away? Slade actually laughs. Like a real, honest to goodness huge belly laugh.

"Oh my god, so you two are some kind of fuck-up team now? That's rich. Yeah, you're so fucking scary now. You can be losers together instead of individually. Congratulations. You're his charity case now, kid. He's taking you on so he can feel like less of a failure. Don't you feel special?" My mind is racing too bad to even consider Slade's words and the validity of them. It's too full of Slade has a brother, Slade isn't Slade's real name, Slade's dad beats him, Chris has some kind of secret, their mom is dead, it's information overload and whether or not Chris actually cares about me is so far down on my list. But I can tell Slade is preparing to strike, and at this rate, he'll be attacking his brother, not me. I feel a weird sense of obligation to Chris. I've never had anyone stand up for me like that before. I've never had anyone believe I'm worth that much. I was so ready to let Chris take the fall for me before I knew who he really was. Now it's too hard.

I'm gonna regret saying this.

"You don't need to take this for me," I whisper in his ear. "You don't even know me, I'm not worth this to you."

"These fights were my childhood." He tells me under his breath, without taking his eyes off his brother. I want to tell him that fighting with Slade has been a big part of my childhood too. "Nobody knows how to handle him better than I do. Between the two of us, I stand a better chance." He takes a deep breath. I wipe the blood out of my eyes as I observe the way he shifts uncertainly from foot to foot and fidgets constantly. Despite his words, his body language is that of someone marching to their death. My stomach drops as I mull over the very real possibility that this guy could get himself killed for a stranger. Does he have a death wish?

You see, no one with half a brain stands up to Slade. Even on my dumbest days, I know when to give up, stop fighting back, and wait for him to leave me alone. There's a reason for that. I don't want to die.

The prospect of someone sacrificing his life for me doesn't sit well, and I pull weakly on his arm to try and get him to back up. He slips it free and glances back at me briefly. "I'm asking you to trust me, okay? Without really understanding why, I need you to trust me. I don't care if it's hard, you don't have a choice. If you want to make it out of here alive, you have got to believe me when I say I know what I'm doing. Okay?" I nod, eyes wide, caught off guard. He is a strange animal. Slade makes an exaggerated noise of annoyance.

"Why do you care about him, all of a sudden? You know that you didn't even know he existed before tonight, don't you? Is it just to piss me off? Cause it's working, dude. It's working."

"Yes, Nick, I live to piss you off. Because the world revolves around you, doesn't it? It's not like I'm a free-thinking person who can choose my own friends or something crazy like that."

"Dude, we both know what you got behind you ain't a friend. That's a broken bag of bones right there. He ain't good for shit."

"Man, you're unbelievable. He probably believes that's true because of you. Do you see how afraid he is of you?" Slade looks awful proud of himself as he growls at me. I will myself not to jump no matter how much I want to.

"Yeah, I know. I've been building that for years. I'm good at making weak people scared. That's what I did to you, ain't it?"

"You did a hell of a lot to me, but you're fucking high if you think you're strong enough to keep me permanently afraid of you. Because I don't know if you noticed, but I'm standing up to you right now. And sure, maybe I'm scared, but I'm still doing it. Because that's what you taught me to do. You taught me that I'm always supposed to be afraid, so I might as well find a way to work through it if that's how my life's gonna be. Man, you think you own the world, don't you? You pick people out and you tear them down and you think that means you bought the rights to them. But all it takes is you pushing someone one inch too far for them to realize that you're nothing but a bully and an asshole and you're fucking scared, Nick. You act like this cause you're scared. You surround yourself with goons and you intimidate people into submission and you manipulate everybody. That's somebody who knows someday soon a fight is coming that he can't win, so he's gotta be ready with every trick in the book.

"So maybe it's taken me sixteen years to figure out, but you're nothing but smoke and mirrors. This kid behind me, who is worth much more than you seem to believe, he's me before I figured that out. He's me back when I convinced myself you ran with the wrong crowd. That you didn't create this 'Slade' guy, he was the product of a cold world that wants nothing to do with either of us. But what does it say about you that we both grew up in that world, and I turned out a decent human being and you turned out," Chris looks Slade up and down with disdain, "like that? Thing was, I believed that my brother was still in there. I believed in the good in you, Nick Scobille. And that's what made me vulnerable to all your games and your tricks and your scare tactics. You made me your first victim, the first of many. I stayed and I tried to save you and all you ever did was use that against me. Everyone else abandoned you, you became completely unbearable, and I still stuck around to try and help you and you made me feel weak and stupid for it. I told you everything about me and what I was going through and you just shut me out. He is me before I realized I didn't have to put up with your constant abuse.

"So, you know what? You with your blackmail and your holding shit over my head, I don't care anymore. You go ahead and tell everyone that I'm gay. You go run home right now and tell dad. Tell him he raised a faggot." It's clear in his voice that he hates that word. "You go tell him he should kill me the next time he sees me. That he should pummel the queer right out of me. That I'm worth more to him a dead straight kid than I am a living twink. Go fucking tell him. He's gonna find out anyway, it might as well be from his normal son. Cause I don't care anymore, I don't. What I do care about is Jon, this kid behind me who you're trying to victimize just like you tried to victimize me. It ends now, Nick. I won't let you keep living like this, destroying everything around you. So do what you need to do right now. Beat me up, yell at me, go tell dad, whatever you gotta do, but my mind won't change. This matters to me. Because I still have compassion, my heart isn't cold and dead like yours." It barely registers with me to wonder how he knows my name. My mind is too boggled with the fact that somebody just risked everything to keep me safe. When Slade fails to give a response, Chris laughs mirthlessly and turns to me. "We're leaving, come with me." It's nothing more than a mumble.