The click of the door lifted Dean from the bed. He planted his elbows in the mattress and pushed himself up. It figured that somebody would come in and disrupt him the night he decided to give the bed a try. Thing turned out to be pretty damn comfortable. Dean realized just how much he missed sleeping in a bed that night.

Dean squinted in the dark. He saw a small bouncing shadow, and the sight pushed him upright. "The hell?" The door closed and he was alone in the mostly dark with a psychopath. "What are you doing out?"

AJ bounced over to the foot of the bed. Dean watched her move, going up and down in the light from the hallway that glowed through the door's small window. He sat up further, and pushed back against the wall. Fuck, he should have stayed on the floor. She couldn't have seen him if he was on the floor. She would have just figured that he was out walking the halls.

He liked the chick. She was hot, and she understood the crazier parts of him. But… that bitch was crazy, and seeing her standing at the foot of the bed, Dean kind of wanted to kill her before she could kill him. He didn't have a weapon on him, but he was a lot bigger than her. He had size to his advantage, and unlike Bryan, he also knew the bitch was crazy and coming to kill. There would be no pictures of Dean with a knife to his throat and a psycho standing over him.

"They let me out." AJ put her arms behind her back and twisted from side to side. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, Dean could see the bright smile that stretched across her face. "Apparently, I'm not on punishment anymore."

"Uh huh."

"For real! I mean, come on, Dean, it's not like anybody would help me escape. Well, anybody but you." She giggled, and what the fuck, man, it was cute. How did someone so crazy manage to be fucking cute? Dean had dated a girl once who had a habit of calling everything adorable. She would have called AJ adorable. Yeah, right up until adorable put an ice pick in her ear.

Dean ran a hand down his face and groaned. "So, they let you out, and you decide to come here."

"I came to get you!" AJ bounced on the balls of her feet. She was too excited, had too much energy for this time of night. Even crazy people needed to get some sleep. Even psychos needed to get a rest once in a while. AJ was usually up and terrifying half the building well before Dean got up in the morning, and she was always ready to go at night when he got to her locked room. When the hell did that bitch sleep?

"Kinda tired, AJ," Dean said with a grunt. "It's been a long day. I got a lot o' long days ahead of me."

"Oh, dumb!" He couldn't see clearly enough to be sure, but by the way her bright white smile vanished, Dean guessed that she was pouting. "You already know half the stuff they're teaching you."

"I wouldn't say half." Dean snorted. "Probably about a third. Some of it's actually kinda useful."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Dean grunted. "I don't really like talkin' about shit I don't know. I'd rather talk about shit I do know. Makes me feel smarter."

"Oh? And what do you know, Dean Ambrose?"

"I know that AJ Lee is a fucking nutjob and she's probably got a knife in her panties or some shit."

AJ laughed loud and hard. Dean got a flash of her white teeth as her mouth opened wide. She threw her head forward and her hair went over her head and touched the bed. Dean could feel it brushing the top of his feet through the thin blanket that covered him. AJ threw her head back and started to bring the laughter under control.

"Whew! You're a riot, Dean!" AJ put her hand to her chest as she took big heaving breaths. "Truth, though, is that they don't really let us have our own weapons. They're all locked up until we need them for a job. Personally I think it's kind of stupid."

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. With people like us around, it sounds pretty smart to me."

"Yeah, but what happens if like, ninjas attack us in the middle of the night."

"Ninjas?" Dean quirked a disbelieving eyebrow. "Really? Ninjas?"

"Or terrorists!"

"Uh huh."

"Or the ever present enemy." AJ put mock terror in her voice. "Oh my God, Dean, who will protect us if the ever present enemy comes in to kill us!"

Dean chuckled. Maybe that was why he liked AJ. Not just because she understood the crazy, but because she could make him laugh. He couldn't remember the last time that he had legitimately laughed at anything anyone else had said. He didn't mean laughing at them, because he laughed at stupid shit people did all the time. But to legitimately laugh with someone, to laugh because they were genuinely funny, because they tickled that part of him that knew humor and fun, well, that hadn't happened in a very long time.

It felt good to laugh. It felt good to have fun. Fun made Dean forget the shit of everything. It made him forget that he was angry all the goddamned time. It was a time when he could just fucking be, ya know? Like, he didn't have to pretend that he wasn't fucked up. He didn't have to watch what he was doing or what he was saying, or how he looked at someone, because laughing, well, that was shit everybody did all the time, and that shit was fucking normal, man. Fuck yeah, when he laughed like that, he just felt normal.

Even though he knew he wasn't.

But, it wasn't so bad, and it didn't last long. That was the best part of it. Normal was boring after a while, pretending at it and actually living it. Laughter would bore him if it didn't go away eventually. Dean could laugh and have some fun, he could have a good time, and then he could let it go long before he ever reached the point where he was bored with it all.

Dean smirked at her when his laughter died down. He put on his best swagger face. It would have been perfect if he had some gum right then. "I'll protect ya, baby."

AJ giggled. "You'll be my savior?"

"The one and only." He winked at her. The way she giggled said that her eyes were as adjusted to the darkness as his were. "But, you gotta come over here for me to do it."

"I do, huh?" She twisted side to side.

"Special bedding. Under these covers, the bad guys can't see you."

"But, we are the bad guys," AJ told him.

"Nah, we're just the not-so-bad guys. Definitely not the good guys, though. You can't really be the people we are and be the bad guys."

AJ stopped twisted and cocked her head to the side. "Interesting," she said.

"What?"

She shrugged. "I expected you to counter with saying the things we do couldn't make us good guys."

Dean returned her shrug. "Sweetheart, I'm not naïve. I know the shit the so-called good guys have to do to beat the really bad guys. We're not different from the military or the spies, or anybody else. We do the job that has to be done. But, let's look at the people doing the job. We're criminals, sweetheart, and some of us, a lot of us, are cold-blooded murderers. I'm not one of the good guys, AJ, and neither are you. We just do the good guys' dirty work."

"I think we're the good guys," AJ said with a shrug. "I think that we're crazy, and we have all kinds of fucked up issues, and some of us have done horrible things. But I think we're making up for it now. I mean, come on, Dean! We're saving the country!"

"Oh, AJ, sweetheart, you really are insane, aren't you?" Dean barked out a harsh laugh. "We're saving our bank accounts and the Western way of life, that's about it."

"Fine," she said, "we're saving capitalism, but we're saving something. And we're using our powers for sorta good instead of totally bad, so ya know what? I think we're the good guys."

Dean didn't know what to think about AJ Lee. Oh, sure, he knew she was battier than the Joker, but other than that- The girl was smart, that was for damn sure. And she had to have heart, 'cause she was guilty as hell about something. Only somebody who felt guilty needed to rationalize the shit that they had done. Dean didn't believe that AJ felt guilt for the vast majority of her crimes, but one of them- She had killed someone and she felt bad about it. Dean might ask her about it one day. He kind of wondered how guilt felt.

"Whatever, AJ." Dean grunted and slid down in the bed. "Answers still the same, though. If you want me to protect you from the really bad guys come to get us, you gotta come get it in this bed. It's the only place that's gonna happen."

"Well…" She twisted side to side again, and AJ was more comfortable with her being crazy and weird. "I mean, they could come in here and get us any minute, so I guess I should probably climb in, huh?"

"If you want protection."

Dean closed his eyes. He listened to AJ's giggles and the padding thumps of her sneakers against the floor. He felt the bed sink as she bounced on, and then two more thumps as she kicked off her shoes and they fell to the floor.

He had thought that this would go differently. He had expected her to be locked in a little longer. Dean figured he could have the Seth come up with a rig for the door, figured the kid was good enough to do that. Then, Dean could sneak in and still get back out in the morning. He thought that he would be the one to go to her, but this… This was just as good. This was better, because it meant he had to do a lot less work.

The pressure on the bed disappeared for a moment, and there was rustling, and then the pressure was there again. When she slid beneath the covers and eased over his body, Dean knew that she had been removing whatever she'd worn on the bottom half of her body. And when she climbed on top of his, she learned that he slept in absolutely nothing.

AJ giggled. "Looks like you were expecting me, Dean."

"Don't flatter yourself," he said. "And don't flatter me, either. I don't even pretend to know what the hell you're thinking."

"So, you sleep like this all the time?"

"Every night."

"Good to know." AJ positioned herself on his stomach. As she sat up, her panties rubbed against his skin. A growl crawled up Dean's throat as a throbbing heat built in his belly and surged lower. Goddamn, it had been too long since he'd had a woman.

AJ sat all the way up. She gripped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She flung it to the floor and looked down at Dean. She put the tip of her index finger in her mouth and giggled. She sure as hell was a giggler. It was kinda creepy, but hot at the same time.

AJ dropped her hands to his chest. She scratched him and Dean's hands went to her sides. She leaned over him and pressed her lips to his. AJ slid her body down, and when she reached his groin, he couldn't hold back. Dean dug his hands in and flipped her over onto her back. Their lips parted long enough for AJ to bark a laugh, then Dean kissed her again. She pressed the lower half of her body up, rubbed herself against him, and it was on.

Oh, fuck yeah, it was definitely on.