Author's Note: Just as a disclaimer, I wrote this chapter out of order, way way back before this year's Black Lives Matter protests or the current riots in Portland. The characters' dialogue about a movie seems even more controversial and poignant now than it did when I wrote it. I considered taking it out because that's a topic that's more complex and again, controversial, than I can do justice to in one conversation in a fanfic. However, in the end I left it because the characters all have different perspectives on it, and while neither I nor they have answers to the problem, I think it's a question worth considering from a few different angles. Clearly, it's one that is only becoming more relevant in our country today.

Chapter 22: JJ's Dad Strikes Back

It had been a quiet few days since Kie and JJ's big fight. Quiet, and sweet. Oddly, Pope seemed more relaxed, smiling more, and Kie felt steadier in a way that her feminist self definitely did not want to admit had anything to do with the little silver ring on her finger. JJ, on the other hand, was bursting full of energy, grins, and mischief. It was him who declared, with a pocket full of cash from his latest boat renovation gig, that he wanted to take them out for a date—or as much of a date as you could have when you were a closeted throuple on an island. Which meant movies because they happened in the dark and the three of them couldn't be seen. Kie didn't care for that particular metaphor, but even so, it was a little nice, going somewhere like any other couple.

Until Kie made the mistake of letting JJ pick the movie.

The car was bombshell silent for three full minutes after Kie pulled away from Kildare Island's tiny movie theater, then Pope's breathed, "Dude…" broke the detente.

"That scene when he was standing up on the car, everything on fire, dancing…" JJ shook his head, his agile fingers playing along the edge of the Xterra's passenger window, the scent of movie theatre popcorn still clinging to his tee shirt. "You could like see the moment he became the Joker."

"Chaos," Pope said. "That was some crazy shit."

"But that's the whole problem with it," Kie argued, flipping on her headlights as the twilight got heavier. "The whole narrative there is that violence is the answer. That the Joker won through inciting anarchy and hurting other people. That they made him an icon for it. It's kind of sick."

"Yeah, he finally fucking won, Kie," JJ said. "That's the point. Everybody was always fucking him over, kicking him when he was down, never giving him a break no matter how quiet and goddamn nice he was, and finally, he was the one who came out on top. He was the one who won." JJ closed one eye and aimed a pistol made of his fingers out the front window, mouthing the bang. "One fucking shot at the right person is all you need to take back what's yours."

"Or start World War I," Pope said. "I don't know, man. All those riots, burning buildings. They're protesting rich people but it's people like us that have to rebuild when the windows get broken. Turn out our pockets because we don't have the insurance to cover it."

"So what, people like us are just supposed to not get angry? We're supposed to lay down and take all this bullshit because even when we protest, we get fucked harder than those rich assholes behind their big gates?" JJ shook his head. "Nah, man. Sometimes you gotta stand up for what's right, no matter what it costs you."

"Do you think they should have made that movie, Pope?" Kie lifted her head to see him in the rearview mirror. "Made him a hero and all that?"

"I don't think they were saying The Joker was a hero," Pope said slowly. "More like he was a lit match, when everything was already ready to bur—"

"Whoa, slow down." JJ's hand whipped out to brace against the dashboard and Kie tapped the brakes.

"That's not very on brand for JJ Maybank," she teased. "Come on, I was only going seven over the speed limit. You getting timid in your old—" She broke off when she spotted the commotion outside the bar.

There was shouting as a man in a white wife-beater tank top backed out the door of The Anchor, his hands held up but his mouth still hurling epithets. Maude, the whip-thin, frizzy-braided woman who'd been a bartender at The Anchor since Kie was in preschool, followed him out, holding a cut-off bat of the type used to club large fish to death on a boat.

"Luke," she said. "You go on home now and I'll let you come back tomorrow. Otherwise, you ain't getting served until next week, the way you're going."

The sharp tattoos on her toned arms shone even in the dim parking lot lights. The Anchor wasn't big enough to have a bouncer, so Maude was it. When Luke Maybank lunged at Maude, Kie swerved reflexively, slamming on the brakes like she was the one under attack.

"Go!" Pope yelped from the backseat. "Go, go go!"

"Stop," JJ said at the same moment, reaching for the door handle.

Kie threw an arm out across him. "JJ! What are you doing?"

"Let me out," he said without taking his eyes off the fight in the parking lot. One of the regulars that Kie recognized from the docks was hanging off Luke's arm now, trying to talk to him. "He's bad today, I can tell. He's too big for her to take."

"She has a bat," Pope said, "And Maude throws him out of that bar like twice a week, JJ. She can call the cops if she needs help, or she's got a whole parking lot full of regulars who'd be happy to back her up for a free beer. There is absolutely no reason why we need to—Dammit, JJ!"

Pope broke off as JJ grabbed the door handle. Kie let him go long enough to slap the door locks, steering off the road when she heard the blare of a horn behind her.

"You are not going out there, JJ Maybank!" she snapped, slapping the lock button again when he pulled up the lock on his door. But then Luke broke free of the guy holding him and charged Maude, wrestling her for the bat in her hand.

"I practically own this bar," Luke howled, "much of my hard-earned money as I've given you over the years. You think you can just throw me out of here because you think I'm too drunk? It's a bar, you fucking cunt, not a church! The fuck do you think it's for?"

Kie was a second late hitting the lock button, distracted by the shouting, and JJ was out of the SUV and darting around the hood. She lunged out of the car after him, jumping onto his back and locking her arms and legs around him.

"You want to get in the middle of that fight?" she challenged. "Then you're taking me with you."

JJ dropped one shoulder, throwing her weight off balance so she slid to the side. He got an arm around her waist and slung her the rest of the way so he was holding her in front of him. It was a quick movement, one of his dirty little tricks honed from a million tussles on the boat about who was going to throw who in the ocean. Kie swore as he started to carry her back toward the car. She should have remembered that JJ never fought fair, not really ever. Didn't see the point, when he could win instead.

He stuffed her into the driver's seat, Pope shouting at both of them from the backseat. She fought back with everything she had, cramming her feet against the edge of the door to try to burst back out. JJ pried her off him so quickly and easily that surprise bolted up into her throat. It was suddenly brutally clear how much he held back his real strength during all their horseplay.

"Dammit, Luke!" Maude's voice howled over all the commotion.

JJ started to back out of the car, his head bumping the doorframe on his way out. Kie jumped at him, clawing to get purchase on his shirt, his belt, anything she could reach.

"You are not going out there," she hissed, "so help me God he is not going to get his fucking hands—oof!" Her breath whooshed out of her as JJ jumped forward across her lap. At first, she thought he was using his weight to pin her in, but then she realized he was rummaging in his backpack on the floor of the passenger seat. "Pope!" she yelped, because oh no it could be a gun JJ was going for.

Pope lunged up between the seats, reaching for JJ, but he was already pulling away and all Kie saw was pink fuzz and then something hard encircled her wrist. There was a click and then JJ was gone, his hat falling off in her lap as he jogged off toward his father. She threw the hat aside and went after him, pain shooting up her arm as she came up short.

"What the fuck?"

Pink, fuzzy handcuffs shackled her to the steering wheel. She pulled, stunned, but beneath the padded, feathered covering, they were solid metal.

"Oh no," Pope said, then swallowed. "I'll get him." He reached, shaking, for the door handle and Kie threw an arm back, batting him away from the door.

"No!" she ordered. "Not you, too. You can not get arrested. Shit. Fuck."

She tried to think but a crash jerked her head toward the bar. The sound had been a scrawny guy in oil-stained overalls, hitting the side of a parked car. Luke turned to Maude, who was missing the bat and was now snarling in his face, her own twisted with rage as she cussed him out. He shoved her. She stumbled and shoved him right back and he cocked a fist. JJ ducked between them, but didn't catch his dad's fist in time, and got an elbow to the face when he ended up somewhere in the messy middle of the punch.

"JJ!" Kie gasped and the back of her seat creaked as Pope latched onto it.

But JJ rebounded back up like a spring snapping. That wiry body of his just didn't have any quit in him, never had. Except even from here, Kie could see how much heavier his dad's body was, how much thicker were his layers of muscle. JJ was taller by an inch, these days, but outweighed by fifty or sixty pounds of pure mean.

Maude grabbed JJ's shoulder and tried to pull him away, but he was crowding his dad away from her, his head tucked low as he talked fast.

Luke exploded, coming at him in a fury of punches so fast and brutal Kie couldn't even sort out what was happening. Pope yelped, a sharp animal sound of pain that in the chaos of her thoughts seemed somehow like it was coming straight from JJ. Tears blurred her vision and so it was a second late before she registered the back door coming open.

"Pope, no!"

He came out of the car in a rush of hard purpose, his path as quiet and directed as a weapon.

JJ went down, too-long hair flying as his head bounced off the pavement. His father leaned into him but Pope was there then, stepping over JJ and powering his fist into Luke's face.

Luke staggered back and Pope was still going after him, his movements silent and hard, like he was a figure from a different movie than the loud, frenzied one that had been playing thus far in the parking lot. Pope threw a left this time, his whole back swinging into the punch with enough momentum to flatten Luke all the way to the pavement.

Pope went still then, for only a fraction of a second that made it so clear how much faster his brain was moving than the rest of the spectators. When Luke did nothing in response but bleed, Pope turned away toward JJ, who was already climbing back up onto his feet.

"Po—" he yelled, but his father had already caught their boyfriend by the back of his shirt, spinning him around and smashing him in the jaw with a sloppy but brutal haymaker. Pope staggered, falling half onto JJ.

JJ stumbled but kept his feet, grabbing at Pope to try and haul him back up. "Run," Kie heard him order. "Fucking run, dammit!"

Luke barreled into both of them as they were in the hot midst of scrambling back to their feet and they hit the asphalt in a tangle of arms and legs, skidding. Kie flinched back into the seat, her hands curling tight with the sympathy pain of knowing how much skin and blood they just left on the pavement.

Before they could regather themselves, Luke hauled back one meaty leg and booted them. She couldn't even see if he'd hit JJ or Pope, and then he did it again and a cry of pain stabbed itself through the air and buried itself right between her ribs.

"STOP IT!" Kie exploded out of the car, her shoulder wrenching painfully as she threw her whole body weight against the cuff. Rubber squeaked as her tires turned on the pavement, the steering wheel twisting with her but refusing to let her free. "Somebody do something, make him stop!"

One of the fishermen dodged in and Luke threw him back, leaving him on his ass. There was no pause in the attack for them to run or even roll away. But JJ was fast, faster than anyone she'd ever known, and he had one breath while Luke pulled his leg back to do something.

He grabbed Pope and curled his whole body over him. His legs coming up behind Pope's, his arms covering his boyfriend's. His chin tucking into the rear of Pope's neck so JJ's head protected his. It was the way he held him in bed, when all was quiet and silent and safe.

When the world was nothing like it was now.

"No!" Kie screamed as Luke started kicking them, falling half to her knees with her arm twisted painfully up behind her. Her sobs choked her screams and through the gush of her tears she saw Maude dodge in and wrestle with Luke. He tried to throw her off, but she stuck like a burr and his next kick was thrown off balance enough that it didn't land on JJ's already shuddering back.

Police. The single thought needled its way through the shriek of panic and hatred in Kie's mind. She threw herself back into the car, banging her shoulder. Pain burned around her trapped wrist as she fumbled with her left hand in the cupholder for her purse.

"I'm calling the fucking police!" she screamed as loud as she could. "You better get out of here before they come." She dropped the phone halfway through dialing 911, hit 912 on her second try, then saw the gleaming "emergency" prompt in the lower left corner and thumbed that. She popped her head back up as it rang.

Maude was still clinging to Luke's arms, clawing and head-butting the hell out of him while all the rest of the fisherman seethed uneasily behind her, looking too scared to jump in. Luke got in another uneven kick at his son and Kie's whole body jolted with JJ's when it landed.

"Leave them ALONE!" she screamed, her sobs jolting up out of her throat as unstoppable as vomit.

"—nature of your emergency," she heard a voice say in her ear.

"Fight, assault, The Anchor," she spit out, then realized that didn't sound like anything. The cops were going to finish their donut before they even started the engine for yet another bar fight at the diviest dive bar in the Cut. "A gun," she shrieked. "Luke Maybank has a gun and he's going to kill us all!"

"Cops!" someone yelled. "She's calling the cops!" Bar patrons started to scatter.

"Topper!" Kie added. "Topper, get away from him, that gun's loaded!" Topper had the most litigious family in the Figure 8 and the police damn well knew it. A mistake made with that family was a mistake that haunted you forever.

Maude let go of Luke, backing up. "Cops," she said. "Cops what you want tonight, Luke?"

He rushed her, trying to get back to JJ and Pope, but JJ was already scrambling up, shoving Pope in front of him. He was moving unevenly and he fell hard to one knee, favoring his left side. The phone fell from Kie's trembling fingers as she sucked in a breath, tears wet on her face. Pope turned and hauled JJ up, running with his arm locked around the other man's back as he rushed him toward the car and threw him into the passenger side, slamming the door.

"Go!" Pope yelled before he even got the back door open for himself. "Go go go!"

Kie reached for the shifter and hit the end of her handcuff. Then realized the door was open and got all tangled up trying to reach for it with her left hand, then across to the shifter to pull it into drive, choking on blinding tears and barely able to breathe.

"Let me drive." Pope lunged up between the seats, his voice that single-minded, murderous focus that he had been transmitting since he went after Luke. He started to pick up Kie to move her bodily into the back seat, and then seemed to remember the handcuff. "JJ, we need the key. JJ, the key."

JJ reached over, then jerked to a stop with a hissing breath of pain. Guarding his left side with his bent arm, he reached across with his right instead, and flicked his thumb over the inside of the cuff. It fell free, released by some kind of safety catch button that had been hidden in all that pink fluff. Kie stared at him, annoyed beyond all reason that the way out had been there all along and she hadn't even seen it.

Pope started to lift her, not waiting for her to recover, and she grabbed the steering wheel. "No." she practically snarled it, unwilling to have one more goddamn thing happen tonight against her will. Not even one. "I've got this."

She hadn't been allowed to fight, she hadn't even gotten one shot at Luke Maybank. She hadn't been able to protect the boys she loved, but she could at least get them safely away.

She jerked it in gear and looked up. Men were scattering toward the edges of the parking lot, headlights popping on as the sirens got closer. Maude stood with her arms crossed, looking pissed off and immovable like it was just another Tuesday. Kie's gaze zeroed in on a flash of wife beater tank top just beyond Maude and her lashes flared. Her foot hit the gas.

"Kie, the road is—Kie!" Pope yelled from the backseat.

Luke ducked between two cars, cranking it up to a jog as he made his way toward the woods and she hit the brakes, grinding her teeth as she swung the wheel back toward the road instead.

"We should really put on our seatbelts," Pope suggested, his voice climbing now toward his normal freaked-out pitch. "Kie, whoa, those are police officers, slow down."

Her body was responding too slow to her commands, moving in angry jerks and spasms like she was the one who had taken a beating. She didn't know if she wanted to throw up or scream her lungs out and her left eye was still clogged with tears so she couldn't see through it yet. The yellow line disappeared under her tires and she sucked in a breath. Fuck, she had to get it together. For them.

She sucked in a breath, tapped the brakes. Her phone slid across the floormat but she ignored it. Wiped her eyes and buckled on her seatbelt.

"JJ, are you—" she began.

But Pope was already up between the seats, trying to prod at the arm JJ had gingerly tucked into his side.

"Don't touch me," he snapped, jerking away from Pope's hands.

"I just…is it broken? Do we need to go to the hospital?"

"No."

Silence beat in the car for a second, two.

"JJ, I felt it when—I felt how hard he kicked you. You could have internal bleeding. You—"

"Your face is swelling." JJ had turned, still not wearing a seat belt as he gripped Pope's chin with his good right hand. "Dammit, Pope, where else did he hit you?"

"Nowhere," Pope said. "JJ, I'm fine, it's you—"

"Can you wiggle your jaw? Do it like this, to see if it's broken at the hinge." JJ made a strange movement that looked like he'd done it before. Kie hugged her arm over her stomach as she took the dark, almost invisible turn between the bushes for the driveway to the Chateau.

The lights weren't on because John B was always at Sarah's place these days. Kie parked and reached for JJ, but he was already out of the car. As the dome light came on, she caught the smudge of a dark, waffle-print boot sole on the back of his sleeveless Coors shirt. JJ ripped Pope's door open and caught him by the wrists, checking his hands, then pulling him toward the house.

Pope threw a helpless glance her way, pulled along in JJ's wake. She grabbed her phone and hurried after them, but by the time she made it to the front door, they were already past and into the kitchen. JJ was slamming through drawers. "Damn it, why don't we have a clean towel in this place? Fucking John B never does laundry." Blood dripped from his face and Kie's heart twisted.

"JJ, you're bleeding." She reached for him again but he shoved past her hands, leaving her skin stinging as he stomped past her to the bathroom.

"No fucking towels in here either, goddamn it." He came back and she scurried out of his path before he could plow right through her. Her sandal slipped on a drip of blood on the floor and a larger, thicker blop of blood hit the floor when he slammed open the freezer. He grabbed the only thing in it, which was a bag of cauliflower—which they all hated, even Kie. For the first time, the violence of his movements eased as he turned back to Pope.

"Don't you ever," he said, the low viciousness of his voice at odds with the gentleness with which he held the bag to Pope's bruised jaw. "Fucking ever get between my dad and me again. He's not your problem."

"What, and he's yours?" The words burst out of Kie before she could think through the best way to deal with this. "You don't have to be his punching bag, JJ. Maude chose to work at a bar with no bouncer. She knows how he is. You don't have to play into his abusive insanity anymore!"

He gritted his teeth, his jaw muscle popping as he bled down his chin and onto his shirt. "I don't need your psychobabble savior bullshit right now, Kie. What do you know about it? Huh?" His eyes flashed as he cut a glance her way. "Your happy rich fucking family with your mom who cares if you're safe. Living in a house with like four bathrooms and fucking wicker fucking balls on the table because it looks nice." He scoffed and shame and anger burned up in her, torching her already sore throat. What, like she wasn't allowed to have problems just because they had decorations on their table? All she'd done tonight was try to help him, damn him. Why was he suddenly mad at her?

"Oh, I'm a savior?" She stepped up, voice climbing dangerously. "Well you're a fucking martyr then, JJ. Because you know what? You didn't have to stop. You didn't have to get in the middle of all that. You don't ever have to go to his house anymore, but you do. All your shit's here. You've got a free roof over your head, with people who actually like you, and you still go back over there all the time!"

"I just needed to—" he started, the bag sagging away from Pope's face as he argued with her.

"It's not like you couldn't borrow tools from Heyward!" she threw back. "So don't use that as an excuse again because you know it. You choose that shit, JJ, and it's fucked up. You put yourself right in the middle of it and for what?" She stabbed her finger at his chest, getting in between him and a wide-eyed Pope because she was so, so sick of not saying it, and she'd never understood why he did it. Why he always went home and gave his dad a thousandth chance when he had a whole world of other places to go. "He's not your problem," she seethed, her voice dropping low. "I don't get it, JJ. Maybe it's because my family is nice to me, what the fuck ever, but I seriously don't. You let him pound on you like…"

"Like what, Kie?" JJ popped up into her face, the bag of cauliflower dropping onto the floor. "Like it's my fault? Like I deserve it? I fucking do," he hissed. She opened her mouth but he was still talking. "John B and all of you have been telling me I don't for all these years, and I let you believe that because I don't want you to know the truth." JJ took a step back, blinking as the blood started to dry beneath his nose. Suddenly, he looked tired. "Because I don't want you to look at me like he does."

"JJ, we wouldn't," Pope said, his voice a low rumble. "We never would. We care about you."

JJ ducked his head, but not before she saw the liquid shine in his wild eyes. "It's not as simple as some poster in a social worker's office, like you all want to think it is. You want to know why he drinks? Why he does coke and pops every pill he can find? Because he's in pain."

JJ sucked in a shaky breath. Pope's chin jerked toward Kie, his whole body vibrating with anxiety, like he could feel what was coming.

"When I was a kid, he was working on an engine in the garage and I was messing around, wanted him to play with me. I knocked a bucket of hot oil over, and it spilled all over his foot. He was wearing flip flops, and the nerve damage never healed."

Kie inhaled, her whole chest tingling with horror.

"He drank before that, a little. On Saturday nights and shit. But the pain, it never went away and the docs stopped giving him pills." JJ's head came up, his too-long hair sagging into his eyes like it was tired, too. "So he drinks because that's the only way he can make it go away. Why do you fucking think he hates me so much, Kie?" His whisper hung in the air of the Chateau and she couldn't think, couldn't answer.

Couldn't imagine anybody hating JJ, especially when he'd been a sunny-haired ebullient little boy with permanently grass-stained knees.

"He's not some terrible head case," JJ said. "I let you think he was, but honestly, he's just hurting and it's my fault and we both know it."

Kie couldn't let this go on, not for even one more second. "JJ, you don't deserve what he does to you." She reached to hold him, and he shoved her away, backing up until his shoulders hit the fridge. "You don't," she insisted, following him and catching his face even when he wrenched it away so he didn't have to look at her. "If I burned you right now," she said, her voice low and urgent, "Hell, if I cut off your hand, you'd never hurt me."

She stroked his jaw, which was trembling under her palms, his hair falling forward as she raised his face until he had to look at her, tears in both their eyes.

"You'd never hurt me," she whispered. "You never would. And he doesn't have to hurt you." JJ's shoulders shook, a silent sob rattling up in him as his jaw flexed to hold it in. His eyes glittered, hanging onto hers. "Nobody should ever hurt you." She pulled him into her arms. "Nobody."

His sob broke against her neck and his hands were suddenly gripping her back, clenching emptily against her shirt.

"Kie…" It was Pope's voice, soft and stuttering and lost. But she felt steadier than she'd felt all night as she opened her arm, beckoning him over and letting him fold himself around JJ's back. She had one boy under each arm and she pressed her cheek to Pope's hair, kissing JJ's forehead.

"I'm going to call John B," she said quietly, firmly. JJ twitched and she held him tighter, her elbow aching with the strength of it. "We're going to tell him tonight. JJ, you kept this locked up all these years like a secret, like there was a reason it was okay for your father to wail on you like that. It's bullshit, and John B will know it as soon as he hears it, just like we did."

JJ was shaking his head against her shoulder, but it was weak. She pressed a fierce kiss to his temple and when she stepped away, Pope's arms encircled JJ without even an instant of a gap when he wasn't held.

It took John B less than ten minutes to respond to her SOS text. When he walked in, JJ had retreated to a corner of the living room, stuffed in between an old subwoofer and a water-warped end table. His knees were up and head hanging, his fingers tangled through his own hair.

"Fuck," John B said, his gaze going immediately to JJ. "Is anything broken? Pope, there's ice in the freezer, aspirin in the bathroom." He knelt next to JJ, touching the back of his neck gently but assuredly. "Bro, how bad is it this time?"

JJ's back shook, and all she could hear was the scraps in between when he let himself go long enough to suck in more air for the sobs he wouldn't let out. Her bones ached with the need to hold him, but he hadn't wanted to be touched any more, had told her no. She had to respect that.

"JJ, can I tell him?" she said softly.

It was a long moment, the fear rising cold in her chest as she debated what she'd do if he wouldn't let her. She could see him being too frightened for John B to know, and it wasn't her secret to share, but it had clearly been festering all this time like a wound never properly cleaned. But his wrecked blonde hair moved up, just a little. Then down. Nodding, with his face still hidden.

Kie hugged herself tighter, let Pope come up next to her and squeeze her shoulder.

"He accidentally bumped a pail of hot oil when he was a kid. It spilled on his dad's foot, and it wasn't until after that that his dad started drinking and pill popping and beating him."

John B got it immediately. "Oh fuck." He was silent for barely an instant, then, "JJ, your dad's a fucking angry dick. You could have spilled a pail of daisies on his foot and he'd still be an angry dick."

JJ choked, almost laughed, and Kie's heart lifted, hoping.

John B dropped to his ass, sitting next to JJ in the corner but not trying to touch him, not pushing. "Fourth grade, right?" he asked. "The pail of oil, it was in fourth grade."

JJ's head came up, just enough that she could see his swollen eyes, the dried blood smeared across his nose and lip. He nodded, gaze fixed on John B. "How…"

"Dude, do you remember…" John B paused, his eyes going vague. "We had a barbecue at your house, all your cousins running around, in third grade. We were playing wiffle ball and hit the ball into the potato salad. Your dad threw the whole bowl at you." On Kie's shoulder, Pope's hand jerked. She reached up and steadied it with her own. "My dad said we had to go, and after that, we could only play at my house, remember? That was third grade, JJ."

John B kicked at his foot, nudging him.

"You didn't make your dad what he was any more than I made mine what he was. I was always asking questions about the Royal Merchant, and treasure, and making him read me pirate books when I was a kid. It's what got him killed, but he was like that, even before me." John B paused. "It's not your fault, how he is."

JJ made a strangled noise and burst forward with no warning, tackling John B to the floor, his arms locking around him. John B didn't flinch, just hugged him back, both of them rolling on the sandy hardwood.

"He hit Pope," Kie heard JJ whisper, sharp and pained. "My fault."

Pope let go and he knelt by the other two boys. "I jumped in, JJ. You told me to stay in the car, and I didn't, and I was fucking proud for him to hit me."

"Pope!" Kie gasped.

He ignored her, focused on their boyfriend. "You hear me? I'd let him beat the shit out of me every day for the rest of my life if he'd never hurt you again." Pope took him from John B, pulling him up to sitting and cradling his jaw in both palms, pressing kisses down his face. "Please," he begged, his voice raw. "Please. Don't let him hurt you any more. Stay away. For us, if not for you. I can't stand to watch him hurt you, you get it?" Pope took one of JJ's hands and pressed it over the swelling mark on Pope's chin where he'd taken Luke's fist. "You get that, after tonight, don't you? I fucking hate it, watching him hurt you."

Kie didn't hear JJ's answer, just his ragged breaths as he nodded. She didn't realize she'd knelt down until she felt the floor hard under her knees.

"Fuck," JJ managed finally, still fighting to swallow down his silent sobs. "Sorry about this shit, guys." He knuckled his eyes.

John B scooted up behind him, pulling JJ back into his chest, his wavy hair pressed flat between his cheek and JJ's as he squeezed him hard. "We love you," he said gruffly. "We fucking love you, and if we have to kill that bastard to keep you safe, then I'll do it myself and throw the body down Mrs. Crane's well with her creepy husband's skull."

JJ laughed a little, raising wet eyes that she felt like a jolt when they settled on her. "Sorry about the cuffs, Kie."

She pushed at his shoulder, scooting closer. "You're not, you asshole."

He gave another shaky laugh, a scrap of a smile this time. "I'm not. You'd be in the hospital right now."

"He'd be in the hospital," she threatened. "I had my eye on Maude's fish bat."

"Yeah," John B said, his arms loosening to a more casual hold, but still cradling JJ. "Actually, came down to it, my money's on Kie."

Pope laughed, the sound gusty like an exhale, and Kie bumped his shoulder with hers, wiggling in amongst all the knees and arms until she could slip her hands around JJ's waist, Pope's shoulders cradling her back. They melted into the kind of jumbled group hug that shouldn't really ever work with four people but somehow the Pogues always did perfectly.

"I…" JJ started, then the words disappeared into a trembling inhale and he never finished.

"I know, buddy," John B said, and squeezed them all a little tighter.

Author's Note: One of the lesser talked about dynamics in abusive relationships is the level to which the subject of the abuse feels complicit in causing the abuse. It can be something they legitimately did wrong and feel bad about, like slapping their abuser when they were angry, or crashing the family car. More often, it's a situation engineered by the abuser to MAKE the subject feel complicit in the abuse and therefore less likely to leave or ask for help. Like if the abuser picks a fight when they're both drunk, baits the subject into doing things they'll later regret, and then tells their subject they were the one at fault. Or like with JJ, where he did something accidental and his abuser repeatedly TOLD him it was his fault and therefore deserved the abuse heaped upon him.

Here's the thing, folks. Nobody is ever responsible for abuse but the abuser. They are the one who chose violence. Nothing you do can MAKE someone violent unless they choose to be. Period.