Chapter 17 - What We Deserve

AJ woke in Kaitlyn's bed the next morning with puffy, red eyes. She'd cried herself to sleep, in an angry panic over what had happened at The Kitten Club. She kept wondering if it would be on social media somehow, but Cody hadn't taken any photos. Knowing Cody, he would want it to be their little secret, and she didn't know if that made it better or worse. If the secret got out, then at least she wouldn't have to live with the fear.

Kaitlyn's reaction had definitely made it worse. She'd tried to be supportive, but after hearing AJ tell the tale, Kaitlyn had been uncharacteristically quiet during the ride to her apartment. It reminded AJ that no matter how much time had passed, Kaitlyn was still not over the verbal abuse she suffered while she was dating Cody. As much as he'd bullied AJ in front of Dolph and the rest of his friends, his torture of Kaitlyn when they were alone had been worse.

"I'm sorry." AJ had sobbed, regretting every life choice that had led them to this point. That's when Kaitlyn allowed the situation to sink in, and she snapped into protector mode.

"It's not your fault." she told AJ, making AJ repeat it back to her. "I didn't mean to go all catatonic on you. I'm just trying to think of ways to actually murder him and get away with it."

The other thing bothering AJ was that she hadn't received any calls or texts from Dean the previous night. They always shared something, even if it was just a simple good night or miss you, especially if they knew they weren't going to see each other. The fear that Cody had spread the news all over town in the past eight hours sent another wave of anxiety through her entire body.

"You know how Cody works," Kaitlyn tried to assure her. "He doesn't want anyone else to know, he just wants you to be afraid of him. He gets off on keeping it to himself."

AJ understood, but it only reminded her of all the white lies she told and the secrets she kept that were already weighing on her. And knowing Cody was not the same as trusting him.

She had to tell Dean about it. The thought of Cody telling him first was going to eat her alive.

Dean drifted in and out of sleep. It worked better when he stayed completely still, because any slight movement would cause enough pain to shock him awake. It hurt so much it nauseated him, but he still thought he could just tough it out with a day in bed. When his father knocked on the bedroom door to check on him, it took all his strength to answer without yelling in pain. He managed to choke out something about food poisoning or the flu; he couldn't remember which one he'd chosen. But it kept Roddy away.

Sunlight streamed through the blinds over his window. He wished it was pitch black in his bedroom, but he couldn't get up to drape a blanket over the frame. Dean had to silence his phone, because it hurt to check it, and Seth and Roman wouldn't leave him alone. He kept telling them he was fine, that he was resting, but they knew better. I just need a day, he told them. A day to himself, to wallow in what he'd done. A day to realize that all the pain he felt inside every day was suddenly physical and impossible to ignore like usual. The people marching through his thoughts made his head pound. The faces he saw made his heart ache. When he cried, he cried silently and let the salt sting the wounds on his face. His father, his mother, his child-beating step-dad all sitting in court, listening to a ten-year-old's confused statement; Roman and Seth in fifth grade, all the classmates they used to play-fight back in the day, and the real bullies they decided to stand up to; Zack scowling in the boxing ring, Coach Michaels kicking him out, and the garbage cans behind Shawn's gym; Heath Slater's limp body being dragged out of the warehouse...

It all played in loops in his mind, leading up to the first opponent from the previous night whose name he'd missed completely, and then dead-eyed Luke. They may have successfully stolen Luke's truck, but Dean felt like he'd been hit by it. A fitting punishment if ever he'd experienced one.

To stop the torture, he thought of AJ, of how much he wanted to see her, but at the same time didn't want her anywhere near him. He thought about her so intensely - her smile, her laugh, how her body felt in his bed - that when he heard the soft knock on his door he didn't believe it was real.

"Dean?" asked a muffled female voice. Dean lifted his head, forgetting for one moment how much it would hurt to move any part of his body. He stifled a moan and settled back down.

"Your dad said you were sick." AJ called gently through the closed door. "...Can I come in?"

"Yeah." Dean croaked. He didn't know what he was going to say to her, but he didn't have the heart to turn her away.

She entered and shut the door behind her. In their heads they both ran through the half-truths they were planning to tell, guilt mingling with anticipation. Buried in blankets, Dean stayed still and waited for her to come to him. He couldn't turn her away, but he couldn't turn to face her either.

"Dean?" AJ said softly, padding across the floor on socked feet. She climbed onto the bed, careful not to jostle it too much in case his stomach was upset. She reached over to move the blanket from his face. Dean turned into the pillow, the ache in his heart worse than before.

"...Dean?" AJ said again. She saw the edge of a black eye and her stomach was suddenly in knots. The silence scared her. Her sarcastic, quick-witted boyfriend wouldn't even look at her. "What happened?" AJ whispered.

He heard the fear in her voice, and he regretted letting her in. But he still couldn't turn her away.

"I fucked up." he said in a dry rasp. He felt tears in his eyes again, burning hot.

So did I. thought AJ, but she was too disturbed by Dean's apparent injuries to share her side of things.

"Dean." said AJ, pulling on his shoulder. The pain shot down his arm and through his chest. He inhaled sharply, and the parts of his face that weren't already swollen scrunched up. His full body reaction startled her, and she took her hand away quickly, as if she'd been burned.

"I'm sorry -!" she breathed, beginning to cry. After the night she'd had, it was all too much.

"No-" Dean began to roll over then. It was easier when he was already in pain. AJ covered her mouth with both hands when she saw his whole face. Both of his eyes were purple, bruised and caked with dried blood. His lip was split and swollen, and there was a pattern across the other side of his face that looked like he'd been pressed hard against a chain link fence. She couldn't see the bruises on his chest and abdomen, but the fact that he could barely move or talk implied his internal injuries were just as bad, or worse.

The look of horror on AJ's face, it was the same one he'd seen on his teacher's face, the morning he'd stumbled into his fourth grade class with a fractured wrist, blood on his clothes and the rest of his baby teeth knocked out too early. Dean hated seeing that look on AJ's face. He hated himself for putting it there.

"You need to see a doctor." she said abruptly. She wiped tears from her face. Now that the shock over, she had to help him.

Dean tried the same line that he'd used on his friends. "I just need to rest."

"Dean." AJ leaned closer, placing her hand gingerly on his shoulder. "You don't have to tell me what happened. I just need you to go to the hospital, okay?"

Fuck. Dean thought, because it was starting to work.

"Please?" AJ begged, her voice shaking because she was about to lose it again.

"I can't." Dean whispered.

"Why not?"

Because then it would be real. Because maybe I deserve to lay here and suffer.

"Dean, please." AJ sat back on her heels, clutching a hand full of blankets because she was afraid to shake him. "I can't leave you here like this."

He tried to take a deep breath, but his ribs hurt.

"Then just stay with me." he said.

AJ cried again. She'd come here for comfort, to confess her mistakes and ask for forgiveness. Dean looked completely broken, and acted like it was just fine to be that way.

"Please." AJ sobbed softly.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

"...Do it for me?"

That was the end of Dean's resistance. He agreed to go, but it became clear very early that AJ would not be able to get him to a car by herself. She had to ask Roddy for help, and when Roddy saw his son in the condition he was in, he swore harshly. There were a hundred questions, but Dean only had one answer at the moment.

"I'll tell you when I'm not about to black out, alright?"

Later, at the hospital, while Dean was being cleaned up and given pain meds and a proper bed to rest in, Roddy sat with AJ in the waiting area. For a while they sat in awkward silence; AJ was scared, and Roddy was stewing. While she sat curled up in one corner of her chair, sipping cheap coffee from a styrofoam cup, Roddy sat forward with an unopened can of soda, staring hard at nothing on the floor while dark thoughts stormed in his head. He was probably scared too, AJ thought. But scared parents were usually angry parents. They didn't like having the power to protect their kids taken away from them.

"I wanna thank you." Roddy said gruffly, when he did speak up. AJ looked up, but Roddy kept his eyes on the floor. "Getting him to come here..." Roddy trailed off, taking the moment to open his soda can. "He's damn lucky to have you in his life."

AJ tried to smile, but it felt sad.

"You know," Roddy went on. "I'm not foolish enough to think Dean's living some squeaky clean life, keeping his nose completely out of trouble. I just didn't think it'd be this bad." After another pause, he looked over at AJ. "Did you know about this? Do you know what happened?"

AJ shook her head. "No." she said. "I mean..."

There were bits and pieces of a theory in her head, about underground fighting rings and dangerous jobs that had him out on the streets at four in the morning, but she didn't want to rat him out. If it had been her dad, asking Dean about her job and what she did at night, she knew Dean wouldn't rat her out.

"No." she said again.

"I didn't think so." Roddy said gently. "Based on your reaction at the house." He breathed in, and let out an abruptly loud sigh and sat back in his chair. AJ recognized the look in his eyes. Her father had gone through similar moods when he found out she'd skipped school, or driven in a car with someone he didn't know. Those things seemed trivial compared to what Roddy and Dean had been through.

"I don't know how much Dean's told you about our family's past, but the mistakes I made at his age..." Roddy shook his head and chuckled bitterly. "Let's just say it's takin' me back, and I wish this little soda can was a keg of beer right now. Not to mention the last time he was in a hospital like this. Ohh, I thought I taught him better. Thought he could handle himself out there. But it's my own damn fault. Like father, like son-"

Roddy stopped rambling when the doctor stopped by. Dean was ready for visitors.

"He'll recover." the doctor assured them. "It's just good you got him here when you did. The ribs would have been tricky if he'd waited any longer."

AJ's heart fluttered with relief, but her stomach turned thinking about would have happened had she hesitated another few hours. If she hadn't had something of her own to confess, she might have waited, wondering why he wouldn't text back. She got up from her chair and waited for Roddy to follow but he waved her along.

"You go." said Roddy. "If I go in there I'll just end up yelling at him. He needs something sweet right now."

As AJ walked toward Dean's room, she saw Roman and Seth getting off the elevator at the end of the hall. She waved, but she didn't stop to talk to them. She'd sent a text to both of them, simply stating that she was taking Dean to the hospital. From what little Dean had told her, they already knew the rest. The last she saw of them was their shamed expressions as they approached Roddy in the waiting area. He stood up to yell at them, because he couldn't yell at his own son just yet.

"Where the hell were you two last night? Did you know about this?"

"Sir, can you please keep your voice down?" said a nurse at the nearby station.

That was the last AJ heard as she let herself into Dean's hospital room. It was quiet in there. He was awake, spaced out but aware enough to sense her presence as soon as she entered. AJ braced herself, anticipating what his face would look like now.

It was scary to think he looked better than he had before. He still looked like he'd been hit by ten minutes of speeding traffic. He had a bandage on his forehead; she hadn't even noticed a gash there earlier. His left eye had cleaned up pretty good, but his right was still swollen. Under the hospital gown there was tape on his shoulder, and she figured his abdomen must have been wrapped a few times around.

He laid there watching her, a half smile appearing on his beat up face. She walked up to the side of the bed and studied his cuts and bruises. Belatedly, she leaned over to give a clear spot on his forehead a soft kiss.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.

"I can't feel a fuckin' thing." Dean admitted, his speech a little slower than his usual drawl due to the drugs in his system. "It's...kind of fuckin' awesome."

AJ forced a quiet laugh. She reached for Dean's hand, the one that was on her side of the bed. His other hand was resting on his chest. He looked up at her. He wasn't drugged enough to forget what had happened, or how he'd gotten to the hospital. And he still remembered AJ's reaction when she found him laying there in his bed.

His throat was dry, and he had difficulty swallowing before he spoke up again.

"Is my Dad pissed?"

"Yeah." AJ chuckled, playing with his fingers. He moved his fingers against her palm, slow like his voice.

"Are you pissed?" he asked her.

AJ looked at Dean, past the swollen sockets and into his eyes. "No." she said, shaking her head for emphasis. Tears welled up against her wishes, and she swiped at one that managed to escape down her cheek. "I was just scared. Seeing you like that - like this-" AJ stopped talking and looked down as more tears rolled down her face.

Dean squeezed her fingers. The fear he saw in her eyes pierced his heart.

"I'm sorry." he said.

AJ shook her head, but Dean needed her to know. He pulled on her hand, and waited until she was looking into his eyes again.

"I don't ever want you to be scared because of me." he said, his tone dead serious. "I want you to feel safe."

"I do feel safe with you." said AJ. She wiped more tears away, and glanced at the rest of his body, tucked in under the hospital blankets. She wondered what else was all bandaged up. "But what about you? How do I keep you safe?"

"I'm fine." he insisted, pulling another smile as if it would fix his rearranged face. He held onto her fingers and shook her hand back and forth. "I can obviously take quite a beating." he joked.

AJ didn't laugh.

"Dean, what happened?"

"It's complicated." he said. "I'll explain more when I get out of here."

"Was it the job you had on Thursday night?" AJ asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"That was part of it." Dean admitted.

AJ nodded. She knew complicated. She still wasn't sure how to explain her own personal mess to him.

Dean saw her nod, but her expression didn't change. Something was up, something else. She was staring at their hands, so he squeezed her hand harder, letting her know he was there for her, even if he was laid up in a hospital bed.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked her.

AJ was quiet for a long time, and then she climbed onto the bed next to him. There wasn't much space, but she was tiny next to his wider frame and she curled up next to his body just fine. She rested her head near his shoulder, since the one on her side of the bed wasn't the injured one.

"It's complicated. I'll explain more when you get out of here." she told him, cutting through the sadness with a sarcastic, teasing remark. It made Dean smile.

"Let me know if I'm hurting you." AJ whispered.

Dean put his arm around her shoulders. Even if she was, he wouldn't move her an inch.

Roddy must have given Roman and Seth an earful, because AJ and Dean had a good twenty minutes to themselves before someone knocked on the door. AJ stirred and looked up to see who it was. Dean looked, and then immediately averted his eyes. Roddy was there in the doorway, having calmed his temper enough to visit his son.

"Can I have a minute with him, darlin'?" he asked AJ.

She nodded, but she didn't leave before glancing back at Dean to make sure he was okay with it. Dean gave her a familiar half-smile, recognizable even through his injuries. AJ leaned over to kiss his cheek, and he squeezed her waist with his good arm. Roddy smiled as she passed by, but it was just to put her at ease. The smile faded quickly once she was past him. He had nothing to smile about in that moment.

Roddy crossed his arms, and waited until he heard the door latch behind AJ.

"Is it drugs?" he asked immediately.

Dean looked past his own feet, straight ahead at the wall across from his bed. He licked dry lips, and swallowed down his dry throat again. "No." he said, as clearly and convincingly as possible.

"Don't lie to me." Roddy warned him. "I've been around every block, and I know every trick in the book."

"It's not." Dean insisted. "It's not drugs. I don't take them, and I don't sell them."

"Alright. What the hell is it, then?"

"I was in a fight."

"No kidding." Roddy said sharply. "What was it about?"

"It wasn't 'about' anything. I got paid to fight."

"Where?"

"Warehouse. Downtown."

"Dean-"

"Christ, Dad. I get it."

Roddy shook his head. "No you sure as hell don't. What happened to boxing, and training at the gym?"

"I quit."

"I told you not to lie to me."

"Michaels kicked me out, alright?" Dean snapped, raising his head from his pillow to look at his father. The motion made him dizzy, and a dull pang threatened a worse headache once the meds wore off. He closed his eyes, laying back down slowly. "Fuck..."

Roddy let him settle back before asking his next question calmly.

"Why did he kick you out?"

"Because Zack's a pussy who can't take a punch." Dean muttered.

"Well if you're so fuckin' good, why are you the one laying in a hospital bed right now?"

Dean didn't have an answer for that.

"Dean," Roddy started up again. "I see you looking the way you do, and you know what? As bad as you look, I'm scared to ask what the other guy looks like right now. I'm scared, period. Do you even understand what just happened to you? Do you realize how close you came? All it would have taken was a few more kicks and punches, or someone deciding you weren't heading home ever again. Or maybe you'd be going to jail for manslaughter, I don't know. I don't even know what to imagine. All I know is you're not telling me the whole story, because you can't even look me in the eye."

Dean clenched his jaw and kept his eyes on the wall. His father was right, but it only made him more resolute.

"God dammit." Roddy muttered, rubbing his hands over his tired face. "You're as stubborn as I am."

Roddy dropped into a nearby chair. He shut his mouth for a bit and waited, letting Dean's own thoughts overwhelm his brain.

It didn't take long. Dean knew his father's past. He knew Roddy had already made all the mistakes he'd ever need to learn from. He knew his father wouldn't disown him or kick him out of the house if he came clean. The part of him that wanted to seem hard, the part that refused to admit that anything was ever wrong; that part slipped for just a moment.

"I boosted a truck." Dean said quietly.

Roddy nodded, upset but understanding. And not really surprised.

"You mean 'we'." Roddy corrected his son sardonically. Seth and Roman hadn't squealed, but their worried, shameful expressions sure made more sense in hindsight. "'The three of you took the truck, but only one of you caught the beating, is that it?"

Dean had gone silent again. It was taking all of Roddy's strength not to lose his temper.

"I should tell the hospital to make two more beds." he joked darkly.

"It's not their fault."

"You're right, you should all know better. So what does the paid fight have to do with the truck?"

"The driver..." Dean's voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat.

"Jesus..." Roddy was already muttering, putting the puzzle pieces together.

"He was there to fight." Dean continued. "I figure...he had to make some money pretty quick after we fucked him over."

"And Seth and Roman?"

"They couldn't do anything." Dean assured his dad. "I didn't want them to." he added. "The guy told me straight up, let him win the fight and it would be the end of it."

"A real martyr." Roddy stared at his son, waiting for a better explanation, or a promise that it wouldn't happen again. He knew he wouldn't get either. Not if he asked for himself, and not if he asked for Dean's sake. But there was someone else in Dean's life now, and Roddy knew from personal experience that a girl could make a guy do things his own family couldn't.

"You scared the shit out of your girlfriend." said Roddy.

Dean closed his eyes again. That was a different kind of pain. No meds for that.

"You made a sweet girl like that cry her little eyes out. Makes you feel like a real big man, don't it?"

Dean shook his head, too tired for sarcasm.

"Well." Roddy got up and walked over to Dean, placing a hand gently on his good shoulder. "I'm pissed as hell, but you already got your ass kicked, and you already feel like a great big pile of shit. So I'll just say this for now - I love ya, and if you ever do this again I'll finish you off myself, you hear me?"

He squeezed his son's shoulder supportively; all that tough talk was just to show he cared. Dean couldn't look him in the eye yet, but the relief of having faced his father and survived, and even getting an I love you in the process, allowed him to shrug a little of the weight from his burden. He lowered his gaze, accepting the pat on the shoulder wordlessly.

"We'll talk more later." Roddy promised, whether Dean wanted to or not. "I'll send in those knuckleheads you call your brothers now."

Roddy left, and it was another minute before they came in. They entered cautiously, still reeling from the verbal beating Roddy had laid on them. All Roman could do at first was shake his head at the sight of his brother in the hospital bed. Seth steeled himself against the sick feeling in his stomach, forcing himself to walk closer.

Dean looked up at them with a neutral expression, at the two towering figures next to his bed. The reactions from his dad and AJ were one thing; he expected them to freak out. Judging by Seth and Roman's expressions, he must have really been knocked on his ass this time.

"Fuck, man." Seth said, shaken to the core. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, I got a morphine drip out of the deal." Dean lifted the hand that had the IV stuck in it, and wiggled the fingers. But they weren't quite ready for jokes.

"We shouldn't have left you like that." said Roman, like a vow it would never happen again.

"It was my choice," Dean reminded them. "Entering the fight and everything after."

"I planned that truck job." Seth reminded him.

"And I'm the one that walked out and confronted the driver, showing him my dopey face and everything."

Roman stared at him, trying to figure out if that was it, or if Dean was doing that thing where he shrugged big things off as nothing.

"I think it played out exactly how it was supposed to." said Dean. "The doc says I'll be fine. Eventually. And li'l Lukie...he said we were all settled up. I didn't realize how hard he'd go, but we gotta take what we can get. Consequences. All that shit."

"Yeah, well." Seth muttered. "Good to know you're at peace with it." He motioned between himself and Roman. "We didn't sleep last night."

"You were probably fucking each other." Dean muttered, smiling at his own joke afterward.

Seth chuckled and shook his head, relieved Dean was joking at all. "Asshole."

"Yup. In the asshole." Dean said, settling back and looking at his spot on the wall. "Man, I'd kill for a burger right now."

Roman smirked. "Is that a request?"

"I mean, if you're up for it." Dean said, doing his best to feign innocence through his grogginess.

"You just can't wait to start breaking the rules again already." said Seth, teasing him lightly.

"I guess we owe you that much." said Roman.

Truthfully, Dean wasn't hungry at all. He just needed a little time to himself. He had a lot to think about. He already felt guilty about putting up a front for his friends, his two brothers who would have fought for him if he'd asked. He felt terrible for making AJ cry, because no matter how little he thought of himself, she cared enough about him that his pain hurt her too. Disappointing his father, the man who'd clawed his way out of a life of crime so he could raise his son right - that was just as bad, if not worse.

But he knew whatever he was going through wasn't quite over yet. It still felt like he was stuck right in the middle of everything, because he knew in his heart that he wouldn't change anything that had happened. All the pain he was in, all the pain he'd caused - he was still alive, wasn't he? Once the bruises faded and he was back in fighting shape, it would just be a story they'd tell once in a while, for laughs.

He didn't share any of those thoughts with AJ when she came back in. She seemed content just to cuddle up to him and rest by his side. For now, she just needed to know he was okay.