Disclaimer: This story is not meant to infringe on any copyrights held by WWE or their Superstars. It was written purely for entertainment. If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. If you don't, they might be mine. In the case of this story though, you probably don't want to steal the OC's, they aren't the nicest people in the world.

And for those of you who have been following my other story, After the Storm? I haven't abandoned it. It's finished, and as soon as I get the final part from my beta reader, I'll be posting it.

Scars

His earliest memories were of being in his room, sitting on the floor in the corner where the bed partially hid him, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth as he listened to his mother and father screaming in the next room and waiting for it to stop. Usually it seemed to go on forever, unless the cops showed up, then it stopped pretty fast. Then, of course, came the day when his parents weren't fighting, but the cops came anyway. This time they took his dad away and he didn't see him for a very long time.

He thought at first this might be good, that with his father gone, his mother wouldn't had anyone to fight with and things might get better. He found out soon that wasn't true. Without the money his father brought in, his mother couldn't support her drug habit, never mind pay the rent. She started taking in every friend or family who needed a place to crash, in hopes they'd give her money or drugs. When that didn't work, she took to the streets to make money. She would bring home a string of men, sometimes four or five a night.

At first, Dean hid in his room, staying as far away as possible. He didn't know what was going on, but even at his young age, he knew there was something wrong and shameful to what his mother was doing and he wanted no part of it. He didn't like the way these guys looked at his mother, as if she were some interesting toy they were going to get to play with, abuse, and discard. He didn't like the way some of them even looked at him. Then, he got used to it and while he didn't try to go into his mother's bedroom when she was "entertaining" he did walk through the rest of the apartment. Quite often, besides the guys his mother brought home, there were cousins, aunts, uncles, and other people just hanging out, using the place as a crash pad. Dean got very used to picking his way around passed out bodies to make his way to the kitchen or the bathroom.

As he thought about this, he found his hand moving around to his back, touching the long scar that ran from just below the waist and over his right buttocks. The one that he knew had shrunk and faded to the point where you could barely see it, but he could still feel it. The rough skin running the path of the former wound. The tiny bumps along either side from the stitches. He had a lot of other scars, most of them from his days of hard core wrestling and if anyone ever noticed this one, they never said anything, figuring they were just like the others. But he knew. He knew too well.

His earlier memories were foggy bits of incidents, strung together. A bit from this, a bit from that. But his first, clear, entire memory incident was burned so deep into his mind he couldn't forget it, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't even forget parts of it, it insisted on being there, full blown technicolor, like a movie that always seemed to be playing on the TV whenever he turned it on.

Mom was sick, but then again, she always seemed to be sick. Even when she claimed she was feeling great, she seemed awful sick to Dean, either moving around too quickly or nodding off to sleep all the time. But when she said she was sick, it was never good.

It started with her pacing the tiny apartment they lived in. She started with her bedroom, opening the dresser drawers, searching under the bed, under the throw rugs, in corners, in the closet, between the mattress and the box springs.

He asked her what she was looking for. At first she ignored him, so he asked again. The third time he asked, she screamed at him. "Medicine! I'm looking for my fucking medicine. Happy?"

He backed out of the room, deciding he was just going to get away from her. "Can I go outside?"

She looked at him. "SHUT UP! I'm not in any mood for this, not until I find my medicine! Go to your room!"

He turned and ran, going into his tiny room and slamming the door shut. He could hear her, going through the rest of the apartment, the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom. He could hear her opening things, throwing them to the ground and the further she went, the more frantic she became. "Nothing-nothing-nothing," she began chanting with every drawers or cabinet she opened. "Nothing-nothing-nothing!" He started to wonder if she even knew she was saying it. "Nothing-nothing-nothing-nothing!"

Finally she came to his room. She opened the door, flinging it so it hit the wall so hard it dented the dry wall. She didn't even notice him, as she began tearing his room apart too. He wondered why she would ever think he'd have medicine for her in his room. He didn't take medicine. She looked scary, her hair all knotted up and frizzing around her face, her eyes so bright, too bright, darting all over the place, her tongue darting out of her mouth every now and then, licking at the corners of her lips like some angry snake or lizard. If she wasn't chanting, "Nothing-nothing-nothing!" she was grinding her teeth so loudly that he could hear it. She did that a lot, to the point where there were chips in her teeth.

When she finished searching his room, the few clothes he owned were spilled all over the floor. The other things he owned were scattered about. The few books he had were shaken and thrown, lying on the ground, spines open. His room was a disaster. He wanted her to go away so he could set it right again. His life was enough about chaos, the only thing he felt he had any control over was this room, and now she had taken that away.

She finally seemed to notice him and her eyes narrowed. "Do you have any money?"

He shook his head, afraid to speak. He didn't often have money, and if he did, it was usually loose change he'd found in sofa cushions in the living room. It had never been more than a couple of dollars. And usually, within a day or two, it was gone, no matter how carefully he hid it.

"Useless," she muttered. "Totally useless."

She stormed out of the room. Dean breathed a huge sigh of relief, glad to see her gone, even if he didn't like being defined as useless. He started straightening up his room, hoping she'd go and be sick somewhere else, like her own room. Or, maybe she'd go out and bring a guy home who could give her medicine.

While he was folding the few clothes he owned and putting them in the dresser, he heard the door into the apartment open and close. He wondered if he was alone, but then he heard Aunt Kelly's voice announcing she was back and his mother asking her if she had any "stuff." Dean assumed that the "stuff" she was asking about was medicine. Sometimes the adults that lived in the apartment called medicine by other names, "Stuff" was one of them, "Junk" was another, and "Ice" was yet another. He personally thought those were silly names for medicine. The medicine you saw on TV had much more official sounding names like "Tylenol" or "Motrin." There was a medicine called "Icy Hot" which was kind of a silly name too, but the people who took it in the commercials looked pretty silly, clutching their backs and grimacing, making over the top faces until they showed them after they'd taken the medicine (they never showed them actually taking the medicine, just before and after) when they looked all better and had been struck by an urge to go jogging, play tennis, or hit the golf course. His mother and her friends didn't look silly when they needed their medicine, they looked scary. And when they had taken it, they just became a different scary. Dean knew that when he grew up, he was not going to take medicine, even if he was sick, because he noticed that medicine never really seemed to help. The more you took, the more you needed it. That wasn't fixing the problem, that was just selling medicine.

"Kelly, you have to help me, I'm going crazy," he heard his mom said. "You've got to front me some cash. I'll pay you as soon as I calm down."

"Can't help you, friend," Aunt Kelly said. She wasn't really Dean's aunt, but his mom wanted him to call her that. He was glad he wasn't related to her, because she smelled bad and she was just mean sometimes. Like the time she put this stuff in his can of soda that made it taste just awful, so awful that he threw it down the sink, disappointed because soda was a rare treat. Usually the only thing he drank was tap water.

"Hey!" Kelly came into the kitchen just in time to see him pouring the last of the can down the sink. "What are you doing, you little shit."

"It tastes bad," Dean said. "Whatever you put in it, it ruined it."

"That was good jack, you little asshole," She walked over and grabbed the can from him. When she realized it was empty, she slapped him upside the head. Not too hard, but hard enough that it stung for a few minutes. "I thought you might like to mellow out a bit, you're such an uptight little freak. You're just like your old man, another useless piece of shit."

"Oh yeah?" He glared at her, nostrils flaring. "You smell like the toilet brush in the bathroom."

"Why you little-" she began, reaching to slap him again, but he twisted out of her way and ran off. He never sought her company before then, but after that time, he actively avoided her when he could.

"I was out trying to sell what's left of the food stamps," Kelly continued talking to his mother. "No takers. I've got a little bit of junk left, but it's barely enough to send me to happy land, never mind take you along for the ride."

"No," he heard his mother moan. "Kelly, you've got to share it. I'm losing my fucking mind, here."

"Sorry, no can do," Kelly said, sounding pretty happy for someone who was supposedly sympathizing. "Got anything worth hocking?"

"You know I don't," his mother whined. "I hocked the TV last week and only got ten bucks for it." Dean missed that TV. It had been in actual color and sometimes, when the living room was empty, his mom, Aunt Kelly, and whoever else was staying there, gone for the night, he would sneak out and watch it. He had an ancient black and white TV in his bedroom (Thank god she hadn't smashed that as she had trampled through his room) but it barely worked and only got two stations. "Kelly, please, I'm begging you. Split it with me, I need enough to calm down then I'll go out and score some more. I know I can earn it tonight, I just have to come up a little bit. Just take the edge off."

"That's not going to work," Kelly said, still sounding amazingly happy. "Even if I gave you half, no guy is going to want to ball you. You might be able to do a few ten buck sucks behind the strip joint, but even that won't get you anything until the place is near closing and the guys realize the dancers aren't interested."

"Christ!" His mother's voice sounded screechy. "I have to do something, Kelly. You have to help me out!"

Well," Kelly's voice dragged out the word as if she was thinking. "You know, you do have something worth something in here."

"What?" His mom's voice rose with a spiky edge that he thought might be hopeful. "Tell me, Kelly. What?"

"The kid."

Dean froze in his room, not liking the sound of that, one little bit. I'm the kid, he thought, I'm just a kid! I'm not even eight, yet!

"No," he heard his mother say.

Before he could sigh in relief, Kelly continued. "He's a cute little kid, that sandy colored hair, those intense eyes of his. He's got a go-to-hell look about him that some people would find a huge turn-on."

Turn on? He thought. I'm not some lamp or something. He realized his palms were soaking wet and wiped them across his shirt.

"I could find someone who'd give you big money for him," Kelly continued. "If he can cop that shitty attitude he has, they'll have a blast beating it out of him. I'm talking maybe even a grand for the night. Just one night. Maybe even two, if I can find the right guy."

"Kelly, no!" His mother sounded horrified and at that moment, he almost wanted to run to her, to hug her and thank her. "I couldn't do that to him! His father will kill me when he gets out, and he finds out."

"Yeah, right," Kelly said. "If he has any regrets it will be that he didn't get a piece of the action. And it's not that big of a deal. I was on my knees keeping my Daddy and his buddies happy when I was younger than him, and I'm just fine."

"No, I can't do it," His mother actually sounded less sick and stronger. Dean felt this surge of hope rush though him. He didn't know exactly what Kelly was suggesting, but he hoped that it was so disgusting to his mother that she would yell at her to leave and never come back again. "Kelly, he goes to school. What if he tells a classmate or a teacher?"

"We do what my old man did to me," Kelly said. "We tell him if he dares to tell a soul, the cops will come and take him away to prison where he'll have to do what he did for one guy, for hundreds of them. Every single night. My dad had me convinced that I was a dirty little girl and that was what happened to dirty little girls, they sucked and were fucked until they died. Trust me, I didn't say a blessed word to anyone. Better Dad and his three friends than the hundreds of guys they had me convinced I'd be servicing every night and day."

"No," His mother said. "I won't do that. If he ever talked, they'd take him away from me. If he goes, his father will kill me when he gets out. That is, if I'm not in jail for letting it happen."

"All right, it's your choice," Kelly said, sounding as if she hadn't a care in the world. "Well, I'm going to hit up my stuff, you have fun."

"No! Stop!" His mother's voice went back to that whiny tone, that made Dean's blood turn to ice water. Was she so sick that she'd consider whatever it is Kelly wanted? She was saying no, but was it really the only way? "Kelly, please, I'm begging you, help me out."

There was a long period of silence where Dean was sure they would hear his heart beating if they didn't start talking, and then Kelly broke it. "Well, there is one other way. It won't be nearly as good, trust me, but you might get something decent out of it. Something you can take, or I can sell for you."

"What?" His mother sounded curious and hopeful. "What can I get?"

"Prescription stuff," Kelly said. "There are methods to make those stronger, especially the Oxy. You can crisp them, burn off the coating and get rid of the time release effects. But I don't know if you can get Oxy with a kid. But you can get other stuff. Won't get you Oxy money, but it should get you enough to keep you calm or that you can sell for the fix."

"I don't understand!" His mother wailed. "What are you talking about?" Dean was wondering that himself

"Let's go into the kitchen, I need to find something and I'll explain to you then," Kelly said, her voice getting fainter as she walked into the kitchen.

He couldn't hear them anymore. He debated if he should run out and try to listen, or maybe run out and try to escape the apartment, but he found he just couldn't move. He knew something was up, something awful. His mother had stopped one bad thing from happening, but he had the feeling whatever else Kelly wanted him to do wouldn't be any fun either. And even if she said no to this, he just knew, deep down, that Kelly had an endless source of things she would suggest to his mother, one right after another, until she eventually gave in and agreed to one of them.

I have to go, his brain kept screaming at him, I have to get out of here, before they come back! I have to run away and never come back! He looked around frantically. Never had his window seemed so far away and he felt frozen. MOVE! he screamed to himself MOVE MOVE MOVE!

That finally broke the spell and he ran to the window. They were on the fourth floor and there was no fire escape in his room. The ground seemed so very, very, far away. If he jumped, would it kill him? It might. I'll have to try for the front door! He turned and raced to his bedroom door. As he started to turn the knob, he heard his mother and Kelly, headed for his room. A small cry escaped him as he realized he was trapped. He let go of the handle and ran to the window, struggling to open it. A blast of cold air hit him as he pushed the window open. There was no screen. He started struggling to climb up and out the window. I can do it, he told himself. Just take a deep breath and jump!

He was just about to do it, to take his chances, when someone grabbed him around the waist and pulled him in. "Where do you think you're going, Deanne Weenie," Kelly hissed into his ear. She held him tightly and all he could smell was that awful toilet and chemical smell that clung to her like a second skin and on top of that her breath, hissing in his ear, reeked of something metallic and sweetly rotten, like old pennies and moldy bananas. It was the stench of nightmares. He struggled, but she held on to him tightly. "I got you now, you little shit." She swung around. He saw his mother, standing by his bed, looking afraid.

"Mom!" He cried out. But his mother just stood there, eyes wide, like an animal trapped in the headlights.

"SHUT UP!" Kelly roared. She threw him on the bed and pinned him with her body then whispered into his ear, "You shut up and be a good boy, and it will all be over soon. Struggle and scream and I'll make it a million times worse. We're only going after your ass. Prove to be difficult and I'll chop off your nuts. Would you like that, Deanne Boy?" Her putrid breath rolled into his ear and down into his face, so strong, so powerful, he could taste it as well as smell it. "You could be known as the nut-less wonder. Although, you'll probably bleed to death before we can get you to the hospital."

Kelly moved her head up, giving him some relief from the stench. "Get over here and hold him down," she ordered his mother.

"I don't know," His mother began, her voice trembling.

Dean heard the tremble and made one last effort to get her to help her. He twisted his head, trying to look at her, to let her look at him, to see the terror in his eyes, the absolute fear that had him wishing he was dead. "Mommy," he cried out, something he hadn't called her as far back as he knew. "Mommy, help me! Don't let her hurt me!"

"Kelly, maybe-" his mother began.

"Shut up!" Kelly roared, slapping him on the back of the head. She was pinning him with her body. she was so skinny, but somehow, she was so much stronger than he was, of course she was, she was an adult, he was just a little boy, a small little boy, and he was skinny too, and so afraid, so terrified.

Kelly looked at his mother again. "Do you want to get some stuff or not? Because I'm not fucking around, either we do this or we don't, but you have to decide right now. If we do it right, we'll get some Tylenol 3s at the very least, possibly even some perks. But we have to do it now."

"Perks," his mother said, her voice taking on an almost dreamy quality. "I had those when they removed my wisdom teeth."

"Perks are lovely," Kelly agreed, thumping his shoulder as Dean tried to wiggle away. "But you won't get shit unless we do this. I won't even share what I have with you until this is done. So let's DO this, and I'll share what I've got on the way to the hospital.

"Mooooooooomy!" Dean wailed, giving one last effort to get her to come to her senses.

There was a moment of hesitation, then his mom came over. For a moment, he had a surge of hope that she would pull him away and tell Kelly no, but instead, she looked at Kelly. "What do I do?"

"Go get me the lid, I put it on the dresser when I saw him trying to climb out the window."

His mother came back holding something shiny. It was the lid of a can removed by a can opener, the edges all jagged. Those edges looked razor sharp and gleamed in the dim light from the waning afternoon sun shining though the dirty window. "Here it is," she whispered.

"Good." Kelly nodded her approval as if Dean's mother was a rather stupid dog who had just performed a difficult trick. "Now, I'm going to sit up so I'm on his legs. You get on his back and keep him from moving. On the count of three, one two, three!"

She sat up and his mother flopped on top of him, pinning his chest to the mattress. Dean struggled but it was no use. I'm so little, he thought, his mind trying to grasp what was happening. My only mistake is that I'm too little to fight this. And I hate Aunt Kelly. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!

He felt Kelly sitting on the backs of his legs, she pulled his pants and underpants down over his butt, which made it even worse, because now it wasn't just terrifying, it was humiliating, he didn't want Kelly to see his naked rear end, it wasn't right.

"I should do this through the pants," Kelly muttered, "But, I'm not sure it will work as well. We'll just say when he came home we looked to see the damage and decided to leave the jeans and underwear off. We can wrap a towel around his waist or something to get him there.

"Are you sure this is safe?" His mother asked, one last time.

"Easy breezy," Kelly said, and even though Dean couldn't see her face, he knew she had that mean grin on her face, that nasty thing that passed for a smile. She wasn't human, she was some nightmare creature who probably had wanted to do this for a very long time, make Dean suffer, because he refused to drink the nasty tasting soda and so he ruined her fun ruined that night. The soda was probably supposed to make him sick, and she wanted to see him sick, she wanted to see him hurting and she was going to make him hurt now. "Take the corner of his blanket and stuff it in his mouth," she ordered his mother, happy to be in charge.

His mother grabbed the blanket and tried to push it into his mouth. He kept it clenched shut. "He won't open his mouth!" his mother said, sounding on the verge of panic.

"Deanne, Weenie," Aunt Kelly said, her voice an almost sing-song chant. "Let your mother put the blankie in your mouth so you can scream without alerting the neighbors." She spoke cheerfully as if she was suggesting doing something mildly annoying before getting a treat, like washing your hands before you ate an ice cream cone. "'Cause if you don't, Deanne Weenie, I'll have to do it, and I'll take a few of your teeth when I do it. Would you like that, Deanne Weenie? My little Deanne With the Teenie Weenie?"

He said nothing, but when his mother tried again, he opened his mouth and let her stuff the blanket into it. He bit down on it, tasting the rough fabric, the smell of sweaty nights, tossing and turning under this very blanket filling his mouth, his nostrils. As far as he knew, this blanket had never been washed and it had been on his bed for as long as he remembered.

"Good," Kelly said, still in that bright voice. "Now you can scream all you want, Deanne Weenie. And no one will hear. Or care."

It was at that moment, that he knew, more than anything else, that Aunt Kelly wanted him to scream. She wanted to hear his muffled screams, she wanted to feel him bucking beneath her when she did what she was going to do. And he knew she was going to use that can top to cut him up and he wasn't sure why, but he knew she would love to hear him moan, to feel him writhe in pain. Aunt Kelly liked that sort of thing. She liked causing pain to people smaller and weaker than herself.

I won't do it, He thought.I won't give her the satisfaction. I won't cry, I won't scream.

He bit a hole right through the blanket and bit into his own tongue when he felt the first stinging pain of the lid slicing into his skin, the jagged edges pulling apart his flesh, the burning sensation as his skin split and the muscle beneath it was exposed to air. His mouth filled with blood from biting down on his tongue, and he let it soak the blanket in his mouth, but he did not scream.

"Not too deep," he heard his mother say, her voice barely a whisper.

"We have to make it look good," Kelly objected. "Look away and it won't bother you."

She dragged the can lid down, digging it deeper and deeper into his skin and as she did it, she spoke, in a low, almost hypnotic voice. "Does it hurt, Deanne Weenie? Does it sting? I'll bet it does. But you're being so brave. What a brave little boy you are, and a good little boy, doing this so your mother will feel better. It's nice to have a purpose in life, isn't it? And this is yours. Because this is what's going to happen now; when I'm done, we're going to wrap some towels around your waist and take you to the hospital, where we'll tell the nice emergency room people that you were outside playing and you decided to crawl under a barbed wire fence. You thought you had enough room to make it through, but you didn't and the barbed wire cut you up really badly. And you ran home to your Mommy and your favorite Aunt Kelly and we rushed you to the hospital right away, because we love you, Deanne Weenie and we don't want to see you suffer. We don't want to see you in pain. And you are one of those little boys that feels pain so deeply. You cry over every cut and scrape. So, we're going to gently suggest to the doctor that he makes sure you have some very strong painkillers to get you through this. Can you do that for us? You don't have to suggest the painkillers, your Mommy and I will do that. You just have to say it hurts. No matter what they give you for the pain, tell them it still hurts. They'll probably give you a shot to numb your butt for the stitches, but you tell them it still hurts. Make it seem like the pain is the worst thing in the world. Can you do that, Deanne Weenie? Because if you can't, we'll rip out those stitches and take you to another hospital, and then another one, until you either bleed to death, or do it right."

Dean said nothing. The pain was almost unbearable, it seemed like she was cutting deeper and deeper and he almost expected to feel a chunk of his buttock go sliding off of him, exposing bone. He felt the blood trickling down between his legs, down his thigh, onto the bedding. But he still heard every word she said and he still refused to cry.

"Deanne," Aunt Kelly said again, "Do you understand? Because I'm not going to stop cutting until you let me know you understand. So, nod if you understand."

He nodded, the blanket still in his mouth, blood and drool spreading into, smearing onto the bed with the blood from his back and buttock. Part of him wondered if he would die from this. If they wouldn't be able to get him to the hospital on time and he'd bleed to death. He wondered what it would be like to bleed to death. Would he feel cold? He was starting to feel cold now. Would he get sleepy and just drift off?

He felt the weight lift off his legs as Kelly got up and stood next to the bed. She helped his mother off of him too. His mother looked shaken, but said nothing. He stayed on the bed, not moving.

"Good boy," Kelly patted him on the head and pulled the blanket out of his mouth. "You can scream and cry now, if you want. If you want to do it as we take you out into the hall that would really be great, let the neighbors know we're taking our poor, injured Deanne Weenie to the hospital, get him all fixed up, like a good mother and aunt would."

His mother had run to the bathroom, she came back with two thread worn towels. Kelly hauled him to his feet, which burned and stung and blood went running down the back of his legs, onto his jeans and underwear. Kelly pulled them down and ordered him to step out of them. "See?" she said, smirking. "Just your butt, I didn't touch your weenier, or your balls. You should be grateful."

Again, he said nothing, but he stared at Kelly, trying to keep calm through the pain that was burning through his legs, up his back, all over, like a white hot coal. I hate you. He thought. I hate you and you had better be careful, because when I get the chance, I will kill you. I may be too young now, but some day I won't be, and I will kill you. I will stick a knife in you or get a gun and blow your head off, or put a pillow over your face until you stop breathing. I don't know how and I don't know when, but I will kill you. Not just for this, but because you're a mean, terrible person. My mother is terrible for letting this happen, but you didn't just let it happen, you loved it.

He didn't know it then, but he never would get the chance to kill her. Less than a year from that horrible day, Dear Aunt Kelly got her hands on a batch of bad "medicine" and it killed her. His mother had cried when she had to go identify the body, but he hadn't. His only sorrow was that he would never get to carry out on his promise. He remembered he'd felt vaguely cheated as if God took away a very important goal in his life.

They did get him to the hospital, and he played his part perfectly. He complained that the pain was unbearable, although after awhile, it wasn't that bad. The doctor, who seemed like a nice man, joked with him and told him he needed to mind his Mother and his Aunt Kelly and not climb under fences and wasn't seven too old to be disobedient? His mother was a single mother and his Aunt Kelly was nice enough to stay with them to help them out, Dean should be more grown up, he should be the man of the family and not give his mother and aunt any gray hairs.

And Dean nodded and pretended to agree with every word.

The doctor patted him on the head and told him that normally, he didn't like to prescribe anything stronger than Ibuprofen for children, but considering the low pain threshold he had (he'd convinced them he needed five shots of Novocaine before they could start stitching) he was going to give his mother a script for something stronger for him. But he needed to be a good boy and only take it when his mother gave it to him, and not ask for it, unless the pain was so bad that he couldn't stand it anymore. And just in case that was the situation, he was going to give his mother a larger script than he normally would. The doctor knew his mother would get rid of any pills he didn't need.

Oh, she'll get rid of them, all right, he thought. I'll never get one. And he was right. Even that night, when the Novocaine wore off and the pain came back even worse than when it had happened, she hadn't even given him some over the counter medicine. He lay on his bed, the blood dried now to a crusty mess. His mother was happy now. She had taken some of his medicine and Aunt Kelly had gone off with the rest and came back with their other medicine instead. His mother didn't think that maybe she should change his bed, that it was all full of blood, nope, she had her medicine and Aunt Kelly was unusually happy, so everything was all right.

So he laid in bed, not crying, but tears of pain falling down his face. Tears of pain and rage, because even though he wanted to hate his mother the same way he hated Aunt Kelly, he couldn't, because part of him still wanted her to love him. They couldn't change what happened today, it was done, but he wanted his mother to come in and say she was sorry, to rub his upper back and tell him she would never do it again and she was so sorry for the pain he went through.

She never even checked on him and he knew, because he wasn't able to sleep that night. Never once did she even open the door to make sure he was all right. He could have died in there and she would never know until she finally decided to check on him. He ended up getting up himself the next day, late in the morning, because he was thirsty and he had to pee, but who knows how long she would have left him in there if he hadn't gotten up himself?

She never did hurt him for pain medication again, for which he supposed he was grateful. But the times when he did get hurt, those normal childhood injuries, he always played his part well. He always acted like the pain was so much worse than it was, screaming at the doctors, yelling at the nurses. He ended up getting shot up with morphine a lot more than he would have liked, but he always got the scripts for the good stuff. And he always gave them to his mom, who would thank him. The last time he did this, he debated if he should keep his pills and sell them himself. He was spending most nights away from home anyway, and he could use the money. But he thought about his mother, how her life was just one day after another, score guys, score drugs. Nothing mattered to her. And he knew that nothing ever would again. It was all about the dicks to get the fix. He knew he couldn't save her, but he could also make sure he never contributed to the destruction of anyone else. So, he gave the pills to his mother. "Enjoy," he told her, and added in his head, Strung out bitch.

"Thank you, Dean," she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. When she did, he noticed her breath was starting to take on that scent of copper and rotten bananas and he shivered.

"Dean!" a voice cut through his thoughts and into his daydreams. He looked around, for a moment, forgetting where he was. He was in the back of the arena, after the show. He wasn't a scared little boy with a strung out mother and a sadistic Aunt Kelly anymore, he was a WWE Superstar, he was a member of one of, if not the greatest faction ever, The Shield. He wasn't alone anymore either, he had friends, true friends.

But right now, he was getting checked out by one of the doctors because his brother by choice, Roman Reigns had missed his intended target and speared the hell out of him, right into the ring post, so hard that he'd lost his breath. And the person calling his name was his other brother by choice, Seth. "Hiyas!" He said, trying to sound cheerful but gasping for air as his ribs screamed in protest.

"Are you okay," Seth asked, concern written all over his face, as he pushed the blond part of his hair over his shoulder. "You've been spacing out since we got here."

"I'm fine," Dean said, pretending more joy than he felt. "Where's Roman?"

"He's in the hall," Seth said, "He feels pretty bad about this."

"Shit happens, Seth," Dean said. The doctor motioned for him to raise his arms, which he did. When they were over his head, the doctor started wrapping a bandage around them.

"This will help a bit with the pain," the doctor explained. "But you might have trouble sleeping tonight, so I'm going to give you a couple of painkillers, just to get you through tonight."

Dean looked at the doctor and in the same voice, said the same word that had launched a thousand memes on the internet. "Nope."

The doctor looked at him. "Are you sure?" he asked. He had dealt with Dean before and he hadn't refused pain medications before now, although more than a few times he had told the doctor he hadn't taken them, but had flushed them away instead. But he had never flat out refused them.

"Yup." Dean nodded, giving extra weight to his words. "I'll just grab some of Roman's Motrin, that'll do me. This isn't the worst pain I've suffered, not in a long shot."

"Of course not," Seth said, patting him on the shoulder, his voice taking on the rallying tone he used whenever he played architect of The Shield. "You're the hard core king! It's going to take more than a little spear from the Powerhouse to bring you down."

If only you knew, Dean thought, That way before I ever went hard core, I felt pain far worse than this. And what made it even worse was that it was deliberately inflicted on me by people who were supposed to take care of me. But he grinned at Seth, not giving him a clue what was going on in his head. "I wanna see Roman."

"Sure," Seth said, looking at the doctor for confirmation.

The doctor nodded. "I want to check out his eye anyway, might as well bring him in."

Seth disappeared into the hall and came back a few minutes later with Roman, who was looking down at the floor, a hangdog expression on his face. "Hey, Dean," he said, refusing to look at him.

"Hey, Roman," Dean said, and added, "I know you want to say something, so go ahead and say it."

Roman looked up. "Sorry about the spear. It was an accident, I wasn't aiming for you and I know it caught you off guard. And I know I gave you grief about it when we were back stage, but that was just for the promo, you know that, right?"

"Yup," Dean nodded. "It's cool, Roman." He slid off the examining table, only wincing slightly. "Your turn."

Roman offered one of his quirky smiles, obviously relieved to know Dean wasn't harboring any ill will, and sat down on the edge of the table to let the doctor check out his eye. "It's fine," he tried to tell him. "Worst it's going to be is black tomorrow, and I'm used to that."

"Hey, I don't have a fancy medical degree just to let you guys diagnose yourselves," the doctor said in mock indignation. "So let me do my job and check you out."

While the doctor looked at Roman's eye, Seth studied Dean, trying not to show his worry as he saw Dean limping a little trying to adjust to the bandages, trying to adjust to the pain he was feeling. "Are you sure you don't want those pain pills?" he asked. "I mean, just in case?"

"No, I don't." Dean said.

After Roman was checked out, the three of them were free to leave. They changed in the locker room and started heading towards the exit. When they were almost there, Seth stopped. "I forgot something," he said, smacking his forehead. "Why don't you guys go on and I'll catch up with you."

Roman shrugged, indicating that was fine with him. Dean stared at him, studying his face carefully and smirked. "Sure, Seth."

As he ran off, Dean looked at Roman. "He's going to see if the doctor will give him the pain pills. Because he's worried I'll need them and wish I had them. But you watch, he won't say anything, unless I tell him I just can't take it anymore. Because Seth cannot resist the opportunity to remind me that he's better at taking care of me than I am at taking care of myself."

Roman grinned, knowing his friend was right. "Yeah, that's our Seth, architect and scout leader. Are you okay with that? I mean, sometimes it does come across like he thinks you need someone to take care of you and you are, technically at least, an adult."

Dean grinned back. "It doesn't bother me at all. Because there are times when I need someone to look out for me. This isn't one of them, but it's still nice to know he cares."

"We both do."

Dean's grin never left his face. "I know that, too. Brothers forever, right?"

Roman nodded, "Brothers forever."

"Hey!" They turned to look down the hall and saw Seth running to catch up. "You guys didn't have to wait for me, I would have met you at the car."

"Nah," Dean said, "It was no bother" And with that, the three men headed out of the arena together.

The End.

Author's Note: I have no idea where this story came from. I do know that it's partially based on a true story of someone I know. It's a mean little story, but I hope that the end, where everything is okay and the brotherhood is alive and well, at least in this version of their world. But I was working on a happy story, but for some reason, this story demanded to be written and I wasn't going to argue with the muse.

If you liked it, please let me know. If you hated it, please let me know. And if you hated it, please let me know why, so I can hopefully improve on the next one.