JJ doesn't leave her side. He rubs her back, inhaling sharply to calm himself down. He thinks she fell asleep. She smells like rain. The kind of rain when you're inside and you open a window, and the smell is so rich and enticing and just... soothing. It smells like home to him.

Pope fidgets next to her, and she opens an eye. JJ wants to whack him. "Okay, but uh..." he begins. "Gotta take a piss."

He frowns at Pope. "Hold it."

"I can't hold it. I drank too much soda."

"Okay, well, it's too exposed so how do you want to do this? I can bring the gun."

"JJ," Kat warns. "There's three of them, and you're two."

Okay? He'd make Rafe beg for his life if she asked. "Yeah, that's why I said 'bring the gun'."

"There are children here!" Kie cries out.

"Sorry to interrupt," Pope says, "but I gotta go." He turns around, and spots the bathrooms, next to the exit. Topper, Rafe and Kelce are in front of them. "They're blocking the bathrooms."

"Of course they are," Kat hums.

JJ looks around, before sighing. He lets go of Kat reluctantly and she groans when she loses JJ's body heat. His knees turn to jelly.

"Come here," he tells Pope. "I know where."

They stand up, and Kie turns towards them with a frown. "Hey, where y'all going?"

"We gotta wring it out."

She frowns. "You gonna hold it for each other?"

He's about to retort something, but Kat laughs softly, and his answer dies out in his throat.

Pope follows after him. JJ finds a perfectly good tree.

Pope turns to him. "You meant that, killing Rafe?"

Oh, JJ can feel a rant about morals coming up. "I genuinely don't know." No, he does. he does know that he would kill him, but if he tells Pope that, he'll probably–

Nod? "Well, if you need help, I'm here."

JJ frowns and turns to him. "What?"

"Come on," he says. "It's Kat."

He doesn't say anything else, because it makes enough sense. It's Kat.

They pee as fast as they can–which is hard, because Pope has been holding it in for almost an hour now.

They turn around to leave.

Rafe comes up to them. "What's up, Pogues?"

Anger bubbles under his skin, stomach tightening, regretting that he didn't bring the gun and shoot him right there, right now.

JJ immediately shakes his head, a breathy laugh escaping his lips. "You really don't want to do this right now, Rafe."

Rafe doesn't seem impressed. "Oh yeah?"

"Isn't it past your bedtime?" Pope tries to run away as they speak, but Kelce and Topper corner him.

"I wanna talk," Rafe says, and JJ thinks that a bullet between his eyes would look good on him.

"Oh yeah, you wanna talk?"

Pope cowers away from Kelce and Topper, and goes back to JJ.

"Yeah, that was some nice work you did on my boat," Topper accuses.

Pope swallows thickly. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh yeah, of course you don't."

Rafe smirks at JJ. "Not so burly without a gun now, are you?"

He's going to have his head, and then he'll bring it to Kat, and she'll feel better, and all this will be behind them. "Take one more step, I'll rip that prepubescent face off."

"Yeah, you know, gotta ask," Rafe says, a bit too sure of himself. "How's KD in bed? Because from what I remember–"

JJ throws his fist into his face, and he's almost sure he broke Rafe's nose. Kelce immediately retaliates by blocking him, grabbing his arms so Rafe can punch him in the gut, but JJ couldn't care less, because right now, the only thing he wants is to make him suffer.

"Come on Rafe!" he cries out. "Is that all you've got?"

Rafe punches again, and JJ thinks that one of his ribs is broken. Not that he cares.

He notices Kie running in, hitting Topper with the bag, and sees a flash of a white dress with blue flowers out of the corner of his eye, and he wants to scream at Kat to run. But the only thing that comes out are grunts and yelps from Rafe hitting him in the stomach. Better him than her, better him than her–

Kat appears in front of him, and if he could move, JJ would put her behind him.

She pushes Rafe as hard as she can, making him stumble back. "Leave him alone! Don't touch him!"

Rafe holds up his hands. "I don't want to hurt you, Katy," he tells her.

JJ thrashes around in Kelce's grip, elbowing him in the face, trying to get him to let go. "Don't call her that!"

Kat doesn't budge. "You wanted to talk?" she asks, voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "Talk. Tell them! Tell them what you did to me!"

"Come on, Katy..."

"You're a fucking coward."

Kat turns around, and lunges for Kelce, to get him away from JJ. Arms snake around her waist and lift her off the ground. "Let go of me!"

Rafe throws her on the ground, and JJ swears a vein pops in his brain. "KD! Let me go!"

He goes insane when Rafe puts himself on top of her, holding her hands above her head. Kelce gets tired of being hit in the face and the ribs, and starts choking him, an arm around his neck, and pressing, so much that he's crushing his windpipe. He can't see anything, his vision blotches. Still, JJ manages to scream.

"Don't you touch her!" he yells, voice strangled. "Get away from her, I'll kill you! I'm gonna kill you, I swear to god I will kill you."

Once he gets free from Kelce, he's going to punch Rafe in the gut, he's going to strangle him until he sees the same terror in his eyes, the same panic that Kat has in hers, whimpering and crying.

He's going to murder him.

Seconds after the thought grazed his mind, Kie sets the sheet on fire.

Rafe stands up, letting Kat go. Kelce finally stops choking him. The second JJ's on his feet, gasping and gagging from being choked, he goes after Rafe, and hits him in the face, stumbling on his feet from how much force he put into it.

"You think we're scared of you? I'll kill you, man!"

He barely even feels Kie and Pope trying to stop him from going after Rafe, who now definitely has a broken nose. As if a broken nose would be enough for everything he broke in Kat.

He hears retching behind him. Kat is on her knees, puking up everything she ate the last few days.

"Kat?"

"Oh fuck–"

"Hold her hair!"

JJ carefully combs her hair away from her face, taking it in a ponytail to make sure she doesn't vomit all over it. She heaves until nothing comes out and they stare, completely clueless as to what to do.

She sits up, back colliding against JJ's chest, and he carefully tries to scamper away, knowing that this may trigger something worse in her – she clings to him, and he doesn't move.

"Guys what do we do?"

"I don't know!"

"I can get the Twinkie closer, and then we can drive her home," Pope says. He looks back at Kat, curled in JJ's lap. "Is that okay? Getting you home?"

She nods, rocking back and forth. Pope disappears from view.

"I'm sorry," she manages to let out, and he thinks he heard wrong, because what would she even be sorry for? "I'm so sorry."

"You did nothing!" Kie cries out, brushing the hair out of her face. "Kat, you did nothing wrong, it's going to be okay."

JJ tries to pry her away, figuring that she might not need touching right now, but then she latches onto him again, burying her face in his chest. "Don't go, don't go, please."

He holds her, because he really wasn't going to abandon her, he just needed to stand them up. "I'm not going anywhere. But we have to stand up now."

She's limp against him. Kie helps him to make Kat stand, but her legs give out from under her. JJ, promising to kill Rafe in the most gruesome way in his head, puts an arm under her knees and the other behind her back as he carries her for support.

"I'm sorry."

"'S okay," JJ says, holding her closer to him. "It's okay, KD, we gonna get you home."

In a stroke of lucidity, Kat looks up at him. He has a busted lip and a bruised cheekbone. "You're hurt," she whispers.

He can't believe she even has room in herself to care for someone else right now. "I've seen worse."

Authors Note: This chapter is so long i'm so sorry, but also LMFAO I had to take short breaks because JJ made me want to scream

Editor's Note: We didn't even make it past the 1500 words mark I'm SORRY