By the time you get to the trailer, JJ is already bleeding.

You can see it before the door even fully opens. Blood smeared across his split lip, knuckles raw, one eye starting to darken beneath the kitchen light while Luke screams somewhere behind him loud enough to shake the entire trailer.

“You think you’re tough now?!” Luke slurs. “You think you’re a damn man?”

Another crash echoes through the house.

Your stomach drops instantly because you know this sound. You know the tension crawling through the air before somebody gets hit again. You know what drunk anger looks like when it stops feeling human and starts feeling dangerous.

And JJ.

God, JJ looks exhausted.

Not tired.

Worn down.

Like this fight started years ago and never actually ended.

The second he sees you standing in the doorway, panic flashes across his face so fast it physically hurts to look at.

“No,” he says immediately, voice rough from either yelling or trying not to. “No, no, you gotta go home.”

Luke notices you then and laughs bitterly from the kitchen counter, another beer bottle hanging loose from his hand. “Aw, look at that,” he sneers. “Boy’s got himself an audience.”

JJ steps forward instantly, putting himself between you and his father without even thinking about it.

“Don’t talk to her.”

The words barely leave his mouth before Luke swings again.

The hit lands hard enough to snap JJ’s head sideways.

You hear it.

A horrible sharp crack that makes your entire body flinch.

JJ stumbles into the counter but catches himself before fully falling, breathing uneven now, blood immediately dripping faster from his mouth onto the floor beneath him.

And somehow he still looks at you first.

Not himself.

You.

Like he’s more scared of you seeing this than he is of getting hit again.

“JJ…”

“I said go home,” he says again, but his voice breaks this time.

Luke keeps yelling behind him, calling him useless, pathetic, saying the same cruel things over and over like he’s been repeating them JJ’s whole life. And maybe he has.

Because JJ isn’t reacting like somebody shocked by violence.

He’s reacting like somebody reliving something familiar.

Your chest aches so badly it feels unbearable.

You know this look in his eyes. The humiliation. The anger covering fear. The desperate need for somebody to stop seeing him this vulnerable before it kills what little pride he has left.

Luke points at him drunkenly. “Standin’ there cryin’ in front of your little girlfriend now?”

That’s when you realize tears are actually running down JJ’s face.

Silent ones.

Like he didn’t even notice they started.

JJ wipes angrily at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie like he’s ashamed of it immediately, breathing hard enough his chest shakes.

“I hate this house,” he says suddenly.

The words come out quiet.

Small.

Nothing like JJ usually sounds.

Luke laughs cruelly, but JJ keeps talking anyway, eyes locked somewhere near the floor now instead of either of you.

“I hate the way I know what mood he’s in by how hard he shuts the truck door.” His voice cracks violently. “I hate that I can tell how drunk he is by his footsteps.” Another shaky breath. “I hate that every time somebody yells at me, I still feel like I’m ten years old again.”

Your eyes burn instantly.

Because JJ always jokes.

Always laughs.

Always turns pain into something easier to survive.

But not tonight.

Tonight he just looks broken.

Then he finally looks back at you, blood on his mouth, tears on his face, trying so hard not to completely fall apart in front of you while Luke keeps screaming in the background.

And in the quietest voice imaginable, JJ whispers:

“Please don’t look at me like you feel sorry for me.”