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Adam was avoiding him.
Adam usually never makes eye contact, with the teenager being intrinsically avoidant by nature.
Bobby had been used to that.
He was used to Adam shying away from his touches, talking to him while staring at the floor, at the wall, anywhere but Bobby's eyes... but this time it felt different.
Adam was completely distant from him, almost as if he was hiding from the older man.
There was a coiling tension underlying Adam's reluctance. Like coal that had burnt out— yet the embers were still there, still flickering and waiting for a gust of wind to set it ablaze.
Adam flinches as if shocked when Bobby tries to tap his shoulder in order to get his attention.
His voice shakes when Bobby asks him questions.
Bobby had been writing up a report on their coffee table, and he had heard the front door open and then close softly. Which meant Adam was home from school.
Bobby relaxed and smiled. He barely saw Adam during the afternoons, he was usually too busy at work to dote on his younger brother nowadays.
"Hey, buddy. You okay? Did Nigel pick you up?"
Bobby hears a soft sound of affirmation and nothing else, he frowns.
He knew that Adam and Nigel weren't exactly the best of friends but he had noticed Adam warming up and getting used to having the other man around more often since Bobby finally gave in and succumbed to the other man's endless romantic pursuits.
They hadn’t put a label to their relationship yet— the two men were both too stubborn to, with Bobby being reluctant to have another person aside from his brothers to take care of and Nigel still terrified that Bobby would be taken from him just like everyone else.
Nigel had offered to pick up his younger brother from school when they realized how near Adam's high school was to Nigel's workplace.
"Adam's school is only 20 minutes away, Bun. I wouldn't mind driving him at all, he's a good kid. We'll make a fun time out of it."
Bobby stands up, unease starting to pool in his gut. Had something happened to Adam at school?
The poor boy was unfortunately prone to bullying but Will had taught their brother to not provoke bullies, while Bobby taught Adam basic self-defense maneuvers from the academy in case that didn't work.
Adam had scrunched his nose, the poor boy, he hated violence just as much as Bobby hated sucking up to people.
Bobby finds Adam in their kitchen, the lights were dim, and his brother was barely a lumpy slouched shadow sitting on their dinner table. He was fidgeting with the small Jupiter planet keychain in his hands.
"Hey, bud." Bobby starts, his voice soft. A voice only reserved for Adam.
Adam looks up, still startled and Bobby belatedly notices that his eyes are glassy.
"Bobby." Adam rasps out and the older man feels his fists clench reflexively.
Someone had hurt his brother.
He forces himself to relax. Being angry and blowing up in front of Adam would do more harm than good, he knew that.
"You okay?" Bobby takes the chair next to him, leaving considerable space between them. "Did something happen at school?"
Adam shakes his head, looking straight down at their small dinner table.
"You sure? No one bothered you at all?"
Adam shakes his head again.
Bobby observes his tense shoulders, and the way his torso is turned completely away from Bobby as if he wanted to be rid of his presence altogether.
Bobby inhales and thinks of an old beat-up car.
An interior that smells perpetually of cigarettes and rough hands gripping a thin wheel.
Bobby swallows before he asks the next question.
"Did something happen after school?"
There's a silence as Adam's whole torso seems to cease breathing.
Adam's finger pauses from their restless scratching and that's all Bobby needs.
He nods, and slowly stands up.
"Adam," Bobby whispers and finally his younger brother looks back up at him.
"I'm always gonna be in your corner, bud."
Adam's brows furrow but he nods and looks back down at the table.
He misses how Bobby's eyes darken as he grabs his coat and drives towards Nigel's house.
His hands grip the steering wheel hard, hard enough to prevent them from shaking.
He nearly gets into a crash speeding through an intersection that left a trail of angry honks on his tail but Bobby couldn't be bothered to give two shits about anything else.
He finally parks in the empty lot in front of the apartment building, not even glancing at how poorly he had parked his car.
Bobby runs up a few flights of stairs and marches through the hallway looking for Nigel's room. He gets a couple of concerned looks from people who are coming and going but he stomps on, his heels fueled by fury, when he gets to the right door he doesn't knock.
He bangs the damn thing.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
No one answers.
"Who the fuck is it?!"
Nigel shouts from behind and Bobby yells back at him.
"It's fuckin' me, Nigel. Open the damn door."
He hears a laugh, the cocky one that usually would annoy Bobby to the point where he'd end up kissing the other man to shut him up.
But this is different. Bobby hears Nigel laugh but feels pure hot rage.
The fuckin nerve of this man.
"What the fuck is taking so long? Open or I'll shoot your fucking lock!"
He finally hears Nigel unlock the door and Bobby shoves his way inside before the other man opens it completely.
"Oh, someone's excited."
Bobby turns back to him and levels Nigel with a glare.
It does nothing for the other man.
"Do you wanna take this to the bedroom or—"
"Shut the fuck up."
Nigel does, raising an eyebrow.
Bobby inhales until he finally feels like he won't explode the moment he speaks.
"What happened after school?"
Nigel's thin brows furrow. "What?"
"What happened?" Bobby repeats. "When you picked Adam up from school?"
Nigel's face schools into a neutral expression and he looks unaffected— bored, even.
Bobby is livid.
"Ah yes. I did pick him up." Nigel starts. "He looked really happy actually. All bright-eyed, and smiley. He told me he was chosen to represent their class in some contest or something. The kid looked so damn cute."
"Nigel."
Bobby steps closer, his fists clenched.
"What happened..."
What the fuck did you do , his eyes screamed.
Nigel shrugs. "I didn't do anything really. He ran in my car and immediately started to blabber about the contest thing and gave me a hug when I told him he did a good job."
He lets out a small chuckle and his brown eyes are soft, remembering the moment just a few hours prior.
"Before he could pull away, the kid just stared at me for a bit and he looked so pretty I grabbed his shirt and just gave him a little kiss, ya know?"
But Bobby didn't know because Bobby had punched Nigel before he could stop himself.
Bobby stands over him, his chest rising and falling in deep heavy intervals.
Nigel is looking up at him, his eyes wide and light hair all askew.
“Bobby, what the fuck?” The older man grunts out, cradling his jaw. “It was just a fucking kiss, I didn’t know you could get jealous from that.”
Bobby steps closer and crouches to deliver another swift blow right on Nigel's cheek.
“Jealous?! You think I’m fucking jealous?!”
Bobby hisses, his voice quiet yet sharp. He wanted to scream, to explode, to render Nigel and his entire apartment into dust.
“I don’t give a shit about who you fuck, Nigel. We're not like that. But you don’t fucking touch my brother.”
At that, Nigel’s eyes— one eye now, the other had grown purple and saturated with fresh blood, grew wide.
“Bobby…” The older man’s voice grows soft and he sounds pained— regretful even. Bobby doesn’t take notice of it and pushes him off then rubs his eyes with bruised hands, like the sight of Nigel makes him sick.
“He’s a damn kid, Nigel.” Bobby inhales, still not looking at him. “He’s 15! And I know that you know how fucked up that is.”
Nigel hauls himself up and continues to watch Bobby in front of him from his position sprawled on the floor.
The older man stays quiet and Bobby isn't sure what he wants Nigel's reaction to be.
He had stormed into the other man's apartment with a fury like a burning hurricane, his anger over someone hurting his baby brother fading and warping into an ugly insidious feeling.
It is jealousy , a voice hisses and he wishes it didn't sound so much like Will.
His twin brother had known.
Must've been that damn uncanny empathy of his that enabled Will to see exactly how Nigel had been looking at their younger brother.
How he was still looking at Adam apparently.
His fists clench… and he had been blind to it all.
Had Nigel offered to drive Adam home as a ploy to satisfy his own sick perversions?
It had seemed suspicious to Bobby from the start, he knew how Adam was.
Other than Will, he had never left his younger brother alone with another adult before.
Bobby had been foolish, Will had warned him but he turned away.
"Making Adam get into an enclosed unchipped vehicle with a man we barely know would probably be the most idiotic thing we could do."
"Will, we need this. Adam has trouble with public transportation and I know Nigel. Also, Adam seems to warm up to him already. He'll be fine."
Bobby sees Adam's hunched-over form behind his eyelids and he wants to punch the sight out of his head.
He glares at Nigel, his eyes raking over the older man knowing that this will be the last time he'll ever see him.
"If you ever come near us again, I'll put a bullet between your eyes."