Chapter Text
This shouldn’t be happening, not to him of all people. No one should have to know this pain, least of all him. He is the big brother and he shouldn’t be suffering the way he is, Anders fretted as he waited in the hospital lounge for word on Mike. Finding him the way he did, there was only thing that could’ve happened. He tried to keep it out of his mind how he knew the officer in charge of the investigation.
He didn’t say anything as Ty and Axl came in. Anders hoped their grandfather would get the message left for him and Stacey. With just a silent shake of his head he let them know there was no update. Watching as they sat, he knew what he needed to do was figure out how was he supposed to tell them that someone raped their older brother?
Time seemed to pass in a blur as they all waited for news on Mike. Anders talked to the police again as he was the one to find his brother’s beaten body on the floor of his workshop. He found it ironic that the same cop who handled his still unsolved case was now handling his brother’s case. Just how long would it be before he connected the two, if he even remembered his case. Not once during that time did he speak to anyone else there. Too many bad memories were stirred up in him, and he was not about to let them know about them.
He couldn’t help but blink when the coffee cup was placed in his hand. The surprise came when he looked up to see Axl sitting on the table in front of him.
“How you holding up?”
“How am I holding up? Axl, just how the hell am I supposed to be holding up after seeing what I saw this morning?” He sighed as he realized how much like the old Anders that sounded like. They all knew he was trying to change now that his business was starting to boom. Placing the cup on the table next to Axl, he just stared. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. It’s just hard to imagine him being hurt like that. He’s our big brother and is supposed to be the invincible one, you know?”
Axl only nodded as moved next to his brother and pulled him closer. “Look, Mike’s going to be fine. He’s strong and going to pull through this with flying colors. I mean, it was just a mugging, right?”
“Axl, Mike was raped.” Anders stared at him for a moment and the look on his face was if the blond was completely mad. “Someone broke into his workshop, hit him over the head, and raped him. That’s not something you can just snap your fingers at and poof, you’re over it.”
“That’s impossible,” Axl exclaimed. The disbelief rang in his voice. “He wouldn’t let that happen to him. He had to have been mugged!”
"Muggers don't take the time to pull off someone’s pants and underwear, nor do they leave marks on their victim’s waist. Muggers don’t usually leave other evidence that made the paramedics take one look at him and they knew he was raped." Anders fists were balled at his side as he tried his best not to slug his little brother. Now that he wasn’t Odin anymore, he could do some serious damage to the idiot. He was just thankful that Ty decided not to say anything. “So, are you going to try to convince me that it was something other than a rape?”
Everyone stared in shock as a moment later Michele came in and Axl was sitting on the floor. Anders moved so fast that no one could stop him from hitting his little brother. A hand covered his nose, but the blood was starting to trickle out from under it. Michele glanced at her lover and saw him glaring at his brother and shaking his hand in pain.
He found the room too quiet for his liking. Even with all the beeping from the monitors, it was still too quiet. All he wanted to do was go home. Mike looked up groggily from his pillow as his brothers came in from the hall. He couldn’t help but to blink at Anders holding an ice pack to his hand and the dried blood under Axl's nose. "Do I even want to know?"
Ty chuckled at him and shook his head. "It might be best if you don't, but I've never seen Anders defend someone else like he just did."
Mike’s eyes hiked up even higher. Anders actually stood up for someone and punched his little brother for it. Looking at the blond, he chuckled as he flexed his hand before putting the ice back on it. He knew that Anders stood up for him. It couldn’t have been easy for him to find him how he had. The distant look in the blond’s eyes worried him though.
“You okay there Munchkin?”
“Seriously? Did you really have to call me that in public?” That was a nickname Mike no longer used for him, not since he was six years old and he wished that name was forgotten. Moving over to the bed, he made sure to keep the iced hand out of his reach. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit over the head with a two by four and hit by a truck. Michele said I could go home tomorrow as long as someone is there to watch after me. Got to have someone monitor my medications and get me to my appointments.”
Anders smiled and took his hand with his good one. There was no way he was letting anyone handle this. He knew exactly how to handle this situation. “My schedule is the loosest of everyone here so I’ll handle it. I’ll arrange everything with Dawn. If I have to go to a meeting, one of you guys could come over and stay with him.”
Everyone stared at him in shock. There was never a time that any of them could remember where Anders offered to take care of one of them. None of them argued for that reason and the fact that he was right. Apparently being his own boss was going to come in handy till Hannah returned from her buying trip overseas.
The four of them spent the afternoon arranging things with both Dawn and Stacey. Ty was going to be the courier assigned exclusively to the J:PR run. After that, they just talked about stupid stuff to help keep Mike’s mind off what happened.
It wasn’t until Axl made the suggestion of dinner that they noticed that Anders was sound asleep in one of the hospital chairs. What worried them though, was that it looked like he was starting to have a nightmare. Mike motioned for the two of them to leave.
“Hey, munchkin, time to wake up!” Picking the napkin off the tray from dinner, he balled it up and tossed it at his brother’s face. It only took a second for the other to wake up enough to register what happened. “Bad dream?”
“Something like that,” Anders sighed as he stood up before moving a little closer to the bed. “Bad memory is more like it. Not something I’m up to talking about right now.”
The last thing he needed was his brother finding out the truth about him. He would never look at him the same way again. Taking his hand, he knew that Mikkel suspected something. All he needed to do was make sure that he never found out the truth.