Matt grumbled under his breath as he walked through the arena hallways. Jeff had accidentally run off with his cell phone (or maybe it wasn't an accident—one could never tell with Jeff) and he needed it back at the moment. He was supposed to have called Shannon back hours ago, and he really didn't want to borrow anyone else's phone to do it. His phone conversations with Shannon often ended up being ridiculously long and inappropriate. No matter what they talked about, the subject always ended up getting weird and perverted and at the moment, Matt needed that distraction.

He could feel everyone staring at him as he searched for his little brother. He knew they were all talking about his recent break-up with Evan Bourne. They had dated for about six months, and even though Matt had really cared about the high flyer, little things had started to pile up and they had both agreed that it was probably best to break things off before they ended up hating each other. But just because the break-up was peaceful didn't mean Matt felt very good about it. In fact, he felt like complete and total shit, although he had been doing his best to hide it from everyone.

"Mark, have you seen Jeff anywhere?" Matt asked the Deadman, who was sitting in catering with Glenn. "I need to get my cell phone from him."

Mark shook his head. "I have no clue where that little brother of yours is. I think Hunter said he saw him like ten minutes ago near the restrooms by the entrance to the ramp, but he's probably not there now."

Matt sighed. "Thanks man." He decided to look by that area anyway, just in case anyone had seen Jeff go off anywhere else. As he was walking, he happened to past Dave's locker room. He didn't so much as glance at it at first. He had no reason to. He had never been close to Dave by any stretch of the imagination, and he had no real desire to now that the Animal was dating Adam. How that couple formed was a subject of great debate within the locker room. A lot of people agreed it was probably just lust, although Jeff had an interesting theory about hell freezing over that Matt was inclined to agree with.

The sound of something crashing into the lockers came from inside the room. Matt stopped as he heard another crash, only this one was followed by a pain filled whimper. And it definitely wasn't Dave whimpering. Jesus, what is Adam doing in there? Is he tripping and falling all over the place?

"You fucking little bitch!" Dave growled. He was so loud that Matt actually flinched. He had never heard the older man talk like that outside the ring. He was usually really calm and quiet. "How fucking stupid do you think I am? Did you not think I would see the way you were flirting with Cena?"

"I wasn't!" Adam protested. His voice was so weak that Matt almost didn't hear him. "Dave please, I swear I—"

Matt's eyes widened as he heard the sound of a fist connecting with a face and Adam's cry of pain. What the fuck? Did Dave just fucking hit Adam?

"Hey Matt, I've been looking for y—"

Matt clamped his hand over Jeff's mouth just as Dave started yelling obscenitites at Adam, who was possibly crying at this point. It was hard to hear it because Dave was being so damn loud. Matt looked over at Jeff, who looked as shocked as he felt. Dave was basically accusing Adam of being an ungrateful, selfish cockslut, only he did it with the word "fuck" being used every two seconds. He was also doing it while hitting his boyfriend. Matt didn't need to see a damn thing to know what was going on in that room. He could fucking hear the blows from where he was standing at the moment. Part of his mind was telling him to do something; even if he still didn't really like Adam, it was wrong to let this happen. But his feet were rooted to the spot he was standing at now; it was like the shock of what he was hearing was preventing them from moving.

"You fucking dumb whore! You better have yourself cleaned up by the time I get back, or there will be hell to pay!"

Matt quickly took Jeff and made him hide in the nearest janitor's closet so Dave wouldn't see them as he came out. "Matt we can't just—" Jeff started to whisper.

"Shhh!" Matt ordered. He listened carefully to Dave storming away. Once the Animal's footsteps could no longer be heard, he opened the janitor's closet and stepped out of it. "That was really fucked up."

"Fucked up? I don't think that even begins to describe it," Jeff replied. He grabbed Matt by the arm and started pulling him along. "Come on. We have to check on Adam."

Matt sighed as he and Jeff went into Dave's locker room without permission. They found Adam sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and a gigantic bruise already forming on his face. The poor man jumped about a foot in the air when they entered, and he looked even more afraid of them than he would have if it had been Dave.

"No," he muttered. He started shaking his head violently. "Oh fuck no, not you two. Go away."

"Yeah, like we're going to do that," Jeff said as he shook his head. He knelt down beside Adam and took a look at the side of his face. "We heard way too much to just ignore that."

Adam glared at the two of them. Matt didn't know if it was the shame of his situation of being found out or the fear of Dave finding out that they knew that was making the Rated R Superstar angry. It was probably a combination of both. "You two don't know anything, okay? So just go away and mind your own fucking business!"

Matt was tempted to just do that. He didn't owe Adam a damn thing. He didn't have to help him. But for reasons he could not explain to himself, he didn't leave. In fact, he found himself locking the door so Dave couldn't just walk in.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Adam asked. He went from being angry to petrified in two seconds. "You can't lock that thing! If he comes back and realizes I'm locked in here with two guys, he's going to think I did that!"

Jeff gave Matt an uneasy look. "Matt…"

Matt ignored him and pulled Adam to his feet. The whimper he received from the blonde man was not lost on him. "Let me lift your shirt up," he ordered.

Adam stared at him in shock. "What?"

"I heard him slamming you into lockers. I want to see the damage."

"Why? Why do you even care? You hate me."

"Yeah, but Dave shouldn't fucking be using you as his personal punching bag. Now will you let me lift your shirt up or can you do it?"

Adam sighed and lifted his own shirt up, even though it looked like it was causing him a great deal of pain just to do that. Matt and Jeff winced at the sight the fresh bruises on his back and the slightly faded ones that covered his ribs.

"Jesus," Jeff muttered. "How the hell can he do this to you?"

Adam let his shirt drop back down. "It doesn't matter," he muttered. "You guys just need to leave, alright? You need to go away and keep your damn mouths shut. You don't know what I'm going through and believe me, you don't want to."

Several unpleasant memories reared their ugly head, but Matt did his best to suppress them. "I wouldn't say that Adam," he muttered. "I wouldn't say that at all." He grabbed Jeff by the arm. "Come on, we need to go."

Jeff protested the whole trip from Dave's locker room to their locker room. "We can't just leave him there!" he whined. "I know we don't like him, but that's not a good excuse to let him get the crap kicked out of him again."

Matt shook his head. "He doesn't really want our help yet Jeff. He needs to really want to get out of that situation before we can really help him. Believe me, I fucking know what I'm talking about."

Jeff bit his lip. "Fuck, I almost forgot you went through that shit too once."

Matt didn't say anything in response to that. His situation had been years and years ago, and he would rather keep that piece of his past buried as much as he could. The less he thought about it, the better. Although, now that he reflected on it, it made him realize two things. One was that his own experience with getting beat up by a boyfriend was the reason he even gave a shit about what was happening to Adam. And the second thing was actually pretty scary: this whole thing was probably going to escalate even more before Adam realized he needed to leave. And even if he did realize it, knowing he had to leave and actually doing it were going to be two very different things. Dave was also a very possessive person, and Matt had a bad feeling that he was not going to let Adam go without a fight.