Chapter Text
Jobe was the star of the moment.
A player for Dortmund and the English national team, his good looks caught people’s attention, and they began to dig deeper into his personal life, that’s when everyone realized he was the younger brother in the Bellingham family.
Strangely, Jobe seemed more like the older brother, and to everyone’s surprise… Jobe never denied it!
Let’s set aside the stereotypical categorization of alphas, omegas, and betas. Ever since Jobe was old enough to understand, he felt the need to take care of his brother; his mother’s words telling him to protect him from anyone -or even from himself- were constantly drilled into his head, and he grew up with that mindset.
Ever since he was a child, he was there for his brother. Whether Jude fell while running after the ball, got into a fight with another kid, or when he discovered his brother was an omega and the advances began, Jobe was always there for him.
He was his brother’s knight in shining armor; it was no coincidence that he played Sir Gawain in the school play.
The upside of this situation was that Jude never set any limits on him.
He never saw his brother defending him as a bad thing; he even found it endearing to a certain extent.
The family dynamic changed drastically the day Jude blew out his knee playing a soccer game.
He was 12 years old, and after a hard shove from one of the opposing players, he ended up in the hospital undergoing emergency surgery and receiving the terrible news that his knee would be permanently impaired, even with therapy. Jobe took revenge on the player by beating him up, which only made the situation worse. His mother scolded him, his father did too. And Jude? He scolded him as well, which saddened the younger brother; that’s when he learned his first lesson: not even all the violence in the world would bring his brother’s knee back.
The “seesaw dynamic”-as Mrs. Bellingham called it- began: on one hand, Jobe might tease his brother, and Jude would retaliate with some mischief. Then the older brother might tease his younger brother, and Jobe would respond with a tantrum. Someone might do something to Jobe, and Jude -even on his crutches- would rush to his defense, just like the time he saved him from some school bullies. Jobe would come to his brother’s defense if anyone was taking advantage of him because he was the most sought-after “omega” in school.
The contrast between the brothers was like two extremes that always ended up connecting.
Jobe was the perfect alpha: tall, athletic, charismatic, and highly visible because of his job. He hesitated too long before agreeing to go to Dortmund, but his family convinced him; it was that moment in life when you make the big decision, and for the time being, the younger brother’s life couldn’t be going any better.
Jude was the imperfect omega. Tall, charismatic, and completely incapable of fitting the mold of a submissive omega. He was what sociologists call a dominant omega, a sort of alpha who was born with the misfortune of being an omega.
Jobe lived in Germany and traveled every vacation season to visit his brother, travel the world, and then return to work.
Jude lived in England, taught at the university, went out to have fun whenever he could, and spent time with the people around him.
Jobe had partners.
Jude had partners.
That’s where the suitors came in.
Jobe hated them all. He considered none of them worthy of his brother; they were all opportunists who were only looking to get the best out of him. Throughout his life, none of his brother’s partners had gotten along with him; they either parted on neutral terms or on terrible ones.
Even after they went their separate ways, the younger brother could still judge the boyfriends from a distance: arrogant alphas, mediocre betas, and ridiculous omegas.
Jude might move to Manchester for work, and Jobe would keep complaining about anyone his brother had even the slightest interaction with.
Jude might walk into the city’s busiest pub and meet a two-meter-tall blond idiot who…
Well, that was the problem Jobe told his friends about.
It all started during that vacation when he made his usual stop in Manchester and spent time with his brother after months of not seeing him. As always, his brother welcomed him warmly, offered him the food he’d bought -because that kitchen was only used when his mom left him the month’s groceries- and they sat on the new couch, the brand of which Jobe didn’t recognize, to watch a movie.
Did he notice anything strange about his brother? That was the question that popped into his head when he recounted the story days later. Looking back on that entire afternoon -from the moment he arrived until the news broke- nothing seemed out of the ordinary when he walked through the door. His brother greeted him with a hug; he smelled strange -that was the first warning sign he ignored- and he wasn’t wearing his patches, which was unusual for him.
His brother always had that distinctive scent of black tea that their grandmother kept in the cupboard, but this time he smelled like a kind of milk with honey: a tea with milk and honey, just like the tea that same grandmother used to drink on rainy afternoons.
The second thing was how different his brother’s apartment looked. There was new furniture and the peculiar scent of applewood smoke, a new air freshener? Because no Alpha could smell like that.
It wasn’t until halfway through the movie that Jude told him he had something to say. Jobe wanted to tell him to wait until the movie was over, but then his brother confessed, “I’m expecting a baby.”
At first he thought, “Since when did my brother grow up so much?” Then, the thousands of questions swirling in his head began to overshadow the main one: “Who was the bastard who did this?” Because he was going to kill him.
Seeing his brother’s reaction, Jude kept the identity of the father completely to himself. “Until you calm down,” he said, crossing his arms.
It was during that damn Norway vs. England game that Jobe realized why his brother had refused to tell him.
His brother was sitting next to their parents when he saw him. After the game, he noticed a certain Norwegian player approaching to say hello, and then…
Jude jumped up excitedly to give that two-meter-tall Viking a kiss while that bastard lifted him high into the air.
It all made sense.
It felt like the ending of The Usual Suspects, that damn movie they’d watched when the news broke.
His brother lived in Manchester.
His brother, strangely enough, had started rooting for City out of the blue.
His story about going to the busiest pub in town made sense.
The new piece of furniture to the apartment.
The smell of applewood smoke.
That his brother wouldn’t be wearing the patches anymore, that the idea of pregnancy no longer seemed horrifying to his.
That damn pregnancy.
Without a second thought, he forgot about the celebration to rush to where the scene was unfolding; he shoved every Norwegian who got in his way, paying no attention to the reporters or the fans, he just arrived ready to fight when Kane, Rice, and Saka stepped in, because otherwise a murder would have been committed.
He just managed to shout, “Of all the people in the world, why him, Jude?!”
It was the butt of the news until they lost to Argentina.