Chapter Text
His ribs hurt enough that tossing and turning isn’t really an option.
Aaron stares at the ceiling for a while. He forces himself to take deep breaths that don’t make his fractured ribs worse, although the position isn’t really doing his collarbone any favors. The scar along the side of his head itches, but he knows better than to scratch at it.
There’s a hole in his skull now. He’s been doing his best not think about it.
Sleep isn’t coming and he’s just getting more and more restless, more uncomfortable. He gets out of bed and scribbles a note for his mother, just in case. She’ll go completely spare if she wakes up to find him gone.
The cool night air clears his head a little. It also makes the soreness from his ribs feel extra tight, but that doesn’t matter. He picks a direction and starts walking.
It’s not that he doesn’t understand why Caleb did it, even if he thinks he’s an idiot for it. His mum and Cain think a lot worse than that.
Cain still can’t look at him, and now he’s who knows where, but it had been nice to be on the same side again. It would have been better if Caleb and Ruby weren’t on the other one, but, well. It’s fine. It’s whatever.
Ruby had told him she’d be there for him and had folded the second she’d had to prove herself. Who had he been kidding? Of course she would. Ruby understands him but that doesn’t mean she owes him anything. It was nice of her to say all that stuff to him in the hospital, but obviously her first loyalty is to her husband, to herself. So what if John escaped? So what if Caleb was the one to help him do it? Her father’s body is destroyed and can’t be used against her, against any of them. She’s free from her abuser forever. It’s exactly what he’d wanted for her.
If it comes at his expense, if it means the man who lied to him and hurt him and tried to kill him is still out there and might come back at any time, if Aaron has nightmares about drugged water and an angry man who was supposed to protect him trapping him in bed and telling him he’s bad, so what? She’d told him that he was strong and that she’d be there for him the same way he was for her, but there’d been an obvious unspoken caveat there: only so long as it didn’t get in the way of her own wants, her own peace of mind.
It's his fault for thinking any differently. He’s lived his entire life on someone else’s sufferance. Sure, he’s always wanted more, but –
But when has wanting gotten him anything at all?
“Aaron?”
He blinks, realizing he’s a couple houses from Vic’s without any memory of getting there. Robert is sitting on the sidewalk in front of her house, the yellow porchlight casting his face in unflattering shadows and deepening the bruises beneath his eyes.
The last time he saw Robert was the hospital. He’d pulled his hand from that warm, familiar grip and had to reject him again because he could see what Robert was doing and where it was leading. Where it always leads.
“What are you doing?” Robert asks, shifting like he’s getting ready to stand. “Did something happen? Are you–”
“Shut up,” Aaron sighs, walking the rest of the way towards Robert like he’s walking the plank. His ex-husband and shark infested waters share plenty of similarities.
Robert had tried to warn him about John and Aaron hadn’t believe him. If he’d just listened, then Mackenzie wouldn’t have been tortured and held captive and nearly died.
He can’t help letting out a grunt of pain has he lowers himself onto the sidewalk next to Robert. His ribs flare hot, but he ignores it. He turns his head to see Robert staring at him, hands clenched tight around his own arms and chewing on his bottom lip.
“Stop that,” he says, hating the way he can hear his voice soften. “I’m fine, stop fussing. I’m just tired.”
He’s so, so tired. He’s been tired for a long time. At least six years, probably closer to twenty five, maybe his whole life. Maybe some people are just born tired.
“There’s a solution to that, you know,” Robert says tentatively.
Aaron thinks of small, dark enclosed spaces and the cloying smell of exhaust smoke. “Tried that once. Didn’t work.”
Robert goes still, eyes wide in a way that makes him look younger. His fingers dig into his arms hard enough that Aaron worries he’s going to draw blood.
Right. Too soon, probably. “That was a joke.”
Mostly. It was mostly a joke. Things would be easier that way, maybe, but he figured out a long time ago that he doesn’t get to do anything the easy way.
“Yeah,” Robert lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Really funny.”
Aaron’s eyes ache. His body aches. Why did he even sit down? This is stupid.
He shifts over just a couple inches, just enough to press his shoulder into Robert’s. It’s all the apology he can offer just then. If Robert doesn’t want it, he can get up and leave, he can push Aaron away, he can send him divorce papers in the mail.
Robert lets out a shuddering breath and then he’s leaning into Aaron, the warmth of him a welcome distraction to the chilly air. He should have grabbed a jacket or something, but he hadn’t even really noticed he was cold before.
“What are you doing up?” he asks.
“Same as you,” Robert answers. “Can’t sleep.”
“Nightmares?” It’s a guess only on a technicality.
He nods.
Aaron debates leaving it there, but there’s no real reason to. “Me or prison?”
At first, Robert doesn’t say anything, then he admits, “Both,” with a tremor in his voice that he’s clearly trying and failing to control.
Great. “Are they worse now? After going back?”
After Robert was charged with his attempted murder because John had framed him and Aaron wasn’t awake to tell anyone any differently. He doesn’t understand why they’d needed him to tell them that Robert hadn’t been involved when he’d already said it was John. He doesn’t understand why it took days for anyone to tell him that.
Robert shrugs, which is an answer all on its own.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and it hurts, but who cares? He hurts pretty much all over already. He’s been hurting somewhere deeper ever since he realized what his husband was doing to him. He’s been hurting in his bones for six years. “I should have listened to you. I should have believed you.”
He had plenty of reasons not to. But they feel small and stupid against Robert being right.
“It’s fine,” Robert says and Aaron almost laughs. How could he have gotten it all so fucked up? This is Robert lying to him. When he’d told him about John, he hadn’t been. But Aaron couldn’t stand to look at him long enough to see that. If he looked at Robert for too long, he wouldn’t be able to stop, and then where would they be? “I don’t care about that. I’m just glad you’re alright. If you hadn’t made it–”
“I’m fine,” he interrupts, hating the way Robert’s voice goes high and tight, hating his fear. It reminds him of the after the car crash and the nightmares Robert would have of him dying. He’d hated those too.
“No thanks to me,” Robert says, his own bitterness washing away most of Aaron’s.
Robert wouldn’t let him handle John at the cliff’s edge. He wouldn’t shut up and do as he’s told for once. Aaron was handling it. All he needed was for John to put out a call to the cops and they’d come, it didn’t matter what he said, if he confessed or not. All he had to do was call them and even if he hung up without a word, they’d show up. John was talking to him, he was confessing, he’d nearly gotten Mackenzie’s location out of him when Robert had shown up and screwed everything up and made John snap.
It doesn’t matter. Robert meaning well and not listening and making a mess of it all isn’t anything new.
“That what you’ve been having nightmares about?” he asks. Robert shrugs, which means yes, but not only that. He makes sure his voice comes out teasing when he says, “Well, maybe next time you’ll think things through before rushing in half cocked like a moron.”
“As if you’d have done any differently if it was me,” Robert retorts, almost smiling, but then he freezes. He swallows and looks away, not quite able to meet his eyes.
Aaron could let it lie. He could change the subject. He could let Robert continue thinking whatever it is he’s thinking. There’s a sharp pain in his chest that he can’t blame on his ribs. “’Spose not.”
Robert’s breath hitches and then he’s looking at Aaron again, searching and hopeful.
It would be so easy to lean in. They’re already so close. He could kiss Robert and Robert would kiss him back and until Robert’s lips left his, the world would make sense again. It doesn’t have to even be a kiss. Aaron imagines leaning against him and letting Robert’s arms encircle his shoulders and pull him close. He’d do it. He’d tuck his face into Aaron’s neck and be so careful of his ribs and it would feel so good, so warm and safe and the type of comfort and solace he’d only been able to dream about for six years.
Nate is dead because of him. His mum was drugged and ended up in the hospital because of him. Mackenzie was tortured and almost died because of him. So many people in the village were exposed to John, hurt and used by him, because of Aaron. Because John loves him and he was willing to do anything not to lose him, including drugging and killing him.
He could reach for Robert and Robert would reach back and he might forget how to hate himself for a little bit. He wants it so badly he feels it in his teeth.
But it wouldn’t be fair. He’s never deserved comfort less.
“I should be getting back,” he says, pulling away. He’s careful not to look at Robert as he pushes himself to his feet. He bites the inside of his cheek as he does it to keep from letting anything out as his ribs shift. “I’ll try and get a few hours at least. You should too.”
“Right,” Robert says, but he doesn’t look as disappointed as Aaron had feared. Or hoped. Not hoped. Whatever. He can’t believe he even cares about this right now. He’s been called selfish more times than he can count and just then, he believes every one of them. “Yeah, alright. Good. You should be resting.”
Robert hasn’t moved from his place on the sidewalk. “You heading in soon?”
He won’t look at him again. “Probably better if I don’t. I don’t want to wake Vic. Or Harry. I really, really don’t want to wake Harry.”
Robert’s nightmares didn’t used to be loud. They were labored breathing and whimpers and clawing hands and then Robert clinging and shuddering in his arms after. He’d never woken anyone but Aaron with them, even when they were staying in the pub with its paper thin walls.
Standing, the shadows under Robert’s eyes look worse. He can’t leave him out here all night, and he can’t bring him back to the pub where he could wake Mum or Liam, or worse, Eve.
“Come on,” Aaron says. “You can’t just not sleep.”
He shrugs again. “It’s not so bad. You get used to it.”
The way he says it makes Aaron think he’s not just talking about the past few weeks. He wants to ask, but he swallows it. “Get up.”
Robert blinks. “What?”
“I got a place you can sleep without waking anyone up,” Aaron says. “You coming with me or not?”
He wishes how quickly Robert pushes himself to his feet didn’t do anything for him.
They don’t speak as they walk side by side, almost but not quite close enough to touch. Aaron grabs the spare key from under the flowerpot and hopes the darkness hides the way he hesitates before unlocking the front door.
He flips the lights on as soon as he’s inside and feels himself tense in a way that makes all his aches flare to life. Everything’s a mess still, half packed from when he thought he and John were moving to that cottage and then thrown around haphazardly from when the cops had been through looking for clues to track down John. So close, but so far. If they’d wanted to find John, they should have gone next door and just asked Caleb.
“Aaron?” Robert asks quietly.
He shakes it off, trying to ignore the bits of John he can see scattered around, trying not to think of how John kissed him here and there and over there and how Aaron was so desperate to be loved that he just let him, that he let those kisses that felt like they could be enough block out everything else. Selfish and stupid and played. “Help me make the bed.”
There are sheets in the back of the closet that he hasn’t used in he doesn’t know how long, which means he never slept on them with John. He’ll have to toss all the others. Robert silently grabs one end of the sheet and pulls it taut with him, then does the same to the flat sheet, the both of them moving together easily. They’ve made the bed together so many times that if feels familiar even thought it shouldn’t.
Bending over so much is pulling on things that shouldn’t be pulled on and Aaron feels sweat break out on the back of his neck while pain throbs dull and easily ignorable. They’ve just set the comforter in place when he moves too suddenly and his hand closes around the bedframe in a white knuckled grip.
Robert presses his lips together. “Alright?”
It’s almost funny. “Get some more sleep. You’re not going to wake anyone here.”
Aaron’s made it out of the bedroom and winced his way down the stairs when Robert says, “Wait, let me walk you back.”
“I’m fine,” he barely keeps from snapping. It’s just some bruises, some healing bones, a hole in his head. He’s had worse.
“You don’t look it,” he returns and Aaron feels the stirrings of a smile. “Look, just – you need to sleep too. Stay. Just to sleep.”
“Robert,” he sighs. The last thing he wants is to stay in the apartment he lived in with his husband. Well, no, the cottage would be worse, lying in the bed that John – well. That would be worse. But nowhere else.
“I’ll take the couch. Just – don’t go.” Aaron frowns. It’s a little too fast, a little too desperate. Robert’s cheeks flush and he closes his eyes for a moment before swallowing. “Never mind. I wasn’t thinking. Look, let me just walk you back to the pub and–”
“Fine,” he interrupts. He didn’t believe Robert and everything went to shit and Robert went back to prison because of it and now his nightmares are worse and Aaron can’t do anything about any of the other things John did, but he can do something about this. “Come on. That couch isn’t worth sleeping on.”
He goes back up the stairs and after a beat, Robert follows him. He slides into bed and lies flat on his back because any other position is hell on his ribs. A moment later, Robert is doing the same. He’s careful to make sure they don’t touch, but the bed isn’t that big. He can feel the heat of Robert so close.
The last time they were lying in bed together was at Vic’s, when Aaron’s control had snapped and he’d kissed Robert and hadn’t stopped and then he’d run away from it because it had felt like the only option. The time before that was when they were still married and Aaron had no idea that it’d be the last time. Except it wasn’t. He’s here, laying next to Robert again, and it hurts.
Maybe that’s what makes it okay. Chasing happiness, trying to make the good choice, it always ends in disaster. But wanting Robert hurts, it’s all guilt and knowing better and fear and desire twining together and getting stuck in his throat. He’s doing this for Robert, not for himself, and it hurts, so maybe it’s alright.
Robert’s on his back, but he can see from the corner of his eye that his head is turned towards him. He’s still not asleep.
Exhaustion is tugging at Aaron, deep enough that it’s going to overcome everything else. But Robert’s still not sleeping. The point of all this was for him to sleep.
He’s not doing this for himself. It hurts. That means it’s okay.
Aaron shifts his hand over and slides his fingers through Robert’s.
Robert takes in a deep, sudden breath and tightens his grip. It feels like he’s squeezing his heart in his chest. That’s good. “Go to sleep.”
“Okay,” Robert whispers.
He rubs his thumb against the back of Robert’s hand. He thinks he hears Robert’s breathing even out before he finally gives in to the tiredness pulling him down, but he could just be imaging it.
~
At first Aaron thinks that the throbbing in his side has woken him, but then he realizes that the pressure is from something pressed against him and he pries his eyes open.
It’s early, the sky still a milky grey, and his breath catches in his throat.
Robert’s asleep. He’s curled towards Aaron, his forehead pressed into his shoulder and both hands holding onto Aaron’s arm.
Aaron shifts just enough to press his face to the top of Robert’s head before he can stop himself, kissing him there on instinct more than anything else. He goes still after, breathing in deeply and trying to keep it together.
He loves Robert. He’s always loved Robert. All the times Robert had accused Aaron of loving him, he’s never denied it. It’s just that love isn’t enough. Aaron’s learned that the hard way over and over again. Everyone he loves, he loses. He’d broken down in front of Mackenzie years ago and said he couldn’t do this anymore, that he couldn’t lose anyone else and that he’d just rather have no one to lose than continue living like this.
He should have stuck to that. He should have made the responsible choice and learned his lesson and stayed away. But he’d wanted to be happy, he’d wanted to be loved, and look what had happened because of it.
The pain in his chest isn’t real and is so much worse than anything John has done to him.
He closes his eyes and breathes Robert in, different and familiar and all he’s wanted for so long. The man he can’t trust and should have trusted and who broke his heart and the great love of his life that he’d be unbearably stupid to ever go back to.
Sleep comes more quickly this time.
~
The next time he wakes up is hours later. Robert is gone and his side of the bed is cold, but when Aaron rolls over, his pillow still smells like him. Once their bed had stopped smelling like Robert, Aaron couldn’t stand to sleep in it.
He leverages himself out of bed and twenty minutes of standing under hot water later, most of the pain has been soothed away. He digs clean clothes out of the closet and flinches when his hand brushes against one of John’s shirts. He stares at it for probably too long before grabbing the long sleeve he’d wanted and pulling it on over his head.
His equilibrium has just about returned when he walks into the kitchen and sees the French press on the counter full of coffee and one of his mugs set out next to it.
It’s cold, obviously, but Aaron pours a cup and drinks it anyway. He leans against the counter, eyes skipping over the mess of his home and thinking of the softness of John’s shirt against his fingertips.
He’d been sick at the idea of coming back here, of having to deal with the realities of the life he thought he was going to have and what he’s left with. But it’s just an apartment, it’s just things. There’s no reason to make it anything more than that.
There’s no reason not to get started putting things to rights.
He spends the next several hours clearing out John from his closet, from his cupboards, from anyplace he can. It’s painful, but so what? He’s already in pain. Trying to avoid pain is how he ended up with John in the first place.
Removing Robert from the Mill had been impossible. He was in every inch of it, in the cupboards and the furniture and the paint color, in their picture frames and type of coffee Aaron bought without thinking and the plants he’s struggled between maintaining and letting wilt. Comparatively, removing John is easy. His stuff had mostly been packed up and brought to the cottage anyway. He stacks it by the door and texts Vinny to swing by and pick it up later. He’s already taking care of John’s van for him, throwing a couple extra boxes in won’t make a difference.
He unpacks his own things and cleans up the mess the cops made of everything as much as he can. He itches with the urge to scrub everything down, to remove John from here in every way possible, but he’s already sweating and everything’s sort of sore again, so he better not. Passing out in a bucket of bleach isn’t the worst way to go, but it’s not exactly high up on his list. He’ll ask Mum to help him later. She’s been as overbearing and controlling as he’d expected and he might as well put it to good use.
Aaron returns the key to its hiding place after he locks up. Vinny will need it and next time he can just use the one on his keychain, although he should probably look into getting the locks changed. Not that he expects a locked door to stop John. Then again, it might, considering John had thought a locked door would stop Aaron from figuring out he owned the cottage they were staying in.
He’s not ready to go back to the pub just yet, so he walks instead. It feels good, although considering all the moving around he’d just done it’s not long before he feels a twinge in his side that’s either a stitch or he’s cracked another rib. He’s pretty sure it’s the former, but either way he lowers himself down onto the next bench he sees with a wince.
People pass by and he feels their eyes on him. It makes his skin itch. He wants to run. He wants to leave this village he can’t seem to escape and go somewhere where no one knows how much of a desperate, pathetic fuck up he is. But it doesn’t work that way. He tried that before.
Besides, why should he get to run? The village is reeling from what John did. He hurt so many people. And Aaron married him. Even Cain thinks that he had something to do with Nate’s death, why would anyone else think differently? John stayed in Emmerdale because of him, he hurt people that would have otherwise been untouched if it weren’t for Aaron.
He doesn’t get to run from that, however much he wants to. It wouldn’t be fair.
Running only makes things worse in the end anyway. Might as well stay right where he is and if everyone looks at him and judges him, if they find him pathetic and culpable, that’s just because he is.
Later, he promises himself when it’s suddenly hard to breathe. He’ll wait for things to settle, he’ll take his due, and then he’ll leave. It won’t solve anything because it never does, but at least he’ll be miserable somewhere else.
There’s the sound of rapidly approaching little feet and he’s smiling before he opens his eyes.
Eve is running towards him, her backpack bouncing and her jacket dragging on the ground. “Aaron!”
He opens his arms and braces himself, glad that she’s coming from his less injured side.
She skitters to a stop right in front of him, biting down on her lower lip. “Still hurt?”
“Only a little,” he says, closing his arms around her and lifting her clear off the ground. She’s been really good at being careful with him since he’s come to stay with them. She’d begged to visit him in the hospital, but he hadn’t wanted her seeing him like that. There was no reason for it when he was going to be fine, but he’d needed to talk to her on phone before she’d stopped throwing a fit about it at Paddy’s.
Eve screams in delight, holding onto his neck and giggling. Sitting across his thigh and with most of her weight in the center of his chest isn’t too bad.
He looks across the street and sees Eve’s friend that she walks home with and her mom looking at them. He tenses, but raises a hand in greeting.
The mom smiles at him then points to Eve and offers him a questioning thumbs up.
He returns it and the mom nods and heads back the way she came. He can take Eve back to the pub. He should head back there himself, really. He hadn’t taken his phone with him last night because he hadn’t thought he’d need it and note or no note, his mum is probably going off her head by now.
“You weren’t home when I left for school,” she says petulantly.
“Sorry,” he says, rubbing his knuckles along the back of her head. “I had some stuff to do at my place.”
“Mum says you’re not supposed to be doing stuff right now,” she says.
Mum would wrap him in cotton wool and lock him in the basement if he let her. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
She giggles and he squeezes her tight, holding on to the only little sister he still has.
He loved Liv and wanted to take care of her and he fucked it up and he lost her. No matter what she thought she wanted, he should have insisted that she stay with Sandra. At least she’d be alive then.
“Let’s go home,” he says, gently sliding her to her feet and then standing with her. She slips her hand in his and he feels a niggling of selfish guilt that he does his best to stomp out. It’s familiar, but it used to be easier to ignore before he knew he’d married a psychopath. At least John had only drugged his mother, he thinks darkly. If he’d hurt Eve –
“You okay?” Eve’s eyebrows are pressed together. “Do you need to sit down again? I can go get Mum.”
“I’m okay,” he says, pushing those thoughts away for now. There’s no rush. They’ll be there waiting for him the next time he can’t sleep. “How was school?”
Eve holds his hand extra tight, but starts chattering on about what happened in class as they slowly make their way back to the pub. He goes in through the back, feeling like he’s had enough eyes on him today. The door’s barely closed behind him when Mum is there, going, “There you are! Do you have any idea–”
“Mum,” he interrupts, eyes flicking down pointedly towards Eve.
Her eyes narrow, but she takes a deep breath before bending down to hug Eve and kissing her cheeks. “Hey there, sweetheart. Are you hungry? Do you want a snack? Bring your things upstairs and wash up and I’ll make you something.”
Eve hesitates just long enough to make it clear that she’s not fooled in the slightest, but then she’s going, “I want hot chocolate,” and bounding towards the stairs.
As soon as the door swing shuts behind her, Mum grabs his face, something he’d only ever tolerate from her, but she’s also the only one who even tries. “I went to check in on you and–”
“I left a note,” he says before she can really get going. “I’m fine, Mum, relax.”
“Relax?” she snaps. “You nearly died! I almost lost you, again, you can’t just,” she cuts herself off and turns from him.
He doesn’t let her. He grabs her arm and pulls her in, because she’s a pain in the ass and she still treats him like a kid and she doesn’t listen and she loves him and he doesn’t want to hurt her. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he hunches down enough to let her, making himself small enough for her to hold like he always does.
She relaxes grudgingly. “Where were you? Where did you go?”
“The apartment.” He knows better than to mention Robert. There’s nothing to mention anyway.
“Aaron,” she starts, a tone there that he just doesn’t want to deal with right now.
“I took care of most of the mess,” he says. Plus all of John’s things. “It could use a deep clean. Will you go over with me later and give me a hand?”
She lets out a long breath and cradles the back of his head. “Of course, love.”
He’s been bigger than her for most of his life, but sometimes when she holds him like this he almost feels like the little boy who thought she could fix everything.
~
The next few days he goes between the pub and his apartment and nowhere else. He sleeps a little better than he had before. The constant tightness in his side starts to loosen and sometimes he almost feels like himself again. Mum gets on her hands and knees and scrubs every inch of the apartment with him. She buys him new black sheets and a new comforter in with a geometric black and white pattern he wouldn’t have picked out for himself, but it does look good in the room.
He bundles Eve off to school, almost spends another day hiding from the village, but he’s tired of his own cowardice. He heads down to the café just to show his face around. Nicola starts talking to him about John still being on the run immediately because she wouldn’t take a hint if it was being shoved down her throat and he knows everyone is listening. He’s just about to snap at her when Vic is right next to him, saying, “Latte to go, thanks. I’m in a bit of a hurry, so if you don’t mind…”
“Oh, sure,” Nicola says, turning her back to them to make both their drinks.
Aaron breathes out and glances down, unsurprised to find Vic already looking at him. She offers him a tremulous smile and he quirks his lips up in return. He pays for both their drinks and she says quietly, “Walk with me?”
He nods and they don’t say anything as they pass by everyone sitting outside. They’re heading towards Moira’s, which makes sense, and he keeps pace with Vic and sips at his coffee and waits.
“You look better,” Vic says finally.
The last time she saw him, he was freshly out of a coma and so out of it he barely remembers her being there. “Thanks.”
She rolls her eyes and nudges him gently in the side. His smile settles a little more naturally up until she clears her throat and says, “I’m really sorry, Aaron.”
He stops, glad they’re far enough from the center of the village that there’s no one around. “For what?”
She fiddles with the lid of her coffee. “John. It’s my fault. He was just going to blow through town, he wasn’t going to stay except that I begged him to, and then he, well, you two wouldn’t have been anything if I’d just let him leave. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me, if I wasn’t lonely and stupid–”
“Stop,” he says and she does, finally looking up at him with teary eyes that break his heart. He’s known Vic for over half his life, she was married to his best mate, she’s his sister-in-law twice over, her son calls him uncle. He doesn’t want her blaming herself. “None of this is your fault. I was the idiot that married him, that was so caught up in myself I didn’t notice when he was drugging people and killing my cousin and torturing my friend. This isn’t on you.”
Vic shakes her head, stubborn. “If I’d just listened to Robert, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
“Well, stopped clock and all that,” he teases even though he knows exactly how she feels. It makes her smile at least and he’s loathe to ruin that, but there is something he wants to know. “Did you really think that Robert would hurt me?”
Robert destroys him and breaks him apart but he’d never hurt him, not physically, not like that. His hurts are always much deeper, less visible.
“Not on purpose,” she says. “But you and John were hurt and he wasn’t and John said that Robert snapped and was going for him and you got in the way, which seemed like something that could happen.” It’s sort of what had happened in reverse. Every time John had moved towards Robert, Aaron had cut him off. If they’d been standing differently and John had lunged for Robert, Aaron would have gotten in the way and the two of them would have gone over. “Robert convinced me in the end, just not soon enough. He says he forgives me, but he still won’t talk to me about anything really. He was gone all night earlier this week and he showed up at the farm like nothing happened and he won’t tell me where he was or what he was doing when anything could have happened to him! What if John had found him or he’d gone sleepwalking or had another nightmare,” she stops, taking a deep breath and grimacing. “Sorry. He just worries me sometimes.”
He can’t fix any of this mess for Vic no matter how much he wishes he could, but he can give her this. “He was with me.” Her mouth drops in shock and he hurries to clarify, “Not like that. I couldn’t sleep and I went for a walk and found him sitting outside of yours. He was worried about waking you guys up again, so I took him back to mine. We just slept,” he insists, suddenly worried she won’t believe him. He’d been stupid before and fallen into bed with Robert when he should have known better, but this time nothing had happened.
Except Vic ignores all that and asks, “He slept?”
“Yeah,” he says, trying not to think about Robert’s body pressed along his side and the way he’d clung to him even in his sleep.
“Oh.” She rubs the back of her hand over her eyes. “That’s – that’s really, I mean, just,” she sniffs.
His eyebrows push together. “Vic?”
“He’s been having trouble sleeping,” she admits after a moment’s hesitation. “He can never fall back asleep after he wakes himself up, and he works so hard at the farm, and he’s just really tired all the time. Sometimes he’ll take naps when it’s still light out, and those usually go better, but,” she shrugs then offers him a smile. “That’s really good. That he went back to sleep.”
Aaron hadn’t known it was that bad. “How long has this been going on?”
“Pretty much since he got back,” she says, which surprises him. “It got better for a bit, then, well, now it’s worse again. A bit.”
Yeah. No need to guess as to why. “He talking to anyone?”
She shakes her head. “You know how he is. I mean, the only person he’s ever really opened up to is,” she stops, wincing.
“Me,” he finishes, wishing it didn’t warm him and hurt him both. That’s Robert. That’s always been Robert. “He’s kept plenty from me.”
He can’t even think back to that last visit in prison six years ago without wanting to scream and cry both. If Robert had just talked to him about it, if he’d only – but there’s no use thinking like that. Robert hadn’t talked to him. He’d just done what he thought was best, what he could live with, and fuck the rest of them.
“I know,” Vic says softly, because she does know. She was there. “You want to come up with me? Mack’s ankle means he can’t move around much, so Moira’s set a chair up for him outside. He says he’s supervising, but mostly he’s just been heckling us. You could join him.”
“Nah,” he says, casually enough that he hopes she doesn’t pick anything up from it. “I told Mum I’d help her move some stock around.”
It’d be easier if Mackenzie hated him. John tortured him because of Aaron, he shot him with an arrow and broke his ankle and kept him chained in a bunker all because Aaron wouldn’t listen when Mackenzie told him that John was bad news. He has his reasons for not listening to Robert, but Mackenzie? There’s no excuse there and he can’t stand to hear Mackenzie make them.
Another person he cares about that he nearly lost, someone else that’s almost left him because Aaron won’t just stop wanting things that aren’t for him. Part of him wants nothing more than to sit next to Mackenzie and make sure he’s doing okay and to give everyone shit together, but the rest of him is sick just at the thought of it.
Vic nods, biting her bottom lip. He folds an arm around her and she presses her face into his shoulder. Hugging her sort of feels like hugging Liv and some days that doesn’t kill him. Her words come out a bit muffled, but he makes out, “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“I’m glad you’re okay too,” he says, even if neither of them are okay, really, but that’s alright. Vic will get there.
~
It’s sometime after midnight and he’s not quite exhausted, but he’s tired enough, and he still can’t sleep. This time, he can’t even blame it all on John.
Aaron rubs a hand over his face and gets out of bed. He leaves another note for his mother, but takes his phone this time. The night air wakes him up even further and he starts walking. It takes him almost no time at all to make it to Vic’s, to see Robert huddled on the sidewalk yet again. Is he out here every night? Aaron hopes not. “Do you ever sleep?”
Robert’s head snaps up. His eyes are red rimmed and Aaron hates it. He drops down next to Robert and it’s a lot easier this time than it was before. He’s staring at him like he doesn’t quite believe he’s there, which Aaron doesn’t get. Robert has to swallow twice before he manages, “How often are you going on middle of the night walks? That’s probably not the safest thing to do, considering.”
“Not really a concern,” he says dismissively.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Robert snaps. It surprises Aaron enough that he doesn’t say anything when Robert grabs at his wrist. At first he thinks he’s going for the scar on his left forearm like he used to after the crash, but it’s the wrong hand and Robert just keeps it there. He presses his thumb into Aaron’s wrist and he understands then. Robert probably can’t feel his pulse like that, but that doesn’t stop him from searching for it.
He can take a guess at what nightmare woke Robert up this time.
“Nothing,” he says, gentler than he probably should be, but he can’t help it. “Just that there’s nothing to worry about. John’s long gone. The police would have found him by now if he wasn’t.”
Caleb has smuggled him out of the country and now he could be anywhere. Cain had left determined to find him, but Aaron doubts he’ll be successful. He’ll just have to live with it, will have to live with a man who hurt him out there and free and able to could come back at any time, but probably won’t, as if that’s enough. Ruby should get it. Ruby does get it, he knows. She just doesn’t care.
“You don’t think he’ll be back?” Robert asks.
“Well, he’d have to be mad to, wouldn’t he,” he answers, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice. As if John hasn’t already proved he’s mad. No sane person would do anything that he’s done. But he ran. What’s the point of running if he’s just going to come right back? Aaron probably doesn’t have anything to worry about for a while, at least. That’s something. He can get all healed up just in time for John to try and kill him again.
He better do it right next time. Aaron won’t let him get away with it a second time.
“I would.”
Aaron turns to Robert and raises an eyebrow.
“I would,” he repeats. “I’d come back for you.”
He closes his eyes. Robert squeezes his wrist and Aaron thinks of pulling his hand away like he did in the hospital, but he doesn’t. He lets Robert hold on. “I thought he was boring.”
Robert lets out a startled laugh.
If they were talking about anything else, it would make Aaron smile. “He was boring, and pedantic, but he was supposed to be safe. Dependable. The good choice. I wanted to make the good, safe choice for once.”
Even when he’d doubted his own feelings, even when the thought of decades with John had been more exhausting than anything else, he’d clung to that. John was safe, he was loyal, he loved him. He was Ed and Alex and every man Aaron knows he should have chosen and couldn’t.
God, he’s stupid.
“I wish he had been,” Robert says, letting go of Aaron to run a shaking hand through his hair. “I wish he’d been good and safe and boring. It wouldn’t have stopped me. Sorry. I’d have still come back for you, I wouldn’t have left, I can’t help it. But I’d give anything for him to have loved you like he should have and for him to just – to just be boring.”
“Robert?” he asks uncertainly.
He’s not looking at him, instead staring down at his hands. His chin is trembling. “I thought you were dead. You wouldn’t wake up, I didn’t know what to do. Help took so long to come and then it did and your heart stopped and–”
Aaron puts his hand in both of Robert’s and they close around him instantly. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m fine.”
Robert shakes his head. “Liar.”
It steals the air from his lungs, just for a moment. “That’s cheating.”
“Knowing you is cheating?” The edge of humor makes him look just a little less crushed.
Yes.
No one’s ever known him like Robert. No one’s ever loved him like Robert.
No one’s ever hurt him like Robert.
“You getting any more sleep tonight?” he asks.
He’s back to not looking at him. “I’ll get another couple hours.”
Liar.
Aaron doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that it goes both ways. “You fell back asleep when you were with me.”
“Well,” he licks his lips then sighs. “I don’t know. It’s you. I was surprised too.”
He does look tired.
Aaron pushes himself up and takes Robert with him. “Come on then.”
It helps Robert, it helps Vic, it feels a little like tearing his chest open and squeezing his heart until it bursts. It’s not selfish. It’s not.
He starts walking and Robert is still for one breath and then he’s right next to him. “Aaron?”
“Just to sleep,” he says. “Nothing else.”
“Okay,” he agrees, so quickly that their voices nearly overlap. “Thanks.”
He uses the spare key again and lets them both in. Robert looks around in surprise, but he doesn’t say anything about the suddenly clean apartment or even the new bedspread. They get under the covers, both flat on their backs like before. Aaron keeps his eyes focused on the ceiling as he moves his hand over until it bumps into Robert’s.
Robert takes it and shuffles just a little bit closer, just enough that their arms are pressed together. Aaron doesn’t say anything or move away and he feels the tension drain out of Robert.
He’s still staring at the ceiling long after Robert is breathing deep and even next to him, but sleep eventually comes for him too.
~
Pain erupts along his side and Aaron wakes up gasping.
There’s only one moment of breathless confusion and then he’s rolling over, pinning Robert’s flailing arms down and throwing a leg over his hips to keep from getting kicked. He’s yelling, something that could be words in there but nothing that Aaron can make out. “Robert! Rob!”
His eyes burst open, wide and terrified, and he tries to pull out of Aaron’s grip.
He shifts so he’s right over him, so he’s all that Robert can see. “It’s me. Robert, it’s okay, it’s me.”
The last time wasn’t this bad. He wasn’t this scared.
Robert stills, taking in one shaky breath before his face crumples.
Aaron gets off of him and Robert covers his face with his hands, shoulders shaking, his whole body shaking. Aaron’s able to put up with that for all of five seconds before he’s pulling Robert towards him, muttering, “It’s okay, you’re okay, just breathe, I’m right here.”
Robert leans against him but nothing more than that. It’s disconcerting. Eventually he gasps out, “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” he starts, but Robert shakes his head and he falls silent.
He rubs a hand up and down Robert’s back, keeping him against him, and eventually Robert whispers, “I did – I did things. Bad things.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. His mind uncomfortably flashes back to coaxing a confession out of John at the cliff’s edge, but put he pushes it aside. This is nothing like that. “In prison?”
Robert nods.
How does Robert doing bad things lead to him screaming and lashing out in his sleep? “What kind of things?”
He takes in a deep breath and for a moment Aaron thinks he’s going to tell him, but then he’s shaking his head again and repeats, “I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I didn’t–”
Aaron presses his lips against Robert’s forehead.
Robert’s breath stutters in his throat.
“Okay,” he says softly. “That’s okay, Robert. Let’s go back to sleep.”
“I can’t,” he says, wrecked. “I’m sorry, I’ll go, I–”
“Shut up.” Aaron’s too fond, but Robert listens, so there’s that.
He settles them back into bed and his ribs are healed enough for him to keep an arm around Robert as he lies down. Robert’s head on his shoulder is fine and so’s his arm across Aaron’s chest. The hand fisted in his shirt is concerning for other reasons. He puts his hand over Robert’s clenched fist and rubs his thumb along the back of his hand until his grip loosens.
Despite his protests, it doesn’t take long for Robert to stop trembling against him, for him to go heavy and relaxed. The sky is just starting lighten when Robert slips back into sleep.
Aaron stays awake.
He watches the sky slowly shift from grey to yellow to blue and tries to think of nothing at all. He does everything he can not to think about how good and right Robert feels in his arms.
He fails.