Chapter Text
“Aaron! Over here!” Tracy’s voice filled the Woolpack, and she waved her arms wildly in the air, gesturing him over to the corner table she was sitting at, despite the fact that he knew exactly where she was as she’d texted him four times telling him to hurry up and detailing her exact location in the pub. She’d clearly already started on the champagne that she was making him wait to find out the occasion for.
“You know I don’t really like this stuff,” Aaron said, sliding into the seat opposite her.
“Just one glass, then I’ll get you a pint. Though really, you should be the one buying me a drink, once you hear what I’ve managed to do for you.” She took another swig of champagne. Aaron needed to start catching up as she was already more than halfway to tipsy, so he poured himself a glass, grimacing slightly at the taste but then downing half of it anyway.
“Go on then. The suspense is killing me.” He rolled his eyes, not expecting Tracy’s news to be life-changing or even particularly interesting. She did this a lot – tried to get him all worked up only for the announcement to be that one of her favourite bars had introduced a new cocktail or that some reality star she spent far too much time stalking on Instagram was pregnant or had gotten a boob job.
But even though those were things Aaron didn’t care about in the slightest, he loved how excited Tracy would get, and he knew she put up with a lot from him, so he let her have these moments. She was the best friend he’d ever had, after all.
“Kevin Travis is doing a new film. And someone should be thanking his best friend and incredible agent and buying her a very large drink because she’s only gone and gotten him an audition for one of the main roles.” She looked at him knowingly.
“You – you’re joking, right?” Aaron laughed somewhat nervously. Surely she couldn’t have been being serious. Kevin Travis was one of the country’s top film directors. There was no way in hell he’d consider someone like Aaron for a lead part in one of his films. There was no way in hell he had any idea who Aaron was.
“Nope. Two weeks from tomorrow. Better get practising.”
“What – how? I mean – thank you, so much, Trace! But I don’t understand.”
“One of his assistants called me earlier today, asking if you’d be interested. She didn’t give me the chance to get many more details. I had this client, Lana, not long before I met you, who was in one of his films, so all I can assume is that she’s still in touch with him and said something about me and he found you that way. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? This is it, Aaron. This is the big break you’ve been waiting for!”
“It still doesn’t explain why he’s after me. I mean, my acting career – if you can call it that – has literally consisted of three adverts – one for anti-wart cream – , two lines in a film that never made it to cinemas, and no lines in a Hungarian movie that I very much doubt anyone outside of Hungary has ever even heard of, let alone seen. Not really a CV that screams Kevin Travis movie material, is it?”
“Great monologue. You should use it in the audition.” Tracy rolled her eyes at him, then drained her glass and poured another. “Now let’s finish this and go out and celebrate properly. No offence to the three quarters of your family that are always in here, and I know it’s your home and everything, but I think we can go a bit bigger on a night like this, eh?”
“Let’s do it.” Aaron grinned and took her hand from across the table. “Seriously, thank you so much. I think I’m still in shock, but you know – this means everything to me.”
“I’m so happy for you, babe. And try not to worry about the how and the why, yeah? Life just works in weird ways sometimes. But you deserve it, so much. You’re an amazing actor, and you know I mean that.”
“Thanks, Trace.”
“And there’s no shirtless scenes; I checked. I was discreet, don’t worry.” Discretion was not usually Tracy’s strong suit, but he knew she wouldn’t go around telling anyone about his scars. He gave her a grateful smile and thanked her again.
“You’d better go tell your mum. I can tell she’s been dying to ask me what the champagne’s for since I walked in.”
“I don’t want to jinx it.”
“You won’t. And she’ll be happy for you. Ruth too.”
“Mum won’t. And Brian definitely won’t.”
“Forget him.”
“I’ll tell them tomorrow. Let’s go.”
“I’m meant to be working Monday, you know. Brian will be pissed,” Aaron said, sighing, over their third cup of tea of the morning. They’d already been in the café for a good hour nursing their hangovers, despite having both promised that they’d be up early every day to prepare for Aaron’s audition.
“Geez, Aaron, that really is a tough decision – a day in the hardware store that will be exactly the same as the fifty billion that came before it, or a day in London with your best mate with the added bonus of landing the role of a lifetime.” Tracy shook him by the arm, forcing him to look up from the now-empty mug he’d been staring into. “Or do you want to be selling screwdrivers for the rest of your life?”
“Shut up.”
It had been a week since Tracy had given him the news, and the previous night he’d finally told Chas and Brian. He’d told his stepsister Ruth days earlier, making her promise not to mention it to them. After Tracy, she was probably the person he was closest to, and she’d always encouraged him to go after what he wanted, but their parents (not that he really considered Brian his dad, but he supposed he was more of a dad to him than Gordon had ever been) were far from supportive of his acting dreams. He’d massively downplayed the audition to them, mentioning nothing of Kevin Travis or the fact that if by some miracle he got the part it would mean relocating to London at least for a while, but they – Brian in particular – had still instantly gone off on one about his responsibilities to them and to the shop, and for good measure throwing in their age-old argument that it was a waste of time pursuing acting because hardly anyone ever made it.
He must have been thinking too hard because he saw Tracy’s face soften, and she gripped his hand from across the table. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. “I know you feel like you’re letting them down, but you’re not a kid, Aaron, and they can’t keep treating you like one. If they can’t be happy for you, it’s their problem, not yours.”
“I guess,” Aaron said, unconvincingly, not really believing it. That was his biggest problem, Tracy always said – he didn’t believe in himself. She said it was good, then, that she believed in him enough for the both of them.
“Come on, let’s go get cracking. Give you something else to think about. I reckon we’re close to nailing your piece.” She finished her tea and glanced at herself in her phone’s front camera before getting up to leave. “Besides, at least Charity will be thrilled. She’s been itching for you to get in with some famous people for her to meet.”
Aaron and Tracy took the train down to London the night before the audition. They stayed in a cheap hotel and had just a couple of drinks before bed, despite the temptation to get absolutely bladdered. They knew they needed to be completely on the ball the next day. Aaron chatted briefly to the guy behind the hotel bar, who asked him what he was in London for. Aaron said he was visiting friends. He was sure the guy would have laughed in his face if he’d told him the truth.
He’d been on plenty of auditions, but it was instantly obvious when they arrived the following day that this was on an entirely different scale. There were hundreds of others waiting, and he’d never even had much luck when he’d only been up against one or two. Many of them he recognised, which wasn’t a good sign. A nobody like him wouldn’t even get a look-in.
Still, he tried to tell himself, it would at least be good experience. And it wasn’t as if he was going in with high – or any, really – expectations, so hopefully the inevitable rejection wouldn’t sting too much.
The audition went surprisingly well, all things considered – he didn’t mess up once, and Kevin Travis and the rest of his panel paid him genuine attention the whole time, even asking if he had more he could show them, and luckily he managed to improvise without stumbling.
It was a nice confidence booster, and got him thinking that maybe one day he could actually do this. He knew, though, that realistically he still had no chance.
And that was only confirmed further when two days later, back in Emmerdale, Tracy informed him that Robert Sugden had been cast in the other lead role.
Robert Sugden, who’d shot to fame years ago and was now one of the most famous movie stars on the planet, and who’d had more lead movie roles in that time than Aaron could ever dream of having in his entire life. Robert Sugden, who was ridiculously gorgeous, insanely rich, loved by everyone, and one half of one of the most high-profile couples going, his girlfriend Chrissie White a supermodel and the daughter of a billionaire.
Robert Sugden, who was essentially the opposite of Aaron in every way that there was.
Aaron had known he had no real chance anyway, but he definitely knew it now.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Tracy tried to tell him. “Just because they’ve got somebody big to play Victor doesn’t mean they’ll do the same for David. I mean, they haven’t announced it, so they’re obviously still thinking about it. You said it went well. Stop stressing.”
“I said it went okay.”
He busied himself over the next few days to try and keep his mind off it. He put in extra hours at the shop, he spent time with Ruth and the kids, he went with Tracy to meet a few people about potential future auditions.
And then the call came.
They’d narrowed it down to four Davids to come back for the next round of auditions – and he was one of them.
“I’m so proud of you,” Ruth told Aaron over dinner at hers that night.
“I haven’t got it yet. I probably won’t get it.” He hadn’t told her; Tracy had announced it when they’d walked in. He supposed he should at least count his blessings that they hadn’t gone to the pub – he did not need the pressure of the entire village knowing.
“You will! You have to! You have to get Robert’s autograph for me!” Aaron’s niece Maia (or step-niece, really, but Ruth felt as much of a sister to him as Liv) was ten, and like the majority of girls her age, was obsessed with Robert Sugden. That further propelled Aaron’s belief that there was no way he’d get the role. He didn’t have any kind of following or fanbase. Robert Sugden was a superstar.
“I wish Tracy hadn’t told them. They’re going to be so disappointed,” he told Ruth later, referring to Maia and his nephew Nathaniel, once they had gone to bed, Tracy in the kitchen getting them some more drinks.
“You have to start believing in yourself, Aaron. There’s nothing to say you won’t get the part. You’ve made it to the final four out of hundreds. That wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t love you.”
Ruth was ten years older than Aaron and, other than the kids, was the only member of his family who had ever truly supported his acting career. Brian wanted nothing more for him than to take over the hardware store once he retired, and Chas just seemed to think he was kidding himself. Aaron had always thought he was too – he doubted he would ever have gone on a single audition in his life if it hadn’t been for Tracy and Ruth.
“I guess. It’s just – it’s so much, all at once. I thought I’ve had done a lot more before I got to this stage.”
“You obviously didn’t need to.” She smiled at him, and for a brief moment, he thought that maybe this was possible after all.
Of course, any kind of self-belief had disappeared entirely when Aaron arrived in London the following week for his second audition. He had no idea who else was auditioning and whether their fame was more of Robert’s level or his, and he felt about a thousand times more petrified than he had the first time around. He was going to be auditioning with Robert Sugden, for God’s sake.
The audition was in the same building as the first had been, but this time it was almost empty. It felt much more serious, and much scarier. Kevin Travis met him personally and guided him to the audition room, where two of the producers were waiting. Robert followed shortly. Aaron had never been so close to such a high-profile celebrity before, and was relieved when Robert was the one to break the silence as he had no idea what to say to him.
“Hey,” he said. “Aaron, right?”
“Yeah. You don’t need to tell me who you are,” Aaron said, laughing nervously, then wondering if that had been a stupid thing to say. But Robert laughed too, much more casually, and it was genuine, his smile reaching his eyes. Aaron liked him instantly.
Kevin’s assistant, Jennifer, gave them each a script of an early scene in the movie and Kevin told them to read from it. Aaron had never done a whole audition before that he hadn’t pre-prepared and was scared this would show, but it went fairly smoothly, Aaron following Tracy’s earlier advice to pretend Robert was just a regular guy.
“That was great,” Kevin told them afterwards. “There’s definitely some chemistry there. It’s believable.” Aaron and Robert smiled at each other, and Aaron pushed down his thoughts of what Robert’s smile was doing to him. He felt like one of Robert’s thirteen-year old fans with a ridiculous schoolgirl crush.
It was nothing really, though. Everyone probably felt this way around Robert. He was one of the best actors going; of course he knew how to make people like him.
Kevin had them perform another short scene from towards the end of the movie. Aaron felt slightly more awkward as he and Robert had to profess their love for each other, but Kevin still said it seemed very natural, and believable, which seemed to be his favourite word.
Afterwards, Aaron and Robert waited in a small room immediately outside the huge audition theater. They chatted a little, Aaron at first very conscious that he was talking to Robert Sugden, the world-famous movie star, but it soon started to feel relatively normal. They bonded over both having grown up in small villages where nothing ever happened – well actually plenty happened in Emmerdale, but nothing that Aaron wanted out of life.
“I hated it growing up, but I do miss my little sister,” Robert admitted. “I hardly see her these days, being so busy. My dad and brother – not so much. They never wanted me to go into acting.”
“My mum and stepdad are the same,” Aaron said.
“It’s hard, I know. But you just have to go for it. And I don’t regret it. I love being able to travel all over the world and do what I love, and I absolutely love London so it’ll be great to be here for a while. I’m sure you’ll love it, too.”
“You’re acting as if I’ve already got the part.”
“Oh, you have. I’m sure of it.” Robert dismissed Aaron’s doubts, looking at him as if it was obvious they were going to be working together for the months to come.
“Thanks, but don’t you still have to read lines with the three other guys? I thought I went first.”
“You did. But I’ve known Kevin a while. I’ve worked with him before. I can tell that he wants you, and I bet he won’t even bother seeing the others. Twenty quid says he’s in there right now telling the producers they’ve got the guy – you. I know he’s the director but he’s basically the main casting agent too. He likes to do as much of it himself as he possibly can.”
“You sure are a lot more confident than me,” Aaron said, laughing slightly. He wasn’t completely sure whether Robert was being serious or not, but for some reason his instinct was to trust the other man, which was mad considering he didn’t trust easily to put it lightly, Tracy and Ruth the only people in his life being even halfway to knowing all of him.
Gaining people’s trust was obviously another of Robert’s many talents.
“Trust me.” And there he went.
Desperate to change the subject, Aaron asked him what had made him want to become an actor.
“My dad went out with this woman who worked in film production and she took my brother Andy and me to the set one time. I’d never been interested in acting at all but suddenly, watching everyone on the set, it was all I wanted to do. I joined the drama club when school started again and that was that. The relationship didn’t last; I can’t imagine how it even started really, my dad being a farmer and everything, but I guess it was good that I had to do it all myself rather than using her to get places.”
“I don’t really know anyone in the industry, but it’s definitely thanks to Tracy that I’m even here. She’s much more of a go-getter.” He smiled to himself, thinking of his best friend and how much she must have been dying to know how it was going.
“She sounds great. I probably wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for my friend Joni, either. I worked with her in my first job after I left home and came to London, and she wanted to be an actor too. We became really good friends and then, after a few months, flatmates. I had pretty much no money but she let me move in with her and that was really the only way I could stay here and go to auditions.”
“Wait – are you talking about Joni Pearce?” Aaron asked. He vaguely remembered some old rumours that the two of them had been a couple.
“Yeah. It feels weird that she’s really famous now. She was my first real friend after I moved away.”
“She probably thinks the same about you. Are you still friends?”
“Yeah, we talk all the time. Haven’t seen her in a while, though. We’re both just so busy.”
“I can imagine.” Aaron wanted to ask if the rumours were true, if Robert and Joni had in fact dated. He didn’t know why he couldn’t quite bring himself to. Maybe he didn’t want Robert to judge him for believing silly celebrity gossip, or to think he was weird for remembering things about him from years ago. After all, Robert didn’t know anything about him.
He did, however, ask about Chrissie White. They were the definition of a super-couple. Every teenager and pre-teen – and adult, if Tracy was anything to go by – in the Western world was obsessed with them.
“What about you? Have you got a girlfriend?” Robert asked, after telling him that everything was great with Chrissie (he didn’t meet Aaron’s eyes when he said so, but Aaron knew it was ridiculous to read anything into that).
Aaron should have been used to the question by now, but he still had to fight to suppress a blush. He didn’t know why he didn’t just tell Robert he was gay. He surely wouldn’t have cared. He wouldn’t have signed up to play a gay character if he was homophobic.
“Nope, not at the moment,” he said instead. Luckily, right at that moment, before Robert could ask any further questions about his love life, Jennifer came out of the audition room and said Kevin wanted to see them.
“Better get that twenty quid ready,” Robert said, grinning at him. Aaron had been so engrossed in talking to him that he’d forgotten all about their bet. He’d practically forgotten about the movie and his nerves about whether he was going to get the role. But he made up for it in the twenty or so seconds before they were seated opposite Kevin and the two producers, Natalie and Ethan. His heart was beating so hard he felt like it was going to fall right out of his chest. He could hear it as clear as if Robert or Jennifer were speaking to him. He was sure they could hear it too. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
Aaron knew that the words he was about to hear might possibly be the most important ones he would hear in his life, yet somehow he just couldn’t focus on a single thing Kevin was saying. He could see his lips moving, but it was if nothing was coming out. All he could hear was the sound of his heart pounding and his breathing so rapid his chest felt like it was about to explode.
“ – and Natalie and Ethan agreed with me right away, didn’t you?” Finally. Some words he could make sense of. Except he couldn’t, because he didn’t have a clue what they had supposedly agreed with.
“It was weird. We usually take forever to agree on anything,” Natalie said, laughing. Laughing – surely that was a good sign.
“We just knew, as soon as we saw the two of you together. We knew we had our David and our Victor. To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about this movie. It’s complex. Different from what I’ve worked on before. The characters are very unique, and troubled in very different ways. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find anybody to do them justice.” Kevin chuckled at his own joke – the movie was called Justice – and Aaron wondered whether it had been intentional. “But now we have. Robert, I know you’re already in. Aaron – I’d like to officially offer you the role of David. What do you say?”
For one awful moment Aaron’s throat completely dried up and he genuinely feared he’d never be able to speak again. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. This was so unlike everything he’d ever imagined the film industry to be, and was so unlike the mostly bad and mediocre at best luck that had followed him around his entire life.
“Yes – yes. Of course. I – I can’t believe this is really happening.”
“Well, believe it, because it is happening, and it’s happening fast. Filming starts on the twelfth of next month.”
That was just over three weeks away. It finally hit him. This was real. He was going to be in a real movie.
He was going to be in a movie directed by Kevin Travis.
He was going to be in a movie with Robert Sugden.
He felt hugely overwhelmed and a large part of him was absolutely terrified.
He was going to be in was a huge city he hardly knew.
He loved acting, but he’d done none compared to Robert.
He was going to let down his mum and Brian, who he loved despite all their problems.
But he was also exhilarated. This was his big break. He vowed to himself that he would do nothing to ruin it.
“You were right.” Aaron handed Robert a twenty as they walked out of the building together.
“I’d love to go for a drink to celebrate, but Chrissie’s been moaning that we haven’t spent much time together lately so I promised I’d take her out,” Robert said, almost apologetically, even though it was hardly as if he owed Aaron anything.
“It’s okay – my train leaves in a couple of hours anyway. And I need to get telling the family over with.”
“They’ll come around.” Aaron chose to try and believe him. “And we’ll definitely have to go out when you come back.”
“Sure.”
“And, you know, if you need anything, like help finding somewhere good to stay, or a list of good places to eat or whatever, just give me a call.”
“I will. Thanks, Robert. I guess – I guess I’ll see you soon. Sorry, I don’t really know what to say. This still all feels so weird.”
“I remember the feeling. Terrifying as fuck, isn’t it?”
“You got that right.”
“It’ll be worth it. Trust me.” He really hoped Robert was right.