Work Text:
“As promised.”
He held his breath as the metal clinked against the table, still just as pristine as the first time Aaron had slid it on Robert’s finger.
He looked up into blue eyes, searched the depths for the man he used to know so well. They didn’t sparkly anymore, just a deep haunting ocean with no bottom in sight. Almost empty, as if no trace of Robert’s (ex) husband remained.
“Does this mean…” He didn’t dare hope but he’d always been the dreamer of the two.
Aaron gave him a half smile. It was genuine and cold at the same time. Like the young thug Robert had tripped headfirst into all those years ago.
If you come lording about...
“I said I would keep it safe for you. I did. Doesn’t mean anything more than that. Anyway have a good day yah.” Even his voice was different, no heat or humour. Words that dripped with indifference.
And like that his (ex) husband was leaving, takeaway coffee in hand as if running into each other now was no big deal. As if living steps apart wasn’t tearing Robert in half, carving out what little pieces of himself he had left. The ache in his chest was a constant companion.
Robert twisted in his seat, thankful the cafe was empty except for Brenda pretending not to be listening to every word as she wiped down the counter.
Aaron turned his head, took a sip of his coffee life this was nothing. So unflappable. So unmoved. So not Aaron.
“What did you do with yours?” Robert held his breath again as he waited for a response.
“Own a scrapyard don’t I?” Aaron lifted his cup in a casual gesture. “See yah, mate.”
**********
Over three years of no contact. Nothing but long days and even longer nights. He’d spent them imagining the life Aaron was living, how Seb was growing, how happy he hoped everyone was.
He never expected his appeal to go through. He never thought he’d smell air as a free man again. If he’d been a better person he might have stayed away from Emmerdale entirely. It was home afterall, or at the very least the only place that ever felt like it.
Vic picked him up at the station. He was travel weary and anxious. He wasn’t used to being around so many people. To much noise and life surrounded him, is was suffocating, though not as much as the hug Vic squeezed him into.
“You all right?”
She kept asking him that as he stared out the window. They’d stopped to see Seb first thing. His little boy full of energy and joy, who’d hugged him like he’d just gotten back from the shops and not years banged up.
“Aaron sent me a whole bunch of videos of you. Seb watches them everyday. We made sure he didn’t forget.” Rebecca smiled at their beautiful son, and for the first time Robert felt gratitude towards her. The kind he would never be able to express. “Aaron still takes him two weekends a month. Never missed one.”
Because Aaron wouldn’t. Of course Aaron would be the father their son deserved. And again Robert was grateful, and yet the cavern inside of him grew just a little.
The kiss Seb pressed into Robert’s cheek before he left soothed him slightly.
“Bye Daddy Robert.”
They’d figure out a visitation schedule later but for now Robert pressed his hand to his cheek in the car and cried silently as Vic drove past the Emmerdale sign.
**********
“They’ve all been told you’re here. What could a pint hurt?” VIc was pleading. He’d only been back a night and the thought of leaving her cottage overwhelmed him. “No one will have a go. Aaron made them promise to leave you be.”
Again Robert couldn’t grasp how understanding his (ex) husband was being. He made his sister tell him everything she was allowed to share.
“He went off for a while. You know him, self destruct mode. Then one day it was just over. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s still Aaron but now…” Vic sipped at her brew and left the rest unsaid.
Robert’s biggest fear hung between them so he didn’t dare push it. He grasped tightly to the belief that nothing could ever break Aaron Dingle. It was the only way he would sleep at night.
*********
Diane had talked and talked, waving hands and her version of sincere excitement. Jimmy hugged him and then coughed to hide his emotions before hugging Robert again even tighter. Nicola punched his shoulder which was more than he was expecting.
It took a few more days but finally he made himself take the short walk to the pub door. He steeled himself, readied for the firing squad.
Instead, he was greeted by a smug Charity behind the bar.
“He lives.” Her words were sharp but there was a twinkle in her eye. Sam and Lydia waved from their booth. A couple he didn’t recognize were sitting with a stroller beside them, the husband rocking it back and forth.
It was all almost exactly the same.
“He’s not here.”
Robert looked up to see Chas with a toddler in her arms. He recognized the little face, lips like her brother and the same dark hair. For a second he remembered the dream he had of his and Aaron’s daughter. That future they had planned. She’d look just that and suddenly had to fight to breathe.
“Chas…”
She shushed him and grabbed him one armed into a brief hug. When she pulled back she bounced the little person in her arms.
“This is Eve. She’s a little terror. So much like…” She stopped herself and patted his arm in what felt like an apology. “Get you a pint luv?”
He nodded and just like that he was back, a villager of Emmerdale. No one dared mention Aaron and when he walked back out 20 minutes later he could almost feel their sighs of relief at his exit.
*********
It was a few more days before he finally sought out Aaron. If he’d had it the way he really wanted he would have walked out of his cell into Aaron’s waiting arms. There were choices he had to carry the weight of until his dying day but they were still heavy.
Vic had said Aaron lived at the Mill but moved into the smaller apartment after Liv had gone off to university. He tried to imagine his (ex) husband living there on his own. Aaron was meant to have laughter and light around him, not solace and silence. Not alone. Vic was friendly with the young married couple that now slept in the room they used to. Husbands wrapped in each other. Those late night conversations about their future. Hushed whispers of how they didn’t need more than each other, always.
Part of him wished he could just walk in like the last few years hadn’t happened. Aaron with his feet up on the coffee table, wearing Robert’s socks and playing a stupid game on his phone. Liv upstairs talking too loud on the phone. That basket of Seb’s toys that was always waiting in the corner for him.
He wanted to trip over shoes left in the way. He wanted to unload the dishwasher while Aaron sat on the counter complaining about something or other. He wanted it all back, every little moment that had seemed almost insignificant at the time. He thought he’d known how lucky he was then, how loved, how precious it all was. In reality he’d taken it for granted and he would never forgive himself for that.
When Aaron opened the door it was like Robert could exist again. Until their eyes locked and his heart shattered even more, ground to dust.
The man he loved was gone.
*********
He ended up at his mum’s grave after he’d left, the heat of Aaron’s palm still lingered on his fingers.
“A handshake, Mum. That’s all I got. I could have taken his anger, his tears. A punch or two. Anything other than what he gave me.”
Because Aaron hadn’t given him anything at all. A brief few minutes of his time, polite small talk in the doorway. A shake of his hand, fake and impersonal. Then a shrug and “I’ll see you at the yard.”
Snippets ran through his mind over and over again.
Vic is right chuffed your back.
You should call Liv, she’d be made up to hear from you.
Billy works for me now if you can believe it.
Right so, mates then?
“Maybe Dad was right. Maybe I do destroy everything I touch.”
*********
Robert has been out for over a month, settling somewhat into his new life. Vic insisted he stay for a while longer before he looked into getting a place of his own. The thought terrified him. In his cell and in the small box room he had a single bed, barely enough room for himself.
The thought of being in a sea of comfort and pillows made him sick. To be able to stretch out, spread his arms into cool sheets and find them empty. It scared him.
It was hard enough waking up reaching for warmth that wasn’t there.
********
They were never alone, Robert wasn’t sure if that was planned or divine intervention. It allowed him to watch, across the yard or across the pub. Occasionally Aaron would glance his way, offer a nod and go back to what he’d been doing.
Robert eyes had always been drawn to Aaron but now he couldn’t bring himself to look away. He didn’t know how he’d managed to before.
Aaron had slimmed up a little, his muscles more defined. His hair was styled like it has been when they first got together, when they were just seeking release in the backseat of a car or the bales in the barn. He dressed the same, only his (ex) husband would find varying shades of black to wear.
He was still gorgeous, perfect. The same tilt of his head. The same laugh. The same roll of his shoulders.
But it wasn’t Aaron. Not by a mile.
**********
“What did you expect?”
He talked to Liv every few days, her snarky charm had not dissipated in his absence. She still loved him, he would always love her.
“Liv…”
“You left him, did you think he’d stay the same?”
Robert didn’t know how to answer that.
***********
He got a glimpse once, just a hint. A brief flash of the man Robert loved. The man he would always love. It was like seeing the sun after an eclipse.
“Daddy Aaron!”
Seb had been playing catch with Robert in Vic’s small patch of grass. Until he caught sight of Aaron and ran full speed to outstretched arms.
He couldn’t blame his boy for that, they were safest place Robert had ever known.
He watched his (ex) husband slot his chin over Seb’s shoulder and squeeze tight. He smiled and with it a glow seemed to come to life around him. Blue eyes met green and there it was, the life and joy and love that had changed Robert’s entire universe. Changed Robert full stop.
For a brief moment Robert saw his whole world shining back at him and he was in awe.
There you are, God I miss you.
Then Aaron blinked and was gone again.
********
Robert never slept in, prison schedule was hard to break yourself of. He’d gotten used to watching the sun rise with a brew now that he’d regained his freedom. It was only in that quiet time of the day he let himself hope. Hope that it could bring the chance to get his world back. The one he never should have let go to begin with.
Until one morning he watched a cab drive up to the Mill, the body he knew by touch and smell climbing out in clothes that had clearly been worn the night before.
After that he spent his mornings laying on his small bed staring at the ceiling, traced the lines of Aaron’s face in his mind.
Freedom was a new kind of prison.
**********
It has been almost two months of casual conversation in passing. Of clenching his fingers to stop himself reaching out. Of avoiding looking at the Mill when he walked past for fear he’d see a car he didn’t recognize parked out front. Of wishing and praying and aching. Of watching but never seeing. Of trying to accept but being unable to.
The pub was empty save for himself propping up the bar and Chas giving him forlorned looks as she tidied up for the night. He wasn’t drunk, not even close. He’d been staring into the same half finished pint for almost an hour.
He’d waited until they were alone. He had questions he needed to ask but his (ex) mother-in-law didn’t have any of the answers.
“You think I don’t see it? He’s my son, Robert. My baby. But he’s not harming, he’s not getting into trouble and worrying me half to death. I don’t like it any more than you do but I ain’t the one to blame and I sure as hell can’t change it”
There was no malice in her voice, only resignation. That wasn’t going to be good enough, not anymore.
*********
“You were supposed to be happy.”
He’d been unable to stop himself, feet leading him there by instinct. Leading him to Aaron, or what remained of him.
“Robert, it’s almost midnight…”
He shoved past Aaron into the small flat. It was sparsely decorated but comfortable. There was a beer can on the coffee table and a toy truck overturned by the TV. There were no pictures on the wall, nothing that felt like Aaron at all. Because it wasn’t Aaron.
“Can we not do this now?” Aaron’s voice was even and his face passive as he shut the door.
Robert didn’t have the right to make demands but fuck it, he was going to anyway.
“I gave you up so you could have a life, so you could be happy. You were supposed to move on.”
“I have.”
“Not like this!”
Aaron started to laugh, soulless and almost menacing. It broke Robert even more when he realized how high the walls had been built.
I did that.
Aaron walked to the fridge, grabbed two cans, sat at the small kitchen table and placed one in front of the empty chair. He was calm and collected as he took a sip and a seat. He just watched Robert until he took the hint and sat across from him.
“Aaron, please I…”
“You left me and you can try to sell some bullshit that it was for me but we both know better.”
Robert searched Aaron’s face for any flicker of emotion but like every other time before he was left with nothing.
“That’s not true.”
“After everything we’d been through together, all of it, you didn’t believe how much I loved you. That I would've waited as long as it took. I would have waited forever. So don’t try to sell me something it ain’t. You didn’t set me free. You left me before I could leave you because you didn’t believe you were worth it.”
A part of Robert, the biggest part, knew he was right. Aaron had always seen through him. Yet one word ran on repeat over and over in his mind.
Loved. Loved. Loved.
“It took me months to figure it out, went wild for a bit. Pulled some jobs with Cain. Then I realized I wasn’t going to fall out of love with you. It wasn’t going to go away.”
Robert reached his hand across the table, the instinct in him to comfort his (ex) husband. To make the pain go away. Aaron just leaned away before they touched and took another sip of his beer. Those eyes stayed blank, as if they were talking about the weather and not of the hardest decision Robert ever stupidly made.
“You ever had to kill love, Robert?”
Blue eyes got hard suddenly and Robert felt like he was drowning.
“It’s wasn’t easy dismantling what I felt for you. But I did it, carved every piece of you out of my life and my heart. Until you were finally gone. This, who you see, the life I have. This is what’s left. This is who I am now.”
Robert felt the tears fall down his cheeks, didn’t bother to wipe them away. It couldn’t be true, His beautiful (ex) husband couldn’t have disappeared.
“This wasn’t what I wanted for you, Aaron. You have to know that. I just wanted you to be happy. That’s all I ever needed.”
Nothing Robert ever did in life would ever mean more to him than Aaron’s happiness. Nothing. But Aaron was unmoved by the tears, shrugged his shoulders and took another sip.
“Did you think losing you wouldn’t mean I’d lose a part of myself as well? You really didn’t know how deep I felt for you did you?”
Aaron shook his head at Robert’s stunned silence.
“Don’t matter now though does it? So maybe I’m not the happy you wanted for me but I am happy Robert. Happy enough. It is what it is.”
“Aaron, I love you.”
Because he did, he always would and he needed to say it. It was the only thing he had left, the only chance to maybe break through. He wanted to see those eyes twinkle, wanted to see sincerity in the upward curve of those lips. Instead he was met with stone.
“That Aaron’s gone mate. You love someone that don’t exist anymore.”
Aaron gently laid his can back on the table, made his way to the front door. The curve of his back, the strength of his shoulders and then a look that told Robert it was time for him to go. He didn’t know how his legs carried him out into the hall but as the door started to shut he braced his hand against it. Aaron just raised an eyebrow in response, passive indifference.
It was then that Robert realized it was true, the man he loved was truly dead and gone. This was the real goodbye, one he honestly never prepared himself for. But if this was it he would be selfish one last time.
He raised his hand from the door and cupped it against Aaron’s cheek, looked into the void as he swept his thumb against the stubble. Just one last time he whispered the words that used to mean everything, “You know.”
It was like striking a match. Those eyes, Aaron’s gorgeous eyes, lit like a flame. Robert saw it all in an instant, the pain, the longing, the grief, the love. But more importantly the real Aaron, his Aaron, finally looking back at him.
I love you. Always.
Aaron flinched out of Robert’s touch, slammed the door shut before he had a moment to process what had just happened. Realized it was hope bubbling to life inside him. The joy that he was right, there was a chance for both of them afterall.
Then slowly a smile spread across his face.
No matter how long it took, no matter how much it would take. No matter how much Aaron tried to pretend, none of it mattered. Robert’s husband was still there deep down and he was going to get him back. He was going to fix this.
Game on, Dingle.
**********
Aaron stood with his forehead pressed against the door for too long. Had to get his breathing under control, had to shove everything he felt back down. He was not going to fall apart, not yet. Not ever.
He finished his beer, tidied up their cans and then shut out the lights. It was mindless, the same routine. He brushed his teeth, put on his worn sweats and climbed into bed.
And just like he did every night he reached under the pillow beside him, wrapped his hand around the ring of metal. He let it warm in his palm before sliding it back on his finger. He couldn’t sleep until it was in place. That done he whispered the same words, it was the last thing he said every night, ever since he’d signed those divorce papers.
“I know.”
Then he curled on his side and let the tears fall.