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“Great,” John mutters, as he pushes his way into the pub.
Aaron frowns, not sure what’s brought that on, and then spies Robert, Matty, and Vic sitting at one of the tables, half-eaten food littering the surface. The sight of Robert hits Aaron the way it always does, just beneath his breastbone, and fights not to give in to the temptation to smile. It’s a reflex, the love Aaron tries to deny still sinking through to his bones. He’ll never not love Robert, it’s just–muted, dull, now that he has John.
(It is, it is, it is.)
“Love!” Chas smiles, beckoning Aaron forward. He rolls his eyes but goes, accepts the kiss to the cheek. “John.”
“Chas,” John says, soft smile in place. He really is fit. In different ways to Robert, but still fit. He looks a lot like Vic in some ways, less like Robert. “Pity about the company.”
The words land on Chas; she sighs, patting John’s arm. “I can’t just kick him out.”
Aaron frowns, bites his tongue to keep from saying something. He told Robert to leave, wanting him away from the village, but he can’t help but rebel against the idea when other people tell Robert to do so. He curls his fingers into the sleeve of his jumper, forcing himself to focus on the here and now–eating lunch with John, his husband.
It’s easy enough to distract both himself and John from Robert being in the pub; they can hear Vic, and Matty’s laugh, but Robert’s muted, quiet, and even as it throws Aaron off to realise, it does wonders for almost (almost) forgetting Robert’s there.
John nudges him. “Alright?”
Aaron nods, giving John an easy smile. Everything with John is easy. Feels easy.
“–Work on the farm,” Vic says, as she and Robert pass by the table. Matty is still seated, now with Mack, Aaron notes absently. The familiar curl of jealousy accompanies the realisation that Mack and Robert are friends. It shouldn’t make him feel that way–Robert deserves friends as much as anybody else.
“You’re working on the farm?”
The words from Aaron’s mum, and she leans on the bar, eyebrows raised. “How’d you wrangle that?”
“‘Cause he’s got friends,” Mack says, an edge to his voice. “That’s why.”
It’s a tone Aaron knows well, and he drags a nail in the groove on the table. He grits his teeth, tries to focus back on his lunch, but can hear his mum’s voice.
“You should know what you’re getting into.”
“If you ask me,” John says, fingers curled around his glass, “she’s got a point.”
“Good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Robert snaps, finally looking over at their table.
Aaron grips the edge of the table.
“John,” Vic says, sounding tired. “Please don’t.”
“What?” John looks at Aaron, then back at Robert. “We won’t get on, Vic. I don’t like him, and I don’t care who knows it.”
Vic takes a step forward but Rob mutters, “Leave it.”
“Rob,” Aaron says, but he doesn’t know how to continue.
“What?” Robert looks at him, expression blank. It hurts more than Aaron’s expecting it to. “What Aaron?”
Aaron knows she’s only trying to help, but his mum sticks her oar in once again. “Rob, why don’t you just leave?”
“Because I was born here!” Robert yells. The words seem to reverberate around the pub. “You don’t get to ask me to leave just because it’s easier for you if I was gone, or more convenient to not have a reminder I was here before John.”
John narrows his eyes, but Aaron can feel discomfort settle in his stomach.
“I have as much right to live in Emmerdale, more in fact, than some of you. But who cares, right? Who cares if I need help, might be struggling, or god forbid, want to have friends. As long as you can all forget the fuck up Robert Sugden exists.”
Victoria steps in, then, curling a hand around Robert’s arm. Rob jerks, like he’s been startled, and then realises, looking at his sister with a weird expression. Aaron remembers it–he’d worn it after the car crash, nightmares plaguing his sleep, and panic dogging his footsteps. PTSD he thinks, and curls his hands into fists on his knees to keep from interfering.
Not my problem, not my problem, not my problem.
If he says the words enough, will he mean them?
“You don’t owe them anything, Rob.”
Robert’s lip curls into a sneer, and it’s a familiar expression. Aaron feels the punch to his chest.
“Please, Robert,” Chas says, and Aaron startles. His mum actually sounds sad, a little guilty.
“Leave, I know.” Robert huffs a humourless laugh and grabs Vic’s hand. “Thanks, Vic.”
“Vic should stay,” John says, a soft smile on his face. There’s an edge to it Aaron hasn’t seen before, and he opens his mouth to say something, but John keeps talking. “We’re not asking her to leave.”
Mack snarls, “Oi!,” about the same time Matty stands from where he’s been watching, eyes narrowed.
“You’re not helping, John,” Chas says, keeping her eyes on Robert. “If you want we can–”
Aaron feels off kilter, but can’t explain why. Seeing Robert always feels like a burn across his skin, permanent and unavoidable, torn between wanting to see more and letting him go completely. John is here, with Aaron, and Aaron loves him, he does, but Robert’s always been–always been Robert.
Their eyes meet, Robert still holding on to Vic, but eyes dark and knowing on Aaron’s face. “I’m not leaving,” he says, mostly to Aaron. “Despite what you all want. This is my home.”
“It wasn’t always,” John mutters. “Didn’t you get kicked out of Emmerdale?”
Silence again, this time more charged.
Robert doesn’t look phased, just snorts. “And I’ve still lived here longer than you.”
John tenses, sitting forward.
“Don’t,” Aaron says, pressing a hand to John’s arm. “Just stop.”
For a moment, it almost works, but something in John must snap, because despite nodding at Aaron, he says, “Maybe you’ll kill someone else and get driven out again.”
“John!” Vic snaps.
“Why don’t you make him leave,” Matty says to Chas, who’s looking at John with an expression Aaron doesn’t like–the judgemental one she used to wear around Robert.
“I was protecting Vic,” Robert says. There’s uncertainty in his tone, and it makes Aaron’s skin crawl. This is a Robert he doesn’t know–that’s becoming more obvious–and he doesn’t like that he doesn’t like it. “It’s more than you’ve done for your family!”
Aaron winces, and John stands, chair skidding back with the force of movement. “Family? What would you know about family! Our dad didn’t want anything to do with you, and I don’t blame him. Everyone here knows you were a disappointment.”
“John,” Aaron says, the whiplash of anger forcing the name past his lips. “That’s not–”
“No,” Robert says, voice low, dangerous. “Let him say what he wants to. Do you want to know what made me the biggest disappointment, John?”
The words are familiar and Aaron thinks of the embankment, the way Robert had revealed his coming out, the way Jack had responded–
A sense of dread wells up within him;
“Finding me kissing a boy on the farm. Beat the hell out of me when he found out.”
Silence.
The kind of silence that’s too loud, too oppressive.
“What?” Vic’s eyes are round, wide. “Rob, he did what?”
Aaron’s mum looks just as shell-shocked. “Rob–”
“Oh don’t feel sorry for me now,” Robert says, a shade of his old self. “Weren’t we all just talking about how I should leave?”
“Is that why you did this? For pity?”
“No,” Robert snaps. “You think you know who I am, you think you know about my history with this village and the people in it, but you don’t. You’re the one who doesn’t belong and you hate it. You hate that I’m back and that I might steal everything you have away from you, but here’s the thing, John. I don’t want it.” Robert meets Aaron’s eyes. “Not if they can’t even stand to have me around. Who would want that? Who would accept that?”
“It’s not that, Love,” Chas tries.
Rob flinches. “Don’t call me that.”
“Rob–”
“Of course you want my life! I married your ex-husband, didn't I?” John waves a hand in Aaron’s direction. “Isn't that what this is all about?”
“I asked Aaron,” Robert says, and he sounds exhausted. Aaron can see the dark smudges around his eyes, the way his shoulders are curled around his head. You don’t care, he tells himself firmly. Lies to himself. “He told me to leave him alone and I did. Because it’s what he wants. I trust that he’s made his decision, so why are you so threatened by me?”
Aaron stands, then, and grabs John’s arm. “Stop, John. Sit down and leave him alone!”
“See?” John says, abruptly. “This is why! He can’t stop thinking about you even now.”
“He is standing right here,” Aaron says, irritated. “You’re starting a fight when there doesn’t have to be one!”
John stares, realising maybe he’s said a little too much. He stops tensing, turning to face Aaron. There’s a slip of something on his face, an expression quickly hidden, before he nods. “Sorry, Aaron.”
Rob huffs a small laugh that John doesn’t catch, but Aaron does. Their eyes meet and Aaron’s breath catches in his throat.
“I’m not leaving,” Robert says loudly, as if anybody in the pub is paying attention to anything else. “If that bothers you, then you should leave. I have every right to live here, where my mother gave birth to me, where my father and Mum brought me up.”
Without waiting for another response, Robert slams his way out of the pub, Vic and Mack following. Aaron watches them go, squashes the wish that it was him helping Rob and fighting in his corner. He doesn’t have the right anymore, that’s clear.
“Aaron.” John is watching him, expression careful.
“You had to antagonise him,” Aaron says, running a hand over his face. “I told you to stop.”
John sits down, tentatively resting a hand on Aaron’s arm. “I’m sorry. You know what he’s like. He just got my back up.”
Aaron stares at him. “Why? I married you. I love you. There’s nothing left for you to doubt!”
They lapse into silence, and the noise around the pub picks up again. Not long after, Matty leaves, saying something to Aaron’s mum before he goes. Aaron’s leg starts to nervously move, and he plays with the sleeve of his jumper.
“I can’t help it,” John admits. “There’s something about him that puts me on edge. He makes friends so easily, haven’t you noticed? He hasn’t been back long and he’s already got Vic, Matty, and Mack on side. If I hadn’t stepped in with Caleb–”
“God,” Aaron says, shaking his head. “This is what I mean. He’s making friends, John. What is wrong with that?”
John doesn’t answer, though Aaron can see he wants to.
Aaron wouldn't normally push, but he thinks of Robert pushed far enough to reveal the kinds of things he has, to be vulnerable enough to say who cares if I need help, if I might be struggling.
The itch to help hasn’t gone away, it’s just thrumming constantly, begging for Aaron to do something, anything, to help.
“He’s already coming between us, isn’t he?” John asks eventually.
“No,” Aaron says, honestly. “You did that yourself.”
Pushing away from the table, and ignoring his mum’s attempts to catch his eye, he shoulders his way out of the door. Maybe now he knows what Mack was getting at all those months ago when he said there was something not right about John–
–the thought lingers as Aaron walks away from the pub trying to clear his head.
Aaron needs to know who John really is; the hints he’s seen, heard, felt.
Only then can he be sure he’s making the right choice.
(A choice that will always sing Robert Robert Robert beneath his skin.)