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Robert’s heart beats like a clock ticking down time.
Beat.
There’s sand beneath him.
Beat.
A beach? Quarry?
Beat.
Robert thinks of the car sinking beneath the surface, Aaron’s panicked voice, I’m trapped, I’m trapped!
Beat.
There’s a wet warmth on his stomach, sliding down his left side.
Beat.
Warm in the Mill, he’s wrapped up in Aaron. Liv down the hall playing music too loud. Gerry in the kitchen again even though Robert told him–
Beat.
His vision is blurred. Hearing skewed.
Robert digs the nails of his right hand into the sand. Grounding. He can feel.
Beat.
Clutching the phone in his right hand, hearing Aaron cry. Divorce, divorce, divorce.
Robert did that. Lost him.
Beat.
“–ob!”
Heart pounding in his ears, but something else, voices.
“Robert!”
Beat.
Head rolling to the side, Robert tries to focus. Blurred figures are running across the sand and he blinks, trying to clear his vision.
Mack, he thinks, is skidding through sand, and someone else hot on his heels–
Aaron.
Beat. Beat. Beat.
“Aaron.”
Mack mutters a curse, drops into the sand next to him.
Robert blinks at him, head turning back to Aaron.
Crying. Aaron’s always crying.
Affair. Katie. Rebecca. Prison. Divorce.
“Aaron,” he tries to say, chest heaving with the effort.
Robert’s heartbeat sounds far away, muffled.
Dying. He’s dying.
“God don’t talk,” Mack says, lifting the edge of Robert’s shirt.
Pointless, Robert thinks. The stab wound was deep. John might be the driest man alive, but he knows where and how to drive a knife between bone and muscle. Time is falling away too fast. “M’dead.”
“What?” Aaron looks up at Mack, panicked.
Robert lifts his arm. Tries to. He glares down at his fingers. They twitch.
When Aaron takes his hand, Robert looks at him, surprised. Aaron’s still crying, eyes wide. Fear. Pain. Guilt.
“Not your fault.”
“Shut up,” Aaron says, fingers squeezing tight. He lifts his free hand to Robert’s hair, grips a fistful. Robert can feel his eyes burn, his throat. Is he crying? Aaron drops his head, pressing their foreheads together, and Robert savours the touch.
Silence.
“My heart’s not beating,” Robert says.
Another panicked look.
“Yes it is,” Aaron says, begs. “Robert–”
“Stabbed me,” Robert grits out, free hand shooting out when Mack does something to the wound. “Stop.”
“I have to stop the bleeding,” Mack tries, voice hoarse.
Robert tugs on Aaron’s hand, gets his attention. “He knew where. Knew what he was doing.”
A flicker of rage. Aaron’s crying, still, but there’s a stillness to his body for a moment, two. “I’ll kill him.”
“Too late,” Robert says, trying to smile.
Mack and Aaron look beyond Robert, to the edge of the water. John’s dying, dead, probably. Robert stabbed him back. Hit him.
“Sorry,” he says, because John’s is, was, Aaron’s husband.
Aaron closes his eyes. Frustrated.
Mack mutters something else, fumbles his phone from his pocket.
Robert doesn’t tell him not to bother. He focuses on Aaron, only Aaron.
“You chose,” him. I wanted to, “tried to stay away.”
Aaron hasn’t cried like this in–
Since the prison.
Since Robert–
“Robert,” Aaron says, hand dropping from his hair to his face, thumb against Robert’s cheek.
Robert hasn’t been touched like this properly, with love, with care, since Aaron, since before.
Fourteen years and Aaron would have waited, would have left, Robert would have been alone.
Now he’s leaving Aaron alone.
Robert’s face is wet. “I’m sorry.”
“God, Rob,” Aaron says through his tears, and they’re forehead to forehead again. Aaron’s mouth is against his, soft and tentative.
What Robert wouldn’t give to have him one last time, to kiss him, love him again.
Mack applies pressure to Robert’s wound, a soft murmur of words into his phone, and Robert makes a sound in the back of his throat, animalistic and raw.
Aaron’s grip tightens. “Hey,” he says, dragging Robert’s attention back to him. As if Robert ever could look anywhere else. “We could have had an affair.”
The laugh takes Robert by surprise, pain shooting through him, but he doesn’t care, relishes the soft look on Aaron’s face.
“Awful at it,” Robert manages. He means Aaron.
“You would have, yeah,” Aaron says, smile drawn and small.
Robert’s doing it again–hurting Aaron. Leaving Aaron.
John, he thinks.
John took everything from him and Robert isn’t going to be able to take it back–
Even though John’s dead, body dragged from the waves, Robert’s blood smearing hands and clothes.
Robert’s blood smearing the sand beneath their bodies.
“S’not fair,” Robert says. “Forever.”
Aaron looks devastated. “You have to stay with me, alright?"
“Sure,” Robert agrees easily. He’ll give Aaron whatever he wants if he never looks away again.
There’s a shrill noise filtering in through the background and Robert winces.
“Help is here,” Mack says quietly.
Robert never looks away from Aaron. “We were happy.”
Aaron startles. “What?”
“With,” Robert swallows, lets the pain wash over him, physical and emotional, “Liv and Seb, and–”
Taking a shaky breath, Aaron nods. “Yeah. We were. In love, weren’t we?”
Robert nods, certain with every fibre left in his body. There’s a dark tinge to his vision, the shrill noise getting louder, Robert’s slowing heartbeat echoing in his ears.
Beat.
Time, Robert thinks. It’s always about time.
It’s never enough.
Not for his mother.
For Mum.
Andy.
Seb.
Not for Aaron.
“I love you,” Robert says, and it feels like the easiest thing to do. The pain is gone, a numbness tingling Robert’s limbs, and he manages a smile. “Always have.”
“Don’t say goodbye,” Aaron begs. He leans in for another kiss, a soft touch of lips, and strokes Robert’s face. “You can’t leave, Rob,” he says through tears. “Not now. Not after–”
Robert’s breathing sounds weird, wet. “Mack,” he grits out. Mack nods, and there’s blood on his hands, wrists. Oh. He’ll need someone too. Charity maybe. Aaron definitely. They can help each other–
“Robert,” Mack prods gently.
“You have to,” he says, pauses when pain rolls through his chest, down his left side, “take care of Aaron.”
Silence.
Beat.
“Robert.”
“Please,” Robert says. “He needs–”
“I will,” Mack says quickly, sincere, sad.
Robert doesn’t know what he’d have done without–
Beat.
“Thank you,” he says.
Another nod, Mack looking back at Robert’s wound, the sand, up towards the road.
“Rob.”
“Vic,” Robert says, squeezing Aaron’s hand as hard as he can. “Harry. You have to–”
“They’ll be alright,” Mack assures him.
Aaron looks back at Robert and Robert’s caught, doesn’t know what to say.
Beat.
“Promise me,” Robert says.
Anything, Aaron might have said before.
Always.
Aaron swipes at his face, dropping Robert’s hand against the sand.
Feel condenses down to the hand on his face, the weight of Aaron’s gaze.
“Promise me,” Robert says again.
“What?” Aaron’s voice is barely a whisper, drowned out by shouts, something on gravel, the overwhelming pound of Robert’s heart.
Beat.
Robert doesn’t know how to say be happy.
Robert doesn’t know how to say let me go.
Robert doesn’t know to say please never forget me don’t let me leave hold me.
“Robert?” Aaron sounds panicked.
Robert should open his eyes and check, but there’s a hand on his face, his body weightless, and John’s dead.
Aaron’s safe.
Aaron, he thinks. I love you.
“--wake up, would you? I’m bored of sitting in these ridiculous chairs.”
Charity.
“Gran,” someone says. “He can probably hear you.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll wake up.”
Robert does, slowly and carefully.
There’s no heartbeat in his ears, no sand beneath him.
“Oi,” Charity says.
She’s real, sitting in one of the chair’s by Robert’s bedside, looking unimpressed.
Beside her–
“Sarah,” he says.
“Nice,” Charity says with a sniff. “I sit here all night and you’re the one he says hi to first.”
Sarah rolls her eyes, but looks relieved. Robert doesn’t know why. “I’m glad you’re awake Uncle Rob.”
Uncle Rob.
Uncle.
Robert doesn’t know when he was last–
Desperately, he wishes Andy was here.
Shoving that thought away, he gives her a tight smile. He doesn’t know what to say.
“Aaron.”
Charity snorts. “Yeah, figured he’d be asked for. He’s just gone for a drink.”
“Thanks,” Robert says, voice hoarse.
“Oh, there’s stuff for that,” Sarah says, fumbling at Robert’s bedside for some ice. “Aaron might–”
“--will–”
“--want to help with that.” Sarah glares at Charity.
Charity is watching Robert. “Vic and Hary were here too. They’ll be back this afternoon.” At Robert’s expression she sighs. “It’s been two days since Mack and Aaron found you on the sand. Sacred ‘em both.”
Robert raises an eyebrow.
“You were only stabbed a little bit,” Chairty says.
“Gran,” Sarah elbows Charity and leans over, squeezes Robert’s arm. “You almost–”
“You’re awake.”
The breathless words hit Robert like a truck and he looks to the door.
Aaron.
“Aaron,” he breathes.
Charity mumbles something in his ear.
Aaron crosses the room in three strides, hands cool against Robert’s warm face, and he’s sad but not crying. His expression is relieved, happy.
“I thought,” Aaron starts.
“Can’t die, this one,” Charity says, voice disappearing around the doorjamb as Sarah tugs her from the room.
It’s a relief for a moment but then–
“I love you,” Aaron says, voice loud.
Robert stares at him. “You–”
“I’m sorry.” Aaron brushes Robert’s hair out of his face, thumb smoothing down Robert’s forehead. “I don’t know why I–”
“You wanted to be happy,” Robert says. “You were, weren’t you?”
Aaron doesn’t answer.
Robert shifts on the pillow, lifts a hand to wrap around Aaron’s neck. He squeezes gently. “Aaron.”
“He wasn’t you,” Aaron admitted. There’s guilt in his face, sadness. “And you almost–”
“Hey,” Robert says. “I’m alive. I’m here.”
Aaron’s smile is a touch more genuine, and it reaches his eyes. “You are.”
I love you, he thinks, again, finally, over and over.
“I love you too,” Aaron says, eyes bright and happy.
Unable to look away from him, Robert’s heart pounds in his chest.
Healthy, rhythmic, alive.