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Aaron is having a rough couple of days; John had come home early the other night and caught him and Robert in a position that left very little room for a denial of what was happening. Aaron was almost relieved in a way that it was out there now, there was nothing to hide but it seems no one else in the village shares the same sentiments.
His mum went ballistic when John had stormed into the pub to announce the end of their marriage to the whole village, calling Robert a snake and toxic and anything else she could come up with, calling Aaron stupid and naive for falling for his manipulations as she called them. Victoria had chucked Robert out of her spare room to offer it to John, who didn’t take her up on it, but it made her stance on the situation very clear.
Caleb had told Aaron he could either start paying rent for the flat above the mill or find somewhere else to live because he was not letting the outcasted nephew continue to live there rent free which is just total bullshit there’s no way Aaron would’ve save £30K in rent in the last two year but he can’t be bothered arguing and honestly he doesn’t really like the flat that much. Cain has been slinging insults to Robert at the farm all week but at least he’s not fired...yet anyway.
Vinny has been curt when he’s been at the scrap yard so there’s someone else clearly on John’s side of things. Belle cornered him in the shop the other day to ask why he would willingly go back to such a toxic relationship, and he had to stop himself from laughing in her face, does she not remember all the times she stayed over at theirs with Liv and Robert would make them hot chocolates and make pillow forts they were definitely too old for in the living room for movie nights.
He doesn’t get it, it’s like every single person in this village has some weird memory loss and can only remember Robert as this over the top cartoon style villain that has caused nothing but hurt and ruin his whole life. As far as Aaron can remember most of them liked Robert before prison, he had friends, people who genuinely enjoyed his company like Jimmy and Nicola, but now it’s like no one will look at either of them without sneering and for John? It’s odd.
This man who showed up here out of nowhere just over a year ago now has the whole village wrapped so far around his finger that they are willing to throw their own friends and family members to the curb because they hurt poor John’s feelings? No one not one single person in the village, apart from her own family, treated Chrissie this way when the first affair came out.
What is it about John that inspires this weird loyalty? Why are people willing to run both Aaron and Robert out the village completely if they don’t ‘come to their senses and end this thing’? His mum told him the other day that he better hope John takes him back after this, that’s insanity, why would she want him to leave a happy relationship for an unhappy one because he can admit to himself now that John never made him happy.
Aaron and Robert have come through to a hotel in Leeds for the night just to get away from the drama of the village. They are lounging on the bed eating dinner in their robes with the tv on quietly in the background, but Aaron couldn’t actually tell you what is playing.
“I should have stuck to the plan all those years ago.” Robert comments lightly breaking Aaron out of his thoughts.
“What?” Aaron asks not following where that had come from.
“We should’ve run, took Liv with us and just fled.” Robert says wistfully.
“Yeah, we should have.” Aaron agrees because he has not for a minute ever thought differently since the moment Robert handed himself in.
“Do you think Liv would have her own art gallery by now?” Robert asks smiling as he clearly imagines Liv showing off all her beautiful artwork and how proud they would’ve been.
“She’d probably have preferred to set up in the Champ de Mars and draw the tourists in the park, she loved a good caricature drawing. Remember the monkey?” Aaron laughs remembering that day that Liv came home and showed him her drawing of Robert the Monkey.
“Oh yeah, if she could make money off making fun of people, I think that would be right up her street.” Robert laughs along. “I hope she’d at least offer them the choice of a nice version because she was so talented people deserved to see the real beauty in her work.”
“She was amazing.” Aaron sighs, he forgot how good it was to talk about Liv with someone who loved her as much as he did. John could never quite get it because he’d never met her and he always seemed to be trying to hold back his thoughts on how unruly he thought she must have been from the stories and yeah sometimes she could be but she was still a good kid and an even better adult that Aaron misses with his whole heart.
It’s a nice fantasy to imagine just leaving it all behind now and moving on from the village but neither of them has the money for that and Aaron would at least like to be legally divorced from John before fleeing the country and changing his name. He’d hate to think of his old name still being tied to that man.
Let’s be real though Emmerdale is there home and neither of them is planning on leaving so everyone will just have to get used it and suck it up.