Work Text:
Aaron had seen him before. He was one of the builders working up at Mill Cottage, and had often been leaning against the cafe counter at Bob’s waiting for his sandwich and coffee, or reading his newspaper in one of the corner booths in the pub. It had unnerved him at first, how similar he looked to Jackson - fair hair though not as curly, always smiling, tanned skin and toned arms and blue-green eyes which looked incredibly soft.
It wasn’t that he was attracted to him. It was hard looking at any man now and not comparing them to Robert, who would always win just on looks, never mind everything else. But he felt a strange fascination for the bloke, and his eyes often strayed towards him when he was chatting to his mum at the bar or grabbing a BLT from Brenda. What was even more unnerving was when he glanced over and the man chanced a look back, offering a shy smile which Aaron couldn’t help but return.
They went on like that for almost a fortnight, the two of them just smiling at each other every so often and not saying a word. But then he was having a drink with Finn and Adam, rolling his eyes when Finn started banging on about some stupid convention he was desperate to go to, and the bloke came in with some of the other guys off the site, and this time he slid in beside Aaron at the bar and greeted him with a friendly ‘hello’.
“Hey,” Aaron replied, slightly stunned that the guy was suddenly talking to him. Thankfully, he didn’t sound like Jackson as well, but with him now so close, it was hard to avoid the startling similarities. He was even wearing a grey, button-down top which Jackson had worn on a regular basis.
“I’ve seen you around. You local?” the guy asked before ordering a pint from Charity, who eyed him over with a smirk which Aaron glowered at her for. He didn’t feel protective of the guy, just knew what Charity could be like.
“Yeah. I live here, actually, at the pub,” Aaron replied, gesturing in the general direction of the backroom. His eyes flitted over to Adam and Finn, who were now both talking to Victoria who had appeared from the kitchen and was moaning loudly about Marlon’s histrionics.
The guy nodded, glancing over at the other builders who had settled at a table. He made no move to leave. “I’m over at Mill Cottage. But you probably already guessed that.” He was smiling and Aaron’s stomach lurched, wondering how it was possible that there was someone, living and breathing, who resembled Jackson so exactly.
“Yeah. I figured,” was all he could say, returning to his pint and taking a long gulp, hoping that he wasn’t being too obvious in his fascination for the guy’s appearance.
“I’m Peter.” He was holding out his hand and Aaron took it, relieved to find that his hand was rougher, stronger, bigger than Jackson’s.
“Aaron.”
Peter nodded, his eyes sliding over Aaron’s shoulder before returning to his pint. “Who’re your friends?” He said it innocently enough, but there was something in his gaze which had Aaron’s suspicions rising.
“Just Adam and Finn,” he said, deciding to go for the vaguest possible answer.
Peter glanced again at the two lads behind Aaron who were still deep in conversation with Vic. “Which one’s the one with the glasses?”
The penny dropped, and Aaron almost laughed, turning to see Finn wrinkling his nose at something Vic had said. He turned back to Peter, hiding a smile.
“That’s Finn.” He didn’t say anymore, didn’t explain that Finn was gay and single and was in desperate need of a boyfriend. It wasn’t Aaron’s place, and he was enjoying the sight of Peter squirming a little on his bar stool too much to put him out of his misery. He wasn’t as confident as Jackson, as self-assured in his own skin, and the differences were now starting to balance against the similarities, making it easier for Aaron to look at him without being reminded of his dead boyfriend.
“Right,” Peter muttered, taking another sip of his pint before glancing again at Finn. The guy wasn’t exactly subtle, and Aaron bit his lip to stop from smiling again.
“You staying here long?” Aaron asked, deciding there was no point introducing him to Finn if he was only going to be in the village for a few weeks.
Peter returned his attention to Aaron, eyes a little wider than before as if startled back to reality. “Yeah. The job’s gonna go on for a while - suppose you heard about someone hijacking the digger?”
Aaron snorted, having been told by Robert that Bernice had gone all ‘Grand Theft Auto’ with the digger and trashed half the construction site.
“Yeah, I heard about that.”
Peter chuckled. “Well, it means the job’s going to take double the time, so we’ll be here for a few months. And then…” He paused, trailing off as his eyes momentarily slid back to Finn, before he swallowed hard. Aaron almost felt sorry for the bloke - he was smitten and he hadn’t even said two words to Finn, yet.
Just at that moment, he heard the door behind him open and suddenly Robert’s hand was at his waist, his mouth against his ear as he whispered: “Honey, I’m home.” It had become a running joke with them, after Chas had commented that they never greeted each other fondly enough after they both came home. So Robert had started pulling Aaron into long kisses after he’d shrugged off his jacket, or resorting to cliched, 1950s greetings which made Aaron roll his eyes.
“Nicola let you go early, did she?” Aaron asked, leaning back so his head was just touching Robert’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Apparently she finally got the hint about me working so much overtime with literally no thanks.”
Aaron smiled, shifting slightly on his seat so that Robert could squeeze in next to him. They’d been working ridiculous hours for almost a month now, barely catching a minute alone together, and too knackered at the end of the day to do much more than collapse into bed together. Nicola had used the ‘kids card’ everyday for the past week when there had been reports to file or meetings to take, saying she needed to be at home for when Angelica returned from school. So Robert had been landed with most of the work and he hadn’t been entirely happy about the arrangement, especially when he was getting no praise for putting in the extra effort.
Robert rubbed the back of his neck as he ordered a pint from Charity, who was now glancing from Peter to Robert and back again, but said nothing. When she passed Robert his drink, he turned to Aaron and said: “You coming, then?”, already walking in the direction of the backroom.
And even though he loved the idea of slouching in front of the TV, Robert’s arm slung around his shoulder as they sunk back against the cushions, he was fiercely tempted to remain with Peter and do something he had never done before - matchmake.
“Might finish this here. I’ll join you in a bit, though,” he said eventually, looking from his half-finished pint to Peter, before returning his gaze to a slightly confused Robert.
“Oh. All right, then.” He sounded disappointed, and Aaron felt a twinge of guilt which had him almost reconsidering. But then Robert turned and disappeared through to the back, and Aaron was left wishing he’d gone with him.
He felt Peter’s eyes on him and turned, the guilt still gnawing inside him. “Robert,” he explained, having noticed Peter’s questioning stare. “My boyfriend.”
It felt strange to say it. He hadn’t actually had to label them before now - everyone knew him and Robert were together, so there was no need to explain it. The word felt alien on his tongue, but not uncomfortable.
“So you’re-”
“Gay? Yeah, I am,” Aaron cut in, feeling defensive even though he was fairly certain Peter wouldn’t have a problem with it. He turned his head, remembering why he was staying at the bar rather than going to find Robert. “So’s Finn, by the way.”
Peter looked up at that, slightly surprised, but then his expression softened again into a smile and his cheeks flushed pink. “That obvious, am I?”
Aaron scoffed, shaking his head. “To me, maybe. I doubt Finn would notice.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
Finn was now rubbing the lens of his glasses with the bottom of his shirt, blinking rapidly as his vision blurred around the edges. Peter couldn’t seem to stop staring at him.
“Let’s just say, you won’t get far unless you actually tell him you’re interested. Finn’s… a bit shy.” Other words came to mind as well - awkward, geeky, a bit dull, but Aaron stopped himself from going any further. No matter what Aaron thought of him, Finn was a decent enough guy and he deserved to have someone who actually liked him.
“So flirting with him probably won’t work, then?” Peter asked, leaning forward now so that only Aaron could hear. He shook his head, imagining that any kind of flirting would likely go way over Finn’s head.
“Definitely not. You’ll just have to ask him out.”
“Great,” Peter muttered, hand clenching into a fist on his thigh. Aaron couldn’t believe how nervous the poor guy seemed. It was only Finn.
“Look, it’s not like he’s gonna turn you down.”
“You know that for sure, do you?” Peter’s wide, blue eyes were now slanted, looking incredibly unconvinced.
Aaron shrugged, taking another gulp of his pint. “No. But you seem all right, you’re decent enough… looks-wise, he’ll be happy you asked.”
“Well don’t big me up, too much, will you?” Peter joked, and that grin was back, the one Jackson used to wear. “I don’t seem like a psycho and I’m not ugly as sin… thanks a lot, mate.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Aaron said between laughs. “You’re a nice guy, that’s all. He’ll snap your hand off, seriously. You just have to go talk to him.”
Peter was blushing again and he ran a hand through his hair, his eyes now flicking over Aaron’s shoulder to where Finn was now nursing an orange juice while Adam and Victoria were leaning across the bar to kiss.
“You really think he’d be interested?”
Aaron put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, leaned in and said: “Trust me. Just go for it. What do you have to lose, eh?”
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was being so nice to the guy. He didn’t need to do this, and it wasn’t as though him and Finn were best mates. Maybe it was because Peter looked so terrifyingly like Jackson that meant he almost felt obligated to help. He hadn’t been able to help the real-life version, before or after he was paralysed, but maybe he could help this doppelgänger.
Peter was chewing on his bottom lip but he’d edged off his stool, gaze directed towards a completely oblivious Finn who was now complaining at the PDA he was being forced to witness. Aaron watched as Peter hesitantly made his way round to stand next to him, elbows rested on the bar, and asked if Finn wanted another drink.
“What… me?” Finn asked, looking around him as if Peter was actually talking to someone over his shoulder.
“Don’t see anyone else, do you?”
Finn smiled, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, and accepted with a slight nod of his head. Aaron was still trying to work out what Peter saw in him when Charity passed Finn another orange juice and Peter asked if he wanted to take it over to one of the booths.
Aaron stayed sitting at the corner of the bar, momentarily glancing over every few seconds, until he was satisfied that the two of them weren’t about to mess it up. He couldn’t help the smile which tugged at the corners of his mouth, watching as Finn leaned in a little, hands fidgeting on his lap, while Peter put his arm on the back of their seats, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face.
His pint was finished and he gave Adam’s shoulder a pat as he walked passed towards the backroom.
“Not joining us?”
Aaron shook his head. “Thought I’d go see Robert. Don’t fancy playing gooseberry to you two.” He gave Adam a wink and his friend laughed, kissing a flushed Victoria on the cheek as if to confirm Aaron’s point.
His muscles had loosened considerably, the alcohol in his system relaxing the tension which had built up over a tiring day at the scrapyard. Robert was lying stretched out on the sofa watching the news, and Aaron perched on the arm of the chair, his mind wandering to the currently vacant upstairs bedroom.
“Thought I’d come and join you.”
He was all ready to make a not-so-subtle hint about being ‘tired’ when he realised that Robert hadn’t responded. In fact, he hadn’t even looked round when he entered the room. Aaron shifted slightly, leaning forward to try and catch his gaze, but Robert was staring determinedly at the screen.
“You all right? You’re a bit… quiet.”
A sharp shrug. “Not much to say.” It was said calmly, but Aaron could feel the undercurrent of tension without having to see Robert’s face. Obviously being let go early by Nicola hadn’t put him in a better mood. But Aaron could easily help with that.
“Well… we don’t have to talk, do we?” he murmured, sliding a hand over Robert’s shoulder and squeezing slightly. He almost pitched backwards with the force of Robert shrugging him off.
“Are you being serious?” he asked incredulously, each word biting into Aaron’s skin. Robert was on his feet now, hands curled into fists by his sides, and Aaron stood, too, no longer sure of what was going on.
“What?”
“Two seconds ago you were getting cosy with that guy at the bar, and now you’re in here pretending like-”
“Wait… what?” Aaron interjected, his mind reeling from what he was being accused of.
“You heard me,” Robert growled, jaw jutting forwards and his green eyes cold as he stared Aaron down.
“You don’t actually think… Tell me, you don’t think me and him were…” He couldn’t find the words. Him and Peter weren’t even mates. They’d just been chatting. That’s all it had been.
“What? Go on, Aaron, why don’t you finish that sentence.”
“Robert, come on. We were just talking.”
Robert scoffed, eyes widening as if Aaron was rubbing salt in the wound rather than explaining. “Oh yeah, and I’m sure every guy you talk to blushes scarlet, do they? Though, to be fair, you looked like you were enjoying yourself, so maybe he had reason to be.”
What the Hell was going on? What had gotten into him? “Sorry?” he asked, now just as incredulous as Robert.
“Apology not accepted.”
“I wasn’t- Robert, where is this coming from? I’m not interested in him!” he yelled, arms out as though in surrender. This was already getting way out of hand.
“Not what it looked like.”
His mind juddered over the words, the meaning behind them taking root as he began to make sense of Robert’s insane reaction. “What did you actually see?”
Robert wasn’t looking at him now, eyes cast down towards the floor. “Him looking all nervous and smiling at you every two seconds, and you… you laughing with him, touching his arm, leaning in like… like…”
“Like what?”
A flash of green eyes as Robert gave him the most vulnerable look. “You looked like you were about to kiss him.”
Aaron could hardly believe it. He’d been offering Peter advice, that was all. And leaning in… that was nothing. How could he not see that was nothing? “Jesus Christ, Robert. You are something else, do you know that?”
“I know what I saw.”
Aaron ground his teeth together, anger flaring in his chest and burning through his veins. “You know nothing. Peter looked so nervous because he wanted to ask out Finn. And me touching his arm? I was just telling him to go for it.”
“What?”
“Yeah, exactly. He was interested in Finn, wanted to ask my advice since I knew him. That’s all it was.”
Robert’s expression was open now, slack where it had once been tense and closed off. His shoulders slumped in defeat. “Oh.”
“What the Hell made you think it was anything else?” he asked, his temper dissipating. “Am I honestly such a miserable git that now if I so much as smile at a guy I must be in love with him?”
Robert managed a weak smile. “No. Well… no. But you and him just looked… I don’t know. I panicked, Aaron. I just thought-”
“We were chatting, Robert. That’s all there was to it."
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Aaron replied softly, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs and dropping down into it. “I just want to know what made you think I was about to have it off with some guy I barely knew?”
Robert sat back down on the sofa, hands clasped between his knees. “I honestly don’t know. I suppose I’ve just never seen you talking to a stranger like that. It’s always just been Adam or Finn, no one who could… No one I didn’t already know. And Charity-”
“I might have known she’d have something to do with this,” Aaron cut him off, the jigsaw pieces finally fitting together. “What did she say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Robert, tell me. It must have been pretty big if it seriously made you think… that.”
Aaron watched, concern growing inside him, as Robert hunched forwards, no longer able to look him in the eye. “She said he… she said… he looked a lot like Jackson.”
The breath left him in an instant, the words like a sucker punch to his stomach. “Oh.”
“Yeah. And I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. You two looked so close, though, and-”
“He does look like Jackson,” Aaron said quietly, and his tongue itched from saying his name out loud. He never talked about Jackson, least of all to Robert. This was never a subject he liked to revisit. “Freakishly like him, actually.”
“Yeah?”
Aaron nodded. “I was a bit spooked by it, to be honest. Especially what with Peter being a builder, as well. Almost felt like I’d stepped back in time.”
Robert was still looking down at his feet, and Aaron sighed, getting up from his chair and coming to crouch down next to him, entwining his hand with Robert’s. “Doesn’t mean I was about to ditch you for him, though. He’s not that good looking.”
Robert tightened his grip, long fingers curling around Aaron’s as he gave him an almost pleading look. “Just seeing you with him… God, Aaron, I’ve never felt like that. I wanted to kill him for even looking at you.”
He fought back a smile, knowing Robert was still too vulnerable to make light of it. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you jealous before.”
“You’ve never given me a reason to be before.”
He placed his other hand on Robert’s knee, thumb gently stroking against the smooth fabric of his suit trousers. “It really was nothing. I swear.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m an idiot,” he replied and his voice had lost all of its previous tautness.
“Knew that already, but thanks for reminding me.” He chanced a smile, and Robert responded with one of his own, soft, green eyes framed by those beautifully fair lashes. Aaron almost wanted to lean up and kiss him, but the air around them still felt fragile, as if it might fracture at any moment.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Nice to know you’re willing to lamp any guy who so much as looks my way. Well… not nice, but-”
“I always thought that if I ever lost you, it’d be because I did something. Make one too many mistakes, push you too far, maybe even hurt you… I never thought you’d leave me because… you found someone else.”
He had never seen Robert look so… vulnerable, so drawn into himself. It reminded Aaron of himself, when he thought the whole world had abandoned him, when he was sure he was entirely and utterly alone. His chest ached and he reached out to place a hand against the side of Robert’s face, his heart fluttering painfully against his ribcage.
“Robert, you can’t think like that. I’m not going to leave you - not because of someone else, and not because you drive me round the bend. We’re in this for the long haul, right?”
“I can’t lose you, Aaron. Even the thought of it-”
“You won’t,” Aaron said firmly, hating how thready and weak Robert’s voice had become. He had never seen him like this. “Listen to me, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“Of course, I promise.”
“All right. Jesus, you must think I’ve gone soft.” Robert looked calmer now, even if he still sounded like he was on the edge of breaking down. Aaron kept a tight grip on his hand.
“Soft in the head, maybe,” he joked before coming to sit next to Robert on the sofa, kneeling beside him so he could easily rest their heads together.
“It’s you and me, yeah?” he whispered, thumb now gently stroking down Robert’s cheek before settling at the corner of his mouth.
“You and me,” Robert agreed, noses brushing together as they smiled.
“Soft lad,” Aaron murmured just before their lips touched, and suddenly nothing else mattered except making sure Robert knew how much he loved him. Robert’s hand found its way to Aaron’s thigh and soon he was tugging him onto his lap. Aaron’s mouth ached to smile, but he was too desperate to make sure Robert knew that there was no one else, that there could never be anyone else.
That he was, and always would be, hopelessly and irreversibly in love with him.