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It feels like forever since Robert’s been able to lie on his back without the weight of the world pressing down. The grass is warm, the sun steady but not too hot, and somewhere in the distance a bird calls lazily into the quiet. He could get used to this, to the sound of peace.
The remains of their picnic scattered between their sprawled bodies—an empty bottle, a paper bag of crumbs, the kind of lazy mess that came when you were too content to care.
Beside him, Aaron’s stretched out on the blanket, one leg bent, one arm over his stomach. His eyes are half-closed, and his mouth is curved in that almost-smile that means he’s letting himself relax, if only a little.
Robert watches him openly. Aaron doesn’t notice, or if he does, he doesn’t care. There’s a part of Robert that’s still startled by that—by how Aaron just lets him look, lets him see.
Robert thought he’d always been good at pretending. At convincing the world —and himself— that he didn’t need much, that love was something you took, not something that could take you apart. But Aaron had ruined him for that. Every part of him belonged to that man now.
It still stuns him sometimes, this love. The sheer weight of it. How it wraps around every part of him until there’s nothing left that isn’t Aaron-shaped.
Robert’s heart beats steady as memories wash over him: the fights, the silences, the raw, aching love that never quite left them. Even after the worst, Aaron had been the one constant. And now here they were, fragile but whole, daring to hope again.
He loved the way Aaron’s eyes held a quiet strength beneath that gentle exterior. He loved how Aaron laughed —that real laugh, deep and unexpected— when Robert made some ridiculous joke he never quite managed to finish.
Now, he thinks of all the years before this, when they were still trying to find their way through the mess, when just being in the same room could feel like a battlefield.
He also remembers Aaron once saying, “I’m not easy to love,” and how it had lodged in Robert’s chest like a shard of glass. It still stings when he thinks about it. He’d made it his mission, from that moment on, to prove him wrong.
The divorce sits heaviest in his memory—like a raw, festering wound that time has never managed to close. Signing those papers had felt like ripping out the very core of his heart, deliberate and agonising, each stroke of the pen a fresh cut.
He’d done it because he was convinced it was the last, greatest gift he could ever give Aaron: a merciless clean break, a desperate shot at a life free from the poison of his mistakes, from the suffocating prison bars and the relentless, cruel headlines that followed them everywhere.
He’d told himself—over and over in the cold, endless nights—that he could endure decades locked away, rotting in silence, if it meant Aaron could finally breathe without him, could find someone gentler, steadier, someone who didn’t drag storms and chaos in their wake like a curse.
He’d loved him so fiercely, so unbearably much, that letting him go had felt like the ultimate, devastating proof of it… even though it carved him hollow, left him aching with a grief he could never voice—and, he now knows with a pang that steals his breath, it shattered Aaron just as brutally, leaving them both half-alive and bleeding for far too many years.
And it’s not just the big things Robert loves about Aaron, though God knows those matter. It’s also the way Aaron had fought for him, forgiven him, chosen him over and over, even when Robert didn’t believe he deserved it.
It’s also the smaller, quieter details that undo him. The way Aaron always notices when Robert’s hands are cold and holds them without making a fuss. The way he makes a brew just how Robert likes it without asking. The way his eyes soften when he says Robert’s name.
Once, Robert might’ve thought all this was weakness—needing someone so much it almost hurts. Now he knows it’s the strongest thing he’s ever felt.
In that moment, Aaron laughs at something, a little joke Robert had just muttered about his terrible sandwich-making skills, and it’s the kind of laugh that makes Robert want to close his eyes and hold onto the sound forever. Not the polite huff Aaron gives strangers, not the short one he uses when he’s trying not to admit he’s amused. This one’s real. Warm. From deep in his chest. Beautiful.
Robert’s heart twists, because God, he loves him. Loves him so much it feels like it fills every hollow space inside him, like there’s nothing left untouched by it.
Aaron was his reason. Simple as that. The thing he measured everything else against.
He thinks about the small things no one else notices. How Aaron always tilts his head a little when he’s listening, how his hands are always warm even in winter, how he always seems to know when Robert needs him to be the one to close the distance.
But this time, it's Robert who reaches out, brushing a blade of grass from Aaron’s shirt. Aaron glances over, and there’s no teasing in his eyes—just quiet affection, the kind that means I’ve seen you at your worst, and I’m still here. I love you.
And in that moment, Robert wonders how it's even possible to love someone so much.
The breeze smells like cut grass and sunshine-warmed earth. Aaron lies there, letting his hand rest near Robert’s, the heat from his skin seeping into Aaron’s own.
He risks a glance at Robert. He’s got his eyes closed now, his chest rising and falling steady. It’s mad how someone so sharp, so quick with his words and plans, can look like this—like the world finally stopped asking him to fight for it.
He’d spent years convinced no one would want to be with someone like him, that he was too much trouble, too much work. And now here was Robert Sugden, loving him like breathing, loving him like there was nothing else. Loving him like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world.
Aaron also remembered the first time Robert had told him he loved him. He’d wanted to believe it, but there was this part of him that didn’t know how. Robert changed that part of him—piece by piece, day by day, sometimes dragging Aaron with him kicking and swearing, but always moving forward. Always towards this.
Even during their worst times, he’d never stopped loving Robert; he’d never stopped imagining their life together.
When the divorce papers arrived out of nowhere, after Robert had cut him off completely, Aaron had felt blindsided. Rage came first, hot and consuming. He’d tried to hate him, told himself Robert was a coward who’d finally shown his true colours, that maybe all those promises of forever had been lies. For a while he even wondered if Robert had never loved him as fiercely as he’d claimed.
But underneath the anger was a hollow ache that made everything feel pointless. Life without Robert wasn’t life. It was just existing, grey and empty, barely surviving day to day.
Aaron had hated him for it at first. Hated the noble, self-sacrificing idiocy of it, hated the emptiness that followed. And he’d spent the following years trying to outrun the ache, telling himself Robert was right, that he deserved something simpler. But every quiet night, every failed attempt at moving on, only proved how wrong that was.
Even when he married someone else, the hollowness never lifted; he was going through the motions, not truly living, just waiting for something he couldn’t, wouldn’t name. Robert hadn’t set him free; he’d just taken the largest part of him away, leaving him feeling empty.
And then Robert had crashed the wedding. The clever, charming bastard had dared to burst through the doors unannounced and said ”hello Aaron, did you miss me?” and it was like air rushed back into his lungs, like coming alive again after years underwater.
One look, a few words, and Aaron knew: no one else would ever make him feel the way Robert did.
Aaron shifts onto his side then, watching Robert in the dappled light. He thinks of all the versions of himself Robert has seen —furious, lost, grieving, laughing, naked in every sense of the word— and how Robert’s never turned away, not really. How he’d loved him through everything. How he was the only one whose voice, low and certain, could pull him back from the edge.
How Robert had made it his mission to give Aaron the life he deserves, even when they had to crawl their way through fire and hell to get back together.
And Robert’s been stupid, sure, and reckless, and infuriating, but he's also the safest place Aaron’s ever known. Robert has always been Aaron's home, always will be.
Aaron’s fingers twitch against the blanket, and he gives in, brushing the back of Robert’s hand. Robert turns his palm up instantly, threading their fingers together like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It is.
Lying there, Aaron thinks about everything they’ve been through. The years, the hurt, the mistakes, and how none of it has managed to shake this thing between them. If anything, it’s made it stronger.
He wants to tell Robert all of it. How much he loves the way Robert’s brain works, sharp and quick, but how he loves even more the moments when Robert lets his guard down and shows the soft, scared bits underneath. How Robert’s laugh is rare but worth chasing, a sound so sweet and precious he thinks it should be considered holy.
Instead, Aaron just squeezes his hand.
“Your sandwiches are terrible,” he says softly, half a tease.
Robert smirks without opening his eyes. “You ate two of them, Aaron.”
Aaron huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Only ‘cause you made ‘em.”
Robert’s eyes open then, green and sharp and warm all at once, and Aaron feels that familiar punch in his chest. The one that says this is it, this is him. The love of my life.
They’ve been through hell. And maybe now is all they have. But as Robert’s thumb strokes once over the back of his hand, Aaron lets himself believe in more—in the years they might still have, in mornings and evenings and every quiet in-between.
He doesn’t say any of that out loud. But Robert squeezes his hand back, and Aaron knows he feels it anyway.
And then Robert leans in, not rushed, not hesitant—just closing the distance like it's the easiest thing in the world. Aaron meets him halfway, their mouths fitting together with the kind of familiarity that still managed to feel like a discovery.
The kiss is warm and unhurried, their fingers finding each other between them. Robert’s thumb brushes over Aaron’s knuckles; Aaron tilts his head, letting Robert in, breathing him in. It's slow, but it carries years in it—years of fighting, falling, breaking, rebuilding.
When they finally pull back, foreheads resting together, Robert’s voice is barely above a whisper. “You’re my home, Aaron.”
Aaron’s eyes stayed closed, his smile small but certain. “Same here.”
Of course Aaron would say that, Robert thinks. And under the gold of the fading day, with the grass soft beneath them and the whole world held at bay, there were no grand promises, no big speeches—just two broken mdn who had been through hell and back, and somehow, against everything, found their way home to each other.