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Aaron slams the car door shut behind him, paying no mind to how loudly it bangs. Robert wasn't precious about this car - gifted from Kev - the way he'd been about his Porsche or Austin-Healey from years ago.
Aaron storms up the path to the entrance of the Woolpack, intent on drowning his recently acquired sorrows.
"Aaron!" Robert calls from behind him, getting out of the car ten beats slower than Aaron did, fuelled as he is by irritation. "I'm sorry!"
The pub is the same as it always is, which only annoys Aaron more. Laughter floats in the air like poisonous gas.
"Oh, what is that face for?" Charity behind the bar, berating him before he could even get a word out. "You know, it's me that should be looking so miserable, I'm the one carrying an almost fully-formed human inside me, and have been for-"
"Pint, thanks." Aaron interrupts, unwilling to stand there and listen to her griping.
"Manners cost nothing."
Aaron scowls at her but doesn't comment since she had finally picked up a glass and he fears his chances of it being filled would disappear entirely if he did. Hormonal women are unpredictable like that.
"Robert's paying." He says shortly, the other man having caught up to him, Aaron can feel his presence hovering unsurely at his shoulder.
While Charity and Robert argue over pennies, Aaron takes the opportunity to escape. The booth in the corner is empty. He chucks the cushion onto the other seat - let Robert deal with those ugly things - and sits down with so much force he worries the wood is going to split underneath him.
Adopting a deep slouch that would keep people from talking to him when he was a teenager but nowadays only served to make his back ache for the next couple of days, he starts working on clearing the condensation from the surface of his glass. Aaron doesn't consider himself to be someone who wallows in his disappointments. Usually, his emotions are sharp and get his tear ducts working overtime. Right now, though, he just feels miserable.
Robert slides into the seat opposite him tentatively, like he isn't sure if he's welcome or not, and puts his orange juice on one of the spare beer mats. Aaron doesn't look at him, thinks if he does he might say something that the Robert of six years ago would let slide off him like water but the Robert of now might get bruised by. He focuses on his very important job of condensation removal instead.
The pub continues around them, a familiar hustle-and-bustle that feels entirely separate from their little bubble of frustrated quiet.
"What's goin' on over here? Lover's tiff?" Mackenzie, a few too many whiskeys deep for how early on a Tuesday it is, stumbles over the bar stool and catches himself on the tabletop, miraculously not spilling a drop of the drink he's clutching. Aaron saves his pint from an untimely death at the heavy hand of his best friend. Mackenzie's taken his wedding ring off already; learning that the child isn't his and his wife cheated on him with not one, but two of her exes is too large a heartbreak for them to overcome. "I tell ya, Aaron-" Mackenzie manages to manoeuvre himself into the seat next to him, forcing Aaron to shuffle along the squeaky brown leather. "got the right idea, you. Hating Ross, 'n that." Mackenzie sighed, deflating back into the seat in a mirror of Aaron's own position. "He was my best friend."
"Oi, what am I then?" Aaron nudges him. Mackenzie bumps the side of his head into Aaron's shoulder,
"Best friend," he mutters and Aaron chooses to believe he's talking about him. "Hate Ross now."
"Join the club."
A small grin cracks Aaron's face and he finds himself aiming it at Robert. Robert visibly perks up when Aaron's eyes land on him, he sits up a bit straighter and his face turns a bit brighter.
Immediately, Aaron feels terrible.
Sometimes, although he loves Robert very much, that is never in doubt, Aaron feels himself reverting back to how he was at 22, at 25, at 27; angry, and in love, and feeling short-changed. He wasn't going to go and do something stupid and get himself sent down or anything like he was prone to do when he was young but he spent so long in love with, missing, waiting for Robert that he felt every age at once. Lashing out at Robert, blaming him for anything negative that happened is still the instinct of a version of Aaron that he thought he'd left behind.
And Robert lets him. Always has. Aaron would like to think that it’s just another thing that prison changed about him but he knows that’s not true. Robert, even as far back as the affair, would let Aaron push at him and refuse to back down. If he had backed off, like Aaron had told him to so many times, they wouldn’t be sitting at the Woolpack drinking together now. They’d have smashed themselves to pieces and not known how to repair it.
This isn’t even Robert’s fault.
Aaron makes an effort to smooth out his expression, softening himself at the edges and, without any conversation, Robert knows that things are better.
"Mack, I think I just saw Ross go into the back room," Robert lies, "why don't you go and confront him?"
Full of bravado and drunk courage, Mackenzie slurs something about hating Ross again and goes off to, presumably, fight an empty room. "Aaron." The terrible feeling hasn't left Aaron so he just looks at Robert with sad, sad eyes. "You are a grown man, don't pout. Not about this." Aaron's mouth turns down further, thoughts wrapped up in Robert more than in irritation now.
"We knew it was a long shot," Robert goes on, "We might not even live at the Mill soon and then we can look into it again. Okay?"
Aaron decides not to divulge the information to Robert that he was no longer pondering on their previous issue. Knowing Aaron was spending so long thinking about how changed the two of them were would only send Robert spiralling.
"It's unfair."
"I know. And I know with... John-"
"Don't." Aaron winced.
He doesn't miss John, would never trade what he has with Robert for that psycho, but it's still raw. There's still overturned cars in both of their nightmares. They're not asleep right now, though, and there's a softness in Robert's eyes. He has an endless well of patience for Aaron's moods, no matter how silly they may seem. Aaron reaches out and touches Robert's index finger, encouraging him to release the death grip he has on his now-empty glass. Robert lets him take his hand and they rest there, in the centre of the table, loosely entwined. They're trying out the whole public affection thing a bit more after... well, everything.
"There'll be other opportunities for us."
"I know." Aaron said on a light exhale. They'll have plenty of opportunities, a lifetime of them in fact. If someone had told Aaron a year ago that this is where they'd be - together and alive - he'd have laughed in their face and then cried into his pillow at the idea come nightfall.
It's real again. And sometimes he has to pinch himself to check he's not stuck in a twisted dream-nightmare. He looks at Robert’s face, older and carrying the weight of so much pain - a lot that even Aaron doesn’t know about - yet still gorgeous, still the one Aaron wants to wake up to every morning. Aaron’s lucky. Don’t tell his nineteen-year-old self that, he’d never believe it.
He squeezes Robert’s fingers and smiles at him properly. Teeth and all.
"I really want a hot tub, though."