Archive of Our Own ^beta

Robert wakes up to the crooning of Morrissey playing somewhere in the house. He groans and pulls the sheets over his head. He’s been on at Lawrence about getting a place with thicker walls but the old bastard laughs and ignores the houses Robert’s circled in the newspaper. He shouldn’t have to wake up to The Smiths of all bands on his birthday. 

Oh shit. It’s his birthday. 

His first birthday tucked safely in the bosom of the White family. Twenty-four and he’d say he’s landed on his feet. When they consult him on the documentary about his life this will be the occasion he picks out as the day he realises something has truly changed. Chrissie will have something planned and, thin on the ground as he is friend-and-family-wise, he’s happy to go along with whatever it is. Malleability is a vital skill in his line of work. 

Robert gets out of bed. He washes his face and brushes his teeth in the ensuite. Then he considers his clothes. Chrissie didn’t like his old graphic t-shirts so they’re contributing to a landfill somewhere now. His half of the wardrobe consists of stiff shirts and pressed trousers that nineteen-year-old him would have described as proper stuffy. Jack Sugden enforced a lot of rules, but a formal dress code was not one of them. 

There’s a shirt that Robert has been saving especially for his birthday. He’d bought it himself (using the card Lawrence gave him) from one of the designer outlets that he’d grown up believing were for soft boys and queers. It’s blue and has lots of white flowers on it and Robert thinks he looks quite nice in it. He leaves it unbuttoned while he stands in front of the mirror perched on the chest of drawers to drag a comb through his hair. His gel and mousse and hair mask are all eagerly waiting for him to use them. (Chrissie joked once that he’s got more products than she does. Robert didn’t find it very funny.)

The song fades out and a radio host starts talking in that annoyingly upbeat way they all have. They all must take ecstasy before they go on-air, there’s no way they’re that chirpy this early in the morning.

‘A bit of The Smiths for your Thursday morning. It’s a beautiful day today here in Manchester. And to celebrate that, here is Beautiful Day by U2!’ 

The sound of the radio cuts off and Robert mutters his gratitude to whoever is listening. A door slams; Lachlan, always too heavy-handed. Robert rolls his eyes and continues fiddling with his hair, needing it perfectly tousled before he shows his face in front of Lawrence and Chrissie. Three loud bangs sound against the bedroom door. Robert jumps and his hand slips and he’s going to have to start again: he looks positively homeless.

“Happy birthday, Rob!” Lachlan’s pre-pubescent voice yells.

He hears the thumps of the kid racing downstairs and can’t help smiling to himself despite having to re-do his hair routine.

When Chrissie had told him about Lachlan he’d been… apprehensive to say the least. It was hard enough to win over Chrissie, let alone some sprog he didn’t want to give a shit about. 

Chrissie had introduced Robert as grandad’s new business friend and she was relieved when Lachlan immediately started acting like they were best friends. After a few meetings, they’d told him the truth of their relationship and Lachlan was ecstatic. 

Robert practises his show-stopping smile. The wife, the kid, the money. Everything he’s been dreaming about since he was fifteen. It’s all in the palm of his hand.

Robert ventures downstairs and gets the air knocked out of him by a small torpedo slamming into his middle.

“Oof! Morning, Lucky.”

“Happy birthday! Mum says I have to go to school even though I want to hang out with you all day!”

“Aw, mate, you know school’s more important than my birthday. We can hang out the whole time after you get home until bedtime, though.”

Lachlan sighs like an old man.

“Fine.” He turns and marches back into the kitchen. “Mum! Robert said we’re going to hang out tonight so you need to give me my Xbox back.”

“Oi, you brat. I didn’t say anything about your Xbox!” 

Robert laughs, following after Lachlan into the kitchen. He finds Chrissie standing over a frying pan.

“Oh, what’s going on in here?”

“Mum’s making you breakfast.” Lachlan informs him, smacking his lips around some banana-muesli mush that Chrissie forces him to eat every other morning. 

“It’s meant to be breakfast in bed. Lucky, did you wake him up?”

“Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen him at all before Shitty Sheila’s here to take me to school.”

“Language!” Chrissie scolds, pointing at him with the turner she’s holding. 

Lachlan giggles,

“That’s what Rob calls her!”

Robert gasps,

“That was meant to be our little secret.”

“Oh, Robert.”

“And don’t worry, I was already awake when he came knocking doors down.” 

Robert reaches for her and pulls them together; legs, hips, and stomachs touching. He kisses her and she hums against him. 

“Good morning.” He murmurs.

“Morning, birthday boy. I’m just waiting on the eggs. Take a seat.”

She swats at him with the turner until he lets her go.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“Hush. If I can’t spoil you today, then when can I?”

Robert presses himself against her back, and wraps his arms around her middle, hooks his chin over her shoulder and speaks into her neck, his voice dropped lower than usual.

“You spoil me every night.”

“It’s not every night. Go and sit down.”

Robert laughs and does as he’s told.

A plate of side-to-side grease is placed in front of him. 

“Looks amazing. I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Mum taught me.”

Chrissie goes quiet. Robert catches her hand and squeezes it gently. Her mum’s not long been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s been a lot of dropping them off at the hospital and holding Chrissie when she cries, for Robert.

“I’m sorry.”

“No. No, don’t be silly. You can’t apologise on your birthday.” She removes herself from his grip and rounds the counter, putting distance between the two of them. “Now, I’ve convinced dad to give you the day off, not tomorrow though so don’t get too drunk. I booked a table at that dinky restaurant you like so much. Rebecca is going to meet us there. Did you have anything planned?”

Drinking until he passes out and it’s not his birthday anymore?

“Just hanging out with my favourite kid, here.”

Lachlan grins at him like he’s just discovered that Robert hung the moon. Two car horn beeps sound from outside.

“Time to go, Lucky.” Chrissie instructs.

Lachlan pouts and whines but grabs his backpack, gives Robert another hug, and heads out of the front door.

“You don’t have to hang out with him.”

“I want to. He’s a cool kid and I’m meant to be doing the whole step-dad thing, aren’t I?”

Chrissie smiles at him, stars in her eyes. Who wouldn’t look at him the same when he’s doing everything right?

“Finish your breakfast. Then you’ll have to get changed, we can’t go out with you looking like that.” 

Robert fights his facial muscles and wins: the smile stays fixed in place. He can wear his shirt another day. He takes another forkful of bacon but it doesn’t taste very good anymore.

“Robert!” 

Rebecca jingles when she moves. She wears bangles up to her elbows and they make an unpleasant noise in his ears when she wraps her arms over his shoulders. Robert holds her loosely, keeps his hands clearly above her waist and arse and pats her platonically a couple of times on the back.

“Happy birthday!” She says loudly, then he feels her lipsticked mouth close to his ear as she whispers, “You can have your real gift later on, handsome.”

Rebecca is sexy and obnoxious and obsessed with him. She’s easy. And posh and blonde and kind of reminds him of Sadie King which gets him all kinds of wound up.

“So lovely to see you, Becs.” He gives her a kiss on the cheek and she bats her eyelashes up at him.

The restaurant is a family-run burger place who had been good to him during… more unpleasant years. Years prior to his meeting Lawrence and slithering his way into Chrissie’s life. Kevin and Nicole, the couple in charge, had seen the scrawny twenty-year-old pass by their door every night, lured in by the stench of good food with pockets too light to afford it, and taken pity. They’d invited him in, let him eat, offered him a job that, even in his down-trodden state, he believed was beneath him and he’d forever be grateful to them.

They get shown to a table that sits beside the big front-facing window, overlooking Manchester. Robert suspects that Chrissie had specifically requested that table, what with her penchant for bouts of claustrophobia. Becs slides into the booth and pulls Robert in next to her,

“Sit next to me, Robbie,” God, Robert hates when people call him Robbie. He’s not four-years-old or a cheesy pop star. His name is Robert. Untouchable businessman Robert Sugden. “Chrissie gets you all night. This is my time!”

He follows the pull of his arm, chuckling. It’s harmless behaviour, just how Robert and Rebecca are. He’s heard Chrissie tell Lawrence that more than once. 

Chrissie sits opposite them and doesn’t comment when Robert puts his arm over the back of the booth and Rebecca moves just that slight bit closer to him. Not for the first time, Robert wonders if she’s wilfully ignorant of what’s going on between him and her little sister, because she’s certainly sharp enough to have guessed.

The waitress comes for their drinks orders, a sullen-faced teenager who has her pencil tapping impatiently against her notepad before she even asks what they’d like. Rebecca leans over Robert to speak, a hand landing on his knee for balance, and Robert sits very still as the scent of her perfume invades his nose. 

“Robert and I will have vodka-cokes and we’ll have three shots of tequila.” Rebecca says,

“Oh, no, I’m not drinking today.” Chrissie says apologetically to the waitress. 

“You okay?” Robert asks, playing the part of concerned boyfriend even as the hand Rebecca’s placed on his leg hasn’t moved away and is in fact inching further and further up toward his crotch. 

“I don’t want to be unable to drive if mum rings.”

“Robbie’s getting two shots then!” 

The waitress scribbles on her notepad and looks - Robert hadn’t been sure it was possible - more annoyed. 

“And for you?” aimed in Chrissie’s direction.

“Just an orange juice.”

Rebecca and Robert polish off two of the restaurant’s fattest, juiciest cheeseburgers - “I thought you were going vegan, Becs.” “I am vegan, just not on birthdays.” - paired nicely with three drinks and those shots. Chrissie had a salad. 

The sullen waitress is back hovering at their table, really ruining the giddy atmosphere that Robert and Rebecca have created.

“Any desserts for you today?” She asks, her voice flat.

“Oh, sorry,” Chrissie picks up her mobile phone, “I have to take this, could you come back?”

The waitress sighs loudly and Robert makes a mental note to find out her name so he can complain to Kevin about her tableside manner. 

“Dad? What’s wrong?”

Robert makes a conscious effort to focus his eyes and ears on his girlfriend. He’s fallen out of the habit of binge-drinking; the most he tends to do nowadays is a few pints during a business meeting if the client calls for that kind of treatment. A few vodkas gone straight to his head, wonders never cease.

“Oh, gosh… Okay, no… No, we’re still at lunch… No, dad, I have to be there… See you soon.”

She hangs up and Robert shoots his hand across the tabletop to hold hers,

“What’s happened?” 

“Something with mum. She’s got to go to the hospital. Dad’s taking her then coming here to pick me up.”

“Sorry. I’d come, but-”

“Neither of you are in any state to come to the hospital right now.” Chrissie has a way about her sometimes, that puts Robert in mind of one of his old schoolteachers. A sternness that she can’t quite shake; it’s actually a tone she uses on Lachlan a lot. “It’s fine. Enjoy the rest of your birthday. I’m going to wait outside.”

Rebecca waits all of ten minutes before pushing him out of the booth so she can get out.

“I’m going to pay, then I’m taking you to this underground club I know. It’s packed twenty-four-seven, Rob. You’re going to love it.”

She pushes him back into his seat and the kiss she lands on his lips catches him off-guard. She doesn’t seem to notice, though, as she heads up to the bar to pick up the bill. Robert smiles and relaxes. He thinks he’ll get them to leave the Becs Situation out of the documentary.

Robert thinks the sun must have set by now but he can’t know for sure due to the lack of windows in the club Rebecca takes him to. It’s not the shadiest place he’s ever stepped foot in, in fact the clientele seem to be of a certain wealth. He’d never have been allowed in this place not even a year ago. Life’s different now, he reminds himself, it’s better now. The club itself is a black box with a stage for the DJ and a bar on either end of the room. Strobe lights flash. There’s a mass of people sweating to terrible tracks that boom through the speakers. The bass makes the floor shake and his bones rattle.

Rebecca’s been relentlessly buying him drinks, insisting his birthday won’t be done right if he can remember it in the morning. The drinks, however, mean he’s pissing every thirty seconds.

He’s pushing his way back through the room, eyes searching for a flash of blonde hair in the crowd and he rolls his eyes when he sees her once again yelling an order at the bartender. Rolling his eyes has the unfortunate side effect of unbalancing him, making him lose his footing and almost fall face-first into a short woman’s very large breasts as they pass each other.

Rebecca’s ordered them four more tequila shots. Robert shoots his first one and gets flapped at,

“No! You were meant to wait! Stupid boy!” She yells over the ear-splitting techno. 

“What?”

“Give me your arm.” 

He holds it out to her - realising one of her bracelets has found its way onto his wrist at some point - pliant and swaying slightly from the amount they’ve had. She salts his arm and he gets it.

“Oh!”

She grins up at him, takes her shot and laps up the salt from his skin. She keeps licking at him, travelling down to his fingers until she takes two of them into her mouth. Robert pulls a face, unseen by her, grossed out slightly from so much tongue. 

She resurfaces and hands him his second shot, then throws the salt on her neck. There’s a challenge in her eyes that Robert relishes in. He takes the shot, and starts slobbering at her neck in the way he knows she wants him to. There’s an overly feminine moan that sounds above him, Chrissie never sounds like that. She pulls him off her by the hair,

“My turn.”

He’s going to have to wipe so much lipstick off his skin before he crawls into bed with Chrissie tonight. He feels her teeth start to get involved and has the wherewithal to snap “No marks.” at her. 

“You’re such a spoilsport,” is whispered into his ear, followed by a small bite on his earlobe.

She pulls him by the hand back to the dancefloor, he trips over someone’s foot, and that’s about when his memories get fuzzy.

Robert, lucky 24-year-old that he is, wakes up blissfully headache-free. He can hear The Smiths again, is it really that good a song to play it two days in a row? Morrissey fades out and Robert peels his sticky eyes open. He should probably start getting ready for work, check in with Chrissie that her mum’s okay, make sure Lachlan isn’t too sad about not getting to hang out with him, text Becs to make sure she’s still cool with keeping them a secret–

“A bit of The Smiths for your Thursday morning!”

The rest of the host’s monologue turns to white noise. Robert must have misheard. Or Lachlan recorded it and forgot to cut out the speech. 

Three… familiar… bangs on the bedroom door and–

“Happy birthday, Rob!”

Robert shoots upright, catching himself with his hands behind him and stares wide-eyed at the opposite wall. His birthday… was yesterday. There’s a vague hangover-adjacent feeling in his head and stomach but nothing like he was expecting to be dealing with today. Friday. 

Lachlan must be playing a prank. A weird prank that Robert doesn’t understand and doesn’t seem to have a punchline that he can discern.

“Lucky?” He shouts but the kid is already thumping his way downstairs.

Robert gets dressed on auto-pilot. He finds the outfit Chrissie had picked out for him yesterday hanging up in the wardrobe. Which… didn’t Chrissie say she was putting it straight in the laundry? He’d spilt stuff down it, fallen down the curb and muddied it up, he remembers doing that.

He goes downstairs slowly, his mouth half-open with the ideas of sentences; none of which are coming out. All the air is knocked out of him by a small body slamming into his middle.

“Lachlan.”

“Happy birthday! Mum says I have to go to school even though I want to hang out with you all day!”

Cold sweat breaks out on Robert’s forehead. He’s had deja vu before, felt like he’s experiencing something he’s done already; most of his fights with Andy circled back to the same topics and he’d always been aware of the cyclical nature of those shouting matches. Nothing compares to this. He did his birthday yesterday, and now he’s doing his birthday again today.

“Um, you’ve got to go to school, Lucky.” 

Robert’s forgotten what he said before. He’s certain it was a less flimsy response than the one he’s just given the boy. Lachlan looks up at him expectantly, holding on still, as if he’s waiting for more. 

Does he know?

“We can hang out after?” Lachlan prompts and it’s all getting too eerie for Robert.

“Yes, buddy. I just need to get something from my car, tell your mum I’ll be there in a sec.”

Lachlan furrows his brow at him, confused and knowing something is off even at ten-years-old. Robert can’t worry about it, he rushes out of the house, hearing Lachlan behind him:

“Mum! Robert said we’re going to hang out tonight so you need to give me my Xbox back.”

Robert can’t breathe. He pulls at his shirt which isn’t even buttoned up all the way and falls into the side of his car when his legs threaten to give out on him. It takes him three tries to grab the door handle and he throws it open and collapses into the driver’s seat. 

He doesn’t put the key in the ignition - the most sensible thought he’s had since he woke up - and he pulls in a breath that’s shaky despite his best efforts. He holds the steering wheel, sticky and cheap beneath his hands because he hasn’t managed to wheedle a car out of Chrissie yet, and 

Breathes.

In.

Out.

In.

His satnav flickers to life in the periphery of his vision. Confused and sufficiently freaked the fuck out, Robert turns to face it properly. 

Continue Journey? It asks him.

There’s a route programmed into it. Robert hasn’t used that sat-nav for months. Hadn’t needed to once he memorised the route from his dingy little flat to Chrissie’s, then work and back. Dreading whatever answer he’s going to get, he looks at where the destination is.

Robert heads back into the house with renewed vigour. It was a dream, maybe this is a dream, one of them is a dream and he’s going to roll with it. Shitty Sheila’s been and gone - Robert had waved to Lucky from the car - so it’s only Chrissie to face.

He goes into the kitchen and sees the breakfast she made for him yesterday sitting on the table.

“Robert! Finally! Take a seat, darling.”

Robert sits and starts eating without a word. He wonders if the food tastes the same because it’s the same food as yesterday or if it’s because all fry-ups kind of taste the same.

“Now, I’ve convinced dad to give you the day off, not tomorrow though so don’t get too drunk. I booked a table at that dinky restaurant you like so much. Rebecca is going to meet us there. Did you have anything planned?”

“Uh, yes, actually. I’d much rather spend the day with you. And Lucky, obviously, when he gets home.”

“You don’t have to hang out with him.”

“I’m his step-dad, of course I do. But… the other thing? We can be us two, no Rebecca today?”

“It’s a bit late to cancel on her now.”

“She’ll understand. And it’s my birthday, if I recall, so shouldn’t we do what I want to do?”

“We’re not spending all day upstairs, dad is still here!”

“That’s not what I was suggesting!”

“Fine. I’ll call Becs. And the restaurant.”

“Thank you.”

Chrissie still gets called away to help her mum, and Robert offers to go with her but ends up not, and Becs comes round, and they still have sex, and Lachlan comes home and they actually play on his Xbox (Robert knows where Chrissie puts the stuff she confiscates). 

Robert puts Lachlan to bed and decides to grab an early night himself. Chrissie isn’t home and he kind of wants this day to be over.

Robert feels tears behind his eyelids when he wakes up and hears Morrissey singing. 

“Lachlan!” He bellows.

The bedroom door bursts open and Lachlan grins at him,

“Happy birthday, Rob!”

Robert wants to scream.

The universe is laughing at him, or punishing him, or something. It’s flattering, in a way, to be important enough to the universe that it interferes with space and time just to hurt him.

Robert needs to be the most upstanding citizen he’s ever been: no Rebecca, no drinking, no letting his girlfriend and step-son down. 

“I’ve booked lunch at that dinky restaurant-”

“Oh, I thought we could spend some time with your mum and dad. Really make the most of the time left with her.”

Chrissie has tears in her eyes, he’s that considerate.

Lawrence orders afternoon tea at short notice and they have a very boring meal of tiny sandwiches and cream cakes with Ellen White. Lovely woman but she does nothing for Robert. Rebecca is invited to the changed plans and she keeps making eyes at him over the mini sausage rolls but he ignores it until, like clockwork, Ellen has a funny turn and has to go to hospital. Robert drives Chrissie and they don’t get back home until the early hours of the morning. They apologise to Lachlan together and he asks if his grandma is going to be okay. Neither of them can give him a proper answer and Robert stays with him, reading him bedtime stories, until the sun comes up.

Morality is overrated, clearly. That same damned song wakes Robert up. He’s never been a fan of The Smiths and even less so now. 

Victoria had been. Their mum had given her an old Walkman and her collection of cassette tapes and Robert remembers hearing his five-year-old sister warbling along to some of the most depressing lyrics he’d ever heard. The day he’d left, he’d said goodbye to her but she had been nodding her head along to whatever was playing in her headphones so he never got a reply. A sudden pain lances through Robert’s chest. He doesn’t let himself think about Victoria. She’s the only thing that might tempt him back to his childhood home so she’s been banished from his mind. His dad exiled him and Jack’s word is law in Emmerdale. 

You’re not welcome there. He reminds himself. No use dwelling on what can never be. And as if he’d go back, even if he could. He’s above Emmerdale now. He’s successful, and smart, and happy. Besides, he’s got to work out how to stop waking up on his birthday and actually make it to tomorrow when he sleeps.

In the interest of escape, Robert decides to recruit some help. He lays in bed until the door opens and Chrissie is bringing him breakfast-in-bed like she’d planned to.

“I thought Lucky might have woken you up with his stomping.” 

“Chrissie. Can I tell you something?” 

“Of course, darling. What’s wrong?”

“Something’s… happening to me.”

“Yes, it’s called turning twenty-four,” Chrissie laughs.

“No. I’ve lived this birthday three times already. I think… I think I’m in a timeloop.” 

Chrissie stares at him dumbfounded for a second, then snorts and that’s exactly the reaction Robert was dreading,

“Oh, I really thought it was going to be something serious for a second!”

“This is serious! I’m telling you the truth!”

“Were you drinking last night?”

“Chrissie-”

“Robert, I really thought you were better than flights of fancy. I don’t want you talking like this in front of Lucky, he struggles enough as it is.”

Robert sighs and walks past Chrissie and out of the house. 

“This is a nice surprise,” Rebecca purrs through the phone, “Bit early, though. We’re seeing each other later.”

“No. I’m coming to yours.”

Robert hangs up without waiting for her to say that’s okay. He knows it is. She never denies him.

He spends the day naked at her place. They both ignore the phone calls from Chrissie. Robert knows it’s nothing too serious anyway.

He keeps his eyes peeled open until 6:59 AM, watching the clock diligently, with Rebecca huffing in her sleep behind him.

Then he wakes up at 7:00 AM to Morrissey crooning down the mic to him, alone in the bed at Chrissie’s place.

“I’m going insane.” Speaking out loud to an empty room is just another reason to prove it.

“Where’s the gun, Chrissie? I know your dad keeps one in here!” 

Robert gestures manically around the room. Chrissie holds her hands up, looking between him and the door.

“What do you want a gun for, Robert?”

“Just tell me, damn it!” Robert slams his hand down on the desktop and pain rattles up his arm. He hisses. The pain means it’s real. The pain is bad.

He’s watching her closely enough that he notices when her eyes flicker to the safe. It’s less than half a second but it’s enough. He grins like a lunatic and sticks the code in. They haven’t technically told him the combination but he’s good at watching over people’s shoulders. 

His shaking hands drops some of the bullets as he tries to load the handgun and he can hear Chrissie telling her dad to call the police. 

He takes a deep breath and presses the gun to his temple.

The bullet to the head takes a few days to recover from. A blinding headache splits his skull in two any time he tries to open his eyes, and the despair that suicide isn’t even an escape option keeps him in bed. He wakes up, he sleeps, it’s today again. 

Robert feels stupid sitting in front of Lawrence’s computer googling ‘time loops’. Nothing helpful comes up and why would it? Time loops aren’t real for most people. He gets frustrated with the lack of answers so he buys a boat with Lawrence’s credit card. 

Robert’s never been religious but he considers the option of confession being his escape.

“Chrissie?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I’m sleeping with Rebecca.”

He doesn’t wake up in pain when Chrissie kills him. His stomach is repaired, despite knowing it had been split by the kitchen knife in her hand yesterday. He gets out of bed and pushes Lachlan down the stairs. 

Lawrence shoots him in the back. Not with the pistol in the safe, he uses the shotgun. It makes Robert feel like a lame horse.

Robert celebrates fifty days in the loop with a bottle of whiskey and an aimless drive. His sat-nav is still programmed for Emmerdale. He still ignores it. 

He pulls into a supermarket car park and dials Vic’s number. The phone doesn’t ring, just one long dial tone that Robert listens to until he passes out. 

Robert gets a tattoo. It says Sugden 5Ever in a rather fetching font across the outside of his right forearm.

“I didn’t know you were this wild, Rob.” Rebecca says.

She sounds unsure, like she’s finally reconsidering her devotion to chasing Robert Sugden. He doesn’t give a shit if she does. She’ll forget all of it tomorrow anyway. 

He grins at her, knowing there’s blood on his teeth from the fight he’d gotten into outside. He’d invited her out and taken her to the shadiest club he could find. The air is stifling and the music is deafening but the powder up his nose feels good. They make him feel good. And he’s bored of goading Lawrence or Chrissie into murdering him. Turns out, it takes sixty-two days for Robert to become completely self-destructive.

“Maybe you don’t know me very well!” Robert shouts. Knows he shouts but he can’t hear himself. She seems to understand, though. 

“I’m not joining in with whatever this is.”

“Don’t care!” He yells. “What do you think of her?” 

He gestures toward a silhouette of a woman, he thinks it’s a woman, on the outskirts of the dancefloor. She looks in that direction.

“Robert, I think we should go home. Chrissie will be worried.”

Robert laughs in her face. 

“You don’t give a fuck about Chrissie, Becs. Let’s not pretend.” 

“Robert-”

“I’m going to go shag that bird.”

He stumbles into the heaving mass on the dancefloor. He grabs someone, doesn’t know if it’s the same girl or not-girl he’d noticed earlier. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t have to care. 

When he comes up for air, Rebecca is nowhere to be seen.

Robert spends days staring at the ceiling. 

He won’t talk, won’t move, won’t eat. 

Chrissie calls a doctor in, who diagnoses him with Nothing Wrong. 

Every day.

He’s changed but nothing else ever does.

Robert stares at that damn sat-nav until the sun is gone and the stars are winking knowingly at him. 

Tomorrow. He has to go back.

Emmerdale looks the same as the day he left. The same farms and houses and people populating the village. The same village that chewed Robert up and spat him right back out. Everything in Lawrence’s house has become uncomfortably familiar but even here, with miles upon miles of countryside stretching out in every direction, Robert feels claustrophobic. He hasn’t been here, on Main Street, for nearly five years yet it could have been yesterday for the way Emmerdale stands still. There’s a few notable absences that he’s not ready to dwell on. 

He sits in his car and stares at the garage proudly displaying Dingle & Dingle above the door. It’s a sick joke that he hired Cain and the bloke didn’t hesitate to erase him from the facade of that garage. His grip on the steering wheel - still sticky and cheap - is tight. It doesn’t surprise him that the Dingles have encroached on his turf. Debbie had probably published an exposé on him in their monthly family newsletter and they couldn’t wait to pick up the tatters of the life he’d left behind.

Robert’s about to turn the ignition back on and leave without a trace - damn the escape plan, he’ll stay in it forever provided he doesn’t have to come back here again - when he catches sight of Andy walking down the road. He’s holding the hand of a little girl that must be Sarah, dark-haired and clutching a grubby doll to her chest. Robert hasn’t given much, if any, thought to his niece since the day he left. She was a means to an end to him, nothing more. He didn’t think about her growing up and it’s a shock to see her walking and talking. Robert’s so distracted looking at the girl that it makes him jump when he notices Andy is staring straight through his windscreen at him. 

So much for a quiet exit.

Andy says something to his daughter and she goes running off toward the garage, none the wiser. Robert opens his car door and steps out, willing his legs that have turned to jelly to not give up on him now.

“Hello, brother.” 

Andy’s eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open slightly. Lost for words at the sight of Robert back in Emmerdale.

“Sarah looks… healthy.” 

That’s a lame statement even to Robert’s own ears. Anger shadows Andy’s brow when he mentions his daughter and that feels better than the silent shock he’d been caught up in.

“Don’t you dare.” His voice comes out as a hiss.

Robert smiles at him, knows he looks smug and arrogant and shows off all his worst traits that used to annoy Andy so much when they were teenagers.

“Too soon, is it?” He says, voice sickly sweet, “Where is Debbie hanging about these days?”

The side of Robert’s car isn’t the most comfortable place to be shoved against but that’s where he finds himself. He laughs in Andy’s furious face, taking immense satisfaction in the fact that Andy’s hands are shaking where they’re curled in the front of his shirt. 

“Go away, Robert. No one wants you here.”

“I’m here to see Vic, then I’m leaving, don’t worry. Wouldn’t want to hang about in this dump longer than I have to.”

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“I’ll wait for her and let her tell me that herself, thanks.”

“Robert-”

“You can’t control me, Andy. I go where I like. Nice of you to remember my birthday, by the way.”

Andy looks incredulous,

“You’re disgusting. Stay away from me.” 

Andy pushes against his chest with his fists for good measure, and stalks off.

Robert goes to the Woolpack to nurse a pint until Vic gets back from school. He takes a table in the corner and lowers his head when anybody he recognises looks his way. He’s here for Vic, he doesn’t have to play nice with a bunch of other nobodies who turned their backs on him. His plan is: make amends with his little sister and go home to fall asleep next to his girlfriend. Proper upstanding family men get to leave the loop they’re eternally trapped in. 

Feeling like a creep hanging around the bus stop waiting for the school bus to get in, Robert puts on a brilliant show of casualness. Andy is parked up on the opposite side of the road, glaring daggers in his direction. Robert is steadfastly ignoring that. He’s got his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans, really regretting the choice to not bring a jacket. It’s like he’s gone into battle without a chestplate on. Everyone’s gaze like tiny stab wounds through his shirt. It’s a dark navy one today that he knows he looks good in; the amount of stares he gets from Lawrence as he saunters through the office increases dramatically every time he wears it. He usually only utilises this one when he and Chrissie have had a blow-up and he’s overheard Lawrence threatening to sack him to make her life easier. This shirt holds power, unfailing in its ability to lure that old man in. Hook, line, and sinker. 

Today, it’s for his own benefit that he chose this shirt. It’s a confidence boost he desperately needs.

The bus arrives at ten past four - same time, same bus that Robert and Andy used to get - and Robert watches various kids he doesn’t recognise spill out of the door. Groups of lads shoving each other and girls with sketchbooks held tight to their bodies. None of them are Victoria. He’s looking out for the ginger hair or the Walkman. A pair of girls step off the bus and Robert’s eyes slide off them, disregarding them as strangers, until Andy’s voice rings out,

“Vic!” 

One of the girls looks over to him and smiles and… Jesus, that’s his sister. She says goodbye to her friend - who Robert thinks is Kayleigh although he wouldn’t put money on it - and heads over to Andy. Robert follows her, in a slight daze from how different she is.

“What are you doing here, Andy?”

“Thought I’d come pick you up.”

“Me and Kayleigh-” Ha, at least Robert remembers some stuff about his little sister, “-were going to go to Ashley’s youth group tonight.”

Oh God, she better be lying, planning an underage boozer at the cricket pavilion or sommat. Robert can’t have a loser for a sister. Clearly, his absence has affected her swag.

“Things have changed.” Andy’s looking at Robert over the top of her head.

“Hey, Vic.”

Victoria spins around so fast Andy has to catch her before she topples over.

“Robert?”

He smiles at her,

“Remember me then?” 

She turns back to Andy,

“What’s he doing here?”

Andy glances at the other teenagers milling around.

“Get in the car. Both of you. We’ll talk at home."

Victoria isn’t happy he’s there. She sits, arms crossed, in her school uniform and god, she’s sixteen. She snaps at him and Andy tells him to back off but he can’t. 

“You never responded to our calls.” Vic finally says after a lot of trying to coax her into talking. “Dad died, Robert, and you couldn’t be bothered to come back and say goodbye.”

Robert looks at Andy who is suddenly finding his cup of tea immensely interesting. 

He’d never told them, then. That Robert had in fact been there. Had said goodbye to his father, in his own way.

“I got your messages, Vic. I heard them.”

“That makes it worse.”

“Then I don’t know how to make it better!”

She scowls at him,

“You can’t make anything better. You missed your chance. I don’t want to see you. Ever!” 

She stands up and stomps up the stairs. A door slams and Robert flinches. He sees the self-satisfied look on Andy’s face and goes to the front door.

“Fuck you.”

Not to be outdone by a teenage girl, Robert also slams the door.

There’s a lad standing in front of his car, staring at it like he’s never seen one before. He’s in overalls, though, so he must work at the garage. 

“There’s a tracker in it.” Robert says, already in a foul mood and wanting to leave the village. 

The lad jumps and turns around.

“You what?”

“You know, in case you’re thinking of jacking it.”

The lad sneers at him,

“Give over, mate. It yours, is it?”

“Yes. And I best be going, actually.”

Robert drives until he flies off the edge of the quarry. 

He wakes up drowning in Chrissie’s bed. He gasps and heaves and it takes a minute before his lungs realise that the water is gone. His whole body convulses, trying to save itself from a death that’s no longer happening.

Emmerdale looks the same as it did yesterday. Although, that’s a given. Everything looks the same once Robert’s seen it.

He parks near the garage again, mentally revising his approach to reuniting with his little sister. No Andy, Andy is poison. Intercept her off the bus, Andy won’t pick her up if he doesn’t know Robert’s here. Tell her I’m sorry, I meant to come down for dad’s funeral but it was just too hard. A little vocal wobble will sell it. Once she gives him the time of day, he can work out what’s gone wrong in the universe, correct it, and be on to Friday. 

He’s barely slammed the car door after him when he hears footsteps approaching him.

“Oi.” It’s the scruffy lad from yesterday storming his way. “Who the hell are you?” 

Robert’s confused. This kid isn’t following his script.

“Robert Sugden. Not that it’s any of your business.” 

“Vic’s brother?” Better than Jack Sugden’s disappointing son.

“Aaron!” Cain Dingle - looking a lot better than Robert remembers, he must have finally discovered haircuts - grabs the kid by the arm and starts dragging him back toward the garage. “What’s got into you today?”

Before he’s out of earshot, Robert hears Aaron offer some form of explanation:

“He’s not supposed to be here.”

He sees Vic wandering down from the bus stop. She’s on the phone but Andy is absent so he tries again. He offers apologies first and things go slightly smoother. She’s still a stroppy teenager who he doesn’t quite know anymore but he buys her a half-pint in the pub and she seems to forgive him somewhat, even though she ends up not liking the taste of beer and handing it back to him.

Robert ends up hanging about far longer than he had the Thursday previous. 

Which means he’s still around when the commotion starts that evening, people shouting in the street outside. He follows the wave of people out of the Woolpack and he’s about five steps outside when he sees Cain and some other boy dragging an unconscious Aaron out of the garage.

Robert gets a feeling of enlightenment that he’s heard happen to crazy religious people. Saving someone’s life must earn him a few universal brownie points, surely? If he saves this kid, gets in his way or talks him round or something, then he’ll be able to leave the loop. It’s not about his cheating or his lack of care or how he only pursued Chrissie because she’s rich, it’s about this kid. The other boy starts giving Aaron CPR and Robert is the only one smiling in the crowd that’s gathered. 

Robert’s never driven to Emmerdale so quickly. His eagerness is spurred on by the idea that this could be his last twenty-fourth birthday! Finally! If only he’d followed his sat-nav when he first noticed it, he could have been out of the loop ages ago. 

The garage isn’t even open when he arrives. He parks where he parked yesterday and, since he doesn’t know where Aaron lives, he waits. 

Cain opens up the garage by himself and Robert’s getting impatient. He knows that Aaron is at work today so where the hell is he? 

The only warning he gets is his car door opening, then suddenly he’s being hauled out of the car by his collar and pushed up against the wall.

“Aaron!” A woman shouts, voice familiar but Robert’s not currently in a position to ponder more on that. 

Aaron snarls in Robert’s face, shoving him against the wall more firmly. It’s more comfortable than the car so he’ll take it.

“Who are you?”

Robert smirks, feeling a thrill around this kid that he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

“Robert Sugden.”

“You said that yesterday.”

Robert’s whole body runs cold. Because yesterday. Aaron shouldn’t know about yesterday. Nobody ever, ever knows about all of Robert’s yesterdays. 

“You’ve just been charged with ABH, do you really want another thing added to your rap sheet?” That’s Paddy, of all people, pulling Aaron away. Aaron fights him but loses, getting marched up to the vet’s house. Robert watches it all happen, numb.

Robert knocks for ages before the woman finally opens the door with a very annoyed,

“What?”

And Robert finally places her: Chas Dingle. And what must be her freshly grown-up son. Robert vaguely recalls seeing him around the village in days long past, dragged around behind Chas with a face like thunder and his hands glued to his gaming system.

“Can I talk to Aaron?”

“No. I’m talking to him. Just go away.”

“Robert!” Aaron, from somewhere beyond Robert’s eyeline. “I’ll meet you in the pub in a bit. Gotta get an earful, first.”

Robert stands at the bar, all thoughts of Vic and Andy forgotten, as he waits for Aaron to join him. He’s tapping his foot and fidgeting constantly, getting a fair few more stares than he did a couple of days ago. Whatever, they’ll never see him again after this.

Aaron strolls in, eventually, all casual like nothing significant is in the process of happening. 

“Pint, please, love.” He says to whoever is behind the bar (Robert doesn’t care enough to find out) and, once he has it, he gestures to Robert with his head and they find a table. 

Aaron takes a sip of his pint, sucks some air between his teeth, and puts his glass on the table. Then he leans back in his seat and folds his hands over his stomach, looking at Robert like he’s assessing him. 

It’s all a show. A pantomime of casualness so he can ignore that Robert knows how this day will end. They both do, but they’re both avoiding saying it’s behind you.

“You remember,” is how Robert opens the conversation when it’s apparent that Aaron won’t.

“So do you.”

Closed-off teenage boy. Robert was one once but he hadn’t realised how annoying they are. 

“Alright, Aaron, let’s not do the whole attitude thing. I’ve lived this day one-hundred-and-two times and it gets old fast.”

Aaron’s eyes widen and he leans forward, the movement seemingly involuntary. His pint’s back in his hand and being steadily drained in between speaking.

“That many?”

“Yeah? How many have you had?”

“I haven’t been keeping count but, maybe, twenty or so?”

Robert doesn’t begin to wonder how that works. 

“And gassing yourself in the garage? Was that the original plan or something you did just for me?”

“No, that’s what I always do.” Aaron says, “I tried doing it differently once but I woke up in jail anyway.”

“You start the day in jail?”

“Beat up some bloke yesterday, didn’t I?”

“Why?” 

The question puts Aaron off. He shrugs and averts his eyes and pushes his glass in Robert’s direction.

“Your round, innit?” 

“I’m not here for a Dingle knees-up, you know.” 

Aaron sneers at the comment,

“It’s two pints, mate,” His eyes assess Robert’s shirt and blazer, “and you can obviously afford it.”

Robert gets Aaron his pint, and asks the girl for a pen and paper. 

“This is payment,” he says, putting the glass down, “for information.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

Robert finds out that Aaron wakes up at 08:15, and steps out of jail an hour and fifteen minutes later. He hasn’t found a way to make that process any quicker. Aaron tried to commit suicide the first time and has been assuming this is some kind of carbon monoxide induced hallucination until he met Robert. If only. Aaron tries to kill himself every single day but doesn’t wake up feeling any after-effects of it. Robert deduces that it’s because he fails to actually die. Aaron also makes fun of his note-taking and calls him posh three times. 

He’s a frustrating person to be sharing this experience with.

Robert asks about his movements, his interactions with various people, whether he’s tried to stop it from repeating.

“How am I meant to do that? This stuff ain’t even real.”

“Anything you’ve noticed will help. Anything not quite right sometimes.”

“Mate, you’re the only thing that’s out of place.”

And there’s something in that. Robert’s ended up in Emmerdale for a reason, and the two of them are in this together for a reason. Robert just wishes he knew what that reason was.

Robert is at the cop shop in Hotten. Paddy and Chas are here but he knows Aaron will come with him as soon as he sees him. They have to work this out. 

He sees Aaron come through the door, his eyes already on Chas and Paddy. He’s acting the day out like a routine he’s rehearsing; anticipating every move. 

“Aaron!” Robert says before he’s taken away. Aaron startles and his eyes land on Robert and he changes course. “My car’s outside.” 

“Cool.”

Chas does her usual squawking bit that’s a mirror image of how Robert remembers her - maturing isn’t for everyone - but the two of them ignore it. She won’t remember in the morning. 

Robert is hitting ninety on the country roads, confident driving here in a way he’s never quite managed in Manchester. 

“You choose to do it, every time.” Robert says and he knows Aaron doesn’t need clarification on what it is. “Why?”

“Thought slitting my wrists would hurt too much.”

Robert pinches the bridge of his nose and feels about eighty-years-old when he realises he’s done it.

“Aaron, would you- Help me out here, please. I don’t want to be reliving my birthday as much as you want to be reliving this.”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says, and his tone is sincere but Robert fears he knows him too well already and prepares for a cutting comment. “Poor Robert, missing his birthday party to talk to the mental kid who wants to die. Tiniest violin, mate.”

Robert doesn’t bother going to the village. Aaron’s been entirely unhelpful so far and he’s not a man known for his patience and caring. Saving his life isn’t worth the effort. Robert’ll find a different way out. He steals Lachlan’s noise-cancelling headphones and potters around the house, blocking out the noise of Chrissie trying to tempt him to a restaurant. He’s thinking and comes up blank. 

“Robert, there’s a boy here to see you.” Chrissie informs him at around three, knocking the headphones off his ears. 

Aaron stands behind her, hands in his hoodie pockets with a sheepish look on his face.

“What do you want?”

“Happy birthday,” Aaron says, giving Chrissie a sidelong glance.

“I’ll leave you both to it. Can I get you a drink or anything?”

“Nah. Cheers, though.”

“How did you know where to find me?” Robert asks when Chrissie’s gone. Aaron shrugs,

“Internet.”

“How did you even get here?”

“Nicked Paddy’s car. Why didn’t you come today?”

“I’m sick of fighting tooth and nail to get some semblance of honesty out of you.”

Aaron’s face does something complicated, his jaw clenching and unclenching a couple of times.

“I kill myself because I want to be dead.” His voice is solemn, more serious than Robert’s heard it yet. “So I do it every time in case that’s the last time.”

“But you know it doesn’t work. I’ve watched Cain and Adam save you. Multiple times.”

Aaron nods.

“We’re in a loop. Them saving me might be what caused it.”

“You think that’s what’s gone wrong in the universe? That you should be dead and life will go on.”

Aaron shrugs, raising his hand to his mouth and starting to chew anxiously at a hangnail.

“Maybe.”

“Whiskey?” Robert offers, going to the sideboard and getting two glasses of Lawrence’s best.

Aaron doesn’t take it when he offers so he puts it on the table instead. 

“That bloke you mentioned. Who’s he?”

Aaron glares at him, then looks away.

“His name’s Jackson. They’ve charged me for ABH and think it’ll be a worse sentence ‘cause… ‘cause he’s gay.”

Robert blows out a long breath,

“Couldn’t have picked on some meathead harassing women, could ya?”

“I wasn’t-” Aaron’s voice is wound tight. He’s clearly close to giving Robert a repeat performance. “I weren’t picking on him, alright? He- I know him. He- He was just-”

Aaron can’t spit it out, whatever it is that he wants to say. 

“Drink your whiskey,” Robert instructs. 

There’s nothing like hard liquor to loosen the tongue. Aaron throws the liquid down his throat and slams the glass back down on the table, so hard Robert is surprised it doesn’t shatter in his hand. 

“All I need you to do, mate, is stop Cain and Adam. Let me die. See what happens.”

Robert has to chase Aaron halfway across the village before he speaks to him. Andy catches sight of him (unfortunate) and calls out his name. Robert ignores him. It’s not about him. He doesn’t have to make up with Andy to get out of this loop. It’s about Aaron. Aaron who he finally corners in the cafe.

“Aaron, please, talk to me.”

Robert’s not begged for anything since he was a teenager.

“What about? I told you what you need to do.”

“Come on, I’m not gonna let you die.”

“I’ve got nothing else to say to you, mate. If you want the loop to end, you know what to do.”

Robert sits nursing a pint outside the Woolpack. He thinks the sun has burnt his cheeks. It’ll heal itself when the day restarts. Unless… 

Robert’s been contemplating what Aaron said for over an hour. His instinct says it’s worth a try. Give Aaron’s life in exchange for continuing with his own. In the great karmic debt scheme, it seems like a fair trade. Robert knows that Aaron doesn’t lock the garage until gone four. He’s still got some time to make a decision.

If he stops anybody from saving Aaron, and they wake up in the loop again tomorrow then it’ll prove to Aaron that he doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe he’ll stop trying. 

More likely, Aaron will assume Robert didn’t hold up his end of the bargain and keep trying until the fog of carbon monoxide is the only thing he remembers. 

The garage stands as it always has, set back from Main Street. An innocuous building that hosts Aaron in his pursuit of death. At the moment, he’s exchanging light-hearted insults back and forth with Ryan Lamb which results in Ryan chucking a greasy rag he’s holding at Aaron’s face and walking away, chuckling. Aaron watches him go, then he notices Robert watching him in return and the smile slips off his face. He hides himself underneath the bonnet of the car he’s been working on but Robert’s not letting him get away that easily. He marches over and shoves Aaron none too gently in the side,

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Why do you want to die? Because you might get banged up for beating up some fairy?”

Aaron straightens up, jaw tight,

“He has a name,”

Robert waves a hand dismissively,

“Semantics. You did assault him, you should go to prison.”

“I’m not trying to avoid prison by dying. Everyone in my family has been to prison, it don’t scare me.”

“Then why?” Robert implores,

“Back off, mate.” Aaron brandishes the wrench he’s using at him,

“Gonna beat me now, are ya?”

“Yeah, I might. And I won’t stop.”

“Go on then!” Robert is reckless and Aaron is opaque and infuriating, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

There’s a lot of shouting. Robert sees Cain and Adam, right on time, through the burst blood vessels in his eyes, trying to pull Aaron off him but he’s like a wild animal. Unleashed and terrifying, with a one-track mind. Robert reflexively curls up against the harsh hits to his stomach and head and waits for the whack that’s going to send him back to this morning.

There’s a faint ghost of bruises on his ribs but nothing to be worried about as Robert strolls over to Aaron at the garage. He’s staring at the clean wrench in his hand like he doesn’t quite know what he’s looking at.

“Feel better?” Robert asks, grinning. 

Call him a masochist, but he knows he reached some kind of catharsis laying on the ground taking the brunt of the worst parts of Aaron’s personality.

Aaron jumps and looks over at him, spooked.

“You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re okay.”

“Told you I’d see you, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t know I’d actually go that far.”

Aaron looks at the wrench again. It’s not the day for a big talk, Robert can sense that. 

“Come on. Ditch work. Let’s go somewhere fun.”

Aaron tests him for a few days, moving too quickly into his space unexpectedly or pulling his arm back like he’s going to throw a punch. Every time Robert doesn’t flinch, he settles back into his skin a little more. He starts joking around, treating Robert like a friend. He starts smiling when he sees Robert pick him up from the police station. Robert would never admit it to Aaron but he doesn’t have any friends who seem happy to see him when they do; they’re work colleagues or the husbands of Chrissie’s friends. Having Aaron as his own, it makes Robert feel good too.

There’s a cold wind cutting through Robert’s very thin jacket. He’d let Aaron drive, thinking it might open him up but so far his destination has only resulted in Robert’s teeth chattering and Aaron kicking stones down the length of the sand.

“Couldn’t have picked somewhere warmer?” Robert says, hunching up his shoulders to try and preserve some warmth.

Aaron chuckles,

“Told you it’d be windy.”

“Why here, anyway?”

Aaron’s smile drops and he wanders away from Robert.

Aaron is silent for so long that Robert starts talking to other people. There’s a group that are planning to start up a fire once the sun sets and Robert signs them up to join in. He takes a detour to a corner shop to buy a bottle of wine for them both, picking out the best merlot they have. 

The two of them settle in on the edge of the group, getting ignored for the most part which Robert knows suits Aaron just fine. 

The group has dispersed when Robert tries to break Aaron’s vow of silence.

“Talk to me, Aaron. Please. I want to understand.” There’s that please word again. Robert hasn’t been this polite to someone since his dad smacked him in the middle of a restaurant for giving attitude to a waitress when he was ten. “Why did you pick this beach?”

“If I answer your questions, you have to answer some of mine too.”

“Deal.”

“Me and mum came here once, when I was seven.”

Robert waits for some kind of elaboration that isn’t forthcoming. Aaron’s holding his hand out expectantly for the wine.

“And?”

“And what? I found a fossil here; wanted to see if there were any others.”

“You can’t keep it if there was. That’s not the reason.”

“Calling me a liar?”

“Is that your question?” Robert asks even as he hands the bottle over.

“No. Prick. Um, why did you leave the village?”

A collapsed wall and a flipped car and the stench of burning petrol swim to the forefront of Robert’s mind.

“Dad wanted me gone. And I had bigger dreams than Emmerdale.”

True enough to be true. Nevertheless, Aaron scoffs.

“That’s barely an answer.”

“My turn,” Robert says, snatching the bottle back from Aaron. “why did you stay in the village?”

“Dad kicked me out. Di’nt have nowhere else to go.” Aaron throws a stick into the bonfire. “Where’ve you been then?”

“Manchester. Got a job at my girlfriend’s dad’s company. Living the high life, thanks very much.”

“Lucky you.” Aaron’s tone is flat.

Robert realises that he’s stepping in a minefield here. Aaron’s got about ten bombs planted that could go off at any time. He wants answers. He doesn’t want to detonate anything explosive.

“Where would you go? If you could go anywhere.” 

“Ibiza’s cool.”

“Think about it, Aaron. Ibiza is not your ideal destination.” 

Aaron stares into the fire for a while. Robert lets him have silence; entertains himself by sniffing the wine and pretending he can detect the notes in it.

“Mum likes Greece. Athens ‘n that. She and I talk about going there sometimes.”

“That’s nice.” And still not quite what Robert wanted from him. Better than Ibiza, though.

“What’s your favourite movie?”

Robert huffs out a laugh,

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not everything has to be serious, does it?”

“I guess not. I’ve loved Star Wars since I was a kid. Return of the Jedi.”

The wine is creating a nice red feeling in Robert’s head. This is why he picked wine: quick to get ya drunk and tastes better than spirits drunk straight. 

“What’s yours?”

One of Aaron’s shoulders rises and falls with a shrug,

“Top Gun?”

“You askin’ or tellin’ me?”

“It’s a good movie.”

“Didn’t say it’s not.”

“My turn,” Aaron lays back in the sand - the wine’s probably getting to him too - and takes another swig, “what’s your worst childhood memory?” His voice has gone floaty and faraway.

Robert lays down next to him, nudging him gently in the arm.

“Alright?”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of my childhood was bad,” Robert tells him,

“You reckon?”

“Dad had a lot of financial worries. He cheated on my mum, mum cheated on him. Jackie, uh, my brother died. My cousins died, Uncle Joe died, mum died. Me and Andy were at each other’s throats all the time. It was a lot of shit.” Robert’s telling enough truth to be true again. Family loss and death were the easy parts of his youth.

“Not being very specific.”

“It’s not something I like to think about.”

“Fine.”

“What’s your best childhood memory?” 

Aaron turns his head to look at him, the shock in his expression is funny.

“What? That’s not what I asked.”

“I know. Not everything has to be serious, does it?”

“Pain in the arse.”

“Go on, Azza, best memory. Go.”

“Never call me Azza-”

“No, I think it’s gonna stick, that one.”

“Better not. The best time, uh, was…” Aaron trails off.

Robert looks at him, concerned. Aaron’s got his bottom lip caught between his teeth and the fire is reflecting off his eyes, making the tears in them obvious.

“Hey,” Robert leans up on his elbow, “Azza, what’s wrong?”

Aaron laughs and it sounds devastatingly sad,

“Stop calling me Azza. I have one. I have a good memory.”

“You sure?”

“Mhm, lay back down.” Robert does as he’s told. “It was- Um, my sister Liv was like, a month old. My dad was away on business or maybe he was shagging his mistress, I don’t care. It was just me and Sandra and Liv. She let me take care of Liv a lot. Trusted me. I got to feed her and there was one night, it was past my bedtime but I was watching Liv sleep. Sandra told me-” Aaron stops to clear his throat, “-she told me that I was good with her. That- that I was good.”

Robert doesn’t know what to say. He understands that he’s been shown a delicate part of Aaron that hasn’t been trusted to many, if any, people. He’s more skilled at navigating a minefield than he thought.

“Aaron-”

“Who did you lose your virginity to, Bertie?”

The laugh bursts out of Robert before he can think about it. What a U-turn in conversation.

“Nicola King. Or, well, she was Blackstock back then.”

“Nicola? She’s ancient!”

“Oi! She’s not that old!”

“She’s like forty!” 

“Alright, judgy, who was yours?”

Aaron starts giggling. Robert stares at him, bewildered. He’s never heard Aaron laugh like that. Aaron catches his eye and laughs harder. His mouth moves as if he’s going to speak but he’s laughing before he can. 

“Aaron! Come on!” 

Aaron manages to get control over his vocal cords,

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell ya but you gotta promise not to get mad.”

“Why would I- You didn’t do it with Nicola too?”

“No!” Aaron laughs again, smaller. He looks at Robert through the corner of his eye, “It was Vic.”

Aaron doubles over with laughter at the look on Robert’s face. He can only guess what he looks like but it’s definitely mostly sheer horror. 

“My sister?”

“You weren’t around to protect her honour, were ya?” 

Aaron’s lucky that Robert’s drunk enough that he also finds it amusing.

“Hope you used protection.”

“Course. Don’t want no sprogs running about.” Aaron grins, “Me shaggin’ your sister is more normal than you shagging Nicola, by the way. My turn again.”

The wine is gone and the fire is down to its last embers. Robert has his eyes closed and a hand on Aaron’s arm to make sure he doesn’t drift away. 

“Chrissie didn’t even get me a cake.”

“You what?” Aaron snorts,

“It’s my birthday, Azza. No cake.”

“You’re well weird, you.”

“How would you feel? Your girlfriend doesn’t get you a cake on your birthday.”

“Not really something I have to worry about.”

Robert hums,

“You’ll find her one day.”

Aaron’s arm disappears, prompting Robert to open his eyes. For some reason, Aaron looks annoyed.

“Let’s go drink drive. If we don’t die on the way, I’ve got a garage waitin’ for me.”

Aaron dies on impact. Robert has to wait for his blood to run out from where it’s oozing out around the metal pole stuck through his chest cavity. He slowly loses consciousness, staring at Aaron.

Aaron’s pale and pretty and so, so young. 

Robert’s chest doesn’t hurt when he wakes up. He winces in sympathy for Aaron, though. His body broke completely last night and it can’t be fun recovering from that in a prison cot.

He doesn’t bother to tell Chrissie he’s going, never does anymore, and he drives the well-worn route to the police station.

He waits. Aaron will be out at 09:34. He watches the clock until it ticks over, and then drops his eyes to the door. Aaron walks through and smiles at him despite the way he’s clutching at his stomach and limping pitifully. 

He comes straight over to Robert, ignoring Chas who is there, same as always. 

“Can we stop somewhere for painkillers?” He asks,

“‘Course we can. Come on.”

Robert stands in line at the closest Asda pharmacy he could find. Aaron has limped off somewhere, promising to be back soon. Robert’s stuck behind one towering bloke wearing flip-flops and an old lady who can’t hear the pharmacist trying to talk to her about payment for the vast amount of meds she’s picking up. Robert just wants some co-codamol, it shouldn’t take this long.

Aaron arrives back at his side when the bloke is making a gross joke about sticking it in after the pharmacist held the card machine to him. He’s holding a green bag for life that Robert makes a questioning face at.

“For me to know and you to find out,” is all Aaron will say. 

Robert pays for the painkillers and Aaron pulls a bottle of water out of the bag to take them with. Smarter than he looks, that kid. He settles back into the passenger seat with a happy sigh,

“Drive until they kick in, would ya?”

Robert grins, taking his eyes off the road to aim it in Aaron’s direction.

“Where do you want to go?”

“You said you got a flat, didn’t you?”

“It’s a bit grotty.”

“I was sleeping rough only a few months ago, Robert, don’t be soft.”

It’s been ages since Robert’s been to his own flat, even before the loop started. He’s paid at least two months rent without having stepped foot in the place. It’s small, just an open-plan kitchen-living space and one bedroom. A testament to what a terrible time Robert was having before he met Chrissie. Alone, and broke, and breathing in mould spores every night hoping they’d kill him.

Aaron puts the bag and the meds on the counter while Robert wanders over to the couch; some cheap grey thing that he found in a charity shop. 

“Do you mind if I nick some of your clothes to wear? Maybe a shower?”

“Go ahead.”

Robert doesn’t know what to do with himself when Aaron disappears. It’s his own home, has been for over a year, yet it feels like foreign soil to him. He’s remoulded himself into someone different, someone better, someone who doesn’t fit in this miniature flat he used to occupy. Irrational hatred builds inside him; for who he was, for the fact that that kid is still inside him somewhere. Kill the old version dead, he decides. Chrissie is his future. Get out of the loop and commit to her, properly. 

There’s a ring in his bedside drawer at Chrissie’s house. It’s flashy and big, exactly the kind of status symbol that Chrissie loves. He bought it after she first hinted to him about an engagement. It’s time to use it. Get hitched to the pretty rich girl in the big house on the hill and he’ll never have problems again.

“You do not look like the type of guy to have this in your wardrobe.”

Robert turns to look at what Aaron’s running on about and sees he’s wearing Robert’s old grey hoodie that has the seams on the outside. There’s only one reason he kept that hoodie; it’s a reminder of Robert’s no son of mine that was his motivation at one point to stay the fuck away from the village. That hoodie is covered in Jack Sugden’s disgust and Aaron’s put it on like it’s just a piece of clothing. 

Robert fixes a smile onto his face,

“Misspent youth.”

“I bet.”

Aaron goes over to his Asda bag sitting on the counter,

“Don’t watch.”

Robert stares at the blank TV screen as Aaron makes a load of noise behind him. There’s the rip of cardboard and plastic and the definite sound of sticky tape being unravelled. Robert’s foot starts tapping anxiously the longer he’s forbidden to see what’s going on. It’s a nervous habit he’d banished in meetings and client dinners but can’t seem to help while sitting on his own sofa. 

“Okay. You can look now.”

Robert stands like a fire’s been lit up his arse and sees that there’s a chocolate cake with twenty-four glowing candles shoved in the top and a hastily wrapped gift sitting next to it.

“I’m not gonna sing, before you get any ideas,” Aaron informs him.

Robert walks slowly over to the counter, eyes not leaving the cake. 

“Blow ‘em out and make a wish.”

Robert knows what the obvious wish is but he can’t bring himself to make it. He closes his eyes and wishes for them both to be okay, instead. 

“Don’t say it out loud.” Robert shakes his head, rendered mute from Aaron’s kindness. “And here.”

The gift is passed over and Robert raises an eyebrow at the Peppa Pig wrapping paper,

“Was the cheapest one, mate, don’t start.”

Robert rips it open and two copies of the same video game tumble out into his hands. It’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars on either Xbox or Playstation,

“Didn’t know which console you’d have.” 

Robert hands him the Playstation game and directs him to put it in while he grabs two forks and the cake to put on the cushions between them.

Aaron is chatty while playing, sat on the floor with his legs stretched out under Robert’s coffee table. He doesn’t know the last time he vacuumed but Aaron said he didn’t care. They keep it light, Aaron tells him a few stories about Vic which makes Robert equal parts happy and jealous that this lad knows his sister better than he does.

“She’s doing alright. Andy does look out for her.”

“As long as you’re not pursuing her anymore,” 

Aaron glances at him, then looks back at the screen,

“I’m not, ‘cause I’m gay anyway.”

The way Aaron stares at the TV is very deliberate and comforting because Robert loses control of all of his facial muscles. He doesn’t think the open-mouthed, gormless look would instill much confidence in Aaron. 

“Oh,” he eventually chokes out, “good for you.”

Aaron snorts,

“Thanks.”

“So… Jackson is your boyfriend?”

“No. Well… not really. Not anymore, for sure.”

Robert laughs,

“Getting beaten up is a dealbreaker for most people.”

Robert heads downstairs to meet the pizza delivery guy in front of his building and comes back to Aaron passed out on the floor with the co-codamol box empty next to his head. 

“What is wrong with you?” Robert shouts, shoving Aaron in the chest.

Aaron grins at him,

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t buy me a birthday cake and then overdose in my living room!” 

He shoves him again and maybe it’s Robert’s turn to kill. 

“I got itchy, it was gone four.”

Aaron’s acting like it’s all some big joke. Like he didn’t give Robert the best followed swiftly by the worst birthday of his life. Like Robert didn’t sit there, stroking his sweaty hair as his body seized, still wrapped in the no good hoodie in the awful flat. 

Robert gets into a fight with Andy in the middle of the street, not for the first time, both of them screaming vicious words at each other; knowing exactly where to aim despite the years apart. 

It’s dark and Aaron’s crying and the garage door is cold and hard against Robert’s back and his arse is going numb but he’s not going to move because if he moves Aaron is going to go in that garage and turn on that damn car.

“Can’t you kill yourself tomorrow?”

Aaron wipes his eyes,

“What?”

“I’m not saying don’t kill yourself, just postpone it.” 

Robert’s never claimed to be a hero. He likes Aaron well enough but if this is what he needs to do then he’ll do it. It helps that he’s mad at him about the previous loop.

“Wow. Remind me to recommend your services to CAMHS.”

Robert can’t help the amused tilt of his lips.

“They’d be lucky to have me.”

Robert’s so tired. 

“I’ll do it tomorrow.” Aaron says, interrupting their silence.

“Hm?”

“I’ll kill myself tomorrow. Once we’re out.”

“Okay. Good. Thank you.” 

Aaron nods and clambers to his feet and walks back up to the vet’s house. Robert knows he needs to get up and drive home too, so he’s actually there with his girlfriend when Friday ticks into existence. Exhaustion weighs him down, keeps him rooted to the cement that he used to walk over every day for work without a thought. If he’d known, he’d have burnt the place down before he left.

Robert Sugden, of Emmerdale, rips out beloved singer Morrissey’s vocal cords will be in the newspapers tomorrow. He rolls over, wraps a pillow around his head, and closes his eyes.

“Robert, I know it’s your birthday but you can’t spend the whole day in bed.” Chrissie says, her voice too shrill and chirpy for his ears that have become over-sensitive.

“Leave me alone.” 

Robert wakes up with a face hovering above him that decidedly doesn’t belong to his girlfriend.

“Aaron,” he groans. 

Aaron grins down at him,

“It didn’t work.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“So it’s gotta be you.” Robert makes a noise that must sufficiently communicate his confusion, “You’re the one who has to release us. I’ve done everything.”

“You think I haven’t? I’ve been in this loop longer than you, if you remember.” 

“Whatever. It’s still you. What aren’t you telling people?”

Jack Sugden, becoming nothing but dust in his coffin, springs to mind and warns him to keep his mouth shut.

“Nothing. I’ve got the life I always dreamed of having as a kid.” Except that one lapse, when brown eyes and short hair and a hard body was all he could think about.

“You must’ve been a boring kid.” 

Robert has his eyes closed but he feels the weight of Aaron rolling over the top of him to lay down in his marriage-bed beside him. Bold move from the bloke who kills himself because he’s gay.

“I’ve already tried confessing to Chrissie that I’m sleeping with her sister. I even apologised to Andy. Andy! Nothing changed.”

“That’s surface-level stuff. There’s gotta be deeper layers to the great Robert Sugden.”

“Maybe this is just our lives now. Maybe nothing we do changes anything.”

His arm smarts from the hard punch Aaron lands on it. It’s enough to make Robert open his eyes and look at the lad, offended.

“Ow!”

“You deserve it. Robert, I’ve been completely honest with you and you’ve barely given me anything back. You’re the only person I’ve said the word gay to, you get that? It’s your turn.”

“Go away, Aaron. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

Robert forces himself into the ensuite and Aaron’s disappeared by the time he comes back out.

Robert assumes Aaron has gone home. Left to slit his wrists in private. So he jumps out of his skin when he walks into the living room and Aaron is sitting on the couch.

“DVD?”

“Alright.”

Robert lets Aaron pick and laughs when the opening screen for Groundhog Day comes up.

“You know it’s not a documentary, don’t you? The answers aren’t enshrined in a Bill Murray movie?”

“I don’t know,” Aaron says, “Ghostbusters was pretty life-changing for me.”

They sit on opposite sides of the couch but at some point they’ve both got their legs up on the cushions that Chrissie tells him are too expensive to put your feet on and their limbs kind of become entangled.

“I think it holds up,” Aaron declares when the credits roll, “given we have first-hand experience and that.”

Robert laughs but it’s weak. He’s gearing himself up for something big. 

“You’re right.”

“You see! Bill Murray, Rob, he’s-”

“No, not about Bill flamin’ Murray. About me. I haven’t been honest and I should probably give it a go.”

“Oh.” Aaron turns the TV off and straightens up, “Okay. Go on.”

“I need you to understand, before I say anything, that I love Chrissie and Lachlan and the life I have.”

“Alright.”

“They buried my dad last year.”

“Yeah, Vic told me about it.”

Robert nods. He adjusts so he’s facing Aaron with his back to the arm of the sofa, his eyes dropped to stare at his own hands.

“I hadn’t seen him since I was nineteen. Didn’t want to see him, if I’m being honest. He sent me away from the village, from my family, my home. He was- He was a really great dad when I was young: he was attentive and loving and hard-working. When he had my mum, it was nice. A normal childhood. He was a farmer so he expected discipline: early mornings, homework and chores done off my own back, stuff like that. He also had certain… assumptions about how my life would turn out. Thought I’d want to take over the farm, with a wife and two-point-five kids. I hated the farm work, though, and I made that clear from an early age. And I was fifteen and we’d hired this lad to work on the farm. He was older than me, a bit. I liked him. Nothing more than a little childish crush but that’s enough when you’re fifteen, isn’t it? It was another way to rebel, too. A way for me to steal part of the farm right out from under dad’s nose. No one was meant to know except me and him, private satisfaction whenever I caught his eye coming home from school or whatever. Dad caught us in my room.”

“What?” Aaron scoffed, “You just took him up to your room like that?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think… I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. Dad… he went mad. Fired the lad, leathered me, and… He said it was for skiving but I knew that wasn’t true. He couldn’t look at me for weeks. That’s when it all went wrong, I guess. He was still my dad but our relationship had changed.

“I thought I’d buried it. I stole Andy’s girlfriends, I cheated on every bird who’d give me the time of day. Ladies’ man, Robert Sugden. I was trying. Then Andy killed mum and shot dad and he kept getting forgiven. Dad went to prison for Andy. He never beat Andy for the crimes he committed. Kissing- Kissing that lad was a worse crime in my dad’s eyes than murdering mum was.

“When I was nineteen, the youngest King brother moved to the village. Max. He was nice. Too nice for the Kings. He would have actually made a pretty good Sugden.

“I was dating Katie, at first, so I didn’t care. Didn’t talk to him. And there was this war over some field between us and the Kings. Max wasn’t really involved, not until Jimmy got stabbed. I was-” Robert gives Aaron a sidelong glance. For some reason this lad’s opinion has become important to him. He doesn’t want him to think badly of what he’d done; not that his life was very morally upstanding outside of this. “-kind of playing both sides. I was helping the Kings, helped Jimmy set fire to Andy’s barn, didn’t care when they beat him up. It made dad disown me but it made Max notice me.

“He worked at the vet’s with Paddy, back when Paddy had hair,” Robert’s laugh is wet and he thinks there must be tears on his cheeks. “He was twenty-five and, I don’t know, mature? I wanted to seem mature. I don’t know if I liked him or if I wanted to be him - in the long run it doesn’t matter - but he saved his brother he didn’t… vow to destroy him like I did. If me and ‘im had switched lives we’d have been a lot happier. The Kings are businessmen, the Sugdens are farmers. I’m cutthroat, Max was kind. 

“He invited me to a rugby match once and I’ve always wondered if that was him trying to, you know, make his move. I was busy seducing Debbie Dingle at the time-”

“You what? Our Debbie?”

Ah, the unfailing Dingle loyalty to each other. Robert didn’t know Aaron felt so strongly about it; the Dingles had all but abandoned him for most of his life.

“Yes, Debbie. She’d had Andy’s baby and- That’s not important. We-”

“Hang on. She had that kid when she was like fifteen. You said you were nineteen?”

“Aaron, it was a long time ago.”

“But you were nineteen, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a flash of something in Aaron’s eyes. Robert thinks he’s angry but trying to contain it. Robert stays quiet while Aaron decides how he’s going to react. If he walks out, Robert doesn’t care. He’ll shut his mouth and never acknowledge Max ever existed again.

“Carry on,” is all Aaron says when he finally does.

“It wasn’t about Debbie, you realise that? She was Andy’s and she had the baby and I wanted to take everything from Andy.”

“Carry on, Robert.”

“It wasn’t my smartest idea, I’ll admit. She was a stupid kid and she didn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire between me and Andy. I’d been working on her for ages and I always kept Max in the dark about it. He was the only person who saw anything in me worth something. I didn’t want to ruin it. He could- He would have found something redeemable about anyone. I had friends, you know, but Scott was in prison and I ruined things with Donna and Katie. Ruin everything I touch, I do.

“We were going to leave, together, me and Max. He was so excited for London, but he’d travelled a lot so I think it was London with me.” Maybe Robert is making his rendition of events slightly more romantic than it was in reality but Aaron would never know. “But Debbie told Andy and he ruined everything. He found us, attacked me, I said some stuff, told Debbie I was using her. And then, I don’t even know what happened but Max took Andy’s side. Next thing I know, I’m driving straight at Andy’s car. Max was in the passenger seat and I got Andy out but-” Robert blinks and he’s nineteen again as the car goes up in flames. Too late to save possibly the first person he’d actually felt something genuine for. Andy was perfectly fine. “I killed him.”

“Robert,” Aaron breathes, placing a tentative hand on his calf to comfort him, because they’re still somehow entangled on the posh sofa. “I’m so sorry.”

Robert is aware that he’s crying - which he didn’t even do on the day Max died - but it’s happening in his periphery. Inside, he feels empty.

“Dad blamed me for Max dying, sent me away, and I know he was suspicious. He might have disowned me but he had been watching me. He wanted me away from the village before they all found out that- that-” Robert still can’t say the word out loud. Can’t speak it into existence in case the life he’s built for himself is on shaky foundations. He doesn’t want it to all fall apart. “I couldn’t go to his funeral, didn’t see the grief I’d caused. Dad had given me a cheque for twenty grand, for my half of the garage, he was that desperate to get rid of me. I never cashed it. It’s still in my wallet to remind me of what I did. I drove away from Max and I remember the sun was in my eyes for hours. It was a lovely day. It shouldn’t have been.”

Robert is flayed open. He is laid out, open and vulnerable, at Aaron’s feet. He has spent years wrestling his memories of Emmerdale away: forced anything that could possibly remind him of Max out of his life, made dark hair and brown eyes an instant turn-off, traded his car in as soon as he could because the last person to sit next to him in it was him and he couldn’t get rid of the ghost making a dent in the seat cushion. The only people who know what happened that day are Robert and Andy. Robert can feel the heat of the fire searing into his skin, still. He didn’t even get close, didn’t even try. He’d yelled for Max first. How could he just leave him like that?

“Rob-”

Robert wipes his eyes.

“You think that’s enough? To get us out.”

“Maybe, but-”

“I’ve confessed, Aaron. That’s what you wanted. Leave it now.”

Robert stands up and Aaron makes an aborted reach for him.

“Rob-”

“It’s late. I’m going to go to bed, I’m sure Chrissie is waiting for me.” Robert speaks like the words have been programmed into him, robotic and hiding his true humanity. Masking comes easy to him. “You’re welcome to stay the night. See you tomorrow.”

Robert closes the living room door quietly. He dares not make more noise than he has to, that would draw attention to him and all he’s confessed.

Happy fuckin’ birthday, Robert.

Robert drives into the office for over a week of Thursdays to avoid seeing Aaron.

Robert enters his office after his lunch break and startles at Aaron sitting behind his desk with his feet up on the wood.

“Can’t hide out here anymore,” he says, “Nice office. Who’d you shag to get the biggest one?”

He just had to dangle the possibility in front of Lawrence and he fell about gifting Robert anything he likes.

“It’s not the biggest one.”

“Why are you acting like a kid?” Aaron asks harshly. Then he softens himself and continues, “I don’t care that you’re bisexual or whatever you are.”

“I’m straight. I’m going to marry Chrissie.”

“Fine. We’re still here, though.”

“Way to state the obvious.”

Aaron rolls his eyes,

“Come find me when you’re not being a prick.”

It’s another gruelling ten days before Robert cracks.

Aaron looks for him when he comes out of processing and a genuine smile cracks his face when he sees he’s actually there.

“Wanna go bowling?”

“Sure. You should know I’m fuckin’ amazing at bowling.”

They push open the door and race down the steps, going to their respective sides of the car in unison.

“Yeah, yeah,” Robert says, “we’ll see.”

“Just don’t throw a tantrum when you lose, mate. It’s not attractive.”

Back to normal. Robert’s not going to ruin it this time.

The days slip past, becoming weeks and months without them noticing. They become the centrepoint of each other’s life. Everyday spent slipping away from the other people that care about them to meet and talk and hang out somewhere new. Honesty comes easy when they’ve spilled their deepest secrets already. In a quiz about Aaron Livesy, Robert knows he would pass with flying colours.

Then again, Aaron has the capacity to surprise him.

The two of them are sunbathing on a beach in Spain. They planned it all yesterday, looked at times for trains and planes and met at Manchester airport. Aaron arrived with a backpack while Robert wore his swimming trunks and a t-shirt (that’s since been removed) on the flight.

Robert’s got his eyes closed and his arms behind his head; enjoying listening to the sea and the birds and the people around them. Best birthday yet. Then there’s the familiar feeling of a kiss from unfamiliar lips. He cracks open one eye, less freaked out than he probably should be. Aaron is hovering over him, leaning on one elbow,

“What was that?”

Aaron shrugs,

“Kissed ya.”

“I noticed. Shouldn’t you be running into the ocean right about now?”

“We live the same day over and over again,” Aaron says like it explains everything. Maybe it does: it’ll all be erased tomorrow.

There is one thing Robert’s not quite okay with.

“You shouldn’t do that again. You’re only eighteen, I’m six years older than you, it’s not-”

“That’s the same gap as you and Max. If you’d kissed him, back then, would you accept that as a reason not to?”

Aaron moves their faces closer. Robert could simply adjust his position slightly and they’d be kissing again. He could pretend it’s an accident.

“It’s not like I’m a kid.” Robert can feel his breath ghost over his face, the warmth of his face burning more than the heat of the Spanish sun. “It’s not like I don’t want to.”

Robert waits and when Aaron presses their lips together again he doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate.

They’ve driven down to Cornwall. Robert’s got most of the roads within one hundred miles memorised from driving them so often. He knows exactly when each car is going to pull out in front of him and who’s going fifty in the middle lane. He undertakes and overtakes like a professional Formula 1 driver and is riding high on that confidence when he gets to the unfamiliar roads that he continues in the same fashion. They make it in record time; he doesn’t pay any mind to speeding tickets when there’s no tomorrow. 

They go and see Stonehenge; Aaron wrinkles his nose at it and says “Is that it?” with real disgust in his voice. Then they go down to one of the famous beaches. 

“Not as good as my beach.” Aaron says, lobbing the biggest stone he can find into the water.

“Yours is definitely closer.”

“Oi, that’s not even trying to be a compliment.”

Robert laughs and finds him a bigger stone to throw. 

Aaron decides they must have doughnuts from one of the open vendors. Robert sits on one of the rocks and watches how he goes up to the woman, all smiles. Nothing like the defensive, tightly coiled kid that he’d met over a hundred days ago. Aaron’s happy. The thought punches the air out of Robert’s lungs. It’s not like Robert hasn’t been enjoying his time spent with Aaron, he’d comfortably call him his best friend, but he knows that Chrissie is where he has to get back to. Aaron seems perfectly content to keep meandering through the 22nd of April endlessly. Aaron waltzes back over to him and holds the paper bag out,

“Get ‘em while they’re still warm.”

Robert takes one of the offered doughnuts. It’s absolutely covered in sugar, a decadent treat that Chrissie doesn’t allow when they take Lachlan to the coast. 

“Cheers.” Aaron holds his out and they bump them together as if they’re pints.

“Cheers,” Robert echoes softly.

He takes a liberal bite and immediately creates a disaster. The jam is forced out of the other side from the pressure of his teeth and straight down his white shirt. Aaron starts cackling, rocking backward, holding his own at a safe distance away from his clothes.

“It’s not funny, Azza! I’m going to be walking around with a stain all day now!”

Robert tries to scoop the jam off with his fingers but that mostly serves to rub it into the material even more. 

“It doesn’t matter, Bertie. Leave it. It’ll go tomorrow.”

“The stain, Aaron!”

“Stop being so soft.”

Aaron leans across the gap between them and kisses the sugar from his lips. Some kind of drug in Aaron’s kiss makes Robert forget all about the jam stain.

Aaron threw a dart at a map and they’ve ended up in an American-style diner, gorging themselves on bottomless pancakes. Robert knows Aaron told the waitress that it’s his birthday when he got up to piss so he’s waiting eagerly for the free cake he’s inevitably going to get. He doesn’t really want to eat it after the mountains he already has, it’s just something they do in restaurants now.

“Can I see you naked?” Aaron asks. 

Robert nearly chokes on his drink,

“Aaron, I thought we agreed that sex is off the table.”

“I don’t wanna have sex with ya, arrogant git.” A moment. “I’ve never seen a bloke naked, is all.”

“And since you rearranged Jackson’s face, he’s not feeling inclined to flash you?”

“Alright, forget it.”

“No, come on, I’m just teasing. ‘Course you can.”

For some reason, taking his clothes off in front of Aaron knowing it’s not going to lead to sex feels like the most intimate thing Robert’s ever done. They’re in a fifth floor room in the first hotel they came across after leaving the restaurant, checked in under false names. They have no luggage, no one knows they’re here. The whole situation is sordid. Aaron’s stupid white chav jacket is thrown on the ugly brown armchair in the corner of the room. The lad himself has bounced quite happily into the middle of the bed, leaning back on his elbows and looking at Robert with a glint in his eyes that Robert doesn’t know whether to be bothered or turned on by. 

The longer Robert just stands with his hands on the top button of his shirt, the bigger Aaron’s dumb shit-eating grin becomes.

“Come on, Robert, get ya kit off.”

“I’m not doing it if you’re going to enjoy it this much.”

“Alright, if you’re not man enough, I’ll go find someone else.”

“I’m man enough!” Robert slips the first button through the eye-hole and the rest quickly follow. Aaron’s seen him shirtless countless times already but this feels different. Robert’s very aware of his own breathing and the way the hairs on his arms move with the warm breeze coming in through the cracked-open window. Aaron’s eyes have fallen to examine his chest and stomach and arms in a way he’s never done before. Robert tries to subtly flex but he hasn’t been to the gym in… ever so nothing changes. 

“You don’t have to do that.” Aaron’s voice is soft as if he knows that this moment is fragile and he doesn’t want to break it.

“I’m not doing anything.” 

Aaron doesn’t accuse him of lying. Robert toes off his shoes and socks and unbuckles his belt in one fluid movement, then stumbles when he reaches for the buttons of his jeans. 

“Rob, you don’t have to do this. I was joking about finding someone else.”

“No. Plenty of people have seen me naked, Aaron, you’re just going to be another on a long list.”

Aaron rolls his eyes and Robert drops his trousers and underwear.

Aaron’s gaze is less clinical and more heated as he studies Robert’s form. Robert is staring steadfastly at the artwork hanging over the headboard. Let Aaron have his fill, he doesn’t need to know what he’s thinking. 

“Cool, thanks.”

Robert laughs even though it’s shaky with nerves,

“That’s it?”

“I guess.”

Robert’s got his trousers buttoned back up when Aaron’s suddenly in front of him, kissing the life out of him. Tongue and teeth and fingers clenched in the hair at the back of Robert’s head. He uses that grip to separate them and makes eye contact, those gorgeous blue eyes open and honest, as he says,

“Thank you,” completely sincerely. 

This lad is going to be the death of Robert Jacob Sugden. 

“I think you should talk to Jackson.”

Aaron stops licking his éclair like he’s giving it the best blowjob of its life and looks at Robert over the top of the sunglasses he stole from the airport. They’re in Lyon, sitting outside some touristy café on the riverside that charged them nearly twenty euros for two coffees and pastries. Robert’s been watching Aaron go to town on his éclair like it’s his first day eating, torn between disgust and adjusting his trousers at the thought of Aaron’s tongue somewhere else. So, he brought up the Ultimate Boner Killer: Jackson.

“What?”

“Jackson. Remember him? You wake up in jail for assaulting him; maybe if he… forgives you or sommat, it’ll end.” 

“What’ll end?”

“The loop, idiot.”

Aaron scrunches his face up, confused,

“What’s Jackson got to do with it?”

“We know it’s not anything me or you have done yet. He’s an unknown factor.”

Aaron blows out a long breath, looking out over the city, watching a boat go by.

“If you think it’ll help. You’re not coming, though.”

Robert shrugs,

“All the same to me. Try not to deck him, if you can.”

Aaron glares at him in the way he thinks is menacing but Robert has only ever found sexy. 

“Think we’re spending too much time together, Bertie. How about a few days off?”

“If you think you can handle the loneliness, Azza, be my guest.”

Aaron smiles down at his pastry,

“Are you actually eating that? We’ve got a city to look ‘round.”

“Impatient. I waited like two hours for you to finish your steak in that German restaurant.”

“That steak was the tenderest thing I’ve ever eaten. It needed dedicated time.”

“I was hungry again by the time you finished. We ended up at McDonalds, and you enjoyed that cheeseburger just as much.”

“I did not! I was humouring you,”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, snob.”

Aaron eats the éclair in three bites and Robert has to look away when he starts licking the cream off his fingertips.

Robert waits for Aaron in Emmerdale, tapping out the rhythm on his steering wheel of the Taylor Swift song playing on the radio. He blasts the horn when he sees Paddy bumble into view and Aaron breaks away to climb into his car. He’s got a rental, a beautiful Aston Martin, for today because he’s sick of driving his shitbox. Aaron runs his hand along the interior door.

“This is nice. Why have you not bought it down before?”

“Not mine, is it?”

“Oh. Where are we taking her?”

“Wherever Jackson is.”

Aaron’s face falls,

“You were serious about that?”

“As a heart attack.” 

“He’s probably at work.”

“Got his number?”

Aaron doesn’t get an answer when he calls.

“Where does he work?”

“We’re not stalking him! I don’t need him pressing any more charges.”

“You said you’d talk to him.” 

“Well, I don’t actually want to.”

Aaron slumps back in his seat, arms folded across his middle, stroppily. Eighteen, Robert has to remember, he’s only eighteen. Robert drops the handbrake and drives out of the village, smooth as butter. 

“How did it take you this many days to remember rental cars exist?”

Robert doesn’t reply, giving him a Look out of the corner of his eye,

“What? You’re angry now?” Silence greets him, “What makes you so sure it’s me that’s the problem anyway? I’m sure you’ve got some exes with unfinished business. How about we swing by Max’s grave and you can make peace with him?”

“Don’t.”

“Found your voice, huh?” Aaron taunts, “You’re so scared, ain’t ya? What are you more scared of, Robert, being gay or feeling something real? This seems like a journey for you actually.”

Robert pulls the car over and is out and pulls Aaron’s door open before the lad can even blink.

“Get out.” He demands. 

Aaron’s already halfway there, spoiling for a fight. 

“I’m not fucking gay,” he growls.

He grips the two sides of Aaron’s hoodie in his hands and kisses him hard. It’s harsh and mean and he bites Aaron’s bottom lip until he hears him give in with an audible moan.

“You’re a fucking inexperienced kid. You know nothing.”

Aaron tries to push back against him but Robert doesn’t let him, bringing their lips back together with no kindness. 

“You kissed a guy and beat him up, so what? Aaron, your problems are so fucking small. I didn’t get anything with Max and he’s dead.”

Aaron’s chest is heaving, staring at Robert like he’s never seen him before. Which is impossible, because they’ve been the same Robert and Aaron for months now. This time, Aaron closes the distance between them and it’s gentler, it’s Aaron trying to calm him down. 

They know each other. It’s terrifying. 

Aaron takes the driver’s seat because Robert’s hands won’t stop shaking.

Neither of them apologise; it’s not really their thing. 

“There’s a lot of people I could talk to, Robert. It’s not gonna change anything.”

Robert wraps his arms around himself and looks out of the window. Aaron sighs,

“I’ll try it if you feel that strongly about it. I think we should… steer into the skid. We’re having fun. We should… wait. It’ll fix itself.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then it doesn’t. We’re free, Robert, we literally don’t have consequences.”

“We’re in a cycle, Aaron. There’s no freedom in this.” 

Aaron looks at him and takes his hands off the steering wheel. He edges the car past seventy miles per hour, past eighty, and they’re staring at each other. Robert’s not scared; he’s seen this film before.

“You’re not proving anything.”

“No tomorrow!”

“Grow up, Aaron.”

Robert doesn’t know if he hears him over the lorry that cuts straight into the driver’s side. This was such a nice car.

Aaron acts like he’s on acid for a while. Hyper and excited about everything. Robert trails after him, the bones of him tired. It doesn’t escape his notice that they always end up dead while Aaron’s this wired. The memory of Aaron forcing the hotel room window open past its safety catch and throwing himself out while Robert was trying not to fall asleep in the bath doesn’t leave him in a rush. 

One time, Robert gets to Emmerdale to see Chas crying and Paddy badly comforting her and knows Aaron managed to do something in his little prison cell. He lays down in the middle of the road and waits for the earth to reclaim him. 

Such a high, of course, is bound to come crashing down. 

Robert forces himself out of bed. He’s been losing count more and more but he’s definitely approaching three hundred birthdays. He feels ancient. He takes some time to interact with Lachlan and Chrissie; it’s good to check in every so often in case he forgets their faces. 

Lachan’s been safely shipped off to school and Chrissie’s lunch plans lovingly diverted when there’s a hard knock at the front door. 

They both look at each other, confused, and Robert goes to answer it. It’s Paddy, with a tearful Aaron beside him. They make eye contact and then Aaron is crushed to his front, sobs shaking his entire body. Robert holds him, what else can he do?

Like a statue, Robert stands and hugs Aaron until he tires himself out. 

“Robert Sugden, I didn’t know Aaron knows you,” Paddy says when Aaron’s asleep on the sofa.

“Yeah, we’ve… run into each other a few times.”

“I was picking him up from the police station. He gave me this address, said he had to come here.”

Robert nods, watching Aaron sleep, because Paddy is more a reminder of Max to Robert than he is a person.

“Good. I’m glad. You can leave, I’ll bring him home.”

Chrissie fixes Aaron a chamomile tea despite Robert’s protests,

“He’s not a flavoured tea kinda guy.”

“He’s having an emotional time. This is best for him. Trust me.”

“I do not,” Robert laughs and it’s a nice reminder of them from before. 

Chrissie jumps at the chance to help Robert’s distressed friend despite never having met him or even heard Robert mention an Aaron before. 

The mug is slowly cooling in Aaron’s grip. He’s awake but zombie-like which Robert was expecting. He’s sitting on the coffee table opposite Aaron with a hand on his knee.

“I should’ve started learning piano,” Aaron mutters eventually,

“This isn’t actually Groundhog Day.”

“I’d be, like, a master by now.”

“Not too late to start.”

“I got through to Jackson. Nothing changed.”

“Okay. Worth a try.”

“Was it?” 

There’s a dead look in Aaron’s eyes when he meets Robert’s. Days upon days of waking up in unconscionable pain has caught up to him. The broken bones and the kidney failures and electrocutions and head injuries, all self-inflicted, may be erased from time but they’re not gone.

“We can try something else.”

“Do you ever give up?”

“Not been known to, no.”

Aaron takes a sip of his tea. Robert’s surprised when his expression remains steady and undisgusted.

“If we leave the loop, I’ve got to start telling people I’m gay.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m going to prison if I don’t.”

Robert finds empathy difficult sometimes but he imagines himself as Aaron and Max as Jackson and he realises why Aaron prefers the loop. He’s already beaten Paddy up for getting too close to the truth, and not everyone is as forgiving as him.

“I’ll have to tell Cain and Adam and Vic and Holly. They’ll all know. I can’t… erase their memories after it’s done.”

“World didn’t end when you told me, did it?”

Aaron looks somehow sadder,

“You won’t be there.” 

They reach some kind of equilibrium. They kiss but they’re not dating. They check in on each other and try not to argue when one of them is in a mood. They go anywhere they can get to in a day and avoid talking about anything that brushes up against the list of Forbidden Topics. They don’t look at any calendars. Robert feels alive again and Aaron goes back to frowning about most things. They don’t die. That’s unspoken but important. If either of them tries to bring them toward a dangerous situation, he’s stopped. 

Aaron drags him down to the Trevi fountain after the sun sets. It’s Aaron’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth day (they think) so he’s been the decision-maker. The whole fountain is lit up blue and there’s a whole bunch of other tourists with their cameras out. Robert and Aaron can’t take pictures in this temporary existence. Aaron hands him a coin.

“It’s a wishing fountain, innit.”

“I already tried wishing on the birthday cake,”

“Don’t wish for something impossible, then.”

Robert hadn’t. He thinks his wish has come true, at least for now. 

The coins break the surface with a tiny splash and sink before Robert’s finished thinking his wish; he hopes that doesn’t affect the validity of it. 

Aaron steps up onto the wall, taking Robert’s hands to balance him so he doesn’t fall in.

“I wanna say sommat to ya. It won’t be profound or nothin’ but- I don’t know why it’s me an’ you. I’m glad it is. You’re alright when you’re not bein’ a prick.”

“Oh, thanks!” Robert laughs, 

“You mean a lot, is what I’m tryna say.”

“You mean a lot, too.” 

They stand and stare and smile at each other like idiots.

“Didn’t know you were so sappy,” Robert says, just before he pushes Aaron into the fountain. 

“Hey!” 

Aaron grabs him and pulls him in after him, scraping his shins on the wall. Metallic, years-old dirty water gets in Robert’s mouth as he laughs. The two of them can be content when they’re not snarling at each other, when they’re not both trying to escape in mutually exclusive ways. 

The Italian police tell them that they are no longer welcome in their country and they escort them to the airport to deport them.

Aaron holds his hand the whole way.

Robert doesn’t get out of bed. Long after Lachlan’s left the house, he hears himself humming that godforsaken song. Aaron will find him once he slips away from his mum. Robert’s sick of knowing what everyone around him is going to do all the time. He wants unpredictability. 

“Hey,” Aaron has bypassed Chrissie; he learnt how months ago.

The edge of the bed dips where Aaron sits down. He runs his fingers through Robert’s hair. They’ve both had to help each other face another version of the same day. Not exactly uncharted territory for Aaron.

“You alright? You didn’t come pick me up.”

“Sorry.” 

Robert grabs Aaron’s other hand and presses his lips to his fingers.

“It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

“It’s been a year.”

“Oh.” Aaron’s coming up eighty days behind him so Robert forgives him for not realising. “Happy twenty-fifth birthday.”

“But it’s not, is it? I’m twenty-four again. What if we’re the only two people stuck? What if we’ve just gone poof, disappeared from everyone’s lives?”

“Hey, we established that what ifs are off limits. Stop thinking like that, you’ll drive us both crazy.”

“We’ve got to get out of here, Aaron. I can’t take much more of this.”

“But I thought we were okay.” 

Aaron is vulnerable, his head tells him, don’t do anything to put him back on the edge of the cliff he’s stepped away from.

“We’re great, Aaron. This can’t be forever, though. It can’t be.”

Great job, Rob.

Aaron stands, ripping his hand away from Robert’s grip, and paces away from him. Robert pushes himself to sit up and Aaron throws his arms in the air, practically a toddler-esque tantrum for him.

“So what if it is?”

“Aaron, come on. This is some freaky nightmare we’re both trapped in. We’ve both got real lives to get back to.”

“None of this has been real, has it?”

“No, that’s not what I was saying-”

“It’s fine, Robert. You want to get back to pretending your dad would be proud of you for who you’ve become.” Robert feels the words like a slap in the face. “You do that. If you figure it out, you know where I am, mate.” Aaron practically spits the final word out, then storms out of the room, the house,

and Robert’s life. 

For thirteen days, Robert’s acted out his role in Chrissie and Rebecca’s little show. They don’t notice the vacant look in his eyes, they just reel off the same upper-class bullshit they always do. He’s looked for anything off or different, a crack in the day that might be his escape. There’s nothing, of course there’s nothing, except the image of Aaron getting dragged out of the garage imprinted behind his eyelids. Because Robert knows Aaron’s gone back to base and is gassing himself day after day again. After all their talking about how Aaron’s getting better and is no longer mentally in that space, he’s thrown it all away and why? Because Robert wants to get out of the unfortunate situation they’re both stuck in? What a sinner Robert must be to want that. Aaron returns to form; just a suicidal teen. At this rate, he always will be. Shame he fails, really, he’d have been a pretty statistic.

He’d thought he and Aaron were starting to sing from the same hymn book. That Aaron had come around on the idea of leaving the loop. Shows how much he knows.

Robert’s done this three-hundred-and-seventy-eight times. He’s a veritable expert now. He’s tried it the original way, tried avoiding Becs, tried bonding with Lachlan, tried confessing to Chrissie, tried making up with Vic, with Andy, tried to save Aaron, has saved Aaron, and now he’s twenty-five with no answers. He can’t see a way out. 

“Darling, are you alright? You seem a bit lost in your head.” Chrissie says. It’s just the two of them in the living room with a bottle of red wine. Their feet are not on the cushions. She’s been tucked under his arm as they sit in almost-complete silence but she adjusts to look at his face as she asks.

“Fine. You wouldn’t believe me.”

She scoffs, offended by the accusation. Robert knows she is; she was the last time.

“Try telling me before making that decision, hm?”

Robert sighs,

“I’ve already tried.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You wouldn’t. Chrissie, I’m stuck in a time loop. I’ve lived this birthday nearly four hundred times and I’m tired of it. I can’t find a way out. I’ve died and argued and betrayed you over and over again but every day I wake up and it’s my birthday. There’s this lad, he’s also stuck. We kind of lost focus, we haven’t been trying to get out for a while. It was bearable with him, every day could be… different, I guess.”

“You said it was bearable with him.”

There’s a question in Chrissie’s voice.

“He’s mad at me. We argued about something stupid and he’s good at avoiding things he doesn’t like.”

Chrissie believes him and, however temporary it is, it’s nice to have her trust for once. She lays her soft feminine hand over the top of his,

“Would you like to try and find a way out or do you want me to help you forget about it for tonight?”

They take the bottle of wine upstairs with them and Robert stops thinking as he sinks into her wet heat. They fall into sync as if he’d never been distracted. This is why he chose her to marry. She knows him. Rebecca’s a good fuck but the two of them have never really been interested in each other on any deeper level. Aaron comes, unbidden, to his mind. He knows him better. Forced Robert to open up the big box of memories that’s labelled DO NOT TOUCH in his head.

Dangerous. That’s what Aaron is. Tempting and dangerous.

Robert kisses Chrissie to try and forget the lips he’s become too used to.

Robert’s woken up by the noise of his ringtone echoing incessantly in the room. It takes him a disorienting minute to realise that The Smiths isn’t playing and it’s still the middle of the night. Three-thirty in the morning, if his clock is to be believed. 

He groans and squints at the phone screen. His phone resets every day, like everything else, so he’s never been able to save the contact but he knows Aaron’s number on sight now.

“‘ron?” He says, voice thick with sleep.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do it, Robert. I’ve tried.”

“Aaron, what are you- Where are you?” 

“The beach.”

“Alright. I’m going to come to you, don’t- don’t move.”

Rain drenches Robert as soon as he climbs out of his car. It’s pelting it down, his windscreen wipers could barely clear it while he was driving. He holds his arm up in front of his face as if that would shield him from the onslaught. 

There’s a figure laying on the sand. 

“Aaron!” Robert’s voice is blown away by the wind as soon as it leaves his mouth.

His clothes are soaked through and stuck to his skin. He ignores how uncomfortable that is and crosses the beach to the figure. 

It’s Aaron. He’s alive. He’s hugging a half-full vodka bottle to his chest but he’s alive. Robert drops down to sit next to him,

“Is it meant to be raining?” 

He has to raise his voice to ensure he’ll be heard. Aaron shrugs. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve spent-” Robert leans in closer to make sure he hears every word. “-almost two weeks researching whatever I can about time loops, time travel. I can’t find anything. I don’t know how we’re meant to get out of here.”

The knowledge that Aaron has spent their entire time apart trying to find a way out, done that for Robert, hits him like a train. He feels a lump in the base of his throat, overcome. People don’t commit selfless acts for Robert Sugden. 

“I went to the library twelve times, Rob, and everything on the subject is fictional. This is some big cosmic joke and I don’t know the punchline.” 

“Aaron, it’s okay-“

“It’s not. Don’t say that. Don’t act like you’re suddenly alright with spending forever in this day. You have a life to get back to. I can’t keep you here.” 

Robert doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. It’s not Aaron’s fault that this has happened. If he’s decided to carry the guilt of their situation as well as everything else he’s been burdened with, Robert will be mad. He shouldn’t be carrying all of that on his shoulders when it’s not his fault. 

“I’m sorry. Alright?”

Aaron looks all his eighteen years; not old enough to be dealing with this. 

“Hey, it’s not your fault. None of it is. You’re- you’re a confused messed-up kid, that’s all. We’ve tried to stop it, we both have, if there’s no way out then there’s no way out. That’s not on you.” 

Aaron sits up. Sand clings to his back, the water making it like cement. It’ll disappear tomorrow. Everything is inconsequential except making sure Aaron feels okay. That’s the only thing Robert knows will carry over. 

Aaron’s face is wet and his bloodshot eyes inform Robert that it’s from more than just the rain. He puts an arm over his shoulders and pulls him into his side. Rain makes everything feel unpleasant but holding Aaron is nothing but good. 

“It’s not your fault.” Robert repeats what’s important. 

He turns and presses a kiss to Aaron’s forehead. 

“It’s almost seven,” Aaron says, forlorn. 

They’re about to be cosmically parted. Robert wakes up at seven. 

“I’ll come find you. You know I will. Things’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“As long as we’re together, things will be fine. There’s probably a version of us that isn’t here, you know? A me and you that haven’t met. Never will meet, if other-me has anything to say about it. I’ve got a hangover from all the drinking Rebecca made me do, you’ve got a headache from not opening a window.” Aaron huffs a laugh, “I’d rather know you today, Aaron, than live that life never meeting you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Time ticks onward, both of them awaiting the inevitable minute. Robert can already hear Morrissey echoing in his ears. 

“See you tomorrow.” Aaron speaks so quietly that, if they weren’t pressed against each other, Robert wouldn’t have heard it. 

Robert tilts Aaron’s chin up to kiss him properly; leave him with the taste of something good because Aaron wakes up after him and he doesn’t want him to spend an hour crying by himself.

Rain slashes against his face and Aaron’s got his eyes closed, huddled under Robert’s arm. There’s no pretty sunrise to bring the new day in. There’s the low rumble of thunder above them and lightning strikes somewhere in the sea, probably killing a fish. 

Robert hopes the fish chooses a different route tomorrow.