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“I’m sorry,” Robert says when he finds Aaron half an hour later, ripping the innards out of an old Volvo Vinny’s left half-finished, the cabin still locked up tight.
The crowbar feels heavy in Aaron’s hands now the anger’s quietened down to a simmer.
“I know,” he says, ‘cause he does. This whole mess isn’t his fault, not really. Yeah, he’s made crappy choices, but Aaron can understand all of ‘em if he tries. Can even understand why he refuses to just talk to him first, even though it drives him crazy. Even though they keep promising—
S’not like Aaron’s got much of a leg to stand on, even if they don’t talk about that either.
Moira’s sold her share. The deal’s done. Robert’s agreed to the tenancy, and he’s right to, is the thing. It’s him or some stranger who won’t care about Matty and Mack and, hell, even Ross on a good week. Some stranger who won’t know the name Adam Barton, and won’t know the importance of Holly’s grave.
Robert’s not the perfect solution but he’s the best they’ve got, and Aaron knows why he’s taken Joe up on it. Know’s it’s not the buddy-buddy nonsense the prat’s been spouting off, like Robert’s just as much to blame as he is when Robert was just protecting Vic the way he always does: head first and stupid, no plan and no regrets.
He’d really like to bury Joe Tate in a shallow grave right about now.
In his pocket his phone buzzes, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s his mum, calling him to peck in his ear about loyalty and Cain’s health and how Robert’s always been bad news, like they’ve not had the same conversation a thousand times.
Like it matters.
“I just—” Robert starts. Cuts himself off, shuffling his feet against the gravel. His shirt’s creased and he’s wearing that jacket Aaron hates a bit, shoulders slumped. Considerin’ the size of him these days, it makes Aaron’s stomach twist seein’ him smaller than ever. “I didn’t mean to mess things up for you. Again.”
Again.
Like it’s all his fault.
Cain had said it so easily — “Pack his bags and get him out.” — like Aaron wouldn’t question it, would toss Robert out by his ear for the sin of doin’ sommat the Dingles didn’t like. Would go right back to the party line that’s been echoing through the village since last summer, telling Robert to get lost, that no one wants him, that he’s not welcome here.
‘Cause Aaron had said it. Over and over, he’d said it.
More fool them if they’d ever believed him.
“It’s done now,” Aaron says, letting the crowbar drop to the floor and wiping at the sweat on his forehead. “We’ll sort it.”
“We?” Robert asks hopefully. He’d sounded so confident about Aaron having his back before, and he’d been right, of course he’d been right, but now that crack in his voice is back, the one he’s been sporting since he walked back into the village, six years and prison walls shattering any certainty he tries to cling to.
Aaron hates it.
“Yeah, we,” he says, knows he still sounds a little angry. “Don’t be daft. I meant what I said, even if it was sprung on me.”
Robert exhales, relief punched outta him.
Somewhere ahead of them’s a future where Robert’s not walkin’ on eggshells, where he shouts back and gets mean and stops apologising every two seconds. Not a future where he stops doing things that need apologising for — Aaron’s not that delusional — but one where he holds his shoulders back and his head high and digs his heels in, stubborn as a mule, and Aaron gets to shout back and not worry about Robert’s mind goin’ off some place he can’t follow.
Aaron loves a lot of people. He loves his mum and Paddy and Eve. Loves Liv and Faith and Jackson, kept in a box in his head he’s trying to be braver about lookin’ in from time to time. Loves Adam and Cain and Mack and the rest of his crazy lot, even when they drive him ‘round the bend.
He loves all of ‘em and it’s not enough.
It’s not enough because he’ll never love any of them as much as he loves Robert.
He used to feel guilty about it — it’s messed up, innit? To be that obsessed with another person? To want them over anyone and anything, even the people you adore, even when it’s bad, even when you shouldn’t, especially when you shouldn’t — but there’s no point anymore. Loving Robert is part of his genetic make up.
“Choosing you’s not hard, y’know?” Aaron says after a while. Thinks Robert needs to hear it as much as he needs to say it. They’ve not talked enough about the last nine months, neither of them ready to rip open wounds that have barely scabbed over, but maybe they should. Maybe it’s better to bleed sooner rather than later. “All the times I haven’t, it’s been ‘cause I forced myself not to. Went against every instinct I had for…I dunno. My mental health. Spite. Some hope that I could be normal about this stuff, just once. Except it never works, ‘cause that’s the thing, innit? Choosing you’s the easiest thing in the world, for me.”
Aaron’s tried normal. Aaron’s tried normal and even if it hadn’t ended with him at the bottom of a gorge with more trauma to add to the storage unit inside him, he doubts it woulda lasted much longer. It couldn’t when Robert was right there, breathing the same air.
John was a smoke screen, a half-hearted wish, a maybe, if. There’s a world out there where it lasts, where Robert never comes back, where that all-encompassing, scary love is dug down further and further and he withers and dies around it in search of normal.
Choosing Robert— God, choosing Robert means choosing himself.
If his family forgot that along the way, then that’s their problem.
Aaron never did, not really. Not even when he wanted to.
He doesn’t ever want to again.
“Aaron,” Robert says, emotion caught in his throat, reaching for Aaron’s hand. Aaron lets himself be tugged forward until Robert’s head’s burrowing into the curve of his neck where it belongs. Aaron feels his lips move, warm breath against his skin, but whatever words Robert’s trying to find they’re too big.
Aaron knows anyway.
It’s baffling really, that there was ever a time he doubted it.
Never again. Not when Robert holds him like he’d shatter without him. Like they’re one body moving only a fraction out of sync, the same heartbeat in two ribcages, the same breath cycled between their lungs.
It’s still scary, still too much, still not normal or explainable or anythin’ the people he cares about want to hear, and Aaron will set the world on fire before he gives it up.
“We’ll sort it,” he says, because they will. Aaron loves his uncle, feels shit about the whole situation, but if Cain’s forgotten what they’re like — who they are — then that’s on him. It’s not even push comes to shove when the answer’s so easy. “We’ll sort it.”
“I love you,” Robert says. “So much. Too much.”
He does. They both do.
Doesn’t matter.
“No such thing,” Aaron says, and it'd be a lie from anyone else.