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He woke with a gasp, eyes stinging with unshod tears. Gordon. He had dreamed about his father. His body looming in a dark doorway, his footsteps entering his bedroom, his smell, his violating touch. Aaron blinked into the almost darkness, pulse racing and skin crawling with the ghost of memory. He got out of bed carefully, so as not to wake his sleeping fiancé, but Robert had stirred anyway, reaching out for Aaron and murmured his name, not fully conscious.
'Go back to sleep.' Aaron soothed, kissing him quickly but softly.
'Mmmmm,' Robert had leaned into the kiss, wanting more. 'Where are you going?'
'Need a piss.' Aaron told him, not lying, not exactly. Another lingering kiss and Aaron left him, safe in the knowledge that Robert was already slipping easily back into sleep.
He flicked on the switch for the Christmas lights. The tree came to life under his still shaking fingertips, throwing the room into a festive glow, the only light coming from the warm twinkle of the carefully positioned fairy lights. It was a welcome, much needed comfort after the cold terror of yet another nightmare.
'Aaron?' A sleepy voice made Aaron jump. Turning around he saw Robert standing in the doorway. 'What are you doing?' Robert scrubbed a hand through his dishevelled hair, making it stick up further. 'It's four in the morning. Come back to bed.'
'In a bit.' Aaron turned away, before Robert could see his threatening tears. 'Go back to bed.'
'Not without you.' Robert answered, hearing the pain in Aaron's unsteady voice.
'I had a dream.' Aaron whispered, directing his voice to the tree.
'A nightmare.' Robert corrected him.
'Yes, a nightmare.'
'You should have woken me.' Robert ventured into the room further, knowing that sometimes Aaron couldn't bear to be touched after a night terror. 'You want me to leave you alone?'
'Yes, no. I...I don't know.' Aaron stuttered, his voice finally breaking. He wrapped his arms around his shivering body. 'It's never going to be over is it?' Aaron held back a sob. 'It's Christmas day for fucks sake, can't I even have Christmas day?'
'You do have Christmas day, Aaron.' Robert cursed himself for being asleep when Aaron was suffering. 'You are here. You almost died, I...I almost lost you, too many times.' His own tears were threatening to fall. All he wanted was to be able to care for the man he loved, and right now he felt like he was failing.
'Why are you with me, Robert?' Aaron questioned, 'Why do you stay?'
'I could ask you the same thing.' He stood behind him now, tentatively reaching out a shaky hand, but still too afraid to touch the trembling man. 'I love you.'
'Yes, you say that all the time, but how can it be true?' Clearly Aaron's nightmare ran deeper than Robert had previously thought. This only meant one thing. Gordon. It wasn't a drowning nightmare. Not this time. The shivering and gasping that followed a drowning nightmare, Robert could deal with that. He could hold him tightly and force Aaron to mirror his own breathing. He could get him through it. But a Gordon nightmare, that was a different thing entirely.
That was screaming, shaking, crying. It was cold sweats and headaches and the temptation to take a knife to already damaged skin. He didn't understand how Aaron had managed to have a nightmare of this kind silently.
'I love you.' He repeated softly.
'Robert...'
'You believe me, I know you do.'
'I...I want to.' Aaron's voice shook with emotion. He clutched himself tighter, shivering with growing cold. 'I just don't understand how you could love a mess like me.' Robert's heart twisted. Shrugging off his dressing gown, he stepped closer to his fiancé.
'You'll catch your death.' Carefully, so very carefully, he slipped the body warmed gown over Aaron's trembling shoulders. 'Come back to bed, let me warm you up.'
'I...I don't think I can sleep.' Aaron stuttered, voice breaking on a sob.
'Ssh, I know. It's okay.' Robert wanted desperately to turn him around, to look into the other man's eyes, but he knew not to force any sudden movements. Aaron's dream shattered nerves would not stand to be manhandled. 'I love you, Aaron. You are not a mess, you are perfect.'
'This is not perfect, Robert. You were better off with...'
'Don't.' Robert stopped him immediately, his voice harder, louder than he intended. 'Don't even say it.'
'It's true.' Aaron whispered. 'Look at the state of me. You've seen what I do to myself.'
'Aaron.' Robert whispered back, his heart aching for the man who just couldn't bring himself to turn around. 'Please.'
'One of us needed to say it. How can you look at me and not be horrified?' Aaron's shoulders shuddered violently. 'How can you think that I am normal, that I am not disgusting?'
'That's enough!' Robert demanded, devastated at Aaron's words. 'Stop talking like that.' He stopped himself from staggering back at his heartbreaking words. 'Just...Don't.' He fought in vain to stem his own tears. 'You are not disgusting.' He whispered. 'You can't believe that.'
'I can't believe anything else, Robert.' Aaron dropped his head, sobbing hard.
'Look at me.' Robert begged, his hands reaching out and finding their place on Aaron's trembling shoulders. 'Please.' He swallowed thickly. 'Please, just look at me.' He got his wish when Aaron finally turned slowly.
'Aaron.' Robert whispered, his own shaking hand reached up to touch a face streaked with tears, eyes so red it was a wonder that he could still focus on anything. 'Do they hurt?' He questioned, gently running his thumb over one closing eyelid. Aaron shrugged in answer. 'Why didn't you wake me?'
'It's Christmas. I didn't want to spoil it for you.' Aaron admitted.
'You don't have to hide yourself from me.' Robert told him softly. 'I love you. All of you. Nightmares, scars, everything.'
'I'm damaged, Robert.' Aaron squeezed his eyes tightly shut, unable to meet Robert's concerned gaze for a moment longer. 'Inside and out.'
Robert cursed the damned dreams that plagued his husband to be. They would take him unawares, creeping up on him like a violent storm, infiltrating his sleeping, vulnerable mind and making him question everything that he had ever held dear.
'You are not damaged, you were hurt. You were little and you were alone, and you were hurt.' Gordon better be roasting in Hell for what he had done to his son, Robert thought angrily, not for the first time, and certainly not the last. 'You're not alone anymore.'
'You were the first.' Aaron told him carefully. 'The first person I ever told.'
'You kept it to yourself for that long?' The shocking revelation hit Robert like a fist to the stomach. 'No one knew?' He had thought that Aaron must have told someone, anyone, long before now. Not Chas, but surely Jackson had known? 'Oh, Aaron...' Robert choked.
'I never had the words before.' His pain filled voice was more than Robert could stand. He gathered him up and held him tightly. 'I could tell you.' Aaron sobbed in his arms. 'I could tell you anything.'
'I'm so sorry.' Robert cried along with him.
'Sorry for what?'
'That you had to go through that all on your own, that you couldn't tell anyone, that I wasn't here sooner. I wish I could take it away, Aaron, I wish I could help you.'
'You are helping me.' Aaron raised his wet eyes to look at his fiancé. 'I'd be rummaging around in the kitchen draw looking for something sharp if you were not here.' Aaron chuckled sadly. 'You have no idea how much I want you. I...I love you, so bloody much.'
'Come back to bed.' Robert urged, wanting to warm his trembling fiancé up once and for all. Despite the fact that he was now wearing Robert's dressing gown along with his soft pyjamas, Aaron continued to shiver. Shock or cold, Robert didn't know, but it was time to return to the safety and warmth of their bed.
'Do you want something to drink?' Robert asked, steering Aaron to the bed and making him sit down. 'Tea?'
'No.' Aaron shook his head, once again unable to look at Robert. 'I just...just...' His eyes tightly squeezed shut, he continued to shake.
'Aaron? You're scaring me.' Robert sat beside him, pulling his hand into his lap and holding it tightly. 'Shall I get your Mum?'
'I just want you.' In the dimness of their bedroom, Robert could see the beginnings of a flush creeping up Aaron's neck. 'I...Robert, I...' Whatever Aaron wanted to say, he couldn't spit the words out.
'What is it? Talk to me.' Robert gave Aaron's hand a gentle squeeze. 'You know you can have anything you want.'
Aaron opened his red rimmed eyes. Raising his head slightly, he looked Robert in the eye. 'I...I can feel him.' Aaron whispered, tears coming once more. Robert's heart plummeted, it was all he could do not to scream. 'Take it away, Robert. Please.' Aaron begged, his own grip tightening. 'I can still feel him on me. It should be you. Please, I need it to be you.'
'Ssh, baby, it is me. Only me.' Robert allowed himself the tiny slip in calling Aaron by his pet name. Aaron didn't seem to mind. In fact, it made his lips twitch upwards in an imperceptible smile.
The pain in Robert's' chest was crushing, he wanted to weep, wanted to rage and yell and throw his fists at the walls. Aaron was his, and his alone. 'He can't hurt you anymore. You are mine, Aaron. I'll never let anyone hurt you again, I swear it.' He wrapped an arm around Aaron's shoulder and pulled him close. 'No one is allowed to touch you.'
'Only you.' Aaron whispered, shivering against him. 'Will you...? Lay down with me?'
'I've been wanting that since I realised you were not beside me.' He pressed a kiss to the side of Aaron's head.
Robert slid the dressing gown off Aaron's shoulders and pulled back the covers, urging his fiancé into the bed once more. He knew he could take better care of him there, private and safe in their bed. He had done so many, many times before. Aaron would wake, shaking and sometimes with a gasping, cut off scream. And Robert would hold him. Hold him until the trembling stopped, until the crying had him exhausted and sleeping once more.
Aaron allowed Robert to lay him down and cover him with the thick duvet. He watched as Robert climbed in beside him, the soft glow of the lamplight illuminating his blond hair. Reaching out, he buried his fingers into the soft strands.
'Thank you for looking after me.' He pulled Robert gently down to press his lips to a smiling mouth.
'It's all I want to do.' Robert whispered, kissed him, 'Don't ever forget it.' Leaning over him, Robert stroked his fingers over Aaron's tired face. 'You should sleep, it's going to be a long day tomorrow and you look so exhausted.' Aaron didn't answer, instead he pulled him down once more. 'Aaron?'
'Robert, please, I...I need you.'
'You have me.'
'Take it away. Make me forget.' He whispered. 'I love you, only ever you.'
'What do you want?' Robert asked him, his voice husky with want.
'You. Please, Robert, I want you.'
Robert kissed him slowly, his fingers working at the tiny buttons of Aaron's top. It wasn't easy in the dim light.
'Remind me to kill Chas for buying you pyjamas.' Robert huffed.
'Can we not talk about my mother while we have sex?' Aaron couldn't help but laugh.
'We won't be having any sex if I can't get these infernal buttons undone!' He again tried to push the little pieces of plastic through the impossibly small holes. 'For goodness sake!' Aaron pushed him away with a laugh, sitting up and tugging his top off in one smooth movement. 'Much better.' Robert surveyed the tempting sight in front of him, reaching out to touch the scarred skin.
'I'm a mess.' Aaron shivered under Robert's touch.
'You are perfect.' Robert bent his head to kiss his way across Aaron's collarbone, easing him gently back to lay down once more. 'Let me show you just how perfect you are.'