Chapter Text
Adam wakes slowly, head still foggy with sleep that slips away as he tries to follow it back down. He's not sure what time it is, aside from too early, but his alarm hasn't gone off yet so he lets himself doze, rolling closer to the warm body pressed against his side and pressing a kiss to their shoulder.
It takes a while (in all honesty, an embarrassingly long while) for him to realise that it isn't Vic he's cuddled up to. As soon as he does – as soon as it clicks that instead of soft, feminine curves, he's pressed against lean, angular, decidedly masculine planes – he jerks backwards, forcing his eyes open in confusion and blinking blearily at the stranger in his bed. Except, scratch that, not a stranger – his eyes focus and he relaxes, slumping back into the bed as he recognises that close-cut brown hair and the shape of those shoulders. Just Aaron.
God, they must have had plenty to drink last night, for them to be passed out in bed together. He hopes Vic had gone somewhere else for the night and hadn't had to babysit them through their drunkenness; they must have been pretty fucking bladdered. He can't even remember having any drinks at all. Actually, he can't remember yesterday at all – well, it feels like he does, but it can't be, because the last thing he remembers is going to sleep with Vic in his bed like always, and unless Aaron sneaked into his bed last night and got rid of Vic on the way then there must have been at least a day in between then and now.
He gives up on trying to find memories in the thick fog filling his head as Aaron starts to stir beside him. He sighs and rolls over so he's facing Adam, head pillowed on his arm, and squints open one eye to look at him. Adam expects a similar jolt of surprise as the one he'd gone through, probably followed by an embarrassed, grumpy Aaron (likely for days), but Aaron seems supremely unconcerned, closing his eye after a moment and staying relaxed.
“If you're already awake you might as well be the one to feed the dogs,” he says sleepily, obviously intent on staying in bed, and Adam stares at him.
“Feed the dogs,” he repeats in disbelief. “We're both shirtless in my bed and your reaction is to tell me to go feed the dogs?” Aaron snorts at that, not even bothering to open his eyes.
“Yeah, feed the dogs. We've not got time to do anything and get to the scrapyard on time.” Time to do anything...? What the fuck is he on about? Adam continues to stare at him, waiting for him to start making sense, but he gives up after it becomes apparent that Aaron's just gone back to sleep. It's only after he starts to get up and get presentable that he starts to realise that it might not just be Aaron who's not making sense.
The room is undoubtedly the room he and Vic have been staying in at his mum's, but it's not quite right. The slight familiarity makes everything stranger. Shirts of his own he recognises sitting next to ones he's never seen before, and ones he's seen Aaron wearing – or, more accurately, all three haphazardly strewn across the room and hanging out of the dresser. He stares blankly around the room, feeling like he's in a bubble or a dream. On some level he's aware that he should be freaking out more, should be shaking Aaron awake and demanding to know what the fuck is happening, but he just can't summon the urgency, so he just pulls on the first shirt he finds and forces himself to move.
He throws the door open and heads into the kitchen, relieved to see that everything seems to be in it's place at first glance. There's a note on the table letting him know that his mum has gone out already, in reassuringly familiar handwriting. Adam is taking a closer look at the kitchen – noting uneasily that while there's nothing wrong with it as such there's something not right about it either – when there's a rustling from the living room followed by the click of claws on wood, and he turns towards the noise, expecting to see Scrappy coming to greet him. He does see that. What he also sees is a little ball of fluff racing ahead of Scrappy and barrelling into his legs, whuffling and wriggling in excitement.
'Oh, god, another thing different' he thinks, the anxiety sitting under his ribs growing, and looks down at this strange dog who seems to know him. His gaze is met by one large brown eye, the space where the other one is meant to be taken up with a long horizontal scar. The thick white fur on it's face is run through with streaks of furless scarred skin, it's tongue is lolling from the side of it's mouth, and all Adam can think as it bounces up and down in it's hind legs is that it's one of the ugliest dogs he's ever seen.
The dogs give him something other than the unease threatening to turn into fear to concentrate on, though, so he sets about doing the task Aaron had assigned him, going into the living room only long enough to find and retrieve the dog food bowls and take them into the kitchen. He successfully fills Scrappy's bowl with food and then realises he has no idea how much food the little one should get. Both dogs are sitting at rigid attention when he looks, hungry gazes watching his movements intently, and he shrugs to himself and decides to just give it a scoop; it's only small and he's sure it can last until tea.
“Are you giving Princess dry food?” The voice that interrupts the quiet of the kitchen is pure concentrated disdain in the way only a teenager's can be and it makes Adam start so hard half of the food in the scoop goes skittering across the floor, quickly chased down by the two dogs. He swears under his breath and spins around, scoop still in his hand, and sheepishly meets Liv's gaze. She has both of her hands up and her eyebrows raised, a bemused smirk on her face. “Woah, calm down. I'm just trying to save you from Aaron's wrath – he won't be pleased if she hurts herself trying to eat dry food because you forgot to give her the wet stuff.” She pushes past him and rummages around in the fridge, completely at ease around him and in this house as if she lives here herself, and he shakes his head, trying to act normal. Until he knows what he's dealing with he doesn't want to worry anyone or arouse suspicion – he would really like to have some sort of handle on what this is before he gets someone else involved.
“Sorry,” he says, dumping the scoop back into the package and doing it back up. “Still not completely awake... didn't get much sleep last night. Wasn't expecting you to be there.” Liv has turned back towards him and she wrinkles her nose, thrusting a small tin of dog food into his hands.
“Ugh, I don't want to know what you and my brother get up to, thank you,” she says, popping some bread in the toaster, and Adam goes red when he realises what she's implying.
“No, I- not like that!” he protests.
“Sure,” she says, sounding unconvinced. “Not like I don't know it happens. Just don't wanna hear about it.” He's about to press his point when Aaron pads quietly into the kitchen, now clad in a T-shirt and loose sweatpants, and gives his sister a quick, warm smile.
“Morning,” she says, leaning against the counter and smiling back.
“Mornin'.” Aaron turns to Adam as he scratches Scrappy behind the ears and lets the little one – Princess? - paw at his thigh and lick his hand.
“Bloody hell, Adam, you've still not fed the dogs? Shove over, I'll do it.” His grumpy tone is belied by the gentle way he hipchecks Adam out of the way, taking the tin from him and opening it up.
“It's not my fault your sister distracted me,” Adam protests.
“Hey, I didn't ask you to start telling me about my brother's sex life,” she counters, and he's aware of Aaron's indignant disbelief but can't concentrate on it due to the look he's just had at the ring on Aaron's finger. He's used to there being a ring there, it's been a while now since Robert proposed, but even though he's not exactly an expert on Aaron's ring, he's pretty sure the one he's looking at isn't the one Aaron's been wearing the last couple of months.
It looks similar at first glance, but it's only the outside that's light grey, with a darker, almost black band in the middle. He has a feeling Aaron's not the only one with a different ring, and a peek down at his own hand confirms it; an identical ring is on Adam's finger instead of his familiar gold band. Something is really wrong here, and he doesn't know if it's him or the whole damn world that's not right.
“Adam?” He starts and focusses back on Aaron, who's looking at him his eyebrows raised. “Did you hear a single thing I just said?”
“Um... no. Sorry.” He attempts a sheepish smile. “Like I was saying to Liv, didn't get much sleep last night.” Aaron frowns, looking him over with a concerned furrow forming on his brow.
“You do seem a bit off. You feelin' all right?”
“Yeah, I'm fine,” he lies. “Just need to wake up a bit.” Aaron doesn't look entirely convinced but after a moment of scrutinising Adam's face he appears to let it go, face smoothing out.
“Right, well, I was just asking what you wanted to do about that order we're picking up today, but the state you're in you probably shouldn't be behind the wheel. So, I guess I'm stuck with driving duty today.”
“Yeah, that's probably for the best. Sorry mate, I'll make it up to ya.” He fights to keep his face normal and curses to himself – if their relationship in this weird place he's found himself is what he thinks it is, 'mate' is probably not the right word choice – but Aaron doesn't seem to find anything amiss, a small smirk finding its way onto his face.
“Yeah, I'm sure you will,” he says with a teasing lilt to his voice. Liv makes a loud noise of disgust and dumps her now empty plate in the sink, flouncing past them and out of the room, and Adam is suddenly back in that old car, heart racing with adrenaline, knowing suddenly exactly what Aaron is about to do and being terrified of it, being terrified of how much he wanted it. This time, though, he lets it happen, lets Aaron's hand cup the back of his neck and pull him in.
He could – should – turn away from it, play it off. He's married, he shouldn't be kissing someone else, even if the world seems to have spun on its head. He still lets it happen, because he doesn't want to make Aaron worry, because he needs to play along, but also because he's been feeling this for so long, been so fucking curious for so long and he's not strong enough to pass up an opportunity to find out without repercussions.
For all of the years of worry and wondering and over thinking that built up to it, when it happens, the actual kiss is... well. It's a kiss. It's quick and chaste, and it's definitely distinctly kissing a man but at the same time it doesn't feel all that different from any of the girls he's kissed before. His stomach twists nervously at the lack of distaste, at the confirmation after all this time that this is something he's into, but on the whole it's a relief. Because now he knows, and because yeah, it feels good, but it's not some moment of enlightenment that puts his previous relationships to shame either. It doesn't make him think, this is what's been missing the whole time. Now he knows, and what he knows it that it's something that could have been in his life, not something that's been missing from it.
Aaron brushes past him, setting down the dogs' food, and Adam spends the rest of the morning trying to slot in to the obviously well established routine – a quick breakfast, Aaron coaxing a reluctant Liv out the door, Liv easily coaxing “lunch money” from a supposedly reluctant Aaron, getting dressed. They get changed at the same time in his – their – room, and Adam can't help but look and check. Well, that's the main reason, but Aaron had never been keen on exposing his body even before he had scars to hide and now that he's got the chance, well, Aaron's certainly developed a body worth looking at.
He does find what he's looking for, and been hoping not to see; lines cutting across his chest and stomach, in varying shades of pink and silver. He only manages to get a quick look, but from what he can see none of them look very recent; he can only hope that the same is true of his Aaron.
When he actually gets dressed, he does so as fast as possible, slightly uncomfortable. If everything was normal, he wouldn't have any hesitation getting changed in front of him, because he trusts him implicitly and knows that Aaron is fully aware of where the boundaries are – and, if he's going to be honest, the idea of Aaron wanting to sneak a look doesn't exactly hurt his self esteem. This Aaron, though, is operating under the assumption that those boundaries are very different – and really, this Aaron acts like his Aaron, looks like him, but there are obviously differences in what they've experienced and it's an incredibly unsettling feeling, being around Aaron and not having that vast shared experience to draw from.
It's like when Aaron had first come back to Emmerdale, when he'd heard about and then gotten confirmation of his self harm, and when he'd found out that Aaron had been seeing Robert for months and not let anything slip to Adam, that feeling of one of the foundational relationships he'd always taken for granted shifting underneath his feet. Only this was a thousand times worse. At least those times, he'd still known that despite everything he knew Aaron, he knew what they'd shared. Now... Now he didn't know what experiences he shared with this Aaron, which experiences this Aaron was drawing from that he wasn't, what experiences Adam remembered and this Aaron knew nothing about.
Luckily, at the very least this Aaron shares his Aaron's monosyllabism in the morning so Adam doesn't have to worry about putting his foot in it. They make the journey down to the scrapyard in comfortable silence, there's another kiss (this one is longer, less chaste, makes his stomach flip) and then Aaron is off down the driveway in the company truck and Adam is on his own again.
He gives himself a moment to just breath, slumping onto the portacabin steps and resting his head on his hands. This whole thing is fucking insane, and he has no goddamn idea about where to go from here.