Work Text:
Aaron only realises he’s been staring a hole into the bathroom door when it opens and Robert walks out. He’s not walking upright, almost like he’s in pain. The sight makes Aaron's chest squeeze painfully.
Robert smiles softly at him and it makes Aaron’s heart ache in a completely different way. Robert doesn’t seem to notice the way Aaron’s following his every move, or he does, but he’s kind enough not to mention it.
As Robert, his fiancé, crawls into bed, Aaron’s emotions have caught up with him completely. He feels a telltale sting in the corner of his eyes. A tiny sob escapes him and it stops Robert in his tracks. Aaron wishes it hadn’t because Robert needs sleep.
Robert looks at him, all his attention zoned in on Aaron. “Hey,” he says softly, brow furrowed. “Aaron, are you okay? Are you in pain?”
“No.” Aaron hiccups. His body aches and so does his heart but it’s the good kind of ache. It threatens to overwhelm him in a good way. Robert is here, next to him in their bed and they are engaged. Aaron soothes himself that everything is okay, because it is, isn’t it? This is everything he ever wanted.
“Aaron, talk to me.” Robert’s eyes trace Aaron’s face and Aaron feels so loved, so seen.
“Robert, I love you. You know that, right?” Aaron knows that Robert does, that he doesn’t need to ask, but here in their bed after the days they’ve just had - it’s the only thing that Aaron fully comprehends.
Robert’s blinking at him, his eyes becoming glassy and wide. It reminds Aaron of the way he looked at him the night of the crash. He’s so beautiful, Aaron thinks.
Robert, too, seems to be overwhelmed by emotion suddenly. Aaron wonders if it’s because it’s finally just the two of them again, safe, even after everything.
“I love you too, so much - so much, Aaron.” Robert’s voice breaks and Aaron reaches out to hold on to his wrist. Pressing into Robert’s skin gently, telling him it’s okay – he doesn’t have to say any more.
Aaron never thought he’d get to have another chance at this, a life with Robert. Aaron’s life without Robert had been sad, lonely and incredibly hopeless at times. Robert had experienced the same sentiments during those six years apart, but he endured them completely isolated, confined to the four walls of his prison cell. Tortured and bullied, locked up with someone who did not have his best interest at heart and instead made Robert believe he owed him in all sorts of ways. Aaron can’t begin to imagine just how overwhelming all of this must be for Robert.
Because even when Robert was working towards getting out, he was never sure whether it would actually work and whether, at the end of it all, he would get to be with Aaron again. And Aaron knows that for a while there, after Robert got out, his behaviour had made Robert believe he’d been right to feel unsure.
Aaron had done most of the talking as they leaned against Robert’s wreck of a car, waiting for the ambulance. As the conversation headed to the inevitable, Aaron knew he had to be the one to give it the final push. Even in the state they were in, Aaron realised that Robert didn’t dare to say the words out loud – had probably never dared to dream of such a moment again.
Aaron remembers the way his boyfriend seemed to pour everything he had into the answer to Aaron’s question about whether he loved him. Aaron didn’t need any more, hates himself for ever believing that Robert didn’t.
Robert had come after him, risking his own life in order to save him, as per usual.
Robert, who would have drowned along with him if it had come down to it.
Robert had come after him, concussed and offering god knows what to Joe in order to get him to drive him towards Aaron. John, meanwhile, the man who supposedly loved Aaron more than anyone in this world, had left him in that car, gravely injured for all he knew. Robert ran right into the crash site – without even being sure Aaron was there.
Aaron tracks Robert’s face, lingering on the bruise there left by his own fist. It’s only here, in the low light of their bedroom, that Aaron sees it properly, sees how it covers most of Robert’s cheek, how it has bloomed into a more purplish mark. It makes him clam up for a second, enough for Robert to notice he’s stopped caressing his wrist. Aaron meets Robert’s gaze, his expression exhausted but alive, and Aaron tries to smile.
Aaron can’t lose Robert, not ever again. And he especially cannot lose him to prison. He simply won’t survive it, and even worse, he knows Robert won’t make it through another prison stint.
Aaron had to do it, had to stop thinking for a second as his fist struck Robert’s face. He remembers the thud, the fear that he’d used too much strength, the hope that he had calculated it just right, the adrenaline pulsing through his body as he made sure that John got out of the flat, away from Robert. The extreme control it took to not take another look at Robert, to make sure he would be okay, before having to leave him behind in the flat.
Aaron gulps, squeezing his eyes shut for a second like it's enough to block out the memories.
“Aaron?” Robert whispers just as Aaron blurts out, “Sorry.”
“Eh, for what?” Robert asks, genuinely confused and Aaron gently cups Robert’s cheek, his fingers just missing the bruise. He feels a fresh bout of emotion pour out of him as Robert leans into it.
“For having to hurt you.” He tries not to think of John, knows it’s not the same, knows Robert would never ever think like that.
“I couldn’t risk losing you. You were going to do it – kill him. I had a split second to think about it.”
“I know.” Robert says softly, so trusting it shatters something in Aaron’s heart. It’s scary to have that much power over something so precious. And Aaron gets to have it, even afer all the hurt Robert’s been through in prison, the volatile environment he was trapped in, where every touch was violent. Aaron will be careful with it, won’t misuse it.
“You were right to, I think I would have done it. He kept going near ya. I couldn’t bear the thought. And I knew you’d sacrifice yourself - go with him. I can’t lose you either, you know.”
Aaron knows, of course he does. It’s why they ended up on that roadside, engaged once again.
“I know.” Aaron says instead. “He’s gone now, Rob. He’s nothing to us anymore.” He continues, repeating Robert’s words.
As Robert looks at him again, Aaron can see that tiny flicker of doubt flash across his fiancé's face. “I mean it, Robert.” He doesn’t know exactly where Robert’s thoughts go when he thinks of John, of Aaron and John, but Aaron has to put a stop to them.
Aaron might as well continue down this road, the one where he seems to have become the outspoken, romantic one out of the two of them. But John heard it and Robert should hear it too, deserves to.
“You’re everything to me, you know that, don’t ya?” Aaron’s voice is tinged with emotion as he says it but the words are clear. He can see it in the way Robert’s expression turns soft, his eyes staring into Aaron’s like he’s the centre of the universe.
Aaron forces himself to carry on speaking. “He’s - I’m glad he’s dead. I hate him for everything he’s done. To me, to my family, to Vic and Harry, to you-“
Aaron doesn’t know the details of it but he knows John taunted an already traumatised Robert when he’d just gotten out of prison. He got into Robert’s head - said things that were easy for Robert to believe. Aaron could tell it from John’s satisfied smirks, could tell from the way Robert avoided his gaze when Aaron asked him about it later, once they were back together. And if Aaron hadn’t come home when he did that day – John had truly meant for him to walk into the flat to find Robert’s body.
“You’re the one I want – you always have been. And I tried to forget that in all kinds of ways, cause I thought I’d never actually have you again. Never dared to dream that I would. And I’m so lucky, you know. I love you.”
“Aaron.” Aaron shakes his head, once again lifting his hand to cup Robert’s cheek gingerly. He softly caresses the bruise on his face. “You came to find me. You always do.”
“Course.” Robert chokes out and Aaron smiles softly before he feels a twist of worry in his gut as Robert’s gaze leaves his, his eyes glazing over slightly. Aaron’s hand stills on Robert’s cheek.
“Rob, are you sure you’re alright after - your head, did you get checked out?”
Unsurprsingly Robert scoffs, looking back at Aaron. “I’m fine, Aaron really.”
“You were concussed, you couldn’t see.” Aaron remembers the way he went cold when Robert admitted this after Aaron had to practically drag it out of him.
“Well now I can – you really think I let you propose to me as a blob? I saw perfectly.” Aaron feels his cheeks grow warm at Robert’s words but he can’t help but roll his eyes, telling himself that Robert won’t lie about something like this, knowing Aaron would kill him himself if he did.
“I really am sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was being a tool, we’ve established that. A tool you are now engaged to, might I add.”
Robert’s smile reaches his eyes and Aaron wants to make him this happy forever, realises that he can. And he gets to feel like this again, happy and warm, even when the world around them is on fire.
He thinks of his nan, almost wonders if she was watching over them on the night of the crash.
Robert stills seems overwhelmed, emotional, a disbelieving look on his face like he too can’t believe he gets to have this again. All because he’s engaged to Aaron. Aaron doesn’t know what to do with that, but then he never did, did he?
Aaron gets to love and be loved like this again and it’s absolutely everything.
And Aaron knows things are not going to be easy. Robert will be near tearing himself apart to make sure Victoria is safe and kept out of prison while also keeping his promise to Aaron, one that he professed over and over again in hospital. Aaron believes him, has to, or he’ll have to keep Robert locked up in the flat forever, making sure he can’t do anything stupid, nothing on the spur of the moment.
“I’m not leaving you, I promise.” Robert says, like he can read Aaron’s mind. Aaron knows he can, more often than not.
It’s not an option, it can’t be. Aaron can’t lose him. Nor can he watch Robert suffer another stint inside knowing how traumatised it’s left Robert. Knowing that even if Robert would let him visit, he’d make Robert even more of a target.
It had always been the thing that kept Aaron awake at night and it turned out he was right to worry.
“I know.” Aaron says sincerely, meeting Robert’s tired eyes once again.
“We have a wedding to plan.” Robert grins, eyes nearly falling shut.
Aaron shakes his head, fond. “Let’s get some sleep first, fiancé.”
Robert smiles, “yeah, okay.”
Aaron stares at Robert, watching him as he goes to lie down properly, body turned towards Aaron.
“Love you.” Robert mumbles.
“Love you too, Rob, always.”
They will be okay, they have to be.