#robron fic

"Don't--" he starts, and immediately regrets it.

"You're not seriously trying to tell me what to do right now." Aaron's voice takes on a warning note.

Robert freezes. He hears Aaron's voice, the words clipped and precise, but they don't land. They pass through him, like something thrown through smoke. He's already drifting somewhere else. Robert’s been through enough episodes to know it never lasts, he always comes back, and still, underneath the numbness, fear rises. What if he stays like this, what if this is the one time he won’t find his way back?

Aaron says something else, he must be, because his lips are moving, but the world’s distant now, any sound that reaches him muffled and wrong.

He tries to focus, looks for Aaron's eyes through the fog. He's still here, still looking at him like he expects something from him, and he holds on to that.

After everything he’s done, Aaron doesn't want him to disappear. So Robert tries. For Aaron.

He stumbles forward, and his legs aren't quite his own, but they're moving, so Robert must still be there, must still be a person.

The tap water is ice cold. Robert doesn’t hesitate. He pushes his entire arm into the stream, the sleeve of his shirt drenched in seconds, his fingers cramping from the sudden sensation. It's grounding. A relief.

"For fuck's--What are you--" Aaron cuts himself off as he steps up to him. He softens. "What's wrong?"

"Fog," Robert manages to say. "Sorry."

Aaron puts a hand on his back, and Robert breathes through the relief of the sensation. He's here. Aaron's here.

"Robert, are you..." Aaron's voice breaks a little. "Are you scared of me?"

"No!" Robert turns to him too quickly, splashing water all over the kitchen counter. "No, of course not."

"Then why..." Aaron breaks off, frustrated. His hand's on Robert's hip now; he hasn't let go. "Why didn't you trust me with this?"

"I do... I do trust you." Robert runs a hand through his hair. "I'm trying to be good."

He is. He is.

Aaron's hand tenses on his hip.

"You know me," Robert pleads. I'll mess it up eventually, he doesn't say, I'll try anyway.

Aaron's eyes widen a fraction. "But you can't be good forever." He sounds choked-up.

"I'll try," Robert says. "For you, I'll..."

"Robert," Aaron says, gently, and Robert knows for a fact he doesn't deserve that. "You're shaking."

And yeah, he is. Unsteady. He doesn't know why.

Aaron takes his hand in his. "I don't need you to be good. I don't need you to not mess up. I never did."

Something in Robert stills. Something uncoils.

"I know. I know that. But... why am I so..."

"Scared?" Aaron prompts.

Robert nods.

"Did you..." Aaron bites his lower lip. It makes Robert want to reach out and soothe it. "Did you have to be good in prison?"

Robert looks away. They don't talk about prison. Prison means Kev, means divorce, means loss and fear and guilt and concrete walls. Means Aaron left behind and alone, grieving, suffering.

Touching the emptiness, the pain and terror of those years–it would consume them.

So Robert doesn't.

Some part of him is aware that he came back changed, that he will never again be the man Aaron loved and married.

But he tries. He tries.

"I was good," Robert says. "I was always–but sometimes–"

Aaron's eyes fill with tears. Robert's fault too. He looks away.

"Look, I am… I am furious with you," Aaron says quietly. "I have half a mind to make you sleep on the couch tonight."

"Only half?"

"The other half wants to get it in your thick skull that nothing you do could ever make me not love you. That you're safe with me."

"I know. I know that, but--"

"I'm not Kev. You don't need to lie to me."

Robert sucks in a breath. It used to scare him, how Aaron could look at him, the liar, the con man, the master of the masquerade, and still see right through him. Now he just feels seen. He doesn't know why, has long since stopped wondering why Aaron's even bothering.

"I know you're not. I'm not scared of you, Aaron. I'm not. It's..." He trails off. Irrational. Habit. A trauma response, Liam would say.

"We do things together," Aaron says. "No more lies, alright?"

"Yeah. I'll fix it."

Aaron groans. "What did I just--"

Robert cuts him off with a soft, lingering kiss. Aaron blinks, dazed, and he is the most beautiful man on earth. Robert has never deserved him.

Sometimes, Robert loses himself — retreats into this space in his own head filled with a staticky buzz, his vision distorted like he’s on the outside looking in. The world is a sort of fish bowl and the water’s murky and disturbed by the ripples, and other sounds and voices sound as if they’re underwater. 

Or maybe Robert’s underwater. Maybe it’s 2016 and he’s still trapped in a car beneath a lake, scared out of his wits about dying but knowing that fear paled in comparison to the terror of living in a world without Aaron. 

Except almost a decade’s gone by since then. Robert’s found and lost Aaron a hundred times in the interim years, or so it seems, and he’d been naive enough to think that finally, finally they might’ve found each other for good this time. Older, wiser, calmer in the face of the inevitable chaos they were thrown into because messed up forever is a sentiment the universe takes quite seriously when it comes to them.

Which would be fine if not for the fact that it’s always Robert who messes up, and it seems like Aaron’s done cleaning up after him. 

They haven’t fought much since getting back together, though not for lack of subject material. They don’t talk about John or Kev, rings discarded and ashes flushed; out of sight, out of mind. Seb’s a subject they skirt around, touching the edges but afraid to get to the heart. 

Victoria’s absence is a gaping chasm between them, made worse by Joe’s needling and Robert’s subsequent lies, the rift growing wider and wider until now — 

Aaron’s on the other side, standing on the precipice. If he turned away, Robert wouldn’t begrudge him. Would probably think him a bit daft if he didn’t, although Aaron has never exactly been brilliant at doing what’s best for himself. 

He chooses Robert even when it hurts. Even when he’s flayed open, vulnerable and raw, at odds with the rest of his family because that’s how much Robert means to him. Enough to sacrifice everything. 

And yet Robert did what he always does and threw it back in his face. Lied over and over and over again, telling himself it was for the greater good instead of admitting the truth: that losing Aaron would’ve destroyed him, and he couldn’t risk it. 

Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. 

He’s in his own head again now — hardly even notices the rain coming down in sheets, heavy enough that it soaks through his fleece and jumper, leaves his body wracked with shivers. He’s not wearing his wellies, had just stuffed his feet into the first shoes he’d seen by the door after Aaron stomped off upstairs, and his toes squelch in his socks as he trudges over to the nearest barn. 

“I don’t want to see your face right now.” That’s what Aaron said. “I don’t know what to think of ya, Robert.”

Robert knows what he thinks of himself: cruel, self-serving, the sort of bloke he’d aspired to be ten years ago, when he thought life would begin and end tucked up at Home Farm living under Lawrence’s thumb. Someone who doesn’t deserve Aaron, never has, but can’t help but despair at the fact that Aaron’s finally came to his senses and realised the same. 

When he reaches the barn, Robert doesn’t enter. It feels too final somehow — the last time he’d ever heard his Mum’s voice she was in a barn, screaming for help. It’s not even the same one and he’s got no braindead siblings left in the village to start a fire once he crosses the threshold, but Robert has the irrational fear that he might actually die if he does. 

So he slumps to the ground instead, back pressed against the outer wall, half protected from the torrential downpour by the wooden canopy above him. The grass is damp, globs of mud sticking to his jeans and burying themselves under his nails when Robert digs them into the dirt just to shock some sort of sensation back in through the haze. 

Robert closes his eyes. The ground is cold. The rain is loud. The scent of petrichor fills his nostrils because it was sunny earlier, a beautiful spring afternoon turned dark and cold, like the universe decided that he needed a bit of pathetic fallacy in his life right now. 

As if Robert didn’t already have pathetic stamped across his forehead, hidden beneath the damp strands of hair that stick to his skin. 

Lost in his thoughts as he is, Robert doesn’t notice the wet plod of footsteps at first. It’s only when he hears a deep sigh that his eyes crack open, caught on a pair of weather-appropriate boots he knows belong to Aaron because they’d bought them only a couple of days before.

Because Aaron is trying to get on board with Robert’s future plans for them because he loves him and they’re going to have a family someday and —

And Robert’s fucked it all up. 

“What do you want, Aaron?” Robert’s voice sounds defeated even to his own ears. 

“I want to understand,” Aaron replies, and it’s clear that he’s struggling to keep himself composed. 

Aaron’s always been the scream at the world until everyone else falls silent sort of person. Robert used to pride himself on being the sort of person who fixes problems — who holds everyone together through whatever means necessary when the end goal was to come home to his family, happy and healthy and alive. 

Liv’s dead now. Seb’s gone. Their home’s not their home anymore and this new one has brought with it such a myriad of misery that Cain must’ve cursed the place before he left. 

Either that, or Robert’s the most unlucky person on the planet, which he’ll admit is a possibility.

“Understand what?” croaks Robert. 

“You.” Aaron says it so simply, so blunt and frustrated and sad. 

Robert isn’t the sort of person who fixes problems anymore. He’s the cause. 

Robert laughs, mirthless. “Explain to me when you do, yeah? I’d love to figure it out myself.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to, like, absolve yourself of any guilt by makin’ out you didn’t know what you were doin’.”

“I didn’t!” Robert’s breaths are ragged, his chest tight. It feels like he’s swallowed a litre of rainwater and it’s settled in his lungs, drowning him from the inside. 

Maybe he never stopped drowning at all. 

“Look, we can talk about it inside,” Aaron bites out, his hand thrust into Robert’s blurry vision to haul him up. 

Robert blinks at it, confused. “You can’t do this, Aaron,” he whispers. “It’s not fair.”

Aaron snatches his hand back. “You what? I’m bein’ unfair? Robert, you’ve been helpin’ the bloke who’s been tearin’ my family apart! And you didn’t even say one word to me about it.”

Robert clambers to his feet on trembling legs, one fist clenched around the wooden beam beside him to keep himself upright. He looks at Aaron’s face, sees the pinched expression, the hurt shining in his eyes and the way his posture’s coiled like a spring ready to snap. 

Ten years ago, Aaron would’ve decked him. There’d be bruises on Robert’s face and blood on Aaron’s knuckles, and they’d both say “It’s over” and know that it wasn’t. Couldn’t be. 

If Aaron says it now, Robert’ll believe him. 

“I did what I thought I had to do to keep Vic safe,” he explains for the umpteenth time through chattering teeth. He shakes his head, ignores the black spots in his vision. “I’m not gonna let her go to prison, Aaron. Not for that.” 

“But you’re willin’ to go down for this, are ya? You’re gonna leave me again.”

Aaron turns on his heel, starts storming back in the direction of the farmhouse. As has always been their dynamic, Aaron leaves and Robert chases. Truthfully, he doesn’t know where he’d go if he wasn’t trailing after Aaron. 

“I don’t want to!” he shouts at his retreating back. 

“D’ya even care what it’d do to me, Robert?” Aaron cries out. “Losing you again — it’d kill me.” 

“You don’t get to miss me now. You lost that right when we broke up.”

Aaron’s hand stills on the door handle. Robert watches the muscles of his back flex when he takes three deep, steadying breaths before he turns around to face him properly. 

“You what?”

“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” Robert persists, half delirious. “You’re breakin’ up with me all while you go on about how hard it’d be for you if I went back inside… I don’t know what you want me to say, Aaron!” 

Aaron yanks the door open, the frame rattling as it swings, almost hitting Robert square in the face when he ducks in after. He sees Aaron flick the kettle on and kick off his muddy shoes, notices the way he seems to deflate now they’re back inside. 

“I want you to say that you’ll stay with me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted you to do, you fuckin’ idiot. There’s gotta be another way and you’re not even tryin’ to find it. Just like when you pleaded guilty all them years ago.” 

The silence that follows is stifling and thick. The kettle finishes, steam pouring out, and Robert digs through the cupboards for a couple of mugs. 

They haven’t even finished unpacking yet, not really. This isn’t their home yet; just another building built brick by brick, lie by lie, tainted by Robert’s indiscretions. 

Aaron drops down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “I just want you to choose me, Robert. To choose to fight.”

“I’m so sick of fighting, Aaron,” he admits softly. “People like Joe Tate — well, they always win.”

“You beat him once.” 

Robert scoffs. “Hardly.”

“He’s just a man, Robert. Men have weaknesses. We can take him down, and we can help Moira clear her name, but not if you’re banged up n’all. Just please promise me you won’t do anything stupid.” 

“We both know I can’t do that.”

Aaron shakes his head, torn between frustration and a sort of wry amusement that comes from knowing Robert Sugden, the stupidest man on the planet, can’t go five minutes without doing something idiotic. 

“I’m not breakin’ up with you, Robert. I love you. But I just — I need you to trust me. I need you to choose me. Vic’s alright. We won’t let anythin’ happen to her, but I’m not lettin’ anythin’ happen to you either, yeah?”

Robert’s hands shake as he pours the milk into their brews and stands them on the table. He still feels a bit like he might pass out, like he can’t break the surface of the water, but Aaron, at least, comes into focus with startling clarity. 

Aaron Dingle, his fiance, who he loves more than life itself — who’s stood by Robert through everything, every trial and tribulation, and still loves him back with a fierceness that borders on frightening. 

“You’re not breaking up with me,” Robert repeats slowly, lets the words sink in and thaw the cold parts of him that can’t be blamed on the weather. 

“No.” Aaron wraps his hands around his mug. “I’m sorry if I made you think I was. It’s just, well, I was so angry with ya — and I still am, y’know — but mostly I was jealous. And I know that’s stupid, but you were gonna go back to prison for Vic again, and…”

“And what?”

“And I just couldn’t find the words to tell ya that I wanted you to stay with me. For me. Because I love you.”

Robert’s voice cracks. “Still?” 

“Yeah.” 

Robert moves to stand behind Aaron’s chair, arms wrapped around his shoulders and face pressed into the crook of his neck. They’re both drenched, no doubt halfway to pneumonia, but warm and tingly where their bodies touch. 

“I love you.” 

“We’ll sort this.”

“Together, yeah?”