Ruby

Thank you for the tags @stuckinanothertimezone @maybemystcha @illbeyourreasonwhy you lovely people 🫶

Another part of let’s build a life again…

“Weird.”

“What’s weird?” Tracey asks.

Robert looks back to the ceiling, “I don’t think I’ve really been in here since Andy left.”

“Andy,” Tracey singsongs. “Now he was a good shag. So big and muscular. One time, we were roleplaying-”

Robert wrinkles his nose, can practically feel the wine he’s drunk churning in his stomach listening to Tracey talk about his brother’s sex life. “I absolutely do not want to hear about my brother’s bedroom adventures.”

“Oh but Robert,” Tracey whines, elongating his name in a high pitch voice. “It was a good one. I was the broke farmer who couldn’t pay rent and he was the-”

Robert jumps up, stumbles over his socked feet in his haste to leave. Tracey’s laughing behind him, grabbing at his jumper to keep him from going to the door. She’s hiccups she’s sorry, she’ll stop, Jesus Christ Robert, stop moving and sit back down.

Thanks everybody for the tags! @barnbert @stuckinanothertimezone @aaronsugdens @nerdyfangirl76 @capseycartwright @genuinewarmdecentfeeling @robertbugden @thatnervouswreck @mellaithwen @illbeyourreasonwhy and @maybemystcha

Chapter is being a bit of a bitch ngl. But here's another tidy tidbit 😁

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"It's just… this whole thing with your fiancée. Why can't you tell us anything about her, Rob? Why are you so secretive about everything?"

"So you don't believe me then?" Robert asks, his voice tightening slightly as he tries to ignore the proximity of the neighbouring tables in the busy cafe.

Victoria gives him a flat look. "I didn't say that. I just want to get to know you again. And you aren't making it easy!"

Robert swallows, his eyes darting over her shoulder. "Look, it's just… it's just complicated right now. I will tell you more when I can. But… there's things I gotta work through first."

Victoria’s expression softenes into a sad look, one filled with genuine concern. "You guys aren't in like… a fight or sommat?"

"No," Robert said, shaking his head quickly. "Like I said. It's just complicated."

---

Will tag these lovelies but obviously no pressure 🫶

thank youuu @barnbert @stuckinanothertimezone @aaronsugdens @nerdyfangirl76 @capseycartwright @genuinewarmdecentfeeling @robertbugden @thatnervouswreck for the tags 💖 feeling like absolute hell rn but your snippets are giving me life <3

"John reckoned I was beyond help." "Yeah, well, John reckoned true love was throwing his husband off a cliff, so let's take his opinions with a pinch of salt, yeah?" Aaron frowns. "When did he even tell you that?" "Back in August. The day you found me smashing up my room." Aaron's frown deepens as he looks at him. "You were in a right state that day," he says carefully. "Yeah, I remember." He turns away, unable to face Aaron as he thinks back to that day, how everything got too much and too loud and too everything, how he lost himself in a rage about how broken everything was, how broken he was. If anything, that should be all the evidence Aaron needs for John's point to be proven. "You saw what I was like that day. You've seen the state of me. A therapist's not going to be able to help me." "That's not what you said when you found me that counselor all them years ago, is it?" Robert glances back at him, brief enough to see him raising an expectant eyebrow, then away again, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "Did counselling help?" he asks, knows Aaron will interpret it as the thawing that it is. "You know it did," he says. "You were there, remember?"

will i finish this in time for sunday? who knows certainly not me

Cheers for the tags @barnbert @stuckinanothertimezone @robertbugden @aaronsugdens @thatnervouswreck and @capseycartwright <3

Robert had persevered. He’d practically absolved Kev of any wrong-doing because Robert had lied, Robert had cheated—you hurt me, because you were angry, that's not love, that's control.

Robert had blamed himself, taken full responsibility, and then he'd gone as far as to thank Kev. He’d made it clear—sincerely so—that it was Robert who didn't deserve Kev, and not the other way around—and he'd done it alone, because even though his hands had been shaking in the pockets of his jacket the whole damn time, the idea of adding Aaron to the mix and risking his safety was never even an option.

And in the end it had all been for nothing, because all Kev did was switch his matches out for a loaded gun—sent bullets flying from out of the shadows of the shaded trees—and Robert had spent his first Christmas out of prison wondering if it would be his last…

thank you to the wonderful: @nerdyfangirl76, @aaronsugdens and @barnbert for tagging me!

here's a tiny snippet from the last chapter of something blue

“So … so …” Robert breathes in. “You …”

“You needed to be brought down a peg or two.”

Aaron feels sick. 

Robert coughs, and Aaron snaps his neck to watch him barrel over with it like he’s in pain. 

“I wasn’t driving that car.” Robert wheezes a little and then he sits up straighter like he wants to be able to look John in the eye. “You were.”

Aaron holds his breath and waits for John to explain it all away. 

He wanted to do something nice, for his boyfriend. Robert spraining his wrist was just the cherry on top of a cake that felt as though it had been baked with poison.

The forlorn, far-away look in Robert’s eyes as Liam had carefully, gently, poked and prodded at his sore wrist, had checked him over for a concussion, had been enough to spur Aaron into action.

ao3 link

this is just a wee ditty of a coda that i hope will be with you today/tomorrow if my brain cooperates so prayer circle for my motivation

Aaron’s starting to get worried that he’ll have chewed all of the skin off of his thumb before Robert comes home. It’s a bad habit, he knows, but it’s not the worst habit he’s ever had, and so Aaron’s never really found the motivation to stop, picking and chewing at the skin of his thumbs until they’re sore, and bleeding.

It’s a more palatable form of self harm than cutting lines into the skin of his arms, his chest, and Aaron’s been at war with himself for long enough to accept he won’t win every battle - this is just one he’s chosen to lose.

Robert will notice, when he’s home, and he’ll tut under his breath, but he’ll patiently clean the seeping, self-inflicted wounds, and he’ll determinedly rub that horrible hand cream he keeps on his bedside locker into Aaron’s dry hands, and he’ll do what he always does, and take care of Aaron.

thank you for the tags @barnbert @stuckinanothertimezone

"Matty," he says, clearing his throat and keeping his eyes low - the sun is high in the sky and it is not helping Robert's overall wellbeing.

"Yeah?" Matty responds, hefting a bag of feed into the truck bed.

"You don't have to… I don't need looking after, okay? I'm fine. This," he waves his wrist brace, "is slowing me down a bit, but there's no reason it should do the same to you."

"I don't mind," Matty says, shrugging, but when Robert chances a glance up at him he looks like he's holding back from saying more.

"What?"

Matty hesitates, then sighs and relents. "Aaron… may have asked me to just, you know, keep an eye." He looks sheepish and Robert feels a hot wave of embarrassment wash over him.

I'm in the middle of robron week writing craze, but I dooo have a tiny bit from upcoming chapter of my blind Robert fic.

“I was too much even before all of that.” Robert waves his hand in front of his face in a dismissive gesture that makes something inside Aaron crack, “Couldn’t keep a relationship to save my life. And now-” his voice is a croaky, raspy whisper, “I’m scared of being alone.”

“You’re not.” Aaron’s lips feel like they’re going to bleed. “You have Vic and Diane, and me, and-” you’ll find someone, he should say, but he can’t, the image of Robert and that bloke, Mike, knocking the air out of his lungs, “And you’re not too much, alright? You’re amazing.”

Robron week 2026 day 3 : 2016