Note: Diverging a little more from the canon timeline a bit here, if only because there's not really much space to fit relatively uneventful, learning limits of soulbond-type stuff into the canon timeline. So pretty much everything following Aaron's release from prison's been shuffled a couple of months further off into the future, and this fic is set in the space that creates (as the next two/possibly three will also be).
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Aaron had told Robert to keep his distance, and for the past week, Robert has tried his best to comply.
But distance isn't exactly easy to come by in the village, and no matter how conscientiously Robert orders his days, their paths have continued to cross, regardless.
Literally, on a couple of occasions – both looking fixedly at the pavement as they took ridiculously exaggerated steps to the side and around one another – and once at the scrap yard, when Robert's pinpoint timing was thwarted by slapdash filing and Adam's resultantly long hunt for the accounts, but, more often than not, in The Woolpack.
And in the pub, it's impossible to stay far enough away from each other that Robert isn't aware of the bond. It's nothing more than a gossamer thread, strung loosely between them, but it hums when Aaron's talking to his mum or Paddy or Adam, crackles with static whenever he laughs, and it's constant, always niggling at the periphery of Robert's thoughts and jittering across his skin.
He doesn't know how to ignore it, to make it small and not matter, so he's begun to plan his visits to the pub carefully, too.
It's quarter to twelve on a Tuesday, and the only other people here besides Robert and Chas are a couple of leather-faced farmers and their dog: a small, shaggy-haired mutt of indeterminate breed that looks like an ambulatory bathmat.
It's quietly dull, and he could be sitting around doing nothing just as easily and far more comfortably at Vic's house, but the change of scenery's moderately diverting in and of itself, and there's only so much This Morning he has it in him to take, besides.
He'd found a copy of yesterday's Hotten Courier rolled-up and shoved between the logs piled up around the stove at his side earlier, and he unrolls it now, flattens it out as best he can with the back of his hand.
The front page is dominated by a picture of a confused-looking sheep standing on top of a barn roof. The headline speculates that a highly localised tornado might be the cause of its predicament, but Robert thinks simple ovine stupidity is a far likelier culprit.
Page three recounts the harrowing tale of a car crash on the outskirts of Hotten, which had resulted in no fatalities, no injuries, nor even any damage save a slightly buckled lampost.
Page seven details the feud that has raged between two families in Robblesfield for three decades and two generations, concerning the disputed placement of a boundary wall. The Armstrongs and Dixons: Yorkshire's own Montagues and Capulets.
Robert could almost swear that the exact same stories had appeared in the Courier when he was a child. Sometimes, it really does seem as though he never left, like an entire decade of his life was just an extended fever dream.
He drinks his beer, reads about WI meetings and acts of petty theft, and tries to ignore that the bond has fizzled into life again, even though Aaron's supposed to be in Bradford for the day, picking up some copper piping.
It feels different than usual, vibrating like a plucked guitar string, and so strong that Robert can track his movements by the ebb and flow of it. From side door, to hallway, to pacing around the back room, to hallway again, and then to the door behind the bar.
Robert stares very intently at the picture of Mrs Eileen Walker (54) shaking hands with the Lord Mayor of Hotten, because he doesn't want to risk making eye contact with Aaron, even accidentally. The bond always sparks bright when that happens, and Aaron always flinches from it.
Robert expects Aaron to head straight for his mum, because he must need to talk to her with some urgency otherwise he never would have come out here. He's surely as acutely conscious of Robert's presence as Robert is of his.
But he doesn't go to Chas. He walks with firm, steady steps towards Robert's table, curls his fingers around the top of the chair set opposite him, and, somewhat unbelievably, asks, "Mind if I join you?"
The sustained C sharp note of the bond holds no explanations for this unprecedented overture. Neither does Aaron's face, when Robert slants a cautious glance upwards to check on it. It's studiedly void of expression, though his flushed cheeks and the untidy muss of his normally ruthlessly controlled hair do appear to suggest agitation.
Keeping their distance hadn't been Robert's idea or his inclination, and he'd agreed to it solely for Aaron's sake, not his own.
"Be my guest," he says.
Aaron plummets down onto the chair like a particularly hefty sack of potatoes, folds his hands together – fingers interwoven so tightly that the skin across his knuckles blanches – and rests them against the top of the table whilst his heel skitter-scrapes across the floor below it as he extends his right leg.
His foot comes to rest just a couple of centimetres or so away from Robert's own. Robert politely moves it aside to make room for him.
Aaron frowns a little, nostrils flaring, and then his heel scrapes once more, settles again almost touching Robert's shoe. He looks up at Robert through his lashes and there's something soft about his eyes now; not quite a plea but definitely a question.
Robert isn't sure he knows the right reply to it, but he does have a suspicion, so, very tentatively, he presses his calf against Aaron's.
Aaron's frown doesn't lift, but he doesn't shift his leg away either and the buzz of the bond drops precipitously in pitch.
It doesn't feel the same as the last time they touched, that bizarre feedback loop of sensation, just a normal exchange of body heat and light pressure that's not really all that normal anymore. Not for them.
Chas must have been as distracted as Robert by something or other, as she only now scurries over to Aaron's side, bearing a pint and an expression brimming with concern for her son.
Aaron accepts the glass but dismisses the concern with a roll of his eyes. Chas lingers for a moment, one hand hovering close to Aaron's shoulder, but he bows his head, sips at his pint, and ignores both it and her.
She eventually gives up and leaves him be, but not before treating Robert to a narrow-eyed, suspicious glare that she somehow manages, Mona-Lisa-like, to keep fixed on him even as she retreats back behind the bar.
Robert smiles at her in return for it, overly broad and full of feigned sweetness, and wonders exactly how much more she would hate him if she knew he was spiritually fulfilling her son beneath the table right now, right under her no—
Aaron knocks his ankle hard against Robert's. Growls, "Stop winding my mum up."
"I'm not doing anything!" Robert protests, affronted at the accusation.
"Maybe not," Aaron says. "You're thinking about it, though."
The implications are horrifying. "You can read my thoughts now?"
"Can you read mine?"
Even if Robert concentrates hard on nothing but the bond, he can't discern anything beyond a slight discordant beat in the rhythm of it. Something spiky and caustic that's probably a manifestation of Aaron's annoyance, but even then he can't be certain.
"No," he says.
"Well then," Aaron says. "There's your answer."
Robert isn't entirely confident that it is. Aaron's had longer to learn his bond, and he can clearly control it better – he knows how to make it small, make it not matter – so there's really no telling what he can sense through it that Robert cannot.
Robert hasn't even found its limits yet, and he certainly can't control it. It just spills out of him, unprincipled and unfocused, and probably carries much more of himself with it than he'd readily give if he had any say in the matter.
He studies Aaron more closely again, notes the roseate tint of his eyes, the light bruise of grey below them, and the faint lines bracketing his mouth. He looks exhausted, though there's not a single hint of that perceptible through their bond.
Experimentally, Robert calms his thoughts, attempts to become the mental equivalent of a hot water bottle and mug of Horlicks and push that feeling through the bond towards Aaron.
"You can stop whatever that is, an' all," Aaron snaps. "It's weird."
Robert sighs, defeated. "What do you want me to do, then?"
"Just sit there, drink the rest of your pint, and pretend I'm not here."
With that said, Aaron purloins Robert's newspaper, hunkers down over it, and then proceeds to pretend Robert's not there with remarkable ease.
And Robert tries to do the same. He listens to the leathery farmers talk with energetic zeal about muck spreading, faffs about with his phone, allows himself to be glowered at some more by Chas, but nothing holds his interest except Aaron.
He watches the delicate sweep, stretch and bend of Aaron's fingers as he turns from car crash to boundary wall vendetta to Mrs Eileen Walker (54) in the paper. Watches the flush bleed from his cheeks, the creases fade from his skin, and his shoulders round. Watches his eyelashes flutter as his eyelids start to sag.
When his eyes close all the way, the bond abruptly roars into fresh, violent life. It's like being struck by lightning – or, at least, how Robert imagines that might feel – sudden and sharp and scalding; darts of pure energy radiating out from the tiny point of contact where their legs meet, racing through his stomach and chest, all the way up to the crown of his head. Every hair on his body stands on end.
Robert reflexively recoils from the shock of it, slamming his knees against the underside of the table, and Aaron shoots to his feet so quickly that his chair almost overbalances.
He stands there motionless for a while, eyes saucer-wide and panting hard, before bolting for the pub's front door. Chas calls out to him, asking what's happened, if he's okay, but he ignores her again and keeps going. After gifting Robert one last, accusatory glare, Chas hurries off after him.
Robert stays where he is, partly because he doubts Aaron would want him to follow, but mostly because his legs don't feel strong enough to allow him to stand. The blast from the bond is still resounding through them, tendrils of heat licking up the insides of his thighs. He's half hard from it, though that probably doesn't signify a great deal, as a stiff wind hitting him at just the right angle can make him half hard of late.
He sits stock still, listens to the farmers' conversation again (they've moved onto drainage now), and diligently avoids thinking about heat, and the bond, and, especially, Aaron.
He feels almost entirely himself once more by the time Vic approaches him, bringing with her a plate of pie and chips, and what looks to be a side order of ulterior motives too, judging by the speculative gleam in her eyes.
"It's nearly two o'clock and you haven't had your dinner yet," she says chidingly, holding the plate out towards him. "I thought you could probably do with this. You must be starving."
The pie's crust is perfectly crisp, the chips fat and golden. If they weren't bristling with attached strings, they'd look very appetising.
"I'm fine, Vic."
Vic moves the plate closer, wafts it under his nose. "You're still recuperating, Rob," she says, wheedling now. "You've got to eat. Keep your strength up."
The pie smells delicious, and Robert is a good hour overdue for his lunch. His stomach growls.
"Really, I'm all right," he says, but the protest is weak and unconvincing even to his own ears, and Vic fails to be swayed by it.
"I am going to talk to you, either way," she says. "But you can do it with pie or without. It's up to you."
The threat doesn't seem like an idle one, she looks determined. Robert reluctantly capitulates and takes the plate from her, because if there's no chance of escape on offer, it is preferable to being interrogated on an empty stomach.
Vic beams at him in triumph, and then sits down on the chair Aaron had been using.
She allows him to eat two bites of pie and one chip undisturbed before leaning across the table to say in an undertone, "You and Aaron looked pretty cosy earlier."
"Hardly," Robert scoffs. "I'd say civil, at best."
Vic nods once, then scoots her chair a little closer, asks in an even quieter voice, "Was it Aaron? Is he your... Did he say your words?"
Robert can't even begin to understand how she might have reached that conclusion after, he presumes, observing either them sitting in silence for half an hour or so, or Aaron running away from him like his arse was on fire.
"What on earth's made you think that?"
"I don't know." Vic shrugs. "You just looked... sort of different together, I guess."
Before Aaron stomped off to parts unknown following their conversation in Keepers Cottage the previous week, Robert had asked him whether they should tell anyone about the bond. Chas and Vic, maybe. At least. Aaron had made a face like a cat trying to bring up a hairball made out of barbed wire in response, from which Robert had inferred that the answer would be no, long before Aaron recovered from his surprise sufficiently to say it.
And he'd said it so incredulously, as though it shouldn't even have been in question. As though Robert should never have been in any doubt of it.
"It wasn't Aaron," he says firmly.
It's almost as if they're embarking on an affair again, albeit not nearly as satisfying. All of the lies and secrecy, none of the excitement, and ninety percent more frustrated wanking in the shower on Robert's part.
He turns to his chips again in search of some small measure of solace. There's not much to be found there. They need more salt.
"Are you going to tell me who it actually was, then?" Vic asks as he reaches out for the cellar. She sounds deflated.
Robert doesn't like to disappoint her, but he shakes his head, nonetheless. "Look, I'm better now, that's the important thing, and they're not going to be a part of my life, anyway," he says. "It really doesn't matter who it was, trust me."