The Rough Road
Disclaimer - I don't own anything to do with Emmerdale sadly, please don't sue me.
Hi! This is my first fanfic so I apologise if it's not good... Reviews and suggestions for improvement most welcome! It starts off in familiar territory but will fairly rapidly run off on its own.
Jackson wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his jacket and sighed at the pile of building materials still stacked up in the back of his van. He was fed up of lugging planks of wood and tools up a set of stairs that would give mountain goat vertigo, but there was simply no other option. He'd been at it since late morning and so far had only shifted about half of what he figured he needed. It was going to be a long afternoon.
He had just decided on taking some insulation upstairs instead of a particularly large and suspiciously heavy looking bag of plaster when he was interrupted.
"Oi mate!"
Jackson turned, letting the roll of insulation he'd just picked up drop back onto the floor of the van. Expecting a villager with some complaint about building noise or unsociable clouds of dust, he was surprised to find someone he didn't think he recognised standing in the road. Nope… He was sure he'd remember seeing a thin, blond skinhead with a truly hideous tracksuit wandering around the village.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"Was wondering if you knew where I could find Aaron Livesy?"
Jackson's brows pulled together as he scrutinised the younger man more closely.
"You a mate of his?"
"Something like that yeah."
The builder didn't like the smug little smirk that accompanied that comment at all, but he really didn't want to examine why he suddenly felt so wound up by it. After all, it certainly wasn't any of his business why strange young men were turning up in the village looking for Aaron, he could be friends with whoever he wanted. Jackson cleared his throat realising that he'd been stood there frowning at the man for the past 30 seconds or so.
"Urm… Have you tried the pub?" He remembered hearing Cain shouting to Aaron and Ryan that it was lunchtime about a half hour ago whilst he'd been shifting some equipment around upstairs in the cottage.
"Already looked and he weren't there." the skinhead replied sullenly.
"Well if he's not at the garage," Jackson said with a nod towards the corner of the building, "I've no idea where he might be." It wasn't strictly true, he could think of a few other places the young mechanic might be lurking, but he was no longer feeling in a helpful mood.
Without so much as a thank you, the blonde man turned and wandered off towards the garage. Jackson rolled his eyes and sighed. Just what the village needed, another rude and moody chav. Aaron had obviously found himself the perfect playmate. That thought made him scowl and he slammed the doors of his van, giving up on the idea of carrying anything else inside. He really wanted to do something loud, preferably involving hitting something repeatedly with a hammer. Disappearing inside he stomped up the stairs in search of something he could take his frustrations out on.
Aaron was standing outside the garage glaring into the engine of a small green Fiat. God how he hated this car! Three days he'd been working on it now and it was still refusing to start. It had seemed simple enough at first, but every time he thought he'd fixed whatever was wrong with it, the engine would make the same pathetic gurgling cough that it had been making since the vehicle had arrived and he'd be right back to square one. He was beginning to suspect that the car was out to get him. It didn't help that Cain and Ryan were both refusing to have anything to do with it. Each time he threw down his tools in frustration they'd tell him to look on it as a learning experience. Then they'd snigger at him. It had happened again earlier leaving Aaron in such a foul mood that he'd ignored them both when they'd gone for lunch, deciding that he'd get something on his own later.
If it had felt like each failure was getting him closer to finding the problem it might not have been quite so bad, but the fact was that nothing he did seemed to make the slightest difference, it was just as broken as ever. To make matters worse, the hours he spent trying to find the next thing that might need fixing gave him time to think about what, for want of a better description, he called his life. He snorted to himself at that thought. A life… It seemed to be something that other people had and he was completely lacking. Actually, maybe that was the real reason that he hated the Fiat – it felt like it was a reflection of his life. Every time he thought things were going to get better the result was disappointment and yet another trauma looming on the horizon. Living with his dad had ended in disaster so he'd ended up stuck with his mum and the rest of her insane family. Again things had all gone wrong and they'd ended up with Paddy… Then back to the Dingles, then back to Paddy's, there was no way anyone could describe his teenage years as having any semblance of stability. Victoria, Adam, Holly, one thing after another, then the whole hideous mess with coming out… Just thinking about what he'd done to Paddy still made him feel physically sick. A lump formed in his throat as his thoughts led naturally on to Jackson and how he'd treated him. Attempted suicide, court case and community payback and here he was back in the present stuck putting a new fuel pump into an evil little car. Sigh.
Jackson. If there was one mistake that he regretted more than anything else it was lashing out at him with his fists. Jackson who had, in a fashion, made him accept everything that had gone wrong for him before. If things had unfolded in any other way the chances were that he wouldn't have been in Bar West that night, he wouldn't have lost his phone and he wouldn't have caught a glimpse of a future where he might actually have a chance at some measure of happiness. Still, that was all ash now. Jackson wanted nothing more to do with him and, Aaron thought to himself, who could blame him. He was a mess and he messed up everything around him. He knew that the way his life had turned out was mostly down to his own short temper and poor decisions. He'd been trying to make better choices recently and it had even seemed to be working until he'd again reacted without thinking.
Aaron finally smiled with satisfaction at the newly installed fuel pump. He was confident that this time he'd found the solution that fixed all the problems… If at first you don't succeed blah blah blah… Now if he could just do the same with the rest of his life, keep trying to master his temper and to stop reacting purely on instinct every time things took a turn for the worse, maybe he could become someone worthy of the people who inexplicably seemed to care about him. He gave a loose looking bolt one final triumphant twist with a spanner then stared in disbelief as the head promptly sheared off and disappeared with a plink into the depths of the engine. "Maybe the universe just hates me after all." he thought. As if to prove the point the sound of approaching footsteps on gravel made him look up to see Wayne stalking towards him. Aaron scowled and wondered exactly what he had done to deserve this, then decided that he really didn't want to know the answer to that.
