So... When I first came up with the idea for this AU, the events of this fic were the first I planned out. Now that it's here, though, I'm very unsure about writing it, as it'll cover the events surrounding Gordon's return, etc. (though obliquely, for the most part), and I'm not certain I'll be able to do that justice.
Nevertheless, I will try, but taking cautious, baby-steps again with a short part to start, as I'm a little nervous once more!
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There's no empty space within Robert where, for a few, short weeks, his bond used to be. Its absence doesn't ache, he doesn't feel as though he's lost some vital part of himself, being without it.
He misses it, all the same.
Not the bond itself, per se, because that had been little more than a ceaseless, ringing irritation – a bad case of psychic tinnitus – but what it represented. Proof, perhaps, that, despite the fucked up mess he'd otherwise made of his life over the past year, he'd managed to do one good thing; made one right choice.
That the mystical, cosmic match-making force he'd always scornfully rejected the existence of before had looked down from on high and nodded approvingly. Yes, that's the one.
But Aaron clearly didn't believe that. He didn't want any part of it, and it hadn't solved anything.
Looking back with the benefit of a clearer head and a few days of distance, Robert can't understand why he ever thought it might.
His father's bond hadn't been enough to keep him in Italy, all those years ago. Andy was still alone.
Aaron had been fully capable of hating him, when the time came.
Now, he just seems indifferent. He doesn't avoid Robert, but he doesn't seek him out, either. He no longer tenses whenever Robert draws near, aware of his presence long before he sees or even hears him approach.
On the few, scattered occasions they do speak, he seems to make a point to keep steady, unwavering eye contact with Robert, and there's something defiant in it; a demonstration where none were needed that it doesn't affect him in the same way anymore.
There's no connection left between them that will catch hold and flare bright.
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Sometimes, when Robert's been tossing and turning in bed for hours and his thoughts are racing too fast for him to sleep, he reaches out and tries to feel that connection again.
He doesn't exactly want the bond back – because it was never comforting; never anything that he'd been promised – but just something beyond the narrow confines of Vic's box room, the looming shadows of stacked boxes and stagnant, stuffy air. Something beyond himself.
But he can't find even the faintest trace of it, no matter how hard he pushes.
He finds himself wondering if his dad ever lost nights to this kind of futile searching, because his own bond must have thinned and snapped, surely, stretched out over thousands of miles of land and sea.
He wonders if Andy did, with Katie lying in bed beside him, close enough to touch with a hand but never with this.
And if Aaron does. If he ever has any doubts about what they did; if he regrets it, and reaches out in return.
He can't ask any of them now, though, so he just tosses and turns and wonders alone.
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Although he'd not experienced the bond for long enough to tease out the meaning of its every nuance, what each slight variation in timbre and intensity might represent, he'd begun to be able to intuit the broad strokes of Aaron's moods through it, near the end: the prickle of embarrassment, the thundering rush of anger.
Without it, he's left to add up a frown here, a few sparse words there, and attempt come up with an explanation for Aaron's behaviour that somehow makes sense out of all of it, just like anyone else might.
Because there's obviously something bothering him, even hurting him – his mum's illness, maybe, or his estranged father's recent reappearance in his life – it's written clear in his pale skin, the clamminess of his brow, and the way he sits at his desk at the scrapyard, back bowed and arm curled tightly around himself, as though he's striving to protect something deep in his core.
It's like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces missing, and the farewell note he leaves behind on his desk isn't enough to solve it. Nothing is, until they're outside, standing beside Aaron's car, and Robert reaches out and lays a hand on Aaron's shoulder, meaning only to make him pause for a moment; to stop, and listen, and explain why he feels he has no choice but to leave.
At first there's just the smooth fabric of Aaron's coat, the firm lines of muscle and bone beneath, but then in a disorientating flash of doubled vision and distorted sound, Robert can suddenly feel the pressure of his own hand, bearing down against his skin, and then fire rushes races over and through him, raising a wash of sweat in its wake.
It's as though Aaron has spoken his words all over again, because that same feverish ache follows, and Robert starts to shiver with it, his teeth chattering together hard. And the same searing pain tears through his forearm, but he doesn't think it's anything to do with his mark this time.
He doesn't think he needs to see Aaron's arm to confirm it, any more than he needed to see Aaron's mark that day in Keeper's Cottage to know what he already sensed was true, but he rolls back Aaron's sleeve, anyway, just to be sure.
He catches Aaron, too, when he starts to fall, drags him to his car even though his own legs are shaking so hard that it's a struggle enough to stay upright and moving himself.
He settles Aaron as comfortably as he can in the passenger seat, takes the driver's, and then hunches forward, resting his head against the centre of the steering as he breathes deep and blinks rapidly, trying to clear his fogged eyes.
Aaron's own breathing is shallow and shivery, hitching at the back of his throat. "I'm sorry," he says in a rough whisper. "I can't... I can't keep it back anymore."
"It's okay," Robert tells him, and he repeats it over and over again until it becomes nothing but meaningless noise, because he can't think of anything else to say. Because he realises that, fuck, they must have been wrong before, and all they had really achieved before is what Aaron set out to do at the start.
They ignored the bond. Made it small, made it not matter.
But they never managed to break it.