We Start Again – Chapter 1
-O-
DISCLAIMER: I am not connected to Emmerdale and its characters, which belong to ITV
-O-
The heat wave had lasted for days. The grass on the village green was parched, the River Emm was drying up and the flagstones in front of the Woolpack could be used for frying eggs.
Robert Sugden was an intelligent, well-informed man and it had crossed his mind about global warming. A professor in a television interview the previous night had been talking about sunspots and unusual solar flares, but Robert had paid little attention to it as he had been distracted by a scantily-clad dish of a man who had captured his heart and now shared his life. However, little snippets of information from the TV programme came back to him as he walked along the main street in the direction of the scrap yard. He was wearing light linen trousers and his blue shirt, but no jacket due to the heat.
Walking across the yard, Robert noticed that his husband had propped open the door of the cabin, for ventilation. It was hardly surprising on such a boiling hot day. As he entered the cabin, he saw Aaron sitting at his desk wearing nothing but shorts and a singlet. "You look cool," he remarked.
Aaron fixed Robert with his amazing blue eyes, "Sarcasm never was your strong point," he sneered.
Robert chuckled, even when he paid a compliment to his other half, Aaron would take it as an attempt at disapproval.
"I'm serious," Robert sought to reassure Aaron that he was being sincere, "you look great: it shows off your amazing body. I want to jump over this desk and have my wicked way with you."
"You can if you want an audience," Aaron realised that his husband was flirting with him and his face broke into a big cheesy grin, "Adam is due back at any second and, in any case, it's far too hot for that sort of thing."
"It's never too hot for that sort of thing!" Robert, as always, was turned on. But he decided that this was neither the time nor the place for his attempts at seduction. However, he made a mental note to continue the train of thought later.
Just then, as if on cue, Adam clumped up the steps and into the cabin, "Alright, boys?" he chirruped.
Robert grinned at his brother-in-law and drew the wrong conclusion about his happy mood, "Have you made the peace with my sister?"
"No such luck, Vic's not going to forgive me any time soon: she could have coped with me not being able to be a dad, but me running back to Vanessa was the last straw," Adam studied Robert carefully, "I'm sorry it turned out that you weren't a dad. I still can't believe that Rebecca tried to trick you like that. It was a pretty mean thing to do," Adam knew that Robert was still reeling from Rebecca's admission that she had lied about the father of her baby and it had turned out to be Ross' child.
"That's okay," Robert replied, "we weren't ready to start a family anyway," he nodded towards Aaron.
Adam knew that Robert was putting on a brave face. Robert had started to come round to the idea of being a father, but it had been cruelly snatched away. He understood perfectly as he himself was unable to father children.
"Anyway," Adam changed the subject, "it's pretty quiet here today and it's too hot to do much anyway. I can man the fort now I'm back, why don't you two take the day off and go and do something?"
"Like what?" Aaron had a quizzical look on his face.
"Go and spend a day in the country and catch a few rays," Adam suggested, "as long as you wear factor fifty so you don't get sunburn."
Robert looked at his husband, "Shall we?"
Aaron mulled it over for all of two seconds, "Well, it beats sitting in a stuffy office, or the cab of a lorry, or a sweltering scrap yard," he looked at Adam, "do you want to come?"
Adam quickly made his excuses, "Nah! You're alright, ta. I've got some paperwork to catch up on. Anyway, the idea was for you two to have some 'alone time'. I don't want to be like a spare wotsit at a wedding."
They all laughed.
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After popping home to Mill Cottage so that Robert could change into a t-shirt and shorts and after packing a picnic hamper, Aaron and Robert drove off into the countryside in Robert's car. They found a quiet spot under some trees by a lake and decided to have their picnic on a grassy bank overlooking the water, under the shade of a giant oak tree. It was a lovely place and they both felt at ease.
"I thought you'd never want to go on a picnic ever again after last time," Robert remarked as he unloaded the contents of the hamper onto the blanket that they had spread on the ground beneath them.
"Why do you say that?" Aaron enquired.
"Well, you didn't seem that enthusiastic the last time. I remember you turning your nose up at the thought of cucumber sandwiches."
"We didn't have cucumber sandwiches," Aaron looked at Robert and licked his lips, "we did, however, have something else in the cricket pavilion!"
Robert remembered the incident, which had led to them swapping clothes afterwards, "There isn't a cricket pavilion for miles."
Aaron looked around, "There's nobody around for miles either," he winked suggestively and stretched himself across to Robert so that he could plant a kiss on his husband's lips.
With a quick movement, Robert deftly removed Aaron's singlet and Aaron pulled at Robert's shirt, leaving them both bare-chested. They kissed again and the kiss held and deepened. At one time, Aaron would never have dreamed of having sex al-fresco, but he loved Robert with a passion and could not say no to him. Besides, he now delighted in new experiences and was willing to make love to his gorgeous husband, anywhere and at any time!
It did not take long for them to strip completely naked and their arousal was obvious. Their lips locked as they fondled and caressed each other. Aaron was on his back and moved to lift his legs up into a submissive position, but Robert had other ideas on this summer's afternoon. Straddling Aaron's fit body he sat on Aaron's midriff, easing himself backwards to accept his husband's rampant weapon inside him. He groaned as he stretched to allow entrance to Aaron's swollen member. As he started to bounce up and down he began moaning, "Oh Aaron, I love it!"
Aaron could tell that he was giving his partner extreme pleasure and he thrust upwards as Robert slid downwards to get all of Aaron's hardness inside him. Robert knew that it was a feeling that no woman could ever give him and he felt connected to his husband in the most intimate way possible.
Robert bent down so that his lips could once more lock onto Aaron's and their tongues duelled as they kissed. From their very first time in the garage, when they first met, they had felt a connection which was always based on more than merely lust. Over time, their sex sessions took on a new meaning. They realised that their compatibility had developed into something stronger: they had fallen in love. Once both had acknowledged that fact, their lovemaking became more intense and more meaningful. It gave their coupling an added dimension.
They climaxed simultaneously and Robert rolled off of Aaron. They were panting heavily from both the exertion and the heat as they cuddled each other. They gazed into each other's eyes and a silent communication passed between them. They were so in sync that they did not need words. After a while, they decided that they had better make themselves decent, just in case someone came along, so they pulled their pants and shorts back on. The activity had made them hungry so they tucked into their picnic.
As Robert munched on a sausage roll which had been raided from their fridge at home along with scotch eggs and smoked salmon, he spoke, "I think it's about time we talked about getting married."
"We are married," was Aaron's sardonic reply.
"Not officially," Robert was being pedantic, "I want to make it legal and binding."
"Do we need to go to all that bother for a piece of paper?"
Robert was suddenly worried: he felt that he might be pushing Aaron further than he was willing to go, "What's the matter? Is it that you still don't trust me to stay faithful? I promise you, Aaron, I'm completely yours and that's all I'll ever be. You are my world and I'd never put that at risk again."
It always touched Aaron when Robert was so obviously being sincere. He leaned in for another kiss which Robert eagerly accepted and returned.
"Okay," Aaron said as their lips parted, "I know you're the only one for me, Robert. There's nothing to stop us tying the knot...again."
"Shall we change our names this time?" Robert asked.
"I thought we'd decided to keep our own names?"
Robert could sense a little resistance to his proposal, "I thought you liked it when I called you Mr Sugden?"
Aaron did not want to give Robert the wrong impression, "Yeah, I did. But I've only just got used to being called Dingle, that's all."
Robert had a bright idea, "Well, how about being double-barrelled?"
Aaron giggled "Is that some kind of weird sexual practice?"
Robert also chuckled: his husband's lack of comprehension was so cute and endearing to him, "No! I mean using both our names, hyphenated: like Sugden-Dingle."
"I see...although it should be me first, Dingle-Sugden."
"Okay, fine by me! As long as we are properly joined together as a family, that's all that matters to me," Robert smiled and Aaron's lips crashed into his again.
It was after they broke the kiss that they noticed something strange: a smoky haze was drifting across the lake.
"That's odd," Robert remarked, "it was supposed to be fine all day."
"Look over there!" Aaron exclaimed as he pointed towards the woods in the distance to their right. A plume of thick, dark smoke was rising from that direction.
"Oh my God!" Robert had seen the smoke, "I don't believe it: it must be a forest fire!"
The couple quickly gathered their belongings and rushed back to the spot where Robert's car was parked. They clambered in and Robert drove off down the narrow road. Trees lined the road on both sides. When they rounded a curve, they could see the fire raging to their right, but there was a fork in the road ahead, so Robert took the left one to try to avoid the rapidly approaching flames. After a short distance the road became a dirt track and after about a mile, it came to an abrupt end. In front of them was an old Druid's stone circle, a tourist attraction in the area.
"It doesn't go anywhere...we're trapped!" Aaron's panicked voice worried Robert. He suddenly had déjà-vu; he had last seen Aaron in this state when they were trapped underwater after the road crash.
"We can't drive any further and we can't go back the way we came, but don't worry," Robert was desperate to calm Aaron's nerves, "we'll just have to make our way back home on foot...come on!"
They climbed out of the car and Robert led the way. He had spotted a gap in the trees to the left of the stone circle and, grasping Aaron's hand in his own, he pulled his husband with him as they set off in that direction.
They ran as fast as they could, but the smoke was getting thicker in the air and they could hear the crackling of burning wood and that sound seemed to be getting closer as they made their bid for freedom.
Suddenly, a fun day out had turned into a nightmare.