"Come on, Rob," Vic says, her eyes widening beseechingly. "Come with us."
"I'm quite happy where I am, thanks," Robert says.
"Yeah, I've noticed. I swear you're going to start melding with that sofa at this rate." Vic snorts. "When did you turn into such an old man?"
"I am still recovering from being shot, in case you've forgotten, and" – Robert drops his voice, mindful that Adam's standing just a few feet away beyond the living room wall, waiting – impatiently, no doubt – by the front door – "you know, that thing with the bond, too."
"You're tonnes better now, though," Vic insists. "All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But you need to start getting out more. I'm sure it's not good for you, sitting around here on your own all the time." She gives Robert a sweet smile which is entirely at odds with the steeliness of her eyes. "I'm not going to take no for an answer."
And she doesn't. She counters every reasonable objection he can think of (they'll miss Masterchef – they can watch it on iPlayer; he's tired – he doesn't have to stay long; it's freezing out – not dignified by an answer), until all that's left is the truth, and as he can't give her that, he feels he has no choice but to give in.
Vic links one arm with Robert's as they make the short walk to the Woolpack, her fingers burrowed deep in the folds of his coat sleeve; attempting to prevent him from making a run for it, no doubt, but leeching what little warmth she can from him, too. Because it is freezing out, and the air stings with the promise of snow.
The pub, in contrast, is like a sauna. The place is heaving, hardly a spare seat left in sight. and it's muggy with the rising heat of so many bodies packed close together.
It looks as though Aaron's entire clan is in residence amongst them: Dingles major and minor, and sundry peripheral hangers-on. There are a couple of balloons bobbing forlornly through the air above their heads, suggesting that they might have gathered to honour someone's birthday, though it could just as easily be in celebration of an engagement, or a divorce, or simply some esoteric family holiday of their own devising, as they seem to need scant reason to break out the streamers and sausage rolls.
Aaron is sitting at one of the far tables with Cain and Moira, his back to Robert. He doesn't turn around.
Adam wanders over to them, ostensibly to say his hellos, but he's quick to accept an offer to join their table, and just as quickly settled comfortably enough that it's clear he won't be returning any time soon.
It's hardly a surprise: he hadn't been keen on the idea of Robert joining Vic and him from the start.
Vic appears resigned to this turn of events, shrugging his desertion off with a smile. She then takes hold of Robert's arm again, says, "Guess it's just going to be the two of us," and drags him over to the two remaining free stools at the bar, where Diane is waiting to welcome them both with a smile and the observation that Robert's 'looking a bit peaky'.
Said peakiness is apparently best treated with a pint, because of course it is, and as she pulls him one – "On the house!" – she starts grilling Vic about their plans for Christmas.
The conversation soon expands to encompass Robert, as well, even though he has virtually nothing to say on the matter. Mostly he just nods and drinks.
He's slightly too liberal with the nodding, inadvertently volunteering himself to make a trifle for Boxing Day, and far too liberal with the drinking, given that he's still taking painkillers strong enough to bring down a horse. His doctors had reminded him sternly and repeatedly about their possible contraindications with alcohol, but the bond is prickling against the inside of his skull and the underside of his skin; a persistent itch he doesn't even know how to scratch.
So he drinks with far more dedication than he has dared to attempt since being discharged from hospital in an effort to drown it out, instead.
It works. Perhaps a little too well, because three rapidly-downed pints later he's sufficiently muzzy-headed that he doesn't sense or even hear Aaron approach until he's practically on top of him.
Aaron appears to be either insensible of or indifferent to Robert's presence, in his turn. When he leans over the bar to inform Chas that one of the sinks in the gents' is blocked, he doesn't try to keep his distance at all, and his shoulder brushes glancingly against Robert's.
It's closer than he's allowed himself to be for longer than Robert cares to remember. So close that he can not only feel the weight and the heat of his body, but smell him, too: the synthetic musk of some cheap bodyspray or other; fabric softener; too much hair gel and warm skin. It's not a particularly distinctive combination of scents, or even a particularly pleasant one, but it is undeniably his, and Robert is abruptly reminded – not made aware; he's always aware – of how much he misses him.
And, in some ways, he also misses the man that he'd been when he was with Aaron at the start of it all, as well. The one who always knew what to say, and it might not have always the best thing, or the kindest thing, or the truest thing, but he could say it with sufficient confidence that it would be the right thing at the time. The man who never concerned himself with worrying whether or not it would still be the right thing later, because he knew that the future would be just as malleable as the present.
The man who never looked back.
But he isn't him anymore, he's the man who has to live with the consequences. Stitched together on the inside, still brittle-edged from the knowledge that he'd pushed too far and too hard and in all the wrong ways; made so many people hate him that there hadn't been a prime suspect for his shooting, but a whole fucking list of them.
He hasn't got the faintest clue how to move forward anymore, so he's just milling around aimlessly, stagnating in Vic's box room, waiting for... He doesn't even know what. A sign, maybe. Inspiration. Guidance.
He isn't so drunk that he couldn't touch a finger to his nose if he needed to, recite the alphabet from A to Z and Z back through to A again, but he is drunk enough to not only pity himself for all of it, but want to wallow in it too.
The bond thrums between Aaron and him, low and rumbling, like the purr of a contented cat.
It's oddly comforting, but faint still, so Robert touches his shoulder to Aaron's side, and opens himself up to the feeling, falls back into it, lets it sink down all the way his bones.
And for a while, everything else fades away – the chatter of voices around him, the cool glass in his hand, and the bright lights overhead – as though he's been plunged headfirst into deep water, which has filmed his eyes and stoppered his ears. All he can hear are the reverberations of his own heartbeat.
It's Aaron's rough hand at his collar that hauls him back to the surface again. Back to himself, to sound and colour and Aaron snarling, "Outside. Now."
Robert doesn't follow him straight away – he doesn't need to; he can feel Aaron's every step – but takes a moment to remember how to breathe like someone who isn't struggling for air, and to make his excuses to Vic and Diane: "Just need some fresh air."
Outside in the car park, Aaron is pacing back and forth: three stiff-legged steps one way, swift turn on the heel, and repeat.
He halts as Robert draws near, throws back his shoulders and straightens his spine, then jabs a finger at him accusingly. "What the fuck was that?"
His anger seems a mite unwarranted seeing as though: "You did exactly the same thing to me the other day."
"That was a mistake," Aaron says, grimacing. "And it wasn't the same thing, anyway. Not
even close."
His touch had been just as light as Aaron's and no more insistent. "I don't see how," Robert says.
"Really?" Aaron looks incredulous, his eyebrows arcing high. "You really couldn't tell it was different?"
Robert shrugs helplessly.
"Right," Aaron says, and, more decisively, "Okay."
With the pained grimace of someone preparing to grasp hold of a nettle or live wire against their better judgement and good sense, he presses two fingers against the inside of Robert's wrist.
Robert's chest expands with a doubled inhalation, he can feel the whorls and calluses on Aaron's fingertips, the ridges of his own tendons beneath, then the lightning strikes him again, crackling over him, raising goosebumps to his skin and running hot through his blood. It pounds at his temples, his stomach, and then everywhere, all at once. He's fully, achingly hard this time, and without thought, driven entirely by instinct, he reaches out for Aaron...
Who sways back from him, scowling. "I told you before; I don't want it."
Robert does. In this moment, he can't think of anything he wants more, but he curls his hands into fists, presses them bruisingly hard against the tops of his thighs, and concentrates on that sensation until the need begins to ebb away, although it does not diminish completely.
"Why did you do it, then?" he asks, when he regains enough control over his breathing to enable him to speak clearly.
"I had to show you," Aaron says. "You have to understand, Robert. You can't do that, not ever again. I was talking to my mum, for fuck's sake."
With Diane and Vic right alongside her. The thought makes Robert shudder. "I didn't know."
"And now you do. So...?"
"So it won't ever happen again."
"Good." Aaron nods once, acceptance and dismissal both, and appears poised to set off back to the pub. But he stops himself just short of taking the first step, and says, "This isn't working, is it?"
"What?"
"Us, trying to steer clear of each other. We're going to keep on running into each other, and this is going to keep happening. Well, maybe not this, exactly, but something like it. I can feel the... the bond all the time now, and it's not getting any weaker."
"I know, me too, but what else can we do? Except leave the village, I suppose." Robert offers the suggestion with extreme reluctance, because he'd made his decision, he'd chosen his family, and it had felt like the right thing to do. It still feels right, and, "I don't want to go."
"Neither do I," Aaron says, which leaves them with only one option, by Robert's reckoning.
"I thought you could ignore it, though," he says. "That's what you said, right? Perhaps if you told me how you did that, then I could—"
"It won't work," Aaron says, shaking his head. "I've tried, but it's too different to how it was before. When it was just me.
"It was fucking irritating, the bond; always fucking bleeping at me" – he traces one finger through the air, marking out the peaks and troughs of an ECG – "and I was ill with it at first, like you were. I had other things on my mind, though, more important things, and I didn't need the distraction. So I had to learn how tune it out, and it got even easier when I was in prison and you were further away. By the time I got out, I couldn't feel it at all.
"I thought that'd be the end of it, too, because I knew your words already so all I had to do was make sure I never said them. But when I saw you again, they were just there, like they'd been on the tip of my tongue the whole time. Then there was this," he finishes, gesturing between his left arm and Robert's, "and it's... it's too much. I can't ignore it anymore."
He tilts his head back then, peers up at the sky as though searching for answers in the stars. The moonlight catches bright in his eyes, silvers his face, and makes shadows pool dark at the base of his throat. Robert looks across at him and thinks: Fuck.
Just fuck, then he carefully folds up the rest of the thought and tucks it away, because he doesn't want to risk Aaron sensing even the shape of it. Wants to keep it his alone, for now. Maybe forever, depending on how things pan out between them, but definitely for now.
Robert diverts his gaze, stares very deliberately down at the toes of his shoes, and asks, "Any ideas about what we should do next?"
"Well, I guess now that it's both of us we..." Aaron pauses, clears his throat, but his next words still sound disjointed and halting, as though he's struggling to choke them out. "We'll have to work on it together."