Chapter Thirty-Five: June, 2002

.

.

"I'm coming with you." Spencer watched from his bed as Aaron tried on the suit he'd bought for two occasions only. Everyone needed one: the suit for weddings… and funerals. "Don't push me away when you need me."

"I'm fine," Aaron protested, because he was fine. "But…" He paused, his stomach twisting with the familiar whirl of confused emotions that had sunk in it four days ago when his mom had called in the middle of the night to tell him his father was dead. "I'd… really like if you came with me. I mean… I'd appreciate that, Spence."

Spence nodded seriously, standing and stepped over to adjust the suit jacket, standing closer than what he technically needed to be to do the job. "You need to shave," he murmured, brushing their lips together, and Aaron tried not to look too desperate for the touch as he leaned into the firm body pressing against him, his breath catching. "And probably get a haircut." He tweaked Aaron's hair, mouth twitching sadly.

"You're one to talk," Aaron said with a huff. "Look at your hair." His face was stubbly though. He should deal with that before… before facing his mom. Facing his family.

Facing his dad, or the body that used to be him.

"Seriously, Aaron, this must be confusing for you," Spencer continued, fingers trailing curiously though his long hair and leaning around Aaron to peer in the mirror. "Despite your father's… temperament… he was still your father. You're still going to grieve. Not just for him being dead, but for what you could have had with him if things were different, for the loss of any hope of resolution or absolution… for your mother's grief, at least. And Sean's."

"Would you grieve your father if he died?" Aaron asked, probably cruelly, but he did want to know.

"Yes," Spencer answered bluntly. "Absolutely."

Aaron was silent for a moment. "You know, you're not coming as my friend," he said suddenly, because shit, if this was the only time he saw his family until the next funeral, he was doing this right. Spencer looked hurt, for a heartbeat. "If you're coming, you're coming as my partner. If… if you're comfortable with that."

Spencer eyed him, his mind visibly ticking over. "I'm from Vegas, Aaron," he said finally. "No one would bat an eye at this there. But Manassas, Virginia? Are you sure?"

Aaron had never been surer. He slid his jacket from his shoulders and hung it carefully before answering, unbuttoning his shirt. "Completely," he said. Behind him as he faced the mirror one last time, he heard Spencer's phone trill. "You should go home and grab some stuff. We have to pick Sean up from the airport at five am, before driving to Mom's. It'd be easier if you sleep here."

"Okay," Spencer said, sounding distracted. Aaron glanced at him, saw him frowning at his phone. "I have to run some errands beforehand. Ethan wants me to pick up a package for him, and Elle wants to meet up to pick up our pay-checks together. At least then I can chip in if we end up staying at a hotel instead of driving home late." He looked up and smiled. "Maybe even get a haircut."

Aaron smiled back, pushing through the numb moroseness settling on his shoulders. Look on the bright side, he reminded himself. A whole day and a bit with Spencer, you get to see your brother, you get to see Mom… Yeah. It would be fine. "Alright," he said, aware that any errand involving Ethan would probably run hours over the time Spencer expected it to. Which meant he'd be walking in, late, and then he'd be tired tomorrow. Aaron would be driving then, since Sean had lost his license the month before. "Early bed for me then. You'll take my apartment key and let yourself back in, yeah?"

"Sure," Spencer agreed, leaning over his shoulder and brushing his lips against his cheek. "I won't wake you when I get home, okay? See you tomorrow morning. Love you."

"Love you too," Aaron called after him, and headed to the bathroom to shave.

.

.

His phone screamed in his ear as the alarm shuddered him awake, groggy eyed and dry mouthed. Aaron gahed, rolling over and fumbling for the snooze button, head thumping once to remind him how damn early it was. He blinked in the pre-dawn gloom, his room filled with shapeless shadows, and looked beside him to the empty bed.

And stared. "Huh," he said, picking his phone up and staring at it blankly. 3:32am. "Huh," he said again, and clicked the inbox option, scrolling through his received texts. Two from Sean telling him he was getting on the plane, one from Simon rambling about asparagus, one from Spencer…

Got held up. I'll be there before you leave, promise. Love you S.R.

He shrugged and got up to shower the sleep from his brain, snapping awake properly to find the water drumming warmly against his back. Much more awake, he turned the water off, grabbed his towel, and wandered through the apartment to peer at the key hook by the door. They'd found it was the easiest way to tell who was home at any one point, by whose keys were present and whose weren't. Simon's and Kate's both hung there… his were gone.

He padded back to his bedroom, suddenly remembering where he was going today and why, and tapped out a shaky message before sinking to his bed with his elbows on his knees, shivering despite how warm it was. Teeth chattering slightly, he had to keep chanting in his head he's not there, you're not going to him.

To: Spencer

Where r u? We have to go soon. Let me no, Ill pick u up omw

He wasn't going to him. Not a him that could hurt him anymore, not anymore. Not ever again.

But he was going where it had happened. The rooms that echoed with fear and shadows. The table corner he'd fallen one day and fractured his cheekbone after a rough shove. The kitchen with the dings on the wall where bottles would strike perilously close to his back as he fled them. The room that had been Sean's, when the nightmare was still his, where Aaron would crouch outside and listen to the sound of belt on skin while his brother sobbed. Where he'd creep in after his father was gone and curl up in the bed with his brother, because he didn't know what else to do except be there. Sean had never kicked him out, not even when the nightmares got so bad that Aaron had started messing up the bed.

He'd helped him hide it.

Aaron snapped his eyes shut and felt sick. Sick and scared and on the verge of worthless panic, like he was ten and useless again instead of pushing twenty-one and well-capable of defending himself. And also on the verge of being late; still naked with water dripping from his clammy skin.

And his phone was silent, the one time he needed a lifeline.

To: Spencer

R u ok? Where r u?

He dressed in a daze. That was simple. Buttons, tie, shoes, hair. Dressed in silence.

His phone beeped and he lunged for it, belting his knee on the corner of the bedframe with a hushed fuck.

From: Sean

Yo, bro. Bout 30m frm landing. How u feelin?

He didn't respond, because any answer would be a lie. Just collected his stuff and walked out into the kitchen, finding Simon hovering over a coffee, the shadows under his eyes attesting that he hadn't gone to bed yet.

"You okay?" Simon asked, nudging a mug towards him that he probably didn't have time to drink but really needed. Aaron took it gratefully, as well as a slice of buttered toast from his housemate's plate. "You look like crap."

Aaron ignored that. "Have you seen Spencer?" he asked, and winced at the huskiness to his voice. "He's… he's supposed to come with me. But he didn't come home last night." They were both thinking of the last time he'd done this, just vanished without a trace. "He didn't say anything about working…"

Simon frowned. "Not a peep from him," he said, his expression oddly blank. "Aaron… he's done this before. You don't think…"

Shaking his head, Aaron put the toast down before his stomach sent it back up. "No," he muttered, and closed his eyes. He had to go. They had to go. He had to… alone. Anger replaced the tired misery.

Anger was better.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Simon asked quietly, his voice still carrying loudly in the sleepy apartment. "You shouldn't do this alone." Simon didn't know. Couldn't know. Only Spencer knew.

Not even Sean knew like Spencer did…

And he'd still left him to do it alone.

"No," Aaron said bitterly, standing and shoving his hand in his pocket to check that his wallet and car keys and stupid fucking useless phone were all in there. "Just… contact me if he shows up. Cya."

"Good luck," Simon called after, but Aaron couldn't answer through the burning fury building.

.

.

Sean was uncharacteristically quiet as they drove into the weak yellow dawn. Summer was drawing slowly nearer, but this year it was a quiet, hesitant approach. There was none of the excitement of summers past. Aaron couldn't help but wonder what else this year had in store for them, when everyone around him seemed sunk in a cautious kind of waiting.

"Thought you said you were bringing Spence?" Sean asked cautiously, an hour and a half in when the radio had finally grown tedious. He glanced at Aaron, visible in Aaron's peripherals, his hair neatly brushed and suit well-fitted. Some taciturn part of Aaron wondered how he'd afforded a decently tailored suit when, last he'd heard, he'd lost his apartment again.

"I was," Aaron said coldly, squeezing his hands tight around the wheel. "He… got held up."

"Oh." Sean looked out the window, huffing against the glass. The day was warming. The puff of fog on the window only lingered a moment before vanishing. "Err. So. I know we… have our issues. You and me. And dad, I guess. But, you know, I'm your brother and I try to look out for you and keep updated on your life and, ah, Spencer… I mean, wow, you found him again. Wow."

Aaron knew where he was leading. "I'm with him," he said quietly, and Sean made a soft oh, but when Aaron glanced at him, he was smiling. "We're been together since December, officially…"

"You know, this is the kinda shit you tell your bro," Sean said, folding his arms behind his head and laughing harshly. There were lines of worry on his face. Aaron shivered, remembering a cold night standing alone at Rhosgobel, shrinking back as headlights had flickered up the quarry. Sean had worn the same look then, the same haunting I don't want to be here. In that town. The town that Aaron knew he'd never return to after today. "Fuck. You and Spencer, hey? I mean, I'm not surprised, as soon as you said you guys were hanging out… yeah, not surprised. He's always been something to you, right?"

"Right," Aaron agreed weakly, his phone heavy in his pocket. They were avoiding the subject of the end of this drive.

"And you're, err, doing well with… school. And working. And… yeah." They were strangers. Aaron suspected the fault didn't lie solely with Sean. His response was a slow nod.

His phone buzzed. Aaron stiffened.

"Want me to…" Sean leaned over, sneaking his hand into Aaron's jacket pocket and drawing the phone forth. "Text. Want to know what it says or am I going to be scarred forever by opening this? Because it's one thing, you know, knowing your brother is dating a dude… I don't really want to see you guys being all smoochy."

Aaron glared at him. "Don't be a wank," he snapped. "What does it say?"

"It's from your beau," Sean teased, seeking refuge from the emotions thick in the car by being a dick, once more, just like he always had. "He says 'I'm okay, I'm with Elle and I'm really, really sorry. Will follow you when I can.' Ahh. Aaron?"

Aaron was frozen, staring at the highway stretching ahead through the bright green spring trees, not quite yet fading with summer's heat. With Elle? Since when had Spencer and Elle hung out outside of work… "Call him." He waited as Sean held the phone to his ear, the low hum of the radio jangling his last nerves.

"No answer. It's… turned off. He's turned his phone off. Aaron? Do you… want me to reply?"

"No," Aaron breathed, swallowing hard. The headache was back. "Wait, yes. Tell him… tell him don't bother following. I'll see him when I get home."

Thy drove the rest of the way in tense silence.

.

.

Aaron felt nothing. Felt nothing as family who'd done nothing to help him when he needed them hugged him and commented on how big you are now, how grown up, and going to be a lawyer! Wow! Wow, he could tell, because surprising really, with a dad like his… a brother like his…

And he felt nothing when he looked at the motionless, empty body in the open casket. Absolutely nothing. Not when they lowered it into the ground. Not when Sean got in a fight with their Uncle and stormed off, probably to get drunk. Aaron heard the words bastard and remember and figured Sean had decided that he was going to remember their father exactly how he was, and wasn't letting anyone forget that.

Aaron, always the mediator, mumbled something about a good dad, dunno what we'll do without him, and felt like a fucking liar.

Mom was silent.

And after all was said and done, Aaron drove to their house. Stared at the quiet building. Climbed out and walked up the front path that had always been neat before and was now neglected, to the sun-dried front door, pressing his hand against the same, low square of wood the smaller him would have pressed to push the unlatched door open with a soft groan. The house was cold. As noiseless as the grave. Sickness hung in the air still, not quite washed out just yet.

Aaron swallowed and walked robotically inside, twitching as there was a thump upstairs, the memory of phantom feet. Climbed the stairs.

Walked to his room, expecting… well, Sean's room. Dad had trashed it when he hadn't come home. Destroyed everything.

Expecting the ruins of a child who hadn't fucking deserved any of what he'd gotten.

He clicked that door open, feeling old and awkward in his suit and tie, like he should be wearing shorts and a t-shirt instead, walking in on battered sneakers instead of gleaming dress shoes.

And he found…

A shrine. It was untouched. The only sign he hadn't walked out yesterday was a dip on the bed, where someone had sat. Aaron walked over in a daze, and ran his hand over the ruffle in the covers, the room strangely small and closed in. Children's books, posters, a hastily drawn picture of a tower jutting from a thick forest…

"He didn't wreck it," he said, hearing breathing behind him.

"No," his mom said, after a moment. "He didn't."

Aaron stared at the wall, before leaning over the bed and peering down at the gap between mattress and wall, where he'd used a pen to scratch in a countdown, every year, until summer. Smiled as he saw it, a sad, bitter smile. "You stopped him."

"No." The word was a shock, and he turned to stare at her. "I knew you'd have taken everything you cared about with you. Same as Sean did…" She looked at the dip in the bed. "He loved you. He was a sick, broken man, but he… loved you."

Aaron stumbled away from the bed, from the accusing idea of his father sitting in here, quiet and thoughtful, thinking of everything he'd done wrong. It seemed impossible. "He's a monster," he snarled, his hip bumping his desk and knocking a cup of coloured pencils to clatter to the floor, the tips worn to nubs.

"There aren't any monsters, Aaron," his mom scolded, sitting on the bed and running her hand over the patterned pillowcase. "Just… people. People can be monstrous, and they can be wonderful, and they can be weak. The one thing they never are is simple. Your father was an abusive alcoholic who cried himself to sleep because he didn't understand why he did the things he did. I threw him out of my bed, but not my home, the night you left. Some nights he slept in the spare room. Some nights in Sean's room. Never in here, not until he got sick. Not until he realized he was going to die alone and unloved, nursed by a woman who couldn't stand him in a city filled with people who despised him."

Aaron stared at his shoes, for all like he was young and being scolded again for making a mess. "Is this supposed to make me forgive him?" he said emotionlessly. "Some pretty words about his regrets?"

"No." She tipped her head back, eyes over-bright. Skin drawn tight over a fragile frame. Worn by her years and the things she'd seen, endured, ignored. "Not at all. I just want you to know the man you hate, as I know him. Not just the dark side you saw as a child, but the light as well… the man who loved the children he'd betrayed, the woman he'd married, the life he hadn't bothered living because he was so sunk in a bottle he couldn't get out. Maybe…" She swallowed and the noise was ragged. "Maybe if I'd left him, taken you boys, things would have been so, so different. Complacency breeds regrets, after all. When things got so bad, so awful, I couldn't see an end for the misery… I should have walked away. Let us all find our feet on our own. Aaron, I'm no role model. I'm weak and cowardly, and I know you're going to walk away and never come back after this… listen to me one last time. If this happens to you, if you become me, walk away, baby. Don't let yourself drown, because you can't help anyone like that."

And Aaron watched as she shuddered into a soft gasp of grief, probably not for the man but for the idea of him, and folded into her shrunken body. He stepped forward, and sat cautiously next to her, in the dip his father had left before he'd died, and held her close.

He didn't tell her about Spencer, because he wasn't sure she even believed in love anymore.

.

.

This wasn't the smart kind of drinking. This was the 'I'm hurting so bad I can't think' kind of drinking, and Aaron didn't know where he was. Just that he was drunk, in pain, fighting against the world and the ground that kept trying to throw him down every time he got back up.

He slid bleeding knuckles against the rough brick of a pissy alley wall and staggered up again, whirling, falling, but never quite impacting. Salt stung his eyes, his mouth, the cuts on his hands. His phone.

Phone in his hand.

He looked down at it and swallowed down fury he hadn't know he was capable of. Red-tinged, bolstered by alcohol, he knew he hadn't just been hurting himself.

But he was going somewhere.

He started off, an uneven path down the street with his head bowed and hands tucked against his dirtied shirt so no late night passers-by saw the blood. And he'd been with Sean but not any longer and all he knew was that everything hurt, his head, his heart, his hands, and he just wanted it to stop. Some kind of stopping.

Bastard, he thought, swaying and spotting the riverbank, the bridge that arched over. It was somewhere quiet, somehow, despite the warmth of the night. Made his way to the edge of the bridge and slid between the slats, hunching into a curled over seated position and staring moodily at the choppy water. Peace, of some kind. Bastard. He wasn't sure if he was furious with himself or his dead dad or his weak mom or his hopeless brother.

His phone beeped. Again. It had been doing that a lot. Low battery. He fumbled it, almost dropped it off the edge, narrowed his eyes to bring the two screens to one. There was blood and spit and grime on the screen, and he let his head thump against the slat to his side as he heaved in two breaths that burned. Opened his inbox, wiped the screen, saw a line of received messages. A line of sent.

To: Spencer

Fuck u. I NEEDED U and u WERENT THERE

To: Spencer

I'M ALWAYS THERE 4 U. u dnt evn bother

He dropped his hand and swore. Fuck fuck. Swallowed hard and checked the received messages.

From: Spencer

Froze. Couldn't read it for a moment, because there were dozens more sent and each one showed a manic cruelty he hadn't known he was capable of.

Where are you?

He hadn't replied to that.

From: Spencer

Aaron, please. Where are you? We're looking everywhere. Sean's worried.

"I'm lost," Aaron told his phone glumly, and closed his eyes, squeezing back the night with his eyelids until red danced across the black. "I'm so fucking lost." He hammered the call button, wanting to say sorry, wanting to hold his boyfriend and say he hadn't meant the text that told him to fuck off or the one that snarled useless, that he'd been lashing out at the nearest target he knew he could make bleed.

The phone hummed, connected, and turned off.

And Aaron staggered up, throwing it into the water with a snarl that was more of a sob, hearing it hit the waves and dropping to his knees as the world broke on his back. Tears. Fucking tears and he didn't know why, just that he was hurting, they were hurt, and he couldn't do this alone.

A hand touched his shoulder. He jerked, wrenching away, and spun with his face grimy-wet and his bruised hands clenched.

Spencer stared at him. Aaron swallowed twice, and then swallowed again, because the man was dressed in the suit he wore to weddings and funerals despite the funeral being twelve hours over, his hair was cut neatly in a style Aaron had never seen before, and his right eye was blackened against his pale face.

"Spence," he breathed, lurching forward, gaze locked on the red-purple bruising rapidly swelling his boyfriend's eye shut. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, baby, I'm so fucking sorry…" And he was crying again, except now there were arms around him and a warm body holding him close and he wasn't alone, never alone.

"Was he on the bridge?" someone asked, their voice thick with horror. Simon. Aaron pulled back, found Simon and Elle standing back by the road watching them. Elle's lip was split.

Sobriety was sudden and terrifying.

"What happened?" he asked, staggering, and his mouth was filling with a tell-tale amount of saliva. Spencer eased him towards the nearby garden beds, his face a Poker mask, carefully constructed. He meant to ask who hurt you, and he meant to ask are you okay, but instead he whispered I needed you again, because he was his mother all over and weak and not good at being alone, even when the alternative could destroy him.

"I messed up," Spencer said, kneeling with him as he gagged helplessly, face hot and streaming, nothing left to bring up into the loamy soil anyway. A hand rubbed his back, a nose against his shoulder despite the fact that Aaron knew he was disgusting right now. "I messed up right when I needed to be there for you. I can't make up for that, but I wish I could. I'm sorry, Aaron. It's okay. Shh, hey…" The hand was there still and Aaron tried to shake it off, shake his head, his body aching. "Elle was… having some trouble with someone. I dealt with it."

Dealt with it apparently meant getting his ass kicked.

But Aaron was wasted, not stupid.

"Liar," he said, the word a whine, and he hated himself. Saw Spencer flinch, but he'd never been good at lying to him. Not ever. "You lie to me constantly. Always. You're lying now."

"Not about being sorry," Spencer whispered, and that was true. His own eyes bright. "Do you really hate me?"

Oh.

That may have been in one of the texts too. Aaron winced, cursing the him that had thought that was okay to send to a man who'd take every insult personally and hoard them like a dragon did gold. "I'm my mom," he said instead of anything useful. "I don't hate you. Not even for lying." Because I'm too weak to, he didn't say, just wiped his face with his hand and made more of a mess. Spencer swore softly, reaching for those split knuckles, wincing as his fingers brushed them. "How did you find me?"

"I called in a friend," Elle said, walking up behind them. "Come on. Let's get you home, sloppy. You're gonna have a hell of a hangover tomorrow."

Aaron nodded, standing. Let Spencer take one arm, Simon the other, and support him to the idling car.

"Spence?" he murmured once, tucked against his boyfriend's chest as the lights of the city flashed by outside the car window, trying to ignore how the man was curling away from him. Yellow, blue, yellow, yellow, and maybe this medley of city lights was the colour of his grief.

"Mm?"

Aaron thought of the alcohol and the fight and the pain, and realized he wasn't really angry at Spence. He was, but he wasn't, and he wasn't sure how to approach that.

"Is it okay that I'm sad he's dead?" he managed, choking himself when he realized he was, and Spencer leaned his mouth against his hair and made a soft, sad sound. "Despite what he did to us?"

"Yes," he said quietly, and Aaron believed him so he finally let himself sleep.

Tomorrow was a new day. It would be better. It had to be.