That evening, Robert is informed in another blunt and dictatorial text that, breaking the tenuous habit of the last couple of days, he is expected to put in an appearance at eight o'clock the next day to resume their attempt at mutual cold-shouldering.
Distantly, he's aware that he should be annoyed that, once again, Aaron had assumed – and he'd be right, but that's beside the point – that he has nothing better to do with his morning than waste it.
Mostly, though, he's just resigned to the knowledge that his time likely isn't going to be truly his own again until this thing between them is dead and buried.
He sets his alarm for seven.
At seven fifty-five, when the sun is half-risen and the air is still sharp with the night's chill, he picks his way through the frost-rimed scrapyard. Aaron meets him at the portacabin's door, and although he doesn't look surprised to see Robert there, the shocked lurch of Robert's heart is a weak echoing sensation, and not his own.
"Why the change of plan?" Robert asks as Aaron directs him to take the seat he had used the previous day.
Aaron shrugs before settling himself behind his desk again. "I thought an hour's probably not long enough. We should see if we can manage a full day."
A full day? Robert's doubly glad now that he decided against relying upon the Courier's tedious pages for company and brought his laptop.
"Shouldn't be a problem," he says, nodding towards it, "I can get on with some work."
"Yeah," Aaron says, breathing out the word like a sigh. "Yeah, me too."
That said, he reaches for the account book, even though it's completely up-to-date and perfectly balanced. Robert knows that for a fact, as he'd been through it with a fine tooth comb only a couple of days beforehand.
He soon appears immersed in it, regardless, and Robert tries to do the same, but finds himself staring blankly at his laptop screen, instead. Because he doesn't have any work to do, not really. No matter how often he might attempt to persuade himself otherwise, there's nothing beyond the few administrative tasks he sporadically manages to scrape up at the scrapyard.
In desperation, he ends up sifting through the relics of his old life, poring over brochures for threshers, tractors, and cultivators with a strange sort of nostalgia and far more interest than he'd ever managed to summon up when they actually were his job.
Occasionally, Aaron will shift in his chair, clear his throat, or put down his pen with just a little too much force, and attract Robert's attention towards him, but it's only for a second, Aaron doesn't acknowledge his notice, and the bond barely blips between them.
For the first time since it formed, it's almost pleasant. It fades away to a faint murmur, just as it did when they were trying to avoid one another and kept the entire length of the village between them, and its pulses are softened, reminiscent of a heartbeat. It's nothing more than a reminder that Aaron's there, that he's close, and Robert feels calmed by it in a way that he can neither describe nor explain to his satisfaction.
Aaron's voice, then, is a strident, unwelcome intrusion when he suddenly says, "Time for dinner."
Robert glances at the clock on his screen, and it unnerves him. Nearly twelve o'clock. He hadn't been aware of the hours slipping away.
"Right," he says, taking a deep breath to centre himself. To wake himself up, because he must have slipped into some kind of trance unaware. It's the only possible explanation. "Okay, so do you want to go to the pub, or—"
"I brought sandwiches," Aaron says, producing a Tupperware box from one of the desk's drawers. "Here" – he holds out a slim package, so densely wrapped in cling film that Robert can't make out what it contains – "I made one for you, an' all."
A crushed packet of Quavers follows, then a can of Coke, all of which Aaron passes to Robert with careful delicacy, ensuring that not even the very tips of their fingers have chance to brush together in the hand off.
The sandwich is constructed from cheap white sliced bread and anaemic-looking ham, far too heavy on the margarine and light on the mustard, considering the rest of its ingredients, but Robert's hunger surges into fierce, unexpected life with his first, tentative bite, and he devours the rest greedily, closely followed by the entire packet of Quaver-shards.
Aaron eats at a more measured pace, gazing at nothing through the window beside Robert all the while.
Afterwards, he goes into the yard and begins smashing things with grim-faced absorption. Robert watches him from the portacabin steps until the tip of his nose and his hands go numb, then retreats to his combine harvesters, balers, and mulching machines once more.
The bond's heartbeat is more pronounced, quickened with exertion, but no less soothing for it.
-
-
The next day, Robert picks up his own lunch from the cafe and brings it to the scrapyard along with a book: A Game of Thrones, which he'd bought back when the show first started, but somehow never found the time to start reading before now.
The nod Aaron gives when he sees it is approving. "Should keep you busy," he says.
Truthfully, Robert doesn't really expect it to, given that he knows how the story goes already, but he's soon engrossed, and, just as quickly, the bond recedes to yesterday's muted state.
This time, he doesn't follow Aaron when he wanders outside, and he eats his lunch alone.
-
-
The subsequent two days follow the same path, but something shifts on the third.
The bond begins sputtering like a badly-tuned engine; purring along one minute, cutting out completely the next. And when it cuts out, there's nothing for a moment, only silence in Robert's head and stillness in his chest, where the bond once hummed.
His guts twist painfully tight, in shock and something akin to fear, and he desperately reaches out with every thought in his head and every ounce of concentration, grasping to regain the feel of it.
"For fuck's sake," Aaron growls, slamming his hands down onto the top of the desk in front of him. "Why the hell did you do that, Robert? It was... It was nearly gone."
"I don't know," Robert has to admit. He'd acted purely on instinct, without pause to consider the ramifications, and, besides, he's not entirely sure what he'd done, anyway.
But he must have done something, because the bond is back, full-force, and jarringly so, blistering with the heat of Aaron's anger.
Aaron sighs, massaging his temples with the heels of his palms. "It's what we both want, isn't it? To break this fucking thing?"
For his own part, Robert still isn't certain about that. For all that it's nothing like he expected – or, as a child, maybe once secretly hoped – he's grown used to the noisy imposition of the bond, and had felt oddly bereft in those few seconds without it. Nevertheless, the prospect of his head and body being solely his own again is appealing in its own way, and despite what his instinct may believe to the contrary, he won't be missing much when the bond's gone.
He repeats this to himself several times, with ever-increasing forcefulness, and then says, "Yes."
"Good." Aaron's lips curl upwards slightly, edging close to a smile. "So, next time that happens, don't fight it. Just go along with it."
Robert nods acquiescence, returns to his reading, and when the bond begins to falter again, he does just that. He pushes it to the periphery of his mind, and tamps down his panic when it gradually trickles away.
It soon blossoms into life again, but only faintly, and every subsequent time it recedes, it takes even longer to return.
-
-
At eleven twenty-seven on the fourth day, when Robert is halfway through the fifth chapter of A Clash of Kings, Aaron starts to make himself a cup of tea, and Robert doesn't even realise he's got up from his desk until he hears the kettle bubble and hiss as it comes to the boil.
He hadn't heard Aaron moving, never mind felt it.
Rain is pelting hard against the roof of the portacabin, sluicing in swift rivulets down the windows, and the air smells of mould and an acrid hint of Aaron's cheap aftershave, but beyond that, there's nothing; no awareness of anything outside himself save for that perceived by his normal, prosaic senses.
He doesn't fight the loss, just breathes steadily into the silence.
"You can't feel it anymore either, right?" Aaron says, sounding hopeful.
Robert nods, because he doesn't trust himself to speak quite yet. He fears he may sound disappointed, even though he hasn't lost anything that's worth missing.
Aaron meets his eyes with a deliberation he hasn't shown for weeks, and then offers Robert a wide, true smile of the sort he hasn't seen for far longer than that.
He puts his mug down next to the kettle, wipes his palms against his jeans, and then, with a nervous, hesitant step, walks towards Robert. When he's a little less than a foot away, he tentatively holds out a hand for Robert to shake.
Robert's heart is pounding, his chest tight, but he forces his arm up, takes a loose grip of Aaron's hand, and...
And there's nothing. Nothing but skin, blood-warm and slightly damp. Just a normal handshake: job done, thank you, but don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.
Aaron's grin broadens, radiating relief. "Thank fuck for that," he says.
"Yeah," Robert agrees, even though he doesn't feel happy, or relieved, or really anything he can easily put a name to. Oddly hollow is the best way he would describe it, if pressed, but Aaron drops his hand quickly, turns away, and doesn't ask. "Thank fuck."
-
-
Now this fic is complete, there will be one more story left in this series: Beyond the Journey.