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Aaron opens his eyes to darkness. It’s not surprising; he’s still exhausted constantly, falling asleep and waking up at all hours of the day and night. There’ll be hell to pay when he’s out of here and actually has to function in society, but for now, in this hospital room, time hardly has any meaning.
But still. Aaron opens his eyes to darkness and a prickling sensation at his back. He stills, willing it to go away, but in the quiet and the dark, everything seems to intensify; the scratching of the sheets, the steady beeping of the machines, the harshness of his own breathing. And there, beneath all that – someone else.
There’s someone in his hospital room, which there very often is but not now. Not in the dark when everything is quiet.
Aaron shifts in the bed, and he swears he hears the other person’s breath catch. It fills him with dread; he knows exactly who he’s going to see, but it still doesn’t prepare him for the moment he rolls over full and meets John’s intense, dark stare.
“Hello, Aaron.”
His hand shoots out for the call button, but he’s met by nothing but the cold steel of the bed railing, and John laughs.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he tuts, as though Aaron’s a child. “None of that now. We don’t want you upsetting yourself.”
“Then you’d better get out of here before I start shouting.”
But John doesn’t move; instead, he raises his eyebrows and sighs in disappointment. “Not before we’ve had our chat. I know what you did, Aaron.”
“What did you think was gonna happen?” He tries to push himself up, but his body still aches too much to get him any higher than half-reclined. Still, he fixes John with as intense a glare as he can muster and balls his hands into fists. “You tried to kill me. You did kill Nate, and Mack’s lucky to still be alive. Of course I was going to tell the police everything.”
John shakes his head. “Of course I knew that,” he says. Then he stands up, abrupt, and holds onto the bed railing, flexing his grip once, twice. “And I’m not talking about what you did with Robert either, though don’t think I’ve forgotten about it. I’ve just got other plans where that is concerned.”
“What other–”
“What I mean,” John interrupts, ignoring Aaron entirely, “is what you did to Anthony. You see, I have nothing to lose now. So I will have no problem telling the police how you beat Anthony half to death – oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell them it was self-defence. I still love you, Aaron, even after everything, and I would hate to see you go down for too long.
“But I won’t be so kind when I tell them how Ruby came to finish him off. Or how Cain and Caleb forced me to help them cover it up, threatened me into staying silent. How they told me they would pin all the blame on you if I didn’t do what they wanted. I’ll keep Chas out of it, for you, and I’ll do my best but you do understand that I won’t be able to save you this time. And, if you think about it, it’s really only fair; you did betray me first.”
Bile rises in Aaron’s throat, but he swallows it back. “They’ll never believe you,” he snarls. “You’re a murderer.”
John’s expression flickers and suddenly his face is inches from Aaron’s, eyes blazing with rage. “Don’t. Call me that,” he spits, and Aaron tries not to flinch back, but he knows, by the satisfied glint in John’s eye, that he fails.
“Now,” John continues, returning to his seat and leaning back, crossing his legs at the knee. “Are you going to be a good boy and keep quiet, or are we going to have to make things unpleasant?”
Aaron wants to call his bluff. He wants to shout loud enough to bring a team of nurses running. He wants to watch John get dragged away like the scum he is. But he looks into his husband’s eyes, and he knows there’s no bluff here. John will do – has always done, he’s learnt – whatever it takes, and Aaron… Well, Aaron has his family.
John smiles at his mutinous silence and folds his hands over his stomach. “I’m going away tomorrow,” he says conversationally, like he’s going on holiday rather than on the run from the police. “It’s all arranged. You won’t see me again.”
He pauses as though he’s expecting a response, but Aaron is done giving him what he wants. John tuts under his breath, but lets it go.
“I thought I would come and say goodbye. I haven’t seen you awake since…” He shudders and looks at the floor, and Aaron is horrified to see tears in his eyes when he looks back up. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Aaron jerks away as John reaches for him, and his husband’s face changes in a second. Suddenly, he’s angry again, and in his current state Aaron barely has time to think before John is pinning him to the bed, the arm across his chest almost making him black out from the pain in his shoulder.
“John,” he gasps, tears springing unbidden to his eyes. “John, please.”
There’s a terrifying moment when John presses down and Aaron really can’t breathe, but then he relents, standing up and backing away.
“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “You just– You just make me so angry sometimes. I love you so much and you just keep throwing it back in my face, over and over and over again. All those things I did, it was all for you. For us! Why couldn’t you just be grateful?”
“You chucked me off a cliff!”
“And I’m sorry for that,” John says, and the worst thing is, he actually looks like he means it. Aaron wants to think it’s another trick, a way to get him feeling sorry for him, but… But, Aaron’s putting it all together now, the way things were when they first found out about Nate; the way John started falling apart. He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it, but right now it’s clear as day that John believes everything he’s saying. He believes he’s the good guy who only hurts people because they force his hand. He believes he’s a hero.
If it didn’t make him feel so sick, Aaron might pity him.
“Best not go over all that again,” John continues. He stares down at Aaron, and something in his face changes, something that sets alarm bells ringing in Aaron’s head. He casts about once more for the call button, but then John is over him again, blocking him in, trapping him so he can’t move. He leans down, lips ghosting over Aaron’s cheek until he’s hovering by his ear. “This is goodbye, Aaron. Forever.”
Then suddenly there’s a cup at his lips and Aaron tries, but John just tips it further up, a hand coming to cover his mouth and nose so he has no choice but to swallow, and then he doesn’t – he doesn’t move, and that metallic taste is coating his throat and he—
There’s a wet press of lips against his cheek, and Aaron’s eyes start to close.