TW: self-harm, blood loss
“Don’t ever say that name in front of me again, do you understand?” Aaron's face was red - the result of his anger.
Robert could only watch, searching Aaron’s eyes for an explanation to his outburst, too shocked to do anything else. He had learned to anticipate a lot of things with Aaron, but this reaction at hearing Gordon's name was not one of them.
As Robert looked on, Aaron’s expression changed to one of surprise. He then looked down at the floor and mumbled, “Forget about it,” before rushing upstairs to his room.
Robert was left stunned at the bottom of the staircase, as he listened to the slam of Aaron’s bedroom door. He considered chasing after him but nothing good ever came of it, so he resolved to enter the kitchen and have a cup of coffee while he mulled over the conversation.
Meanwhile, in his room, Aaron had locked the door to his bedroom and was frantically pacing and glancing about for something to calm him down. His eyes lit up as he remembered the razor blade he kept in his dresser. Pulling open the top drawer, he shoved the shirts that were in there aside and slowly picked up the blade. This’ll work just fine, he thought to himself.
After flipping the blade over a couple of times, briefly lost in his thoughts, Aaron sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled his left pant leg up. He looked at his leg and then the blade, considering if he really wanted to go through with cutting into his flesh once more. Deciding he did, he pressed the cold blade into his thigh.
Aaron hissed at the pain it brought, but it was a welcome pain; physical pain to distract from the mental pain of his memories. Warm blood ran down his leg but he was no longer looking, his attention instead directed at the ceiling. His mind was empty, no thoughts ran through it anymore. The energy he previously had was dissipating through the blood that was coming out of his growing wound. Aaron felt nothing.
Holding his leg down, he was slashing away at his it as if he was trying to destroy it - destroy the part of him related to Gordon.
By the time Aaron had stopped, he was lying back on his bed, too tired to hold himself up any longer. A while later, there was a knock on his door.
It was Robert’s voice. “Aaron, let's talk about this! Explain to me what I said wrong!” he yelled through the door. After thinking it over for an hour, Robert still couldn’t figure out why the name made Aaron so upset; the only way to find out was by asking Aaron himself.
Upon hearing the knock, Aaron sprung up like a jack-in-the-box toy. Too out of it to notice the pools of blood at his feet and on the bed, he pulled his pant leg down and began standing up, readying himself to open his bedroom door. No shortly had Aaron stood up, however, that he then collapsed to the floor with a grunt of pain. Adrenaline wasn’t going to be enough to get him to the door, not with the amount of blood he had lost.
"Aaron! Aaron!! What was that thump?! Are you alright?!" Robert tried opening the door as he shouted, then pounded on the door and jiggled the doorknob as he realized it was locked. Distress was beginning to mix with the concern in his voice. "Aaron!!"
Lying on the floor, Aaron could feel the onset of blood loss symptoms setting in, closing his eyes in response. After a few seconds, he opened them again.
“Aaron!!! Open the door!” Robert was still banging on the door, but Aaron was barely aware of it. The room was starting to spin and his breathing had increased. He tried to stand back up using his bed, but collapsed again. “Agh!” he exclaimed, flinching with the pain caused by both standing and falling.
“Aaron, what’s going on in there?! I can help if you let me in!” Robert was relentless. Aaron sounded like he was in pain and Robert wasn’t going to just leave him there like that.
Settling for crawling, Aaron weakly got on his hands and knees and slowly began moving towards the door again, his limbs shaking. Two steps later, his arms and legs gave out as he fainted.
Soon after, there was a loud slam as Robert managed to force the door open by throwing his weight against it enough times. He rushed in, looking around for Aaron. A glance towards the bed told him his initial intuition was right. Another glance in front of the bed told him where Aaron was.
“No, no, no, no!” he said, as he raced to Aaron’s side. He felt for a pulse in his wrist, only to discover it was weak. Robert then gently rolled Aaron onto his back and began looking for injuries. It didn’t take long before he spotted his left pant leg, covered in blood.
“Aaron, what did you do?” Robert whispered.
He rolled the pant leg up and saw the jagged, crisscrossing wounds in Aaron’s leg, still pushing out blood. In a state of panic, Robert took off his shirt and used one hand to apply pressure and another to call for an ambulance.
“I’m here Aaron, I’m here! Everything will be okay!” he said to Aaron, although he was more trying to reassure himself. He wasn’t completely sure what had happened here, but his suspicions told him this wouldn’t stop until Gordon was gone.
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I’m so glad that Liv isn’t taking any of Maya’s BS and immediately recognizes her behaviour as being like that of her abusive, predatory paedophile father. Because what Maya’s doing isn’t any different from what Gordon did, and the fact that Liv addressed that front and centre and saw Maya for what she was is so so so important for the storyline.
Liv has her wits about her. She knows this pattern of abuse. She knows because she saw her brother go through it, and saw the way their father try to manipulate and twist the situation to suit himself, to make himself look innocent, to lie and deceive, and to behave in exactly the same way that Maya is now.
Both scenarios are the same, even if the details and circumstances are different. And it’s an important parallel that needed to be drawn, especially by someone who was in one of the best positions to recognize it because she was a victim of it once before.
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I just read your post about Jack's effect on how Robert deals with secrets, threats and rejection and I agree with you. Have you any ideas why Aaron reacts to secrets and threats in pretty much the opposite way despite his traumatic childhood? The only thing that Aaron and Robert have in common is how they deal with rejection or the fear of rejection.
This is such a beautiful ask. I don’t feel like I know and understand Aaron in my soul like I do Robert, because his life experiences were so severe and traumatic. So I apologize if this answer is inadequate.
Aaron reacts to secrets with a feeling of being betrayed. And he reacts to threats with intense aggression. He turns inwards until it ruptures him, and he erupts. Aaron reacts to things with more immediacy. I think its because his life is more fast paced, he was moved around, back and forth between his parents, shoved away when Liv’s Mum was in the picture, pulled in and out by Jackson and Hazel. So he knows life isn’t the same all the time, people don’t treat others consistently, love is fleeting, and betrayal is common and constant. Therefore his reaction is one of intense speed. He can’t form long term plans, and construct revenge like Robert because he doesn’t trust the future. So he reacts then and there with his fists. He grew up in a system of violence, in a space where that was the only means of expressing emotion. So young chavvy Livesy has grown up without being equipped with healthy coping mechanisms.
They are both so afraid of rejection that they don’t put themselves in positions where they fear they will be. Neither of them believe their enough, or have much self worth.
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Day 2: Gordon Livesy. I didn’t think I hated anyone as much as I hate Daz, but then I remembered Gordon existed.
Why has no one made gifs of Robert threatening this monster while Chas, Diane, and Doug were in the other room? Like, no matter how I put it into the search, there wasn’t anything. And that scene was gold.
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