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Lewis couldn't leave, couldn't wander the hospital and rejoin even that much of the outside world, for more than five minutes before the feeling would overtake him that Hathaway was not in fact recuperating in the next room, but instead, that he had been too late. The house had burned with everyone inside. Each time he tried, even to obtain a cup of coffee from the vending machine down the hall, he returned to the room empty-handed, trying desperately to look professional when he was dangerously close to what another man might call an anxiety attack. Perhaps it was the smoke, or some fumes that had come off of the melted-plastic carpet of that infernal deathtrap (both the inferno and the deathtrap had, unfortunately, been completely literal). The point was, he hadn't left this room for an uncomfortably long time. Instead, he had sat there for hours upon hours, with only his own thoughts and his unconscious partner for company. As he dozed in his chair, recently and noisily scooted from its customary place in the corner of the room to rest beside the bed, and slipped his hand almost reflexively over that of said bed’s occupant, he reasoned quite smugly that the coffee was probably terrible anyway.
Unfortunately, this dozing had the decided effect of leaving him completely alone with his thoughts, and Lewis's thoughts wanted a word with him. At first, his mind meandered through pleasant places- memories of friendly drinks over jobs well done. Sometimes the man across the table was Morse; sometimes it was Hathaway. The feeling of warmth and contentment was the same. The memories shifted a bit, and it was memories of home, of Val and the kids, and then it was work again, the image of Hathaway, perched at his computer, making some cheeky comment on a case that’s specifics Lewis had long since forgotten. His mind continued its little stroll down memory lane, but now it seemed to take a detour into the seedy back alley of vague and half-connected concepts. Now it was trust, placed in so few people still alive. Now it was pain, so rare but so acute, always born of love. And then it was James, standing there with a sign on his back, and all Lewis could think of was trust, love and pain, (or was it pain, love, and trust?), and one led to the other, led to the other.
Oh God, he'd left him alone. He was so wrapped up in his own feelings, blinded by the thought that after a year of partnership, of friendship, of- whatever they had, or might have had, Hathaway still didn't trust him, that he'd gone and left him alone, right when he bloody needed him. And of course the lad didn't trust him. Hathaway didn't trust himself . Why should he trust his boss, especially with the revelation of how he used to think, who he used to be. Especially if he guessed- Well, how could he guess. Lewis liked to think that he was very good at hiding things when he wanted to. Then again, Hathaway seemed to think the same, and look how wrong he was. Perhaps he had given himself away, even if he wasn't entirely sure that there was anything to give away in the first place.
More likely, he wished there wasn't anything to give away.
"Are you gay?"
Now that he'd gone over it in his head, over and over again, it was a non-question that deserved the non-answer it had gotten. It wasn't even what he'd meant to say. It wasn't the question that had been plaguing him from the beginning of the case (or had it been longer?). Of course the true question, the important question, wasn't that simple, but the simple question was far less dangerous than the real one. It wasn't "Do you like men?" but rather-
"Could you like me?"
Of course Hathaway hadn't known that when he practically demanded that Lewis ask, but then, why had he been so insistent? Did he have his speech prepared, ready to impress his boss with his open-mindedness (when he himself likely doubted it)? Did he want to throw Lewis off the track of the truth, or… no, it couldn't be.
Maybe he wanted to tell Lewis, in that infuriatingly roundabout way of his, that it wasn't as simple as straight or gay to feel him out, to see his reaction. Maybe…
Memories and musings began dropping away, revealing a dark, twisted landscape, as Lewis slowly succumbed completely to sleep, still clasping Hathaway's hand in his.
He found himself, cold and alone, beside a church. The church was holding a funeral, and somehow he knew that he could not, should not, attempt to bring himself any closer to the looming wooden door. He didn't want to know who was inside, what family grieved within those walls, and for whom. There had already been too many funerals. A man approached him, a man dressed like a priest, and he found that he didn't want to see the man's face, any more than he wanted to go inside the church.
“What is your relationship to the deceased?” The man’s voice was at once bored, familiar, and absolutely terrifying. Lewis couldn’t answer. It could have been anyone’s funeral. (It could have been his own, some buried part of his subconscious mused, and one can hardly go waltzing about one’s dreams, announcing that one intends, or as the case may be doesn’t intend, on attending one’s own funeral.)
“ What is your relationship to the deceased ?” The tall, deep-voiced man spoke again, and again Lewis found himself at a loss.
“Is he your colleague?”
“No.” Now that the questions were more specific, more concrete, Lewis found that he had the answers, though he could not fathom how.
“Is he your friend?”
“No.” Lewis answered again.
“Is he your intimate?” and this time the voice was so full of venom that Lewis had to draw on his considerable experience at suspect interrogation to avoid breaking down and cowering in front of this strange, terrible man. A man he had known for months upon months, and scarcely a week. A man he knew far too well.
“No,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “If I know my mind, he’s all three.”
The words had barely left his mouth when he found himself once again in Hell, choking against the fire and the smoke, and trying desperately to find the man who put him there. The man he knew was already dead.
Thump-Thump
An endless line of shattering windows blew shards of glass against his face. An infinite assortment of staircases mocked him. Which one? Which one?
Thump-Thump
He would never forget the staircase now. Melting plastic carpet. The smell of lighter fluid in his nose. Flames licking at the phone he’d called minutes ago, and that morning, and the day before, and the week...
Thump-Thump
Paint blistering and peeling from the railings, hundreds upon hundreds of times over.
Thump-Thump
He climbed the stairs, the right stairs, the stairs he’d climbed before.
Thump-Thump
He was too late. Of course he was too late. All that greeted him was flame. Flame and the odd, excruciating feeling of his heart being ripped out through his hands.
Thump-Thump
His hands.
Thump-Thump
It wasn’t his heartbeat. The heartbeat in his hands was not his own. He held onto it, followed it. The smoke and flames cleared, parting like the half-remembered, half-imagined shades they were, and he was suddenly sitting in something hard, his face smashed against soft cloth, and his heart in his hands.
He woke fully to find himself sprawled halfway across the hospital bed, his back sore from the awkward position in which he had been lying, and his fingers firmly wrapped around Hathaway’s wrist, its steady, even pulse beats pounding against his fingers.
He had been shaken enough by the dream that he resolved, this time, to successfully obtain the coffee. Caffeine withdraw can make a man think and dream all sorts of funny things. Before attempting to take the plunge yet again, he carefully straightened the crisp hospital sheets, leaving no trace of how he'd laid across them minutes before. He wasn't entirely sure why. Perhaps his subconscious wanted to put off leaving (though he would only be gone a few moments) a little longer. Perhaps the wrinkles looked as wrong on the smooth bedclothes as the cut on James's otherwise flawless cheek. James? When had he ever started to think of Hathaway as James? It couldn't have been long now, could it?
When he returned from his coffee run, Hathaway was awake. Not only that: the man was awake, talking, and skirting frighteningly close to sentimentality. That was the last thing Lewis needed after the scare he’d had, he reasoned. It wasn’t good for his heart. So he pretended (badly- the lad was a quite excellent detective, after all) that he’d only just stopped in minutes ago, and made a hasty retreat. Strange things could come floating to the surface when a man was tired, emotionally drained, or pumped full of pain meds. He wanted nothing of it. At least until they were both fully sober (that went for both of them- Hathaway with two sets of drugs in his system, and himself drunk on fever dreams), fully dressed (Hathaway looked far too vulnerable in that hospital gown), and with all of their emotional armour in place. Nothing would be said that wasn’t fully and wholeheartedly meant. He would be sure of that.
Some time (and a successful case) later, they were sitting in the creaking, wooden chairs of their favourite pub, the last sunlight of the evening streaming in through the slightly rippled windows. Lewis ordered two drinks. Always two. One for him and one for the other. Another job well done. Hathaway was gazing at the street outside, perhaps observing how the rosy gleam of sunset made the rooftops glow. It was the sort of thing he would do, Lewis mused. There was probably even some line of poetry running through the lad’s head that would sum it all up perfectly, depersonalize it, wrap it in a bow. Lewis was watching the light as well. He watched as it illuminated Hathaway’s lashes and what there was of his (too short, far too nice to be so short) hair with gold. He watched as it gently brushed Hathaway’s face, illuminating the expression of deep concentration that he usually reserved for a particularly interesting piece of evidence, or a painting, a play, a poem that just needed to be analyzed in sixteen ways, from eight different scholarly angles, and all before breakfast. Lewis was so lost in half fond, half exasperated thought, that he hardly noticed when the object of his scrutiny turned that expression on him, grey eyes fixated somewhere in the vicinity of his forehead, before meeting his as Hathaway’s expression broke into that cheeky, barely-there smirk that he had thought of for over a year now as the default arrangement of Hathaway’s face (though everyone else they encountered seemed to bring it up as if it were unusual, and now and then he wondered if it only ever made an appearance when he happened to be around).
"Sir?" The face spoke, vaguely tinged with uncertainty now, even as it pretended to tease.
"Yes?"
"Do you like Loaded and Yorkie bars?"
He paused for a moment, before shooting Hathaway a cheeky smile of his own. "I like Yorkie bars. …and shoes. You?"
Hathaway grinned back. "Loaded and musicals, Sir."
Another couple of non-answers for a non-question. Lewis smiled to himself. He supposed it was enough for now.