Hunter decided that to skip the coffee and return without Chris would probably be too much of a dead giveaway so with a heavy heart he made his way to the vending machine at the opposite side of the ward. He waited as the drink was dispensed, his head against the cool glass of the window beside it. The machine clanked to a halt and for a moment he just stood, eyes closed, and breathed in the scent of the hot liquid, the aroma of it taking him back to their mornings together. Pancakes and bacon, laughung while passing 'Bret' down the table to drizzle over it and the best coffee in the world brewing in the machine. It all just seemed so long ago and it wasn't that the memories had faded, they'd just grown more painful to recall.
Cup in one hand and envelope in the other Hunter backed his way into Shawn's room, hissing as the door came back and bumped his ass causing some of the coffee to splash his hand. Shawn's laughter broke the quiet and he shook his head as Hunter turned around.
"What am I always tellin' you about not doing that? How many times you gotta burn yourself before you make two trips or get a tray?"
Hunter shrugged and put the drink and the envelope onto the bedside cabinet, sat, dried his hand on his jeans and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to speak and expected the silence that he'd anticipated every time he'd thought about bringing the subject up. To his near horror though there was nothing of the sort. His brain had decided it was go time.
"Shawn, there's been something on my mind now since this accident happened and I... I got something to ask you that's been bugging me..."
A voice interrupted Hunter that he didn't expect or appreciate.
"Is this about me coming home? Cos if it is, I don't mind stopping here a little longer, I don't want to be a burden to you Hunt, that's the last thing I want to be."
"Are you going to listen to me? Its nothing to do with you coming home. It's about the accident, what happened to you. Shawn, do you have any idea why he did that to you?"
The tone of Hunter's voice was something he'd failed to control. He knew he sounded agitated, snappy and far from his usual self. He felt almost as if it wasn't him doing the talking, like there was someone inside him pulling strings and pressing buttons that made his body function before his brain was ready to comprehend.
"Hunter, I'm as lost as you are. The guy is clearly missing a few of his marbles and I just got the hard end of it, that's all."
Shawn's face wore a sad look that would usually have served to weaken Hunter's resolve. This time though all he could see was the glowing smile that he'd given Chris before and that was like the red rag to a bull. Hunter failed to see why he should be the one to comfort a sad and broken man while Chris got the bright and entertaining side of the man he'd fallen in love with a long, long time ago.
"C'mon Shawn, Chris turns up here out of the blue, you two are here getting all cosy, maybe I've been missing something. Maybe you two got more going on than just a chat and Paul figured it out already."
"What the... Hunter, what are you saying? That me and Chris? You really... you... where has this shit come from Hunt? You can't think I'm screwing Chris? If this is a joke its really not funny."
The words from Shawn were quickfire, curt and with a note of aggression in them that was unfamiliar to Hunter. Their words, though sometimes cross, were rarely tainted in a way that would turn the corner to nasty or pointed. The backbone of their lengthy relationship was the fact that neither took things too seriously and that they never ended a day on an unresolved argument, as few and far between as the bouts of bickering tended to be. In his heart Hunter felt bad having to ask the questions and still felt distant from his own words but he knew that he'd have to press on to get an answer.
"No, I'm not joking. I have photos, proof of what I think's been going on," Hunter rifled his pockets to make sure he had them all and then placed the carefully taped back-together images in the upturned waiting hand. "You gotta know how these look Shawn, how much sense they make in all this mess, all this hurt we're both going though."
Hunter watched Shawn's expression carefully, his eyes scanning the face for a reaction, looking for more than the deep valleys that had formed across the usually smooth forehead to tell him what was going on. The normally enchanting blue-green eyes flickered across the images as Shawn looked through them but there was little or no reaction; no smiles, no sighs, nothing to go on. Eventually he stacked the photos back together and shuffled them into a neat pile. Silence ensued, Shawn still staring intently at the images in his hands and Hunter desperate to know just what they were all about.
"I can't believe you had me followed, I thought you trusted me Hunter. I would never lie to you and if you doubted me all you had to do was ask, I always told you the truth before. Dammit, you're the only one I never lied to."
"It wasn't me that... look, it doesn't matter Shawn. I need to hear something that makes those photos make a different kind of sense to me. All I see is you and Chris getting pretty close and pretty cosy and where I'm from two and two makes four."
With a deep sigh Shawn began to speak and Hunter listened carefully, hoping that it was either the truth or that he'd be able to see through to the truth if it wasn't.
"You remember a few months ago I said one of the guys came to me and said they wanted to know a little more about my church? Well that was Chris. He came to me, said his thing with Paul wasn't going too well, his drinking was getting outta control and that he was starting to regret leaving his wife. He asked me not to tell anyone that he wanted to speak to someone in the church so I left it be, didn't tell anyone and, although I'm regretting it now, that included you.
"Chris isn't the sort that wants to do his dirty laundry in the street Hunter, he's got more sense than I ever had. So, I took him along to meet the preacher, to meet my bible group, all the things that happened for me when I was saved. See, I know you only put up with my faith because you love me. Last thing you'd have wanted was me boring you about someone else getting called too. So to cut a real long story short, that's why we're together in these photos," Shawn picked the pile up and thumbed through them. "This one, we're at lunch discussing his upcoming baptism. This one we're holding the bible group at Chris' cos you'd gone to that promo gig in Arizona and I had nobody around to help me get the old dears outta the house when we'd done!"
Hunter noted that the words were unfaltering, no stammers or stutters, no gaps and no shake in the gruff and annoyed sounding voice. He toyed with the possibility that the speech could've been rehearsed for just such an occasion but surely Shawn, his Shawn, wouldn't be so cold, so heartless to have an excuse just laying in wait.
Tentatively he reached over to the bed and picked out the photo of Chris and Shawn's heads pressed so closely and intimately together. Spending nothing more than a second looking at the tormenting image he passed it straight into Shawn's hand and left it there while he found the courage to ask for it to be explained to him.
"That one. Tell me that one means nothing, that it's as innocent as you're making out the rest to be. Make me believe what you're telling me Shawn, please..."
His words faded to nothing as the highlight reel of pornographic images that he'd created as the aftermath to the captured tender moment played back in his mind. He bent forward and propped his elbows on his knees, allowing his head to sit heavy in his hands, a familiar position he'd often assumed at the bedside. His fingers splayed wide as if protecting himself from an impending blow and the seconds of silence seemed to drag on and on.
"Hunter, as much as I want to tell you to fuck yourself right now all I have to say about this picture is that if you, or whoever has taken these, had pressed the button two minutes after this one you'd have a picture of Chris looking like a drowned rat, fresh out of the baptismal pool and half a dozen senior citizens wrapping him up in towels. I brought him to God, to the Lord, to be saved and I'm glad to have done that for him. He was as lost as I was only he had the good sense to stay off the pills. He's a changed man and all because someone took the time to listen, to really hear what he had to say. And you know what, because of that he found salvation just like I did and now he's a complete person. He was only telling me this morning that everything is so much clearer for him now, that he knows which direction his life his headed in and that's all because of me and how I helped him out. He's a changed man Hunter."
Unable to help his reaction Hunter's head snapped up and he stared directly into Shawn's eyes, one of his own eyebrows raised in total disbelief. He licked his lips to wet them, preparing to ask more questions but was shocked into silence when Shawn began again.
"Look, where did all this come from? These pictures are all from before I ended up laid in this bed but you've been here every day without fail, holding my hand and pretending everything's okay with us. What's going on here Hunter? You can't believe something so low of me... and if you do then what the hell are you still doing here...why didn't you ask me sooner?"
The sudden outburst gave Hunter a shock he'd not expected. Shawn was angry, insulted that Hunter hadn't trusted him. On any other day he'd have been able to talk the situation down, nod and smile the incoming argument away but this was different. This was their present and their future balanced on the edge of a much eroded trust. No smart answer or wisecrack was going to get to the bottom of their situation and Hunter was torn apart inside, every plausible word tugging his heart one way, the simplicity of the images the other.
Reaching across for the envelope he pulled the box out of it and opened it up, feeling Shawn's eyes burning into him as he did so. He spent a few seconds just looking at the way the light caught the engraved gold and imagined it against his own dark tanned skin. As he looked at it the image turned into the same bracelet fastened around Chris' wrist and he put his hand out and proffered the box as if it contained something he was allergic to or smelled bad.
"Well maybe I'm hanging around to see if I get one of these. "With all my love, Shawn" it says. Which part of innocent and just friends does that fit into huh?"
Hunter looked away and fixed his gaze on the elbow taps across the room. He was shaking and trying his best to control it to no avail. Inside he raged against himself, against Shawn, against Paul, Chris, the hospital, his profession; everything. It was as if being trapped in that room, in that situation was dragging the last of the fight he had away into the mid-morning sun. His skin began to crawl with prickly heat despite the air conditioning keeping the room at a moderate temperature, his fingers flexing and making the worn paper of the envelope crease and tear as he repeated the action.
"Its just a gift – and no, not that kind of gift – just something to remind Chris that God is always around and that if he needs help, if he's feeling lost that between me and God we can probably help him out. Look," Shawn took the bracelet from its moorings in the box and flipped it over into the palm of his hand. "Nihil Nisi Deo. It means 'Nothing Without God'. Its like the cross I always wear. If you've got a constant reminder then its harder to forget how to live and how to always do what you can to be the best person. That's all it is Hunter. It's nothing more than that. You thought... you really thought I'd buy him this and mean it in that way... you think I feel for him in any way like I feel for you?"
It was then that the penny dropped and Shawn's face changed. His eyes narrowed and he looked at the pictures still spread in his lap. Hunter couldn't figure out what exactly was fascinating his lover so much but he stayed silent, busy digesting the plainly spoken words that dripped with the sincerity and honesty they always did when faith was their topic of conversation.
"Where'd you get the bracelet Hunt? Huh? Where did it come from?" Shawn paused and the silence nearly stifled both men. "Tell me Hunter. Where did you get all this from?"
The loud words and serious tone were the clearest indication that Shawn was hurt by the accusations and allegations and Hunter felt himself start to panic more than before. Now the tug of war was being won by the part of him that believed his lover's innocence was true and absolute. Only the barest niggles remained at the back of his mind that any of the reasons could be lies. Shawn would never use his faith, his core beliefs as an excuse to get out of a sticky situation, Hunter knew that.
"Shawn, you gotta understand how it would lo-"
His sentence was cut short by a familiar loud bang. The door of the private room swung open and connected forcibly with the wall behind it. Chris appeared through it, read faced and with his shirt collar torn almost clean off the body of the shirt. His chest rose and fell rapidly and his panting sounded like that of a man who'd just completed a marathon. Seconds behind him was Paul, himself also flushed in his cheeks and up over his balding head. His breathing was less rapid but just as laboured.
Hunter stood, his head reeling from the shock of the noise and his heart beating impossibly fast in his chest. Turning to the door he saw Paul, his face tear streaked and swollen. Next he caught sight of a widely smiling Chris who had eyes for nobody in the room other than Shawn.
"You can tell him Shawn, its all okay now. I told Paul everything."
"I already told him Chris, you being saved now and all about your baptism," Shawn focused on the large frame obstructing the doorway."Now what the fuck are you doing here Paul? I really don't want-"
"No Shawn, I told him everything. About us, the real us and how you said we could be together one day. Well its done. We can be together, just like you said."
The room began closing in around Hunter and the words echoed in his mind. He felt as if his brain was grinding to a halt and his heart was close behind it. All he had left to hope for was that somehow the truth and the lie could be separated but he truly had no idea how that was going to happen. Eventually he turned his head to Shawn. Their eyes connected and he wordlessly asked for the truth; something to truly believe in.