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It was a yearly tradition at the Academy: at the end of the boots' first year, they put on a drag fashion show for the upperclassmen as a last rite of initiation. Some people called it hazing, but Hughes was of the opinion that it was completely harmless. Apparently there had been some confusion about what to do when women were admitted to the Academy, since women in drag didn't equal quite the same level of good-fun embarrassment when they already wore the same uniforms as the men. But they'd solved that quickly enough, moving the female cadets to another, private initiation ceremony hosted by the upperclass women, of which no male cadet knew the details (though not for lack of trying to find out). All of that left the boys to their own fun, watching embarrassed boots with too many muscles plodding down the makeshift runway with toilet paper stuffed into borrowed bras and bad wigs that had been passed down from class to class for decades.
Hughes had gone through the process last year, and in his opinion (and in the opinion of all of his classmates, who never hesitated to remind him), he had made a singularly hideous woman. This was partially due to his refusal to shave for the part and partially due to the dress he'd chosen from the Academy's stash -- vomit pink with giant tulle flowers all over. But he also didn't have a particularly feminine build, and high heels, he'd quickly learned, were a bitch to walk in without looking like you just got off a horse. Hughes was not going to have a career as a professional drag performer any time soon.
But now he was a second year, older and wiser and happy to watch a whole new crop of recruits making their way down the aisle. Most of them looked about as good as Hughes had the year before, arms akimbo, looking down at their feet to make sure they didn't trip. Some of the more extroverted boots played it up, flaunting their nonexistent hips and cleavage and blowing kisses to the audience that made the room explode in raucous cheering and applause and the flashes of cameras capturing the moments for posterity. But even they weren't particularly pretty. That was the point.
Hughes watched as a particularly massive recruit with a handlebar moustache, possibly a distant relation of the Armstrong family, galumphed his way down the runway like a football player, nearly tearing his lavender satin dress in the process. He was one of the ones playing to the crowd, and when he got to the end of the stage he flipped the curls of his wig with one hand while twirling his moustache with the other. The crowd was in hysterics, Hughes included, as the possibly-Armstrong boy made his way back behind the curtain.
And then there was Roy.
To the untrained eye, Roy Mustang might have looked like he was purposely defying the rules of the game. He'd apparently ignored all offers of bras and wigs, choosing instead to let his dress fall flat against his chest and comb his long bangs toward the single flower he'd tucked behind his ear. The dress itself was something that definitely hadn't come from the Academy storage closet -- long and slinky and dark blue, with a high halter collar and side slits almost to his waist -- and below the hem Roy walked with confidence in strappy black heels. Hughes had no idea where Roy had even gotten the clothing, though he shouldn't have been all that surprised -- in the six months they'd been friends and the two months they'd been... whatever they were now, Roy hadn't stopped being a man of mystery when it came to his outside connections.
A silence had fallen over the crowd at Roy's appearance, but as he made his way down the runway with a confidence bordering on arrogance the silence was replaced by cheering and wolf whistles like no other boot had gotten. Hughes watched, transfixed, as Roy sauntered ever closer, the details of his face coming into view and revealing a pale sheen of lip gloss and dark kohl around his eyes. When he reached Hughes he stopped, giving him an exaggerated wink, then broke the script entirely to kneel down and smile right into Hughes' face.
Hughes tried to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat as Roy leaned in, grabbed his tie, and pulled him closer. "Hey there, big boy," he rasped, that goddamn mouth of his positively glistening, and reached out with his other hand to stroke the side of Hughes' face. Even his nails were painted. The room erupted into laughter.
And then, just as soon is it had begun, Roy stood up again, finished his walk to the end of the runway, and sauntered back behind the curtain to let the next recruit through.
"Ha!" the cadet next to him, Simpson, exclaimed, pounding Hughes on the back. "Never seen a boot game us like that. Your boy's something else!" he said, laughing.
"That he is," Hughes agreed, shaking his head and reaching down to adjust his uniform trousers. The show continued, but as the last few recruits made their way down the aisle, Hughes had only one thing on his mind: getting out of this room, finding Roy Mustang, and making him finish what he'd started.