Work Text:
In training they hadn’t told them not to wear wedding rings, they’d said the dress code advises cadets not to wear expensive jewellery that could tempt thefts or risk injury and then wordlessly shown a montage of torn necks, degloved fingers, broken wrists. Matt did not need to be told twice; for a while he’d kept his ring in his shirt pocket as a compromise. That ended the day he’d gotten shot in the chest and even after the armor took most of the damage, he was left with a sharp ring shaped bruise that stuck around for a month.
All of that’d not persuaded Richard, though, who liked to point it out when he was on one. “Why are you talking to that man! You aren’t even wearing your wedding ring!”. The last time Matt’d seen his husbands ring, sans man, had been at the jewellers, and here it was in the kind of sandwich bags the hospital used to hand over evidence.
He cleared his throat. “I’m not the processing officer.” Matt pointed out. There were three pieces of Richard’s wedding ring left, not enough to make a full band, and for a second that thought ran away from him to a slideshow of every shotgun blast he’d ever seen, the resulting shredded meat, and of the last few pieces discarded in the dirt at Sandy Shore, ignored by a sloppy investigation. Or maybe in a medical waste bin, picked out of Dick's finger. Problem after problem.
“It’s been cleared and processed already.” Balto explained, cutting through. “I can give you a list of what went where. We have things like his wallet and phone at the hospital for when he wakes up, the rest went to evidence.”
Matt put the envelope aside. “All right. I appreciate you passing it along.”
“You know you can call me for anything you need, right?”
“You’ve been very helpful.” And Matt could sense that he was being too professional and clean, but didn’t care to spend the energy to dismantle his work persona, have the whole conversation with Balto, let him know, what? He was sad? He stood up and gestured to the door. “I really appreciate all you’ve done. Keep me updated, all right?”