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Maes was fogging up the glass. Every breath he took condensated on the display case, and when the sweat from his palms had decided they’d had enough, his hands slowly slid down with the second worst sound Roy had ever heard in his life.
The worst sound was when Maes told him he was going to propose to Miss Gracia Hart.
Roy stood perfectly still as Maes twisted through the throes of indecision. He was staring down at a case full of delicate, pretty rings, mentally calculating just how in debt he was going to be at the end of this.
Regardless of the cost, though, he was going through with it. He’d dragged Roy into a supply closet – the only place anyone could get privacy in the barracks – to ask if he thought it was a good idea. Roy could only sit on an overturned mop bucket as he wondered how he was going to pick up the pieces this time.
He told Maes to go for it.
Maes looked a mess. He kept taking off his glasses to rub them against the sleeve of his civvies, each frantic cleaning loosening his hair from its careful styling. He needed a haircut, Roy mused, it kept falling into his eyes. It made him look every bit of 22. Young and anxious.
Maes asked the jeweler if he could look at a particular ring. It was so tiny in his hands, smooth against his calluses. His hands shook where they were normally so steady, so sure. Roy had seen him reassemble his sniper rifle in less than a minute. Had seen him hit the mark over 1,000 meters away. There was no trace of that man here.
Roy had spent the last week with his face memorizing the grain of Madame Christmas’ bar. She never asked why he came in; why he’d been coming in with increasing frequency. She knew. Roy never told her, but Roy never had to tell her. Madame Christmas knew everything.
Every night his aunt determined when he’d had enough to drink, and every night one of his sisters escorted him back to the barracks. They dropped him off with a steadying hug and a kiss on the forehead. They knew too.
Every night Maes watched him come back with a different girl.
“Roy?” Maes’ voice cut through his musings. “I need help.”
Roy shook himself back to the present and strolled over to where Maes had narrowed his selection down to five rings.
Each was equally beautiful. Equally delicate. Equally feminine. There was a demon in Roy’s heart and it sank its claws into sinew.
“You’re better at understanding women than me,” Maes said; Roy held back a laugh-sob. “Which one do you think she’d like?”
Roy loved Maes. Maes loved Gracia. And because Roy loved Maes, he knew everything there was to know about Gracia.
Miss Gracia Hart was studying to be a nurse technician in the Central Hospital. She interned in the maternity ward and every day she got to help bring a new life into the world. She was kind and soft spoken, and could bake anything the human mind could imagine. Roy had spent weeks in the kitchen after curfew figuring out how to make Maes the perfect spinach quiche only to be eclipsed by one Miss Gracia Hart.
Maes had called Gracia a blessing: hope for a better life, a life worth living. Gracia was all soft smiles and human decency. Maes deserved someone without blood on their hands.
Roy tucked his hands behind his back and leaned further towards the rings. Maes kept drifting towards the one on the far left, even if he didn’t seem to realize.
It was pretty. The diamond wasn’t big, but it was surrounded by little amethysts. The band was silver: simple yet elegant. It’d look perfect on Gracia’s ring finger.
“This one,” he nodded at the ring. “And you should give her heliotropes, too.”
Maes lifted a brow. Roy felt his mouth go dry.
“They, uh,” he started, “They represent eternal love and devotion.”
The smile Maes shot him was like the sun breaking through the clouds.
“I knew I brought the right person along!”
—
Maes paid for the ring and immediately started having second thoughts.
“Are you sure she’ll like it?” Maes stared anxiously down at the ring.
“Maes,” his name burned the back of Roy’s throat like whiskey. Maybe it was to show him he was serious, or to provide comfort. He’d always held everyone at arms length. God forbid The Roy Mustang have a heart. Maes blinked up at him, all messy haired and wide-eyed. Roy would burn down the world for him.
“She’ll love it because it’s from you. Trust me on this.”
There were nights when Roy would look up at Hughes, eyes hazy and inhibitions lowered. Lowered. But never gone. He wished his tongue would loosen that little bit more. He wished he could turn off the ever present fear of being vulnerable just long enough to let those three words escape. He wished he could promise himself that everything would be okay if he confessed. That he didn’t have his most precious friendship hanging by a thread. He wished his tongue wasn’t a blade.
Roy had put too much bad in the world to get something good in return. Still, he wished.
“Can you keep this for me?” Hughes asked, holding out the ring. “At least until I finalize the proposal plans? I wouldn’t trust it with anyone else, not even myself.”
Roy had fantasized – late at night when everyone was asleep – of a time when Maes would hold out a ring to him. Would ask him to keep it, to keep him. And he’d slip the metal over Roy’s finger and the demon in his heart would be forever silenced and he’d forget how horribly whiskey could burn.
“You’re hopeless, Hughes,” he said instead, and took the ring and tucked it in his pocket.
He felt it burning against his leg as he walked back home.
—
Roy turned into the familiar building, nodded to the doorman before pushing his way into the lobby. He turned right into the stairwell. He’d never rushed up the stairs, but now he felt like he was walking towards eternity. The ring in his pocket got heavier with each step. He stopped at the familiar floor. It was so quiet. Everything felt muffled.
He walked up to the familiar door and knocked. Gracia Hughes opened it a few moments later. Her eyes were red rimmed and she clutched a handkerchief.
It struck Roy, then, that he had no idea what to say. He’d spent the day in a wash of drowned out sound.
“I-“ his voice cracked, “I want to offer my condolences.”
He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out Maes’ wedding band. He had washed it the best he could – and it was clean – but he still felt the blood on his fingers. He offered his hand to Gracia, palm up, with the wedding band. Gracia started tearing up.
“The morgue let me take this,” the words didn’t feel real. “He would’ve wanted you to have it.”
She tucked the handkerchief in her pocket and reached out a shaking hand. She placed it in Roy’s own hand on top of the ring, and for the first time he could feel the warmth of her palms, the lightness of her fingers. He could feel her wedding band and the engagement ring he’d helped to pick out. Her fingers curled around the sides of his hand, but didn’t pull.
“Do you want to come inside?” The tears were streaming down her face now but she pressed her lips firm. Roy finally let the dam break.
“Yes,” Roy said. “I do.”