Rings of Truth
Greg stood buttoning his shirt while Mycroft searched the floor for the keys he swore had “launched itself out of malice.”
The flat still carried the soft disorder of the afternoon: Greg’s shirt and tie tossed on the chair, Mycroft’s jacket hung properly from the wardrobe door. Outside, the city had turned blue with early evening. They were already late for dinner.
“Your keys,” Greg said, spotting them in front of the full-length mirror.
Mycroft glanced up. “Wait, I’ll get…”
Greg bent and picked them up. The metal chimed softly in his palm.
Then he stopped.
Among the keys was a ring. Not a keyring, but a signet ring.
Gold, worn at the edges, engraved with a crest Greg knew as well as his own handwriting.
His breath left him.
He remembered their dinner two weeks ago, the wine, the candlelight, telling Mycroft about the stupidest mistake of his twenties: losing his great-grandfather’s signet ring in an airport, of all places, and never forgiving himself for it.
Mycroft had gone quiet then, Greg remembered.
Too quiet.
Now Greg lifted his eyes to the mirror and found Mycroft watching him apprehensively.
“Where did you get this?”
The color rose in Mycroft’s cheeks; his mouth opened, closed, then curved into the smallest, most mortified smile.
“I can explain.”
“Oh, that would be ideal.”
Mycroft came to stand behind him at the mirror, though not too close, each looking at each other’s reflection.
“Decades ago,” Mycroft began, carefully, “I was at Heathrow. Baggage claim waiting for my uncle. I apparently resembled this young man’s brother; he mistook me for him and hugged me from behind. I turned in surprise, ready to verbally flay him and…” He swallowed. “He was ridiculously handsome. Beautiful. I introduced myself and shook his hand, mortified by the mistake, he returned the handshake, but did not give his name…”
Greg looked down at the ring again.
“And?” he asked softly.
“And, and I…” Mycroft winced, “...took it.”
Greg's eyes narrowed. “You stole my great-grandfather’s ring from me?”
“I didn’t know it was yours.”
“That is not the principal legal issue here.”
“I know.” Mycroft rubbed a hand over his face.
Greg stared at him, stunned between outrage and relief.
“You did that often? Steal from men you’re attracted to?”
“Gods, No!” Mycroft’s answer came quickly. “I know how it sounds, but I was young and stupid, and there was something about him, about you… that enraptured me. I was storing your touch in my mind index. When I looked up again, you were gone, and I saw Uncle Rudy coming.” A slight flush came over Mycroft, “We didn’t have the easy technology then. No easy way to find a stranger from baggage claim with only a face and a ring.”
“You…!” Greg gasped in recognition, “You were the gorgeous blond!”
“Yes, I had platinum hair back then.” Mycroft smiled, a new flush coming over him.
“But you kept it, and when we officially met…?”
“I… I kept it because it became this absurd little proof that once, for a few minutes in an airport, I had been seen by someone beautiful who liked what they saw too, and I was so ashamed of the sentiment I pushed it deep in my mind.”
Greg’s thumb moved over the crest. “And because of my shame over having lost it, I rarely talked about it, so it was when I mentioned it at that dinner…”
“….I nearly choked on the lamb as I realized once again that Universe is never so lazy…” Mycroft nodded. “I was going to return it tonight, at dinner. Properly. With apology. Possibly several.”
Greg glanced back at the keys, and only then noticed another ring fastened beside the signet: platinum, simple, unmistakably new.
His heart gave one hard, impossible knock.
“And this ring?” He held it up.
Mycroft went utterly still, then he exhaled, defeated and tender. “That was also going to be at dinner.”
Greg looked at him in the mirror again. Mycroft’s embarrassment had given way to something more naked than either of them had been an hour ago.
“I wasn’t aware of the ring being gone until much later. I never connected its loss to you, but it helped me forget you.” Greg held up the platinum engagement ring. “But I must confess: my wedding was in a week. That’s why I was there, picking up my best man, my brother. And I all but ran from you and refused to look back because something about you… I knew if I turned and looked back at you… I wasn’t getting married.”
Mycroft blinked at the confession and took a step closer. “I had told myself, all those years ago, that if I ever found him again, I would marry him.” He gave a small, helpless shrug. “Then life happened; I put the ring and the memory away long ago, giving up on the fantasy, until that ridiculous, magical conversation at dinner…”
Greg’s throat tightened.
“You were going to propose with evidence of a crime attached to your keyring?”
Mycroft’s smile trembled. “Yes. Though I hoped to phrase it more romantically.”
Greg looked at the signet ring, then the platinum one. Past and future, absurdly linked by a cheap steel loop. “You are unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“Sentimental.”
“Unfortunately.”
“A thief.”
“Historically.”
“And you think I’d marry you?”
Mycroft met his eyes. “You’re the only person I would do this for.”
Greg separated the rings from the key ring and slipped his great-grandfather’s ring onto his own pinky finger. It fit as if it had been waiting.
“Well?” He turned to the real Mycroft, the reflection no longer sufficing, and held out the platinum ring. “You’d better ask before we miss dinner entirely.”
Mycroft took the ring, “Say yes, you’ll marry me, and let’s miss dinner anyway.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you, and let’s miss dinner anyway.”
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