When the idea landed, there was little he could do to rid himself of it. He told no one, even Banshee, who had suggested it in the first place.
“You know that wouldn’t change how he relates to you, right?” He had to ask to ensure that she didn’t intend to make Johnny her parent by way of getting him married to one she thought she already had.
“I guess so, yeah. I just thought everyone did that at some point.”
“No, not everyone. Some people do fine without all the fuss and institution.”
“You’re just scared you’ll have to wear the dress,” Banshee had joked.
He’d laughed then, but the idea never left him alone. What if he asked? Huge negative reaction? Life of sarcastic wedded bliss? A blank stare and then the standard point and laugh?
He paid attention when he passed jewelers, but didn’t know what he was looking for. It wasn’t like Johnny was in the market for a big shiny rock, and Edgar thought they were ridiculous anyway.
Suddenly, proposals were all they saw on television. Johnny laughed at all of them, but mostly at the gaudy rings and the overblown reactions to being asked and then the reaction to the reaction. Edgar laughed with him, but mostly at himself for considering this madness, ever. He suspected Tess’ reaction would be remarkably similar, and that Devi and Jimmy would skin him alive and cook his flesh for breakfast if Edgar even considered a proposal. Their reaction shouldn’t have bothered him since the relationship was only between him and Johnny, but it mattered deeply. Jimmy and Devi were, in a fucked up kind of way, Johnny’s family and if they disapproved of Edgar, he would pay for it for the rest of his very short life.
He blamed it on Pepito when he actually bought the thing. Evil spirits and the like. The rationale behind it was that if Edgar ever decided to ask, this particular ring was unlikely to show up again. It was no gold and diamond studded number, nor a plain gold band. Truthfully, it was a mess. Threads of the grey metal were tangled and twisted into a ring that might have frightened someone who didn’t dress up as a dead man on a regular basis.
The man who sold it told Edgar that his grandfather had lost his finger when the ring was made entirely by accident. It had been some kind of accident in a factory, and the old man cursed the hunk of metal that has cost him a finger, but he also began to believe the ring could restore the finger and kept the thing. Horrible things happened to the family from then on, but the man refused to destroy it, sell it, even profit from his story. His family had been unable to get him to throw it out until his death when a single grandson with a fondness for flea markets promised to take the ring away.
“A collector of oddities, eh?” the salesman asked.
“No, “Edgar answered, eyeing the twisted metal intently. “I just live with one.”
The metal disaster passing as a ring lived in Edgar’s pocket for weeks after it was purchased. More than once, Edgar thought he’d just leave the damn thing somewhere, or give it to Johnny as a random gift and not anything significant at all. This kind of thought ended when he remembered that this object had cost a man his finger and was not something to be given casually.
He fought with himself about when and how to present the ring and then realized he was considering a proposal seriously. Would Johnny prefer someplace significant like the roof, or would he rather someplace mundane like the kitchen?
The real locale turned out to be quite ordinary. At the bottom of the stairs, Edgar had approached Johnny, asked for something unrelated to wedded sarcastic bliss and rested the tips of his fingers on the ring in his pocket.
“What’s that?” Johnny asked, ignoring the prior attention and now focused entirely on Edgar’s pocket.
“What?”
“In your pocket.”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“It’s not important, it’s just some bottle cap I picked up.”
Johnny was not convinced and Edgar couldn’t blame him.
-MORE CONVERSATION OR SOMETHING-
“It’s a ring,” Edgar sighed.
“You wear them?”
“No, but you do.”
“So you stole it from me or you got it for me.”
“Got it for you,” Edgar admitted.
“So?”
“I can’t just give it to you, it’s sort of special.”
Johnny inclined his head and shifted his weight, silently asking for more information.
“The guy who made it lost his finger to it,” Edgar said quickly.
“Really? I’m interested.”
“Accepting it sort of comes with a condition.”
“Oh? You want me to clean the house or something? Come on, I haven’t even seen it.” Johnny eyed Edgar’s pocket anxiously and his fingers twitched.
Edgar pulled the ring from his pocket, and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Johnny was absolutely fascinated with it.
“How did he lose the finger?”
“It was molten at the time. Threaded right around the finger and burned it right off.”
“Is it haunted?” Johnny asked eagerly.
“I was told cursed. I haven’t asked Pepito about it yet.”
“So you want something from me in exchange for a cursed hunk of metal?” Johnny was clearly trying to test Edgar’s resolve to hold out for an exchange, as his voice indicated he would do near anything for said metal hunk.
“Yes,” Edgar answered firmly.
“Okay,” Johnny said with an anticlimactic shrug. When he reached to take the ring, Edgar pulled it away.
“No, you need to hear it first. It’s a promise- you can’t make it without knowing it.”
“Then fucking tell me what it is!” Johnny crossed his arms and his expression grew sour.
Edgar had a speech prepared – some sort of devotion-filled preamble to the actual question - but rather than all of that, the meat of the thing came out instead.
“Marry me.”
Johnny’s expression did something close to falling off of his face.
“Um, what?”
“That’s the condition. You take an engagement ring; you get engaged.”
“What the f- I don’t even… no, no.”
For some reason, Edgar was surprised at the answer. His throat tightened around his breath, and he pocketed the ring again.
“I suppose this will feel awkward for a little while, then,” he said though a forced laugh.
“No, that’s not what I meant… I mean, not just you.”
“I’m not sure I get it.”
Johnny made a frustrated noise and then whirled around to head upstairs. “Just... just wait here, okay?”
Edgar thought perhaps he was heading up to jump out the nearest window.
Instead, Johnny came downstairs with a tattered string of red leather.
“It’s not cursed,” Johnny said, winding the thread around his finger several times, “and it’s not flashy or permanent or anything, but it’s the first thing I ever owned.” He gestured with the thread to Edgar’s pocket. “Trade you.”
“Nny, it’s not a thing to collect, it’s-”
“And this isn’t just junk! If you want to give me something that valuable, I should give you something kind of equal, right?”
“I already told you I’m only giving you this if-”
“I know,” Johnny said, trying to force Edgar to take the string.
“So… that’s…?”
“Yes.”
---
Johnny was sitting in Edgar’s lap, watching something inane on television, when Edgar brought up actually getting married again. His fingers had glanced across the ring on Johnny’s finger by accident.
“Hey,” Edgar said, twisting the ring around Johnny’s finger, “when do you want to do this?”
Johnny looked away from the television and down at the ring for a moment. He shrugged. “Whenever.”
“Oh, come on,” Edgar said, “It should have some thought behind it.”
“Whenever, seriously.”
“So what, you want me to say ‘Thursday’, and you’ll just be okay with that?”
“That’s fine.”
“I was joking.”
“It’s still fine.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah, you apparently want to get married on Thursday. Just don’t make me wear something stupid in front of people.”
“People? Do you think Jimmy and Devi are going to be okay with this?”
“They’re gonna have to be.”
“Should we… invite people?”
Johnny sighed. “I said yes, and that’s about as far as I’m going. I don’t want to make a giant production out of it.”
“It should be a little nice, though, right? I mean, this isn’t something you do all the time.”
“Do whatever you want. Just don’t make me wear a dress or anything.”
“Will you dress up for me, at least?”
Johnny laughed. “If I didn’t know you, I’d say that sounded a little kinky.”
“If I was asking for the dress, then we’d have a kink problem.”
“What do you want me in, then? I still Tenna might still have those tux-y things we wore for a while.”
“Those ones we covered in neon paint?”
“Oh.”
“But yeah, something like that. Without the paint.”
“Are you going to make me comb my hair and wash my face too?”
Edgar hugged Johnny and laughed into his shoulder.
“No. Look like you mean it.”
Johnny tried to turn to face Edgar. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It’s a performance,” Edgar said. “So show up for it like you mean it. Put a little more black on your eyes instead of just using what’s left on there after you shower or whatever.”
“So the kink I mentioned earlier? It’s not for dresses, but for sleep-deprived lunatics, yeah?”
Edgar shrugged. “Have I ever asked you to wash that off? I’m allowed to think it’s attractive.”
Johnny laughed softy. “So what kind of requests do I get to make?”
“Requests?”
“Well, seems you want me in a tux and eye-liner. Do I get to ask for you to do the whole thing in mime?”
“You have a thing for mimes?”
Johnny elbowed Edgar in the stomach. “You know what I meant!”
“I’d like to be well-dressed for it, but … if there’s something you like…”
Johnny said he’d think about it, and Edgar was a little disappointed that he didn’t confess that he secretly found Edgar to be irresistible in orange or something.
---
“I don’t know.”
“Just let me see.”
“I think it looks kind of dumb.”
“I bet it looks fine, just show me.”
Johnny opened the door, and came out still poking at buttons and creases in his shirt. He was in a simple white, button-up collared shirt untucked over black pants. There was meant to be a coat or a vest, but just the shirt was enough.
“Whoa.”
“Told you it looked stupid.”
“No… no, it doesn’t. At all. You look amazing.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“I’m totally not.”
“Oh. You want me to wear this thing then?”
“You should probably feel okay in it, too.”
“I would if I didn’t feel so…,” Johnny looked at his wrists and pulled at the collar. “So in.”
“So undo it all.”
“Edgar.”
“I don’t mean the whole shirt, give me some credit.” He approached Johnny and unbuttoned his wrists and the first few buttons near his neck. “Better?”
“Yeah.”
“It… looks even better on you like that.”
“Heh. You clean up well too. Are we going to do this thing matching?”
“I guess. I was thinking of keeping mine buttoned…”
“No way.”
“Oh?”
“It’s much better when it looks like mine does.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
(Ha ha, god, I wanted to just put :) in quotes. )
---
“So, you weren’t planning on asking me when you did, were you?”
“No.”
Johnny leaned back against the headboard, clearly amused. “And when were you?”
“I don’t know… not then. I had a whole thing I was going to say for whenever it was.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, you know, like, an actual proposal.”
“Pff, if I had known that, I would have waited and let you embarrass yourself.”
Edgar gave Johnny a sheepish glance. “You wouldn’t have said yes if I’d made a big thing out of it, huh?”
Johnny shrugged. “I don’t know, I’d have to see it. Was it the whole thing? On your knee and gesturing like Shakespeare?”
“Knee yes, Shakespeare no.”
“I think I’m disappointed I missed this.”
“You wouldn’t have said yes if I’d done all that. You would have run away or made fun of me before I finished.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Okay, here, gimme your hand. “
“O…kay?”
“Your other one.”
Edgar tried to slide the ring off of Johnny’s finger, but was met with protest.
“Hey, what the fuck!”
“I’m just gonna borrow it. I’m already going to look like an idiot and you’re going to laugh at me, so at least give me the benefit of holding something.”
Johnny pulled the ring off and dropped it in Edgar’s hand. He rubbed the spot where it had been and smirked.
“It kind of feels weird not to have that there now.”
“Good,” Edgar said. “Hopefully it’ll stay that way.”
“He says this like I’ll cheat or something,” Johnny said to the walls around them.
“Fuck you. I’m kind of into the idea that you like wearing the damn thing.”
“I do. And I want it back, so stop fucking around.”
“You mean, “Stop fucking around and start making yourself look like an idiot, Edgar,” right?”
Johnny folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah. Come on. Make me laugh.”
Edgar sighed and stood beside the bed. “Well, okay. The original plan was to be somewhere nice, so like, the roof or the big hill or something.”
“And not the bottom of the stairs.”
“Right. I thought it should be somewhere at least sort of significant.”
“So you con me up there and then just spring it on me?”
“No. I didn’t completely work out how I was going to transition into it, I guess. But I was just going to tell you that you’re my best friend and that I still feel really amazed sometimes at how this worked out. I know something sort of put me here for you and so I was probably pretty crazy about you from the start – like, passing you in the hallway kind of ‘start’ – but I’m thrilled that it worked out that way.” Edgar twirled the ring around a few of his fingers, trying to look at it and not Johnny.
“Oh, well-”
“Just wait,” Edgar said, “I’m not done. I … remember asking you to consider dating me and thinking that was going to be the biggest thing I’d ever have to say to you. And then I guess later it was asking if we were actually officially some kind of couple. Hell, I even had to ask you if you were really alive once. I feel a little bit like I’ve asked a lot of you – a lot of stuff that goes kind of outside of your nature – and I’ve been lucky that you’ve answered me every time, because it’s really more like you to just walk away.” The more he said, the more confident Edgar felt, and the speech began to feel a little more real and less like a summary. “So it’s probably kind of obnoxious of me to ask one more thing of you, but I’d be honored if you’d consider answering one more big thing.”
As he dropped down to one knee and presented the twisted ring again, Edgar swore he saw Johnny flinch. “Would you marry me?”
There was silence for a moment or two.
“That was it, huh?” Johnny asked, slightest trace of a laugh in his voice.
“Your line there is actually, ‘Yes.’”
Johnny rolled his eyes and reached to take the ring back from Edgar. “Yes, yes. Gimme that.”
“No, wait,” Edgar said, pulling it away. “Give me your hand again.”
“Oh for the love of- here.” Johnny thrust his hand in Edgar’s face and Edgar slid the ring back on Johnny’s finger.
“Give me a break,” Edgar said, rising to sit next to Johnny on the bed. “I didn’t get to do that during the real thing either.”
“It’s not a big deal. I just should have known you’d do that.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Would you have said yes if I’d done it that way?”
“Assuming we’re not in a messy bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“I would have laughed at you.”
Edgar let out a long breath and nodded, clasping his hands together. “Thought so.”
“But I would have said yes.”
***
“Don’t think I ever would have expected it.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“You didn’t have any hints?” Devi asked. “He lives with you, you know.”
“No.”
“So what now?”
Johnny shrugged. “I get married, I guess.”
“You guess? Did you say yes, or what?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“He’s just so excited. Everytime he looks at me he’s fucking beaming and he’s always messing with the thing…”
“And you’re not excited, or what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to do this?”
“I told him yes.”
Devi crossed her arms. “Did you mean yes?”
“Yeah, I did. It made him really happy.”
“Are you only doing it because it makes him happy?”
“No. He’s just talking about it all the time and I’m kind of wigged out.”
“People tend to plan for this crap.”
“It’s just… all the fucking time.” Johnny twisted the ring on his finger. Already becoming a habit.
“You just said he’s excited, what’s the big deal?”
“I don’t want to talk about it all the time. Sometimes the shit that’s on TV is the shit that’s on TV, and it’s not going to look any different on the other side of this arbitrary wedding shit.”
“So you really don’t want to do it?”
“It’s like you’re not even fucking listening.”
“I am listening! You’re just not saying anything other than that you don’t want to play the married couple game!”
“Nothing will change, Devi! I said yes because, seriously? What will change? I’ll still live there, so will he, we’ll both wear some jewelry all the time. It made him happy.”
“Did you give him something?”
“What?”
“You said you’d both wear some jewelry. Did you give him something?”
“String.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“It was important string.”
“Nny, you can’t give him string! Edgar, really? Jimmy, yeah, you could have given him fake dogshit, but Edgar?”
-
Yep. sorry, that's where it cuts off!