I had a lot of fun with this chapter. I hope you enjoy it too.
Maxie has a quick temper. That's something that anyone who has more than simply a professional relationship with him (and even then, in that case, one might know anyway) would know. And while Maxie is usually quite prone to yelling or snapping at people ("Like me," Archie might say), Maxie can't exactly snap at the current CEO of the Devon company. The real cause of Maxie's anger is the ring laid out in front of him, but yelling at the ring would be a social blunder as well.
"Concentrate, Maxie," Mr. Stone tells him, "you can do it." This just makes Maxie want to ram his jewel cutting tool into his eyeball even more, but if he was actually calm, he would consider it a nice sentiment. Maxie looks at the sketch he and Mr. Stone had created of the ring he wants, sighs, and goes back to his work.
Maxie looks at the ruby and hacks a section of it off at an angle. It certainly doesn't look good by any means, but Maxie likes to think that it doesn't look bad either and maybe the fact that he's carving this ruby himself adds some sort of redeeming factor to it. Who am I fucking kidding? Archie is going to laugh at me.
After giving the ruby a few more cuts, Maxie runs his thumb across it. It's rather rough, but, somehow, Maxie thinks it's sort of charming in a strange way. "Would you like me to teach you how to engrave metal?" Mr. Stone asks. Maxie nods.
"You take this tool," Mr. Stone rummages around through one of the drawers on his desk and then holds up a pointed tool, "and run it along the metal, like so," Mr. Stone runs the tool down a piece of metal he has out for demonstration with a certain delicacy and precision that Maxie knows he'll never have. Maxie takes note of the method Mr. Stone uses to add more depth to the letters he carves. "Try it."
Mr. Stone hands Maxie the tool and the practice metal. The first letter that Maxie tries to create looks more like part of a sigil than anything else. "Try just scraping the metal a bit first; that'll give you a feel for how the letter making process works." Maxie makes a few circles and squiggles, practicing fleshing out some of his nonsense marks as well. After this, he tries to write some letters. Then he tries again. And again. And again.
"I want them to be…" Perfect? Well, yes, but Maxie also knows that that's unrealistic, "good? Legible?" Maxie questions to no one except Mr. Stone, who isn't really the target of his questions anyway. Maxie practices writing out the exact words he wants to be on the rings over and over again, striving for that good or legible or whatever it is Maxie is trying for.
At some point during Maxie's obsessive word carving, Mr. Stone says Maxie's name to catch his attention. Maxie looks up, carving tool held tight in his hand. "You have almost no more room left on that piece of scrap metal," Mr. Stone tells him. Maxie takes a closer look at the metal and realizes that Mr. Stone is right. He sets the carving tool down gently. "Also," Mr. Stone continues, "it's getting late. That love of yours must miss you."
"What time is it?" Maxie questions, checking his watch. His face pales when he sees that it's nearing six o'clock. "I really didn't mean to stay here for so long, Mr. Stone! Thank you for having me. Archie is gonna bash my head in." Maxie helps Mr. Stone clean up the mess they've been making over his desk and dashes out. Mr. Stone shakes his head and thinks back to when he crafted his first ring.
Maxie calls Archie as soon as he's outside of the Devon building. "Um, hello, Archie," Maxie starts once he's been greeted, "I'm about to start making my way home now, so it'll probably be dark by the time I make it home. I just thought you should know."
Archie's response to this information from Maxie is a loud, "What the fuck were you doing, Maxie? You told me you were gonna be out for 'just a bit'! A few hours is not 'just a bit'!"
"I lost track of time, Archie, I—"
"Oh, fuck off, Maxie." Archie hangs up.
"Rude," Maxie mumbles under his breath as he calls his Aerodactyl out of his Pokeball.
—
If Maxie didn't know that this whole ordeal would be worth it in the end, he would be well over it by now. Archie is now always at least vaguely disgruntled, and Maxie wants to just tell him about what he's doing. Maxie spends most of his time working on the rings staring at them with malice. One of them is finished (even if Maxie does wince a little every time he looks at it), and Maxie is so close to finishing the second one too. Shelly has taken to hanging around in Mr. Stone's office and cheering him on. Maxie has told her more than once to get out.
Though Maxie might not be the proudest of his craftsmanship on the rings, one thing that he does pride himself on is the words engraved on the rings. The first one, Archie's ring, says, "Earthquakes along fault lines couldn't tear me away from you." The second one is in the process of saying, "My love for you is as unwavering as the ocean," but it currently says, "My love for you is as u." Maxie grumbles as he fleshes out the 'u'.
Several days later, the ring is complete. As Mr. Stone congratulates him, Maxie stares down at the ring in a vague sort of disbelief. "I'm really gonna propose to him now, aren't I?" Maxie says.
"That's right," Mr. Stone claps Maxie on the shoulder, "good luck." It's sounds like a dismissal (Maxie can't imagine that he's been easy to deal with at all), so Maxie gathers all of his belongings and leaves. From a window, once Maxie has exited the building, Shelly calls out, "Did you finish making the rings, Maxie?" Maxie flips her off but confirms her suspicion anyway.
Maxie is fine throughout the entirety of his flight back to his secret base, but, then, as soon as he lands outside of it, Maxie suddenly feels like he can't breathe.
The rings are heavy in Maxie's pocket, and Maxie is suddenly aware of how much it would hurt if Archie was to reject him. "That damn pirate means too much to me," Maxie mutters to himself, his voice shaky. Maxie supposes, though, that how much Archie means to him is the reason why he's gone through all of this trouble anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Maxie ducks into the secret base.
"You're home early today, unlike usual," Archie chastises Maxie once he's inside.
"Archie."
"Did you finally decide that I was more important than whatever 'important business' it is that you're always up to?" Archie isn't looking at Maxie, and he's busying his hands with something else.
"Archie."
"Because I don't care if you don't want to be with me anymore or whatever I just wish you wouldn't lie to me and—"
"Archie."
"What?"
This is absolutely not the way that Maxie wanted to do this, but of course, of course, Archie had to be difficult.
Maxie loves him anyway.
He drops down onto one knee and holds out the ring he had crafted for Archie. Suddenly, it feels like every part of his body is shaking.
"Is this what this was all about?" Archie asks softly. Maxie nods his head. Archie more or less tackles him. "I can't believe you!" Maxie wriggles underneath him, but Archie doesn't move. "I was so…I was so…and you're…." Archie flicks Maxie on the forehead.
"Archie, would you just fucking respond already and, oh, I don't know, get off of me maybe?" Archie lies his forehead against Maxie's chest, and Maxie sighs.
Archie, after a few moments in that position, finally says, "We don't even have a house, Maxie."
"What are you getting at?"
"I mean, I would love to marry you for some fucking reason even though you're an ass, but the economic aspect of it isn't really…practical for us, don't you think? But for the idea of it, yeah. Yeah, I'll marry you." Archie kisses him.
At this point, both of their Mightyenas have started to wonder what is going on, and they creep up next to Maxie and Archie and start sniffing at them. Archie and Maxie laugh.
"Before we put these rings on, let me show you a little detail that I worked my ass off over." Maxie holds one of the rings up to Archie's face and taps at the inside of the ring to alert Archie's attention to it.
"'Earthquakes along fault lines couldn't tear me away from you.' …Which one of ours is that one?"
"Yours."
"What does yours say?"
"'My love for you is as unwavering as the ocean.'" Archie snorts.
"Maxie! Those are so cheesy!"
"They are not!"
"They absolutely are!" Archie laughs, and Maxie is so carefree and happy in that moment that he can't help but to laugh along.