i got this feeling
It's the middle of a burning heatwave, and Lexi is nursing her third bottle of water in the last hour. She's perched on the side of the pavement, in what little shade that the overhead trees have to offer, simply watching the action happening in front of her as people try to get in position for the start of the parade. This preoccupation that humans have with sexuality, with gender, confused her at first, coming from her home planet where it was either survival or nothing, but she can see the appeal of it here, on this world, in this place, this park crawling with people as they stand in groups and laugh with the people they love as they wave their brightly coloured flags. Everyone wants to belong somewhere, to feel like they're not alone - and here they do. It's disorganised, erratic, all those negative words that Lexi had once thrown around about the human world, but somehow, here, it feels right. On her planet, no one had been too concerned with who she could give her heart to, as long as she kept quiet about it and hid it from public view, but on Earth it is celebrated. Here, on this world, what she feels has a name. It has colours, colours that she is wearing right now - pink, and blue, and yellow. It's everywhere: on her clothes, on her face, in her short blonde hair. Tom had painted the colours on her cheek earlier that morning, and she had watched the excitement brewing in his warm brown eyes as she, in turn, painted his own colours - pink, purple, blue - on his own cheek.
Lexi seeks him out in the crowd now; he's only a few feet away, talking eagerly to Benny Sherwood and another friend of his, a blonde boy whom Lexi has forgotten the name of, the one who has Benny's arm, smeared with rainbow paint, wrapped firmly around his waist. Tom catches her watching him and waves, excusing himself from his friends to come over to her spot, the flag tied around his neck flying out behind him like a cape.
"Enjoying yourself?"
"Yes." Lexi takes another sip of her water, before gesturing to the gathered crowd at large. "I didn't think it was going to be this busy."
"It isn't, usually." Tom glances at the scene around them, and then grins. "Most people go up to the big parade in London, but we never have. It's the little places like this, the small communities, that need this the most."
He sounds like he's speaking from some kind of experience, and Lexi wonders what words have been exchanged in the past that have caused her boyfriend to think like that, but a shout cuts her off before she can think of a way to delicately ask.
"Hairdo!"
Tom whirls around at the sound of the familiar voice, and a smile breaks out on his face. "Jazz! Katie!"
One of the girls - Jazz, apparently - pulls him into a one-armed hug, careful not the smudge the varying shades of red, pink, white and purple that cover her face. "We've been searching for you in this crowd for, like, ten minutes now; even your hair can't defy gravity that much."
"You weren't thinking of marching without us, were you?" Katie adds, eyebrow raised as she smiles at Tom, tongue in cheek.
"Never. All in this together, right?"
"Ugh." Benny and the blonde boy - Quinn, Lexi quickly remembers, Quinn in his striped black, grey, white and purple shirt - have wandered over to their small gathering at the sight of the new arrivals. Quinn is rolling his eyes. "What is this, Clarkey, a Disney film?"
"It should be," Benny says, and he tightens his grip on Quinn for a moment as he presses a quick kiss to his temple. "Love wins, after all."
"You are such a sap, Benzoid. Remind me why I'm still with you." There's no seriousness in his voice; Quinn is only smiling, widely and fondly. This, Lexi thinks, looking at the affection in their eyes, is why humans are right to celebrate.
From the front of the crowd, music starts playing to signal the start of the parade, causing the six of them to jump (even Lexi flinches at the sudden burst of noise to her eardrums). Katie and Jazz squeal amongst themselves, hurriedly linking arms and knotting their fingers together, just in case anyone tried to mistake them as friends. Tom holds out a hand and pulls Lexi to her feet, dropping a kiss on her unpainted cheek as he passes her a flag of her own. Pansexual.
"You ready to do this?"
Lexi returns his smile, and squeezes his hand. "Together."
in my head, none of these people were ever straight and benny wasn't alone in his LGBT representation on kids television.
in other news, small-town mindsets are awful.
just in case anyone is confused: pink, yellow and blue is pansexual, pink, purple and blue is bisexual, pink, purple, white and red is lesbian, and black, grey, white and purple is asexual (like me! *waves*)
title comes from the song 'Pride' by american authors and i own nothing recognisable
