Welcome to the Pride Parade [Frerard AU]

Part III: Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 – WELCOME TO THE PRIDE PARADE

From Frank Iero: Rise and shine, it's pride parade day!!

The buzzing of my phone woke me at eight o'clock in the morning. I'd forgotten how early it started, but luckily all I had to do was get dressed and walk out the door. It was surprisingly cold in the morning, enough to make me wonder if I should consider wearing more than just one layer of clothing. I was sure it would heat up later in the day, though.

I pulled into Frank's driveway half an hour later, this time with each of my fingers painted a different color of the rainbow and blending into a striped design on the back of my hand and a bit down my arm. Frank complimented it when he sat in the passenger seat, today wearing jeans and a hoodie which unzipped to reveal a multi-colored t-shirt, one that he told me he'd gotten on a vacation when he was younger that miraculously still fit.

When we pulled into the parking lot, the first thing I did was go to the trunk and take out the flag I had stowed away there last night. "Can't forget this," I said, draping it over my shoulders and then putting my arm around him so it covered both of us, just like he had done for me yesterday. The flag did little to shield the wind, but as it was early in the morning on the northern half of the country, it was nice to have a reason to share some body heat.

The streets were crowded, so it was hard to find a place to stand where we'd be able to see when the parade started. I paused behind a triad sitting in chairs, wondering if we could stay there.

"Welcome to the pride parade," Frank said. "Everyone's so excited that no one can even see what we're excited over."

"Hey, don't worry. We'll find a place." Sometimes I forgot how short Frank was.

Just before we reached the corner, Frank took my hand and tugged me between a few people. He sat down on an open space on the curb, then adjusted the giant flag so we could both be comfortable there.

"Perfect," he smiled.

"I don't even know what to expect with this," I admitted. "The parade gets a lot of hype, but I've never been a parade sort of person..."

"Oh, don't even worry about it. It's not like some stupid Independence Day parade where it's the same unexciting float again and again, nor is it as long. It'll start a few blocks away, then it goes down this road and ends at the corner down there." He pointed to our right, where a line of people obscured my vision to whatever corner he was referring to. I could imagine it wasn't more than a hundred yards away.

"I'm interested. If it's anything like the festival yesterday, I'm for it."

"I bet it will be, only more performance-y,"

"Performance-y?" I nudged him. "Showy is already a word."

"You're secretly more nerdy than I am," he nudged me back.

"Says the one who was trying to convince the entire group chat last night that Spock and Captain Kirk became an item during season two of Star Trek."

"You bet. They just didn't explicitly say so. We're expected to figure it out – which I definitely have."

"Oh, look at the intellectual over here," I teased.

"Don't pretend you weren't online when the Sherlock fandom watched an entire episode of a horrible pornographic show just because they were part of a conspiracy that believed it was secretly another episode."

"The status of my tin foil hat is classified information."

"You geek."

"I know."