Taking Pride

He slammed his hands down on his superior's desk, the angriest he had been in his recent life. "How could you do this to me? I've worked here long enough that I should get a choice in this."

"Calm down, Charlie. You're still wet behind the ears, and honestly, what's the deal?" his superior said. She was the police chief of their little conservative town and had her say in all the decisions. "You should be thanking me."

"For sending me undercover to the pride parade?" Charlie asked. He crossed his arms.

She sighed and rested her chin on her steepled fingers. The tight bun gave her an extremely serious look. "Yes. Obviously. They've finally gotten permission to take to the streets. I'd expect you to be happier. I'm telling you to mingle and join the festivities. What's the worst that can happen? You get hit on?"

"Maybe I don't want to! Did you think of that?"

"No one else wants to take on the job, not even your partner. Buck up. We don't know how the town will take it, and if things go downhill it'll be nice to have a man on the inside," the police chief explained. "Now roll up your shirt cuffs. Isn't that what you do to indicate you're into men?"

Charlie ground his teeth together. He decided not to correct her on the fact that that was a lesbian thing. It wasn't worth it and he would still have to do this job. He rolled his cuffs past his elbows and stalked out the door.

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He was going to be sick. He had resorted to rolling up all his cuffs, jeans and shirt, as the summer heat attacked him in all its glory. Technically it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there was barely a cloud in the sky, and the humidity could be worse. But he was surrounded by hundreds of bodies from neighbouring communities packed onto one not very wide street.

The way they were so blatantly, well, not cis nor straight, was the leading cause of his nausea. His eyes would either be blinded by shirtless men who were far from being models or the rainbow of neon colours everywhere. It was like they wanted to stick out as far as possible when compared to the straight variety of humans.

Sure it was great that the petition got more than enough signatures to allow this monstrosity to happen, but this wasn't his scene. They were allowed to feel pride, yes. It was just that in his personal opinion they represented only a fraction of the total community, many of whom were not this outgoing. And it created a stereotype for others to be judged by even if they weren't part of this small selection.

It was as if a unicorn had yacked all over the town's queer people and then proceeded to crap sparkles in its wake. His eyes were burning and he wished he had thought to bring sunglasses with him.

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The crowd was heading in a general direction, towards the downtown area. He tried to go with the flow but found he stuck out like a sore thumb. Not being dressed like anybody else and having his arms permanently crossed meant he was often bumped around in all the loose dancing. He wouldn't be surprised if he had a nasty scowl, his mood having plummeted more than the person not far ahead of him had gone all out with enough rainbows to attract a leprechaun.

And someone else had noticed. They fell into stride beside him and held out a hand. "Hi. I'm Brayden. He/him."

"Oh, uh," he stumbled out. "Charlie. Also a he."

"Come out for someone else? Oops. Silly me, bad phrasing. It's just, you don't seem very comfortable here, so I'm guessing you're being someone's ally," Brayden said. He smiled and looked rather handsome doing so despite his colourful attire.