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dotuindex · 4 years

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Description: The DotU squad goes to Arus’s first pride parade in years. Cuteness ensues.

Warnings: None!

“Lean in close, I’m gonna get a picture!” Lance threw an arm around Keith as he pulled out his phone, quickly testing out different angles.

“Another one? You already have at least thirty.” Keith said, before smiling for the camera regardless.

“What? You’re gonna blame a poor guy for wanting more pictures of his beautiful boyfriend? How rude.” Lance faked a pout and batted his eyes, making Keith roll his own, but he laughed all the same.

Lance tapped away on his phone, probably sending a picture to Cliff.

“W- Hunk!” Lance turned to face the older man in the backseat. “You photo bombed us!”

“I’d say my gorgeous mug vastly improved the picture.” Hunk replied, making Allura and Pidge giggle next to him.

Lance huffed, but he quickly lit up again as he got an idea.

“Allura! Lean forward, I wanna get a picture of the two of us.”

Allura did as she was asked, propping her chin up on her arm as she laid it across the back of Lance’s head rest.

Lance snapped the picture, and she watched quietly as he covered it with rainbow stickers and hearts before adding the text “Princess’s first Pride.”

“It’s been too long since we last went to a pride parade.” Keith said, almost wistfully. “I’ve always loved them!”

“What’s your favorite part?” Allura asked as Keith squirmed around in his seat, trying to stop sitting on his flag-turned-cape.

Keith thought for just a moment before responding, “When I'm actually in the parade, I like handing out the candy.”

“I like eating it!” Pidge cut in.

“I second that,” said Hunk, “but try not to overdo it this time. Last time we gave you control over your sugar intake you threw up.”

Pidge huffed and flushed pink as Keith groaned.

“Just thinking about that makes me nauseous!” Keith gave a full body shiver.

The car came to a stop, but before Keith or Lance could even make a grab for the door handles, Nanny turned to them from her place in the passenger seat.

“Stay safe, and don’t cause any trouble!”

“Kinda hard when trouble looks for us!” Pidge’s laugh was met by a hard glare that quickly shut him down.

“Yeah, no problem, We’ll be careful!” Keith said in a rush, before throwing open the door and leaping out.

“Responsible is my middle name!” Lance said as he followed suit, gracelessly, almost falling face first into the pavement in his haste.

Pidge followed him out, eager to either get away from Nanny or to stretch his legs after being crammed between Hunk and Allura the whole way here, it was hard to tell. Hunk, ever the gentleman, let Allura exit first.

🏳️‍🌈

Pride parades, Allura concluded, were ultimately not so different from any other parade she’d ever been to. People dressed in bright colors, strange looking floats, banners and vendors and music and so on.

And yet, Allura felt wholly out of her element, what with the flags she didn’t recognize and the culture she didn’t know. They were still just as Arusian as anyone else, of course, but there’s a different history happening here, a whole different world of experiences.

Allura always feared the idea that she was out of touch with her people, but never has she felt so woefully ignorant. Before she met the boys, she didn’t even know that being gay or bi or what have you was even a thing, so she was absolutely thrown in the deep end when she found out that not only could people like the same gender, but that some of her closest friends did.

And here she was in the present, next to Lance in his “I put the BI in BITCH” T-shirt, surrounded by a bunch of people celebrating their lives for the first time in over 20 years, immediately at a loss.

“Allura!”

She shrieked as Romelle threw her arms around her and easily lifted her feet off the ground. The taller woman spun around with her a few times, making Allura dizzy.

“Careful, you’ll break her ribs hugging her like that.” Sven said, giving his almost silent laugh, more of an exhale than anything.

Romelle set her down rather gingerly after that, and Allura smoothed the wrinkles from her jumpsuit.

“This is so exciting!” Romelle’s voice went uncharacteristically high as she jumped from foot to foot. “I’ve never even heard of a pride parade until this one! And the floats are so pretty!”

It was odd seeing Romelle so giddy, but Allura couldn’t blame her. She looked like a regular young woman for once, dressed in shorts and a “proud bisexu-whale” tank top (courtesy of her boyfriend) and with a myriad of jingly, brightly colored bangles and bracelets on either wrist.

"It really is something, isn't it?" Allura replied. She'd never seen Romelle smile so much, and she wondered briefly if it was hurting her face to smile that hard.

"Let's go! I want to get a good place to watch!" Romelle grabbed her hand, leading her into a busy streets as the boys trailed behind.

🏳️‍🌈

Pride parades, Allura concluded, were awesome. Maybe it was the fact that this was the first parade she'd ever been to where Nanny and Coran hadn't been breathing down her neck the whole time. The older duo had declined coming along past dropping them off and joining her on stage for her speech. She found it... odd.

But the show- or parade- must go on.

After the floats and speeches came what Lance loved and Pidge dreaded; the market place, usually full of of fresh foods and whatnot was now stocked with all manner of shirts, flags, pins, bracelets, bags- basically if you could slap a pride flag on it, it was there.

Lance loved supporting local creators. Pidge just wanted to avoid getting trampled by a crowd of people twice his size.

They ended up splitting into groups for the sake of navigating the storm- Lance and Keith flew off like the little love birds they were, Hunk played chaperone for Pidge, who wanted something to eat (not the Hunk was complaining), and Allura opted to play third wheel to her cousin and Sven.

The trio wormed their way through the crowd to different booths, dropping cash as they saw fit. It was fun spending so much time with Romelle. They hadn't known each other for that long, but it felt like they always did, like they were old friends.

Sven had laughed when Romelle was so quick to throw a wad of money at this one vender with a "bisexual of the blade" T-shirt, but he couldn't deny that it suited her perfectly.

They found themselves at a stand with what had to have been millions of buttons, in dozens of designs. They quickly set to work scouring the collection in hopes of finding one for everyone in their little brigade. Keith was easy to find one for- the "moron-sexual" button a sure way to get a laugh and an offended gasp from Lance. Pidge was much harder, but while searching for his, Allura had a difficult enough time remembering what flags went with what label. They had rainbow pins, that one was easy. Then there was the bi flag, another easy one.

"Need any help?"

Allura looked up at one of the women running the booth. She was a little older than the princess, her hair a royal blue.

"Lots." Allura replied, laughing breathlessly. "What is... this one?

She held up one of the buttons, monochrome with a streak of purple.

"That's the ace flag."

At Allura's confused expression, she added, "the asexual flag."

"Oh! Okay, I know that one, um..." She must look so silly, the little straight girl who doesn't even know the flags, but she was curious enough to ignore her embarrassment.

"What about this one?" She asked, holding up a second button.

"That's the pansexual pride flag." The woman replied.

Okay, well, that's a new word.

"What's that?"

Oh gosh, was that rude?

Allura felt relieved, if embarrassed, when the women laughed a little.

"It's like... if someone is attractive, they're attractive. Pansexuals could be attracted to anyone, regardless of gender, I guess is how you could explain it." She said.

Oh. Huh.

"OUCH!"

Allura dropped the button back into the container as Romelle yelped.

"You alright?" Sven asked.

"Yeah, just pricked my finger." She said.

"Do I need to kiss it better?"

Romelle snorted and playfully shoved him. Still giggling, she asked, "Did you find a button you wanted?"

"No, but I don't need one. The pictures are good enough momentos." Allura replied, shrugging.

That left them with six buttons that they paid for before heading their way to their rendezvous point, a little cafe just around the corner.

Keith and Lance were already there, the former beaming at them and waving frantically to get their attention.

"So, how'd it go?" Keith asked, sipping his soda. He had a new rainbow heart sticker stuck to his cheek.

"Delightfully!" Romelle replied, sliding into a seat at the table.

"It was really something, wasn't it?" Allura said. She was exhausted, but in a good kind of way.

Pidge and Hunk arrived some time later, and the team headed back out into the summer sun. All the sudden Allura felt less tired, like she was missing something important, something she couldn't leave behind.

"Oh! I think I left my camera back in the market. I'll be right back!"

Before they could reply she was off, dashing back down the street.

🏳️‍🌈

They said their goodbyes to Romelle and Sven before cramming themselves back into their car. Hunk gave a sigh of relief, fanning himself with the rainbow fan he had gotten at some point.

"All that really takes it out of ya." He said breathlessly.

"I dunno what you're talking about!" Said Pidge as he popped a jawbreaker into his mouth.

"You're gonna rot your teeth out of your head!" Keith shot over his shoulder.

"Am not!"

"Let him live, Keith. He still just has his baby teeth anyway." Said Lance.

"DO NOT!"

Allura laughed, still toying with the pan pride button in her pocket.

#dotu #80s voltron #My writing

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