Dorian Montoir
October 27, 2020 5:33 AM
Pride by Dorian Montoir
OOC: God-modding approved by other authors BIC:
Dorian sat next to the trunk, sifting through a sea of rainbows, and thinking of the last time he’d been in a hotel room with Professor Brooding(-Hawthorne) before a significant occasion. It had sort of been very different (wedding) but also sort of the same (gay). It felt like a long time ago, and he felt like he had been a little boy when he had sat braiding her hair and getting her ready to be a bride - even though, at the time, he was sure he’d felt very grown up. He felt a lot older now, though the idea of ‘grown up’ was still a tricky one. Between then and now, he had done a lot of growing up but he still wasn’t fully convinced that he was one.
This event, his first Pride, could have kicked off in the very same hotel. That had been Professor Brooding-(Hawthorne)’s suggestion, and he had halfway accepted it last term, whilst the idea of the summer had been a vast swirling mess of unknowns. He hadn’t been able to say that going to Greece would be impossible or improbable or what he wanted or didn’t want because he hadn’t known. He still didn’t really. The summer was just as much a mess now that it was actually happening as when it had loomed on the horizon. Jean-Loup was settled here in Vancouver. Dorian was theoretically looking for a job here, or working out whether to try for late registration at the university. He was spending his summer shuttling between Jean-Loup, his own parents, and Vlad’s house. The inclusion of the last of those three was the one steady point that the actual lived reality of his summer had obtained over the mental image he’d had of it during the term. He had a little bolthole, a person and a place that felt solid and concrete and safe. And he came back to Canada, either coast, whenever the guilt at neglecting the other parts of his life got too much. And returned to America when the stress of attending to them got too much.
He felt guilty thinking of Jean-Loup in those terms, and it definitely wasn’t fair to put him in the same bracket as his family. It was just that Vancouver was still new, and Dorian didn’t have anything here yet, except Jean-Loup. He could get that, he supposed. He could double down his efforts to get a job. He could settle on a program… Except Vlad’s accusation from years ago rang in his ears. You chose him. He had felt that was unfair. When he had started dating Jean-Loup, he hadn’t walked away from Vlad to do so. But if he moved in with him…
In some ways, going to Pride in Greece would have seemed like a logical step. Turning tail and running off to the other side of the world rather than picking sides - not forever, but just for this event, just for a week. Except he couldn’t go to Pride and not take Jean-Loup. If he ran off to Greece, Jean-Loup would run with him. And neither of them could afford that, and for all that Professor Brooding-(Hawthorne) wanted that not to be an issue, it definitely was. He neither wanted to borrow money from her nor be a charity case.
So, he had suggested Vancouver Pride instead. It was the place that he kept saying he was coming to live. He supposed he should give it a chance. Anyway, it wasn’t like he never came to see Jean-Loup here. It wasn’t like Vlad knew anything about Pride or had expressed an interest in going. It wasn’t like, when Jean-Loup came to pick him up from the floo station and twirled him around in a hug that lifted his feet off the ground - it wasn’t like he didn’t feel special and loved and safe, and start thinking that he wanted to stay here instead. Or that, even if he didn’t, part of his heart would break to walk away. Professor Brooding-(Hawthorne) had once told him that how you loved people could change over time. Something could end, and you could still go on loving them, just in a different way. He didn’t want to stop loving anyone. He just wasn’t sure which of them had to accept that he was going to love them in a different way than before.
Professor Brooding-(Hawthorne) also hadn’t been kidding when she said she dressed up for pride. He and Jean-Loup had come to meet her at her hotel, and she had opened a fabulous treasure trove of rainbow costumes and accessories. Dorian was now excitedly pouring through this, whilst Jean-Loup sprawled in the desk chair, having added a rainbow stripe to his running vest already with his wand. A lot of the trunk was definitely off limits. Doran was not interested in wearing a skirt. There were a few things like bowties and braces. There was a top hat, although it was hard to call it exactly ‘male attire’ given that it was covered in rainbow sequins. But his hand kept coming back to the same thing again and again. He kept pretending to himself he was moving it out of the way, to see what was hiding underneath it, but really he was stroking it, coveting it. Professor Brooding-(Hawthorne) kept saying there weren’t any rules. That people would be all kinds of dressed up. He wouldn’t be strange or wrong and nothing bad was going to happen…
“Am I allowed…?” he asked, holding up the rainbow feather boa, seeking just a smidgen more than the mere permission to borrow it.
13
Dorian Montoir
Pride
1401
1
5
Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
October 27, 2020 10:09 PM
I am so proud. by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
Vancouver Pride made sense, but there were challenges. With it essentially being a trip to spend time with Dorian and Jean-Loup, Tabitha had opted to stay home with Zeus and the Merlinoses. They were still planning on attending Pride in Greece as a family, so that would be good, and this meant that Mary could have all the emotions she was going to have without also trying to be a parent at the same time. She did feel a little like a creep, walking around Pride with two young men, but it was fine. There were all types at Pride, and she was allowed to spend time with what now amounted to her friends."You absolutely can," Mary promised Dorian when he retrieved a feather boa. "And you're going to look perfect," she added with a grin. She'd waited a minute to get dressed herself, not wanting to unduly influence how either Dorian or Jean-Loup decided to dress. Some prides, she went with leather bodysuits because it amused her that it was the only time she ever wore anything like that and it was fun. That being said, she also knew that some amount of example could be useful, and that Dorian probably would not be more comfortable with Pride by seeing his former professor dressed like she was into some stuff he didn't want take now about, so she'd opted for something more conservative, for a given value of the term.
Satisfied that Dorian and Jean-Loup had at least chosen the direction of their dressing for the event, Mary stepped into the bathroom with a devilish smirk, and returned a moment later in a new outfit. With her hair down to its full shining glory, she'd added streaks of glittering colors throughout the otherwise black-brown mass. A white short-sleeved tee shirt stuck out from beneath a pair of rainbow overall shorts and black fishnet stockings covered the rest of her legs, down to a simple pair of black vans. They were definitely the only sneakers she ever wore. She was generally conscious of the fact that she was no longer the youthful twenty-something who had originally worn such things to Pride, but that was alright. The shorts were longer than her pockets and she was generally confident that she wasn't going to scar poor Dorian.
Smiling with the first feelings of pride that came with Pride, Mary cocked her head at Dorian especially. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
22
Mary Brooding-Hawthorne
I am so proud.
1424
0
5