Aspec Martin Week – Day 4
Martin's first Pride ft. OG Archive Crew. Set sometime during S1.
Martin hangs close to Sasha near a stand selling gaudy accessories and spinning fans while Tim bounds off, shoving cheerfully through the mass of people, promising to search out somewhere that might have something approaching alcohol.
He's been gone a while now, and Martin's been anxiously adjusting his scratchy, over-loose bow-tie to try and distract himself, feeling sweaty and visible and uncomfortable. Sasha and Tim, in their early morning marshalling of their small group, had convinced him to paint his nails in some gauche glittery material that ripples rainbow when the light strikes it. He doesn't like the colour, and he's half ruined it anyway with his picking and fussing. Someone hasn't adjusted the volume controls on whatever system they've set up, and the next song blares out screaming-loud before someone lowers it, and Martin winces at how much it all it, every time someone gets hold of a garbling microphone and hollers something in the distance that gets muffled by a feedback whine.
He keeps checking his phone to make sure his mum hasn't called. He still isn't sure what excuse he'd try.
“What do you think?” Sasha angles her neck up to half-shout in Martin's ear. “For your first one?”
She's better dressed for the day, that's for sure, a flowing cotton summer dress with sewn-on streamers like some particularly striking maypole. She has a fake flower crown and it makes her look like a wispy fae creature. Her earrings dangle and chime, and Martin's glad he's not here on his own.
“Loud,” Martin complains back, and he thinks she laughs and nods in agreement before he's glancing around again at the masses of people. “Are you sure Tim's ok, I really think he should have been back by – ”
“Oy, over here!” comes the shout, and from the assembled gaggle, Tim emerges, looking delighted and smug and red-faced, his cheeks and the top of his nose having caught the sun. He adjusts his cap from where it's been jauntily knocked, and he's somehow gained the most tacky pair of rainbow sunglasses and at least five new roughly slapped on stickers since he vanished.
“Finally!” Sasha shouts back to him. “Took your time!”
“OK!” Tim says, clearly having not heard her or chosen not to. “Firstly, very important, on the alcohol front, ta-dah!” he gestures at his now bulging backpack. “Who's the man, huh, who delivers on his promises?”
“Like some sort of boozy Santa,” Sasha agrees, and unzips the bag to get a better look. “Someone's had a few on the job already!”
Tim makes a face. “Only one!”
“Tim, are you thirteen, what you doing buying us this shite!” Sasha rootles around, pushing the Heineken cans out of the way and pulling half-out the three litre bottle of Frosty Jack's.
“They don't sell White Lightning any more!”
“For good reason!”
“C'mon, it'll be a reminder of old times! A misspent youth...”
“Not all of us hung about the parks getting wankered off cheap cider, Timothy.”
Martin's letting the rhythm of their conversation wash over him. Someone gave him a big beaming grin two minutes ago as they passed, an easy and appreciative look-over, and the heat of that interaction hasn't quite left his cheeks.
“And secondly, if I can be allowed to get a word in edgeways – ”
“You may.”
“A kindness, m' lady.”
“Get on with it, serf.”
“Secondly, guys, look, they were giving them out for free!”
Tim presents his snaffled haul, his palms full of colours and patterns. A collection of cheaply-made paper flags, clearly printed and folded over and stuck onto cocktail sticks. There's a good number of them Martin doesn't recognise, but he doesn't want to feel ignorant by asking, so he keeps quiet.
“Sash, Sash, Sash,” Tim sing-songs at her.
“Tim, Tim, Tim,” she warbles back in a faux operatic voice.
“Got this one 'specially.”
“Charmer,” she smiles, but she allows Tim to stretch up to the height she's achieved with some seriously fuck-off heels, to plant the little flag behind her ear like a flower. She makes a show of preening, twirling it dramatically so the blue, white and pink of the stripes blur together for a moment. “It's acceptable.”
“You're too gracious,” Tim gives a mock bow. He's already stuck his blue, purple and pink flag into one of the belt loops of his jeans, the corner of it already bent slightly at the rough treatment.
He then turns to Martin.
“Let's spruce you up then Marto!”
Martin's in half a mind to refuse. It took a lot for him to even come here, and he's still not quite gotten rid of the tension that's strung across his shoulders. But he sets his jaw and knows he can always pocket them so no-one can see later.
He shyly grabs a multicolour pride flag from Tim's open hands. Then, daring, almost surprising himself, he grabs a second flag.
