Open for drabble requests

“It’s perfect! Cordelia, you’ve outdone yourself. You are a true Van Gogh. No, Picasso. No, Frida Kahlo!” He exclaimed his praise with his finger high in the air when he found the right metaphor, then turned back around and pulled her for a kiss.

“You’re welcome, Math. Now move, I need to do mine next. You can go help Jamie put on his shirt without smudging the paint.”

“No need. It dried a while ago, so I already put it on. I can help you, though, if you want,” he added towards Matthew.

Matthew joined James sitting on the bed and beamed at him. Matching hearts to his own were painted on his cheeks and Jamez already had on the shirt that read “I’m with them” with an arrow pointing to the right, a mirror to Matthew’s one. They had argued over who would get to stay in the middle, but in the end Cordelia had won the rock, paper, scissors.

“Can’t believe I have the honour to take you both to baby’s first pride,” Matthew said after his shirt was over his head, wiping a fake tear from his eye. “Let me introduce you to a world of love, acceptance, hope, and, not less important, debauchery, beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Hey, I’ve been to pride with you before!” James said.

“You have been as an ally, now you are part of the club, Jamie. You get to sit with the popular kids now.”

“Pride sounds an awful lot like high-school, I’m not sure I want to go anymore,” he teased.

“Too bad,” Cordelia interrupted, “our shirts don’t work unless we are all together so you have to go now.”

“Hmmm, fair.”

“Plus, if you don’t go, I’ll cry. You don’t want your beloved Math to cry, do you?”

“Eehhh…”

Cordelia saw Matthew hit him across the head with a pillow through the mirror and James laughed.

“I don’t! I don’t! Careful with the paint!”

“That’s better. I’ll go get Oscar ready.”

He left at the same time Cordelia finished her own make up and got up. One of her hearts had the polyam flag that matched theirs and the other the queer pride flag.

James helped her put on her shirt with “I’m with them <–->” on it and then she did a twirl.

“How do I look?”

“Gorgeous. And happier than I have ever seen you, my Daisy.”

“We all are, I believe. And that’s also what today is about. Let’s celebrate our happiness and the light we found in each other after so long beating ourselves up over something so simple.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

James kissed her until the sound of the doorbell ringing and Oscar barking startled them out of it.

"I'll get it!" Matthew screamed from the other room and then his quick steps drummed down the stairs, followed closely by Oscar's.

"Must be Sylvain," Cordelia smiled and fixed her hair in the mirror. And sure enough, Matthew's excited voice could be heard all through the house until he burst through the door a few moments later, pulling the French boy along by their interlocked hands.

"Look who I found!" he announced and Sylvain tilted his head to the side.

"But I am the one that came over, so wasn't I the one that found you?"

"Tomato, tomahto." Matthew waved away the comment, then clinged to Sylvain's arm in a sudden burst of theatrics. "Can you believe Jamie said he would not care if I cried? On Pride day? That's why you are my favourite, mon chou."

James rolled his eyes.

"Sylvain, can you please tell your boyfriend he is being an over-dramatic drama queen and that's not what I said?"

"Cordelia, can you please tell your husband that he is mean and the angels will punish him for slighting me so?"

"Sylvain, can you please tell my husband and my boyfriend that if they continue to be ridiculous and ruin my first pride, I'll feed them both to the ducks at Hyde Park?"

Sylvain nodded solemnly.

"You heard her, gents. But, fatally, I'm French, I can not live without a bit of drama." That was not a very helpful comment, but he tilted Matthew's chin up and distracted him with a kiss before he could claim his victory against James and start any more ridiculous fake fighting, which Cordelia approved.

Sylvain was a more recent addition to their dynamic, fruit of Matthew's latest cruise trip and a well-timed exchange program in England, and she was pleased to see how well it all had worked out in the end and how they all got along in their own way. Specially, she liked seeing how pleased it had made Matthew, who had been so worried at first, and how their happiness just seemed to be multiplied instead of diminished the more love there was to go around.

Sylvain's "I'm with them, but specially with him" shirt had to be custom made, but it was a perfect way to complement their little joke. Though she knew their perfect line was bound to devolve into chaos sooner rather than later as they moved through the crowd.

James' phone buzzed, and he fished it out of his pocket.

“It’s Anna, they are all already waiting outside. We should go.”

“Let’s. Last one to the door is a slowpoke.”

Matthew bolted out the door, James rushing right behind him and complaining of him cheating. Cordelia and Sylvain looked at each other in shared amusement, before he motioned to the door and stepped aside.

"Ladies first."

Matthew already had his hand on the doorknob and was bouncing in place when they got downstairs. Now that Cordelia actually had time to look, she could see Oscar would have made his namesake proud, with a bandana and leash covered in rainbow colours.

Her eyes went from Oscar to each of the boys, and it made Cordelia so happy, her eyes filled with tears.

“Come over here for a second, you two.”

She hugged James and Matthew tight, then pressed their foreheads together.

“I love both of you so, so much, and I am so happy we are together.”

“Me too,” they murmured back at her. She looked over her shoulder and motioned for Sylvain to come closer. "And I am so thankful for you, too. For accepting us, and joining us."

Sylvain came over, passing his arms over Matthew to join their hug and smiling. "It's my pleasure to be here."

They stayed there for a moment, basking in themselves and their warmth, until Oscar whined.

They all stopped to give him pets.

“We love you, too, of course, Oscar.”

Matthew opened the door and past their small yard all their friends and family were already waiting, many of them decked in their own pride colours themselves, the others carrying rainbow flags and happy to display the pride and love they all had for each other.

Cordelia started crying again, overcome with such joy and love she could not contain it. This was what being part of a community meant, this was what being surrounded by people that loved and accepted them meant.

Hate may try to rear its ugly head up from time to time, but love and joy would always win in the end, because they were the strongest forces the human race had ever known.