Work Text:
June 29, 1992, New York
Michael, 'Mikey' to his friends, turned back once more before reaching the area where people in colorful costumes and flags were gathering. He was a gangly boy in his late teens, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he was starting to regret not wearing his hoodie.
Not that he was going to go anyway.
Although now that he had come this far it was a shame if he didn't even catch a glimpse.
He pushed his hands far in his jean pockets and tried to look casual as he strolled towards the group that was starting to move.
He stopped at the sidewalk. The people gathering at the street were somehow both exactly what he had thought and nothing he had expected.
He watched a group of women in leather gear followed by men he would have never guessed were gay carrying balloons.
If Mikey had expected some instant feeling that he belonged with these people it wasn't forthcoming. Or maybe it was drowned out by the loud beating of his heart.
One of the men looked at his direction and Mikey turned to stare at something on his left.
Which turned out to be an old man in an eyepatch and a worn-down old-fashioned fedora.
"Um, hello," Mikey blurted out. He turned to point at the parade that was starting to move. "It's really weird, huh? I heard noise and came to see."
He glanced at the old man. "It's- Weird right? Why do they gotta tell us they're proud anyway? Proud of what?"
The man gave him a look. "It wasn't always called Gay Pride."
Mikey shrugged. He tried to evaluate how old the man was. He looked like he was at least as old as his grandfather.
The man reached his hand to Mikey. "Doctor Indiana Jones."
Awkwardly, Mikey took his hand. "Mike Smith."
Smith wasn't his real last name, of course. He had decided to come up with a fake one just in case, not that he was expecting anything to happen even if he happened to meet someone. But still-
Indiana Jones. Yeah right, that's a real name.
So if he was going by a fake name too-
Mikey glanced again at the man. He really did not resemble any image he had of gay men, if purely because of how old he was.
Although as he was watching people pass them, there were lot of men who were older than Mikey had expected.
He had thought that wasn't possible for gays.
It was a weird feeling to realize you had expected to die young.
He struggled for words. "You here for..."
"I'm waiting for some friends," the man who had told him he was Indiana said. "I agreed to go with them but they seem to be running late." A shadow passed on his features. "I used to know someone, Sophia, she was called, she was organizing these sort of things, she'd always show up. She died this year, her friends in the lesbian organization she was in were planning to have some memorial banner to march with."
"I see."
Mikey wondered how to ask if he was there just for his friend.
"So was she an old- old lesbian? Are you friends with lot of lesbians?"
"Oh she lived a long life."
"You met at a gay pride?" Mikey asked, hoping it wasn't too direct.
"Oh we met far before anything like that was a thing. I told you, they didn't use to call it Pride. Sophie would have had words about that." He smiled. "She preferred words like 'liberation' and 'abolish this' and 'genderfuck that'"
"Hm. Okay."
"But even before anything like that, before the Stonewall riots, there were gays and lesbians and trans-sexuals and everything else that doesn't fit in the straight society." He waggled his finger at Mikey, taking on the cadence of a lecturer. "Different cultures ever since antiquity and before have had a wide variety of ways of expressing their gender and sexuality."
Mikey suddenly felt like he was back in school. "Yes Sir."
Indiana leaned on his cane as he looked at the parade. "Lot of people this year. Well, as we are waiting for the lesbians, let me tell you how I first learned about these things, far before Stonewall, before AIDS, before all of that. It was the roaring 20's and the nightlife in post-war France where gay and lesbian subcultures thrived in bars and private parties flourished-"