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While Brady kept an eye on Tanner bouncing around the beach, Mack followed Lela to the shacks nearby. It was just like babysitting, except the other person was technically somehow way older than you.
Rather than staring in awe as she passed them by like she had been this entire time, Lela ran in through the door of an establishment. Mack felt her blood pressure spike, fearing what could go wrong.
That being said, she stayed outside and tried to spot Lela through the windows. Tiny store. A nightmare of items everywhere. Too many people crammed in there. And no Lela to be seen.
While worrying that Lela might’ve been in a different store by now, Mack stopped by the exit to take a breath. “God… Why do people from the 1960’s have so much stamina…”
Thankfully, Lela was still in there and hopped out of it not too long after.
“Mack! Look!”
“Where’ve you- woah , you definitely didn’t pay for that.”
Lela held a giant flag above her head as it waved in the air joyously. A flurry of orange, white, and hot pink surrounded her, wrapping her up tightly. She’d never looked happier, and that was saying a lot.
With an arm around Lela to keep her in check, Mack chuckled awkwardly as she stepped back into the beach store and handed over the money to a worker, who definitely saw this accidental attempted robbery. Mack half-muttered an excuse about this being how retail works in her foreign cousin’s very foreign homeland.
Now that her main problem (and brief second one) was solved, Mack now had an all new one.
“I don’t know what place this flag is from, but it looks magical!”
“That’s uh- That flag’s not from a place exactly…”
“What do you mean? What… does it represent?” Lela’s confused smile quickly dropped. “Is it a bad thing?”
“Wh- No! No, no. Well… Maybe in your time period, but not anymore… That’s the lesbian flag.” Mack mentally slapped herself, remembering how she should ease into topics when explaining them to Lela and Tanner.
Lela cocked her head. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Oh.” That could’ve gone way worse. “It represents girls who like other girls… Like, like only other girls.”
Lela froze. Maybe now’s the time for Mack to panic. She had an out to explain it slower, and yet.
“A-And hey! It took people around here a looong ass time to be cool with that type of stuff, so I get this being a huge… world update for you, but-”
“I’m a lesbian!”
Mack’s eyes were going to pop out of her head. “PFF- WHAT?! …COME AGAIN?!”
“Yeah…!” Lela nodded, smile only growing wider and wider as the thoughts flooded her brain. “Yeah! I like girls! I’m a lesbian!”
“...Lesbian means liking girls romantically , Lela…”
The girl merely cozied up with the flag around her. “I know!”
“Okay. Cool your jets, you figured that out so fast, like… huh?! I barely know what I am, jesus…” Mack held Lela’s shoulders, absentmindedly steadying herself from this whiplash and preparing herself from whatever’s to come. “...What about Tanner?”
“Oh! He’s gonna be so excited! I’m gonna tell him!”
Lela quickly skipped off, and Mack once again followed along, begging her to stop.
The guys had long left the area and made it to Brady’s beach shack.
It was marginally easier to keep Tanner in place, what with him forgetting how to use the firepole to exit. It was infinitely easier when distracting him with the iPad. Tanner and short-form content for his lack of attention span were meant to be together. He still talked nonstop, describing every single thing he just watched to Brady.
Their attention immediately went to the girls once they walked in.
“Hey, guys! What’s up?”
Lela seemed as though she would explode from giddiness, dying to show them what she got at the store.
“Ahem… As you can see, Lela did a little shopping…”
Brady finally registered that giant pride flag that was being worn as a cape by a girl from the 60s. “...Huh…”
Mack did a lip smack. “YYYeah.”
Tanner, who was on the ground laying on his stomach as he watched videos, automatically sprung up to the speed of light. He approached Lela and rubbed the fabric in his hands to appreciate the texture. “Heyyy! Nice beach towel!”
Brady leaned into Mack’s ear, whispering out the corner of his mouth. “Does she know what it…?”
“She knows.”
“Oh.”
They quietly knew that this would not end well, considering you-know-who’s feelings for her . Incoming heartbreak/tantrum in three… two...
“Tanner, I’m a lesbian!”
Tanner’s face was as dopey as ever. “I don’t know what that is.”
“I like girls!”
“Hehe! Cool!”
“Oh, only girls!”
“...Even cooler!”
“I know!”
…
Brady blinked. “Huh. That worked itself out.”
Not any sadness or dejection from Tanner. Not even a clueless ‘me too’.
Hm.
“...Okay, but now I can’t help but wonder…” Mack whispered in Brady’s ear, making extra sure the other two wouldn’t hear.
They exchanged barely-whispers consisting of ‘maybe’ s and ‘we could try’ s.
Another flag wasn’t needed exactly, but if it worked for Lela, it could work for Tanner. To start the conversation, at least.
Brady clapped his hands together. “I got it!”
The sound of items rustling around could be heard as he searched through a drawer. “Aha! I knew I still had this!”
It was a large roll of tape with the gaudiest, brightest rainbow printed on it.
Smirking, Mack raised an eyebrow at Brady.
He caught this suspicious expression. “What? It was a gift from grandma!”
Mack snickered and held her arms out in playful defense. “Hey, man, I didn’t say anything, you do you…”
Brady, keeping his gaze on her, pulled out a shirt from another drawer. “Besides, I personally like my pride merch with a liiittle bit more flair to it, thankyouverymuch!” The shirt looked like all his other ones with summery print, but this one in particular subtly had the color scheme of the pansexual flag. God, even Brady had his identity figured out before Mack did.
Going back to the tape, Brady folded it down vertically, taping it to itself and then doing minor adjustments to turn it into a DIY bracelet.
He placed it around Tanner’s wrist, who immediately started to gleefully shake his arm.
“Ooh! My favorite colors: all of them! Thanks!”
“Do you know what that is?”
“A bracelet.”
“No- Well, yeah, but also, the colors? That’s a rainbow.”
Tanner gasped loudly. “You took a rainbow out of the sky and put it on me?!” The others exchanged some looks as he laughed. “This world is groovy!”
“...That’s the gay flag!” Mack blurted out before covering her mouth. Despite this, she piped up again, “it’s for guys who like guys!” And covered her mouth again.
Brady glared at her in both surprise and mild judgment for ripped out the bandaid like that.
“I couldn’t help it…” She squeaked out.
Lela, meanwhile, smiled and nodded quickly. She walked over to Tanner and held his hands, bringing them closer to their chests. “I like girls and you like guys! Isn’t that great?!”
“Yeah!” They both giggled and hopped in place as they held each other.
Mack bit her lip. She had to tell them, but be less… direct about it. But how?
Maybe she could-
“Don’t you two like each other?”
Brady was the one who asked. Mack felt a relief wash over her finally putting that out there and it wasn’t due to her big mouth this time.
Of course, Lela and Tanner could like the same genders and each other, Mack and Brady knew that firsthand. But that conversation was a bit too complex for them (for now anyway), they figured. Hell, it was still too complex for tons of people in the mid-2010’s, but they digressed.
“We do!”
After a few beats, Lela was the one to catch on to what the question really meant. “As friends!”
“Uh. No offense, but I know Wet Side Story like the back of my hand and you two seemed like more than just friends.”
Mack lightly slapped his side for policing them like that. Brady was confused by her reaction and tried to defend himself. Their overlapping dialogue consisted of him ‘simply’ bringing up ‘canon lore’, and her sticking by people identifying however they wanted whenever they wanted.
This type of conversation was messy enough in fan spaces being applied to fictional characters, and in real life being applied to real people, but applying that to fictional characters who also happen to be kind of real people standing right in front of them? It was a bloodbath of ethics and moral dilemmas. And their brains hurt.
“It hurts me when I think too much, too,” Tanner said. “So, I don’t!”
Lela turned to Mack and Brady. “Don’t get me wrong, Tanner’s the bee’s knees!” (Tanner could be seen worriedly touching his knees in the background.) “Girls doing girl things, boys doing boy things, and then ending up with each other… That’s the way it always was. That’s what everyone expected... It’s not what I wanted, though.”
“Hays Code,” Brady deduced.
“Comphet,” Mack said at the same time. The two gave each other a look, but refused to spiral into that discourse again.
Lela had another point to add on. “And falling for Brady when you guys showed up was, like-... like a taste of something different! Still those same expectations from our world, but different!”
“Still sticking to the same old,” Tanner slowly did fitting gestures with his hands, “but a liiittle bit to the left.”
“I still wanted more than that… Now, there’s none of those expectations in this world so… yay!”
Tanner smiled. “Yay!”
It was genuinely heartwarming and almost somewhat inspiring seeing Lela be not only so free, but so confident in herself and what she wants.
Still, that was Lela’s side of the equation. The other half was still severely underdeveloped.
“We still don’t really know how Tanner feels about this. We all just kinda decided that he likes guys for him. How do you feel, Tanner?”
The surfer was still playing by shaking his bracelet. “I feel fine! A bit of stuffy nose, but nothing-”
“About being gay.” Mack clarified. “Or something .”
“Yeahyeahyeah!” Tanner nodded rapidly. “I like me, so I like guys, and I like rainbows,” He flailed his bracelet-wearing wrist in front of Mack, “so I like guys! Hehe!” He smiled almost manically, beyond excited to have realized this.
Mack and Brady exhaled deeply, resigned to this being as good enough of a reason by Tanner’s logic.
(Cue Mack’s internal monologue of ‘oh my god, even fucking Tanner has his deal figured out before she did…’ )
Lela grinned, watching him fidget with his bracelet. “Do you like any guys?”
“...Me!” That answer from Tanner wasn’t a surprise to anyone. “And Brady.”
Now–
That shook everyone.
The girls, in unison and with vastly different reactions, whipped their heads staring at one boy and then the other. Brady did the same towards all three.
Despite feeling like he was losing his mind, he couldn’t help but blush. “...Tanner???”
“...Hi!”
“...Excuse me?!”
“You’re excused! Hehe.”
“What do you mean you like Brady?” Mack thought it over. “Ohhh. As a friend. Right.”
“Yeah! But also not as a friend. As a girlfriend, but a boy… He’s cute!” Like flipping a switch, Tanner turned on the charm and winked his way.
Brady swore that he was about to short-circuit. This conversation took such a drastically different turn for him.
Not helping was Mack cracking up, making him even more flustered. “God, this is rich! HAH!”
“Shut up!”
“I always thought that Mack was the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen!” Lela began to gush to her mutual beard. “I’ve daydreamed about falling into her arms instead during my song…”
“What.” Mack said.
It wasn’t acknowledged by the other girl.
Lela continued talking to Tanner. “Have you ever thought about catching Brady during Falling For Ya?”
“No. I am now!” The thought visibly rolled around Tanner’s head, face growing smilier and redder. “Wowzers!”
“Hey, wait-” Mack had long stopped teasing Brady, now finding herself incredibly flushed and conflicted.
“Hah! Lelaaa liiikes youuu!”
“Sh-She’s talking in past tense, shut up…” Mack playfully shoved him. “And Tanner likes you , shut up!”
Tanner and Lela didn’t hear their banter, instead focusing on each other’s lovey-dovey nonsense. Even if they didn’t relate to one another, or hold much of an actual conversation, there was something nice about sharing these new feelings that felt oh so right.
The two teehee’d and giggled their way out of the shack and carefully down the firepole. Happily making their merry way to god-knows-where on the beach.
Mack and Brady had to freak out over losing them shortly. They were still hung up on what had just happened.
“...Okay, so now we have to deal with them having crushes on us… I think…?”
“...Yeah, that’s uh-... That’s an all-new problem right there.” Mack agreed. “I’m just glad this ‘hypothetical leading to a gay awakening’ didn’t happen during us ruining the movie… As much as they apparently wish that had happened…”
Brady shrugged, really not knowing what to feel. “We did still kinda awake something in them!”