We Are Bulletproof

Yep, flair. Sully flipped his feather boa around the back of his shoulder to emphasize just how much flair he had. It was about as goofy a response to those finger guns as he could muster. Part of him felt a little apprehensive bringing up this topic, though. Carefully, he picked out a few fries and then stuffed them into his mouth just to have a reason not to speak immediately. Neither of them did the whole feelings-talk thing. It was just implied most of the time that they were friends and that was pretty much the end of it. (Even if Mr. No-Touchy let Mr. All-Touchy touch him all the time. Sully knew better than to just read that as romantic interest.)

In fact, he sort of went out of his way to make sure his best friend felt safe around him. He could read the cues. If Levi wanted him to back off, he backed off. If Levi needed a minute away from a crowd, he knew that intuitively, too. He just knew. Just like for a while now, he was pretty sure Levi had been looking for a way to come out. And now... he had.

And it wasn't as earth shattering as he imagined, was it? For Sully, it wasn't. But he never really imagined that it would be. Everybody knew he was a great big open book. Besides, he never said he didn't like girls either. It was a weird grey area.

"So... wanna hear something funny?"

Food. Food always made things better. They could chat over food and pretty much everything felt safe and normal. Sully dug into the meal as well, encouraged by the buzz in his head and the warmth in his belly. But it sure seemed like that for a person bringing up the coming out business, Levi was now playing Mr. Artful Dodger on the subject. Sully raised a brow at him before taking an over-exagerrated bite of a fry.

"I kinda..." He sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "I never really thought of myself as in," he tried to explain it. There was never anything that said what he was couldn't be allowed. He grew up without a care for either gender. Romance was kinda the last thing on his mind. And then when the hormones hit, it was just natural for him to be himself.

"But I mean, if you're gonna come out... gay pride's the time to do it." He winked. "With flair."

"Heh, see, this is why we're best friends," Sully said with a grin before giving his best friend a fist bump. Not just best friends, though. There was--not always, but recently--a little weird tension between himself and Levi lately. Sully used to brush it off as changes in their lives. Everything was changing. Levi's mom had his brother and then Levi got really busy all the time. Sully started to feel less liked and more lonely. It gave him too much time to think. And then there was the struggle. Sully was fine with his queerness. That didn't bother him. But he was always searching for hints that Levi might feel the same. Most of the time, he didn't think so.

See, Sully was always physically affectionate. Levi wasn't but he was with Sully. But that didn't mean a whole lot. At least, he told himself that. Kinley wasn't really touchy-feely, either and he didn't make exceptions for Sully the way Levi did. So maybe... but then he thought maybe not, especially when he realized that a relationship or anything like one was probably the last thing on Levi's mind.

When they arrived at Arby's and ordered, Sully sat across from Levi with a stupid grin on his face, toying with the receipt in his hand. "So... you were coming out today?"

Sully waited for the bombshell--that Levi had to leave early for his little brother or that his brother was sick or something. Whatever cloud passed Levi earlier, though, it was gone now. Maybe it was the alcohol. Trying to shrug it off, Sully grinned and took another quick swig, followed by another grimace.

"Yeah, let's go to Arby's, man. I'm craving those fries like crazy. How about you?"

There went his plan to ignore that it could mean different things. Sully grimaced a little as he took another swig from one of the little whiskey bottles. Kinley made it look easy to drink a whole bottle down but it was burning the fuck out of Sully's throat. He should have added the coke like Levi mentioned earlier. Wrinkling his nose and shaking his head out, he almost stumbled as Levi openly started talking about what likely brought them to the event in the first place. Sully cleared his throat.

"I mean... he's... a dancer?" Sully said, then made another face, this time at himself. That was such an un-woke thing to say. A guy could like dancing without being gay. Kinley didn't act particularly gay but again... there was no real force behind the stereotypes. Even the people here weren't all representative of the community as a whole. Some were just having a good time. And even if some did fall into the stereotype, it was none of his business.

"I think it's just Kinley's parents that would kill him," he said after a moment. "Mine don't care. They got enough kids and they're not obsessed with grandkids." Which reminded him--kids did--of Levi's earlier dip in mood. "Everything okay at home? With your brother?"

"Yep, we're still going to the garden."

It was obvious to him at least that Levi didn't want to be here at the festival. Even more obvious that Kinley didn't either. Busted. So Sully was the only one who wanted to go. He wondered if that meant he was the only one with a big old secret to tell. Maybe he shouldn't tell it, actually. Quickly, he took another drink from one of the small bottles and his gaze followed Levi's hand as he tossed away a bottle. They were already drinking so why not more? As they passed another small stand, he swiped a few more, tucking them into his pockets artfully.

"Why's the sun orange?" he asked with a shrug. "We just are and you so aren't a bad friend. I know you got all that crazy stuff going on. I'm just glad you came out with me."

Er, that could have meant a few different things but he'd pretend he didn't realize that...

"Heheh." Stupid laugh. "Wait, you're not going to?"

Kinley made a gagging sound but he was slowing down. It looked like whatever he was hoping to hear, he'd heard it. Or something equally interesting. Kinley took a long swig from the little bottle that Sully filched for him, then pushed it back into Sully's hand.

"What?" Sully asked with a grin. "Afraid to get in trouble?"

"No, I have to do. My little brother... needs me. Later!"

"Wait--!"

Without so much as a better explanation, Kinley was running the opposite direction, practically swimming through the rainbow signs, boas, and dresses. Sully shrugged.

"Guess this means it's just you and me now."

"Oh, come on..." Kinley said back to Levi. Sully grinned. Probably because he thought he knew better than Levi how to get into trouble. Kinley kind of wasn't that much of a troublemaker but he'd sort of gained that reputation lately. What with the boyfriend that came out of nowhere and all that. Huh. Sully wondered if the texting had anything to do with that. Sully didn't know specifics though and he wasn't about to ask for them, either.

"Yep, yep!" he said, his eyes bright as he slid a small bottle into each of his friends' hands. Kinley looked down at his and shook his head but a moment later, he was looking around and then twisting the top off. Sully grinned.

"This'll be way more fun than the festival, anyway," he said, drawing Levi in a tiny bit closer.

"Welllllll, we could just nick some of those tiny bottles everybody's selling."

The festival was supposed to be a family event but there were guys in bikini bottoms everywhere and women wearing pasties over their nipples. And yeah, there were a lot of people privately selling tiny little bottles of various kinds of liquor. It wouldn't be the first time Sully had a little something harder to drink; he was the type of kid who had to try everything at least once. And a lot more if it was fun. He was what his adoptive grandmother called a "Good-time Charley."

(He had no idea what that was supposed to mean but he took it as a compliment.)

"I know, I look old for my age," he said, trying his best to look old and mature. "But I'm telling you, I'll just take some. If we're breaking the law anyway, might as well go the distance." He spotted a vendor up ahead and he turned to Levi and put a finger to his lips before turning and trotting off. When he got closer, he oh-so-casually walked past the merchandise and slipped a few into his pocket and continued to keep walking oh-so-casually like he hadn't done a thing wrong.

"...well..."

Sully didn't know what to do with the pair of rain clouds on either side of him. One was obsessed with phone and the other was clearly mulling over some serious shit. Meanwhile, there was Sully, in the middle, arms around his friends from school, feeling increasingly stupid with his stupid smile and his stupid kick in his step and his stupid strong will. He would smile until the day he was dead, because he was pretty sure if he stopped smiling, the other two were going to die.

"We don't have to do festival stuff if the people are making you crazy. Like there's the Japanese garden. It's super awesome. Either of you been there? Not a lot of people, peaceful."

"Me too," Kinley said.

Sully shrugged and smiled, despite their negativity. Yeah, he had great parents but if they wanted to talk birth parents, well... Sully really was lucky and sometimes he admittedly took that for granted. At the moment, he was just grateful they weren't up his butt asking where he was (because they thought he was with a friend at their house--hah!)

But something was definitely going through Levi's mind, since he went from smiles to grump-face in a matter of moments. Sully raised his brows as Levi pulled his boa off. Looking around for somebody that was giving them dirty looks, Sully tried to detect the reason for it. Kinley was still wearing his, even if he was still periodically checking his phone like a mad man.

Sully sighed and then slid an arm around each boy's shoulders and pulled them in closer.

"Come on, guys. This is supposed to be a festival so let's have a good time!"

"Mhm," he said to himself with a mischievous nod. What? He agreed with Levi--he looked good in those tight, white pants. He glanced over the area where Kinley had kicked him and it looked like Levi got off lucky. At the moment, Kinley's shoes weren't dirty. Surprising, given how much time Kinley spent being a nosy little shit and getting into trouble in the woods behind the school. Back during the big storm, Sully heard that Kinley was out there, worrying his parents half to death. Hard not to know, since Kinley's parents called his parents asking where he was.

See, Sully got away with flirting because Levi didn't stop him. It was almost like Levi liked the attention but didn't fully grasp the meaning of it. After all, Sully was kind of a touchy-feely guy. Levi wasn't but he still let Sully get away with pretty much murder. The mention of dads made Sully cut his gaze back toward Levi. He could have kicked Kinley in the nads for bringing up dads right now. But it was true. Both of them had dads that would murder them for being out here. Not just in Portland but at a gay pride parade. Meanwhile, Sully thought of his parents as pretty open-minded. After all, they adopted kids from all over the world and provided love and shelter. It wasn't like they cared if those kids turned out gay as hell.

"Hey, my parents would be cool with the parade part," Sully interjected. "Just not, you know, the going out of town without them part."

Those fish were definitely stressed out, no denying that. There probably should have been a law against abusing fish the way they did but people didn't tend to treat fish with as much care as the fuzzy animal types.

"Well, why'd you wear white?" Kinley retorted before he had a boa thrust into his face. A moment later, he sneezed. Sully wrapped his boa around his neck and tried to look as sassy as possible. He walked like a model in front of the other two before turning around with a "fierce" model face, one hand on his hip. He winked playfully at the other two. Mostly at Levi. Kinley only rolled his eyes before he reluctantly slid the pink boa around the back of his neck.

"Nope," Sully said. "That's me." He was manlier than Levi! For sure!

"My parents would kill me if they saw me now," Kinley said.

"No, sadly, I don't think they last too long."

He knew from experience, actually. When he was like ten, he won a goldfish at a carnival and it promptly died on him two days later. He cried for hours, unconsolable over the death of the new pet he was sure he'd have until he died. (Hey, he was a kid. He didn't know things then, okay?)

Sully took his slap like a man but Kinley used one of his long legs to kick Levi back in retribution. Sully laughed. Typical of his friends. His smile was lopsided as Levi pouted over being the only one of the trio wearing a silly blue boa.

"Do they have to be blue?" he asked, stepping backwards. "We could be like power rangers. All different colors." He turned and trotted after the escaping drag queen so he could ask for two more boas. These ones were unfortunately not colors he would have chosen himself. The drag queen just handed them over with a tittering laugh before moving on.

"I'm taking purple!" Sully said immediately as he pushed the pink one into Kinley's face. He looked over at Levi. "Guess you're the manliest one of us now."

"Games! I wonder if they have those fish bowl games."

They had them at a lot of carnivals and festivals but would they be here at the pride festival? Maybe if the bowls were rainbow colors. Now Sully was curious. He knew some of the games were pretty inappropriate but those ones weren't where the kids could see them. Like, there was a game where you could throw rings on dildos. Ahem. Sully, being immature and boyish, had laughed when he saw that.

Kinley made a face as he looked at Levi, probably imagining him in a rainbow thong. To that, Sully laughed again.

"Aren't we all?" All three of them could be classified as over-dressed. Kinley was wearing a black tank top, black jeans, and had a camo jacket tied around his skinny little waist. And Sully was in a white t-shirt with a rainbow painted over it, an unbuttoned plaid over-shirt, blue jeans, and a black cap on his head.

"Wait, wait, wait~" Sully skipped up ahead a couple of steps over to a drag queen passing out boas. He grabbed a bright cookie monster blue one and came trotting back with it. A mischievous smile crossed his face. Kinley immediately hid behind Levi but he wasn't the target.

"Now look at you!" Sully said as he held onto the ends of the boa and threw it around the back of Levi's neck. "All ready."