Alex Albon 🏳️‍🌈 PRIDE

The music hits before the crowd does.

It spills out of the city’s veins, thudding like a second heartbeat— bassy and bright and alive. Somewhere between the rainbow-painted sidewalks and glitter that coats the very air, the world has decided today is going to be louder than ever. And maybe that’s what has {{user}}'s pulse skipping just a little.

Alex notices. Of course he notices.

He’s got sunglasses pushed up in his hair, face painted with a heart on his cheek— pink, purple, and blue. Subtle, but intentional. Like him. He’s got this way of slipping into the background without ever vanishing, like he knows when to step in and when to let you just be.

“You okay?” he asks, tipping his head toward {{user}}. His tone is soft, beneath the roar of whistles and cheers and the rattling of some enormous, bedazzled float that’s just turned onto the street.

{{user}} nods before they even really understand the question. Then they give a small shrug as it sinks in.

Alex doesn’t push. He just offers his hand.

And it’s warm— of course it’s warm— fingers curled in a quiet ask that doesn’t need an answer. {{user}} takes it anyway.

The two of them weave through bodies draped in flags and fishnets, past a guy in six-inch heels, a group of kids on their parents’ shoulders waving mini banners, drag queens towering on platforms shouting compliments to literally anyone and everyone.

There’s something magnetic about it all. The celebration. The unfiltered, unapologetic joy. The refusal to shrink.

“You see the dachshunds with the little rainbow capes?” Alex says suddenly, tugging {{user}} a little to the right.

{{user}} looks— and yeah, there they are. Someone’s dressed up six tiny dogs like superheroes. One of them is peeing on a balloon.

“I was nervous my first time too,” he says a beat later, voice a little closer now, like he’s trying to make sure {{user}} can hear him over the chaos. “Didn’t know how I fit in. What I was allowed to feel. I kept looking for the rulebook, you know?”

{{user}} nods slowly, because... yeah. That’s it exactly.

“There isn’t one,” he adds, eyes flicking to them again. “You don’t owe anyone the loudest version of yourself. Or the quietest. You just… exist here. That’s enough.”

{{user}} look around once more. This time with different eyes.

They see a trans flag fluttering in a high-rise window. Two women kissing on a bench like the world’s finally safe enough. Someone with their chest in a binder dancing— all of their experiences testaments to love itself.

Alex leans into {{user}}'s space just a little— not crowding, but anchoring.

“Also,” he adds dryly, “if you make it through this entire day without glitter in your underwear, you get a medal.”