I'M SO EXCITED

I had to send Kid Blink and Mush here. Like. It just fits them, you know? They're The Couple, the one who is So in Love and Canon throughout the whole movie, and I just really think if anyone deserved to be a part of Stonewall, it would be these two.

Enjoy! :)

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Mush and Blink kiss at the start of the new year.

A new year, a new decade, a new century. So many new's.

And they're still them.

Suddenly, a screech makes them jump apart, taking in their new surroundings.

It's nighttime, but they are not in the lodging house. They see police. They aren't dressed like the police they know, but that entitled gaze on their face is unmistakable.

They hear people in the crowds taunting them, calling them pigs and coppers, so yeah, definitely cops.

There's a brick lying at their feet.

Suddenly, a bottle flies over their heads, only narrowly missing one of the policemen.

"It's a Molotov cocktail!" they hear someone exclaim.

A gorgeous woman standing close to them says in a deep voice in awe, "My God, the revolution is here. It's finally here." She proceeds to throw a brick at the cops, screaming at them too.

Blink and Mush jump out of the way, clutching each other, trembling. Where are they?

"Come on!" Mush pulls Blink's hand, dragging him to the outskirts of the crowds near the back, away from the cops and the people throwing bottles and stones and bricks and whatever Molotov cocktails are.

Everyone is screaming and shouting.

"Uh, excuse me?" Mush asks a beautiful woman timidly. "What's going on here?"

She turns to him, eyes wary, then she sees the scared look in Mush's eyes, and Mush and Blink holding hands; a million mental calculations happening in a few seconds. Her expression softens. "Oh, honey. Now is the wrong time to be here if you don't want a fight."

"What-what's going on?" Blink asks. "Where-where are we?"

She looks a little taken aback by the question, but explains it patiently. "This is Stonewall Inn. It's a safe space for people like you and me--gays, lesbians, drag queens, transgender folk. Welcome to anyone marginalized, you know? Not just sexuality or gender, but race and the lower class and every other outcast too."

She points to the front of the scene. "Those cops have been bothering us recently. More frequently than normal. And...people just got fed up."

They hear the sound of breaking glass and more screaming. They all wince.

"I can see," is all Kid Blink can think of saying.

"See those two up there?" she points at two women with a brick in one hand and the other fist raised high. "Those are our angels on Earth, Zazu and Sylvia. Marsha should be around there somewhere. When our girl Stormé got forced into the police wagon, Zazu threw the first brick. You should have seen it. I'd introduce you, however, they are...a little busy."

"I can tell," Mush states, feeling a little dumb for saying basically the same thing as Blink.

"Hey. Look at me." She gets them to look at them, a serious look on her face. "If you are looking for somewhere safe, this is not the place to be right now. I suggest going down the block, I can ring up one of my friends staying home tonight. But if you are here to join the queer revolution? Then you have to give it all. You can't be afraid of getting hurt. I won't lie, this will be dangerous. You might get arrested. This isn't going to be an easy fight. The revolution is happening right here, right now. I'm giving you the option to escape while you still can. If you stay, there's no turning back, and you give them everything you got."

Blink and Mush look at each other, contemplating.

Yeah, they are still not entirely sure what's going on. But they understand a revolution. They understand fighting cops. They understand standing up for what they believe in, risking getting arrested in the process.

They understand that this is a fight for people like them--two boys in love.

And so, without saying a word, they nod, and turn back to this woman with an Adam's apple. They clutch each other's hands tighter. "We'll fight."

She nods slowly, a glint in her eyes. They can't tell if it's pride that they've joined the cause or concern that they are willing to put themselves in danger. "Do you know how to make a Molotov cocktail?"

They look at each other, then back at her. "Uhh, no."

She picks up two stones nonchalantly. "Then start with these."

She walks past them, but before she disappears in the crowd, she turns back to them. "Meet me right here by the lamppost when this is over, okay? If I can't find you, I'll assume if you've been arrested. If you can't find me, assume the same for me, okay?"

They nod solemnly.

She offers them a smile. "You can call me Raine."

And she disappears into the crowd, brick in hand, rounding up more people to help her.

Mush and Blink exchange glances, just thinking.

Mush begins to look around, taking in all of his surroundings.

That's when he sees something familiar sticking out of a trash can: a newspaper.

He walks toward the trash can, away from the crowd, and takes it gingerly, briefly scanning the headline. However, what attracts his eye the most is the date in the corner: June 27, 1969.

He nearly drops the paper. He rushes back to Blink. "Blink. Blink."

"What is it?"

Mush shows him.

"It can't be," Kid Blink says, incredulous.

"But..." Mush looks around. "It's the only thing that could make sense, right? I mean...how else did we get outside the lodging house and come across this?"

They look at the scene happening around them.

And they remember what Raine told them. That this is a revolution. A...a queer revolution.

When they went on strike, they went on strike for being newsies.

Now they're here, and they can fight what might be the biggest fight for queer rights—their rights—in their life.

A mischievous smile tugs at Blink's lip. "Feeling up for joining the revolution?"

Mush offers a mischievous grin of his own. "You bet."

And so he takes the stone Raine gave him, and raises it above his head, Blink following suit. And so they charge, ready to hit a cop and fight for their rights.

Finally, after what feels like a lifetime, the crowd disperses. True to their word, they meet Raine back at lamppost where they first met her however long ago it was.

Her eyes light up with relief when she sees them. "Thank goodness! I'm so glad you're here!"

They're still panting, adrenaline shooting through their systems. "Yeah. Me too."

"Do you have a place to stay?" she asks them gently.

"Um..." they look at each other. They have confirmed that it is in fact June 28, 1969 somehow. Do they have a home?

"It's okay," she reassures them. They can tell she's trying to assess their situation, probably assuming they are running away from a bad family situation. Which, was true once upon a time, but now the irony is now they'd give anything to go back to the family they made themselves in 1899--70 years ago.

70 years.

That shouldn't be possible.

Is this a shared dream? A shared nightmare? What is going on?

"I know I'm a stranger, but..." Raine gently breaks them from their thoughts. "But if you have no other place to stay, you can come home with me, okay?"

They exchange glances. So far, this woman has been the only one to show that she cares.

And so what else can they say?

They say yes.

And so they walk with her, away from Stonewall Inn, as it begins to lighten before dawn.

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And they keep going.

They return the next night. They see that it really is a safe haven.

They...tried looking for the lodging house earlier in the day. It...it's not there anymore. They have no way to go back, no way to tell where their friends are.

Luckily, they are making friends here. They are meeting all sorts of people they never got the opportunity to meet in 1899.

And they get to fight with them.

They chant "GAY POWER" as the cops come again, and sing We Shall Overcome as the cops come to take people away.

They stay and fight for as long as the bar raids last.

Now they know what a Molotov cocktail is.

"So...what are we going to do?" Mush asks in a small voice when there's a quiet moment as all the action has died down. "What are we going to do now that we are here?"

Kid Blink thinks on it. "Well, what can we do? We make the best of the situation. We Shall Overcome."

Mush looks up and smiles. "We always do."

Blink grins back.

Mush looks around him, at the couple other people here, at Raine, who is waiting to walk home with them. He's so grateful she's taken them in.

"I say...I say we should live our life the best we can here," Mush says at last. "Make the best of our situation. And never stop fighting."

"When have we ever?"

They grin, and brush noses.

True, they are in a whole new situation.

But two things have stayed the same:

They are together, forever, and they are in love.

And they will never stop fighting for their rights.

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Sooooooo I'm kinda bad at writing fight scenes and retaining informations of fights soooo yeah sorry 'bout that.

To my knowledge, Raine is a drag queen OC created by me. I wanted to use a real drag queen but I felt like I wouldn't do her justice, also I could mostly only find info on Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera—I love them both dearly, it's just I was trying to find more information on others.

I did learn about Zazu Nova, another drag queen of color, who may have been the one to throw the first brick.

I also learned about Jackie Hormona, who had a drag queen name but wasn't exactly a drag queen, was just someone who used makeup to "enhance his looks". One source tells me that he was more peaceful and "more moral" and broke up fights, and the other one tells me he was very defiant and kicked a cop and threw something, so talk about conflicting information haha. (One of these is from World Queerstory (a blog) with the tag Jackie Hormona; the second from an article called Exploding the Myths of Stonewall on gaycitynews.com. I'm not saying I trust these sources entirely, I'm just presenting them in case you want to do some research on your own and analyze which one you think is more right).

To be fair to conflicting sources, it was  a fight, and really hard to keep track of who did what.

Found an article called Who Was At Stonewall? on pbs.org, so I'm calling it reliable. Shout out to the kid who just wanted to try out their mom's cocktail dress and have a party to celebrate their eighteenth birthday, went to Stonewall, got mixed up in the riots, got put in a police wagon, was able to slip out when the doors opened to let in more drag queens, was spotted by a young police man, and being scared of being on tv where their parents could see them in their mom's stolen cocktail dress, says "please, it's my birthday, I'm just about to graduate from high school, I'm only 18" and was allowed to go free.

Icon, really. Like if Ed Racetrack Higgins had same amount of wit but half the awareness of what is going on. Their name is Yvonne Ritter by the way.

Handcuffs have also claimed to have been invented in 1914, 4th century BCE by the Carthaginians, 1780, 1829, and a whole other dates. So...OG handcuffs credit goes to the Carthaginians I guess. Everyone else who came later just thought they could do it better I guess ashhdhf 

Alright. I'm tired. I'll come back to include more research in the morning if I feel like it.

I have been terrorized by two spiders over the past four hours, it is one am, I changed location to avoid a spider just to be terrorized by a different spider, now I'm back in og spot hoping the spider left...yeah I need to sleep. IF I can sleep that is; the og spider? Saw it scurrying across my headboard and last saw it go behind my bed.

I'll be fine.

So...we're nearing a wrap up y'all...not that that soon, but coming up.

What did y'all think of Blush? Was it worth the wait? I love them so much.

Now if you want, calculate how old they'll be in 2024 if they're 18 in 1969. Yeah. Or you can save it to be a surprise haha

Okay, goodnight y'all <3

Please, no homophobia, profanities directed at other users, hate etc in the comment section please.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who has learned of the songs Everyone Was At Stonewall by Sandy Rapp and We Shall Overcome, a folk song famously song by Pete Seeger, because of research for this chapter—would recommend both, both slap)