"Yo, look who's finally home!" Archie called out excitedly, and Zheng smiled as Olu and Jim immediately dropped the pride flags they were holding and jumped up to greet her.
"Someone's excited to see me," she teased. Some days, she still couldn't quite believe her luck. After so many years of coming home to an empty apartment, she now had not one, not two, but three amazing partners who cared deeply about her and looked at her like she'd hung the damn moon.
"Obviously," Jim agreed with a grin. "We missed you."
"Aaand…" Archie added, waggling her eyebrows. "We have a big day planned, don't we?"
Olu shot Zheng a worried look. "You still feel up to going to the pride parade today? You had a long day."
Hmm. That was a good question, actually. Before she met her partners, she would have just powered through and pretended she was fine, no matter how she felt, but now…
After she had met Archie and learned about her ADHD, Zheng had immediately begun her research, devouring every resource on neurodivergence she could find so she could support her girlfriend as much as possible. Some of the things she'd read about had sounded… strangely familiar, but she hadn't thought much of it at the time.
And then, Archie had invited Zheng to come to her neurodivergent support group with her, and everything had fallen into place.
That night, Olu had held her as she cried, the grief of a lifetime of masking and feeling broken for who she was pouring out of her in waves. And when some random guy tried to tell her that she wasn't "really autistic" just because she didn't have an official diagnosis, Jim made very sure that the fucker didn't bother her again.
One day, they had even been on what Archie called a "neurospicy shopping tour"—Zheng had picked out some noise-canceling headphones in a lovely deep red that complimented her eyes, and they had even found a few adorable snake-shaped stim toys for Archie's collection. Olu had gotten an adorable neurodivergent pride pin for his beanie, and, at Zheng's insistence, Jim had picked out a cute little fidget ring to replace the knife they constantly played around with.
They had all been so sweet and understanding, and Zheng couldn't remember a time when she had felt so loved before. So when Olu asked her if she still felt up to going to the pride parade they had all been looking forward to for weeks, she knew there would be no judgment if she said no. Quite the opposite: they would just spend a quiet night at home, playing board games and eating ice cream until they fell asleep all tangled up on the couch.
But she also knew that, long day or not, she really wanted to celebrate pride with her partners. "I want to go," she declared, and Archie cheered, making Zheng laugh.
"You sure it's not too much?" Jim asked softly, and Zheng nodded.
"I'll need my headphones, and probably some alone time afterwards, but…" She gave Jim a quick kiss on the cheek. "Right now, I just want to have the pride party of my dreams with my three favorite queers."
The three of them looked at each other, smiling uncertainly, and Zheng laughed. "Yes, you. Come here, you dorks."
They fell into her arms, grinning and hugging each other close, and Zheng knew that she didn't have to worry about a thing—whatever happened, her family would take care of her.