Three weeks. Twenty-one days since I watched Bubba's chest stop rising in the ambulance bay, since River's hands became the only thing keeping his heart rhythm going while Phoenix held me upright and the rest of us learned what helplessness tastes like—copper and grief and a prayer I didn't know I still remembered.
Tonight, the mountain walked back into The Sanctuary on his own two feet.
The basement swallowed him whole like a congregation receiving communion. Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart," bleeding through the speakers with that intro that sounds like vindication made melody. Ezra damn near levitated off their beanbag throne, blue hair catching the warm light as they scrambled upright. Miranda put down her volume of Mary Oliver mid-stanza. Lisa's glass stopped halfway to her mouth. Even Della emerged from the kitchen with a spatula still dripping cheese sauce, her face a complicated knot of relief and residual terror she'd never admit to carrying.
And Remy—sweet holy bayou—Remy was on him like white on rice, hands fluttering in a way I'd never seen from a man who once fought three guys in a Baton Rouge dive bar without breaking his cigarette cherry.
Cher, you sit down right now, you hear me? Remy's Cajun accent thickened to molasses consistency as he guided Bubba toward the chair he'd already pulled out—positioned perfectly by the window, of course, because Bubba always sat where he could see both exits. Mama would rise from her grave and whoop my ass if I let you stand around like some kinda damn fool.
I been sitting for three goddamn weeks, Bubba rumbled, his deep Georgia bass carrying exhaustion and gratitude in equal measure. Man's allowed to stand in his own bar.
Not your bar. Miguel and Della's bar. You just a regular who don't know when to listen. Remy pressed on Bubba's massive shoulder until the man folded into the seat like an origami crane made of reluctance and muscle memory. You hungry? I'm making you something. Non-negotiable. Della and I gonna work up in da kitchen, cher.
Remy, I ate before—
Did I stutter? Remy's cigarette bobbed with emphasis. You think my mama raised me to let the man I love sit here with empty belly after his heart tried to quit on him? Mon Dieu, I will make you a roux so thick with care you'll be tasting it for a week.
The "man I love" landed in the room like a physical presence. Remy didn't flinch, didn't backpedal, just let the words exist in the air between them—thirty-three years of unspoken devotion finally finding its voice because a heart attack teaches you that silence is a luxury none of us can afford.
Bubba's weathered face softened in a way that cracked something open in my chest. He reached up, caught Remy's hand where it still rested on his shoulder.
Fine. Make me something. But I swear to God if you put cayenne in it I will haunt your stubborn Cajun ass.
Wouldn't dream of it, Remy said, already moving toward the kitchen with purpose. Just a little cayenne. Mebbe. Some.
I found my usual spot at the bar while Keira claimed the stool beside me, her presence settling against my side like a counterweight I didn't know I needed. Miguel was already reaching for a bottle before I'd fully sat down—the man reads emotional frequencies like a goddamn meteorologist tracking grief systems.
Mom, he said, pouring something amber and glowing into a plastic cup with that surgical precision that makes bottom-shelf liquor taste like sacrament. Macallan's tonight. Oak Cask. Notes of sherry and love, and a finish that'll remind you that some things survive the fire.
The scotch hit my tongue like warm velvet wrapped around a memory—caramel sweetness giving way to oak char and something almost floral underneath, honeysuckle maybe, or the ghost of a Kentucky summer. I let it sit there, let it remind me that Bubba was alive enough to sit in his chair and argue about cayenne pepper.
He looks good, Keira said quietly, her eyes tracking Bubba across the room. Thinner. But good.
He looks like a man who got a second chance and is pissed about the diet restrictions that came with it. I quipped.
As if on cue, Bubba's voice rolled across the room:
Miguel. Bourbon. Neat. Something that'll make me forget I've been drinking decaf for three weeks like some kind of heathen.
Miguel's hand was already up, palm out, before Bubba finished the sentence. River materialized from wherever they'd been sitting—forest green scrubs still on from their shift—moving with that clinical efficiency that comes from twelve-hour days keeping bodies alive.
Absolutely not, River said. Your cardiologist has not cleared you for alcohol.
You're off duty, River. Sit the fuck down, Bubba grumbled.
I'm never off duty when someone's trying to restart the cardiac event I had my hands bouncing on their chest for, River replied sweetly. Cranberry juice?
Do I look like I'm at a damn country club brunch?
You look like a man who's about to get cranberry juice whether he likes it or not, Miguel added, already pouring it. I put a lime in it. Very festive. Deal with it.
Bubba stared at the pinkish-red liquid like it had personally offended his ancestors.
Phoenix slid into the chair next to River, their purple and silver hair catching the light like electric silk. They were practically vibrating with energy that had nothing to do with Bubba's return—I recognized that particular frequency. It's the one that comes from planning something that matters. I came and sat down next to them.
Okay so, Phoenix said, their voice bubbling with enthusiasm despite the road-rough survival edges that never fully smoothed out, we've been talking.
Always dangerous, River murmured, but their hand found Phoenix's on the table, the ruby ring gleaming between their intertwined fingers.
About the wedding. We want it here. At The Sanctuary.
The room didn't go silent—Van Halen’s “Dreams" kept bleeding through the speakers and Ezra was still chattering at Della about something art-related—but it felt like a held breath anyway. Getting married in a basement bar sounds like a compromise until you understand what this basement means. Until you've bled here, been reborn here, found your people in this underground cathedral of plastic cups and aggressive love.
That's beautiful, I said, meaning it down to my titanium-reinforced bones.
And we want you to officiate.
I blinked. The bourbon burned a little hotter.
Me?
You're a Druid Priestess, River said with clinical precision. Legally empowered to perform marriage ceremonies.
I can marry you, yes.
I am glad you aren’t arguing.
Phoenix was bouncing slightly in their chair, that youthful energy cutting through the premature wisdom that survival had etched into them.
We're not asking, they said. We're requiring. It has to be you. Nobody else would—it wouldn't be right.
I could fuck it up, I said, because apparently self-sabotage is my default love language. Crying during vows. Forgetting the legal parts. Accidentally invoking Cernunnos and having antlers sprout from your heads.
That would be metal as fuck, Phoenix said seriously. Please invoke Cernunnos. I want antlers.
No antler invocations, River said. Hospital regulations.
You're off duty asshole! laughed Phoenix.
Never off duty, River repeated, and I realized this was going to become their thing. Couples need a thing.
I'll do it, I said, because how could I not? I'll do it and I will absolutely cry and you will deal with it. But I would recommend we NOT do it here. A true Druid ceremony should be done among the mother, in her glory. It should be in a forest clearing or meadow, earth soft underfoot and canopied by ancient oaks.
Phoenix launched across the distance between us and hugged me with the fierce desperation of someone who'd learned too young that family doesn't always show up, so when it does, you hold the fuck on.
Miguel, Bubba's voice carried across the celebration. They're getting married. That calls for a toast. Whiskey. Just one.
Miguel didn't even look up from drying a glass.
No.
Come on, son. Celebratory circumstances. Give a brother a fucking break.
Your heart tried to stage a coup three weeks ago and you want to celebrate by poisoning it? River was already moving again, intercepting the conversation like a surgical strike. I'll get you more cranberry juice.
I don't want more goddamn cranberry juice! I want to toast these kids like a proper human being!
Then toast them with cranberry juice like a proper human being who's still alive, Miguel shot back, his sultry voice carrying that childlike firmness that makes you feel both scolded and loved. You can toast with literally anything. I once saw a man toast his divorce with fucking pickle brine.
Was it a good divorce?
The best. Very acrimonious. He seemed thrilled.
Bubba looked at his cranberry juice with something approaching acceptance. It was the saddest toast preparation I'd ever witnessed.
Keira was watching the exchange with that quiet amusement she rarely lets surface—the one that crinkles the corners of her eyes and makes me fall in love with her all over again.
Speaking of people who should celebrate, I said, nudging her shoulder. Tell them about the BEC.
Nobody wants to hear about—
I want to hear about it, Ezra called out, because they'd apparently been eavesdropping from their beanbag throne. BEC sounds like a sandwich I haven't tried yet.
Business Email Compromise, Keira explained. Phishing attack where someone impersonates a vendor or executive to redirect wire transfers.
Less fun than a sandwich, Ezra decided.
She caught one, I said proudly. In the wild. Someone spoofed their CFO's email to redirect a two-hundred-thousand-dollar payment.
It was decent social engineering, Keira admitted. They even matched his email signature. But they fucked up the reply-to header. Routed responses to a lookalike domain—swapped an 'rn' for an 'm'. Classic typosquatting.
That's genuinely sexy, Miranda said from her corner table, looking up from whatever poetry collection she'd been nursing. The catching part, not the crime part. Though crime can be sexy too. Contextually.
She developed a methodology, I continued, enjoying watching Keira squirm under the attention. Automated flagging system for reply-to header mismatches against display names. Her security team's implementing it company-wide.
It's not revolutionary—
Look at you, goody-goody Paladin security person, I said, grinning at her discomfort. Defending the realm from evil-doers. Smiting phishers with your holy detection algorithms.
I'm not a Paladin.
You're absolutely a Paladin. Lawful good, detecting evil, laying hands on compromised systems to purify them—
That's not how that works.
You know your deity wouldn't like it if you went black hat, I continued, because annoying her was one of life's purest joys. All that righteous fury channeled toward protecting the innocent. What would the Order say if you started exploiting vulnerabilities instead of patching them?
There's no Order—
The Order of Certified Ethical Hackers, obviously. They meet on Tuesdays. Mostly to discuss their oath of non-maleficence and eat muffins.
Keira pressed her lips together—fighting a smile, which meant I was winning.
You're ridiculous.
I'm supportive. There's a difference. Seriously though, if you ever feel the dark side calling—late-night temptation to sell zero-days on some sketchy forum—just remember that your Paladin oath prohibits chaotic behavior.
My 'Paladin oath' is literally just a CISSP certification.
Same thing. Both require you to not be an asshole with your powers. I sipped my bourbon. Does your divine aura of protection extend to email domains? Like can you consecrate a mail server against evil?
I'm ignoring you now.
That's very un-Paladin of you. Shouldn't you be turning the other cheek or whatever?
Wrong mythology.
Fine. Shouldn't you be writing my transgressions in the Book of Grudges?
That's dwarves. You're mixing fantasy races.
A Paladin would educate me patiently.
A Paladin would let her girlfriend annoy her in peace because she loves her even when she's being insufferable, Keira said, and then kissed my temple—brief, warm, everything I needed.
Lover Boy’s “Working for the Weekend" kicked in through the speakers—that guitar riff that feels like bourbon tastes—and I saw Bubba's eyes track toward the bar with renewed determination.
Miguel, he tried again. Just a beer. Not even liquor. Beer is basically bread. Liquid bread. Very healthy.
No. River exclaimed.
A light beer. One of those sad ones that tastes like someone described beer to a person who'd never had it.
NO GODDAMMIT, River called from their table without looking up. Alcohol is a vasodilator. Your cardiac tissue needs to heal without additional stress.
You're not even looking at me and you're still crushing my spirit.
Medical professionals develop peripheral spirit-crushing awareness, River replied. It's a necessary skill. Your cranberry juice is getting warm.
Bubba looked at Miguel with something approaching betrayal.
You're supposed to be a bartender. Bartenders enable bad decisions. It's in the job description.
Not when Remy threatens to make my life unlivable if I let you die, Miguel said cheerfully. He was very specific. Something about crawfish in my exhaust pipe.
As if summoned, Remy emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate that smelled like heaven wearing an apron. He set it in front of Bubba with the aggressive care that was his particular brand of love language.
Blackened chicken, Remy announced. No salt. Minimal fat. Spices that won't kill you—barely. Green beans because apparently that's what hearts like now. And before you ask, no, I didn't sneak anything in. River made me promise.
River has corrupted you, Bubba said, but he was already picking up his fork.
River kept you alive long enough for me to feed you, so River gets whatever they want, cher.
Remy stood there watching Bubba take the first bite—the way you watch someone taste something you made with your whole heart poured into it. Bubba's face shifted, that stoic mask cracking into something almost like pleasure.
This is..., Bubba paused. ...acceptable.
Highest praise he's given anything in forty years, Remy told the room. I'm having it engraved.
Across the room, Miranda had closed her poetry book entirely—a rare occurrence. Lisa sat across from her, rum and Diet Coke sweating in her grip, her practical farm-girl energy softened by something I couldn't quite name. Vulnerability, maybe. The particular openness of someone who spent sixty-some years being someone else's idea of normal and was finally learning to be nobody's idea but her own.
I keep thinking I should know more, Lisa was saying, her voice carrying that practical certainty she'd earned the hard way. By now, I mean. Decades married, kids raised, and I still feel like I'm just starting to figure out what I actually want.
That's not failure, Miranda said. That's being human in a world that demands we perform certainty before we've had time to find it.
Miranda had this way of speaking—MILF-adjacent elegance wrapped around profound truths delivered like they were obvious observations about the weather. Her presence always reminded me that surviving trans womanhood in a world treating it as performance requiring critique had given her particular insight into authenticity versus armor.
There's a Mary Oliver line, Miranda continued, fingers tracing the spine of her closed book. About letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves. People treat it like permission, but I think it's actually instruction. The soft animal already knows. We just spend so long telling it to be quiet.
I told mine to be quiet for thirty-seven years of marriage, Lisa said. To the wrong person. Living the life that was prescribed.
And now?
Lisa took a long drink, the Diet Coke mixing with whatever whiskey she'd chosen tonight—Jameson or Glenlivet or Glen-this-or-that, always the Diet Coke chaser like it might magically make her lose weight.
Now I'm sitting in a basement bar on a Thursday night, asking a woman I've known for two months if it's too late to start over, Lisa said. At my age. With my lack of experience. Surrounded by people who've been out since they were teenagers while I'm still figuring out the terminology.
It's not a race, Miranda said. There's no gay proficiency test. No lesbian certification exam.
Could've fooled me, the way some of the younger ones look at me. Like I'm an imposter.
They look at you like they're wondering what kept you so long, Miranda corrected gently. And even if they did question—they didn't survive what you survived. They didn't spend decades in a body that was lying to everyone including yourself. You earned your seat at this table through every single day you kept yourself alive until you could finally live.
Lisa's eyes went bright. The practical farm-girl armor cracked a little.
Some days it feels like I'm playacting. Like someone's going to figure out I don't really belong here.
Sweetheart, Miranda said, and the word carried that particular trans woman weight of being expected to perform femininity perfectly while having every imperfection cataloged as proof of fraud, everyone in this bar is playacting something. The difference is we're doing it here, where the acting isn't about survival. It's about figuring out who we actually are when we stop performing for audiences who wanted us to be someone else. The act falls away eventually. But only if you give yourself permission to be bad at being yourself for a while.
How do you know when the act falls away?
When you stop explaining yourself to people who didn't ask. When being authentic feels less exhausting than being fake. When you look in a mirror and recognize the person looking back.
Rush’s “The Analog Kid," drifted through the speakers—that sound of Geddy’s voice was clear—and Lisa wiped her eyes with the back of her weathered hand.
I don't know what I'm doing, she admitted. I know how to work land and survive through practicality when emotions fail. But this—being a new lesbian at my age—I don't have any tools for this.
You have curiosity, Miranda said. You have questions. You showed up even though you're scared, and you keep showing up, and that's the only tool that actually matters. Everything else can be learned. The showing up can't be taught.
The moment was interrupted—not broken, just paused—by Bubba trying one more time:
Miguel. Water. Bubba said it with exaggerated innocence. Just water. Plain. Simple. Medically approved.
Miguel poured it. River watched suspiciously but didn't intervene. Bubba took the glass with something like triumph.
Could you make it vodka water? he asked, as if it were a reasonable request. Very light on the water.
For fuck's sake, River said, standing so fast their chair scraped against the concrete. I literally did CPR on you. I felt your ribs bend under my hands. Do you understand what that's like? Trying to keep someone alive while their body fights you for the right to give up?
The room went quiet. Even the music seemed to soften—King’s “Stand By Me" drifting in like it knew what kind of moment this was.
Bubba set the water down. The fight went out of him—not defeated, but something closer to understood.
I'm sorry, he said quietly. I'm not good at being taken care of.
None of us are, Remy said from his position hovering behind Bubba's chair—where he'd apparently been standing the entire time, Cajun sentinel keeping watch. We grew up being told to survive on our own. Needing people felt like weakness. But it ain't. It's just—it's just the truth of being alive. We need people. I need you. So drink your cranberry juice and let us take care of you for five goddamn minutes.
Bubba reached back, caught Remy's hand again. Held it against his shoulder like an anchor.
Fine. Five minutes. But I want it on record that this juice is an insult to the very concept of beverages.
Duly noted, Miguel said. I'll put a tiny umbrella in the next one. Make it fancy.
You put an umbrella in it and I'm throwing it at your head.
Violence is also bad for your heart.
Worth it.
The night wound down the way they always do here—slowly, reluctantly, with people finding reasons to stay just a little longer. Phoenix and River huddled over phones, looking at something that might have been venue layouts or flower arrangements or maybe just photos of their own happiness looking back at them. Lisa and Miranda had shifted to sitting side by side, shoulders touching, Lisa asking questions about poetry and Miranda answering with the patience of someone who understood that sometimes learning to be yourself meant learning whole new languages.
Ezra was sketching something in their corner—blue hair falling forward as their colored pens made art out of napkin scraps. Della had finally stopped hovering in the kitchen doorway, satisfied that Bubba had eaten everything on his plate. Keira was reading again, glasses perched on her nose, her presence against my side warm and steady as bedrock.
And Bubba—my mountain, our mountain—sat in his chair by the window with Remy's hand still on his shoulder, drinking cranberry juice like it was communion wine because in a way, in this basement cathedral, maybe it was.
Three weeks ago I watched him die. Tonight I watched him live—imperfectly, reluctantly, with cranberry juice and complaints and Remy's mama's love translated through blackened chicken. I watched Phoenix and River plan a future they weren't supposed to have. I watched Lisa learn that starting over at sixty-something is still starting, still brave, still worth every terrifying moment. I watched Keira catch criminals with algorithms and then catch my heart the way she always does—quietly, completely, without making a big goddamn deal about it.
The world outside this basement is still trying to erase us. Still legislating our bodies, our marriages, our right to exist without apology. Still treating survival as political warfare because for us, it always has been.
But down here—in the sunset crimson warmth of The Sanctuary, with the music bleeding through the walls and Della's kitchen sizzling with love and Miguel pouring drinks like he's pouring out grace—down here, we keep showing up. Keep taking care of each other even when we're not good at being taken care of. Keep planning weddings and catching criminals and writing poetry and learning new languages for who we actually are.
Keep beating. Hearts and all.
I finished my bourbon—that Blanton's with its vanilla and orange peel, its finish like fire and survival—and set the plastic cup down with a sense of something I couldn't quite name. Not peace, exactly. Peace implies the war is over.
Maybe purpose. Maybe just—presence. The gift of being here, with these people, in this moment that almost wasn't.
Tomorrow there will be other battles. Other hearts that try to quit. Other systems to protect and phishers to catch and ceremonies to plan. Other conversations about whether it's too late to start over, and answers that are always, always no.
But tonight, Bubba's heart is still beating. And that's enough.
That's everything.
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."
— Audre Lorde
Lorde understood what we live in this basement—that survival isn't passive, and care isn't weakness. Every glass of cranberry juice Bubba chokes down is warfare. Every boundary River enforces out of love is resistance. Every meal Remy cooks with mama's wisdom is revolution. We've been taught that needing each other makes us vulnerable, that asking for help means admitting defeat. But Lorde knew the truth: in a world designed to destroy us, keeping each other alive is the most radical act of defiance we can perform. When Bubba lets Remy mother him, when Lisa lets Miranda teach her, when Phoenix and River plan a future they were told they couldn't have—that's not indulgence. That's warfare. That's how we win.