The basement smells like old brick baptized in bourbon and the particular funk of thirty bodies exhaling their daily bullshit into recycled air. I navigate the narrow stairs with my typical lack of grace, sciatic nerve firing electric fuck-you pulses up my spine with each step, titanium holding my leg together like some kind of cyberpunk patchwork. Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" bleeds through the crackling speakers, and I have to swallow hard because Gizmo used to belt this one in the car, her voice hitting those high notes like she was personally conversing with David Gilmour's guitar.

Miguel catches my eye from behind the bar, that smoky voice of his wrapping around me before I even reach the stool. Hey mom, you look like three miles of fucked-up road tonight.

Feel like ten, I mutter, collapsing onto the stool with all the elegance of a sack of potatoes dropped from considerable height.

He's already reaching for something, and I watch his wedding ring catch the warm light as he pours. The bottle reads Michter's US*1 Barrel Strength Rye, and when he sets the glass in front of me, the liquid glows like molten copper, like the heart of some ancient forge. I inhale—caramel and oak and something darker, more complex, like dried cherries left too long in summer sun until they ferment with their own sweetness.

This batch has been aging in anticipation of your arrival, he says, that childlike tone mixing impossibly with sultry jazz-club wisdom. Thought you might need something with backbone tonight.

I take the first sip and it fucking detonates across my tongue—spice and warmth and aggressive flavor that doesn't apologize for existing. Perfect.

The basement thrums with its usual chaotic energy. Ezra's claimed their beanbag throne near the stage, blue hair catching light like electric cotton candy, piercings glinting as they gesture wildly at Phoenix, who's sitting cross-legged on the floor with colored pens scattered around them like ammunition. Sage hunches over a napkin nearby, creating something intricate with the focused intensity of a surgeon. Rush's "Limelight" transitions to Heart's "Barracuda," and the bass line rumbles through the floor, through my bones, settling somewhere in my chest.

Bubba occupies his usual position near the windows, massive frame making the chair look like doll furniture. He's showing something to Erin, the journalist who's become one of us with the kind of inevitability that suggests Miguel recognized family before she did. Remy leans against the wall near the pool table, cigarette dangling from his lips like a promise of philosophy and fire. Sarah sits in the corner booth, flannel pressed to military precision, boots making authoritative statements against concrete as she shifts position. Her eyes track the room with that particular intensity suggesting she's already solved problems the rest of us haven't identified yet.

Keira materializes beside me without announcement, because that's her particular magic—appearing exactly when needed, settling onto the adjacent stool with a book already open in her hands. She doesn't touch me, doesn't need to. Her presence alone recalibrates my nervous system from full panic to manageable anxiety.

Miranda's voice rises from the corner, that poetic cadence of hers cutting through the music. Pride isn't performative, loves. It's the shit we carry that reminds us we survived the unsurvivable.

Deep for a Thursday, Della calls from the kitchen, where something sizzles with aggressive aromatics—garlic, butter, maybe blackened something. Though I suppose surviving deserves philosophical waxing.

Ezra bounces upright, that tornado enthusiasm crackling. Okay but seriously, if you had to draw or describe something that represents YOUR pride—like, your actual personal fucking pride, not the rainbow flag kind but the 'this is why I'm still breathing' kind—what would it be?

The question lands in the room like a live grenade with the pin already pulled.

Phoenix looks up from their pen collection, purple and gold hair falling across their face. That's... actually a really good question.

Came up in my sociology class, Ezra continues, already pulling out a sketchpad. Professor was talking about symbols of resistance and resilience, and I just kept thinking about us, you know? About what we'd draw if we had to explain pride to people who've never had to fight for it.

I take another sip of the rye, feeling it burn clarity through the fog. Around the room, I watch faces shift—that particular expression when people are cataloging internal landscapes they don't usually map for others.

Bubba speaks first, his deep Georgia rumble filling spaces between Ann Wilson's vocals. Gambit. From the X-Men comics. But with a cigarette hanging out his mouth.

Erin laughs beside him, that full-body commitment to joy. The Cajun thief with the magic cards? That's your pride symbol?

Cher, you don't understand, Remy interjects, because of course he does. His accent thickens like bayou mud. Gambit was one of us before we had words for it. Remy LeBeau—rejected by both families, too dangerous for the thieves, too criminal for the X-Men, but powerful as fuck and didn't apologize for existing.

Exactly, Bubba confirms. Growing up Black and gay in South Georgia, reading about someone who belonged nowhere but made himself essential everywhere? Who was dangerous and beautiful and couldn't be controlled? That meant something.

His massive hands gesture toward an invisible comic panel. Plus the man looked fine as hell in that long coat, throwing explosive playing cards at bigots.

The room erupts in laughter, the kind that acknowledges truth underneath humor. The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" kicks in, and I watch Sage's pen move faster across their napkin, incorporating something that looks like playing cards into whatever mandala they're constructing.

What about you? Erin asks Phoenix directly, reporter instincts identifying emotional vulnerability like bloodhound tracking scent.

Phoenix's hands still over their collection of pens, and River appears from the bathroom, immediately moving to stand behind them—protective nurse instincts and girlfriend devotion manifesting as physical shield.

Korean Kanji, Phoenix says quietly. Three of them. Love, Honor, Cherish.

Their voice gets stronger. And the Kanji for River. Because three months ago I was sleeping in alleys, and my parents— the word twists with particular venom, —made it clear I was disposable. But River looked at me in that coffee shop and decided I was worth cherishing. Worth loving. Worth honoring.

River's hand drops to Phoenix's shoulder, just rests there. You were always worth it. I just had to convince you.

Fuck, Miranda breathes from her corner. That's the realest shit I've heard all week.

Keira's fingers find my wrist, just barely touching. Her eyes stay on her book, but the contact communicates volumes.

Ezra? I prompt, because the blue-haired tornado has gone uncharacteristically quiet.

They look up from their sketchpad, and I can see they've already drawn something—fractal patterns spiraling into infinite complexity. Mandelbrot sets. Those mathematical fractals that repeat infinitely no matter how far you zoom in.

Because non-binary is infinite? Sage guesses, pen still moving.

Because I spent my whole fucking childhood being told to pick one—boy or girl, masculine or feminine, this or that. Ezra's voice carries accumulated damage from every binary demand. And then I learned about Mandelbrot sets in math class, about how complexity doesn't require choosing, how you can be infinitely detailed and changing and BOTH and NEITHER simultaneously.

Their hands trace patterns in the air. Every time someone tries to simplify me, I think about those fractals. You can zoom forever and never reach the end of the pattern. That's what being non-binary feels like. That's my pride—that I'm too complex to be reduced, too infinite to be categorized.

That's some beautiful mathematical fuck-you energy, Remy observes, exhaling smoke that curls like his accent.

Sarah's voice cuts through from her corner booth, that blunt authority making everyone turn. Spirals and spiderwebs.

We all look at her. She doesn't elaborate immediately, because Sarah never speaks without thinking first, never wastes words on half-formed thoughts.

Both? Ezra prompts.

Both, Sarah confirms. Her boots hit the floor with purpose as she stands, moving toward the center of the room with deliberate precision. Spirals because coming out later in life—I was thirty-five—felt like walking the same path over and over, each loop tighter, more suffocating, until I either broke the pattern or it crushed me.

She traces an invisible spiral in the air with blunt fingers. You keep circling the same truth, getting closer each rotation but never quite touching it. Marriage to a man I didn't love. Career I built on pretending. Family dinners where I performed heterosexuality like it was my fucking thesis defense. Each loop smaller, tighter, until there's no air left.

And spiderwebs? River asks quietly.

Because once I came out, I realized I'd spent decades building this elaborate structure—job, marriage, social circle, identity—all of it constructed strand by strand to catch and hold a version of myself that didn't exist. Sarah's philosophical gears are turning visibly now, that stoic expression cracking slightly. Like a spider's web. Beautiful, intricate, deadly strong... and completely designed to trap something.

Her voice gets quieter but harder, like she's compressing philosophy into diamond. Had to tear the whole fucking thing down. Had to stand in the wreckage of that beautiful web I'd spent thirty-five years spinning and say: this caught the wrong thing. This trapped the wrong life.

But spiders rebuild, Miranda observes.

Exactly. Sarah's smile is small, hard-won. That's the pride part. Not the destruction—anyone can burn down a life. The pride is in rebuilding the web different. Same skills, same silk, but this time the architecture serves me instead of imprisons me. This time I'm the spider, not the fly.

Bubba makes a low sound of approval. That's some deep-ass Georgia wisdom wrapped in lesbian flannel.

I contain multitudes, Sarah deadpans, returning to her booth.

Mon Dieu, Remy breathes. When I was young, we didn't have words like that. Just knew we didn't fit the boxes Louisiana kept trying to nail shut around us.

Della emerges from the kitchen carrying plates of blackened catfish that smell like heaven wrapped in Cajun spices. Y'all are getting deep without food. That's dangerous. Eat something before the philosophy gets pretentious.

But Miguel's watching me now, and I know what's coming. Mom? What's yours?

The rye glass sits empty. He refills it without asking, and I watch the copper liquid catch light again, watch it glow like forge-fire, like the heart of something older than any of us.

My family's claymore, I say finally. Old bastard hand-and-a-half sword that's been passed down through Helen's side. Scottish origins, probably sixteenth century, definitely seen some shit.

You have an actual fucking sword? Ezra's enthusiasm reignites like someone threw gasoline on smoldering coals.

In storage, Keira confirms, still reading but clearly listening. Wendy made me promise she couldn't keep weapons in easy reach after— She doesn't finish. Doesn't need to.

Thing weighs maybe four pounds, I continue, feeling the memory in my hands even though I haven't held it in months. Balanced for two-handed use but manageable with one if you're strong enough. Cross-guard worn smooth from generations of family gripping it, pommel inscribed with words nobody can read anymore because time and use eroded the Gaelic.

I take another sip, letting the rye fuel the memory. Helen showed it to me when I was maybe eight years old. Before I had words for what I was, before I understood that the woman screaming inside me had a name. She pulled it from the attic, and she said—

My voice cracks. Keira's fingers tighten slightly on my wrist.

She said, 'This belonged to women who fought when fighting meant they'd die. Women who existed when existing was rebellion. Women who knew that survival required steel in their spine and fire in their belly. Someday you'll understand why I'm showing you this.'

The basement has gone quiet except for Pink Floyd transitioning to Genesis, Phil Collins' drums punctuating the silence. "Land of Confusion" feels particularly appropriate.

She knew, I whisper. Before I knew, she knew. And she wanted me to understand that being a woman—being THIS woman—came from a line of warriors who didn't apologize for taking up space.

Fuck, Phoenix breathes.

Yeah, I agree.

Miranda's voice carries that poetic weight again. We carry our ancestors in our bones and our pride in our scars. Sometimes they're the same thing.

Bubba nods slowly. Gambit was mine because I needed someone from outside my reality to show me what pride looked like. But Helen gave you actual lineage. Proof that women like you existed before words did, that survival is genetic memory.

What about you? I ask Erin, because she's been quiet, watching, absorbing with that journalist intensity that suggests she's cataloging everything for later analysis.

She smiles, and it transforms her face into something luminous. A little boy. Wild, funny, laughs and chortles constantly. About four years old.

Your son? River guesses.

My nephew, Erin corrects. My sister's kid. And when she found out I was pansexual, she stopped letting me see him. Said I was 'confusing influence' and 'inappropriate around children.'

The room temperature drops several degrees. Della stops moving in the kitchen.

But last month, Erin continues, voice steady despite moisture gathering in her eyes, he asked where Auntie Erin was. Asked why I didn't come to his birthday. And my sister couldn't explain it in terms that made sense to a four-year-old who just knew he loved me and I was missing.

She wipes her eyes, laughing through tears. So she called me. Apologized. Said she'd been listening to people at church instead of listening to her actual experience of me. And when I went to his next birthday party, he literally shrieked with joy and ran across the yard and jumped into my arms.

That's your pride symbol? Sage asks quietly. Joy?

Acceptance, Erin corrects. The fact that love is actually simpler than hate. A four-year-old understands what adults complicate. He just knew: Auntie Erin makes him laugh, reads him stories, plays dinosaurs with commitment and sound effects. Everything else is noise.

Remy's cigarette has burned to ash between his fingers. He doesn't seem to notice. From the mouths of babes, cher. Children know truth before we teach them to fear it.

Miguel refills my glass a third time, and I realize I'm crying. Not sobbing, just silent tears tracking through exhaustion and alcohol and accumulated damage from eighteen hours of being alive in world that keeps trying to kill people for existing authentically.

Keira's hand hasn't left my wrist. Her voice cuts through the emotion with characteristic precision. Pride isn't always about strength. Sometimes it's about what we preserve. What we refuse to let them take from us.

Like joy, Phoenix says, understanding blooming across their face. They want us dead, or closeted, or apologetic. And we keep choosing joy anyway. Keep choosing each other. Keep choosing symbols that remind us we're worth fighting for.

Claymores and Cajuns and mathematics and children, Miranda muses. Spirals and spiderwebs. We're a strange fucking army of the persistent.

Best kind, Bubba rumbles.

The conversation fractures into smaller exchanges—Remy and Bubba discussing comic book representation, Ezra showing Sage their fractal drawings, Phoenix and River examining Kanji characters on Phoenix's phone screen. Sarah returns to her booth, boots authoritative against concrete, already back to observing rather than participating. Erin asks me about the claymore's weight distribution with the specific curiosity of someone who understands that details matter, that precision in description equals truth in memory.

Della brings food that tastes like love expressed through aggressive seasoning. Miguel keeps drinks flowing with bartender telepathy that anticipates needs before they're voiced. The music shifts to Supertramp's "The Logical Song," and the irony isn't lost on anyone that we're discussing pride in basement bar while Roger Hodgson questions what happened to all the beautiful things we once knew.

I finish my third pour of rye, feeling it settle warm in my chest, feeling the weight of the invisible claymore across my shoulders like Helen's hand blessing my head. The sword sits in storage, but I carry it anyway—in posture, in refusal to diminish myself, in the way I take up space without apology despite world's insistence that my existence requires constant justification.

Thank you, I say to Ezra, who looks up surprised. For the question. For making us articulate what we're fighting for.

They grin, broken nose from John's fist catching light. Sometimes we forget to remember why we're still here. Seemed important.

Keira closes her book finally, marking her place with careful precision. Ready to go home?

Yeah.

We stand, and I hug the room goodbye—Miguel and Della together, Ezra who bounces against me like affectionate puppy, Phoenix and River as unit, Bubba's massive arms careful with my damaged frame. Remy kisses my cheek and exhales smoke that smells like philosophy. Erin squeezes my hand, journalist and family member simultaneously. Miranda touches my shoulder, sage and Eros in single gesture. Sarah nods from her booth, flannel-clad philosopher requiring no physical contact to communicate solidarity.

See you next week, mom, Miguel calls.

Wouldn't miss it, I confirm.

The stairs prove that gravity remains personally offended by my existence, but I navigate them anyway, one titanium-reinforced step at a time. Keira walks beside me, not touching but present, her solidarity requiring no physical contact to communicate completely.

Outside, October night air hits like baptism—cold and clean and shocking after basement atmosphere. We walk to the car in comfortable silence, and I think about Helen showing me that sword, about choosing symbols that reflect not who we pretend to be but who we survive becoming.

Behind us, The Sanctuary thrums with continued conversation, with music and laughter and the particular magic of people who found each other against impossible odds. Inside, someone's still drawing, someone's still talking, someone's still believing that joy qualifies as resistance when the world insists on mourning.

I carry my claymore invisible across my shoulders, steel spine and fire belly intact despite everything that tried to extinguish both. Not bad for someone who flatlined six months ago, who rebuilt herself from forty-seven fractures and seventy-percent crushed windpipe and accumulated damage from lifetime of trying to die before learning to live.

Not bad at all.

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be." - William Shakespeare

Pride manifests not in achievement but in survival, not in performance but in persistence. Each symbol represents not what we became despite odds, but what we refused to become despite pressure—we refused to disappear, to apologize, to reduce our complexity into digestible simplicity for others' comfort. The claymore reminds that women warriors existed before language named them. The Mandelbrot proves infinity requires no permission. The Kanji declares love worth inscribing permanently. Gambit teaches that belonging nowhere means making yourself essential everywhere. The spirals and spiderwebs reveal that rebuilding from trapped lives creates stronger architecture. And the child's laughter confirms that acceptance is humanity's default setting before fear corrupts it. We know what we are—survivors, fighters, chosen family forged through fire. What we may yet become remains gloriously, infinitely possible.

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