After Everything I’ve Done For You (conclusion)

Cole stood near a bullet-scarred kitchen window, preparing to livestream. Behind him, Tristan dabbed bronzer along his jaw like a battlefield stylist dressing a man for martyrdom.

“You need more contour, Cole,” Tristan said. “You look like a haunted bagel.”

Cole clutched his phone like a grenade of truth, rehearsing lines in his head.

“You know,” Tristan said, dipping a finger into concealer, “this isn’t the first time my people have battled on these streets. Let me tell you, before we were a ‘demographic,’ before Rainbow Capitalism turned our pain into a pride playlist—we dialed up some serious resistance. Stonewall was no party from what I hear.”

“So if someone dares judge me,” Tristan whispered, dotting Cole’s under-eye with something faintly shimmering, “I tell them being under siege is in my cultural DNA.”

Tristan gave Cole a pat of confidence. Cole cleared his throat, lifted the phone, and hit record.

“Once a quiet tree-lined street tucked away in the West Village—where rents were historically inaccessible and squirrels wore artisanal indifference—has now become its own little war zone, spawning a conflict between blood brothers and landlords.”

Tristan made a slight gesture: good, keep going.

Cole adjusted his tone. “And what of the inhabitants of this humble pre-war, current-war brownstone? How have they adapted, resisted, survived?”

It had been more than a week since the siege began.

In that time, the apartment had become something between a commune, a bunker, and a theatrical residency for the emotionally overqualified. What once was sharp tension—lawsuits, microaggressions, pillowcase gags—had mellowed into a strange, intimate choreography of survival.

The bedroom now housed a tiered bunk bed system, custom-rigged from salvaged IKEA remnants and one ill-gotten chaise lounge. Darcy and Cole had claimed the top bunk—primarily for strategic advantage, partially for spite. Juan and Tristan took the bottom—saying it was for “accessibility,” but really for proximity to the wine crate they used as a nightstand-slash-weapons cache.

The living room was common ground. A war room by morning, a café by brunch, a low-budget speakeasy by candlelight. Their routines were synchronized now: shifts on the fire escape, meal rotation, water rationing, psychic check-ins, and exactly one communal meltdown per day, to be performed dramatically and with appropriate lighting.

No one apologized anymore. They simply adapted.

The four had also enacted what Tristan called a “wartime celibacy statute " to conserve energy and maintain spiritual alignment under siege conditions. The reasoning was half-mystical, half-logistical: arousal scattered the chi, blurred the focus, and made the hallway patrols sloppy.

"Desire is a peacetime luxury," Darcy had declared, arms crossed, eyes red from incense exposure. No one argued.

Not even Juan, who had once seduced a Whole Foods cashier using only eye contact and a pomegranate.

Now, they sublimated. They journaled. They did planks.

AOC barked anytime someone lingered too long near another’s bunk, a tiny moral enforcer in faux fur. The system worked—sort of. They were tense, yes, but profoundly alert. Monastic. Sexy in theory. Miserable in practice. Focused.

They had, through smoke and absurdity, become a unit.

Not friends exactly. Not family.

Comrades.

“I found four cans of water chestnuts,” Darcy announced as she swung in from the fire escape, dropped her gear, and peeled off her gloves. “They’re in the ration pile.”

Juan had already begun plating brunch. “Brunch is served,” he called. “Today’s theme is scarcity chic.”

On the table: one soft avocado in mid-breakdown, thirty lentils per person, a tablespoon of almond paste spread lovingly across a cedar shingle, and half a can of peaches still tinged with debris.

“Anything gluten in this hellscape?” Darcy said, breathless.

“We have a stale baguette,” Tristan said. “But Juan has declared it ‘holy.’”

“I licked it,” Juan offered, deadpan.

Darcy waved it off. “I’ve had worse at Coachella.”

“I lived on ant larvae in the Andes for a week once,” Juan quipped. “More protein than beef. And honey, I’ve had my share of beef.”

Tristan snapped a photo of the table. “I’m calling this ‘Occupation Elegance.’ It’s going in the zine.”

Cole sat, still buzzed from his own narration. “If this is the end of civilization, at least we’re seated.”

Darcy turned to Cole. “Update on the outside world?”

He gestured to his phone. “Three thousand views. One hate comment.