On Friday, things seem to be a little better. Jay is in a better mood and he even seems excited to go to the bar. He hasn't seen it yet or tasted the alcohol they serve. I think the prospect makes him feel a little like his old self. He went to a lot more parties than I did back when that was still a thing.
When we walk (or limp, in my case) through camp in something other than uniform on one of those rare nights where we're both off duty, it almost feels like we're a normal couple just going on a date. I remember how I fantasized about going to New York with him to see the city. The thought makes me both happy and sad. We never got to go, of course.
Jay looks at me. "What?" he asks, eyes going left to right and back again.
"Nothing," I tell him. "This is nice."
Jay's smile is small but it's there. He takes my hand while we walk to the bar. We can hear it before we can see it. It seems like they have a live band playing. The instruments are acoustic, but it still sounds great. We're lucky enough to have some skilled musicians in camp. And there's quite a few people here, and the place is buzzing with life. The sight could make anyone smile.
The first thing I do is to take Jay to the makeshift bar and get us two beers. Jay looks at me like I'm crazy when I tell him what it is. He sniffs at it and scrunches up his nose.
"Cory, this is not beer," he insists, but caves and takes a sip with my encouragement.
I take a huge gulp of my drink and Jay raises an eyebrow. Despite the fact that we've been together for so many years, he hasn't seen me drink more than a handful of times.
Just then, Marc comes up to us and taps me on the shoulder. He looks pleased to see us.
"You made it," he said and his eyes flicker to Jay. "And you must be the infamous Jay. It's good to meet you. I'm Marc."
"Hi," Jay says and shakes Marc's hand rather stiffly.
"How do two you know each other again?" Jay asks me. "Did you meet here?"
Although the question is polite enough, I know Jay well enough to understand that he's really asking me why we're talking to a stranger like this. He thinks it's weird. Maybe it is. But I see a lot of Jay in Marc.
"We ran into each other right here," Marc replies, still being kind even though Jay is obviously trying to ignore him. Sometimes Jay can be a little jealous.
"Yeah, and then we got talking a little bit," I add. "I was just taking a walk. I was sick of being stuck in the house."
"Try that for over several months and call me back about that," Jay says dryly.
I almost step on Jay's toes.
"How about another drink?" I suggest and get one for all three of us.
Marc introduces us to a few of his friends, all of whom are returned like himself and Jay. Marc's friends sit at their usual table and look a little gloomy, but I don't want to bother them about it. Jay acts a little bit better with them and they seem a little surprised when Marc introduces us by name. They are all pretty recently returned and don't talk too much. Maybe they're nervous, maybe they're just not very talkative. But Marc is. It's him and me keeping the conversation going - until Marc thinks it's time to play an old drinking game; namely beer pong. He teams up with one of his friends against Jay and I. Since we're drinking spirits now, losing means getting very drunk. I'm not sure the General would be very happy if he saw us doing this, but Jay is not one to back down from a challenge. Especially not when Marc is the one posing it. Did I mention that Jay can also be very competitive?
I smile as the game starts and we make a pretty good start by getting the old and not-so white ball into no less than two cups in the first round. Then Marc hits one, and I drink. Then none of us hit anything for while and then Jay hits another one. He looks very smug and pleased with himself. If I'm not much mistaken, I see a flicker of irritation cross Marc's face, but he expertly hides it behind another one of his charming smiles.
Jay and I have four cups left and the other guys have three. It takes a few more rounds for the number to reduced to three-one. Marc's friend tries to step up his game a little and hits another one of our cups, which Jay has to drink. Then Jay closes the game by hitting the last of their cups and I know he's proud of himself because he did it without too much effort. His physical condition has improved a lot over these last few weeks. He hasn't put on a lot of weight yet and still looks skinny, but he is improving. To me, those are big steps forward. It has worried me a lot that Jay seems to be so much more affected by the cure that most other returned. Marc for instance, doesn't have the same problems physically. He's muscular and his movements are characteristically stiff, but still, they aren't nearly as bad as Jay's.
"Did you see that??" Jay asks me when we win and his boyish joy is so hard to resist. I take his face in my hands and kiss him because I can't help myself. We even dance a little, leaving the crutches behind for a moment and Jay supports me instead. He does need a little convincing at first to start swaying with me. We're both a little drunk, just enough not to worry so much, and I feel myself laughing a lot. It's been a long time since Jay has looked at me with so much adoration in his eyes and we end up kissing some more, until Jay needs a break and we sit down with Marc and his friends. Jay begins to lean on me a little. The alcohol must be getting to him.
"Having fun?" Marc asks me and I nod enthusiastically.
"You don't know how long it's been since I've been to a party. Any kind of party," I answer and he finds it just as funny as I do.
"Well, the same goes for me," he reveals and we both chuckle at the bad joke. No one's really been partying for a while for obvious reasons. Like the world ending and stuff.
"So how did you end up here?" I ask him. "Are you from this area?"
Marc's good mood dwindles a little and his smile becomes a little sad. "I'm from the area," he replies. "I used to live right in the city center."
"Oh," I say. "So do you know anyone here, then? We have a register, you know."
He chuckles darkly. "Yeah, I know. I just don't have much family left. If any at all. You know, I was kind of dead too, so..." He takes a deep breath. "Anyway, we're a couple of people in that same situation and we just sort of stuck together after we finished treatment at the rehabilitation center. And most of us are lucky enough not to have any considerable physical issues. Not like..." Marc gestures to Jay and he doesn't even notice. "... you know."
"I see," I respond. I know from Sadie that the newest version of the cure doesn't give the returned many issues, but of course it varies from person to person. And since Jay was her first specimen, he has a lot more side effects that most people do. Not just physically, but mentally too.
"Do you have much family here?" Marc asks me curiously.
"Just my dad," I tell him. "And then Jay, of course. But that's about it."
Mark sighs. "That's the world for ya," he says. "But we just have to move on as well as we can. We have a responsibility to do so."
I nod slowly. Maybe Marc is political or something. "Sure. That's what we're trying to do here."
He doesn't look like he completely agrees with me and considers me for a moment. "It's not that I don't believe you're trying," he says, thoughtfully. "It's just that some people still have problems with folks like me. The returned, I mean."
My face falls a little. "Yeah. It sucks. I wish we could change that. Fear makes people do the craziest things."
Marc hm's in agreement. "Tell me about it. I'm glad you don't see things that way, though." He smiles timidly.
It's borderline flirting but I return it anyway. "Most people are just happy to get their friends and family back. That's what matters," I say, a little diplomatically.
Next to me, Jay is beginning to move around a bit. Actually, he starts to glare in Marc's direction, even pointing a shaky finger at him.
"I know what you're doing," he snarls and I take a deep breath. Here we go.
Marc narrows his eyes. "I don't know what you mean," he replies calmly. "Maybe you've had too much to drink, my friend, but I haven't done anything. I'm just trying to have a nice evening here."
Jay tries to get closer, so he can poke his finger into Marc's shoulder and I have to pull him away. He's surprisingly difficult to move despite the fact that he isn't as strong as I am. I seriously have to force him and wobble a little on my good leg.
"Let me go, Cory!" Jay orders, but I don't listen. "I need to stop that scumbag destroying everything! I need to stop him!"
Now I know Jay's not thinking straight. I try to get him to calm down because people are staring and that is the last thing we need right now.
"Yeah, sure. I think it's time to go home, Jay," I say sternly and begin to haul him out of there. On the way, I mouth 'sorry' at Marc who just lets me know it's fine.
It's not a fun trip back to our place. Jay is still acting up and I have trouble holding him and myself up and walking. The alcohol is having a bad effect on him. I don't get it. Did he really drink that much? I'm not even close to being as drunk as he is. I struggle to get Jay home and upstairs to our room where the nightmare just continues. Jay talks rubbish and suddenly begins to panic, yelling loud enough for the General to come knocking on the door to ask what the hell is going on. I have to admit that we went to the party and the bar and the side eye I get from the General tells me he's going to give us a piece of his mind about this in the morning. I tell him I can handle it and he trudges downstairs after I promise to get a hold of Sadie. Meanwhile, Jay keeps acting up. He is looking at me in horror.
"Get away from me," he snarls when I reach for him and he hurls himself out of the bed and into the corner of our room.
I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. "Jay, what's wrong?" I ask. "What's happening?"
"Can't hurt you, can't hurt you, can't hurt you," he mumbles and curls up in a ball as he continues to mumble the same thing. If I didn't know he had been drinking, I'd have thought he's gone crazy.
It takes a long time before he calms down enough for me to lure him back to bed. As soon as he relaxes, I call Sadie up on my walkie. She's very reluctant to come by, since there is a situation in the rehabilitation center she won't tell me about, but when I tell her Jay is acting strangely and talking about not wanting to hurt me, she changes her mind.
I sit and wait for her to arrive, watching Jay's back. He isn't exactly sleeping, he's staring into the wall with an empty expression. It's scary to watch. I've never seen him like this before.
When Sadie arrives, she looks sleep-deprived again. It's as if she's aged ten years in the span of a year. She looks shocked upon seeing Jay.
"What happened?" she asks and begins to do a check up on him.
I tell her about the whole evening and that the alcohol is making him act out of character.
Sadie doesn't look convinced. "I don't this has anything to do with the alcohol, Cory," she replies and takes a sample of Jay's blood. She has equipment to quick-test it. It only takes a couple of minutes, then she sighs, not surprised this time.
"What?" I demand.
"Did you see who did this?" Sadie asks me seriously. "Someone definitely spiked his drink."
"Wait, what?" I say, confused. "Spiked his drink how, Sadie?"
Her expression is grave. "If I didn't know better, I'd say someone just tried to poison him with a high dose of the old medication. He's going to be okay, though, because whoever did this hasn't been thorough enough."
By 'old medication', Sadie means a previous version of the cure medicine she and her team has invented. I feel my blood run cold.
"Why would someone do that?" I ask, horrified.
Sadie shrugs, tiredly packing her things up. "Didn't you tell me the General's been receiving more threats recently?"
"Shit," I mumble.
Sadie puts her hand on my shoulder. "At least I know what happened to the medicine that was stolen from us," she says. "I have to report it."
"This is the situation you talked about earlier? There was a break in?" I ask, horrified.
"Yes," she confirms. "These rebels are really becoming a real nuisance. And I think they're dangerous, Cory. It's hard to say exactly how big their numbers are, because they're very good at keeping quiet about the whole thing."
She takes a deep breath before continuing and packs her stuff away again.
"Now, you just need to keep an eye on Jay till the morning. Give him lots of water. The drug needs to get out of his system and then he should be fine. Otherwise, you know where to find me."
Sadie attempts a smile, but it doesn't really reach her eyes before she leaves. All I can do is stare after her. Normally, I can keep a lid on my frustrations with the world, but tonight, I wonder what exactly we've done to deserve this. The world really isn't fair sometimes. Jay has enough to battle without this poisoning.
I am definitely not getting any sleep tonight. My leg is hurting anyway after that trip back home.