Two weeks have passed since that day. My wounds have been healed, but I just can't forget it. For most people, it's history now. But for me, whenever I close my eyes, it all comes back clearly. Zombies eating people's flesh and the screams of my teammates dying. No, the wounds in my heart are not healed yet...
Jill's diary, entry dated August 7th, 1998
Herbs
Normally when Chris turned up at her apartment, she made an effort to make it somewhat presentable.
Key word being "normally," and key word being "somewhat." Also, maybe cut out "normally," and replace it with "on the rare occasion" or "those first or second times after the shit hit the fan, and we get to share in each other's misery." Or maybe not. Those words were a bit too complex for her right now.
"Jill?"
She looked up at the figure in front of her through blurry eyes, and through slightly less blurry smoke.
"Hey," she slurred.
Chris said something. She couldn't make it out.
"Say…" she said, taking another puff of the herb she was smoking. "Did I, like, give you a key, or, is the door, like, unlocked?"
He murmured something. He was also kneeling in front of her, going on about being high and her eyes.
"Easy to get in. No fancy-smancy keys here, no." She went to take another puff from the rolled-up piece of paper. She would have done so if Chris hadn't snatched it away.
"Hey. That's mine."
Just in the act of having had something stolen from her, that made the world slightly clearer. Clear enough to recall the true nature of the world.
"Is this crack?" Chris asked.
"No. Herb."
Her hearing was getting a bit better along with her sight.
"Herb?"
"Herb," Jill said. "Green herb." She chuckled. "Rebecca showed me – turns out it's good for healing the mind as well as the body."
"Christ Jill, this isn't healing."
"Ain't addictive," she said. She leant back in her chair and closed her eyes, pressing her back against the mattress. Wincing at the scars she'd got from the Tyrant smarted as flesh met cushion, separated only by a T-shirt that she'd worn for the last four days. "Don't worry. I'll be fine…"
Liar.
She had enough self-awareness to know that she wasn't fine. That none of them were fine. Not even Chris was fine – why else would they keep stumbling into each other's apartment to check if the other was okay?
"Here."
Jill opened an eye and saw Chris standing in front of her. A cup of something was in his hands.
"That tea?" she asked.
"Water. Think you've got enough herbs in you."
"Green herbs. Red, blue, now those I could go for."
"Jill, just drink it."
"Fine," she slurred. "Fine."
Fine. There was that word again. Taking a sip, she realized…
Oh God.
She drank some more. And more. More and more, so that in a matter of seconds, the glass was empty. And she realized just how not-fine she was. Her head was pounding. Her neck and back were sweating. Her vision was getting better, and she was able to see the world for what it was.
Her apartment didn't look as big right now. There was a single coffee table with two chairs around it. Chris was standing on one side. On the table itself was a week's worth of newspapers – all of them reporting on the incident at the Spencer Mansion, all of them either repeating the lines Chief Irons gave them and/or speculating on their own. Words like "gross incompetence" and "S.T.A.R.S. put on suspension" jumped out at her, alongside terms like "Chief Irons" and "Umbrella spokesperson." And in one tiny corner, the names…
Redfield. Valentine. Burton. Chambers. Vickers.
Some had been dragged through the mud more than others. Brad, ironically, had escaped the worst of it, since all he'd done was fly the helicopter (while poor Kevin had been accused of having been drunk when the Bravo Team helicopter crashed). Rebecca had some sympathy, in as much that some were speculating about how she should have never been assigned to S.T.A.R.S. in the first place, though others speculated about "special favours." But Barry? Barry wasn't only being dragged through the mud, it was his family as well. And as for her and Chris…
Oh God.
She ran to the kitchen. Well, more like stumbled. She'd done a lot of running in the mansion. Running around zombies. Running from the hounds of hell. Running from giant lizard creatures. She began pouring herself another class and began swallowing it. She didn't turn to look at Chris as he walked in, but she could hear his footsteps. Good, normal sounding footsteps, not "shuffle shuffle" footsteps with moans of the dead hungering for the flesh of the living.
"Yeah…" Chris said, as Jill continued to drink. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you've been reading the papers."
Jill didn't say anything. She finished the glass and poured another one.
"And you've probably seen that drug use is one of the possible reasons listed for our, um, 'gross incompetence.'"
Jill kept drinking, but this time at a slower pace.
"So, I'm tempted to say it isn't my business, but…"
"It is your business," Jill said.
She turned to face him. Her head was feeling better. Her eyes were still smarting, but she could still see Chris before her. Leaning against the wall, arms folded. Trying his best to look distant, but even recovering from more herbs smoked in an hour than she'd used throughout the mansion, Jill could tell that the distant look was just a front.
"It is your business," she repeated, before taking another sip. "Right now, what we do is all of our business."
"Right, so, you get why it might be a bad idea to get yourself high."
She took another sip. "Hardly matters right now does it? Umbrella's got the chief in his pocket. R.P.D.'s not going to do anything with Irons's say so. And the people are only going to believe what they read and watch."
Chris didn't say anything.
"Does it bother you?" Jill asked. "Being a hero and being hated for it?"
Chris scoffed. "I'm not a hero."
"Saw you take out an eight-foot-tall monster with a rocket, that makes you a hero." Jill put the cup in the sink. She winced as her back smarted again. Involuntarily, she reached for it.
"How's the back?" Chris asked.
"Fine," she lied.
He sighed. "Come on Jill…"
"I don't need special treatment Chris." She picked up the cup, ready to dry it.
"How you sleeping? You getting-"
"I said I'm fine!"
The cup went down. The glass went all over the place. Somewhere, out in the street, a dog began to bark.
She winced – she didn't want to think about dogs now. Didn't want to think about their teeth, or their tongues, or their breath. She didn't want to think about Joseph, how he'd kept screaming as they tore into their flesh, how they'd kept firing to no avail, how they'd looked at her after tearing him limb from limb, and…
God.
She was shaking. She went to pick up the glass, but her hands were shaking too much. She managed to pick up a piece with her right, but-
Glass. Like a tank. Water. Like sharks.
"Here," Chris said. He put a hand on her shoulder. His other hand had a tea towel draped around it. "Let me."
She nodded, before turning away to look out the kitchen window. Autumn had just come, but the sun made it seem like summer. A lazy sun ending a lazy day, setting over a lazy city of 100,000 people that had turned against five members of its populace. All because of the words of one man, and however many spokespeople had assured the press that the explosion at the Spencer Mansion was down to a chemical fire, and that after a "thorough investigation" there was nothing to support the "outrageous assertions" of "five disgraced police officers."
"Um, Jill?"
She looked at him.
"Where's the bin?"
"Huh? Oh. Under the sink."
"Right." He knelt and opened the left cupboard door.
"Right door," Jill said.
Chris obliged and she winced. She knew what was in the bin. He'd see it as well. So when Chris got back to his feet, she could see the look in his eyes. Concern. And worse, disappointment.
Go on, say it, she thought. Say it. Say anything.
"Having trouble sleeping as well," he said. "I mean, just so you know."
She didn't know actually. She knew Rebeca was, because she'd told her. She knew Barry was, because despite his assertions to the contrary, Tess had told her about him – how night after night, he'd wake up in a sweat, and wake up Polly and Moira with him. But Chris? It was hard to imagine Chris getting fazed by anything.
"How bad?" Jill asked. She headed back to the sitting area.
"Bad," Chris said. He followed her, taking a seat opposite her. "But not so bad that I need…"
"Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of pieces of paper in there," Jill said.
A silence lingered between the two. The dog was still barking. A car in the street beeped. She could even hear the sound of a helicopter. The type that wasn't flying away, leaving its people to die. The type that didn't crash, stranding its team. The type…the type…
"You hungry?" Chris asked.
Jill nodded.
"I'll get us something from Emmy's."
Jill scoffed. "You still go there? After what they're saying about you in the papers?"
"Money's money. And food's food."
"Hmm."
Chris didn't need to specify that there was a difference between getting something from Emmy's, and going there to eat.
"Nothing with meat in it though," Jill said.
And similarly, she didn't need to explain why.
A/N
So I've been watching a lot of Resident Evil stuff on YouTube lately (you can thank the remake of RE2 for that). Forget where exactly, but came across the joke about the characters becoming addicted to green herbs because they use them so often. Got me to drabble this up.