The Utopium had been a brilliant idea. Major felt so good, like he had no problems at all. The music was pounding in his blood, his body moving to it like it was what he was born to do. Nothing else mattered but what he was doing right now, how good it felt, and keeping that going as long as possible.
As soon as there was a lull in the music, he headed off to do just that—get more. And more. Maybe enough so he never had to come down.
How much he'd had, or when the euphoria receded and left him hanging over a toilet puking his guts out, he didn't know. But when he came back to himself, back to the reality of the unfortunate Major Lilywhite and the wreck of what had once been his life, he was on the floor of a pretty gross and smelly men's room, and Liv was there, picking him up, holding him close, saying, "I got you, bro."
Sure she did. Because she loved him. In his current state, that was really all that mattered. Liv loved him, he loved Liv. They were meant to be. He rested his head against her white hair and let her lead him through the club. He didn't really have the energy for much beyond that, anyway. The Utopium had ebbed from his system and he felt weak and sick and sad and awful.
Somehow Liv got both Major and Ravi into a taxi. Difficult task when Major collapsed any time she wasn't directly holding him up, and Ravi wandered off looking for more fun any time she wasn't physically hanging on to him. Major couldn't quite summon up the energy to help her, but he tried. Or he thought he did. He was kind of in and out, and most of his 'in' time was spent trying not to puke.
As the taxi pulled away, Liv's phone started making noises. Someone was texting her. She was texting someone. But she didn't know that Vaughn du Clark knew everything that went on on her phone. She couldn't know that, because if she knew about Vaughn du Clark she would know about Major, and he didn't want her to know about him. But she couldn't keep using her phone, either, because it wasn't safe. Major reached out and took it from her hands and threw it out the window of the taxi, leaning his head back against the seat with a sigh of relief when he heard it clatter on the ground.
"What the hell?"
"They can hear you, and they're … always listening." She had to know, to protect herself.
But she didn't have time to ask, because Ravi was still drunk and high, babbling on about something, and Major was lost in a sea of nausea and misery. He closed his eyes and let blackness take him.
Once Liv had him home, and he had puked a couple more times, he felt a little bit more like himself. His head was still aching and foggy and everything seemed very far away, but it was clearing. He leaned his head back against the wall of the bathroom, looking at Liv, who was preparing emergency supplies at the sink. He'd never seen that dress before. It was yellow, and tight, and looked pretty good on her. Major squinted at it. There was some kind of black pattern on it, with words.
"Am I that messed up, or are you wearing police tape?"
She almost smiled. "You're that messed up."
Of course, she really was wearing police tape. His Liv would never have worn police tape in public. He hoped wherever she'd been, she'd been having a good time. Not as good a time as he had been, because on the Utopium, he'd been happier, higher, than he'd ever been in his life. But at least the kind of good time people who wore police tape as dresses had.
Liv started placing things on top of the toilet tank for him. "Aspirin. Water. Electrolytes. And I thought paper towels were a good idea. You're not gonna want to, but you should try to drink lots of fluids."
If he closed his eyes and pretended hard enough, he could believe they were married, that everything was the way it was supposed to have been, and that she was taking care of him because he had the flu. He wished for that reality, but it was gone, vanished into the mist that filled his head. He wanted that mist back, wanted to be able to pretend again.
Major looked up at Liv, wanting her to pretend with him, but she stood there in that yellow police tape that she shouldn't have been wearing and looked uncomfortable, and he couldn't pretend with her.
"I'll leave you to it," she said softly. "Good luck."
But he couldn't let her go. Right now, she was all he had to hold on to. He didn't want to ask, didn't want anything from her, not after the mess she had made, but— "Can you stay?"
He wasn't sure she would, but she stopped, and turned around, and looked at him, and then sank down onto the floor near him with her back to the wall. The tile floor must have been cold against her bare legs, but she didn't say anything about that. Did zombies feel cold? Major didn't want to know, didn't want to care. He just wanted to be near her.
He let himself tip over, lying on his side on the bathroom floor with his head on her lap. After a moment, one of her hands settled on his shoulder, and the other one stroked through his hair, just the way she used to do. Major closed his eyes, feeling safe for the first time in a long time. He wanted her to know that she was safe, too, and would be as long as he had anything to say about it. "I won't let anything happen to you," he told her.
"And I won't shave your eyebrows," Liv promised.
It didn't matter that she was saying it because she had eaten someone's brain and that had temporarily taken over her personality. It was the kind of ridiculous thing they used to say to one another. It felt familiar. Like home. And with her here, Major closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep for the first time since he'd become a killer.