Thank you for reading!

Major and Justin had been assigned to stake out D.A. Baracus's cabin in case any of the zombie truther people Liv and Clive had discovered decided to come after him, as a mayoral candidate and a survivor of the Max Rager massacre. It was an easy job which mostly involved standing around and sampling his hot sauce, or so it seemed. Justin dropped a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, getting a brain tube set out ready to spread on them.

"Baracus doesn't mind us raiding his pantry?" Major asked him.

"He told us to." Justin moved to the table, spinning the Lazy Susan. "Whoo! Red hot sauces from around the world! Like we can't afford." He grinned at Major.

Behind him, Baracus came out from his office.

"Sir!"

Justin turned to him. "Mr. Future Mayor."

"Pfft. Mr. Alternate Reality Mayor, maybe. I'm down fifteen points," Baracus replied, putting a glass in the sink. "Any more intel on the gun-toting internet crazies?"

"Same as before," Major told him. "Still heavily armed, still out to get anyone from Max Rager's basement."

"Well, that is a bummer. Good-night, gentlemen." He headed back to his bedroom while Major and Justin called 'good-night' after him.

Justin's toast was done, and he plucked it out of the toaster, dropping it on the plates. Only then did Major notice that there were two plates. Oh, crap. It hadn't occurred to him that he couldn't eat brain tubes any more, or that he was going to have to pretend that he could.

"I hope both those plates are for you," he said, "'cause I already ate." He watched Justin squeezing the brains out of the tube and onto the toast, and tried not to be nauseous. It seemed utterly impossible that only a few days ago he was scarfing those things down as readily as anything he'd ever eaten in his life. He could remember having that feeling, remember the icky, gluey texture of the brains and the rush of vitality that followed when he swallowed them, but he couldn't believe it. Not really. If it wasn't for Liv and Justin and Fillmore Graves, being a zombie would already be a distant memory.

Justin eyed him skeptically, but didn't challenge the statement. "You hear the rumor about a zombie speakeasy? Zach swears it's true."

"He's leading an expedition there tomorrow night. He wants us to go with."

"Okay." Justin chose a bottle of hot sauce and sprinkled it liberally on his brains. He took a big bite, moaning and laughing at the taste. "Dude. This sauce is Tibetan. Have the Tibetans ever let you down?"

"Never."

"Come on, man, just try it!"

"No, really, man, I'm full."

"You're full?" Justin repeated incredulously.

"Yeah." Major smiled, but it felt weak, even to him.

Justin glanced over his shoulder to make sure Baracus had really gone to bed, then he came closer to Major, saying softly, "Or you're human."

Major just looked at him, not sure what to do. He couldn't confirm, but Justin was too smart, and too good a friend, for him to deny it, either.

"When I took you to Ravi and Liv, when you were in bad shape," Justin continued, "they talked about giving you a cure."

That settled it. Justin knew too much to lie to him. Major glanced over his friend's shoulder, making doubly sure Baracus was nowhere near, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm human."

Justin turned away, laughing, and clapped his hands together.

"I—I don't want that to change anything," Major told him.

"I can't believe there's a cure! How's that even possible?"

"It's not anymore," Major hurried to say before Justin could get his hopes up any further. "Look, Ravi engineered it with tainted utopium that he can't replicate. And the only fifteen doses of the cure that we had left were stolen."

"Okay, it's gone, then." Justin let that dream go as quickly as he had created it. "So is doing mercenary work a good idea for you? There'll be plenty of jobs where you don't get shot."

"Not after you're accused of being a serial killer," Major reminded him. "There is nowhere else I'd rather be than at Fillmore Graves. Nowhere."

"You planning on telling anyone else? Any of our superiors?"

"They'd kick me out."

"Yeah."

"Think you can keep this between us?"

Justin looked at him like he was crazy. "Yeah. Your secret's safe with me, man." He held out his fist for Major to bump.

It felt good to have a friend he could be honest with. But Major worried—if Justin had figured out so quickly that he was human, what would happen when he tried to go to work? How quickly would his secret get out? What if he couldn't keep up? Or the first time he got injured? Or the first time he was in battle and afraid to go out of cover because he didn't want to die? For all that he wanted to stay at his job, and didn't know what else he could do if he wasn't working at Fillmore Graves, he was hardly as confident about it as he pretended to be. Any one of a dozen things could go wrong and he'd end up broke and humiliated on the job hunt while people sneered and whispered about him being the Chao$ Killer. No. He wasn't going back to that. Not ever. He'd find a way to stay at Fillmore Graves, and prove that a human could keep up with a team of zombies … He just wasn't sure how.