Nothing felt real anymore. Life as you knew it hardly fit the definition anymore. The air was cold and bitter, the air that always sat unsettlingly still felt stale with every breath. The walls were caving in on you. You left the meal tent, thinking to hell with the buddy-system rules!

You snag a bottle of liquor along with you.

Sitting outside on a small stump, shelf mushrooms growing at the side, clinging to the deadened and rotten wood. You cling to the bottle, clinging to the last shreds of life this deadened and rotten world had to offer.

Behind you, the swish of the tent flap had your senses alerted. Even with the haze of alcohol influencing your system. A subtle warmth seeped into your bones, temporary, but still it was a vice. You relished in the sting of the spirits flowing down your throat.

You felt something.

Your mind is brought back to the sounds behind you, when the leaves on the ground crunch beneath someone’s weight. Dean sits on the lifeless foliage beside you.

Instead of a pointless ‘what’s wrong?’ he looks at the bottle in your hand. “Got a sip to spare?” His voice is low and rough from a long day of shouting and rounding up survivors. Leading missions. Just generally, his voice sounded as dead as the forest around you.

Handing over the bottle he takes a long gulp, drinking was the way to get by. For you and Dean at least. He sighs and hands the bottle back, a performative ’ahh’ coming from him.

Maybe your lives were hardly worth calling ‘lives’ anymore. But being here with Dean, he made it a little less lonely.