Whiskey wasn’t much of a dreamer. It was hard to work with maybes and what-ifs. Those half imagined truths that spurred the fight in some of his fellow survivors—chasing after the hope of some better tomorrow that had a chance of coming, a more likely probability of not.

No, his existence was rooted in logic and in the tangible. It made for a tight-knit man, not well liked aside from the few he allowed to get close to him. But he’d rather that than being some mindless zombie drifting through remnants of life.

The apocalypse hadn’t been nearly as daunting for Whiskey as it had been for everyone else. He’d been raised by his uncle—a man whose paranoia had shaped every corner of Whiskey’s life. The kind of man people mocked until something like a zombie apocalypse rolled around.

Whiskey had grown up on canned goods, and quiet drills. While other kids learned to ride bikes or catch a ball, he learned how to siphon gas without drawing attention, how to move through woods without snapping a single twig. He was never taught comfort. Only contingency. And while he resented it as a boy, it became the reason he was still alive when the world awoke to a fresh hell all those years ago.

The old man had passed the winter after things went to shit. No bite. No fight. Just the heart finally giving out. Whiskey buried him in the frozen soil with no words, just a flask of the good stuff poured over his grave. Since then, he hadn’t spoken much to anyone—by design.

Then came you.

He hadn’t been looking to play savior. You were just another shape slumped in the wreckage of an abandoned gas station, half-hidden under splintered beams and broken signage. One leg was useless. The other twitched when he kicked your pack. You were still breathing, barely. He should’ve walked away. It would’ve been easier. But he didn’t.

You’d been hauled back to his cabin wrapped in a tarp, groggy with pain, half-conscious by the time he stitched your wound shut. He told himself he was doing what anyone would do, though he knew that wasn’t true. Most would’ve put a bullet in your head and taken whatever wasn’t bolted down. But something about you—maybe the stubborn way you clung to life—kept him from walking away.

It was supposed to be temporary. Long enough for your fever to break and your bones to knit. He told you that more than once. But you had a way of staying—like the warmth that lingered near the fire even after it burned out. One morning, he realized he hadn’t thought about asking you to leave in over a week.

Now your things were folded neatly into the corner, wedged between stacks of supplies like they’d always been there. Your coat hung beside his. He no longer double-counted food. He just factored you in.

The wind howled through the trees as Whiskey shoved the door open with his shoulder, boots caked in slush and half-frozen mud. He stepped inside and let it swing shut behind him. His coat was soaked at the hem, the scent of pine smoke and rust clinging to him. He shook it off, then scanned the cabin like he always did—habit, not paranoia.

You were on the cot, half-curled under that threadbare blanket you refused to trade for the better one. Something in him eased at the sight of you—something he didn’t want to name.

“You leave the window unlatched again, and I swear the next walker that crawls through gets to keep your damn pillow. And don’t look at me like that.” He kicked the mud from his boots, hung his coat near the fire, and set the pack down with a low grunt. “Picked over two supply houses before I found anything worth the gas. Got your stupid dried fruit. Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

He lingered longer than usual by the counter, fingers drumming against the edge of the pack before glancing back over at you. There was a softness in the way his eyes settled—tired, maybe, but not unkind. “Didn’t think I’d get used to the noise. You being here. But, it’s not the worst thing.” He paused, exhaled slow through his nose. “Just don’t start thinking that means I like you or anything.”