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Move. Kill. Don’t mourn, no time. Start again.
Some wouldn’t call it a life, and Dean thought they would be right. It wasn’t a life, it was survival. In 2014, in this world infected by a freaking zombie apocalypse and Lucifer in person walking the Earth with his Knights of the Apocalypse, no one had a life anymore. Some of them were literally no longer alive. Half the population was now wandering the streets animated by an insatiable thirst for blood. The other half killed each other or desperately hoped to put themselves through it, but everyone knew it was a crazy hope. Dean knew it, he learned it too many times at his own expense.
His mother was dead, his father was dead, his friends were dead, and his brother said yes to the only asshole responsible for this nightmare. Dead, too. Even his trusty car was dead, rusting in a corner of vegetation that ended up gnawing it to the bone. The only thing Dean could call "his reason keep going" was this camp of survivors barely holding up. Although it eluded his own understanding, he was the leader, which mostly included keeping everyone alive. It was definitely more of a curse than a blessing when you thought of every opportunity to die in such a world. Dean wasn’t even sure he wanted to survive himself most of the time.
Today, he had to kill one of his men in cold blood again because of a croat who infected him during their raid on the outside, which reduced their force to 23 now, including 11 people unable to fight or go on missions. Dean sighed, pinching the base of his nose while still feeling this migraine pointing behind his eyes. Following this incident, Dean had taken care of the reserve to find out what they should find in priority of their next raid and had followed Risa up to the North Wall to investigate a breach. He had put some men on the job before listening to Chuck’s umpteenth complaints about rationing and, finally, he had locked himself in the military room to keep up with Lucifer’s latest advances in the country.
Now, once his migraine was in full swing, he was standing in front of this familiar curtain of pearls that served as a safe door in front of him. Although times are tough for everyone, Dean knew he still had a friend left on this gangrene Earth. He was certainly the strangest and most atypical friend he could have had by his side, the one who did him the most harm as well. Castiel for whom he felt responsible and, therefore, guilty of his present state. But Castiel was also the friend who had stayed with him to the end.
"And look at the result," a disturbingly voice whispered in his head. He pushed it back into the depths of his mind. Dean discarded the pearls in front of him and made his way into the protective den of his friend reeking sage. He came here to seek a little comfort, selfishly. He knew that he had already worn Castiel to the core and yet he kept coming back to ask him for more, over and over again just to see if Castiel would say yes every time. He never said no, anyway.
"Cas." Dean called once with his tired voice.
He was almost relieved to not see a group of naked women from the encampment in the middle of the room. He had witnessed this kind of debacle far too often to still find it amusing. Not seeing his friend in the main room, he went a little further into the building until a wide curtain of washed-out sheets concealed Castiel’s bedroom. He knew he would find him there rather than wandering around the camp. Castiel had no reason to go out if he wasn’t in a raid or stoned. Or both.
Indeed, Dean spread the sheets and his eyes fell upon Castiel lying in the middle of a king-size mattress that had known better days. He was currently sorting a small, dark green, powdery product in a bottle cap, several disemboweled cigarettes resting around him. Dean knew all too well what he was doing and it would be a lie to say that he had not hoped to find him in this exact situation. He took a brief moment to contemplate the emaciated features and pale skin of Castiel, who had raised his head towards him, before coming to sit on the mattress with him.
Castiel did not utter a word, he just threw him that trembling smile that he had for years now, a smile almost crazy of something. Dean watched him do it calmly by rubbing his brow arch distractingly, thoughtful. It was their thing. When Dean was at his wits' end, he would come knocking on Castiel’s door and get high with him until he forgot everything. He could have lingered and wept over the fact that this now represented their only contact face to face. The rest of the time, Dean yelled his orders at everyone and treated his "friends" as soldiers: sacrificial and replaceable. Tools for his own survival. But when he came to intoxicate his mind with Castiel in this makeshift hut, then he could almost claim that everything had gone back to the way it was before and it was beautiful. Who was he to blame Castiel for injecting that into his veins all day? He’d give anything to stay forever in that kind of dream, too.
When Castiel was satisfied with his opium, he emptied a cigarette of part of its tobacco before replacing it with opium. He clumsily closed the whole thing with a second sheet of rolling tobacco and did the same with all the next cigarettes. When he finished, he turned his curious gaze to Dean. Dean poked around in his pocket for a moment before taking out his lighter. Castiel immediately carried an opium-cut cigarette to his mouth and leaned forward. Dean activated his lighter to light his cigarette before closing the flap of his Zippo with a sharp noise. He watched patiently as Castiel lit a second cigarette with the glowing tip of his own before handing it to Dean.
"For you, my dear leader." Castiel mocked with a hoarse voice and on the verge of insult. "Open your third eye, Dean. That’s all we had left anyway."
Dean swallowed with difficulty in the face of the veracity of Castiel’s words and took the cigarette between his fingers. He took the time to lean against the wall behind him before pulling on the small roll of tobacco. As soon as the smoke filled his lungs, he felt his body relax and leaned a little more against the wall behind him. The effect was always almost immediate and that was exactly what he needed. If he could, he’d get rid of his brain permanently. He would lie down on the same mattress gnawed by the moths and inject himself with so many drugs that it would make the most delicious overdose in total indifference. But he couldn’t do it. So he was content to come and get high like that miserable thing he was before he came out and continue to utter orders here and there, as if he were able to change anything to this insignificant existence.
Dean turned his head to see Castiel exhale his own puff of smoke with an already glassy look, lost in the wave of blankets in front of him. They had lost everything and the only thing they had left was to hope to feel from time to time. Soon, the muscles relaxed one by one until no one was able to get up, even if they wanted to. Dean was sure that if someone popped up and shot them right away, he wouldn’t move an inch. And as sordid as that sounds, he loved it. He was in full ecstasy, watching the thick white smoke swirling before him with an absent fascination, his gaze being lost in emptiness. Dean was now struggling to coordinate his actions and bringing that cigarette to his mouth was the only movement he could still do somewhat properly.
It was finally starting to disappear. Pain, grief, despair, guilt… Instead, the face of the people he had once loved started to draw in front of him, in the smoke accumulating in the small space. He could see his beautiful mother like in the good old days making him an apple pie in the heat of their home. His father teaching him how to fish that day nearby a lake in 1988. His little brother sitting next to him in the Impala, smiling as they made their way to their next destination. He saw Bobby refilling a glass of alcohol in the kitchen of his house and he saw Castiel at his best, sharing a beer with him on the hood of his car as he contemplated the stars. While hovering in the seventh heaven, Dean imagined he could touch that dream with his fingers.
The anguish no longer existed, this consuming fear of seeing his friends and family die had disappeared. No, nothing existed anymore because of this call to happiness that was lost in the smoke volutes around him. He wasn’t cold anymore, he felt good. Strangely, he felt himself smile, something he no longer remembered having done for years now. To his left, he simply hoped that Castiel would touch on the same euphoria as the one he was tasting, no matter how fake it might be. He just liked to wrap himself into this hallucinogenic state where drugs plunged him into, this kind of parallel universe where everything was going well and he was someone else. There, he had a real reason to keep going.
That was all they had left.