After the End

Chapter One

A/N: Hey guys! I'm really excited for this fic and I'm hoping I can keep up with it with all things considered (work and school and family). Let me know what you all think! :)

Dean missed the days when he and Sam could walk the earth freely killing monsters and saving people. He never thought things would get so bad that they, the Winchesters, would have to go into hiding. When it happened, it was so unexpected that they didn't have time to talk to any of their friends or family. Dean remembered it vividly, ten years ago, the wave of demon infected undead killing people left and right. Dean had dragged Sammy into the bunker, secured the perimeter, locked up the entrances, and that was where they stayed. They developed a set of rules over that extended period of time. They never left alone, always together. If they were to encounter someone in living flesh, they were not to approach that person. Dean grew up not trusting anyone but his father and his brother, and he wasn't about to start now.

When the apocalypse started, Sam had been away from Dean and John for almost a year and was rusty when it came to hunting, so he blindly followed his older brother. In all of the chaos, they were separated from their father. Dean assumed he was dead, but he was desensitized to death by now. Even before the apocalypse, he had seen enough death to not be surprised. It all started when his mother was killed by a demon. Since then, nothing really phased him.

Every month, Dean and Sam made a supply run. They killed their fair share of the undead, had a few brushes with death, but they always made it back alive. Every day in the bunker was the same. The undead scratched at their door, reminding Dean of the inevitable fate that he would someday succumb to. He wasn't stupid. He knew he and Sam wouldn't be able to outrun them forever. The days stretched on and on, blending together until Dean couldn't remember how long it had been.

Today was different. When Dean woke up, there was no scratching at the doors. There were no sounds of bones crunching as the undead had their breakfast right outside where he slept. It was silent, for the first time in years. Dean sat up, rubbing his eyes as he looked around the dark room. The bunker didn't have windows and the generators had stopped working a few years before, so the only light they ever got came from candles, which they burned only when they needed to in order to conserve their resources.

"Sammy, you hear that?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep. He threw his blanket to the side, pushing himself up off the floor where he had been sleeping to keep an eye on Sam the past few days. He walked over to where Sam slept, checking on him with a worried expression on his face. "Hey, you feeling any better?" he said, cautiously touching Sam's forehead. He still had a fever. They hadn't eaten in three days because their resources were dwindling, but Sam had come down with something else. A bad cold, maybe. Not eating didn't help, but they had no choice.

"I'm fine," Sam whispered, wiping the sweat from his head. He gave Dean a reassuring look, but Dean knew better. "It's quiet today," he noticed, sitting up to face Dean, as if he wasn't deathly ill. "It'd be a good day to make a supply run."

Dean frowned, shaking his head. "You're not going anywhere," he retorted, stepping away from his brother to gather his weapons for a run. "I'll go, you sit tight. I'll find some medicine while I'm out-"

"Dean, the rules," Sam argued, slowly pushing himself to stand up. Dean could see how weak his illness made him. There was no way Sam would make it through a supply run with the undead on their tails, no matter how quiet it was out there. "You should know better, you made them. We don't go out there alone," Sam said, using Dean's own words against him. He was good at that.

"Yeah, well it's a good thing I make the rules then," Dean snapped, throwing his gun over his shoulder as he approached the door. "You stay here, Sam. I'm not arguing." Before giving Sam a chance to argue, Dean removed the blockade and quietly shut the door behind him. He expected to be swarmed by the undead, so he had his gun loaded and ready to shoot, but the danger never came. The undead were scattered across the ground, as if they had just dropped dead all at once. He didn't hear anything but the wind, but that didn't mean he could let his guard down. He walked cautiously through the streets, looking for a house he hadn't yet emptied of supplies. Even with just the two of them in town, over the span of ten years, they cleaned out most of the non-perishables.