Disclaimer: All recognized characters from 'Supernatural' are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.

Third/Is for the savior. Shall I call it that, or death? Where/Is the end? Where shall the fury of fate/Be stilled to sleep, be done with?' – Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 1074-76.

September 3, 2019.

"Case." Adam slapped a newspaper down on the kitchen table with one hand, then sat down himself, setting a plastic bag on the floor at his feet. With his other hand he pulled out two bottles of store-brandcola, sliding one across the table to Ben. Ben grabbed it and pressed it against his face for a moment, savouring the cold. It was supposed to be Fall; but South Dakota was experiencing an unseasonable heatwave. Worse, the sole refrigerator on the property attached to Singer's Salvage yard had given up the ghost three days ago. They were running low on cash for repairs, and the kitchen was smelling vaguely of sour milk.

"What kind of case?" Ben asked of Adam.

"Looks like a werewolf. Or a particularly exhibitionist serial killer."

Ben scanned the double-page spread headlined 'SECOND VICTIM CLAIMED BY KNIFE-WIELDING MURDERER: POLICE SUSPECT SICK CULT'. The paper was a local all the way from Elbert County, Colorado:

"Jane passed it on to me," Adam explained, referring to one of their few connections in the hunting community, and even fewer friends.

"It's a long way to go," Ben said, merely in order to state the obvious.

"Nothing else on the radar. Unless you have particular plans for the season?"

"You know I don't."

"So let's take it."

Some people imagined the post-apocalypse as a nuclear winter. There had been a spate of bad movies about it when Ben was young, some of which he'd conned his teenage babysitters into letting him stay up and watch. Others imagined that people would live in bomb shelters or compounds, and if you came up above the surface without a radiation suit, your skin would start to peel and you'd puke blood, or be caught by flesh-eating zombies.

Ben Braedon was different. When Ben thought about the end of the world – which the combination of being an adolescent and knowing more than most people how close that had come to happening within his lifetime had left him wont to do on occasion – he thought of summer.

A fiercely blue sky, devoid of pollution from airplanes and factories. No more smog. Open prairies; forest creeping back over the remains of buildings, but roads would sort of remain. Enough roads for the black Impala to navigate. They'd keep weapons in the trunk and supplies in the back seat and they wouldn't even have to talk (there was usually background music in this fantasy, and besides, they could communicate without talking). How exactly the two of them had survived this apocalypse, when the world was so empty they could drive all day and clear starlit night and never see another person, was unimportant to the fantasy. It was wrong to love someone so much you half-wished the whole world would die and leave the two of you alone, but it was only a daydream, and anyway he was an adolescent, and therefore licensed.

Since his old life ended Ben had not indulged in that fantasy. Now that he was with Adam, it would be traitorous, as traitorous as if he were to insert Adam into the fictional driver's seat. Which in any case, would be incongruous.

It was probably a good thing to stop thinking about the end of the world.

When Ben came out to join Adam in loading up the Explorer, he burst out laughing.

"What are you iwearing/i?"

"It's tourist season," Adam shrugged. "Well, the tail end. I'm a tourist. It's a form of camouflage."

"Camouflage," repeated Ben sceptically. "Right." Adam was dressed in long khaki shorts which revealed his white, skinny lower legs, and an oversized Hawaiian shirt. A pair of sunglasses with arms were styled like tiny alligators perched on his head.

"Do they even have alligators in Colorado?"

"Sure. Alligators, Colorado…I have that association…don't you have that association?"

"I'm going to laugh every time l look at you if you wear that."

"People will just think you're the sensible one in the relationship."

Adam smiled. Ben returned it involuntarily. They'd been 'together', for lack of a better word, for the best part of two years now, and Adam still surprised him sometimes with unexpected displays of lightness or affectation. Ben decided to keep the mood up:

"Why do you think people will assume we're in a relationship? More likely they'll take one look at me and assume I'm too hot for you."

Adam grinned wickedly, and actually looked like he might be about to grab the front of Ben's (normal) shirt and pull him closer, when a sound from the porch steps caused them both to turn back to the house. Immediately Adam hurried back to drag a chair closer to the doorway:

"For gawdsakes, boy, don't fuss. Leave it there. Leave it in the sun. Ain't an old man allowed to get a little sun whilst he's able?" Adam blushed and replaced the chair in the sunlight. Bobby Singer, the residence owner and single oldest surviving hunter Ben had ever known or heard of, lowered himself carefully into it and scowled at both of them. Ben shifted – discomfited not by the grumpy old man performance, which was exactly that, but by the fact that their de facto guardian had broken his routine. Bobby usually slept in the afternoon, and Ben judged by the way he was holding himself that the arthritis which hampered his movements increasingly was preventing him from doing so. Ben didn't know how old Bobby exactly was, but by the timeline of events he had pieced together in his head after joining the ranks of hunters, it would have to be in his seventies.