Alright. So uh… I saw this prompt on a page on Facebook and the writing bug bit me. I actually thought it was a goofy idea at first, but then warmed up to it. We'll see how it goes…

Here's the prologue, if you will.

.~*~.

Of all the things they thought might end the world, this wasn't one of them.

It's been a year since Sam was making small talk at the breakfast table about some news video link he'd clicked on about China and "some kinda beach-beer flu breakout". At least that's what Dean had been calling it. For a while at least. Right up until it got way out of hand.

When it hit America, Dean was certain his country would get right on top of it and have it eradicated before the Easter bunny came to town. For a while, it seemed like his guess would be correct. Every business was sending out emails about how to be safe; how to practice good hygiene that would prevent the spread of the illness. A lot of people were complying.

Alas, it doesn't take many idiots to ruin everything.

They were taking it seriously right up until it was all just some big internet joke. Memes about people hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer, some trying to sell them at hugely overpriced mark-ups. People who didn't get toilet paper were making memes about how the toilet-paper hoarders were complete jerks and what creative way they might get their revenge at some point.

A lot of people were taking it seriously. Businesses had employees wearing gloves and not making any physical contact with customers, even at check-out. There were red-tape lines at the register keeping people six feet away from each other in compliance with the social-distancing rule. Hell, there were videos made by medical professionals teaching people to properly bring groceries into your home to be sanitized before being put away, just in case…

But then there were the idiots. There are always idiots. It's why we can't have nice things.

Parents bringing their children into stores with them or having playdates because Chuck forbid the children get bored. Not that the children were at high-risk, mind you. They were unlikely to die from the virus. But they were able to get sick and be carriers, and that was the beginning of the end, really.

Children touch everything. EVERYTHING. And no matter how much hand sanitizer mom slathers onto little hands, it's only good until the next touch of random things. So of course, at a grocery store those gross little virus-hands are touching everything they can reach; Every box of cereal, can of soup, bag of bread…you name it. Then the people who didn't take it seriously enough to hazmat their groceries when they got home ended up making meals for their families and inadvertently making them all carriers as well. Not to mention sending food to their elderly parents in the senior homes, which sets off a whole other chain reaction.

So…so just about every person over 65 kicks the bucket. Mind you, this is just what happens in America. Who the hell has time for any of the other countries' updates? It's back to cowboy days where the life-expectancy is pretty much right at that line. Except that it doesn't stop there.

Another illness sweeps through. No one was even sure where this one came in from. People began to theorize that it wasn't natural at all, but actually a biological weapon sent by the Russian government. If you were smart enough to dodge COVID-19, no amount of intelligence would save you from the airborne mystery bug. Smarts wouldn't help you, but luck might. There seemed to be fifty-percent chance of having an immunity, but that was probably exaggerated for the sake of keeping people from panicking. As if.

No place was safe from the new illness, unless it was some underground fortress with self-sustained oxygen and no access to the outside whatsoever. Fat chance of that though. Unfortunately, this illness affected the pulmonary system exclusively. It quickly weakened the lungs starting with the bronchiole, which if you've never taken anatomy, were the teeny tiny branches into which bronchus divide.

If you've been paying attention, you'll have made a connection.

People at high risk for COVID-19: People over 65. People with already compromised immune systems or with existing lung disease…etc.

The Winchesters, of course, found this out the hard way.

Sam had forced Dean into preparing for the worst, before the virus even came to America. They had gone out and scrounged as much non-perishables and things that could be frozen as they could. Dean, of course, remembered a little something Chuck had told him when he ended up in future-world apocalypse. "Hoard toilet paper. Hoard it likes it's made of gold, 'cause it is." And that might very well be the only advice Dean would ever take from him again.

So yeah, Dean bought a lot of toilet paper. They had plenty of room in the bunker to store it. It's not like they would never need it either way.

Sam was torn between thinking Dean was an idiot or a genius. Later, he chose the latter. Especially when his stomach decided to turn against him. Of course, Dean thought this was hilarious. He considered starting to charge him per roll, but Sam reminded him that they'd split the cost in the first place and therefore half of it was his.

"Why d'you gotta suck all the fun out of everything?" Dean has said under his breath.

It stopped being funny when Sam started having symptoms of the mystery illness.

In all honesty it stopped being funny when the population of Lebanon went from 200 to 132. It was even more shocking once the second virus hit, because then everyone was high-risk. There was no category that any one person could fit into that made them any better off than anyone else. Everybody had a fifty-percent chance of getting the mystery virus, and so far, out of those who had already gotten it, and therefore COVID-19, there was a one-hundred percent fatality rate.

So yeah. The world, or at least Lebanon, Kansas and probably all of America at this point, was a stopped-up toilet filled with vomit and diarrhea and maybe around 38 people. Being safe wasn't the only answer anymore. Being in the Men-of-Letters bunker with a year's worth of rations and possibly a lifetime supply of toilet paper wasn't going to protect them any better than anywhere else…

tbc…

AN: I'm sure my tenses are all effed up. But let me know if I should continue or bail…