once the darkness has settled... @iustuscadens
Max and Ellen were making bullets, sitting at the counter in the boarded up diner they now called home. Their parents were right next to them cleaning all the guns and knives Ellen managed to hoard over the years. All this time she’d been wishing for her family back. She never wanted it to be like this, but she’d come to realize that this is the only way it ever could be.
Darkness had fallen. She knew deep down it was the Winchester’s doing. It had been many months since then. The hardest months of her life. Her soul focus on surviving. Taking down whatever came at her. It was harder than it had ever been. Monsters were fiercer, sharper, quicker. And they were out there in masses. People were cut-throat and desperate. It was everyone for themselves. She kept her head on her shoulders though. Was heading toward the bunker because she figured there wasn’t a safer place in the world, but that all changed when she found her family. They were long since dead. All three of em. But there they were. Max was there fighting like a champ protecting their parents from some avid Jefferson Starships. Without a word or question Ellen stepped in beside him taking them down. After what she’d seen in her life, especially since the darkness, she knew anything could happen. And thankfully this was actually happening.
They settled into some abandoned beat up diner in northern Arkansas. They cleaned the place up a little bit. Boarded up the windows, cleared out most of the broken glass. Used the tables to keep all the doors closed. Turned some of the booths into beds, the bar into an armory and the kitchen into well.. the kitchen stayed the same. The kitchen was where they felt most like a family. Not out on the cleared worn linoleum where Max and Ellen taught their parents how to fight. No. That was hard on all of them. But when it came time to eat. They were all cooking and baking together it was like the world wasn’t ending outside those walls. Like they’d never left their Georgia home.
Ellen was never the overly cautious type. That was always Max’s job. She was always trusting. So when a knock came and the winchesters were on the other side of the door she didn’t question it. She just squeezed the bejesus out of them. It was almost too late before she realized it was a trap. That they weren’t real. But max was somehow quicker than the dark imposters. And that gave Ellen the brief moment to switch gears and join in. And in the heat of the moment they acted too fast ending them before they realized how much they needed them to figure shit out. What could contain them. Kill them. Expose them. What was their kryptonite. That wasn’t going to happen for them. They were left in the dark.
They’d stay in this restaurant until their folks were good fighters or they ran out of food. Which ever came first. And thankfully she didn’t think either would come soon and they could continue this attempt at living like a normal family. The bullets would clink on the counter top as they were finished. She’d pass them to Max who’d pass them to their mom who’d load up another magazine. Silently, diligently working away.
iustuscadens