Bad Beer Buddies
--closed thread with @ericxhotch--
It was the end of another guard shift for Rafael and luckily for him, there hadn’t been any incidents. OK, so he was a little bored but these days, he preferred boredom over excitement; especially when that excitement usually involved zombies. He handed over to one of the other guards and began to head back to the main building of the hospital. He considered swinging by the canteen to grab something to eat but decided he’d rather chill in his room for a while. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with... people. Maybe one or two people, but not a big crowd of them. He was going to have to face the fact he was a part of a larger community now but today, that felt like too much for him. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after that.
Rafael was about to enter the section of the hospital where his room was when he noticed that the scouts had returned from their latest mission. Among them was Eric Hotchner, one of the community members who Rafael considered a friend. Not that they actually spoke about much but that suited Rafael just fine. Eric gave him a subtle signal which meant to meet him in the gardens in about fifteen minutes. Rafael smiled and nodded before continuing onto his room.
Fifteen minutes later, Rafael met Eric by the gardens. They went to their usual bench and Eric pulled out two beer bottles from his pack once they had taken their seats. Rafael took a bottle from Eric and examined the faded label. Once, this bottle had proudly stated that it was a Budweiser beer. Now it was more quietly suggested that it was a Budweiser. Rafael had never been a fan of Budweiser but beer was beer.
“Cheers, man,” Rafael said to Eric once he had uncapped the bottle. “May this beer be as bad as the last one.” A little in-joke between them now that they had settled into this routine of Eric bringing back a few beers whenever he could and shared them with Rafael. Rafael took a quick draw from the bottle and hummed. Yeah, the beer was stale but again, beer was beer. “Everything go alright today?”