

The slow dragging of footsteps coming down the stairs informed Dean that Wyatt was up. He crossed from the kitchen to the main room in time to see the old man reaching the final steps, sleepy eyes and white hair spiked and all over the place like he'd just been hit by lighting. "Is it morning yet?" Wyatt grunted. Dean looked out through the glass doors at the street. Day and night were so much alike in the Storm that making a distinction was more of a formality than anything else. "Looks like it. You want some breakfast?"

"I want some shut up." Dean scooped some bacon from the pan onto his own plate, then Ray's. "Suit yourself."

"Did you fix the goddamned roof?" Wyatt grunted. "Yes."

"Who broke it?" "No one, it just –" "It was you, Ray, wasn't it? You have a gift for doing stupid things." Ray accepted his plate and took a bite from a particularly burnt piece of bacon and said, "No. But I was there when it happened. It just collapsed on its own." "Well, next time don't be such a Nancy and deal with it without walking the house up. Where's my bacon!?" Ray frowned. "You just said you didn't want any –"

Dean turned the rest of the pan's content on an empty plate and brought it to Wyatt. "Never mind, Ray. It's easier not to argue." "Don't talk to me like I'm not here, you punk," Wyatt grunted. "I was killing vietcongs when you were still applying for the Sperm Swim Team inside your father's balls." "You've never left California, Wyatt," Dean said, taking his seat and digging in. "And please refrain from mentioning my father's balls while I eat." Wyatt and Ray. That's all Dean had left in the world. The ten-thousand-year-old guy who worked the cashier of the pizza place since the day his father opened shop and the delivery boy with a thing for smoking weed and sleeping on the job. That was his gang. His entourage. The magnificent trio. They had developed a sort of family dynamics by now, the three of them. Each one with their own assignments and responsibilities. Ray was (usually) in charge of cooking and cleaning, Dean would handle repairs and the frequent re-boarding of roof and windows and Wyatt would sit around drunk and complain about everything. It wasn't the best of lives, but it could have been a lot worse. And it had been a lot worse for Dean's family and for Ray's family and for Wyatt's family (if he had any before this, that is – Dean never asked), so, really, they couldn't complain. At least they were alive, and they had food, and they even had luxuries like wine and a generator. Most people should be so lucky. Dean bit his lips and closed his eyes, shaking Vanessa's face out of this thoughts. Thinking won't change what happened. Ruminating leads to pain. She's dead. Let the dead dead. "What day is it?" Wyatt grunted, firing saliva-wrapped, semi-digested bacon bits a feet in front of his mouth. "December Twenty-Sixth," Dean said. He still counted them. It was important, because Desmond's Pizza didn't open on Sundays or Christian Holidays. Wyatt looked up and moved his lips and frowned like he was having a hard time remembering something. "Huh..." "Why?" Ray asked. "Nuthin. Rain seems to be gettin worse lately." Dean stopped eating for a second and peaked outside. He had noticed it too, the last few days, but hadn't said anything in that silly hope that not mentioning something makes it not true. For the past week, every day and especially night the rain seemed to be falling a little bit stronger. The wind blowing a little bit harsher. A little a day, gradual enough that Dean had managed to convince himself that maybe it was just in his mind. But the roof giving in, and now the Wyatt noticing it too... He tried not to think of the Fall – the first week, when everybody died and the city crumbled and collapsed on itself under the weight of the falling waters. It couldn't happen again, right? It'd been months. It was over. The world was bad enough raining as it was and with the Ghost panics and the looters. They didn't need another Genesis-style great flood making things worst. But even as Dean thought that, as they ate in silent contemplation, as their eyes stilled out the window in fear, he could see the sidewalk river running downstream fast, faster than ever before and more violent, its margins wide reaching the end of the sidewalk in one side and almost half down the street in another. Upstairs, the improvised roof of particleboard rattled and shook under the weight of the drops. If another Fall was indeed coming, Desmond's Pizza wouldn't hold.