poughkeepsie ➳ twd/spn

1. Day 521

Everything was a confusing mess of gunfire and shouting, Dean blindly following Rick’s lead through numerous alleyways as they were corralled deeper and deeper into Terminus.

The brunet knew they were deliberately being led somewhere because of all the holes that were already in the walls, indicating that the Terminus survivors had obviously treated many other newcomers the same way.

It looked like they were most definitely running right into yet another trap, but that was sort of the whole point. They had entered expecting to be fucked over at some point, Dean was just a bit surprised at how fast everything had gone to shit. This had to be a new record for them.

The purpose of playing along was so the Terminus people could put them wherever they were keeping what remained of their pack, they could figure out the rest from there.

Eventually, they did make it to the back fence, surrounded on all sides by Terminus people that had guns trained on them.

“Drop your weapons! Now!” The lead asshole -Gareth- ordered, his face twisting when they didn’t immediately comply. “Now!” The bastard repeated, Dean ignoring the raging man in favor of looking to Rick for direction. His Alpha slowly lowered his gun to the pavement, Rick’s pack obediently following his lead.

“Ringleader, go to your left. The train car, go.” Gareth barked but, despite the harsh tone, his posture gave away his unease. Gareth knew that something about this particular group was different, his animal brain could sense that he was in the presence of predators. “You do what we say, the boy goes with you. Anything else, he dies and you end up in there anyway.”

Well, judging by the way everyone’s expressions darkened at the threat, Gareth had just dug his own grave. Not surprising really, assholes will be assholes.

The brunet watched Rick slink over to the train car in question before stopping at the bottom of the steps, turning to level Gareth with glacial eyes.

“Now the archer.”

Dean’s eyes found Daryl, who was watching the brunet. The younger Dixon’s lips were pressed into a tight line, Dean nodded to prompt the other to do as directed. There was hesitation written into every movement as the younger redneck slowly made his way over to the train car.

Ever since the incident with the Claimers, Daryl had been sticking close to Dean. The younger Dixon touched him constantly, as if to make sure that he still could. And the one time that Dean had flinched away from his reaching hand after waking up from a particularly grisly nightmare, Daryl had spent the entire day fussing over the brunet. The younger redneck gave him one of his candy bars, an apple, jerky, granola bars… just little things. 

Daryl had obviously been blaming himself for what had happened with Joe and his crew, because it wasn’t just Dean that he was sucking up to.

It was all of them.

When Rick had told the younger Dixon that there was no need to feel guilty, Daryl’s face crumpled and he confessed to helping the Claimers track Rick down.

Though Dean hadn’t really been surprised by the news, he had suspected as much. Rick and the others didn’t seem phased by the admission either, the younger redneck blinking owlishly when Rick grabbed the back of his neck and tapped their foreheads together.