AN: Oh, dear sweet jesus. This has been a long time coming. This is a crossover I've been writing with my mate Emma (clearlydisturbed) since October. The whole fic has been written, but we're still working through the editing. It's a daily struggle, considering that she's a workaholic and I'm a busy high schooler and I have a million other fics.
The whole timeline of this is pretty loose, but we know that, on the SPN side of this, it takes place instead of the events of the show. As for the TWD side, it takes place between the end of season three and the beginning of season four.
Disclaimer: Not ours.
Enjoy!
~halestorm and cd
"Maybe they'll have pie," Dean said, craning his neck to study the grocery store they were parked outside of. Alex followed his gaze, tying her auburn hair up in a ponytail.
"Or goldfish," she mused, smirking. "I have been craving goldfish for weeks."
"You sure you're not pregnant?" Dean teased, but relief was palpable in his tone.
"'Course I'm not," Alex said, rolling her eyes, but she was just as relieved. Pregnancy scares in a world like this were hardly joking matters. "The test was negative, Dean. Besides, it's been almost six months since I last had goldfish. It's natural to crave them."
"Natural, my ass," Dean muttered, snorting at her, before hoisting himself out of the Impala, Alex following suit.
"So, beer, pie, and goldfish, right?" Alex asked, holding her gun at the ready in case any rotters stumbled into the area.
"And condoms," Dean added. "We're almost out."
"That's because you're horny all the time," Alex scoffed, and Dean laughed, leaning towards her and scooping her up by her waist, tossing her over his shoulder which wasn't a difficult effort given her short stature. Alex yelped in protest, banging her fist against his back to no avail. "Don't act like you don't enjoy it, too."
"Dean," Alex said as authoritatively as possible given her position, "put me down. Right now."
"I don't really feel like it," Dean drawled, slapping Alex's ass. She grunted and elbowed him between his shoulder blades. Dean often wondered how someone as small as Alex packed such a hard punch.
"Quit touching my ass and put me down, Winchester," she snapped. "If a pack of rotters came stumbling into the parking lot right now, we'd be so fucked over because you won't put me down."
Dean heaved a sigh, stepping into the grocery store cautiously. "Fine, fine." He pulled Alex off of his shoulder, and she immediately socked him on the arm.
"Let's just get our stuff and go," she muttered, turning on her heel and grabbing a grocery cart.
Dean scanned the store for rotters, finding none, and scurried to keep up with Alex as she marched towards the back where the preserved pies would be, helping her stock up before they moved on to the liquor. Alex was reaching for the last bottle of Jack when the front doors screeched open, and both Alex and Dean stiffened.
The bottle hit the ground before Alex realized it was falling, splintering the glass and spraying whisky all over Dean's grimy combat boots.
"Shit," they swore in unison, both trying to be quiet about it. The rotter on the other side of the store froze. Neither Dean nor Alex could see it, given that they were crouching behind the liquor shelf, but they had heard the bell on the door ringing as the rotter pushed into the shop.
It didn't sound like a normal rotter. There was no inherent feet-shuffling, no scratchy breathing, nothing. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but maybe it wasn't a rotter at all. Which worried both of them. Whatever it was it began moving again, swiftly this time. Down the aisle and around the corner.
Dean kept his eyes on the shelf in front of them, making sure none of the other bottles tipped over the edge. He pulled his Glock out of his thigh holster, flicking the safety off and aiming it in the general direction of the figure.
"With any luck, it'll pass by without noticing us," Dean muttered. Both hunters knew they didn't have that kind of luck, and the figure paused at the far end of the shelf, just out of eyesight.
"Ready?" Alex asked, drawing a Bretta from the back waistband of her jeans. Dean grunted in response.
The figure turned the corner of the aisle, his face visible in the glare of Alex's flashlight. It was a man, who had a crossbow aimed towards Dean's head.
Dean aimed his Glock at the man, but the confused expression remained on his face.
"Who are you?" the man demanded, his voice gravelly and lilted with a southern accent.
"Who the fuck are you?" was Dean's eloquent reply.
"Calm down, Princess," Alex muttered, but her face was stiff and blank, and she kept her eyes trained on the man at the far end of the aisle.
Dean cut her a sharp glare, but ultimately decided not to comment. The nickname "Princess" was embarrassing enough without Dean throwing a hissy fit about it.
The man hesitated. "You guys out here on your own?"
"Yeah," Dean said, pursing his lips. "You?"
The man regarded him suspiciously, considering Dean's question. After a moment, he nodded. "It was me and my brother, for a while."
Alex and Dean exchanged a look, and Dean lowered his gun. Alex breathed a long-suffering sigh and shook her head, swearing at the other hunter under her breath.
"I'm Dean," he said, "and this is my… Alex."
Alex rolled her eyes at the title. It was something they hadn't really discussed—the nature of their relationship. It was easier to just leave it as whatever it was and avoid labels.
"I'm Daryl," the man said, lowering his crossbow.
Alex slid her Bretta back into the waistband of her jeans. "Well, Daryl, it was nice meeting you. But we've gotta go." She pointed at hers and Dean's grocery cart, the contents of which were disappointingly lacking in goldfish and condoms, and turned to Dean.
Dean glanced at her for a moment before looking back at Daryl. "Have you seen a tall guy, around twenty-five, brown shaggy hair?"
Alex sighed softly. Daryl cocked his head to the side. "Seen a lot of people. A few of them look like that."
"You know where they were heading?" Alex asked, shifting her backpack on her shoulders.
Daryl studied them for a moment. "'m staying with a few of 'em."
Dean's eyes lit up. "Can you take us to them? I'm looking for my brother."
Daryl nodded slowly. "You got a ride? Can't exactly fit all of us on my bike."
"I'll pull around Ba—my car." Dean stumbled over his words. He called his 1967 Chevy Impala "Baby" around Alex, but he wasn't comfortable using the term with Daryl.
Alex grabbed their cart as Dean pulled the keys out of his back pocket, and then they made their way back outside.
"I'm not comfortable walking into a situation where we're outnumbered by a group of people we don't know." Alex's dark brown eyes flashed at Dean while loading the Impala and slamming the door.
"I knew you wouldn't. That's half the fun." Dean gave her a cheeky grin as he slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. Dean pulled around the store to the front, where he saw Daryl signaling for him.
"We're just going to go riding off into the sunset with Danny Zuko in there? He had a crossbow trained on your head, Dean. Who carries a crossbow?!" Alex crossed her arms and put her feet up on the dash, mostly because she knew it bothered Dean.
"We ain't riding off into any sunsets, especially not with him. But this is our first solid lead on Sammy since the farm, and you know it. We at least have to check it out and see if he's been there, or if he's still there." Dean began using a much more serious tone of voice, which was rare for either of them. Alex had almost forgotten why they were out here, why they were doing all of this. It was for Sam. Everything they did was for Sam.
They arrived outside a prison, watching as the gates were opened by someone on the inside. Based on height and build, it looked like a kid, but neither Alex nor Dean wanted to make that assumption.
"This is a prison," Alex groaned.
"Yeah," Dean agreed, pulling into the prison yard beside Daryl's bike. "It's starting to get weird."
Alex grabbed her gun, checked the bullets, and tucked it back into her jeans. Dean followed suit, and then they climbed out of the car.
"This is homey," Alex said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"It ain't no mansion, but it's the safest place we've got," Daryl retorted. "Should be dinner time now, so everyone will be over there." Daryl pointed towards the middle of the three larger buildings.
The kid who had opened the gate came over. He didn't look a day over fifteen, but you could tell he knew what he was doing. He reminded Dean of Sam as a teenager, trying to be tough so their dad would stop babying him.
"That's Alex and Dean. They're looking for their brother; thought he might have come through here," Daryl told the kid.
Alex barely refrained from saying that she was definitely not Dean's sister. The very idea made her shudder.
"I'm Carl." The kid nodded at them in greeting. "What's your brother's name?"
"Sam. Sam Winchester," Dean said.
Alex could hear the hopefulness in Deans voice. She didn't think she'd heard him that hopeful about anything since they set out towards Stanford to find Sam, back when the rotter apocalypse first started.
"I don't think we have any Sam's, but he might have passed through," Carl mused, his voice deeper than most kids his age. "I'll walk you guys over there and see if you can find him, or at least someone who's seen him."
"Thanks," Alex murmured as they began walking up the hill.
"So, how many people are here?" Dean asked, hoping to establish more about their surroundings, if only to help Alex feel more at ease.
Carl thought for a second. "I lost count a while ago, but there's a lot of us. Mostly people we've picked up around the area."
Alex gave Dean a look, but didn't want to make too much of it. She knew this could be their next lead to Sam, but she also knew this could go horribly wrong.
"How old are you?" Alex asked, sizing Carl up.
"Fourteen," Carl replied, frowning at the question.
Alex raised an eyebrow, exchanging a look with Dean. Neither of them had ever given much thought to what happened to the younger kids when the outbreak started. They'd just assumed almost everyone had died. But this kid would have been eleven or twelve when the world ended. Alex didn't have a normal upbringing by any means, but at least she hadn't lived in a prison with countless other refugees while the entire world was undead and trying to eat her face off.
As they rounded the next corner, they saw people all lined up, laughing and socializing as they waited to reach the front of the line, where there was food. It all looked so normal, it made both hunters mildly uncomfortable. Even before the apocalypse, neither hunter had been in a gathering as utterly pedestrian as this.
"I've got to go check on my sister," Carl said. "I hope you find your brother." He bid them a short goodbye and hustled off.
"Nice kid," Dean muttered, shaking his head.
"Yeah. I feel kind of bad, though. I never even imagined what it would be like growing up in this shit," Alex said, glancing over the crowd for a giant of a man that fit Dean's description of his brother.
"So, what? Are we just going to walk up to each person and say, 'Hey, have you seen a giant moose that talks like an a complete smartass?' " Dean asked as they began to walk towards the crowd.
"I think we should be a little more subtle," Alex snorted, rolling her eyes. "Maybe we should split up and cover more ground?"
"Awesome." Dean practically skipped off to look for his brother. Alex didn't think she'd ever seen him this excited.
She made her way towards the front of the line to begin her questioning. She walked up to the woman who appeared to be in charge of the hungry masses—she was older, probably in her early 40s, with a gray pixie cut that contrasted her blue eyes. The woman tried to hand her a plate.
"Oh no, I'm not hungry. I was actually wondering if you could help me. I'm looking for this guy. Tall, 6'4'', brown shaggy hair, goes by Sam Winchester?" Alex asked, mustering up all the people skills she had.
"No one comes to mind," the woman said, still handing out food. "Are you sure you don't want to eat anything?"
"I'm fine, really. My name's Alex, by the way."
"Carol," the woman replied. "You're new here?"
"Just passing through," Alex said. "I'm looking for my…friend's...brother."
"Is your friend with you?" Carol asked, carrying on polite conversation.
Alex bit her lip at the tediousness of it all. "Yeah, he's asking around about Sam. We've been looking for him a while now. And this is one of the first good leads we've had."
"If you've been looking for him for a while, how do you know he's still alive?" Carol's tone was still the same, but her bluntness took Alex by surprise.
"Good question," Alex answered, forcing out a laugh. "But you don't know Sam. He was fighting like crazy before the world went to hell. He's still alive." Alex paused for a moment to remind herself that even she didn't really know Sam. Only what Dean had told her about him. But she knew that Sam was a Winchester, and she'd never had a doubt that he was still alive.
"Well, you should go talk to them." Carol pointed at a couple of people across the area. "They might know more than I do."
Alex nodded her thanks, and crossed the concrete to talk to them. "Ah, excuse me."
She approached the middle-aged man and his companion, a black woman who was probably Alex's age. They looked like they were arguing over something, but they stopped talking as soon as she approached.
"Can you tell me if you've seen a really tall guy? He's twenty-five, and he's got shaggy hair."
The two stared at her for a long moment, and she huffed. "It's not that difficult of a question. The answer is 'yes' or 'no.'"
"Sorry, I don't think I've seen you around before," the man said, narrowing his eyes.
"I just got here." Alex cocked her head to the side.
The man looked over her head, towards the gate. Alex could make out Daryl standing by the fence, talking to what looked like a woman, but it was hard to tell from this distance. When she looked back at the man in front of her, his eyes had hardened.
"Did Daryl let you inside?" he asked tightly.
Alex nodded. "We ran into each other in a store a couple of miles from here. He invited me and my friend, Dean, back here."
Alex hated trying to find a word to describe what Dean was to her. They weren't exactly friends, but Alex didn't really know what they were. When they met two years ago, Alex saved Dean from a group of vicious imps, and falling into bed together seemed like the best course of action. The next morning, the world was already taken by the rotter apocalypse. When Dean decided to go to California to find Sam, Alex followed him out of necessity and for optimal survival rates. Now, she follows him because she cares—not in a mushy romantic way (though they do still fuck from time to time, and maybe they are kind of bordering on mushy romantic-not that Alex would admit it), but in a strictly… Well. Alex wasn't sure what words described how she felt about Dean. He wasn't like family, and he wasn't anywhere near a boyfriend, but Alex wouldn't really consider him a friend, either. She supposed the term "friends with benefits" probably counted, but in this world, it would always be survival before sex.
The man clenched his jaw and shook his head. "I haven't seen the guy you're asking about. Michonne"—he gestured at the black woman he'd been conversing with—"keep an eye on her." He jerked a thumb in Alex's direction, then stalked off, making a beeline towards Daryl.
"Well, he's just a regular Mr. Rogers, isn't he?" Alex muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes. From across the space sandwiched between the two prison blocks, Alex could see Dean approaching. When they made eye contact, he shook his head once.
Alex wondered how many people he'd actually asked before giving up. It couldn't have been that many, since she'd literally just started talking to the black woman—Michelle, was it?—and the slightly older guy, and she'd only spent a couple of minutes talking to that other woman.
"And suddenly," Alex said dryly as Dean slung his arm over her shoulders, "a wild Dean appears."
Dean rolled his eyes, and Alex raised an eyebrow as she looked up at him. "Any luck?" he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. "Unfortunately, there have been no moose sightings." Alex offered an apologetic shrug, and Dean sighed glumly. "How many people did you ask?" Alex asked, shrugging out from underneath Dean's arm so she could look him in the eye.
His cheeks flushed. "One. But she seemed pretty sure that Sammy hasn't ever been here."
Alex cocked her head to the side. "Did it ever occur to you to ask more people? One person probably hasn't met everyone who's ever been here."
Dean pouted. "I just want to find my brother."
"We will," Alex promised. She sent a half-hearted glare in Carol's direction. "Now, come on. Let's go talk to someone else."
The pair walked back towards the crowd that was beginning to disperse.
"You two got 'ny luck so far?" Alex heard the distinctive voice of Daryl behind them.
"Not the good kind," Alex grunted, turning to face him. "There are a lot of people here, which makes it difficult to cover everyone."
Daryl pondered their situation for a moment, then glanced at Dean. "You could stay the night. Pick it up in the mornin'."
Alex shook her head quickly. "No, we really couldn't. It's nice of you to offer, but—"
Dean cut Alex off. "We'll think about it."
Alex twisted slowly to give him a dark glare.
"I'll go check with Rick, make sure we got room." Daryl and Dean exchanged nods of understanding, and Daryl sauntered into the prison.
"What the hell, Dean?" Alex demanded, shoving his chest. "People weren't this nice before the apocalypse! Something weird is going on here."
"Look." Dean grabbed Alex by her shoulders. "It's almost dark, and you know it's a death wish trying to get back to camp this late at night. We're safe here, and we can try asking at least a few more people about Sam before we leave tomorrow."
"Can we at least sleep out in the Impala? I've fought my whole life to avoid spending the night in a jail cell," Alex pleaded, shaking his hands off of her shoulders.
"There is no way in hell that, given the choice between sleeping in a bed and in the back of the Impala, am I choosing the Impala. It's great for one night, but it gets old, and we've been sleeping in there for almost two years. Besides, you kick in your sleep."
Alex made a face. "And you wake up every morning with a boner, but you don't hear me complaining."
Dean rolled his eyes, and the two took off in the direction Daryl had taken. It was hardly nightfall and people were already heading to bed.
"They must not have many nighttime activities," Alex said, arching a brow.
Daryl walked out of a room down the hall, looking slightly flushed, and he gave Dean a nod as they approached. "Rick wants to talk to you. Both of you." Daryl shifted around. "He's a paranoid bastard sometimes."
"We don't blame him. This is a pretty shitty time to be trusting," Dean said. Alex only grunted, rolled her eyes, and followed Dean into the room that Daryl indicated Rick was in.
The man Alex had spoken to outside was leaning against a desk in the office, looking smug and satisfied, but his expression morphed into something more serious when Alex and Dean entered.
"Look," the man—Rick—began. "I don't know either of you. I don't trust you. I'm not going to send you back out in the middle of the night, but I can't let you be around everyone, either. You could be dangerous, and I won't put anyone at risk by allowing you two to be here."
Alex folded her arms over her chest and gave him a defiant glare. "So, what, then?"
Rick sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "I'll give you two choices. You can either stay in a jail cell in the next block over, locked in and away from everyone else, or you can sleep in your car under the eye of the night guard. Take your pick."
"Impala," Alex said instantly. Dean could choose whatever he wanted, but she wasn't going to be locked away for the night like some pre-apocalypse criminal.
"But Alex," Dean whined. "An actual bed."
Alex rolled her eyes. "Do what you want. I'm sleeping in the Impala."
Dean hesitated, clearly thinking it over, and then heaved a sigh. "Fine. I'll sleep in the Impala, too."