Dean's Dixon

June, meet the apocalypse

Her life hadn't been what anyone would call a fairy tale, it definitely had more signs of being a nightmare and she often wondered if this was how it always would be... who knew that the dead walking would be what changed it for the better.

*

Merle ran into the trailer yelling and cussing for his siblings, throwing things into a duffel and screaming about bullets. Daryl stumbled out of his room, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and it took him a minute to realize this wasn't a drug induced hysteria. He kept trying to get Merle to calm down but all he managed to get out of him was 'emergency' and 'get the hell out of here'

"MERLE! The hell's the matter?"

"I'll show you what's the matter!" He snapped turning on the TV and pointing to the screen "THAT!"

Daryl sat on the edge of the coffee table and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The news was talking about reanimated corpses, to watch out for bites and scratches, and any updates they had but before he could get a mental grasp on it Merle turned it off and went back to packing their shit.

"Where's Junie?"

"What?"

"June, where's June?"

"Probably in her room."

"Well go git her!"

Daryl was still reeling from what he'd seen but figured they didn't have a lot of time so he knocked on their sister's door and waited for her to answer, a little surprised when he was met with silence.

"June bug! Let's go!" nothing "Junie?" he cracked the door and when he saw her bed empty he flipped on the light and that was when panic flooded his mind. Their sister wasn't in the trailer and he just knew Merle was going to blame him. "JUNE!"

"Where is she?"

"I dunno."

The brothers had just grabbed their weapons when her scream pierced through the air, causing them to rush outside where they saw her running towards the trailer with a corpse trailing after her. She had her shoes in her hand and by the cuts on her legs they knew she hadn't been watching where she was going as she tried to get away. June didn't think, the moment she saw her brothers she threw herself into Daryl's arms and held on tight, fighting back the tears. Merle shot the thing but if she thought she'd get anything other than anger off him, she was very wrong. When Merle whirled around on her, all she saw in that second was her dad.

"THE HELL WERE YOU THINKIN?!" He was scared, Merle only yelled at her like this when he was scared and while she knew this it didn't stop her from getting mad right back. "YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TA GO OUT ALONE LIKE THAT! YA TRYIN TA GIT KILLED!"

"Don't you yell at me Merle! How was I ta know the dead were walkin around?!"

It wasn't often that June back-talked to her brothers, especially not Merle, but between the adrenaline still coursing through her veins and the absolute terror she'd felt only a moment ago it just came out. Merle took a step towards her and she shrunk into Daryl's side, her eyes going to the ground as she braced herself for a slap.

"Grab your shit."

It was all he said and when she opened one eye and took in his retreating form she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. She chanced a glance at Daryl and could see different emotions dance across his face.

"Ya bit?"

"no"

"Scratched?"

"I... I don't think so."

Daryl grabbed the top of her arms and roughly turned her so she was facing him, checking her over and making sure she was alright. When he didn't find anything other than the marks obviously left from the woods, he motioned for her to follow him back inside. Neither of her brothers were what she'd call overly affectionate but out of the two of them Daryl was the one she turned to when she was upset. Both of them would kill for her but Merle had too many of their daddy's traits and when he lost his temper it scared the piss out of her.