Changing To Adapt ➵ TWD

➵ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀᴛʏ ꜰᴏᴜʀ

"Please! We ain't like that!" Axel pleads, his hands high in the air, desperation shared in the look he gives the towering Rick.

Eyeing the pistol sitting between his brows, Big Tiny's chin quivers, wide eyes following a trembling hand to the face of a dubious boy.

Lucas shifts his weight from foot to foot and looks anywhere but the eyes begging him to lower the gun. He himself shoots a glance over his shoulder at Daryl.

He doesn't want to do this.

Daryl flicks his eyes from Rick, to Lucas, then to the third prisoner at the mercy of his crossbow.

At their silent glances, Axel adds, "I like my pharmaceuticals, but I'm no killer! Oscar here, he's a B and E and he ain't very good at it neither! We ain't the violent kind, they were! Please! Please, I swear to god! I wanna live!"

T-Dog sniffs, curious, watching the door for any sign of walkers. "B and E?" 

"Breaking and entering." Lucas supplies.

Too quickly, apparently, gaining a steely-eyed look from Rick. Lucas shrugs in reply.

Daryl rests the tip of his crossbow against Oscar's forehead, "What about you?"

Bravely staring into the one thing that could end him then and there with just a flick of a finger, "I ain't never pleaded for my life. And I ain't about to start now." He exhales harshly out of his nose, "So you do what you gotta do."

Lucas isn't a murderer. He lowers his gun halfway and looks over his shoulder to shake his head, pleadingly, almost undetected, at Rick. Who had just killed Tomas.

The silence is overwhelming.

T-Dog adjusts his gun. Then, with an audible sigh, he drops it to his side. He's the first to give up their threatening charade.

Cursing quietly to himself, Rick kneads at the space between his eyes. 

That's how they end up in the new prisoner's cell block, pushing the three men past the gates. It reeks of the dead, evident by the bodies lying at the entrance of every room, their hands zip-tied behind their backs. An execution. Or maybe a mercy killing.

Axel reels back, a hand over his mouth, "Oh man, I knew these guys! They were good men."

Either way, Lucas could only see his group in their place and was in sudden need of a shower to get rid of the shit he's seen today.

Daryl eyes the dead, and the living, and seems to share the same sort of thought.

"Let's go." Rick orders, gesturing towards the exit.

"So you're just gonna leave us in here? Man, this is sick!" Oscar retorts, tossing an arm out at the filthy cell block. 

Rick shrugs, "We're locking down the cell block. From now on, this part of the prison is yours. Take it or leave it, that was the deal." He shakes his head, and takes his leave.

Shuddering out a breath, Big Tiny can't even lower his eyes from the ceiling.

"You think this is sick?" Daryl stops just outside the gate, slowly shaking his head. "You don't wanna know what's outside."

Scoffing, Lucas doesn't turn back on his way to the exit. "Many of us started with the forest floor as our best friend. This is the best we've had in months. Trust me, you've got it good."  

As he turns the corner, right behind Rick, he hears Daryl stop one last time. "Sorry about your friends' man."

The good news tends to follow a shit day. Crowded around Hershel's cell for what felt like hours in a hope that the worst has come to pass. He'd stopped breathing, they'd heard, and almost died if not for Lori.