TWD Fic - Guilty Pleasure
Title: Guilty pleasure (Or 5 times the group uses underhanded matchmaking tactics and the 1 time they dont have to)
Pairing: Daryl/Andrea
Rating: T
Words: 3900
Summary: Lori and Carol attempt to play cupid, unfortunately everything they try doesn't quite go to plan.
A/N: For cemeterydreamer's prompt over at the Daryl_Andrea comm.
1) Flowers
For once Daryl is sat without anything to do and simply enjoying some downtime amongst the long grass that covers most of their current camping site when Lori walks up to him.
“Hey Daryl, here” she says handing him a bunch of flowers “I thought you might like to give these to Andrea” he says nothing as he looks down at the brightly coloured assortment clutched in his hand and when he raises an eyebrow in Lori’s direction she gives him a cheerful smile and walks away.
He knows pregnant women can be weird with their hormones an all but why in the hell would she want to give Andrea flowers. He’d seen Lori out in the field picking all the most colourful earlier and just figured she wanted to brighten up the camp.
He knows Andrea isn’t feeling down, he’s spent enough time with her while the camp has been on the move to figure that much out.
He shrugs to himself as he gets up and just puts it down to Lori’s hormones which he’ll forgive this time but next time she can deliver her own damn flowers.
As he spots Andrea and heads towards her, he sees her glance at his hand and her mouth start to quirk at the side.
“Shut up” he tells her once he gets close enough.
“Oh I wasn’t going to say anything, prettying up your tent?” now the grin is in full flourish and he glares at her.
“I didn't pick ‘em, here” he thrusts them at her “Lori wanted you to have them”
“What why?”
“Hell if I know, thinks just coz I'm having some peace that means I gotta be a damn delivery boy” he grumbles to himself and goes to find a quieter spot where no one will bother him.
2) Hunting
Andrea is keeping watch with the rifle, which she’s eternally grateful for as it shows the group still has some faith in her not to shoot anybody but gets up off the RV to greet Rick when she spots him making his way towards her.
“Something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong exactly” he looks twitchy and if she were to guess she’d say awkward “it’s just I was wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind going out hunting with Daryl”
“We have enough food plus I’m on watch, I can’t just leave my post” She wonders if this is some strange test to make sure she’s good enough for watch duty.
“Yeah it’s just Lori you know? What with her eating for two, she’s worried we might run out. Says she’ll feel better if you go out and get more. Don’t worry Shane will cover your shift”
“Oh, I see” She hands him the gun and strides away to find Daryl.
She can’t believe the nerve of the people in camp, she wonders if it really was Lori who put him up to this.
That would explain the flowers and why Rick was looking so shifty, ‘She’ll feel better if you go’ yeah so she’s not on watch, she refuses to acknowledge the hurt that comes with the thought that a woman she calls her friend doesn’t think she’s good enough to protect them.
She finds Daryl who just keeps quiet and follows after her once he sees the look on her face.
The hunt is not a great success as she isn’t even slightly helpful and she’s distracting Daryl by complaining about Lori.
In the end they return two hours later with just one rabbit but she’s in better spirits as Daryl's listened calmly to everything she had to say and told her she’s being paranoid and that Lori’s been acting pretty strange so not to take offence.
With anyone else she’d be annoyed at how it was worded but somehow the gruff factual way he says things never riles her so she accepts his comments and resolves herself to speaking to Lori when she gets back.
3) Dinner
Once they walk into camp however Carol comes up to them and informs them that everyone has eaten and they’ve been left some food where the group has set up a makeshift table.
They walk over and can’t miss the food as it seems to be illuminated by every candle from the RV.
As they settle down, Daryl shakes his head
“If they just moved the table closer to the RV then we wouldn’t be wasting so many candles”
Andrea isn’t really listening as she looks over at the groups car convoy “Is it just me or has this table actually moved farther away than it was before we left?”
“Still paranoid?” she spots a flicker of a grin on his face as the light dances over him and knows he means it in jest.
“Yeah well just wait, you’ll see” she replies absently, she’s sure she spotted a face in the RV window dart away when she glanced at it.
She decides to ignore it, just another thing to query later when they’ve finished eating.
They quickly finish with little conversation as their both starving from walking around chasing things for the past two hours.
“Awfully quiet” Daryl remarks just before they split up to go their separate ways.
“Yeah, almost like they don’t want to be questioned” She says with a raised eyebrow.
“Whatever. Don’t forget to wear your tinfoil hat when you go to sleep”
4) Lake
Lori awoke early the next morning to get away from camp or any enquiries. She’d heard Andrea and Daryl’s approach the night before and feigned sleep.
The plan didn't seem to be working, which meant it was time for dirty tactics. It had become a fun but frustrating game which had first started by a conversation between her and Carol in which she was trying to take the woman’s mind off other darker matters. Now however it was something which they all, excluding Shane and Dale, were getting involved in however reluctantly it was in the case of Rick.
Luckily they were parked near a glorious lake with a little dock which is where her and Carol were currently sat as Carl splashed around in the water slightly further away.
“I don’t think I've ever come across two more oblivious people” She lamented to which Carol quickly agreed.
They stopped talking when they spotted Daryl walking towards the lake, he knelt at the water’s edge and began cleaning some of his arrows.
She lightly nudged Carol before getting up to go speak to him
“So how was dinner last night?”
“Fine, compliments to the chef” he graced her with a puzzled frown before continuing with his task, she rolled her eyes before deciding to be more direct.
“How are things between you and Andrea?” she winced, that may have been too blunt.
“Peachy, you two not gettin’ on or somethin’?” he didn't seem to get the gist of her question but she did a mental dance when she heard the undercurrent of protectiveness, she gathered that Andrea must have spoke about her in a bad light judging by the tone.
Well that was a fence she needed to mend but she’s sure that once they were a couple Andrea would easily understand and forgive her.
“Everything’s fine between us” she assured him, easier to patch up one fence now.
“You might want to tell her that” he turned away and she guessed that was the end of that conversation but that worked out fine as she spotted Andrea walking towards them.
A plan formed in her mind once she saw what she was wearing and she swiftly walked away to speak to Carl ignoring Andrea’s yell of her name. Luckily Carl was totally on board with her current game and agreed to her plan, even if he didn't fully understand it.
She saw Andrea settle down on the edge of the dock beside Carol and went to go join them.
“Do you not think I'm good enough to protect the camp?” Burst from Andrea as soon as she got seated. Well that explained Daryl’s frosty attitude towards her.
“Oh honey no, of course I think you're good enough, what made you think that?”
“It’s just with what happened yesterday, you wanted me specifically to go out hunting when I was on watch and any of the other guys would have been fine”
“No it wasn’t like that, I forgot you were even on watch. I'm so sorry, I just thought you and Daryl make a good hunting team” She figured that lie sounded plausible enough, it would have to do for now it’s not like she could come out with the real reason.
“Oh, okay. Its fine forget I said anything” her tone didn't sound completely convinced and the small smile seemed a little forced. At least in the next few seconds she knew Andrea would totally forget about this conversation.
She heard running footsteps from behind and scooted slightly to the left to get out of the way as Carl bounded towards them on a collision course.
She reached out to secure him as soon as he’d shoved himself into Andrea with enough force to send her tumbling into the lake.
The big splash was enough to get Daryl to stand up she noted out of her peripheral vision and she gave Carl a thumbs up before Andrea surfaced from the water spluttering then quickly transformed her face into a disapproving frown.
“Andrea you ok?” She yelled to her.
“Yeah I'm fine, don’t worry”
“I'm sorry. Honestly Carl what did you think you were doing, apologise to Andrea right now”
“Sorry Andrea, I was running to show Mom something and couldn’t stop” he responded rather convincingly and she knew to keep an eye on that in the future.
“It’s alright Carl” Andrea said as she emerged on the edge of the shore.
Lori subtly glanced at her to see that her plan had worked, the land she swam towards was near Daryl and the white button up shirt she was wearing was drenched and therefore completely see-through. There’s no way Daryl wasn’t going to look at her when she looked like that but with dismay she saw that Daryl was not only not looking but had waved Carl over and was showing him something in the water, in the opposite direction from Andrea.
“I need to go change out of these wet clothes” Andrea grumbled before she walked away.
Nope even with a line like that, he was still facing the wrong way.
5) RV lockdown
Glenn had a mission, ok it wasn’t quite walking round hordes of geeks or raiding stores but it involved messing with Daryl Dixon and that was pretty deadly.
He’d known the plan for a few days and so far was just waiting for the right time to strike, today looked promising.
Andrea was sat in the RV reading and so Glenn had made himself appear focused on the open door.
He was holding onto the side of it, head cocked at an angle with a look of deep concentration when Andrea finally broke.
“What are you doing?”
“Dale asked me if I knew anything about being able to make this door more secure so if we get attacked and they all start pushing on it, it doesn’t crumple” He tried to keep his voice even, why had they picked him to outright lie to Andrea, Lori knew how bad he was at lying.
“Dale asked you?” she said sceptically
“Hey you know I survived just fine on my own before this group, made lots of places secure” the indignation wasn’t completely false, no one took him seriously.
She didn't respond just went back to reading, now time to set phasers to stun or phase two as Lori called it.
He found Daryl not too far away and with a gulp set to his task.
“Hey Daryl I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind just helping me out with something, I'm upgrading the RV’s locks and I just need you to go inside and close the door for me while I work on the outside, make sure everything’s ok” It all came out a little rushed but he’s pretty sure it made sense.
“You want me to go close the RV door” he said flatly
“Yeah not just the once, I mean someone needs to be on the inside every time I shut it to make sure it all works”
“Right, well lead the way”
Glenn gave himself a mental pat on the back and slyly checked his pants pocket for the keys.
“You go on in, Andrea’s in there and before you ask she’s reading and I didn't want to disturb her”
Daryl stepped into the RV and Glenn shut the door, pretended to be fiddling with the handle while slowly turning the keys and locking the door.
He stepped away just as Daryl yelled “you done?”
“All finished, try it out” he heard the door rattle but the lock stayed true.
“It meant to do that?” Glenn put on a face of horror, it may have been overboard.
“No, the doors locked, I just wanted to check the catch, stay right there don’t panic and I’ll go find Dale to get the keys” with that Glenn sprinted off to speak to Lori, dodging out of the way as he saw Carol distracting Dale by making him walk around with her.
-
“Don’t panic? What the hell am I some little old woman that’s spotted a mouse” Daryl groused mostly to himself but Andrea had put her book down and was looking at him.
“He lock you in?” She quizzed and he held back the ‘obviously’
“Don’t matter, doors flimsy it’ll break easy” he took a few steps back to do a run up.
“No! That door is our only real defence if we get swarmed plus Glenn was trying to make it stronger, I don’t think he’d appreciate it if he came back to find you’d broke it down”
“Should of thought of that before he locked us in” He sat himself near her, least he had company in here, well least he had company he didn't mind.
“You know Dale, never leaves this place for long. Glenn will find him in no time and let you out”
“What about you, you don’t want to get free?” in response she waved her book at him “hiding out, still not trusting ‘em yet?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust them, just don’t you think people have been acting kind of weird? Glenn won’t look at me whenever he speaks and I'm pretty sure Lori and Carol are avoiding me”
“Glenn never looks at me when he talks and I wish those two would leave me alone, always houndin’ me with strange questions”
“Maybe it’s not just me they’re being different to” Daryl was gonna argue it but then his mind flashed back to this morning.
“Now you mention it, they were all huddled chatting real quiet and when I got close they shut up and scattered. Didn't think much of it at the time”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them all having little gatherings too. What is going on, the only reason I’m not more worried is because I haven’t seen them all chatting to Rick but Lori could be talking to him in private for all we know” Daryl’s hackles were pretty raised by this point.
“You know who’s actin’ normal, Shane. You think they wanna kick us all out?”
“Maybe but why, I get Shane but what have we done?”
“I dunno, I’ll talk to Rick later”
It was quiet for a while as both were sat contemplating ‘til Andrea broke the silence.
“If we have to leave, what are you gonna do?” She asked quietly, it sounded like a normal question but he feels he’s got a pretty good read on her so knows exactly what her question isn’t saying.
“We’ll go out on our own, take my truck go scout for more supplies and make a camp” he doesn’t look directly at her as he says it but glances to see her smiling.
-
Glenn comes back about an hour later after a conversation with a very baffled Dale, who couldn’t remember ever putting the RV keys in his pocket, he could thank Carol for diverting his attention for that, Dale also didn't understand why Glenn had even thought about the RV’s door let alone how he’d planned to make it better.
So yeah Dale thought he was a bit stupid or stupider now but it would be worth it, probably.
If it got Lori off his back about this stupid game of hers then he considers it a win.
He slinks up to the window, not like he’s a peeping tom or anything but if they are doing anything then he doesn’t want to interrupt, he would like to retain all his limbs.
It’s with a groan of annoyance that he unlocks and slams open the RV door, startling both Daryl and Andrea making them look up from the cards on the table.
Trapped inside an RV with Andrea and all Daryl can think to do is play Rummy, for a guy who’s pretty skilled in most other areas Glenn thinks Daryl is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to women.
+1) The Tent
The arguing can be heard clearly throughout camp, it’s been going for most of the day.
Lori has no idea what started it but judging from Maggie’s tone it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be solved tonight.
She’s proved right when she see’s Glenn slink to grab some food and then retreat to his own tent, Maggie nowhere in sight.
When Maggie does finally come over she sits beside Andrea at the table with a loud sigh, while Lori is extremely curious because it’s the apocalypse and she doesn’t have her soap operas anymore she isn’t sat close enough and she has more tact then yelling across a table.
Her hope rests on Andrea who doesn’t seem to share the gossip gene as she just continues to eat her food.
“I have no idea where I'm going to sleep” Maggie says loud enough for her to hear “and I'm exhausted but I am definitely not sharing with that jerk” Lori waits for her to add more or for Andrea to ask why but unfortunately she doesn’t.
“You can have my bed” Andrea tells her, then a look of regret flashes over her face as if she wondered why she said it.
“No, I can’t do that where would you sleep?” Maggie sounds hopeful and Lori knows Andrea isn’t going to go back on her word.
“Really its fine, I’m not feeling too tired anyway and I know you’ve been on watch with Glenn ‘til early this morning so you need it more than me. There’s a spare tent in the RV, I’ll just get that”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind using the spare”
“You look like you could fall asleep any minute, the last thing you want to be doing is setting up a tent, its fine take mine” she says it with a small smile which Maggie returns with a bright grin.
“Thanks Andrea, well then if you don’t mind I'm gonna go to bed, night everyone”
Lori choruses night along with a few of the others who are sat down and looks at Andrea face, the look of annoyance is pretty comical and so she gets up to put her dishes away before she catches the grin on her face.
-
As the dusk settles to night, Lori is sat on the floor by the fire with Carls sleeping head in her lap chatting softly with Carol, most everyone else has retired to bed except Rick who’s on watch, Daryl who’s sat slightly further away on the opposite side of the fire and Andrea who’s looking for the spare tent.
She hears approaching footsteps and Andrea’s voice cuts into the darkness.
“The tent is ripped” She looks like she wants to rant but spots Carl’s sleeping form and quietly adds “not a small rip, its wrecked” and with that she goes over to Daryl's side of the fire, presumably to rant louder but she still gives Carol a knowing eyebrow.
She can hear them talking because they’re both kind of loud even if they are trying to be quiet and well Rick always said she had bat ears back when Carl was a baby, she was on alert for the smallest sound and their current situation has really brought that skill back.
So she holds up a hand to signal silence from Carol and strains her ears when she hears
“You wanna sleep in my tent?” She’s pretty sure Daryl doesn’t mean it any other way than being gentlemanly but there's a long pause on Andrea’s end.
“You propositioning me Dixon?” She can hear the jovialness in the tone and is sure it’s an awkward joke as a way to back out.
“If you want me too” Well there is no way to misinterpret that and she’s sure Daryl's voice isn’t always that husky.
She turns to Carol with a look of open mouthed shock and sees the same thing reflected back at her.
She looks back at the scene to see Andrea sitting down, she curses them when she can no longer pick up what they are saying. A few minutes later she hears Andrea laughing and watches her get up and walk away.
“Did that just happen?” Carol asks her quietly
“I know! If only we had thought to damage her tent, would have saved ourselves some time” she says with a laugh.
“Do you think they were serious though?”
“I'm going to stay up for as long as it takes to make sure” its bordering on stalker but really after all this time she needs to know.
“Ok, good luck because I am going to bed”
“Alright fill you in tomorrow” she grins up at her before she walks off.
She thinks Daryl may have forgotten she’s there so she slowly lowers herself slightly, being careful not to wake Carl, so that she isn’t so noticeable from the other side of the fire but she still has a clear view.
A few minutes pass before Andrea returns and Daryl stands to join her, she can hear her talking but can’t make out the words however she doesn’t miss the small almost shy smile that flits over his features.
Lori holds in the ‘aww’ and keeps watching them until they reach Daryl’s tent, where he bends to unzip it then stands and holds open the door letting Andrea in first then following.
It’s only once they are both in that she rouses Carl and gets them both to bed, she wishes Rick wasn’t on watch because that scene right there would totally have won him over, she has no idea why he doesn’t see what she, Carol and even Carl can clearly see.
She’s just glad that now Andrea and Daryl seem to have taken notice too.
Finally now they could sweep this whole thing under the rug and clear everything up... tomorrow, looked like the pair was going to be busy tonight.