AN: So this is just a little one shot to play around and write something that isn't very serious (or part of a longer story).
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Andrea was standing at the window, fingers threaded into the blinds, peering out. Carol walked by her twice without her roommate so much as seeming to notice her presence. The third time, coming back with a basket of wet laundry, Carol finally stopped directly behind her.
"You know, if you wanted a better look at whatever the hell you're looking at, you could help me hang these clothes out," Carol said.
Her words must have surprised Andrea because the blonde jumped and straightened up like a gun had been fired in her proximity. She whipped around, red in the face already, and stared at Carol wide eyed for a second before she seemed to come down enough to even articulate any sort of response.
"Why the hell did you sneak up on me like that?!" Andrea spat when she found the words that she'd been searching for while she came down from what was surely a near death experience in her mind.
Carol laughed to herself.
"I didn't do anything," Carol said. "I walked by here twice. The buzzer went off on the washing machine. I couldn't have made myself more known if I'd come by playing a snare drum."
Carol stepped in Andrea's direction and leaned toward the window in a half-hearted effort to see what had been holding the woman's attention for a decent amount of time, but it was a useless effort at any rate. Without Andrea's fingers there, holding the blinds apart, Carol could see nothing except how dirty the neglected blinds were.
They'd only been living here for a month. They'd moved in the moment the little mobile home had become free and the previous tenants had been less than tidy. Though their preliminary cleaning of the place had rendered it livable—and void of most diseases they were sure could be killed by household chemicals—there was still a great deal of work that needed to be done to make the place actually fall into the category of "clean" and to get it anywhere near Carol's standards. But for now? It was home sweet mobile home and Carol and Andrea both were happy to have it.
"What were you looking at?" Carol asked.
Andrea smiled at her.
"Neighbors," she said, raising her eyebrows.
Carol could only lower her eyebrows in response.
"We don't have neighbors," she responded.
"We do now," Andrea said. "Two of them. Both men. And from what I can tell? There's a lot of muscle over there..."
Carol pushed the basket of wet clothes in Andrea's direction and left her with no other choice than to take the basket from her or let it be dropped on the floor.
"If you're going to be nosy and spy," Carol said. "At least help me with the laundry. Those are your clothes too."
Andrea mumbled something, but didn't seem at all bothered by the task of taking clothes out to the line to hang up. Paying the rent and the utilities on the trailer, even split between them, was a drain on their incomes. Andrea had student loans to pay for her now second attempt to go to college and Carol was scraping together money to pay lawyer's fees for a divorce that never should have had to happen because she should have been smart enough to know that the marriage was a failure before it had even begun. She was, also thanks to that marriage to a man who hadn't known when to keep his hands to himself, paying more medical bills than a woman in her mid-twenties should have to pay.
As a result of limited income and not-so-limited expenses, both women were quite thrifty with their money. Together they'd splurged to buy a used washing machine, but a dryer was a bit much at this point. Instead, they'd hung their own clothesline between some trees outside of their trailer and decided that would do for now.
Andrea took the basket and started out the front door of the trailer and Carol followed after her, sure that she'd be hearing everything that Andrea had managed to collect on the new neighbors.
"Two men," Andrea said. "Young—well—not old—I mean..."
She didn't quite get around to what she meant, but Carol didn't press her.
"I just hope they aren't loud," Carol said. "The last thing we need is neighbors that we have to call the cops on keeping us up all night."
"Live a little, Carol," Andrea commented, stepping down the porch steps.
"I've lived too much already," Carol mumbled.
Andrea didn't respond to that or, if she did, Carol didn't hear her. She was barely paying attention to where she was walking. She'd already spotted the brown and tan pick-up truck, which had clearly seen better days in its time, that was being unloaded at the trailer that was facing them from another lot. The trailer had been moved in about two weeks after they'd gotten there and, as far as Carol knew, hadn't been touched since they'd unhooked it. She had no idea what the inside looked like but, in comparison to their tiny palace, the outside was a wreck. The man who ran the park, though, had very little concern about those kinds of things. The only thing he really seemed to care about was finding tenants willing to pay the rent—not very high, truthfully, but as high as it could be for the product he was offering—so that he could keep on top of whatever bills he had to pay. At the moment, the truck was all that was visible. The two men who were apparently moving in must be dealing with something inside.
"How long have they been unloading?" Carol asked.
"Long enough," Andrea responded. "Looks like they hit up Goodwill or something. I can't imagine they drove very far with some of that furniture on that truck the way it was. I don't think the police would've let them come through town like that if they couldn't swear that it was temporary. And they'd have never made it on the highway."
Carol laughed to herself. She hadn't seen how the truck had been loaded down, but she could imagine. Carol had a second or third hand car at this point—barely four wheels and a motor—but she hadn't had that much when they'd moved. Andrea had an old Pontiac that she'd been driving since her glory days in high school—a cast off relic that had belonged to her father and had probably been in decent condition when he'd been in high school—and they'd used that to move everything. Carol had never before seen someone tie a couch to the roof of a car like it was a prize winning buck.
"Well—I guess you have some opinion on them?" Carol asked, reaching for the bag of clothes pins that they kept hanging on a higher branch just above the end of their line. She yanked it down and tossed it at Andrea so she could start hanging up clothes. Carol took a handful of pins and some of the wet clothes—tossed over her shoulder—and fell in a short distance down the line.
"Not bad from what I saw," Andrea said. "Nice bodies."
"That doesn't mean a thing and you know it," Carol said.
"It does when you're just innocently looking from your window," Andrea said. "Besides—it might not hurt to get to know them. You could stand to get back in the saddle."
She stopped hanging clothes for a moment and wagged her eyebrows at Carol. Carol rolled her eyes in response.
"I've given up men," Carol responded.
"You haven't even tried one yet," Andrea said. "Ed doesn't count as a man. Ed's more like—he's more like a baboon. You'd be better off to say you've given up baboons. And that? Well—it's something I'd advise."
Carol might have continued to argue with Andrea about the fact that, thanks to her experiences with her soon-to-be-entirely-ex-husband, she wasn't sure she ever wanted to even consider being in any sort of relationship with a man, but she was distracted when the front door to the trailer opened and her new neighbors came outside and walked back in the direction of the old truck to get more of their prized possessions out of the bed.
Immediately, Carol understood Andrea's inability to name the age group of the two men. Though neither of them was old, exactly, they weren't the same age. They were, too, clearly as well built as Andrea had asserted they were and neither of them was bothering with more than a sleeveless shirt and jeans as their attire for moving day.
"Uh huh..." Andrea mused.
Carol jumped, a little flustered to realize she was staring at the two men while they were dragging boxes out of the back of the truck and were entirely unaware of her presence. When Carol looked at her, Andrea had that look on her face. She was smirking.
"I knew you weren't done," Andrea said.
"Who said I wasn't?" Carol asked.
"You're certainly not staring like you're done," Andrea said. "But—maybe that's just how it looks from here."
Carol hummed.
"That's just how it looks from there," Carol said. She glanced back in the direction of the men, though. Both of them were headed back for their trailer, each with their arms loaded down, and Carol had to admit that she didn't feel quite as done with men as she'd thought she was. Of course—like Andrea had said, Ed really hadn't been much of a man. There was no sense in holding every man responsible for the actions of a few who hadn't ascended past the point of being the lowest functioning primates. "Just because I'm done, though, doesn't mean we shouldn't be neighborly," Carol added after a moment.
She glanced at Andrea. Her expression had changed slightly, but the smirk was still there.
"It's only polite," Carol pressed.
Andrea hummed.
"It's only polite," she agreed.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
The nicest thing that Carol could say about their scrounged offerings were that they'd go well with the Goodwill décor that Andrea had described as coming off the back of the truck. Neither of them had much to call their own and they had relatively few choices when it came to deciding what they could give away. By the time they'd made their away cross the yard, each carrying a "welcome gift," they had a half-dead plant in a planter that the old tenants had left behind in their trailer to offer and they had a coffee maker that had since been replaced by a newer one of better quality.
They were hiding very much behind the old adage that it was the thought that counts since they were fully aware their gifts were of very little value and not very likely to be greatly appreciated.
Carol took the lead, coffee maker in hand, and mounted the porch steps to the trailer. At this point, the truck was empty, so she could assume that the two men were at the trailer and tucked away inside. Maybe they were unpacking. More than likely they were cleaning or regretting their poor life choices. Carefully balancing the coffee maker against her lifted knee, Carol knocked on the Plexiglas door and waited. After a moment, the heavy wooden door of the trailer opened.
The man that stood there looked at her like he didn't know what to do, but he definitely wanted to choose the right thing to make her go away. Carol immediately understood how salesmen and Jehovah's witnesses probably felt when they had to go door to door.
"We just wanted to say welcome to the neighborhood," Carol offered quickly, fearing he might mistake them—despite their ridiculous gifts—as one of the typical groups that would come knocking at the door at any hour.
The man opened the Plexiglas door, one that bowed out slightly in the middle for having been mistreated for too long, and Carol sidestepped to let it swing out. She offered him the coffee maker and he stared at it a moment.
"Just—we didn't know if you might have one..." Carol stammered, noticing that Andrea was being of very little help to her. Andrea, honestly, was usually much better at meeting people.
"Yeah," he said, reaching to take the coffee maker. He turned it around and looked at it, not making clear whether the word meant that he appreciated the gesture or that he did, indeed, have a coffee maker. "Yeah—thanks," he said, finishing up what Carol could only assume was the full extent of what he had to say on the matter.
"Who the hell is it?" A voice called.
Before the man standing at the door could respond, another appeared behind him. He was the older of the two, and he smirked immediately.
"We-ell," he said. "What we got here? Ladies?"
"We just wanted to say welcome," Andrea said quickly, suddenly finding her tongue in the situation. She stepped forward a little and offered out the plant as though she were going to hold it over the door-answerer's head for the newcomer. He didn't seem bothered by this practice at all, and he reached and took the plant from her, effectively lifting it over his roommate's head. He turned it around and examined it.
"Just what the hell we needed," he commented, without a drop of sincerity.
"Welcome..." Carol said, not feeling entirely confident in the moment that they'd made the right decision to come here at all. The men were nicely built, and up close she couldn't say that they were bad to look at—especially the one to whom she'd offered the coffee maker. "We live...right over there," she gestured toward their trailer.
"I'm Andrea," Andrea offered quickly, all smiles and not looking at all doubtful about this encounter. "And this is Carol."
"And I'm Merle," the more talkative of the two men said. "This here's my brother, Daryl. And—we already seen you too. Couldn't help noticing you—noticing us..."
Carol felt her face flood with heat the moment that she realized they hadn't been as stealthy as they'd thought they were while they were observing the men from the safety of their "space".
"We were just..." she stammered out, but she didn't know what to offer as an excuse. Luckily, this time, Andrea was thinking on her feet and she was willing to be of some service.
"We were just checking to make sure you had everything," Andrea inserted quickly. "We thought you might need a hand unloading, but...it turns out you're very—very—able to handle it on your own."
Carol narrowed her eyes at Andrea, but Andrea wasn't looking at her. It was clear that she'd made her choice of the newcomers, and Carol—if she weren't as done as she was, which clearly she was very done—was left with Daryl, The Quiet.
Merle hummed, already seeming to smell Andrea's interest. It was painted on his face. He wouldn't care what excuse they gave for having been watching them. Not right now.
"We ain't had no trouble unloading," Merle said. "No trouble at all. But—uh—don't know town too well. Places we don't wanna miss?"
"There isn't much here," Carol said. "But—the park is actually nice. They just put in a walking track."
There was a sharp snort from Daryl, and a half grin drifted across his face before quickly disappearing. He offered no words, however, to go with the sound that he made. His body, however, somewhat bobbed forward and Carol wondered if his brother might have given him something of a nudge in response to the sound.
"Yeah," Merle said quickly. "Park or—somethin' else. We ain't eat yet if you..."
"We haven't either," Andrea said quickly and a little too joyfully. Carol wished she was close enough to Andrea to give her something of a "nudge" for her enthusiasm that was possibly going to pull her into being in an uncomfortable position. She couldn't tell, after all, if she was going to be with someone who was interested in even sharing the same planet with her or if, truthfully, she was just going to be an extra in the company of an extra on a possible semi-date between Andrea and Merle.
She wasn't left wondering too long though. Daryl's body bobbed forward again, as though the same brotherly nudge had been given to him once more, and he glanced at his brother a moment before he looked back at Andrea and Carol. And Carol was almost certain that she saw a slight tinge of color come to his cheeks when he looked directly at her and then loudly cleared his throat.
"Supper?" He asked.
It was clearly an invitation—and it might be the best that Carol got quiet. Daryl the Quiet was, apparently, slow to warm and a careful guardian of his words. But even that, in a strange way, was somewhat endearing.
Carol smiled at him and that time she knew that she was right. His cheeks flushed a little brighter pink than they had been.
"How's...six?" Carol asked, taking the initiative herself this time. "Just somewhere simple? Nothing fancy—of course. I mean—you just moved furniture."
"Pizza," Andrea said. "And—beer."
It took, once the offer was made, less than two minutes for both Merle and Daryl to agree that pizza sounded fine and they had no objections to the hour of the meal. Then, with the excuse that there were a few things that they should do at their house, and that they should leave the men to whatever they needed to do to settle in enough to be ready for the meal, Carol and Andrea started back toward their trailer. As they walked, Andrea swayed her steps to meet Carol and bump her hard enough with her shoulder to cause Carol to toddle an extra step to the side before she straightened herself up. Carol laughed at Andrea's antics, but she already knew what was on her mind—and even if she didn't know her well enough to simply know what she was thinking, Andrea's facial expression said it all.
"You know, for someone who's just done with men, it certainly didn't take you long to accept that dinner invitation," Andrea pointed out.
"It's pizza," Carol said.
"It's still dinner," Andrea responded quickly.
"I'm just being neighborly," Carol said.
Andrea chuckled.
"Just how far does this neighbor policy extend?" Andrea teased.
Carol looked at her, narrowed her eyes at her in response, and then rushed her steps to be ahead of the blonde before they reached their porch.
"I told you," Carol said. "I'm done."
Andrea laughed behind her, and Carol smiled to herself. She was done—but maybe she wasn't that done.