She didn't hear it, but she sure as shit felt it. That telltale pull in her groin, the odd feeling of something coming apart between her legs, thread by thread. She'd ripped her pants.
It was no wonder; she wore the same ones every day, and they'd seen more than their fair share of hardships. As she crouched behind the counter she quickly glanced down, assessing the tear. Though the line was creeping backwards toward her ass, it wasn't yet bad enough to warrant her attention, and hiding from the herd of walkers passing by the store in which they were taking shelter seemed much more important at the moment. She ignored it, deciding to let it slide until they had time to address it.
She felt a few more threads pull the next day, as she was bending down to roll up her sleeping bag. She didn't say anything about it, though. Food had been scarce lately, and she figured they needed to concentrate on that rather than her fraying pants. She didn't want to be a pain in anyone's ass, despite the fact that her own ass was in very real danger of being exposed to the elements at any given moment.
The next morning Daryl managed to bag a deer. It was small, but it provided enough for everyone to get a decent meal for once. She was leaning over the fire, checking to see if the meat was done yet, when she heard a snicker from behind her. She turned to look, and saw Glenn and Maggie giggling conspiratorially.
"What?" she asked, slightly annoyed that they were enjoying themselves as she did the cooking as usual.
"Your pants," Daryl supplied from his place beside them, "There's a hole in them. In the back."
She couldn't help but notice how red his face was.
She hadn't felt the tear this time, but sure enough when she reached back to check she found that the entire backside of her pants was torn open on one side, exposing her plain black panties for the entire world to see. It didn't matter much to her. It wasn't like anything too exciting had been exposed. But Daryl blushed harder as she lifted the flap the hole had created.
"Well," she said, "had to happen eventually."
"We'll go this afternoon and see if we can't find you something new," he mumbled, staring at his shoes.
It wasn't until she was climbing behind him on his bike hours later that she realized what it all meant. He had been looking at her ass, maybe even before her pants tore.
She smiled as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Were you enjoying the view?" she asked shifting against the cold leather touching her skin, "Cause I can keep wearing these if you'd prefer that."
The backs of his ears turned red, and she knew he was blushing again.
"Stop," he said.