A/N: Thanks for the comments! This story is growing longer and more complex than the short fluff piece I originally intended, so I've decided not to stick to only Carol's point of view for the entire thing. Hope you continue to enjoy.
[*]
They hadn't boarded up the upstairs windows. Walkers never used ladders, after all. So when the sun rose over the horizon early the next morning, the light streamed in through the open blinds and tugged Daryl's eyelids open. Groggy and half awake, he suddenly feared he'd been trapped underneath something in the forest. There was an unfamiliar weight on his chest, but it was too light for a rock or a fallen tree log, too soft, and too warm.
Blinking himself awake, he craned his neck, looked down, and remembered where he was. At some point in their sleep, either he or Carol must have kicked off the covers, because they were now half on the floor and half draped over their lower legs, which meant he could see Carol's panties. She had curled up against his side, and his chest had become her pillow. Her small hand rested on his hip.
Daryl closed his eyes and wondered what he should do. Wake her? Ease out from under her? Or just lie here for a while, feeling the warm weight of her against him? It was a strange, but not unpleasant, sensation. Was it the way she was lying on him that made it hard to breathe? Maybe she was pushing the air out of him or something. He had an unfamiliar and powerful urge to wrap his arms around her, but he kept them stiffly at his side.
He opened his eyes and peered down at her again. His focus was drawn, like a magnet, to the tight curve of the silky black panties against her ass. She murmured in her sleep and shifted against him. In the process, her tank top rode up a little until it bunched up just under her breasts. Her bare stomach now pressed against the thin fabric of his undershirt. As she stirred, her hand slid from his hip and came to rest on his upper leg, at which point he became painfully aware of his erection.
Shit.
As functionally thick as his pants were, he was still tenting them in an obvious way. If Carol woke up now, she'd notice, and either she'd tease him mercilessly about it, or she'd be afraid he was lusting after her and stop teasing him altogether. He didn't like either of those possibilities, but the second was even worse than the first. He might tell her to stop when she teased him, but there was also something about it that he liked, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was embarrassing and comforting at the same time. It annoyed him even while it made him feel strangely hopeful. Carol was like the light from a prison window. That light might taunt a prisoner with the promise of a freedom he could never obtain, but without it, there was only darkness.
Carol whimpered softly in her sleep, almost like a kitten mewling, but he couldn't tell if the sound was one of need, pain, or pleasure. Cautiously, he drew himself very slowly into a half sitting position so he could stretch to reach the covers and draw them up to hide the evidence of his morning arousal. Carol's head began to slide off his chest as he strained for the blanket, and she opened her eyes at the precise moment he jerked it to his waist.
"What are you doing?" she asked. As the warmth of her body slowly withdrew, he felt like some part of him was being peeled away. "Oh, sorry," she said, now that she had put some distance between them. "Must have cuddled up in my sleep."
"'S a'right," he told her.
"What time is it?"
"Dunno. After sunrise."
"Guess we should get moving." She slid out of bed and pulled on her pants while he averted his eyes. "I'm thinking we should check out that church we passed on the way here." She picked up her outer shirt and worked her way through the arms. "A lot of churches collect diapers and formula for crisis pregnancy centers. Maybe they have some they hadn't gotten around to delivering yet. It's worth a try, anyway."
"Yeah," he agreed, holding the blanket tightly against his waist.
"You coming?" she asked.
That was precisely what he was not doing. "Ya go on down." He closed his eyes and winced as he realized the potential double meaning of what he'd just said. "Be there in a sec. Gotta take a piss."
"I'll fix us some breakfast."
When he was sure Carol was out of sight, he threw off the blanket and made his way to the upstairs hall bathroom. It had no window, so he left the oil lamp on the sink, burning low, while he locked the door. The room was barren except for a hand towel, some fancy dish soap shaped link a pink sea shell, and a cross-stitch plaque that read: If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.
Daryl dropped his pants and boxers to his knees, leaned with one palm flat against the bathroom wall, and took himself in the other. He pictured Carol in only her tank top and panties, and his breathing quickened. He imagined her walking to the nightstand, hips swaying, to take out that purple vibrator from the top drawer. In his mind's eye, she lay back on the king-sized bed and slowly, sexily pleasured herself...
"Oh...holy...fuck!" Daryl's forehead hit the bathroom wall.
His problem of morning wood was now resolved, but the process, as always, left him feeling sheepish. He would die of mortification if Carol ever suspected he sometimes used thoughts of her for this ritual. He usually tried to fantasize about pretty actresses or models, or women he'd admired before the world went to shit - women who were either unreal or long gone - but too often Carol crept into his imaginings. Daryl felt guilty every time he let her.
He grasped the fancy hand towel, snapped it from the ring on which it hung, and wiped away the evidence of his shame.
[*]
"I'm in the dining room," Carol called when she heard him shuffling around in the kitchen.
Daryl emerged cautiously into the room, unable to meet her eyes after what he'd been doing. His vision fell instead on the fancy china. She'd emptied canned peaches in the bowls and poured coke in the tea cups.
"Figured I could be a princess for one morning," she said, and out of the corner of his downcast eyes he saw her pick up a silver fork.
"Looks good." Daryl sat down quickly, seized his fork, and began shoveling the peaches in his mouth.
By the time they began loading the pantry's contents in the trunk of the sedan, however, he was over his embarrassment. As they were working, a few lumbering walkers caught wind of them and began moving their way. "We better pick up the pace," Carol warned him.
"Ya finish loading." Daryl stood guard and picked off the walkers with his crossbow one by one as Carol made one last trip inside to fill a cardboard box. By the time she returned, a larger herd was working its way down from the cul-de-sac. "Hurry up," he warned her.
She thrust the box into the trunk and slammed it shut. Daryl jumped when he felt her hand dive into the pocket of his pants. She drew out the car keys while he shot another walker.
"Come on!" she ordered as she ran for the driver's seat.
He didn't follow right away. Instead, he reclaimed his arrows as more geeks ambled his way, by which time she had started the car. When he jumped in the passenger's side, she peeled off before he could quite close the door. He yanked it shut as she plowed down a walker, thudded over it, and then swerved recklessly around two more. His outer thigh hit the stick shift before he could regain his his balance and plant himself firmly on his seat. "Jesus! Think yer Dale Earnhardt?"
"Hey, don't scold me," she said. "You were the one cutting it close back there."
"Needed my arrows back. Ain't got that many."
Carol shook her head and drove on.
[*]
The large white sign out front read St. Bartholomew's United Methodist Church. Daryl wondered who the hell St. Bartholomew was. Underneath the church name, the movable black letters of the signboard had been rearranged. The unused letters were lined up in a single row at the bottom, and the rest spelled out – "We love unicorns."
Daryl stared at the message. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked.
Carol shrugged. "I guess it means that whoever was playing with the sign loves unicorns."
Three abandoned cars littered the sleepy gravel parking lot. There were no signs of walkers. They climbed the front stairs but found the doors locked. The windows were boarded up, which would make busting in difficult. Someone had been living here at some point, might still be living here - either that, or walking around dead inside.
"I have an idea," Carol said. She led him through the gravel lot.
His eyes swept the ground. "Those tire tracks are fresh," he said. "Someone's been here."
"Then we'll proceed with caution," Carol said. "Not that we wouldn't anyway." She led him around the back of the church and pointed to the fire escape ladder. "We can take that up to the roof, then go down in through the bell tower."
"Who do ya think I am, Tarzan?"
"Chicken." Carol put a booted heel on the first rung of the ladder and began climbing her way up.
He watched her scale the ladder, her lithe form climbing higher and higher, and shook his head. "A'right, Jane!" he called after her. "Wait up."
