Title: You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight

Author: GageWhitney

Rating: M

Pairing: Daryl/Andrea

Disclaimer: Very much not mine.

Summary: "What happened last night?" she moans.

Note: Based on a prompt by saitinsangel: Andrea and Daryl get drunk and sleep together. Afterwards they decide it was just a drunken mistake, but they get closer and soon it just keeps happening...

AU in the fact that, while they've escaped the farm, Andrea's with them.

"Got something over here!" Daryl calls out.

Andrea steps away from the nearly empty sedan she'd been poking around in and strides over to the big SUV he's standing behind. The two of them had pulled supply run duty – a regular chore without the comfort of Hershel's farmhouse – and hadn't found much in the way of useful items thus far.

"Clothes?" she groans, picking at her dirty t-shirt. "Please say clothes."

Standing in front of the open hatchback, he gestures to a purple duffel bag and a black piece of rolling luggage. "Stuff in there's bound to fit someone."

"Oh, yes," she sighs. She unzips the luggage and starts thumbing through it.

Daryl reaches further into the trunk and pulls out a half-full bottle of Southern Comfort. "Check it out."

She glances up. "Ooh."

"Few more bottles of booze back here, too," he says, tugging a cardboard box forward. "Looks like these people had their priorities. College kids, maybe."

She smirks and takes the bottle from his hands. "Maybe." She unscrews the cap and sniffs. "God, I love the smell of this stuff," she says, and takes a swig.

He motions for her to pass the bottle, and she does, watching as he takes a drink.

"Hey, you want to take a break for a while?" she suggests. She nods toward the SUV. "C'mon. Let's sit and have a few."

He shrugs. "Fine with me."

Some time later, they're in the backseat of the SUV, there's been a significant dent made in the liquor supply, and Andrea's got her finger in his face, poking him in his scruffy chin.

"You're drunk," she sing-songs.

"I am not," Daryl says. He waves his hand and knocks her finger away.

"You are soooo drunk," she giggles, and this time her finger hooks into the neck of his flannel shirt. She uses it to pull him closer.

"You're drunker," he slurs. "I can smell it on your breath."

The finger attached to his shirt wanders, rubbing absently against the sparse hairs on his chest. He stares down at her drunkenly, watching the way her finger strokes his skin.

"It's getting dark," he mumbles.

"I don't care," she says.

She scrunches his shirt in her hand, then, and yanks him down to plant a kiss on his mouth. Their lips and tongues crash together painfully, and they each curse under their breath before meeting in the middle again.

Andrea runs her tongue along his lips until he opens his mouth and lets her inside. She licks into his mouth, kissing him deeply, and pulls back after a few moments with a wet pop.

Her lips against his, she tells him, "You taste like you're drunk."

"Yeah, well so do you."

She pushes her tongue past his teeth again and winds her arms around his neck so that they're chest-to-chest. Daryl's hands are everywhere, suddenly, smoothing down her sides and up the front of her blouse.

She gasps when his hand squeezes her breast and arches into his touch. He pushes her back against the seat, settling between her legs and bringing one up to hitch around his waist.

"Fuck," he sighs. He grinds against her and she gasps again, her hands flying down to undo his belt. "Oh, fuck."

She unzips his fly and wraps a hand around his shaft. "Less talking, more doing."

Andrea wakes slowly, and the first thing she notices is the way her head is pounding. She squeezes her eyes shut, willing someone to turn off the sun.

Then she realizes she's naked and lying in the backseat of an SUV, and there's a warm and equally naked body pressed against her back, and her eyes pop open again.

She turns her head slowly, trying to keep her headache to a minimum, to see Daryl spooned up behind her, his nose buried in the side of her neck. His hand is snaked around her body, resting dangerously on her inner thigh.

"Daryl," she whispers. She gets no response, so she pokes his arm. "Daryl!"

He grumbles, and his eyes squint open, trying to focus on her face. "What the fuck?"

"Yeah." In case it's not obvious enough, she hisses, "We're naked!"

He looks down. "No shit," he grumbles.

She tries to shift their positions, not sure if it's better to stay where they are until she can feel around for her clothes or untangle themselves and just avoid eye contact. Almost immediately, she freezes.

"Oh, seriously?" she says, because she realizes he's not the only one awake.

"Shut up. Can't help it," he says, his cheeks coloring anyway.

"Okay, I'm just going to…" She moves back. "Let's get up. Don't look."

"Yeah, 'cause I probably haven't seen everything already," he snarks.

"Oh, God." She folds herself up into some modicum of privacy and leans against the car door. "What happened last night?" she moans.

"Ain't it obvious?" he says. He scoots to the opposite side of the backseat. "We got drunk on these idiots' booze and then we fucked."

"Oh my God, you are so crass."

"What? It's true."

Andrea shakes her head and turns to look out the window. "Oh, shit!"

"What?"

She nudges his shoulder and points out the window at a walker a couple of car lengths away, staggering toward their vehicle.

"Shit," he echoes. He twists around, searching. "Where's my crossbow?"

"How should I know?"

He locates it in the driver's seat and loads it quickly, then opens the car door as quietly as he can.

"You're not dressed!" she whisper-yells.

"Then don't look," he hisses back, and moves off toward the walker.

Andrea tries and fails not to look at his backside when he positions himself and puts a bolt cleanly through the walker's skull. He bends over the corpse to retrieve the bolt, and she blushes and starts pulling her clothes on.

She's more or less put together by the time he cleans the bolt and makes his way back to the car, and she can't help but stare when he stands beside the open car door with nothing but his crossbow.

"We need to get out of here before his friends show up," he says.

"Yeah." She shoves a pile of clothes at him. "Get dressed."

Daryl rolls his eyes and finds his boxer-briefs. "Yeah, yeah."

They avoid being around each other for almost a week, after.

Not out of any sort of anger or ill will, really, but just for the pure fact that they've seen each other naked, and had sex they don't remember, and oh God, if they stand next to each other, everyone will know – or worse, maybe they'll try to jump each other again.

So they avoid each other. They avoid each other, that is, until Rick asks if they wouldn't mind venturing out for supplies again.

It's their turn, after all.

The ride out to the center of the little town they're stopped in is too quiet, and Andrea opens and closes her mouth several times, wanting to say something, anything, to cut the tension in the air. When they reach their destination and jump out of the truck, she strides over and stops him with a hand on his arm.

"Daryl."

"What?" he grumbles. His eyes dart around, watching for walkers and other unfriendlies.

She searches his face for a moment. "Look, we really shouldn't make this a thing," she says.

He finally turns to look at her. He says nothing, but quirks an eyebrow.

"I mean, we were drunk. We made a mistake. It happens," she continues. She shrugs. "Let's stop avoiding each other, okay? It's dumb."

"Whatever," he drawls. "I wasn't avoiding you. Just had other stuff to do."

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Okay." She gestures to the building. "Let's do this."

They go through the small town's general store/pharmacy, packing up any leftover useful drugs and food and sundry goods. Daryl tosses her a tube of sunscreen, mumbling something about keeping her pale ass from frying.

She blushes and averts her eyes every time he bends to get something off the floor.

Truth be told, things are still kind of awkward between them.

They're working together a lot more now that they're always on the road, always getting ready for the next move, and when the others are around, it's pretty much just like it used to be between them. The others, it seems, act as a buffer between them.

But then, the times they're alone – on watch, out in the woods, scouting their next stop – there's still a strange cloud of unease and skittishness and guarded curiosity hanging heavy in the air between them.

They've had sex, and they don't remember it, and it's Daryl, and it's Andrea, and it's weird enough that they can't quite get past it.

Something's got to give.

When Andrea asks him to take her hunting a few days later, it's with an agenda.

"So… I've been thinking," she says. She trails after him as they trek through the woods, a hand on her pistol.

Daryl snorts. "This should be good."

"About the sex."

He whirls around, then, his eyes narrowed. "Thought we were over that?"

"Yeah. But… I was thinking," she says. "And I mean… we've obviously done it once."

He eyes her warily. "Yeah?"

"And we… you know. Woke up together."

"Yeah." He toes the ground and glances around. Anything, really, to avoid her eyes in that moment.

"So, if that's the way that it's going to be between us – that we've had sex and saw each other naked and everything – shouldn't we at least get to remember it?"

"What?"

"The sex."

He looks over at her again, brows furrowed. "You want to do it again?"

She grins suggestively and walks toward him until they're toe-to-toe. "So what do you say?"

He stares at her a moment. "You think this is a good idea?"

"Maybe. I don't know," she says.

Daryl looks down at his feet again. He's quiet, thinking. "Ah, fuck it," he finally says.

Immediately, Andrea reaches for him, pulling his mouth down to hers.

"Whoa!" he says, breaking the kiss. "Here?"

"Why not? We're in the middle of the woods. The others aren't coming out here."

"What about walkers?"

"We haven't seen one in days," she reasons. She toys with the zipper pull on his pants. "If you're that worried, make it quick, then."

With that, Daryl plants his hands on her hips and walks her backwards until she's pressed up against a thick tree trunk. He shoves a leg between hers and attacks her neck with his lips, biting and sucking a path down the column of her throat.

Her hands slide from his chest to his stomach and down, making quick work of his belt buckle. She pops the button on his workpants, slides down the zipper, and then her hands are on him.

"Fuck," he breathes.

He kisses her mouth again and pulls her shirt up to bunch under her armpits. He palms her breast with one hand, groaning as she continues to stroke him, while his other hand undoes her jeans and clumsily attempts to push them down her legs.

"C'mon," he grunts.

Andrea pushes him away to step out of her jeans and underwear, and they barely hit the ground before he's pushing her against the tree trunk again. Her arms go around his neck, and she lifts herself so she can wrap her legs around his waist.

He thrusts into her with one hard stroke, and her eyes roll back in her head. For a few moments, he just stands there, his hands on her thighs and his forehead pressed against her shoulder. She moves a hand to his back and opens her mouth to encourage him to move when he does, pulling out and pushing into her hard, turning her words into a deep guttural noise from the back of her throat.

He builds a steady pace, rocking his hips against hers. She kisses his mouth, his jaw, his throat, gripping his shoulders and scratching her nails up and down the back of his head.

"C'mon," she breathes. Her hips meet his thrust for thrust. "Faster."

Daryl does what she asks, speeding up the motions of his hips. She drops a hand down between their bodies, and he swats it away and replaces it with his thumb. He presses, hard, and she comes biting his shoulder.

A few more thrusts and he follows her, muttering a string of curses into her collarbone.

Breathing heavily, she unlocks her legs from around his waist and drops, letting the weight of him pin her against the tree.

He says what they're both thinking. "We forgot about that?"

She laughs giddily against his chest.

"Get it out of your system?" Daryl asks as they're walking back. "Now that we can remember it?"

She turns pink. "Yep. You?"

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugs. "So that's it, then?"

Andrea glances up at him and nods curtly.

"And nothing's going to be weird?"

She shakes her head. "No."

He stares at her, searching face. "Okay."

"Okay," she says, and bites her lip.

Things are weird for a few days anyway.

Late one night, she unzips his tent and slips inside.

"What're you doing here?" Daryl asks, like he already knows. He's stretched out on his sleeping bag, a worn novel in his hands.

Andrea sits on her knees beside him. "I have had a really annoying day."

"Queen Lori getting to you? Noticed you and her talking earlier."

"'There's too much laundry. There's too much cooking,'" she whines, her voice nasally and over-exaggerated. She rolls her eyes. "'Where's Carl? Has anyone seen my son?'"

Daryl snorts. "Guess that's a yes, then."

"Yeah. So, just… come on." She squeezes his knee. "What do you say?"

He puts the book aside and squints up at her. "Seriously?"

"Yeah? What?"

"It's just… I thought we were done."

She shrugs and crawls over to him, straddling his waist. "Maybe not." When he just stares at her, she sighs. "I'm just feeling a little stressed out the last few days. Keyed up. You know?"

He slides his hands up her thighs, settling on her hips. "One more time, then?"

She grips the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head. "Don't make me regret this, Dixon."

He reaches up and unclasps her bra before pulling her flush against his chest. "Yes, ma'am."

She doesn't stay the night, but it doesn't come as a surprise to either of them. When their eyes meet over the campfire in the morning, though, she smiles at him, and he smiles back, and things aren't so weird between them anymore.

They volunteer themselves to go out scavenging along another stretch of highway, sneaking glances at each other as they pick through other people's abandoned vehicles.

Andrea hits the jackpot, finding an assortment of bags and boxes stuffed into an SUV with the backseats folded down. They start dragging them out onto the asphalt to look through everything, pulling out clothes and toiletries and canned goods.

"These people stocked up," Daryl mumbles, reading labels on the cans.

"Yeah," she says, looking over her own group of shopping bags. "Good planners, I guess."

"Or fucking thieves."

She digs around in a bag filled with drugstore-type items and spots a box of Trojans stuck in amongst toothpaste and vitamins. She picks it up and stares at it, arguing back and forth with herself, tapping it lightly against her hand.

Finally, she rises and walks over to him, smacking him lightly in the chest with the box. "Check it out. They did stock up." She quirks an eyebrow. "What do you say?"

He looks at the condoms, looks at her, and grabs her by the waist, crushing her to him, trapping the hand holding the box between their bodies. His mouth slants over hers, his tongue in her mouth, and she sighs, running her fingers through the back of his hair.

He moves her backwards toward the car, hands in her back pockets. Her legs hit the edge of the truck and she stumbles, grappling for purchase on his shirt. He slips an arm around her back and gently lowers her onto the carpet, crawling on top of her.

"Get the door," she mumbles.

He twists around and reaches upward, pulling the hatchback shut so that they're fully closed in. When he turns back, she's already pulling her shirt over her head.

"So." She grins and starts unbuttoning his shirt. "One more time?"

He snorts. "Yeah," he says. He picks up the condom box and shakes it. "One more time, twelve more times. Fuck it."

She kisses him again. "Less talking, more doing."