AN: This is just a fun little one shot for therealsonia who wanted something with "wine tasting".
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl got himself dragged into the damnedest things. And most of those he got dragged into simply because he was too nice to tell someone no and risk upsetting them.
His brother, Merle, always said Daryl was the sweet one of the two of them, and he wasn't dead wrong.
Daryl didn't even drink wine and, dressed as he was and surrounded by people who were dressed as they were, he felt as out of place at the wine tasting as a dildo at an estate sale.
Alice, of course, knew that Daryl didn't drink wine and now it was all coming together for him. She'd invited him to be the designated driver and he'd fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. He never knew how to tell her no and she never really missed an opportunity to take advantage of that. The only saving grace to his friendship with Alice was, perhaps, that he knew she was good for it whenever she promised that she'd make something up to him.
While Alice made the rounds and rubbed elbows with people she felt she had to be social with, all the while drinking every glass of wine that came into her hands, Daryl tried his best to blend in with the wall and keep from drawing anyone's attention. He ventured out of the corner that he'd claimed as his own every now and again and only long enough to grab another plateful of the snack foods that overflowed several of the tables in the house.
It was a charity event that the town was having and Daryl figured it was for a pretty good cause, if nothing else. Every person there paid a set ticket price—though Daryl didn't know how much because Alice had bought his ticket—and the money was going into a fund to help the local children's home make some desperately needed repairs. In exchange, everyone was invited into the mansion that was owned by one of the local doctors to test out samples from his impressive collection of wine and to sample fares from several of the local businesses who were hoping to draw people to their restaurants.
It was free food. And, if Daryl was lucky, whatever Alice did to repay him for accompanying her would be more than worth the few hours of his life that Daryl was pissing away while he worked his way through every sample of food that was on offer.
When Daryl's plate ran empty for the third or fourth time, he eyed the one table that he hadn't hit yet. Gathered around it was a trio of women who had moved around together the whole night. Two of the women were best friends, clearly, because they were close enough to each other through most of the night that Daryl couldn't have fit a piece of paper between them. The other, clearly their third wheel, seemed to mostly be following them around like she was afraid of being left behind. Still, even for her clearly third wheel status, she seemed to be having a good enough time and she was certainly enjoying the wine that she kept being offered.
Daryl decided to brave the gaggle of women to see what there was to munch on the table that they were surrounding, so he started in their direction. He bumped his way around the two Siamese twins and finally found himself face to face with the platters of tiny sandwiches and miniature wraps that he coveted.
Daryl didn't know what half the food was, just as he hadn't known what he was grabbing from the other tables, but he started to pile his plate up with two of everything. He figured the Noah's Ark attack was the best way to handle deciding what he did and didn't like. While he was piling up his plate, careful to make sure that he didn't miss anything, the third wheel of the trio approached him.
"Hungry?" She asked.
Daryl glanced at her and quickly returned his focus to the food. She was attractive, but most of the women there were. His quick sideways glance wasn't his first look at her either. She was wearing a blue dress, a little more casual than those worn by some of the women at the gathering, and her hair was gray and cut short so that it curled out in one direction or another all over her head. There was nothing really remarkable about her—nothing that would just make anyone stop and say that they'd never seen anything like her—but she was attractive.
And Daryl, as a rule, wasn't very good at talking to women that he found attractive. There was simply too much pressure. His saving grace with Alice, honestly, was that she was a bonafide lesbian and, therefore, created absolutely no pressure for Daryl to deal with.
"Yeah," Daryl mumbled, feeling that he couldn't leave the woman entirely unanswered. He continued his work of stacking up finger sandwiches, a little annoyed that just talking to her had made him lose track of what he'd already gotten and what he had left to grab.
"I know they said—all you can eat," the woman said. "But—I think it was really—I don't think it was really a challenge."
Daryl looked at her. She was smirking at him. Even making that expression, it didn't do anything to detract from the attractive nature of her face. She had beautiful eyes. They almost matched her dress exactly. But her eyes gave away the fact that she'd certainly drank more than one or two glasses of wine.
It was Daryl's turn to smirk at her.
"Yeah?" He responded. "I don't think the all you could drink was a challenge neither. To each his own."
Rather than getting offended, which Daryl somewhat feared she might, the woman thought it was funny. And either she thought it was genuinely funny or the wine, having gone to her head, made her laugh more than was necessary, because she gave herself over to her laughter. And, in laughing, she side stepped a little dangerously. Daryl put his plate down quickly to grab her arm and assure himself that she wasn't going to topple over.
"Easy," he said, not able to keep from laughing at her. "I think—you mighta had enough. You think?" He moved to take her glass from her and she pulled it back from him. As soon as he let go of it, a little of the crimson liquid sloshing in the glass, she put it to her lips and drank from it again.
"Nooo," she insisted. "No. I'm fine. I just—I need a little..."
"Bread?" Daryl asked. He picked up one of the sandwiches and offered it to her from his own plate. She looked at it like she was having a helluva time focusing on it and then she shook her head.
"No," she said. "No. I was going to say I need...I need some air."
In Daryl's experiences—though they were few—with women who drank, the need for air came shortly before the need to barf. This wasn't the classy establishment where this woman, whose name Daryl didn't even know, probably wanted to get herself a reputation for being sick. Even though there were buckets everywhere—buckets into which he'd seen a number of people spitting the wine they were drinking—he doubted very seriously that they were put into place for the use of those who got sick from having a few too many glasses.
Concerned about the potential of the woman to embarrass herself, Daryl caught her by the arm. He knew there was a porch close by because he'd stepped out on it six or seven times already to smoke a cigarette.
"Come on," Daryl said. "Take you to the porch. You can get all the air you need out there."
For good measure, he took her wine glass from her and put it on the table next to his plate.
"I wasn't done with that," she said, as concerned with her drink as every drunk person ever had been before.
"And it ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl assured her. "Put it right here with my sandwiches so we'll know where they both at."
Seeming to accept that as a reasonable explanation, the woman allowed Daryl to escort her around the table and toward the porch. Before he'd made much distance with her, though, he felt some pull back on his shoulder and looked behind him to see the black woman that was part of the Siamese twins looking at him. From the state of her eyes, she wasn't too much more sober than her friend.
"What are you doing?" She asked. "What are you doing with Carol?"
Carol, Daryl reasoned, was his ward for the moment.
"Air," he said. "Watch them sandwiches. We comin' back."
Whether or not she considered him a threat, the woman let him go. He had no doubt that she was watching him, but he didn't care. Her hands free, and maybe relaxing a little too much, Carol was swaying a little as she stood next to Daryl and he worried that lingering there too long and allowing her too much rocking on her heels might very well send her over the deep end of being sick.
As soon as he was free of the woman who'd questioned his intentions, Daryl got Carol out to the porch like he'd promised. He brought her to the bannister and put her hands on it, wrapping them around it so that she could steady herself. She stood there for a moment with her eyes closed and simply breathed in the air.
Daryl, a few steps away, lit a cigarette for himself.
"You lookin' a little green around the gills," Daryl offered. "You thinkin' about throwin' up, you just do it over the rail there. They prob'ly ain't gonna notice."
Carol laughed to herself, but it wasn't the sincere belly laugh that she'd given him inside. She groaned.
"I'm not going to throw up," she said. "I refuse to throw up."
"That'll be some trick," Daryl pointed out. "I've seen a lotta damn things in my life, but one thing I ain't seen is a person who could keep from ralphin' just 'cause they didn't wanna do it no more."
"I never drink like this," Carol said. "I hardly drink. But I never—I never drink like this."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"That was prob'ly your downfall," he offered. "You don't drink so you don't know it's sneakin' up on you. Before you know it? It's done got the best of you and your brain's so damn drunk it's thinkin' the best thing that you could be doin' is keeping right on drinking."
Daryl felt his shoulders relax. The shift in tension caught his attention. He realized that Carol, drunk as she was and completely harmless, wasn't any harder to talk to than Alice normally was. The alcohol took the edge off for both of them, even though Daryl hadn't tasted so much as a sip.
"I can't believe I'm this drunk," Carol said. Her voice caught and Daryl's chest caught too. In his experiences—few as they were—he had also learned that women who were drunk had a strange desire to cry about the damnedest things. That, even more than the puking, was something that Daryl wanted to avoid.
In his best effort to offer some comfort before it was desperately needed, Daryl reached a hand over and patted Carol's shoulder awkwardly.
"It ain't nothin' but a thing," Daryl pointed out. "Hell—they give you all that booze an' they had to figure you was gonna drink it. They put them buckets around and some people been spitting in 'em, but that just looks like they spittin' out the ones they don't like. Everybody's drinkin' the ones they do."
Carol closed her eyes and sucked in another deep breath of the fresh air. She was looking better, at least, than she had inside. She didn't look quite as green.
"You don't think anybody's noticed, do you?" Carol asked.
Daryl glanced back over his shoulder and through the glass doors. He could see people in there milling about. They were all laughing a little too loudly and they were all leaning into each other a little more closely than they probably would if they'd just bumped into one another at the A and P. He laughed to himself.
"Nah," he assured her. "Don't nobody care. They all drunk too. I think I'm the only sober one here. You keep it down? And you don't drink no more? You'll get outta here alright—dignity intact and all. You should probably call a cab, though. I don't know which one of them women is your DD, but they both drunk. And—I don't know if it's their thing or not, but it's look like they real damn close to makin' out."
Carol laughed to herself.
"Andrea and Michonne," Carol said. She hummed at Daryl. "It's their thing. But they're normally pretty discreet."
"Drunk and discreet don't go together half as good as drunk and disorderly do," Daryl pointed out. Carol seemed to think that was humorous as well.
"We drove separate," Carol said. "We all met here."
"Cabs would be the way to go," Daryl said. "Some lining up out there. So you won't be the only ones gotta come back tomorrow and get your cars." Carol groaned and Daryl shrugged at her. "Or—if it's a big deal, I could run you home. Or—you know, wherever you was headed. I gotta run Alice home. Another stop or two don't bother me. Three can fit in the back if you sit tight."
Carol sighed and looked at him. She looked slightly clearer eyed than she had inside, but she was still wobbling a little on her feet. She shook her head at him.
"I don't even know your name," she said.
"Daryl," Daryl offered. "Daryl Dixon. I'm here with Alice. Dr. Alice. Walker. Dr. Walker." Annoyed at himself for getting things so out of place, Daryl growled to himself. "I'm Daryl Dixon," he said. "I come with Dr. Alice Walker."
Carol smiled at him.
"I'm Carol," she said.
"I know," Daryl said. "Your friend called you that."
"Carol McAlister," Carol said. "I work at the Williams' law firm. Michonne and Andrea are lawyers."
"You a lawyer too?" Daryl asked.
"Secretary," Carol said. "They just thought—it would be good for me to get out of the house. Let my hair down, I think, was what they called it."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Alice thought it'd be good for me to get out," Daryl said. "Mostly—I think she was lookin' for a driver."
"It looks like she made a good choice," Carol said.
Daryl nodded his head at her.
"But I'm about ready to get outta here," Daryl said. "So I'm about to drag her outta here whether she's ready or not. Offer stands. If—you an' your friends want a ride." He shrugged his shoulders. "But if you don't—at least call a cab. I'd say you had about all the wine that oughta fall under all you can drink."
Carol smiled at him and laughed quietly to herself.
"What about your sandwiches?" She asked. Daryl returned the smile.
"I'd say I've had all the sandwiches that oughta fall under all you can eat too," Daryl said.
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Daryl surely got himself into the damnedest situations—and most of those he got himself into because he was just too nice.
He got all the women into his car—which was technically Alice's girlfriend's car that he was driving for a week while his truck was in the shop, so he wasn't all that concerned if anybody got sick in it—and he started the process of trying to take them home. It took him about half an hour, once he had them in the car, to get them all to tell him where they were going. The time it took was amazing, especially considering that, by the end of it, Andrea and Michonne were going to the same place and he already knew where Alice lived.
Once he had all the addresses in his head, he started the process of trying to take them home by first driving Carol's friends to the address where they wanted to be left. The home, almost as big as the one they'd left behind, belonged to the woman named Michonne. When Daryl pulled up there to drop them off, he left Alice and Carol in the car and, one woman on each arm, he walked Andrea and Michonne to the door to make sure that they made it all the way inside. He stood by the door supporting Andrea while Michonne burrowed her keys out of her small handbag and he waved away the twenty dollars that she tried to offer him as payment for his efforts.
"If I was gonna take your money," he explained, "then I'da just let you take a cab."
Michonne's keys discovered, and the door unlocked with a little help from Daryl, and he'd seen both women inside before he'd returned to the car. During his absence, Alice had traded places with Carol and Daryl was surprised to find Carol sitting in the passenger's seat.
"You switched?" Daryl asked.
"I get car sick riding in the front," Alice offered from the back. She was as awkwardly stretched out as her seatbelt would allow in the back seat. It was the least ladylike position she could have possibly gotten herself into, but she didn't care and, honestly, Daryl didn't care either.
"You don't neither," Daryl pointed out.
Alice laughed at him.
"You got me," she said. "I want to sleep until you get me to Mel's house."
"I was takin' you back to your house," Daryl pointed out.
"Change of plans," Alice said. "Mel's is closer. You're taking me to Mel's house."
"Whatever Alice," Daryl remarked.
Carol, for her part, was simply content to quietly ride while looking out the window. The place where Alice's girlfriend lived actually wasn't too far from where Daryl left Michonne and Andrea. It cut down on the driving time by at least a half an hour to take her there rather than to deliver her all the way out to her somewhat reclusive home. When Daryl pulled up at Melodye's house, the porch light came on and, before he could get Alice out of the car, Melodye was already standing on the porch and was waiting for the both of them.
"You missed a helluva party," Daryl informed Melodye as he helped Alice out of the car and to the porch.
"I think I'm OK with that," Melodye said. "Everyone behave?"
"Not a damn soul," Daryl said.
"Come in and have some coffee?" Melodye asked. "I've got it brewing."
"Would," Daryl said, passing Alice off to Melodye's capable hands, "but I got one more in the car that needs a ride home. So I'ma run her home an' then I'ma call it a night."
"Don't be in such a hurry to go," Alice said, laughing at Daryl.
"You know I can't just leave her in the damn car, Al," Daryl said.
"I wasn't talking about being in a hurry to leave here," Alice said. "Night, Daryl!"
Daryl ignored her and returned to the car. As soon as he was inside, alone with Carol, he felt a little of his earlier nervousness picking up. He'd been chatting with her through the night, but she was starting to sober up and he was starting to lose some of his boldness.
"How do you know her?" Carol asked.
"What?" Daryl asked.
"Alice," Carol said. "How do you know her?"
Daryl laughed to himself.
"Met her out drinkin' one night," Daryl said. "Little hole in the wall place. She—uh—she invited me back to her place to play cards. I didn't realize we was really goin' back to play cards until—until she introduced me to Mel. Her girlfriend."
Carol laughed.
"You thought you were...?" Carol asked.
Daryl thought he might choke on the admission, but he made it.
"Yeah. I'm not good at that shit," Daryl said. "Don't know what made me think I would be then, either."
"Either way," Carol said, "I can't see you being as—bad as it as you think you are. You got four women to leave with you tonight."
Daryl felt his stomach do an odd sort of dance at the joke. It stirred him up to the point that, stopped at the stop sign, he wasn't really sure how to proceed though he'd known exactly where he was going when Carol had given him her address. Apparently, sensing his loss of direction, Carol helped him out.
"Left," she said.
"What?" Daryl asked.
"Left," Carol said. "You'll want to take a left here. A right when—when you come to Pecan."
"Yeah," Daryl said. "Thanks."
Knowing where he was going again, Daryl was able to handle getting Carol home. As they rode, he searched for something to say to her, but he wasn't quite finding anything that sounded right. Carol let the silence between them continue for a few moments, but finally she broke it.
"Do you do that often?" Carol asked. "The—going home with someone you met at a bar?"
Daryl hummed at her.
"What?" He asked. The question sunk in for him. "No. I mean—someone needs a ride, I'll take 'em. Provided I ain't been drinkin' more'n they have. But—no."
"Why Alice?" Carol asked.
"What?" Daryl asked.
"If you don't normally do that, why Alice?" Carol asked.
Daryl hummed.
"'Cause she's easy to talk to," Daryl said. "Didn't feel like—no pressure. Didn't help my damn brother was eggin' me on."
"But it turned out OK," Carol said. "I mean—you're friends."
"Hell," Daryl commented. "Like that? Yeah, it turned out OK. She didn't—you know...didn't give me shit about it, really. Thought it was funny."
"No pressure, huh?" Carol asked.
Daryl hummed at her in question.
"Up here," Carol said. "Right on Pecan. You said—there was no pressure?"
Daryl cleared his throat.
"Yeah," he said. "No pressure. Just—like she weren't expectin' me to be nothin', you know. Just—no pressure. Now I know why the hell not...but..."
Carol hummed her understanding. She directed Daryl to her house once he was on Pecan and Daryl pulled the car into the driveway. The same as he'd done with everyone else, he got out of the car the moment that he killed the engine and he walked around, opening her door to help her out. Carol accepted his help, but it was clear that she didn't need too much of it once she was on her feet. Still, Daryl had walked everyone to their door, so he wasn't going to leave her to make the last bit of the walk on her own.
At her door, Carol took her time burrowing through her small pocketbook to find her keys. She held them in her hand a moment, upon finding them, like she wasn't sure they were hers. Daryl worried, for a split second, that he might have to backtrack to find out which one of the women had Carol's real keys. But she soon put that concern to rest by slipping the keys into the lock and unlocking the door.
She offered Daryl a small smile.
"Home," she said.
Daryl nodded at her.
"You might wanna drink some water," Daryl said. "Otherwise—your head ain't gonna like you in the morning."
Carol laughed quietly and looked at her own door like she wasn't sure she recognized it. Then she looked back at Daryl.
"No pressure," she said, "but—did you want to come inside?"
Daryl's stomach twisted.
Yes, part of him did want to come inside. However, she'd been drinking and he hadn't. His judgment wasn't at all clouded—and he couldn't use that as any kind of excuse for anything he did. Her judgment, on the other hand, wasn't crystal clear—not even if she'd sobered up some since they'd left the wine tasting. Going inside would possibly taking advantage, and Daryl would go into it knowing that full well. It wasn't something he was comfortable with.
He shook his head at her and her smile fell. She recovered it quickly and she nodded her head.
"OK," she said. "I understand. Thank you—for everything. I hope—you have a nice night."
Daryl caught her arm before she could step inside the door and she stopped.
"I didn't mean it like that," Daryl said. "But I ain't been drinkin' tonight. I'm—as clear headed as I'm ever gonna be. But you had—you had a lot more'n you shoulda had. And—maybe you ain't thinkin' as clear as you would. As you will be in the morning. I don't want—I don't want you doin' nothin' that you gonna wake up tomorrow and regret. You know?"
Carol smiled at him. She hummed, clearly struggling a little with something that was rolling around in her mind.
"OK," Carol said. "OK. Fair enough. Here..."
Burrowing around in her purse, she found a scrap of paper and a pen. She scribbled on the piece of paper—what Daryl would later figure out was a gum wrapper—and then handed it to Daryl. He looked at it.
"Your phone number?" Daryl asked. She nodded at him and offered the pen to him.
"Write yours," she said. "Here—on my hand. I have to—I'm going to shower anyway. Write yours. If—you want to. No pressure."
Daryl laughed to himself and took the pen. Against the urging of the butterflies in his stomach that he should run, Daryl did write his number on her hand. Carol looked at it and grinned at him.
"You have terrible penmanship," she informed him. "And the fact that—I can say penmanship should tell you that I'm not—maybe I'm not as drunk as you think I am. But—you have my number. And I have yours. And—maybe we'll call each other?"
Daryl swallowed.
"I'd like that," he said.
"Maybe tomorrow?" Carol asked. "Or is that too much pressure?"
Daryl laughed at her.
"You call me tomorrow," Daryl offered. "And I'll answer." He smirked at her. "No pressure."
"Deal," Carol said.
Daryl stood there a moment, struggling with his conscience and his desire to go back on his decision about coming inside, but he held as firm as he could. Carol surprised him by lifting herself up on her toes just enough to kiss him gently on the lips. She blushed in the light of her porch light when she pulled away from him.
Daryl swallowed down the resurgence of his nerves.
"Do you regret that?" Carol asked.
Daryl shook his head.
"Do you?" He asked.
She smiled and shook her head at him.
Knowing that his willpower wouldn't be enough to make him leave if he didn't leave soon, Daryl cleared his throat and wished Carol a good night. She echoed the sentiment and stepped inside the door. She didn't close it, though, or go entirely inside. Instead, she watched as Daryl left the porch and headed back toward the car.
"Daryl?" Carol called, stopping Daryl before he could get into the car.
"Huh?" He called back.
"You're a nice man," Carol said. "A—genuinely nice man."
Daryl laughed to himself.
"You're nice yourself," Daryl called back.
"I don't think I'd ever regret you," Carol said. "Goodnight, Daryl."
Daryl smiled to himself and wished her a good night before he got into the car that was waiting on him. After he closed the door, he sat there a moment and gathered together his nerves. He looked at the gum wrapper in his hand, smoothed it out, and put it in the cup holder for safe keeping until he got home. Inside the house, Carol turned off the porch lights and, one by one, the house lights came on to light her way through the house.
Daryl got himself tangled up in the damnedest things, and most of that was simply because he was too damn nice.
But for all the shit it had caused him, maybe being nice had its perks too.