Everything You Want

The headache that woke me hours later was one of the worst I’d had in years, and not even seconds after I’d been awake my body was heaving over the toilet seat in Sean’s apartment.
I groaned and sat against the opposite wall, relishing the cold marble floor against the exposed skin of my legs. I wanted to go back to sleep and start last night all over again, because the last thing I remember was dancing with Norman. Or, rather, dancing against him—he wasn’t much of a dancer at all. More of a brick wall, if anything.

Which brings me to, what the fuck? I remembered dinner perfectly fine, and I had only been that civil towards him then because the presence of Mingus, someone who I absolutely adored. There were several instances at dinner where I had to bite my tongue from saying something cruel or making a jab at Norman, and a couple of slips, but I was rather proud of myself. The club, however, was an entirely different story all together.

I vaguely remembered being a t-total bitch to some trash whore, begging Norman to dance with me, him turning me down, and then appearing on the dance floor… Only to walk right back out on me. Like, Jesus fuck, Norman. I had some pretty decent emotional whiplash because of him last night, which transferred into my hangover.

Fucking Norman. What a fucking bastard.

There was a soft knock on the door that sent an immediate rush of pain through my head, and I groaned.

I peeked over at the door, and wasn’t surprised in the least bit to see Sean leaning against the frame with a tiny smirk on his face.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, and I glared hard at him.

“How the fuck do you think I’m feeling?”

“Uh…”

“I look about as good as I feel.”

For some odd reason, that pulled a huge grin onto Sean’s face and I only narrowed my eyes even more at him.

“Pretty sure Normy says that exact line at some point in The Walking Dead,” he said, a sing-song edge in his voice. Did the think that was some kind of sign from the universe signaling Norman and I were just soul-mates and had to be together? Surely not.

Then again, this was Sean. It wouldn’t surprise me in the last bit if he did believe that, nor would it surprise me if he phoned Norman to inform him of that.

“Fuck him,” I growled, hugging my knees to my body and pressing my forehead between them. “And fuck this fucking hangover from hell.”

He chuckled low in his throat, but ignored my whining. “I have something for you.”

I arched one eyebrow at him in curiosity, but I remained firmly planted on the floor. Sean continued to stare at me expectantly, but I wasn’t going to be able to stand on my own without spending another five minutes hurling. Or make sudden movements.

With a dramatic sigh, he very slowly and very carefully helped me from the ground.

“I got it,” I mumbled, and trudged after him down the hall and into his kitchen. On the counter top, there was a small array of objects. A drink carton with two coffee cups sat atop five DVDs, one bottle of some kind of pills, and a stuffed teddy bear. I glanced at Sean, who seemed rather pleased, and he motioned to them.

“Go on.”

Muttering profanities under my breath, I picked up the coffee cup with writing on the sides.

“Hope you don’t feel too shitty this morning, and hope you don’t hate me too much. Couldn’t remember your favorite coffee, so went on a limb and thought maybe you’d like my new favorite. Sean mentioned you hadn’t seen the second Boondock, and you didn’t own the first. Those are the two DVDs, and the BluRay for the first 3 TWD seasons are there. I also brought some Advil for the hangover. I hope you have a relaxing, restful day. –Norman.”

Are you fucking kidding me right now?

“He’s trying, Kenz. You gotta give him points for that, at least.”

I glanced over at Cleo, who had just entered the room with a sleepy demeanor still about her.

“Ain’t gotta give ‘em shit,” I muttered, and set the coffee back down. “What the fuck is this? A hangover recovery kit? The fuck is he? A goddamn mother hen?”

Sean groaned, running a hand over his face and shaking his head. “Jesus, he’s just trying to fucking prove he cares. He wants to do nice things for you, is that so wrong of him?”

I bit my lip—he knew the answer I would have given him.

Yes, it was in fact, wrong of him to do that. What gave him the right to be like that? If he cared half as much as everyone said he did, I’m pretty sure he would have shown up looking for me in London. But he hadn’t, not a once. I knew he’d been through Europe several times after Sean couldn’t keep his loud mouth shut and told Norman, but it was for promotional or photography stuff. Not for me, never for me.

I guess maybe that’s why I was so bitter and reluctant about him, now.

If Sean broke up with Cleo, and she reacted exactly how I did… I’d bet not only my life, but the lives of people I cared most about—which, coincidentally would happen to be those two—that within 24 hours Sean’s ass would be sitting in an airplane somewhere over the ocean. Because he loved her, and there’s no way in hell he’d ever let her get away like that. Like Norman let me.

My face prickled slightly, and I sniffed once in the hopes of pushing back the water collecting in my eyes. But it didn’t work—that one thought alone had brought me to tears for the first time in almost ten years.

Just what I needed on top of this hangover.

My lip trembled, and a couple tears slipped from my eyes. I hurriedly wiped them away, but Cleo and Sean both had saw. Before I knew what was really happening, they were at my side. Cleo had one arm around me rubbing my back, while Sean stood waiting for his chance to be the big brother I, in essence, never really had.

“It’s okay, Kenz, it’s alright. Everything is going to work out, I promise,” whispered Cleo, and all I could do was shake my head while I did my best to keep an utter breakdown at bay. “Neither Sean or I would let him anywhere near you if we thought there was even a chance he’d hurt you—you know that, right?”

One look at both of them and the seriousness in their entire demeanor, I would have believed anything they told me. Already knowing them only reaffirmed my conviction in her statement, so I lamely nodded my head. I understood.

“You two just need to talk,” she sighed, hugging me to her side and picked up one of the coffee’s Norman had brought. “Here, drink this. It might make you feel better.”

I hesitated a moment, only because I knew it was from Norman, but I gave in. He knew coffee of any sort was my weakness, at any point of the day or night. Tentatively, I took a tiny sip of the scalding liquid.

Holy. Shit.

Norman Reedus may be a lot of things, but that man knows good coffee. I could never deny him that. Damn, this was amazing—like baked apples in liquid coffee form. I’m pretty sure he just introduced me to my new favorite Starbucks drink. It was also still extremely hot, and my hands were still shaking. I didn’t want to spill it, nor did I want any kind of burns from it, so I set it back down.

“D’ya wanna talk, Kenz? We never really got much of a chance to… Norman and I talked about it nonstop for days, weeks, months even… And even with you ignoring him, he always asked about how you were when we spoke,” said Sean before he bit his lip, a trait he undoubtedly acquired from me. “He’s never stopped caring, or loving you.”

I felt like Bella in Twilight. I had never liked her, and I thought she was pathetic when she locked herself away when Edward left. But now… now, I understood a little better. There was an emptiness inside of me that physically hurt when I thought about Norman.

“No, you’re wrong, Sean,” I sighed, slumping against the counter in complete defeat. “I mean, really. Think about it… what if you broke up with Cleo, and she reacted in the exact same way I had? What would you do, Sean? You’d go after her, because you love her.”

They glanced at each other briefly, a moment of understanding passing between the two. We all knew Sean would be dead before the thought of breaking up with her ever occurred to him.

“That’s such a hard comparison, though, Kenz,” she finally said, laying her head against Sean’s shoulder.

“Norman and I are two entirely different people, you know that better than anyone.”

“But you can’t argue, I’m right.”

They both looked extremely troubled; Sean slightly more-so than Cleo. “God, Kenz. There’s so much I want to tell you that I can’t. Fuck.”

I shrugged. “Wouldn’t matter, Sean. Tha’s all there is to it.”

I spent the rest of the day—literally, the entire day—curled up onto the couch with coffee watching movies. Well, the BluRay disks of The Walking Dead—the curiosity was too much to bare, and once they were placed in front of me, I couldn’t help but indulge in it.

I hated to admit it, but Norman killed his role. No one else could play Daryl Dixon quite like him, and there were so many qualities of himself instilled in Daryl that I couldn’t help but be drawn to him.
Then again, half the world was now drawn to Daryl and Norman because of this, and I was just one in a million.

My heart broke into pieces when Merle was killed, and Norman executed the scene on such an emotional level that I had to sit back and admire how much he had grown as an actor, and as a person. When we had been together, he was very insecure about his acting, and a scene like this would have been extremely difficult and forced for him. I was proud of him.

At one point, somewhere around the beginning of the third season, Sean had returned home from all his errand running and shooting for a film that day. He was on the phone, but when he saw I hadn’t moved from where I was when he left, and I was still completely glued on the TV, he laughed out loud—earning a very sharp glare from me.

“Sean, shut the fuck up,” I growled in annoyance, turning the television up more. Evidently, he didn’t understand that shut the fuck up meant stop talking, because he continued on his conversation.

“Dude, this is hilarious. She hasn’t fucking twitched a muscle other than to change out disks, I think…”

“… Yeah, man. I think she does, by the looks of it… Hey, Norm, I got—”

“Woah, woah, cowboy. You on the phone with Reedus? Gimme,” I demanded, I had to know when Season Four was going to either air, or be released in full set. Seans eyebrows rose, and pointed to the cell phone. I wiggled my outstretched fingers impatiently.

“Uh, brother, she wants to talk to you,” and with that, the cell phone was placed in my hand.

“Alright, Reedus, spill. What happens in four? When is it released? What the fuck happens?!”

I heard a soft chuckle on his end of the phone, a chuckle that was still music to my ears.

“I can’t tell you what happens, you know that.”

“But Norman,” I whined, and adjusted my blanket just a little to cover my freezing toes. “Please.”

“Oh, God, don’t. I literally can’t give away anything—I’m sure AMC has a fucking satellite tracking my every move and word. There’s a little laser on my forehead, waiting for me to slip up. I wish I could tell you but I can’t.”

That motherfucker.

“Well when does it come back on?”

“The first part of four ended a couple months ago. The second part is starting back up next Sunday, actually.”

Oh, thank the Lord. “Alright, thanks. That’s all. I’ll give Sean his phone back now.”

“Wait, McKenzi—”

Of course I wouldn’t get away that easily. “Yes, Reedus?”

He hesitated, and I could see him sitting there stroking his chin and fiddling in nervousness. “Um, did you… did you like the coffee?”

Relief washed over me. “It was bloody brilliant—thank you.”