Work Text:
Just kiss me, you think. Just kiss me. Once. Just so I know what it's like. And then I can put whatever these feelings are away.
Norman
It's been a long day, week, month of filming. The intensity of the scenes you've been filming has you lying in your trailer at every available opportunity most days, a wet towel across your forehead and something soothing playing on your iPod. This job, man. This job has you fucked.
The cold compress against your eyes, the cigarettes, the Nick Cave helps – but not as much as a solid cardboard cup of takeaway coffee, shoved into your grasping hand each morning by the reassuring presence of Andy. Sometimes you return the favour, but more often that not, it's him giving the door of your trailer a brief knock before striding in, those black jeans snug against his slim hips, a large latte in each hand; the comforting aroma filling this messy room that's practically your home for six months of the year. He knows you like an extra shot or two (or three), he knows you like it as hot as possible, he knows you... He knows you.
You'll gulp it down, no matter if it scalds the back of your throat, Andy sitting beside you on the steps outside, laughing and saying Jesus man, slow down, but excess is your way, always has been. He'll look at you as he sips his coffee slowly, laughter in his eyes and a warm flush on his cheeks as he savours it.
When you're out here, under hazy sunshine and muggy heat, there's few things more satisying than the pfssst noise as you flick your lighter, and the ensuing crackle of the thin paper and tobacco as you take that first drag of your morning cigarette.
Today, you're finishing a smoke, letting the filter burn your fingers before you accept that it's finished and throw it to the ground, digging your toe into the dirt to extinguish it. The nervous tension you felt when you were watching Andy film a pivotal scene had you smoking three in a row, spellbound at his performance.
He walks in your direction, flanked by a runner who's handing him a cold bottle of water. He pours it over his head, shaking droplets from his curls. After taking a large swig, he sits down with a long sigh before collapsing back onto the dusty ground. There are a few whoops and rounds of applause from the surrounding crew, and you find yourself approaching the scene as you see Andy's face break into a smile.
"So glad that's over, guys!"
"Fucking awesome, dude!" you exclaim, kneeling down beside him and giving him a hug. Andy's body is hot beneath yours; his shirt soaked in sweat, and reeking of soil, fake blood and the last traces of the deodorant he would have put on hours ago now. You put a knee in between his legs, hands on the ground either side of his head so you can bend down and give the side of his face a lick.
The watching group dissolve into peals of laughter at your antics. The noise of their chuckles is the only reason you remember that anyone else is even there.
Andy laughs too, raises his knees up and twists them to the side so that your leg is trapped between his thighs. Oh you'll pay for that. You shift forwards slightly and lick across his full bottom lip. Andy clamps his mouth shut with the tiniest of moans, and you punish him for it by darting your tongue in between them. This is all a joke, you lie to yourself. Just another way of tormenting him. You move your hips a little further forward again, and suddenly there's friction there; denim against denim, knee against groin, heat against heat - and Andy looks at you, the whites of his eyes showing and his chest beginning to rise and fall rapidly. The top of his thigh is between your legs now and it's all you can do to stop your body from giving an involuntary jerk forward to chase the pleasure that you know it would bring.
Fuck. Fuck.
"Get off me, now." Andy's voice is cold, and low so the others don't hear its icy tone.
You wait for a few seconds before moving off him, and then he stands up, dusts off his thighs, and walks away, stony-faced.
*
Later, he comes to your trailer door. You stand to the side, letting him in. You're shirtless - and God you're suddenly very aware of that - and dirty from the day's shooting; patches of mud and sticky gore streaking your tanned forearms. There are three empty Corona bottles on the table and one half-full in your hand. You let the cigarette dangle from your mouth as he walks in, waiting for him to speak, to tell you that what you did was going too far, to do something.
Andy runs a hand through his damp hair; sweaty fingers getting caught in tangled dark curls. He rubs his temples with a thumb and middle finger, and you recognise that mannerism. It's the one he uses to get into 'Rick mode' - when he has something important to do or say, when his nerves are fizzling, like a spark running along a stick of dynamite.
"Andy," you begin, but he cuts you off.
"I don't know what the fuck you think you were playing at there, but... "
He puts his hands on his hips, looking at you properly for the first time. He looks destroyed.
"I fucking hate you for fucking me up like this," he says.
You get injured on set every year, and more than once. You've had burns, bruises, black eyes - and you wear each one like a badge of honour because it means you've given everything of yourself and poured it into your performance until you feel empty, like Norman doesn't exist, only Daryl. But now it's you – it's Norman who's been gravely wounded – and this time there's no glory in this injury.
Andy turns, looks around at the disarray of your trailer as if he is seeing it for the first time; from the brimming ashtray to the unopened fan mail that's sitting in a messy pile on the floor, just about ready to topple over. Polaroid photos and soft toys are scattered around the dressing table and there are chocolate bar wrappers on the arm of the sofa.
"Sort yourself out, Norman."
*
You wonder if there's an underlying jealousy of one another between you and him, sometimes. You will never go home to a 'proper' family or a garden that you have tended to yourself, and Andy will never be in some art gallery at 3am, pressing sloppy tequila-flavoured kisses to the sides of models necks. Part of you wants to feel your hand brush against Andy's in the soil – the younger man is stoic and still and some part of you craves that unfamiliar sense of calmness. You wonder if Andy is just as willing to sail on your choppier waters. You reckon so. Something about the two of you just works, and it has done from the very beginning. It's always been easy. Easy to laugh, easy to talk about the stupid shit, easy to talk about the serious stuff that you normally keep buried deep inside of you. Sometimes you wonder how he tolerates you, but he does. Maybe, because unlike so many others before him, he gets you.
You love his smooth, honest features. The serious blue-eyed stare that the mischievous twitch at the side of his mouth always ruins. Normally you're the cause of that. He's RADA, period dramas, honing his craft season by season. You feel like a fraud in comparison; you know you hit the jackpot with this show, will never tread the boards in the West End like Andy has. You once wrote in his trailer how fucking awesome he was - and you meant it. Oh God, you meant it.
Back in New York during a rare weekend off, you walk around Chinatown, your hand clasped around some girl's, and you smell gasoline and spices and warm pavement. The lanterns overhead give off a comforting orange glow that makes you think of fireflies in the Georgia woods, and you've always considered yourself a city mouse first and foremost because you love this town to its very core - but tonight you feel your chest tighten with melancholy and you start to ache for the crackle of twigs under your feet and the comforting aromas of Southern cooking that sometimes wafts its way into your backyard near Senoia.
You go to a gig, some local garage-punk band that a friend has recommended. You're in it for the booze, normally happy at home in your apartment listening to Rumours for the umpteenth time.
The interval between the shitty support band and the shittier headliner sees you poked and prodded by fans, and you suck it up because you feed off their enthusiasm. The venue is noisy with chatter, different languages, thick Noo Yoik twangs, people like you who've never really had a fixed abode and thus no fixed accent, and... suddenly, behind you, you hear the stretched-out vowels of an English voice. Your heart starts to thud momentarily and you want to turn around, the drunken half of your brain desperately wanting to tell the rational half that It's Andy It's Andy It's Andy he's come to see you but the rational half wins, Why would he be here you dumbass, he hates this kind of shit.
Only when you really listen does the prickling at the back of your neck and the base of your spine cease. It's an English accent alright, but different from Andy's – somewhere in the deepest recesses of your mind you pull out the word 'Manchester' – and you sink your teeth into your bottom lip; the pain distracting you from the sense of disappointment that you're trying not to feel. Andy will be in his home, and you imagine him sitting in a leather recliner, flicking through some political autobiography or tome about one of the wars. You can imagine just as easily him standing at the bar in this dive, snug jeans clinging against his ass as he leans over to shout an order into the bartender's ear. Now he's running his hand across his thick salt and pepper stubble, turning his head to look at the stage and then you, giving you a slight grin as he rolls his eyes at the racket.
But it's just your imagination. Because Andy isn't here.
Andy
Sometimes, you feel like just another piece of confetti that the breeze has picked up and thrown into the whirlwind that is Norman's life. A man who you probably never would have been in the same air as if you had both not taken a chance on this strange show, let alone become buddies with. In your other lives, you're a cop and he's a redneck, just as likely to have ever become friends as their real life counterparts. And sometimes you want to say Dude, slow down, just for a little bit. Stand still, if only to catch your bearings and enjoy this wild ride with me.
When you're in Norman's world, you smoke more. You smoke more because you enjoy giggling with him like schoolboys as you do so. Sometimes you will say no but almost always find your fingers taking the Parliament from Norman's lips so you can have a drag, and no-one else would dare do that, but you know that Norman won't mind, because it's you. Your cheekbones will hollow around the cigarette as you suck, long fingers made for smoking – making it look refined and elegant, where Norman's are fidgety and mischevious, like he's plotting something - and he probably is. The cigarette will be dry when you take it from Norman, those thin lips not soaking the tip, but when you hand it back, your fuller, plumper mouth will have moistened it. Norman will wrinkle his nose up momentarily, but then take a drag even deeper than before.
You drink more. You drink more because Norman shoves glasses of Jack and coke into your hand when you've only asked for the coke part, and when those narrow blue eyes are pleading with you to drink up, you can't resist, and then you find yourself stumbling against the beige-painted walls of yet another non-descript hotel in wherever the fuck we've been sent this time. You enjoy a drink, you always have, but drinking with Norman... you know you can get silly, more affectionate, more handsy. More than once you've had a head full of booze and found yourself throwing your arms around the other man, pressing your face into broad shoulders, laughing raucously and not caring who sees. Then you sober up and most definitely do care. So now you try, you really try to stay sober, stay guarded.
You're happy to let Norman be the showman, the clown, the one who meets fans and speaks to the press. And now and then, you feel staid and boring because he's the most interesting person you've ever met, Instagramming his way around life - New York and alligators and rock bands you've not heard of, and you wonder what you could take photos of because no-one would be interested in a picture of the strawberry plant that you're so damn proud of growing from scratch.
Once, you both wanted the wear the same shirt, and you had insisted that he be the one to wear it. Come on, you'll look SO much cooler than I will in it Norman and he'd raised an eyebrow, shaken his head, and given you a light shove in the middle of your chest. Andy dude, with that beard you'll look killer in it.
Sometimes when you watch Norman leave the set on his motorbike, you want to tell him to be careful, come back in one piece. You stare as he disappears off into the distance, straight into another adventure no doubt, and the nearer you get to wrapping up the latest season, the bigger the punch to the gut. You can stand there, a mobile in your pocket, a warm meal and bed to go home to, fans outside the gates clamouring for your attention - but you feel as alone as Rick must have every time he watched Daryl leave the prison to go on another dangerous run.
You sometimes worry that he thinks you've led a boring life compared to him, sometimes you want to tell him Mate, I lived in London during the 90s, do you have any idea how wild that was? But that's not fair to Norman, because in your less modest moments you know that he is enraptured when you speak, interested in your opinions, and maybe, maybe even just the tiniest bit in awe sometimes. It still confuses yet delights you that of all people, he asked you to write the foreword of his photography book.
And you wonder why, of all people, this has happened with him. Norman who dates models. Norman who hangs out with artists, musicians, photographers. You wonder why he snaps polaroids of you, you with a face that a particularly scathing casting director had once told you wasn't memorable enough, when he's met every type of person across the globe.
You're smart enough to know that sometimes admiration can blur into something else, that being on this set for months at a time in the sticky Southern heat, living in one another's pockets, can put strange ideas in your head. Working on this show is not reality. You've felt the intensity with other co-stars before, but not like this. This time it's Norman. The lunatic who made you double over laughing merely by asking what the best way to throw squirrels at you was.
He complains about how he can't grow a beard like you can, about how he has a weird, creepy face. You're constantly amazed that that's what he truly believes, and it's not just him pretending to be bashful in front of cameras. You've always been perceptive, and it didn't take you long to work out that his penchant for Ray-Bans and shaggy hair weren't to be 'cool' but were there for him to hide behind. And of all the things that baffle you about Normski, that's the one you don't think you'll ever figure out; how someone can be so damn extrovert at times, yet can blush so profusely any time anyone puts the focus of attention on him.
*
He texts you one evening, tells you he's out in Atlanta at some bar that only Reedus could possibly know about, and asks if you'll meet him. You enter the bar, collar of your jacket pulled up high and a green baseball cap covering most of your eyes, and you see him sitting alone in a corner, two whiskies in front of him. The bar is dim, all dark wood, wrought iron and Victorian lamps. In a black shirt and trucker hat, he looks exhausted; his eyes even narrower than normal. Something in your gut starts to ache with the need to protect, the way it does when one of your family is ill.
His eyes flick up to yours and you nod, sitting down opposite him and wrapping a hand around your glass. Your wedding ring chinks against it, catches the light, and you don't think you imagine that Norman winces.
He apologises again, telling you that he was sorry if what he did made you feel uncomfortable. You shake your head, let him know that an apology isn't necessary, that this is your issue, not his.
I think it's pretty damn obvious that this is both our issues he replies, and you rub your eyes, suddenly tired, so tired.
Then one of you, both of you, you're honestly not sure which, says that this has never happened to them before, it's not a crush that you can get on co-stars that quickly fade once filming has wrapped, this is something more than that; to call it simply a crush doesn't do this fucking agony inside of you any justice whatsoever.
And then you – and it's definitely you, because you can't stop thinking about the crestfallen look on Norman's face – says with a sigh Look, maybe we need to take a break from each other for a while apart from when we're filming.
Norman had nodded. You'd knocked back the whiskey and left.
*
You don't know what else to do. So in the evenings, you wait until your hear the noises of doors closing, and the switching off of lamps that indicate everyone else has gone to bed. And you drink red wine - good red wine - and listen to smoky voiced singers from Georgia on vinyl, smoking on your porch with your long legs and bare feet resting against the wooden railings, the Atlanta air humid and the noise of crickets keeping time with the crackle of the old records. You think about the smell of sandalwood and the rings on a mahogany table from two glasses of bourbon.
And then you're back in his trailer again, and you noticed he has tidied, and you feel terrible. You apologise for telling him to 'sort himself out', and he shrugs, assures you that no apology is needed. And you wonder how someone so utterly adored by millions of fans has remained so inherently good.
Norman sits down on the couch while you stand awkwardly in the middle of the trailer. He twirls his lighter over and over in his hand, while you clear your throat.
"I really don't understand how I go about dealing with all of this," you say.
"You think I do?"
"I thought you had experienced most things, Norman."
"FUCK man, not this!"
Norman
You pause, squeezing your large coffee cup and absentmindedly ripping it to shreds in a circular motion, like you're peeling an apple. You let the pieces of torn white cardboard flutter down onto the floor.
"How have you been coping?" you ask. You're looking down at the ground the whole time because you can't look at Andy, you can't look at Andy, you can't look at Andy.
You hear his sharp intake of breath and the drawn-out sigh that follows. You stare at his feet – those fucking battered and beaten cowboy boots that he loves so damn much – because you don't want to look at his face and see his eyes.
Then his voice comes, thick and croaky.
"I've been listening to a lot of Otis Redding."
You don't reply, because you don't need to. And then he leaves.
Andy
Norman opens the door of his trailer and the relief on his face matches yours as you tentatively hold a coffee towards him. It's the first one you've brought him since... since.
He invites you in, but you say no, let's just sit on the steps, it's a lovely morning. He nods, sits down with a grimace and an oof, and you empathise, because you feel as bruised and wrung-out as he looks.
You both stare straight ahead for a moment, thankful that the rest of the cast and crew are all inside the catering tent and out of earshot.
"I think the fuckin' world of your family, you know," he says lowly. You watch as his foot taps nervously.
"I know. Thank you."
"Good." Norman nods. "That's good. So we're... okay."
It sounds more like a statement than a question so you give a brief nod in agreement. You take a small sip of your coffee, and Norman, true to form, gulps his.
"Heeey," he grins. "You got an extra couple of shots in this for me?"
"I did, yeah."
His face beams, like this is the best thing that anyone's ever done for him. Like this isn't something you have done for him dozens of times before.
Norman digs into his pocket and pulls out a fresh pack of cigarettes. He takes out two, and hands you one. You accept it gratefully, pop it in your mouth, and lean over as he holds his lighter towards it.
He lights his own, giving a contented hum as he takes that first drag.
"I can wait," Norman says eventually. You say nothing, but reach out and touch the side of his knee.
The only noise is of you both exhaling plumes of smoke into the air.