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“Stop squirming, you’re gonna mess up your face paint!”
Normal squawks indigently and starts to wave Hermie’s worrying hands away. “I’m not going to ‘mess it up’!!”
“Norm, you’re literally messing it up right now.” Scary taps away at her phone — head down to keep herself from smiling.
“Wow. Thanks a lot, Scary. I thought we were supposed to be on the same side!”
Scary gives a noncommittal shrug. Hermie grabs at Normal’s hands. “You were the one who asked for my help with your makeup,” they say, finally pinning the hands down. “If you want only half of your face to be bright orange, feel free to walk away right now.” They release Normal’s hands and stretch their arms out in a mock bow, dramatically presenting the way to the door.
“Uuuugh fine, man. You don’t gotta be so mean about it.” Normal flicks at Hermie’s hands to show he’s not actually upset — previous issues have risen from unclear communication, which quickly taught all the teens to distinguish the vibes they’re emitting. Now it was just second nature to give a small smile or a nod to show everything's alright .
Hermie continues applying the face paint, expertly converting Normal’s sort-of-but-not-really average teen face (greasy, with smile lines and worry marks creased over and over, multiple scars from various battles etched into his skin. Shocks of bright silver in his mop of unruly hair, matching in all of the teens’ locks, the five of them refusing to dye away something that outwardly shows their unbreakable bond) into something entirely new (even if it was just going to be a bright slab of orange). It was their speciality — though they got to use it less and less with the convenience of being a shapeshifter.
“What are you going as, Scary?” Normal wiggles again, the call of ADHD winning after staying stock still for the last five minutes. Hermie pulls their hands back to prevent smudging and waits for Normal to finish his thought; it would be quicker than pointing out that they were running out of time (that would just accomplish making him anxious, which would make their job even harder with his nervous shaking).
“I’m not going to that party. And if I were, I would just go as myself. I’m already Scary .”
Normal frowns. “Scary we all know you’re going to the party, man. You told Linc about it yesterday after soccer.”
Scary flushes and looks back at her phone, her acrylics obnoxiously tapping on the screen. “Well, Norm , at least I don’t keep squirming while getting my makeup done. I bet Taylor would sit still longer than you have.”
“She’s probably right,” Hermie chimes in. “He does his eyeliner every morning, and we’ve all seen how good that looks.”
They take a moment of silence for due appreciation of Taylor’s makeup.
“Speaking of Taylor, where are he and Linc?”
Scary makes a few pointed taps on her phone before pulling up the messages between her and Taylor. She waves them in front of Normal’s face, making him squirm even more in his attempts to make out what the texts say.
“ Normal , sit still.” Hermie lays his hands on Normal’s shoulders, a weight that hopefully will still him.
“ ¡Ay! ”
Normal freezes as Hermie’s bare skin touches the cloth of his shirt. His ears and face darken to a deep deep red. Normal’s mind goes blank of any English he knew — knows? Did he ever speak the language? It certainly doesn’t feel like he does as he frantically scrambles to gather his thoughts.
What makes it worse is that Normal knows Elvish! People here can speak Elvish (or at least some variant)! They can’t speak Spanish! Why did his brain have to be so difficult ?
“ Ay, por dios. ” His eyes widen as he glances between Hermie and their hands.
Hermie yanks their hands away as if Normal had burnt them — and with how red his face is (it could even be seen through his halfway-done orange face paint) he very well could have.
On the other side of the room, Scary watches with feigned disinterest. The waving of her phone stilling as she “passively” waits to see what happens.
It had been a while since Normal had gotten so flustered that he accidentally switched to Spanish (and the times it had it never lasted long — usually only a sentence or two of what sounds like organized gibberish to the rest of the Teens). The last time had probably been during their adventures with Dood.
And Hermie had absolutely not been there when it happened.
Scary leans back in her chair after reasoning this out, now doubly invested.
“Ehem… sorry,” Hermie steps back from the chair Normal’s sitting in. “I should’ve asked-”
“ ¡No, tu eres- ” he pauses and groans. “ ¡Miércoles! No, you were fine!” Normal’s face is still red as a tomato — or pumpkin , rather. The blush on his cheeks announcing his crush visibly in a way that his words have not since returning from their Doodler-Quest. “I shouldn’t have been moving around so much!”
Hermie rocks back and forth on their toes, seeming to weigh their options, before coming to a decision. They pick up their brush, dab more orange on it, set one of their hands (the horrifically scarred one, as it can’t properly hold a brush) back on Normal’s shoulder, and continues painting his face.
Normal’s rambling is cut short as his mouth snaps shut. And, if Scary isn’t mistaken, she swears she can see the faintest hint of a blush curling up around the back of Hermie’s neck (though they were quickly trying to make it go away — whether with years of acting experience or with shapeshifting abilities).
Scary leans back in her chair, content with the resolution of her daily dose of drama , and waits for the message from Linc or Taylor saying that it’s time to go.
- • •
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Linc deadpans at the sight of Normal’s costume. “Is that just Teeny-The-Teen wrapped in orange with a pumpkin head over top?”
“Homemade too! It took me weeks to sew together all the orange fabric for the head… and for the actual costume on Teeny! Hermie helped me with the makeup for the bits of my face that are showing.” Normal’s full costume consists of the Teeny-The-Teen mascot body wearing a round stuffed pumpkin body, and instead of Teeny’s typical head there is a foam pumpkin with a little circle cut out where people can see Normal’s face — which is painted in the likeness of a hyper-realistic pumpkin.
A tad bit unnerving, but altogether a cute costume. Not at all an uncharacteristic choice for Normal.
Hermie has no idea why they find it so fucking captivating.
Maybe it was the way Normal got so flustered from them just placing their hands on his shoulders. Maybe it was the embarrassed way he stuttered out Spanish (which Hermie honestly found kind of endearing, despite not understanding exactly). Maybe it was the complete silence in the room, leaving more than enough time for his thoughts to run circles around each other, until Taylor FaceTimed Scary and they mock-whispered gossip to each other through the speaker…
Hermie tries to shake it off — they had washed their hands , it was in no way realistic that they were still feeling this way — but it still seems like they can feel the touch of Normal’s shoulders even now. They run their hands down the leg of their pants, trying to get a whole new texture to take over.
It doesn’t really work.
From where she’s talking with Taylor, Scary sees this. She gives a tiny , nearly inconceivable, smirk. Boy is she excited to see how this pans out.
