Chapter Text
When Normal’s eyes blearily open, he has to wince with the pain in his… well, the list of where he didn’t hurt was honestly shorter.
He can feel the weight hands on his side, one pair long and shaky, and one pair he’s more used to.
Linc and his dad, murmuring over him, reassurances and pleas and half-truths he can barely make out over the din of their surroundings, pressing their hands into him and hoping.
He can hear Taylor’s huffy, wheezy breaths and the rubber treads of Scary’s Docs knocking against his cane and the floor and the high squeak of his sneakers Dood stood quaking in.
They must have been so worried, Normal thinks in his daze, and just as he does he feels the wrench of pain in his chest as a sour, discordant cough catches his ears.
“Normal…”
No.
A splutter comes next.
“Normal,” the voice repeats, small and weak and no, no, please, no.
“ Normal…” NO.
Normal can’t move, feeling pins and needles as he shakes and shudders and attempts to shift, thrash, fucking something to get out of his father’s grip.
He knows that voice, and knows he needs to be there with its owner.
He hears a slump against the wall across from him, and sees through his half-lidded, delirious haze a scene ripped right out of his worst nightmares, or a stupid action movie, or one of Taylor’s shoujo-murder-school-child-assassin animes.
He sees Hermie the Unworthy, bloody and looking right at his near unconscious form.
He has one hand weakly clutching his chest, poorly covering a gaping hole and a smirk on his face that does nothing to mask the blood leaking from his lips.
Normal feels the anguish that consumed him shifting and twisting as his eyes sting and water at the sight. He thinks for a second that he’s going to vomit from the wrenching, twisting pain in his whole body as his heart rejects what his eyes are seeing.
Then, a cough.
“... I like you too…”
And then the tears are flowing whether he is aware of it or not, and his heart is pounding and Hermie isn’t moving and Normal can feel his throat trying and failing to allow the scream he feels boiling over inside him out into the open space of this stupid fucking government stupid fucking building.
As if he could discern anything about himself right now.
Hermie.
No.
This was never supposed to be the way he heard this--
And then Normal blacked out from the pain, as the smirk on Hermie’s beautiful, burnt, made-up, scarred, bloody face floated around in the whirl of his head.
When Normal wakes up next, he’s back in his bed, in a giant t-shirt. Some hand-me-down of his dad’s or Uncle Lark’s, his mind supplies.
His mascot costume is set up in the chair next to his desk.
The wide, uncrushable smile of Teeny the Teen brings a shaky, but reassuring sigh to Normal’s lips. He sits, stretches and shakes out his hair.
A splash of blue waves hit him in the eyes… That’s odd.
He rushes to the mirror and takes in his new appearance. He blinked hard at the strange face blinking back at him. It was him, he supposed, or close enough.
He had all the freckles he remembered having, connecting familiar old constellations. His eyes were bright and reflected the familiar forest and wild hazel green he was used to, if a little more vibrant. And yet, he looked different today.
His curls were bright sapphire blue atop his head. His skin was sunny across his cheeks, and he was covered in freckles.
He looked like himself, but just a little cooler… maybe? He had none of the scarring or burns he remembered from the adventures…It was certainly different.
But he barely had time to notice it before a brassy tune pierced the silence, and a face broke against the phone beneath his scarred hand. A thrill runs up his spine at the dramatic form of Hermie Unworthy (his best childhood friend’s cousin? Uncle?) on his phone screen.
He really wasn’t clear about the relation between Hermie and Taylor, but he knew even if he didn’t remember dying his hair or feeling the little rush of embarrassment run up his spine as he chose to duck out of the presence of Teeny’s soft foam eyes when he answered with a familiarly creaky voice, he wanted one with Hermie all his own.
“Good morning! H-Hermie, hi! To, uh, t-to what do I owe the pleasure?”
A warm, swift chuckle is the first sign of notice he hears on the other side of the line.
“Good morning, Normal,” the fond purr of Hermie’s cadence cuts through, warming Normal from the chest up, thanking Dood and Ron Stampler above that this wasn’t a video call, “I was requested to call upon you by Taylor, he said something about nerd solidarity and personal safety… the long and short, my dear Normal, is my nephew was going to offer you a ride to school. Nicky’s back in town and Taylor’s positively itching to brag about himself in front of him. I thought I should graciously extend a counter-offer.”
Normal could hear the playful smirk on Hermie’s face. Intriguing.
“I-I’m sorry? Huh? A ride to school? I- Huh?”
His head was almost swimming with the swirly rhythm of some old corny pop song marching band cover blipping across his mind as Hermie giggled.
“Oh, Normal, Normal, Normal… I am trying to spare you from my nephew’s braggadocio… as I cannot handle that and Nicky’s whole, erm, energy. Anyway… your house is on my way, want to join me on what will surely otherwise be a monstrously boring walk to our hallowed halls of academia?”
A warm smile crosses Normal’s lips as he finds a rushing, shiny heat in his whole body at the idea… and he nods on reflex alone, thankful that neither Hermie nor his family can see him right now.
Hero would have a field day, and Uncle Lark and Primx Ash would be all too eager to join in on the wholesome family fun of teasing him about the rose in his cheeks or the happy, giddy tremors of his jumpy, energy filled body at just a friendly call from the boy he liked…
And that’s not even mentioning Mom and Dad, whose reactions he didn’t even want to imagine for fear of his reddened face exploding from the heat.
“Oh, uh, sure. Yes, I mean, yeah Hermie, let’s walk to school together. Besides, no offense to Nick, but I’m not really in the mood to hear more stories from the guy who told me I remind him of my Uncle Lark…His ex-boyfriend,” Normal gushes with an easy eagerness he found was effortless talking to Hermie.
“No way, Nick Foster? With your ex-pat, doomsday prepper Uncle? The one with the tactical vest and the gun strapped to the underside of his desk? The one who sews kevlar into your clothes?? He used to go for Narcolas? My degenerate half-brother?” Hermie tuts.
Normal’s giggles in response aire on the side of awkward.
“Uh, hate to be the one to break it to you, but who do you think started calling him Narcolas?”
Hermie’s fake gagging gets even more exaggerated at the mere imagination of the pair in question, which sends a thrill through Normal.
“Normally,” his name rolls off his tongue drolly, “if you would be so kind as to extend my condolences to your Uncle for me, that is certainly a telling revelation… and very indicative of the collective trauma our parent’s generation went through. Anyway, delightful, indeed. I’ll be by shortly, then. After all, safety in numbers, of course.”
“Sure, Hermie… I mean, I probably won’t tell Uncle Lark you said that, because he gets super dodgy when people bring it up… I mean, like, more dodgy than he usually is,” Normal finds himself squeaking in reply, “ but are… are you worried for our, uh, safety?”
“Oh goodness, I didn’t mean to imply… but, y’know, she’s still the toast of the school, and that puts our unfortunate, talented asses on the line. She doesn't take kindly to lone losers. I, president of the drama department, you, proud school mascot and cheerleader? I think if I’m going to get beat up, it’d be nice to not be alone, sure.”
“Hermie, nobody’s going to lay a finger on you, not when you’re with me,” Normal replies before he can slap his hand over his own stupid, foolish, absolutely dorky, lovesick mouth… also, apparently there was a mad bully on the loose at Teen High, but then Hermie laughs, a soft and elegant sound that reminds Normal of Abuela Mercedes Oak-Garcia’s wind chimes or like gentle bells ringing. And with that lovely sound, all of Normal’s worry about his own neck disappeared.
“Well,well, we are certainly in a gallant mood today. Oh, what would I do without my knight in shining mascot suit?” Hermie whimpered, putting on aires of a southern belle, which did nothing to assuage Normal’s flush.
“Anyway, see you soon, and let’s hope neither of our families' sordid former flames have to be addressed today. Good morning, Normal. Catch you later, alligator.”
And then he was alone with his thoughts again and found the feeling of his breathing starting to even out as his face erupts into a wide grin and a fit of giggles. Oh, either Taylor was an absolute traitor and a scheming asshole, or this was the nicest thing he’d ever done for Normal!
He didn’t take too long to meditate on that line of thought, not when he had to get ready to walk to school with his crush/future boyfriend!
There was a song in his heart and a skip in his step as he ran down the stairs, scrambling to grab his lunch from the fridge and grab some quick breakfast, all the while trying to figure out something to do with his hair to make it more… tamed.
Or he’d settle for just salvageable, but he was aiming for presentable at least.
“NORM! YOUR BOYFRIEND’S HERE FOR YOU!” Came the haughty shriek of his elder sister.
“HERO, SHUT UP, HE’S NOT MY--”
“Whah, ‘he’s not my boyfriend, Hero’, ‘He’s out of my league, Hero’, ‘This isn’t one of your doomed yaoi manga, Hero’... did I get you?”
Hero stands proud in the path to the living room, between the kitchen island and where Normal stood backed against the toaster waiting on his breakfast (a slice of his father Sparrow’s famous gluten free banana nut loaf) to finish warming.
She eyes him suspiciously, bearing a grin that he’d only seen before she took action as his older sister to ruin his life-- with some kind of sardonic remark about how cute it was that her baby brother was making friends, or how worried the family was that he’d spend his life alone and marry Teeny for companionship, or, or…
okay, this was spiraling, he was spiraling.
Normal takes a deep, cleansing inhale, just like Dad taught him to… and shoves past Hero’s scheming grin on the exhale.
He felt much better, just as he expected to.
Before he could snark back at Hero, there was a knock at the door, and he only had to spin around twice to let out his giddy flaps before opening the door without so much as a backwards glance towards Hero, who’d apparently found a much easier target in his breakfast.
Behind the door was the charismatic, bespectacled face of the thespian who’d snared his heart like a rogue squirrel in one of Uncle Lark’s gopher traps.
“Hey, Normal.”
Hermie, dressed in a smart, pristine white button down and a bow tie of brilliant blue, his amber eyes all but beaming light down on Normal, his wavy split dyed hair framing his angular face.
He was a dream.
And Normal thankfully caught up to the fact his internal monologuing left him standing in front of the door gaping at Hermie.
“H-hi, Hermie.”
“Ready for another day of higher education?”
Normal’s chipper attitude seemed to shimmer through his grin.
“Oh, I mean, yeah. I have a thermodynamics project to work on with Linc and Taylor later, but it’s not so bad, you know? Cuz at least it means we can all hang out in the library without getting dirty looks… for the most part. You?”
Hermie smiles and shrugs,
“Meeting with Erica and Margs and My New Adoptive Fathers for audition planning, but otherwise, I’m free as a metaphorical bird. Hopefully not too many harassments or heartbreaks before the end of the day…”
The walk to school goes by too quickly for Normal’s liking, and the ever familiar feeling of his anxiety tightening his muscles and the swelling of the lump in his throat at the sight of his beloved school-- weird, it feels like a rush of horror hanging dense as the early autumn fog as they approach the cement and blue tiles buildings of Teen High…
And, unbeknownst to poor, naive, little Normal, he was about to find out why, firsthand…