[a starstruck odyssey. norman takamori in the aftermath of the infamous cadet graduation. 3.1k.]
“you find your uniform, crumpled up in a ball in the corner, and it yields no answers. it’s crumpled up and dirty and smelling of sweat, just the way it would have been on any other day.
you spend far too long staring at it before making up your mind in a split-second to go to the dining hall. perhaps gust knows what’s wrong with you; why you’ve woken up feeling as though the world has shifted on its axis for you, and no one else. surely gust will know why.
that will fix it, you think to yourself. gust will know what happened, and that will fix it.”
or; norman takamori wakes up the morning after the cadet graduation with a splitting headache, and no memory of what happened.
if i think too long about norman takamori i will go crazy. and here is a fic (and, also, a whole zine) about that fact!
this is one of several fics (i did three & i'll be posting one a week to allow each one their time to shine) i did in july for the dimension 20 zine jam; this one was for a zine i ran entitled ‘Oh Captain: A Norman Takamori Zine’ which was, like it says on the tin, a zine centered around my beloved blorbo norman takamori! you can find the whole zine here and here is the whole zine jam collection! it's pwyw for the next month), with all proceeds going to the un's occupied palestinian territory humanitarian fund, so please donate what you can! i promise there's a bunch of incredible zines in exchange <3
okay so you know how i'm unhinged about natalia cicero connie lee carter bajar, right? we all know that?
okay now that that's established the backstory of this fic is after i finished my natalia fic i was thinking about norman takamori, as i do on a semi-regular basis, and i was like. wait. what if these people bonded over the fact that they both had their autonomy taken away from them? norman by skip and natalia by her extremely abusive and wealthy parents who literally embedded a tracker in their own daughter to ensure she could never leave? so. this fic is essentially natalia and norman fuck off across the galaxy together. the problem is i don't have a plot beyond the two of them bonding & maybe sadie zeb showing up at some point bc i love her. i will probably write more of it when i finally get around to finishing aso but i keep putting it off bc of the whole *gestures at norman's whole deal* and also i know what happens to natalia and it upsets me because i am normal and have a healthy amount of attachment to her :)
she holds the flier from the board out in her hand for him to take. she’s long since memorized the contents — ‘company wanted to travel the galaxy. spaceship experience not required, but an asset. almost all applications considered.’
when he doesn't take it, she places it down on the diner table in front of him.
“saw your flier,” she says, taking a seat across from the man who placed it. she takes a long look at him. he's tall and but not quite lanky, too much muscle behind with salt and pepper hair and a mustache, and natalia looks at him for a long moment as she tries to place where she recognizes him from. “you can call me…” she pauses for a moment, realizes she has absolutely no idea what to say. realizes she doesn't want the baggage of natalia but arcadia has baggage too now, and finishes lamely, “talia.”
“norman takamori,” the man says, and it clicks, all of a sudden.
“you’re the guy who had that hot dog ship and killed those nuns, right?” she asks. his wanted posters had been all over the galaxy for months.
he cocks an eyebrow at her in response. “you’re the one who was running the guernican art squad, right?” he asks.
she narrows her eyes at him. “used to be,” she says. she'd gotten bored of that, too — [more feelings here]. “how’d you know?” she asks. what she does not say is, ‘most people know me best for being the heir to one of the most famous empire-companies of the galaxy.’
he shrugs. “your voice, it’s… it’s one of the things i remember.”
natalia doesn’t know what that means, but she doesn’t ask. “are you sure? is that really all you recognize me from?” she asks, and she can hear the genuine hope in her voice. she’s frankly curious at this point — not to mention hopeful. all she wanted when she left her family behind was to escape the legacy of her family, and the idea that she was maybe even a little bit successful… it makes her feel a brief twist of hope in her stomach, and she resists the urge to grin stupidly.
“that’s your business, not mine,” he says. “i heard… when i got my life back, there were rumors about you. why you’d called yourself arcadia prime. figured it wasn’t my place to pry.”
“if you’re not going to, i will,” she retorts. some people just aren't ruthless enough in this galaxy. “what do you mean, when you got your life back?”
he heaves a long sigh, looks up at the ceiling, and the two of them sit there for a long moment before he speaks again. the wait-bot comes over and refills norman's coffee precisely to the rim of the cup, where it wobbles for a moment as though it's contemplating spilling over. “there was a cerebro slug that took over my life, and… my - uh, the people i worked with, they didn’t like me very much, so they just… let it happen.”
“shit,” natalia says. “that fucking blows.”
he chuckles, a dry sardonic laugh that reminds natalia of the red wines she used to have to drink at formal dinners with other company executives that made her tongue feel as though it was going to shrivel up out of her mouth. “you don’t know the half of it, kid.” it's been a long time since anyone called her kid, longer still since she felt like one, but natalia doesn't object.
they sit there in silence for another long moment, norman lighting a cigarette with a lighter he’s produced from a coat pocket before natalia says, “i don’t… the rumors are right. i have — had, i guess — clones. my parents cloned me when i was a child, and… my mom used to threaten to replace me with my clone every time i was a disappointment.” she fiddles with her hair, wishing it was longer and she looked less nervous when she did it. “and when i couldn’t take the expectations anymore, i broke into the lab and shot my own clone in the head.”
his eyes widen, just slightly, and a small smile paints itself across his face, almost involuntarily. “that’s badass.”
natalia nods, just slightly, and smiles, a little less slightly. “thank you kindly.”
the two of them sit there in silence for a long time, the wait-bot rolling by and eyeing both their coffees, “i assume they’ll eventually get around to cloning me again,” natalia says softly. norman looks at her, something in his eyes that looks like desperate sadness, but he doesn’t say anything. “i don’t know what i’ll do then. maybe then i’ll kill them, but…” she heaves a sigh. “i don’t know.”
norman takes a long drag from his cigarette. “i don't really have any good advice there,” he says. “i think about killing them a lot. i heard what they said about me. i heard everything, and…” he exhales, smoke clouding in front of his face. “it hurt. but i think if i did kill them, it would just… it would cement everything they said about me. and…” he exhales. “i'm an asshole, sure. but i'm not some kind of fucking sociopath, you know?”
“i don't think you're an asshole,” natalia pipes up.
“don't worry, kid,” he says, taking another slow drag of his cigarette. “you just met me. there's plenty of time.”
the problem with starstruck is it's that line “it's a complicated russian novel / everyone's got nine different names” from great comet but it's notably NOT a complicated russian novel and i don't understand why everyone has nine different names
