Yvette and Clarice - Wednesday afternoon

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Clarice runs across Yvette experimenting with the makeup Monet gave her for Christmas.



Clarice was on a mission to find her missing shirt. She'd had it last week. And now it was gone. It wasn't in her laundry and it wasn't in her closet. And it wasn't in Monet's closet. "Marie!" she hollered, heading down the girls dorm hall, "Did you borrow my green hoodie?" No answer. Bah. Marie was probably being responsible and was actually attending her classes. Not that Clarice was being irresponsible, she had a few hours yet until her first class.

Yvette had been in her room, having a free period and wanting a chance to experiment wiht her birthday present from Monet with no-one else around. But Clarice's raised voice piqued her curiosity and she decided to see what was wrong. "Clarice?" she called, poking her head out of her suite door. "Are things okay? You are looking for Marie?"

"What? Oh yeah, everything's fine," Clarice replied absently before turning around and stopping. "Yvette...who did your makeup?" she asked gently, as if afraid of the answer. She didn't know what was worse, Yvette having done that to herself or someone else doing it to her. Oh children these days, wanting to grow up so fast and inadvertantly making themselves into painted whore clowns. Not that Yvette would ever look like a whore even if she tried. But damn.

Under the layers of heavy stage makeup, Yvette looked a little sheepish. "Monet, she is buying me the birthday present and I tried to make my face like she did for Queen Medusa's party. It... does not look right, does it?"

There was no easy way to say it, "Not...exactly," not eays, but at least somewhat tactful. "Want me to help? I have some experience with hard-to-match skintones," which was again being tactful. Either Clarice was growing up or she was maturing. Either way, it was a sign of the apocalypse.

"Please?" Yvette bit her lip a little. "Monet is very kind, but she..." There was a sort of a helpless gesture. "She likes to wear the make up more than I am used to, I think."

Ushering Yvette back into her room, Clarice commented, "Monet also has a lot to fix on her face. I mean, have you seen her in the mornings? Ew. She looks practically deformed. Unlike you. You only need a little bit to enhance your lovely crimson. Kinda like me," she smiled to let Yvette know she was joking. Monet was never hideous. Even when she rightly should be. "Unless you're trying to completely cover yourself?"

"I did not know how much to use," Yvette admitted, letting herself be shepherded. She took a seat on the plain wooden chair she used for her desk, perching on it. "It was difficult, when Monet was putting the makeup on my face, to see how much. "I... am to be getting used to my skin?"

"If you want to hide your skin, you need a different kind of makeup," Clarice idly poked at what Monet had given her, it was very nice. Very nice indeed, "this isn't to hide yourself. It's to enhance what you already have."

Yvette reached for the towel she used for this sort of thing, scrubbing at the makeup she'd put on. The towel was heavy-duty and thick, and already close to fraying through in some places. "I do not want to hide," she said, reappearing from behind the towel with a cleaner face. "Please, can you help me, Clarice?"

Would she help? Of course. It was trial and error for her and a helping hand would have been useful. Probably not accepted, but useful, "Sure. You just gotta remember, 'less is more,' like if you want to play up your eyes, don't wear a lot of lipstick. Or vice versa. Pick one feature to highlight."

Leaning forward, Yvette peered into the mirror. "I think my eyes make the attention without the help already, yes?" she said, sounding a little amused. "Because they glow. Perhaps the mouth?"

"Okay..." briefly she wondered if Yvette saw things differently because her eyes glowed, but she didn't ask. She wasn't that curious. Muttering to herself she looked over the assortment of makeup, "Green counters red, but orange counters blue...can't wear green or yellow lipstick without looking clownish..." looking up at Yvette, she said "Your colors clash," in mock annoyance.

Finally she selected some orange eye shadow and began to apply it. That would help tone her eyes down a little. "Maybe a brown for your lips?" she wasn't sure exactly, but red wouldn't work at all. "You should take a class on color theory."

If Clarice had asked, Yvette would have told her that she could see in the dark better, but not as well in daylight as she had used to. She looked a little speculative at Clarice's suggestions - orange sounded rather garish to her, and there was green and yellow lipstick? - but held obediently still. "I will trust you to choose the colours, Clarice. You know this better than I do. But be careful you do not touch my skin? I do not want you to be hurt." The brushes Monet had gotten her were actually industrial grade steel brushes for buffing metal, and withstood her skin's effect pretty well.


Clarice ignored the warning. Makeup was best put on by fingers, not steel brushes, but the brushes would have to do. "Look up at the ceiling light," she instructed, applying brown eyeliner. It was almost invisible around Yvette's eyes and that was perfect. The idea was a natural look, but in colour that worked for Yvette.

"What do you think? Just a little colour," she asked, handing the other girl a tube of lipstick. "Here, put this on too."

Yvette tilted her head, examining Clarice's handiwork. It looked as if she wasn't wearing any makeup, only her features looked somehow different. Prettier. Carefully she took the lipstick, a little awkward with her over-long fingers, and applied it. Her lips weren't as sharp as the rest of her skin, and she managed a thin coat without chewing up the tube too much. "Like this?"

"Exactly," Clarice could tell that the younger girl was going to go through a lot of makeup. Especially lipstick. "I used these colours," she pulled them out and separated them by feature. This way, she could perhaps learn to reproduce the effects.

Yvette nodded, starting to see what Clarice had done. "Thank you, for helping me," she said, turning those glowing blue eyes on Clarice. "It is good to be, how you say? The normal girl?"

Clarice smiled, "Why be normal, when you can be extraordinary, Spikey?" she asked. She really needed to share her book of quotes that he had started. It was just a little notebook, but it was full of little bits she liked such as 'It takes courage to grow up and be who you really are,' she'd learned to live her life by them and they worked. "I mean, anyone can be average."

Yvette considered this, then broke into a broad smile. "And we are not the anyone, yes?"