makeovermakeovermakeoverMAKE-OV-ER! (Ace)

Fretful: fret·ful [fret-fuhl]
adjective
disposed or quick to fret; irritable or peevish.

Beth was feeling that. Fretful, restless. She'd rode a bit of a high for a time. From the silliness of a truth or dare game, from meeting a certain guy with great hair, a charming smile, and a thing for floral shirts. All good things, at least in Beth's opinion. Maybe even a great thing or two, the potential was there. Beth was the kind of person who was always looking forward. Whether she was excited for the future or worrying about it the next step was always bolded in her mind. The possibilities as well as the cliffs she could easily walk off of if she wasn't careful.

But lately it was the present and recent past that was the problem, she'd had a series of quiet moments. She went to classes, went to meals, chatted here and there online, but nothing or note. She was bored and she'd had just enough of all that. So she was prowling about the hallways. She like that notion. Prowling. Not in a cougar lady way though. Just prowling for something fun to do. Not someone fun to do.

Of course, deep in the recesses of her mind Beth did have a few faces she'd rather see. Not any of her roommates. Not at the moment, she saw all of them quite enough already. Perhaps even more than was healthy. Beth still couldn't decided if any of them actually liked her or not. Ellen always seemed annoyed, but then maybe that was just her face. Kizzy was... perpetually reluctant and negative. Beth could deal with it, but she wasn't sure if the red head even want to deal with her. Maggie was... bizarre-like living with the Barbie doll herself-and perpetually making the air of the room smell like girlish powders. Faith was pushy, bossy, and highly suspicious. Then came Laura, everyone perpetually and very weird little sister.

Spotting a face she knew, yet didn't live with, Beth smiled and came over and quick as her feet might take her. She flopped over the arm of the chair to land beside the all too pretty to function Asian boy. The first Highgrove resident she'd made acquaintances with upon her arrive. Her voice was playful and sweet, a bit like a six-year old girl's.

"Hey yeah there stud muffin. What's up wi'ya?"

Boredom had struck, and it had struck hard. He didn't want to read, didn't want to write, and damn sure didn't want to do homework. Every time that happened, when he didn't want to do anything, it just meant that his depression was getting worse, and that he'd end up hospitalized before long. He would get so bored that he would do only one thing -- think. And thinking was dangerous for Ace, sometimes. Most of the time. He would start to think about his mother, her death, mostly about how much he regretted not begging her to stay home, not giving her the puppy dog eyes. Even if she went anyway, he wished that he'd at least tried harder. And then his mind would try to pin some of the blame on his father, and then he'd think about his father... and he couldn't have that, because they'd drug him to the gills. Then he wouldn't ever feel anything.

He rummaged through his drawers and collected all the makeup he could find, because this was something he hadn't done in a long while. That, he put in his little makeup bag and tucked it securely into the messenger bag that was always seen dangling from one shoulder, almost at all times, before heading to the activities room and setting up camp there. He wanted to practice that eyeliner thing he saw Josie wearing sometimes. He grabbed a handful of tissues from a box sitting on an end table, and started to examine his pencils. Not pink... he needed black... where the fuck was the black one? Finally he pulled out a very small one, almost gone.

Then he heard a voice, and grinned. "Hey there, hot stuff. Not much. Just experimenting." He uncapped the black pencil and took the stupid 'safety' sharpener, turned it a few times, and blew off the excess. He ran it along the back of his hand to dull the point just a little... and then an idea came to him.

He looked to the pencil, then back up at Beth. She had those crazy eyes... They were just screaming 'PAINT ME!' Again, he looked to the pencil, back up at Beth, tilted his head, and smiled a bit. "Hey... so... are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He didn't have the slightest idea whether or not she was the type to like makeovers... she might be, or she might recoil like a cat threatened with a bath. But maybe...

"Cool cool."

She gave a simple nod and leaned her head back into the couch cushions. Bethany eyed the boy's eyeliner pencil. Watching him turn it inside the sharpener and blow off the shavings. Beth had never really done much with her look. She owned some cover-up, eyeliner, and mascara. That was the extent of it. Sure she put a little on every morning, but she really wasn't big on it. She probably could have been, but that wasn't how she ended up. Her gran hadn't exactly been the type to sit down and teach her tricks of the trade and her only girl friend was an equally lost cause. Ruby'd always had problem skin. If it wasn't eczema it was acne. Piling make-up on the mountains of problems seemed like a lost cause, if not something that could make it all even even worse. So they'd kept it simple. Minimalist.

Still, there was certainly a curiosity there. Beth would still stop by make-up displays. She'd smear pigments and glosses on the back of her hand and admire the colours and shimmering qualities. But in the end she'd always walk away empty handed. She didn't like spending her pocket money on things she couldn't be sure she'd make use of. She didn't have a hell of a lot of cash and she didn't like the idea of needing a part time job. That would have taken her too far from Samson far too often.

"Ummm...." She looked to the boy, the eyeliner pencil, then back again before replying. "You think I need a moustache drawn on my face too huh? Yeah, I always thought I'd be a nice addition. Fuckin' go." She pressed her lips together tight to flatten and smooth the skin between them and her nostrils. Then she giggled. Even if it wasn't his first thought, she kind of liked it. Plus it gave her a little time. She'd never had anyone do her make-up before. It was a little.... not intimidating, but enough to make her feel jittery from a little fear and excitement mixed together. Grinning now, she sat up a little straighter and poked at his supplies.

"And what would you do with me Mr. Artist?"

"Yep," Ace said, still focusing on his pencil at that moment, while Beth took a seat on the couch. This was going to be interesting. He doubted anyone taught things about makeup... that was really a mother's job, or a sister's, and Ace had neither. Nor did he have really any friends he thought could teach him, other than Josie, who wore the style that Ace wanted to experiment, but he couldn't really find her much these days. And he had no internet to go and trawl through pages upon pages of magazines and picture tutorials. So he'd have to do it himself.

"Nah, I think you look best without facial hair," he giggled. "Though if you want a moustache... hey, if I draw it, I dare you to wear it the rest of the day. If you do, I'll... um... I'll draw you a picture or something. And you can tell people it's a dare, too, if you're like, concerned about it." He laughed when she pressed her lips together, and before either of them could say anything, he drew a nice little curlicue handlebar moustache above her upper lip. He had tissues, in case she wanted to take it off. No harm done.

She poked at the supplies and spoke, and Ace shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, maybe I was hoping I could play with your eyes. I mean. They're gorgeous. But, like, I mean that in a totally platonic way. Seriously. Do you know the things I might kill to have eyes like that? I bet you get compliments all the time though." He didn't really know about that, because like his two only other female friends there, he hadn't seen her in a while, hadn't been around to see what compliments anyone gave her. But they had to. She could be a model, and those eyes were just so different, so dramatic. He thought she'd work great in haute couture.

"Do you mind if I do your eyes, Beth? If you're afraid or just don't want to, that's fine, but I promise, I'm really good. I'm not gonna poke you." He looked down and started to go through his eyeshadows, picking a set of four shades of blue, and an eyeshadow brush. This would really make her eyes pop, he thought. She should wear more blue.

Giggles: light and girlish. They might seem out of place to some of the residents at Highgrove House. So many of the girls there were stuck on stoney silence instead of silliness. Beth could pass for a happy teenage girl a lot of the time. Her issues seemed to shimmer there below the surface. Like water beneath thin ice. Winking at you. Hinting at the danger that's laying docile under your nose. So she giggled, muffled under her pressed tight lips. Both out of giddiness and the light tickle of the eye pencil on normally untouched skin. Once the pencil was moved away she grinned widely.

"How do I look? Dapper as hell, m'right?" She pouted her lips in a quick "Mwah" kiss gesture before taking his mirror and having a look. A barking laugh this time. Something fuller and more worthy of the girl's Scottish sound. The boy spoke and Beth listened. Blinking those large eyes in question unassumingly. Do you know the things I might kill to have eyes like that? I bet you get compliments all the time though. Beth glanced away a moment, feeling rather awkward at the moment. She gave her shrugs a little non-commital shrug.

"At times, yeah. I mean, my bo-...ex-boyfriend Samson, he always said they were why he chatted me up off the bat..." Beth sat up a little straighter, turned more fully towards the asian boy. She was going have him have at her after all. She just needed a second to allow the slight suspicion in her body die down. She knew Ace was, apparently, an okay guy. She really ought to give him a proper chance. A leap of faith in human kind. "But girl's are largely fuckin' bitches, ya know?" she explained. "Did ya know that eyeballs are like the only body part that doesn't grow or something? So they were this same size when I was all tiny. They used to call me 'Buggy' in school. Tell me they where going to squash me with a newspaper and shite."

She left out the bit where it got worse. beth managed to establish herself early on who would take a lot of teasing, a lot of bullying without a word. She was a push over in their eyes. At least she was when she was looking out for her and her alone.

"Yeah, okay. Let's do this." she gave a nod and looked to his supplies again. "Should I wipe the 'stache off? Suppose it's a bit distractin' in'it?"

Ace held out his little round stand mirror, only about the size of the span of an average hand, smirking at the moustached girl in front of him. "Oh, of course! Very... um... distinguished!" For some reason, he couldn't stop laughing; it was just too ridiculous. But a full-on laugh from him was rare nowadays, rare as the times he was actually having fun and enjoying whatever he was doing fully. Her laugh then startled him for a moment. He didn't expect such a big full laugh to come from a girl with her size, her looks. But it fit her somehow.

"Samson's a nice name," he mused. He didn't know how she felt about him, but caught her quick change from boyfriend to ex-boyfriend. Had he broken up with her, and she didn't want to? He knew a lot of girls that happened to, especially at school, and he'd spent many a day sitting on the stairs to the school, waiting for the bell to summon them in, handing tissue after tissue to some pretty little breakup victim, listening to them cry and holler about what a twat whatever boy they'd been dating was.

He took one of the tissues, moistened it with a travel-sized shampoo bottle, emptied of shampoo and filled with water, but just held it there.. He didn't see her actually wanting to wear it around all day. "I had a boyfriend," he said. "His name was Tristan. He might still be my boyfriend, but I decided to break it off. I was too sick." 'Sick' was what everyone called him, anyway, even though physically he was quite well, at least until the doctors grew concerned about his drop in weight, and the fact that he was still so tiny. They wondered if something had stunted his growth because Asian or not, he should still be at least a bit taller.

"Some girls are," he said. "But largely... I might have to agree. I could never date one or whatever. Can't handle the drama bullshit." He put the bottle back down and set the tissue on top of it. "Eyeballs don't grow? Well fuck me." He pointed to his. "I'm fucked. Though I do like the shape of mine. I wish I had a proper eyelid, though. Makes it hard as it is to find an eyeliner style that doesn't look funkified."

He listened to her story about the teasing because of her eyes, a look of mild shock on his face. He couldn't imagine that anyone didn't like those peepers. "Well, they don't look buggy now, at least. If anything they look like owl eyes, which is good... 'cause owls are supposed to be all wise and shit. Or like, they look kind of exotic, you know?"

"Yeah," he said, and handed her the moistened tissue. "I don't think you'd wanna wear that 'stache around all day. They'd like... think you drew it yourself and then be bitches and wrap your hands up and take your makeup and markers. They did that to my best friend... but he doesn't have makeup, but you know what I mean."

Once the moustache was off, he checked his pencil again. "Don't worry, I'm not going to poke you in the eye... just close them and relax." He then positioned it over her left eye and started to draw a thin, black line with a tail that went up from the corner. Not too bad.

"Yeeeeeaaahhhh..."

Samson. That name seemed to be haunting her. Not unlike a ghost. She'd said ex. She'd done it. Verbally severed the ties. Made that careful, well-thought-out distinction between past and present. It was a desision she'd laboured over, even if she shouldn't have. Because, she was insisting to herself, Samson had been bad for her. He'd driven her damn near crazy with his cheating. For fuck sake, she'd killed a dog to try to keep him with her and only her. And she liked dogs. Or at least didn't hate them. Cats were certainly superior and that one had been a bit yappy, but still. Without Samson in her life, fucking around on her, she never would have done that.

It really was Samson's fault. At least that was the mantra she kept repeating.

She took the tissue and aand pressed it to her lips for a minute before pulling down. Another couple swipes before she looked up and displayed her skin for him. Making sure she got it all. The drawn on moustache was goofy, silly, and obvious. A shadow that looked more like real upper lip hair that a joke would be way more embarrassing. Think of what Faith would say...

"Did I get it all? I like you're eyes... They're so dark. Like fancy health food store chocolate. The kind that's supposed to be good for ya."

Already she was feeling like she spoke too much and too soon. God, she was such a fuckin' loud mouth. Beth glanced to the floor a minute, needing the feel the pressure off for a moment. Trying to stifle the blush she could feel rising in her cheeks. She gave her lips and little pop and lifted her head as Ace started giving instructions, closing her eyes gently. She'd never really had someone do her make-up before. She pressed her lips together lightly to hold back a tiny nervous giggle.

"It tickles. That's kind of weird. It doesn't tickle when I do it myself. I think it's like, the element of surprise where I dunno where you're going. Or how fast, yeah? So... what are you plotting? Like something classy or something real wild like?"

Sick, his mind repeated to him. Everyone had said it, that Ace was sick, something was wrong and he needed to get better. He watched only blankly as she rubbed the moustache off her face, eyes dulling as he thought of the last day Tristan came by to visit him in the hospital. Ace still had the bandages on his arms, the stitches itching madly inside them like he had a thousand bees trapped under the gauze. He'd made up his mind already, so when he told Tristan, Look... it's not working, he didn't shed a tear, at least not then. Later, he had to replace his soaked pillow, but not yet. I'm sick, he'd said, though then, didn't believe the words. But now he understood why it was used. Because it made it sound less dangerous than it was. If little Acey was sick, that was fine; he'd be fine. But if he was what he really was, hurt, depressed, pining, suicidal, then he was a goner. Not like Paul's family, the ones who called him sick, even cared, because he'd ended up in foster care in the end anyway.

"Oh... yeah, you got it," he said, pushing the vision of Tristan's incredulous, hurt face out of his mind. He had cared, Ace realized. Maybe he could have something like that with Nate, except for... well, of course, Nate would go away in a year. Less than. And Ace would still be there, in limbo. As much as he wanted to think he would one day find the object of his affection again, he knew it probably wouldn't happen. Maybe for the best. Nate wouldn't know Ace was dead, and remain hopefully blissfully ignorant.

"Uh... thank you," Ace forced himself to smile. He did get that a lot, the comparison of his eyes to chocolates. Dark chocolate, melted chocolate, hot cocoa, depending on how the light hit them. "Yeah. Sorry, I kind of... zoned out there for a minute."

He was midway into her first eye when she asked what he was going for. "Oh, maybe a little of both," he said, now starting to darken and thicken that guideline. And then, he smudged it just a little to give it a smoky look before starting on the other soon after. "So I guess you don't have other people doing your makeup that often, particularly not guys," he said. "I sort of wanted to be a cosmetologist, a while ago. Now, I'm not so sure." He took another tissue and cleared up a mistake before drawing on, and talking on. "What about you? Got any plans for when you get out of this shithole?"

He wouldn't tell her his plan. Everyone probably knew it, but they wouldn't hear it from his lips. He'd just be thrown into another hospital if he said anything about it. Until then, he would let Nate be his rock, and maybe some of his friends as smaller ones to keep him looking happy enough that they might deem him worthy enough to re-enter the real world...

Beth gave a tiny little shrug of her shoulders. Trying not to move her head and neck at all while he worked. Her mind harkened back to that group therapy they'd had on the subject, on the future after they were of legal age and left this temporary home. How she's answered easily and that one boy with the wild snow white curls had damn near started a riot.

But Ace had been in that one, Beth remembered that. She wondered if he even remembered she was there. Compared to the chaos that had unexceptadly decended she was probably the furthest thing from noteable. She remember at the time he'd been one of the sad types that the loud boy had been trying to defend. Ace hadn't had any plans then, or at least he said he didn't. Beth had to wonder why he didn't just lie at the time is this make-up artist thing wasn't in his mind at the time.

She'd said she wanted to travel, which was true, more than anything. But it was also born from the fact that the idea of a career or a job was just aweful to her. She didn't like the idea of working 9 to 5 and only having a life on weekends. There had to be a way to avoid it. Even if that way was like... a sex tape or something. Beth would consider it.

"I want to travel I guess? Like just... go backpacking and do odd jobs and hitchhike and see where the world takes me. I don't know. Everytime I think about like... growing up and having a job I kind of just want to barf. I've heard that some people just travel and take photos and sell them to travel magazines and shit. But that's the only grown-up thing I've ever liked the sounds of. Maybe if I'm lucky some trucker will just keep me around and show me the world. Gross, but whatever."

Hell, maybe she's even hitch a ride with a creepy one. End up dead in a ditch before she's 35. That almost sounded better than the concept of settling down. Getting old and just biding time until her lover left her for a younger model. It was disgusting how men only seemed to get more handsome with age while women just look progressively more "rode hard and put away wet".