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Harper has never worn make-up as anything other than armor.
It’s a daily ritual, and it’s necessary.
(“It’s a woman’s obligation to wear make-up, Harper.” When she stares a little wonderingly at the half-concealed bruise on her mother’s face, she earns herself a slap. The resulting mark on Harper’s small face ensures that her mother doesn’t look at her the rest of the day. It’s a small mercy.)
The layers of creamy foundation wiped across her cheeks, forehead, down the slope of her nose - they feel like camouflage, mud and grime sealing the cracks in her resolve. With the lightest tough, she can at once smooth the flaws in her complexion and spirit away her most vulnerable expressions. Like magic.
(Her mother doesn’t teach her to use concealer. Harper learns on her own, trembling fingers grasping at bottles and tubes and compacts with confusing names like Dreamium Buff and Photogen Blend, even as she determinedly memorizes the exact position of everything so she can make it look like she had never rummaged through her mother’s things. She’s expected to simply know, to be seen and remain unquestioned. It’s not math; no one wants to see the work.)
With the eyebrow liner, she fills in the missing spaces of her brows. She’s done this hundreds of times, knows by now how to instinctively recreate each curve and arch. She lifts an eyebrow experimentally, and deems the sardonic look acceptable.
Slowly, she begins to recognize herself in the mirror.
Next are the firm strokes of color against her eyelids. The colors she chooses are almost always dark - gunmetal grey, dark bronze, kohl black. Most days, she goes without the eyeshadow, preferring the severity of dark eyeliner alone. It’s a striking look - one that gives her gentlest looks jagged edges.
(No one sees her apply and remove her make-up, not anyone who isn’t Anita. After they narrowly escape the train wreck that is Anita’s psychopathic brother and his damn Dream Room pumped full of hallucinogens, they spend the day recovering at Harper’s. Their heads are still swimming with the lingering high, once-familiar sensations turned foreign and new.
"Hey," Anita husks against Harper’s shoulder. "Hey, hey, hey.." They’re wrapped around each other like octopi, tasting with their skin. Harper can feel the vibrations of the words run up and down her arm, playing like a musical scale. She has a hand tangled into Anita’s hair, the soft strands rolling through the spaces between her fingers.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, what?" The repetition feels right on her tongue, and she allows a dreamy smile to pass her lips.
Anita looks up then, all wide-eyed awe and confusion. “I’ve never seen you without make-up, Har. Always perfect. Unless.. you aren’t wearing make-up. In which case, you are just pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, perfect.” She continues to make the “puh” sound, popping her lips like a child. Once the high wears off, Harper thinks fuzzily, Alejandro will be in for a world of hurt.
She doesn’t know why she offers, but, “Do you want to see?” Anita hums her agreement in three tones. The wolf shifter is loose-limbed and pliable, offering little resistance as Harper disentangles from Anita. She heads for the vanity, gait uneven with her altered perception, and knows that though she left Anita puddled contently in her bed, it’s Anita’s eyes boring into her back. It feels like a betrayal. To whom, she’s not entirely sure.
Harper returns with a bottle of make-up remover and a fistful of ripped tissues in hand. Together they take turns wiping the wet tissues down Harper’s face, their movements sloppy and molasses-slow. It feels nothing like her nightly skin regiment, and the unfamiliarity of it all almost has her flinching away from her alpha’s touch. The only thing keeping her still is the sight of Anita’s face, frustrated and earnest in a way she hasn’t seen since Anita was a child. Harper isn’t the only one equipped with armor.
"Done," the alpha declares with a lopsided smile. Scattered around them are shreds of stained tissue that Anita sweeps off the bed with a broad stroke of her arm.
Harper touches her own face, the pads of her fingers seeking out the naked skin in between patches of partially-wiped foundation. She closes her eyes, lost in the sensation, unperturbed even when she feels more fingertips - Anita, alpha, mine - at her cheeks. She can feel Anita following the path her own fingers take, tracing the fault-lines her armor leaves behind.
She falls asleep with her alpha nuzzling against her bare cheek.
They don’t speak of it again.)
Usually, the last bit of make-up she applies is lipstick, a bright streak of color sliced across her mouth like a fresh wound splitting around broken bone as she bares her teeth. Her smile is nothing more than an attack these days.
She glances at Anita, battle-ready at Harper’s side in a naked face and fury clawing out of her chest.
But today.. something tells her she doesn’t need it.
Underneath the armor is a weapon, and she’s ready.