[closed] we'll go tearing up the back streets
CHARACTERS: Ilde, Angel, Gio
WHERE: The Bearings
WHEN: D37-ish
SUMMARY: A teenage gangster teaches his older sisters how to do their lipstick right.
WARNINGS: Terrible fashion choices.
[ He's already taken her out shopping. After the vigil she had agreed to go with him out of the simple fact that she did not wish to return to the Bearings after Ren's rebuke. It wasn't terrible, she was somewhat familiar with the game of it all, having been taken on similar outings by the Subspace punks she humored with her attention. They too liked to point at ridiculous things and suggest she buy them. They were easier to deny. They had some reverence for her mystique of demureness, her quiet shyness. Gio, although younger, although newer, knows her better than that just by dint of the symbiote. Can feel her balk not out of self-identity but of nerves and uncertainty. So he pushes. Tells her there are more colors and patterns and has her try things on for hours until she convinces him they should stop for the day...
She might have been avoiding him ever since.
It's funny, all the horror she's seen in her life and this is what truly unsettles her: self-expression, beauty outside the tiny box that she has known. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin.
She tells these things to Angel. That she feels overwhelmed by it all, and of course, the suggestion occurs that why don't they explore it together? Angel is already easier with the whole act of it, her closet is full of very different things than Ilde's...
That is how they end up in Ilde's sparse bedroom, piles of clothes scattered everywhere, unopened makeup spread out on her bed.
Ilde eyes it all warily and reminds herself that nothing here can kill her. ]
WHERE: The Bearings
WHEN: D37-ish
SUMMARY: A teenage gangster teaches his older sisters how to do their lipstick right.
WARNINGS: Terrible fashion choices.
[ He's already taken her out shopping. After the vigil she had agreed to go with him out of the simple fact that she did not wish to return to the Bearings after Ren's rebuke. It wasn't terrible, she was somewhat familiar with the game of it all, having been taken on similar outings by the Subspace punks she humored with her attention. They too liked to point at ridiculous things and suggest she buy them. They were easier to deny. They had some reverence for her mystique of demureness, her quiet shyness. Gio, although younger, although newer, knows her better than that just by dint of the symbiote. Can feel her balk not out of self-identity but of nerves and uncertainty. So he pushes. Tells her there are more colors and patterns and has her try things on for hours until she convinces him they should stop for the day...
She might have been avoiding him ever since.
It's funny, all the horror she's seen in her life and this is what truly unsettles her: self-expression, beauty outside the tiny box that she has known. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin.
She tells these things to Angel. That she feels overwhelmed by it all, and of course, the suggestion occurs that why don't they explore it together? Angel is already easier with the whole act of it, her closet is full of very different things than Ilde's...
That is how they end up in Ilde's sparse bedroom, piles of clothes scattered everywhere, unopened makeup spread out on her bed.
Ilde eyes it all warily and reminds herself that nothing here can kill her. ]
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that's fine, he can work with that. so he's bought a few outfits. a top she can start with, in the palette she's more familiar with, and then something in blue that he thinks would look grand on her. she mentioned something about another girl, angel, coming with them, and judging from her looks giorno picked up a matching jacket for her and he's rather excited about the prospect of having matching outfits. perfume samples litter the bed as well, and giorno has picked up a lot of scents with rather unusual tones: smoke, spice, amber, leather. and some free palettes as well that he was able to get from here and there: nudes to start with, but the rest of them were either red or blue-grey. small tubes of lipstick, mostly dark reds and other unusual colours: blue, green, violet. nail polish in the same colours. giorno has a thing for anything blue or pink, and then lavender, but he tries to get some colours which are easier on the eyes.
the rest are in a bag behind him; giorno has been doing a lot of shopping. ]
The trick is to play with them! After that, they're not so intimidating. [ he sits cross-legged on top of her bed, already wearing the jacket in the same style as he did for angel, trying out a scent on his wrist. ] Oh, smell this one.
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Rather, digistruct definitely made it easy to be lazy, and like everything else, she is eager to learn what she'd been missing out on.
She sits on the floor, arms up on the bed, next to where Ilde was sitting, close to her, within easy reach for her because she knows: these sort of things were vastly different to what Ilde herself knew. These sorts of expressions were strictly against what she had been allowed, to say the least. She'd eagerly donned the jacket in the meantime, there's something - nice to it. Pretty, but she adoringly runs her fingers over the metal studs. Maybe she could wear it with her lion? The pink, reds and golds matching to it as well.
A thought for later. For now, when she's prompted, she pushes herself onto her knees to reach where he holds up his wrist. Smelling it and - she likes it. ] It's nice. What is it?
[ her careful maps of putting smells, tastes and sensation to names. ]
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Ilde picks up one of the little sample vials of perfume, looking at the liquid through the light thoughtfully for a moment. They're pretty little things, like little dreams captured in scent inside a little glass teardrop. She doesn't quite understand their functionality though. Doesn't grasp how a different smell can change one's entire attitude, can change the reactions of others towards her. ]
Angel has a collection of flowery scented things.
[ She murmurs, remembering when they had sunk into a sweet smelling bath together and flushing faintly. Her connection with the other girl piques like a harp-thread plucked. Maybe she takes it back, maybe she does understand, a little bit, but again that sense of something private versus what she would want to share with the world. ]
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[ he glances at angel, and then to ilde, smiling. there was something there, but he won't pry. to angel, he tells her, ] Feel free to take whatever you want!
[ and then he reaches for ilde's hand. ]
Try this colour. It's warm, but not too red? [ he uncaps a small tube and smears it on her wrist. he twists the tube to him and reads. ] They call this shade 'insolence', apparently.
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Really? Thanks. I don't know anything about going to the opera, really.
[ Heard of it at least, even on Pandora, some people still listening to it. With that, she settles back, a happy little smile on her lips. Watching him pull out something this. A murmur of appreciation for the colour as she's back on the floor, resting her chin on her arms where she folds them against the bed's edge. ] That colour would look good on you, Ilde.
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[ As long as one enjoyed the smell, did it make any difference? She doesn't get it, mostly perfume was used in the palace to cover the scent of corpses and unwashed bodies. So. Whatever. She's not even really expecting an answer, honestly, and obligingly turns her attention to the lipstick. ]
Insolence? [ The incredulity is a hint in her tone. She doesn't quite grasp the picture painted by the name, pretty girls with rude mouths. Instead it just kind of sounds like something she had always endeavored not to be. ] Why would one wish to be insolent...
[ She looks at the color on her skin, like a smear of blood, like a burst vein. She is so confused. She puts the lipstick down, and finds another in a more orange shade. It reminds her of a peach. ]
...I would like to try this one.
[ Trying to compromise, to actually use some of the products. ]
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I'd associate you with flowers ... and a hint of something else - well, if Angel has a collection of that, then she'd know you better than I will.
[ har har har.
giorno raises an eyebrow at the opera comment, and then figured this is another opportunity: ] Alright, we'll go on a field trip next time. Maybe not the opera, that takes a while to adjust to, though where I come from, I think we've perfected them. We'll start with musicals.
[ if he finds out which theatre is playing the space equivalent of les mis, he is going to hunt them down and make them watch it with him, because that happens to be his favourite. of all time.
as ilde takes a peach lipstick, giorno uncaps a rather pinkish one for himself; he tosses angel another one with the name in excess. ] This one is called Bergamasque. Try it on - like this -
[ he'll swipe it gently on himself, teaching them how to apply it on his lips. he tosses them some kleenex as well in case they need to wipe any mistakes. ]
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[ Patient, always so, Ilde will pick as she likes, she knows. Glad she's trying at least, watching her do so with a pleased expression before she picks up what she's given. Doesn't uncap it yet, more just carefully watching Gio as he applied it.
Because really, the only person she knew that was nearly this sort of pretty was Moxxi. Different through. Moxxi's beauty was edged, a weapon to slice through skin with. Like everything with Pandora. But he's - different. Art to it maybe. Doesn't know, and she's - oh, over thinking people again. All Jack tinged need to over-anticipate, over analyse the way he draws the colours across his mouth. Perfect accent, no nervousness to his hand. Still, after she carefully uncaps the lid, it's a dark pink. She doesn't put it to her lips straight away, presses her thumb to the cut line and sees the colour it goes on her skin. ]
I know it a little, I think. Or at least we have some of the... [ Not completely sure of the difference, but she supposes the accompaniments are different. The flicker of sound, performances the way she knows best: The Ride of Valkyrie, a choir performance done by pilots buzzard copters and conducted by machine gun fire. In the Hall of the Mountain King, sung under the breath of a walking apocalypse as he rose in the crescendo of his boot to a man's throat, accompanied in screaming and pleading for mercy that was never coming.
Unsure, she brings the lipstick up to mimic, not half so smooth, as she drag it across her bottom lip. Pressing her lips together thoughtfully. Feels - odd. Not bad, she supposes, but odd. ] ... orchestra music? [ Smells nice, though: got to remember not to lick it off absently. ]
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She breaks out of the thoughts as she feels Angel warm next to her. Pink cheeks. She turns her head to watch the other girl play with the pink lipstick against her fingertips. It could also be used for softer things. She knows she brings the smell of smoke and flowers with her when she touches the others' minds, the deep smell of the earth. The smells she had hidden herself in beneath the palace, hiding from the scent of rotting flesh. ]
( I will find you a perfume. )
[ Someone else would recognize this as flirting, for Ilde she is thinking in practical terms. A gift from her to her sweet, something indulgent that would be a secret message between them.
Done with that diversion, Ilde turns her attention to the rest of the nonsense. Taking a little compact mirror, lips parting to run the makeup along her top and bottom lips. She has done a little of this, to prepare for her performances, but had kept to simple glitters that made her stand out beneath a light. This is more fussy, and she too is a little fussy, isn't going to do it if she isn't going to try to do it well, neat lines.
The peach color is a little pale, makes her look young, which she isn't sure she cares for, but it certainly makes her mouth look fuller. ]
I could always perform.
[ Her sense of humor is... strange. Wry little sarcasms. ]
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[ what an interesting tableaux of minds. there is definitely something razor sharp in the things that they use for themselves, beautiful, expensive things that spoke of something else. desire in its inexhaustible forms. for giorno there is always venice and its cold marble statues. and then there were his friends, so brilliant and ruthless. mista with his expensive cashmere sweater that he insists on wearing, the one that shows his hip bones as he stalks his prey. the pull of lace beyond bruno's clavicles, pale against his skin. he remembers it so clearly because he had nearly taken his arm off for killing luca. fugo and the haze that follows him that seems to leak out of the holes in his expensive suit, tailored over his body like a glove. abbacchio and his foul, dark-lipped mouth, his hard eyes. the wild burst of colour around narancia's clothes, as explosive as his stand. he misses them all. he remembers them in colours and sounds that quietly linger at the back of his mind, disappearing as soon as they come up, like a music box shut as it winds in the beginning of a song.
there is a photograph he wants to retrieve. the want is childish and giorno recognizes it as such, but he indulges in the want anyway. it's probably at the bottom of the canals now back home; but the man looking over his shoulder, half naked, staring at the camera, came from egypt, as far as he remembers. and egypt must smell like pungent myrrh, waterlilies, and sandalwood. it is a never-ending ache that amuses him to nurse as he applies the one perfume that he wanted for himself with those notes, spraying them over his throat, on his wrists, down his chest.
( perfume reminds him of haruno; haruno shiobana who was always left alone. giorno giovanna never knew what that was like, because giorno giovanna was a parasite in his own way. )
he takes a kleenex in his hands and moves to dab at the corners of angel's lips, taking whatever colour that feathers out of the lines for her, his fingers gentle on her jaw. ]
I know a man who could kill a crowd with a plague. He called it Purple Haze. It hit you like thunder, and vanished like a storm. Funnily enough, he kept his friends safe with it.
[ in his mind: a mirror, a snake, a brick. a bird dropping out of the sky and rotting as it fell, dead. bright sunlight in the ruins of pompeii. he remembers all of this fondly. ]
And I am familiar with the music .... well, most of it anyway. [ ride of the valkyrie, definitely. and then there were ilde's thoughts of blood and darkness, and giorno finds them familiar both. he looks at the girl with the pink cheeks, and the one with peach-coloured lips. ] You both look good. Even together. [ rather annoyed, but of course, all in good nature: ] I'm jealous!
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Eyes closed because she likes this too. The intimacy of being dressed up. Of being looked after in a way that isn't scientists fingers in her body, isn't Jack soothing her brow and telling her pain is because he loves her. This is casual, comfortable, what everyone she had ever known took for granted and she so desperately craved. Has now, so happily, in the brush if Ilde's thoughts and the careful hold of fingers against her jaw. Made - right, like she knows best, in the wash of violent thought amidst the crafting of beauty. The dark, seething things Ilde knew and she made for herself too, the blister of beautiful people all blood soaked.
She's content, she realises, so utterly, utterly content and she probably shouldn't be - ]
( I'd like that. )
[ Something for just them to know, between them. Would like it - if for no other reason than Ilde had picked it for her.
A pleasant thought, still blushing for it, but still happily still as Gio neatens her up more as he likes, and she listens to the thoughts, the images he gives in accent to his words.
When he good-naturedly compliments them she grins probably ruining the effect someone what - ] Not least of all because of you. [ It's a tease back. It's not like they knew what they were doing, after all. ]
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[ It intrigues her to watch the boy attend to Angel. The sense of her confidante's pleasure at it all is apparent to her, and that pleases her in kind. They were both touch starved, Ilde cannot be jealous of Angel enjoying the softness any more than she would expect Angel to be jealous of her own forays. Angel deserved it, to be pampered and indulged, to be made to feel pretty.
Ilde has always merely been pretty, it was a statement made to her, a fact of her existence. She had never put any work in to it. It was a trait she took for granted, and when Gio had suggested all of this to her she had found it difficult to see the point. It had even made her uncomfortable. What if, in her attempts at beauty, she found only ugliness? Exposed something in herself other than the pretty virgin Dreus had adored.
She doesn't need to be that girl any more. She wipes off the peach colored lipstick with the back of her hand, and reaches once more for insolence. She speaks as she applies it in the compact. ]
Does your power have a name?
[ She remembers it, from when she had first met him in the garden. Another little boy awoken among the brood, she had worried for him, but now she realizes that he is far more capable than she gave him credit. So are the others. Though it hardly stops her from feeling sisterly towards them, such is the Hive.
She looks at the red color on her lips for a long moment before lowering the mirror. ]
It is interesting how much a color changes you.
[ Red lips mature her. ]
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[ lord, what a face. that is so beautiful, so wonderful. he is very excited about this potential, it feels like electricity humming underneath his skin, as it always does with things that he feels in potential. growth that feels like the sun settling in his bones. it is always the same, exciting feeling, being a part of something huge.
and he is excited about everything. not in the way he had to carefully slot himself in a unit, but one where he feels he belongs despite things obviously for themselves. he finds that one charming, too. charming, and only slightly tinged with want, because how lovely that must be. to want to be with someone else and to pick scents and colours with them that remind them of each other. giorno, for most of his short life, had been aiming for the world; and now that he doesn't have to, he can only look at himself, figuring out his wants and needs. it is an odd feeling, to want something for yourself that isn't the world.
power and colour remind him of home. fugo reminds him of home, too. does your power have a name? it does, but he hasn't used it here in a while, although he's done smaller things, like transform smaller items into animals or show mara how he heals injuries. his Stand, though, he keeps for himself still. it is the only thing he has from his world. ]
Gold Experience. [ he purses his lips in thought. ] Then again, we all had names for them.