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If asked, even now, he’d say it wasn’t his idea. It wasn’t not his idea either, but that’s arbitrary to the whole thing. What isn’t arbitrary is the way Sydney is looking at him now, staring at him as though he’s the only thing worth looking at. Sydney’s eyes are so pretty, a color that sits somewhere between grey and green, or maybe blue and brown? It’s muddled and impossible for him to put a name to, and yet Jedidiah can think of no better color. It…suits him, in a way. A mix of everything, different in every light, in every situation, yeah, that sounds like Syd. It’s just so easy to zone out and stare at him, to categorize the cosmos of his eyes and forget about everything for a while.
“Hey Jeddie? Look up a little?”
Oh shit yeah, the makeup. Not his idea, but the reason he’s in this mess anyways. The reason he has on enough hairspray to make the strands crackle and crunch, and was currently wearing what seemed like an inordinate amount of eye shadow. Apparently, it isn’t over yet, and he obediently tilts his eyes upwards to let the torture continue. At least Sydney had held off on the foundation, he doesn’t think he could’ve tolerated the texture in addition to everything else. The music helps, too; it’s his own, mostly instrumental tracks from video games. They’ve always calmed him down, made his mind untwist and slow, helped him focus.
Jedidiah focuses on it now, lets the strings wash over him; he narrows his world to just this, the soothing sounds and the feeling of Sydney gently applying a ring of powder beneath his eyes. If he’s being honest, he’s not entirely sure why it goes there of all places, but he can’t deny that once the initial weirdness of synthetic bristles near his eye fades, it’s kinda nice. Not nice enough that he’s happy to still be staring at the ceiling, but still…nice.
“Okay, you can put your eyes back down now, we’re almost done.” Sydney drags his mind, and his eyes, down to earth, putting the brush to the side and rummaging around in his bag.
“Almost? Sydney, what could you possibly still have to put on my face? We’ve been here for like an hour, and I know that’s not how long it takes you to get ready in the mornings!”
“Yeah because I don’t put on a full goth face to go to school every day! This is special, Jeddie, you’re gonna look like the king of the midnight ball!” The declaration, given with all the grandeur of a professional announcer, is capped off by a series of dramatic hand gestures and a fit of giggles.
“Legitimately what does that mean?” No actually, what is he talking about ? Jedidiah’s laughing, but he’s not entirely sure why.
“You’ll see…” With an ominous waggle of his fingers, Sydney gets back to work, clearly expecting Jedidiah to follow his lead.
And so, he guesses, he will see. Or at least he tries to until that infernal liquid eyeliner comes out, making him blink and flinch every time it gets within an inch of his face, let alone his eyes. Eventually realizing that they’re going nowhere fast, he’s told to close his eyes and that there’s probably a better way to do this. The “probably” isn’t encouraging, but if it means eliminating the risk of getting his eyes stabbed out by modern cosmetics, he’ll take it.
Closing his eyes is one of the better ideas they’ve had; the general everything of it all seems to die down. He’s able to feel things more individually, categorize them in his mind, put them in one comfortable picture. He doesn’t have to worry about getting his eyes poked out, just the music, which has started to swell and crescendo. Just keeping still, and a new, soft sensation on his eyelids. Just the feeling of his breathing, of Sydney’s breathing against his face. Not quite the same pace, not quite off beat, just…syncopated. He feels the picture form and he settles in, trying hard to relax his eyelids and stay motionless, stay in the here and now.
He wonders what the end result will be, if Sydney’s doing a replica of his own daily look or something fancier, more intricate. He did say that Jedidiah would be the “king of the midnight ball,” but God knows what that entails. He’s not quite sure if he wants to look good or not; Sydney always does, all long black hair and bat wing eyeliner, but that’s Sydney. He always looks good, somehow, always seems to be able to pull off whatever eclectic thing he’s decided to adorn himself with. Jedidiah knows the stereotypical reason would be confidence or something equally inane but he’s seen plenty of people be confident in outfits that, frankly, don’t work, even according to his painfully limited sartorial knowledge. But if not confidence, then what? What else could make it so that Sydney just…always seemed to look nice?
A soft musical sound, discordant with the instrumental background noise, brings Jedidiah back to the present moment. Sydney’s humming, that song he always does when he’s trying to concentrate. It’s generic and catchy; Jedidiah thinks it’s from some teen show back in the day, but he can never be sure. Sydney doesn’t remember lyrics the way he does, sticks to melodies and jingles, earworms that only come out when he’s focused on something, has a goal he needs to get right . Having grown up with monotone hymns, Jedidiah knows the opposite to be true of himself. He remembers words, whole psalms even, that cycle through his mind when he’s bored and unmotivated. His brain’s way of scolding him, he supposes, after all aren’t idle hands the devil’s playthings?
And…there he goes again. Focus, Jedidiah. He concentrates on Sydney’s voice until the part of the song he recognizes fades away, on the feeling of the brush, now presumably making some kind of wing, on his own breathing. On Sydney’s breathing, that syncopation again. Sydney is close, close enough that Jedidiah can feel the warmth radiating off him. His presence feels as comforting as it always does, like being hugged without all the parts Jedidiah always seems to get wrong, a simple coziness. Like listening to his favorite soundtracks on repeat, or that hazy feeling between sleep and wakefulness, or a cup of hot chocolate on the rare snowy days they get down here. Being with Sydney, near him, just feels right in a way Jedidiah can’t articulate.
“What are you smiling about? Am I tickling you?” The brush stops, and Jedidiah promptly has to pull his head out of the clouds again .
“What? No, no I’m just- just relaxing, I guess. You’re good.” He didn’t realize he had been smiling, but it makes sense. He’s calm, safe, happy, why shouldn’t he be smiling? It’s just logical .
Whether that very sound logic explains why his breathing is faster, matching Sydney’s almost exactly now, or why he can hear his heart beating in his ears is another matter, and not one he’s inclined to pursue. It’s just…his body’s reaction to proximity or something. Nevermind that had anyone else, anyone but Sydney, gotten this close to him he would’ve recoiled, would have wiped the feeling of their breath off his skin. They’re friends, he trusts Sydney, and this is his body’s totally normal reaction to contact it deems safe. That’s all, he’s just…selective or something. Totally.
This expert mastery over his own biology meant that he neglects to notice the little brush pulling away from his skin, Sydney backing up to admire his handiwork. The sudden chill of distance, however, brings Jedidiah back from yet another tangent. Why has he been so distracted today? It’s not like he’s ruminating over a problem, or thinking about something out of the ordinary; he’s just been thinking about Sydney which is…normal? Definitely not odd for him, at least. He must be tired or something, and he has been putting a lot of work into his science project recently. Anatomy and physiology is difficult and absolutely necessary if he wants to go into medicine, and this project is worth 10% of the final grade! Of course he’s putting a lot of effort into it! At least it’s a group project, he’s not quite sure how well he would have done on the illustration portion if not for Sydney. Despite his jokes that at least his medical knowledge from being sick was coming in handy for once, Jedidiah knows that Sydney put as much time into those as anything else. They were…beautiful, if the nervous system can be called such. Anyways, the- the project. That had to be it.
How long had he been sitting here with his eyes closed? “Sydney? Are we…done?”
“Oh- oh yeah! Yeah, I think so. Hang on for a second; I’ll go get a mirror.”
He opens his eyes, lets them adjust to the light; he can hear Sydney rifling through the bathroom drawers for a hand mirror, the small sound of victory he makes, the hurried steps back to Jedidiah’s room. He’s not nervous exactly, but Jedidiah is on the edge of his seat, both literally and metaphorically, as Sydney returns.
“Okay so…knowing how bad your eyesight is I made it so that it should work with your glasses so if you just wanna put those on that’d be…”
“Oh? Alright, thank you, can you hand them…”
They fumble around for a second, attempting to get the glasses and mirror into the correct hands while breaking neither of them. Jedidiah slides his glasses on, the room sharpening into something less hazy. He sees Sydney do a small fist pump at the reveal, a smile spreading across his face. Sydney’s always had such a nice smile and he- and he really needs to just focus and look in the mirror.
That turns out to be a great idea, actually. The makeup is…nice? He’s not entirely sure how to describe it, just that he likes how it makes him look, how it makes him feel. It’s bold and dark and while he’s still not particularly intimidating or “cool,” he’s no longer blending into the walls around him. His brown eyes seem lighter when ringed with cool greys and blacks, his lips done in a nice plum color that he didn’t even know Sydney owned. The hair isn’t as 80’s-tastic as it feels, just a bit…more. It does look a bit like a rat’s nest, but a fashionable rat’s nest.
The real showstopper is the eyeliner; it follows the lines of his rectangular glasses, works with them somehow. Sydney’s everyday bat wing design is nowhere to be found, and instead the ends taper off into a squiggly pattern he could swear he’d seen before. Wait…
“Sydney, is my eyeliner in the shape of a neuron?”
“Yeah! Do you…do you like it? I thought since we’d been working on the project-”
“This is awesome , Syd. I knew you could draw but…wow.”
“Well I had to find some way to make goth nerdy enough for you! And your necklace blends into the whole aesthetic now.”
“Yeah, I guess it…kinda does”
It’s true that his cross looks, well not edgier , but certainly not as Christian with this whole getup. It blends in a bit more, adds a flash of silver among the blacks and purples. And the eyeliner. He tries not to get so outwardly excited, but he can’t stop a little of his glee from shining through. In his defense, it’s a neuron ! It’s cool!
He sees why Sydney loves this type of look so much; Jedidiah feels…different, more than himself, an actor in some off-the-wall drama who couldn’t possibly be troubled by everyday life. It’s like armor, in a way, daring to be stared at and challenged. He guesses that’s why his mom would hate it, too. She seems to hate most things, but this level of defiance, even in just his look, would produce an all-out screaming match he knows he couldn’t win. He’d get afraid or intimidated, crumble under the harsh words like dust in the wind. What good is armor when the person inside doesn’t know how to fight back?
And…that’s enough of that for one day. Spiraling over the cardboard-cutout facade he wears, the good Christian boy he pretends to be, never goes well. Considering he’s been having this entire showdown while staring dramatically into his own mirrored gaze, Sydney’s brows having taken on an increasingly worried tilt, he really needs to calm down.
“Earth to Jeddie! Are you okay? You’ve been spacey today.”
“Yeah, yeah sorry, just…distracted. I really do like it though! The- the makeup, that is. I think I get it now, it’s…expressive.”
“For me it’s like…control, almost? I can determine literally nothing else about my life, but damn if I can’t look cool, y’know?”
“I’m glad you have this, then. And for what it’s worth you do look really cool.”
“Aw, Jeddie, so do you! …Now…”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Sydney looks blatantly unapologetic, mouth quirked to the side in a grin. His cheeks are flushed with laughter and he looks so good like this, so carelessly happy. They take one look at each other and burst into laughter. The giggles die down, “...sorry! You always look great, makeup or not! Apology hug?”
Jedidiah nods, and Sydney pulls him into a loose hug, the kind that doesn’t stifle or suffocate, one he feels like he can’t mess up. He’s physically warmer of course, but there’s this…other warmth within his chest. Comfort, maybe, affection? Joy? Peace? Jedidiah’s the first to admit he’s not the best at identifying his emotions, let alone putting them into words. They’ve always been physical feelings, sensations that rang through his whole body that everyone else seemed to put a name to but he just felt . This one, this warmth in his chest, felt like his soul was physical. Like he could feel his heart, and it didn’t exactly hurt but it…longed. Reached out, maybe? Christ, he’s bad at this.
Sydney readjusts, head resting in the crook between his shoulder and neck and Jedidiah would do anything to save this moment, trap it in amber and hold on to it. It was so rare for things to be this uncomplicatedly good. He doesn’t remember the last time it was this good. He wishes he could spend the rest of his life like this, holding Sydney. He wishes…
Oh.
Oh, fuck .