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“Happy Halloween Nicole!”
“Ahh! Goddamn it Kelly!” Nicole shouted, reeling away from Kelly with a scorned look on her face. She had almost stumbled over herself upon hearing Kelly’s high-pitched greeting 2 inches away from her ear. “You’re gonna break my eardrums if you keep screaming next to my ear everytime you wanna say hi.”
“Sorry, I was just too excited to show you our costumes,” Kelly explained, waving her hands to present the black cat costume she had on. It was a giant fursuit that covered her from head to toe, with a circle on the top where her face popped out. If the ears were cut off, she would look almost like a giant black fluffy blob.
“Ok, so you’re a giant cat.”
“Yea!” Kelly responded in kind, with a grin that was spread to each side of her face.
“Um, ok. I thought you said you were going out this year with a big flashy costume that would “wow the crowd” at your Halloween party. This is cute and all, but I don’t think you’ll be winning any prizes with this.”
“Well of course not, silly! That’s why I have this set aside as a combo piece for the cat costume!” Kelly then rushed back into the closet and pulled out the other costume.
“Holy shit Kelly that looks fancy as fuck!”
Kelly was holding up an ornamental black dress, decked out to the brim with various details that made it stand out. Rich black and purple velvet making the body of the dress, spider-web designs as frills across the arms and skirt, and on top of all that there was a pristine silver pumpkin emblem in the middle of the neckline.
“Wow, ok then. You really did go all out with this dress. That’s definitely going to win the costume party,” Nicole said with a smirk. She didn’t want to admit it, but getting to see Kelly in that outfit and beating whatever whore was in her way to 1st place was definitely going to make this outing worth it.
“That’s great! With you as the witch and me as the cat we’ll definitely win for sure!”
“Wait, what?” Nicole went bug-eyed. “What do you mean “us”?”
“The costume competition is a partner competition this year, so I thought since it’s also our first halloween as a couple this would be a fun way to celebrate,” Kelly explained, having that usual playful cat smile she enjoyed making so much.
Wait, Kelly was in the cat costume.
Hold on.
“Oh, goddammit.” Nicole groaned, bonking her head in the realization of what Kelly’s true intentions were.
“Why, you don’t like it?”
“I wasn’t planning on wearing a costume, Kelly. I hate dressing up for going to school already. What makes you think I’m going to wear that?” Nicole said, pointing at the witch's dress.
“Awwww, come on. It’ll be fun!” Kelly whined, trying her best to convince Nicole. “We’ll be the classic spooky halloween combo! The Witch and her devilishly cute cat familiar! Meow!” Kelly then made a purring sound as an added effect, assuming that would help convince Nicole of her argument.
“Kelly, as cute as that is, you meowing at me isn’t helping your case here. If anything it just makes it sound more weird.”
“Ok, what if I made a different sound like nyah?”
Nicole practically gagged at the sound of that. “Oh god now you sound like one of Jeffery’s japanese cartoon characters!”
“Hehe, sorry I know. I just wanted to do that to mess with you a bit,” Kelly replied back while sticking out her tongue.
Nicole groaned in disappointment. “Can I at least wear the cat costume? At least that way I don’t have to walk around in a frilly dress.”
“Oh, did you want to be the cat instead?”
“Well I prefer not to be anything. But that costume is gonna make me stand out, and I really don’t want people gawking at me in that.”
“But you would look soooo good in it! Come on Nicole, won’t you do it for me?” Kelly whined as she turned her smile into a frown.
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pulllleeeeeeaassseeeeeeee?”
“UUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.” Nicole felt her conscience retching from her soul, the guilt from saying no felt palpable in her hands.
“….Um, so is that a no or a -”
“Yes, fine, I’ll do it. But only because you’re being a giant whiny bitch about it right now.”
“YIPEEEE!!!!” Kelly yelped. “Ok, come on we gotta get your makeup ready! I have some mascara and lip gloss that’ll make everyone want you to put a hex on them. Plus I had some ideas for how to tie your hair so that -”
Ugh. It wasn’t even noon yet and already she regretted waking up today.
____________________________________________________________________________
The makeover went surprisingly better than Kelly had expected. Despite all of the pushing and nagging and attempts to run out of the room like a cat fleeing from a tub of water, Kelly was able to manage to keep Nicole in the bathroom relatively still. It was usually easier to apply makeup for her, but with Nicole swerving around on her seat it was a little bit tougher than usual. She did her best given the current situation, making sure to not mess up. Getting her hair ready was easy enough since it was basically just untying her hair from her iconic ponytail look and straightening it out. She really did have really beautiful hair despite Nicole’s disagreement with that. It wasn’t anything fancy or elegant like Jecka’s or as buoyant as hers, but it had a simple and sleek appeal to it. It was clear that she somewhat took care of her hair (thanks to Kelly’s endless donation of conditioner and top of the line shampoo), so Nicole was at least doing that much.
The hard part was the face. She had to make sure to not smother Nicole in lip gloss or black mascara in the wrong places, otherwise it would be a hassle to clean up the mess. Luckily, after some convincing, Nicole had finally sad down still for long enough to allow her very giddy girlfriend to work her magic.
After about half an hour, Kelly had finally put down her brush. Project Witch Nicole was complete.
“Okay, you can check it out now!”
“Fine, whatever. At least it’s finally over and we can get back to - oh.”
Nicole had paused mid-sentence, stuck staring at herself in the mirror.
“This doesn’t look that bad actually.”
“Oh, you like it?” Kelly asked.
“I mean, I don’t hate it. The black and purple work really well with the dress and my eyes.”
“See, what did I tell you? Color coordination is key to a successful outfit.” Kelly stated, putting her hands on her side and puffing her chest out with confidence.
“Fine. When you’re right, you’re right.” Nicole admitted reluctantly. “I have to admit, this actually doesn’t look that bad.”
A small faint smile grew upon Nicole’s face. It was only a fraction of her face, but Kelly could notice it. She could tell when Nicole was genuinely happy right now from small signs like this that gave away her true feelings, which was helpful considering how vacant her face of positive emotions usually was. It wasn’t like she couldn’t, but often more than not the brunette would choose to mildly glare at others rather than verbally interacting with them.
But seeing Nicole enjoying this little makeover, Kelly couldn’t help but feel a ball of warm glimmering light bouncing in her chest. She liked seeing this side of Nicole, even if it was only once in a blue moon. But then again, it being a rare occasion all the more special to see.
Kelly then had a thought, what if she could do this with Nicole everyday? Doing each other’s hair would be so much fun as a daily occurrence! At the very least it would be a good excuse to drive up to Nicole’s place everyday.
“You know Nicole, you could look this pretty everyday. I mean it doesn’t have to be with the goth makeup but you know what I mean.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t like dressing up. Makeup is just dressing up your face to look like one of those supermodels that binge eats every time they walk on a runway.”
“But you always like it when I wear that glittery eyeliner. You say it makes me look dazzling.”
“T-That’s different. When you do it, it makes you look fashionable. When I do it I - uh never mind actually.”
Nicole stopped talking. Kelly stared at her from her face in the mirror as she turned away. Huh, that was weird. Usually she would have made some exponentially long excuse for why she didn’t want to do something. But she was stone cold silent here for some reason.
Kelly thought about just letting it go, giving Nicole some space if she didn’t want to talk about it. But she knew that sullen droopy face as an indication she was sulking over something serious. And if it was serious, then as her girlfriend it was her duty to help her deal with it!
“I think you would look really pretty with more makeup than just your basic get-up. You have a really pretty face already, we could make it even better if you let me help you out, you know.”
“Nah, that’s alright.”
“But come on, it would be really fun! You already look great tonight, think about doing that for every day instead of just the holidays. We could totally wake up and do our make up together, I can even teach you how to apply your own mascara properly without you getting it on your cheeks.”
“Kelly, I said I don’t want to, ok? Just drop it.” Nicole pressed her teeth down on eachother, grinding them a bit. Kelly still wanted to try, giving it one more shot before leaving it completely.
“Nicole, I think if you gave this a shot it would be -”
“- I SAID DROP IT, OK?!”
Kelly’s perky demeanor halted. Nicole had stood up and turned around with anger swelling in her eyes, pointing them directly at Kelly. However, they only lasted for a few seconds before Nicole’s pupils fluctuated. She blinked a few times, and fell back to her seat.
“Look, just, I’m sorry Kelly. I’m just tired from all the makeup and shit.”
Nicole moped around, dragging the lipstick across the table as her eyes wavered about with it.
“No, I shouldn’t have insisted as much as I should have, I’m sorry for pressing the matter. I’ll stop.”
Kelly started to try and make amends by cleaning up the bits of lip gloss that accidentally stained the ends of the sleeves.
She felt her heart sting from that verbal lashing from Nicole, it hurt a lot. She knew that she had messed up by asking now. Clearly it was a topic that was more vulnerable than she thought. She should have left it alone.
But as soon as she finished clearing up the sleeves and started trying to pack up the make up back in her bag, a hand had stopped her from opening up the bag. It was Nicole’s.
“Stop, it’s ok. It’s not your fault. You were just trying to help like you always do.” Nicole paused to bit her lip a bit not hard enough to pierce skin but enough to show Kelly that she was stil distressed. But the fact that Nicole wasn’t looking away from her this time seemed like she was opening up a bit more about this.
“I don’t really like to dress up that much because it’s a hassle for me.”
“I know, you always complain about how long it takes for me to get my hair done before we leave on a date.”
“I mean, there’s that too. I do think it’s a waste of time, but mainly for me,” Nicole replied as she looked down on her own hands then the mirror. She stared at herself, her eyes fidgeting as though keeping a focus on herself was a struggle.
“I tried to do this sort of stuff back in middle school. Back when I wanted to try and make more friends and be popular.”
Kelly giggled to herself, thinking how silly it was to imagine a Nicole that was smiling to strangers and trying to befriend them. But she kept that thought to herself, she knew Nicole was already having enough trouble as it is trying to spurt these words out.
“I wanted to make sure that people didn’t see some shaggy little squirt when they first saw me, so I had asked my mom for how to straighten my hair and how to curl up my eyelashes properly and all of that girly stuff. It went ok I guess. I had thought that a good first impression would have helped me make a good start to middle school.”
“That’s when the bus driver tried to slap my ass…” Nicole said, her words slipping out of her mouth at this point. She continued, but each sentence became more of a struggle to say than the last.
“The guys at school sure liked it, they tried to greet me and ask me out to the mall or the arcade or wherever they thought I would agree to go to. The girls hated me for taking their 5 minute crushes away from them like I had the intention of hooking up with every dude at school. As it turns out, the makeup worked too well.”
“So I gave it up. All of it. I just put on a hoodie, learned how to make a ponytail, and walked everywhere like that. Can’t be more obvious telling others that I don’t want to talk with them then dressing up like a female school shooter, right?”
Her eyes went blurry, she was looking into the mirror but it wasn’t into anything there at this point. Just the memories that were washing over her as she recalled each one in her mind.
“That’s why I don’t really want to do all of that glitter gloss nonsense, any of it to be honest. Even in high school I really only dressed up to the minimum so that I would match with my other friends before coming to LHS. That’s why I really didn’t want to do this whole witch dress up contest. Because people will be staring and judging at me again. It doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative, I don’t like it period.”
Kelly stared at Nicole. She felt conflicted, Nicole had given her a lot to think about. It felt like she had just dropped a nuke’s worth of trauma on her. It was very different from how she felt about people glaring at her. She always enjoyed looking her best and seeing people react to what she wore that day. Not that she was trying to be the center of attention, but she enjoyed the attention nevertheless as it allowed her to talk to people that wouldn’t approach her otherwise.
Kelly didn't know what to say, so she kept finishing the last touches of the costume on Nicole. She thought about what to say while doing so.
Obviously Nicole was different. She knew that. She was just hoping that she could have convinced the brunette to waver or change her mind just a bit, even if it was only for a special occasion like this one. But it didn’t work, and it clearly wasn’t something Nicole was comfortable with yet.
“Well, you still look gorgeous to me. But if you want, we can just keep it between the two of us if you would like.”
“What do you mean?” Nicole was a bit confused by Kelly’s wording. She usually was, but this time was especially so.
“Like, we can just spend the night here at my place. My parents are going to a party of their own on the north side of town where their rich friends are, and it’s still Halloween night. We can still enjoy the spooky festivities with some horror movies and popcorn I got in my pantry.”
Nicole turned around in shock and confusion. “Wait, are you really ok with that? You’ve been talking non-stop about how you wanted to best everyone this year in the contest before we graduated. I can just suck it up and go along with you if you really want to, I don’t mind that much.”
“Nah. I did want that, but now I want to make sure my adorably awesome girlfriend is happy and not being ogled by all the losers that’ll be there. Even if it means I miss out on that big pumpkin trophy,” Kelly replied in a slightly disheartened voice. She started wrapping her arms around Nicole’s neck in a warm comfy hug. “I have the best prize right here!”
Nicole felt the warmth of Kelly and her own embarrassment overtake her. She would have tried to hide her face, but the giant mirror in front of her was getting in the way.
“Fine, if you insist. Only the best for my familiar,” Nicole replied while patting Kelly’s head. This led to Kelly purring playfully as she hugged Nicole even tighter in response.
“Yaaay!” Kelly giggled out, almost choking Nicole before pulling her off of the chair. She twirled her around for a bit before locking eyes with her and planting a smooch on her nose. Nicole would have shrugged or groaned or yelled at anyone else who tried to pull something so stupid and mushy on her.
But not Kelly. For her, she would put up all of the sappy, romantic garbage in the world. Even this.