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After a certain point, it was nearly impossible for Mario to ignore the steadily growing pile of makeup wipes collecting on the floor, and the groans of frustration that fell along with them.
Will had been sitting in front of the mirror for nearly 20 minutes now, makeup palettes and brushes strewn about the already messy desk before him. The dark wood was covered in items that Mario couldn’t even begin to identify, aside from 3 empty red-bull cans and a half-smoked pack of Djarums. Will was sitting on a stool, both legs drawn up and tucked under his chin, hunched forward in such a way that at first Mario hadn’t really known what he was doing. The posture didn’t seem entirely conducive to makeup application. But eventually, Mario spotted the shaking of Will’s hand as he reached to pick up a different brush off the desk. From around the curve of Will’s back, Mario could see his free hand was gripped around his elbow, trying to steady his arm as he made slow swipes of black against his cheeks; it was like he was curling himself up as tight as possible in order to contain the jitters Mario eventually diagnosed as side effects of the aforementioned identifiable items on the desk.
“Doin’ alright over there?” Mario asks after a particularly extensive round of muttered curses and slammed makeup brushes. He rests his phone on his chest and looks at Will properly.
“ No .” Will says firmly, twisting around on the stool and holding his hands up for Mario. Even from across the room, Mario can clearly see the twitch of his fingers, the vibration of his palms. When he drops his gaze he can even see Will’s toes jumping slightly against the edge of the stool top. “How on earth am I supposed to work in these conditions?” Will says desperately, his entire body projecting exasperation, and the half-done, admittedly rough-looking makeup on his face punctuating his point quite clearly. Mario tilts his head and shrugs, gesturing to the desk behind Will.
“Sort of makes sense,” He says, which elicits an eye roll. “This kinda happens every time you do all that on an empty stomach.”
“Sure. Fine. Let's all blame the guy who's at fault here. Whatever ,” Will grumbles. He’s looking down at his hands now, expression utterly serious, like the tremor of his limbs is a deliberate act of rebellion against him. Mario can't help but grin.
“What’s that quote about the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different-”
“Oh, please don’t finish that,” Will pleads, burying his face in his knees, arms hanging loosely at his sides. “I’m already in a very vulnerable state right now, I don’t need to be reminded of the hellish reality that is Facebook quotes turning into facts.” Now it’s Mario’s turn to hold up his hands, quickly admitting defeat.
“Whatever you say, dude,” He concedes. Will tilts his head to the side, looking down at the mess on the floor that seems to be mocking him in his failure.
“Help me,” Will mumbles, and it’s so quiet that at first Mario is fully convinced he’s speaking to some small insect on the ground that he can’t see. But then Will looks up, awaiting a response.
“Oh, me?” Mario asks, pointing at himself in a manner more comical than intended. Will nods in a sort of duh fashion, and limply beckons him forward. Mario stands, leaving his phone on the armrest and walking over to where Will sits, still scrunched up. Mario just sort of lingers in front of him for a moment before leaning past him to survey the makeup products on the desk.
“So… what sort of look are we going for?” He asks, and Will shrugs, untangling himself and dropping his hands to his lap.
“I’m not picky,” He says, heaving a sigh. “I just want it to look competently done. Which apparently is an impossible end result with me steering this ride, so y’know what? Just have fun with it. Be yourself.” Mario grabs the pack of makeup wipes and cracks it open, pulling a few out.
“That’s a lot of pressure,” He says, turning back to Will. He’s sitting with his eyes closed, head needlessly tilted up, totally at the mercy of Mario’s unskilled-by-comparison artistry. Mario begins to wipe away the paint on Will’s face, trying to give himself a proper blank canvas to work with.
“I trust you,” Will mumbles against the wipe as it slips over his mouth. “You’re a very trustworthy person.”
“Maybe so, but you know the only real makeup experience I have is shitty smudged eyeliner, right?” Mario says, and Will huffs a small laugh, lips quirking up.
“Hastily applied in a mall bathroom,” He supplies. Mario drops the damp cloths once they fill with pigment, letting them join the rest of their discarded brethren on the floor. “Not 15 minutes after stealing it from a Sephora.”
“Fuck you, I never stole from a Sephora ,” Mario protests, gripping Will’s jaw and turning his head to the side, rubbing aggressively at a particularly stubborn bit of red paint clinging to his cheekbone. “Their LP’s are killer.”
“Right, right. It was Bath and Bodyworks or bust ,” Will quips, moving his hand sharply for emphasis.
“Exactly,” Mario affirms. He takes a step back and fans a hand in front of Will’s face, drying off any excess moisture left by the remover. He huffs a breath and puts his hands on his hips.
“Waiting for divine inspiration?” Will asks, eyes opening. His cheeks look flushed from the friction of the wipes, as do his lips. His eyelashes are just a tad darker from the moisture as well, though the difference is barely noticeable given how annoyingly thick they are at baseline. Seriously, it looked like Will had built in eyeliner sometimes. Totally unfair. Regardless, the enticing vision before Mario starts to help further the one building in his head.
“Yup, and it just hit,” Mario says, reaching over and grabbing mascara off the desk. He pops the cap and nods up towards the ceiling. “Look up.” He says, leaning in to gently pull the skin under Will’s eye. Will promptly follows directions, staring at the ceiling and blinking whenever Mario tells him to.
It’s a little bit of an awkward angle, but Mario tries to make it work. Even though Will’s sitting, he’s still reaching Mario’s height with ease, meaning they’re quite literally face to face as Mario’s trying his hand at beautification. Plus, Will’s knees are creating a fair amount of distance between him and Mario. It would be better if he had a higher, closer vantage point to work from. Once he finishes with Will’s eyelashes, he pulls away and looks around, trying to see if there’s somewhere else for Will to sit. His eyes fall on the couch.
“Okay, hold on,” Mario says softly, mostly to himself, but Will hums in acknowledgement, watching Mario expectantly. Mario collects his supplies from the desk and nudges Will’s knee with his own, cocking his head towards the sofa.
Will moves without question, sliding from the stool and moving to sit on the couch, sinking down onto the plush cushion where Mario had been lounging earlier. He runs a hand over it intently, then shoots Mario a weird look.
“What the fuck? How is it still warm?” Will asks, and Mario shrugs.
“You know I run hot,” He says, dropping his supplies on the table next to the sofa.
“Honestly, hot doesn’t even begin to cover it,”
“Aw, thanks dude,”
“Okay, not that- well, yes that a little bit. Your mother has always said you’re a very handsome young man. But more like- you’re a fucking walking furnace,” Will says, and Mario laughs. He knocks Will’s legs open a little bit, stepping between them and gripping an eyeliner pencil.
“I’m the hottest bitch in this place. Fourth law of thermodynamics, or something,” Mario muses, taking Will’s chin between his fingers and tilting his head up, readying the pencil.
“That subtle Blurred Lines reference will not save you from the fact that you don’t really know what thermodynamics means,” Will points out.
“Shhh, stop talking,” Mario hushes. “Close your eyes.” Will does the latter.
“It’s usually easier doing eyeliner before mascara,” Will tells him, right as Mario makes his first line just above Will’s eyelashes.
“And you kept this insider information from me? Really setting me up for failure here, man,” Mario sighs.
“Didn’t know what the plan was,” Will defends, his hands coming up to tap rhythmically on the sides of Mario’s thighs. Evidently the twitchy energy from the caffeine has not yet left him.
“Whatever,” Mario says. “Now seriously, shut up.” With eyes still closed, Will makes a zipping motion against his lips and mimes chucking the key across the room.
The eyeliner turns out relatively okay, mascara be damned. It takes a bit of work to keep it even on both eyes, but with a quick wetted thumb against the marks, he manages to make it fairly symmetrical.
“If I get pink eye from that, I’ll sue,” Will mutters. Mario flicks him harshly on the forehead and Will gives a sharp noise of surprise, eyes flying open. Mario points his thumb behind him.
“Key’s still over there, dude,” He says, and Will crosses his arms indignantly, pulling a pose so petulant that Mario half expects him to stick out his tongue. Mario rolls his eyes, leaning over to grab a dingy halloween face-paint palette that truly looks like it’s been through hell and back, along with a few differently sized brushes. He tries to mentally picture looks that Will has done in the past. He’s sat in his dressing room enough times to know the general process, but he’s still worried about messing it up. Restless, Will tucks his ankles behind Mario’s feet, tapping his watchless wrist expectantly.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Mario waves him off, juggling the supplies in his hands. He rubs a brush in the red pigment and brings it to Will’s face, drawing a smooth line down his forehead and then pulling it to the side so it follows the curve of his eyebrow. He repeats the process on the other side, but even though this angle is much better than before, it’s still a little difficult to navigate the brush down Will’s face. If anything, Mario is now too much taller than him. He shifts his weight, legs pressing against the inside of Will’s. This would probably be so much easier if…
Mario gnaws his lip for a moment, debating. Then, channeling his inner Goldilocks, he makes his proposition.
“Do you think you could, uh,” He starts, tapping Will’s shoulder. “Lay down?” Will’s eyes glitter with humor.
“Switching positions again? This one ain’t doing it for yah?” He jokes, shifting back and laying flat on the couch, his head slightly elevated against the armrest. Will pats the cushion, grinning up at him. Mario absently notes how pretty Will looks like this. Eyes outlined, deep and inviting, twinged with mischief.
Mario shuffles back a bit and then swings a leg over Will to kneel on the couch, scooching up so that he’s straddling closer to the base of Will’s ribcage rather than the more overtly compromising position. And just from where he’s sitting Mario can tell he can work some proper makeup magic from this arrangement of limbs. Plus, this sort of closeness isn’t new for them. The other members of the band have sometimes joked that it’s like they are magnetically attracted to each other, and Mario can't help but agree. They've lounged on each other plenty of times, torsos over legs, arms over shoulders, hands over chests, most of the time unaware that they were even doing so until one of them shifts and reveals the fact that they are positively entangled. It’s comforting. As natural as it was easy. Not a problem whatsoever.
It would just be really awkward if someone walked in on them right now.
The idea of it suddenly makes Mario giggle, a boneless sort of noise that only exists in the back of his throat. Will smiles up at him, seemingly sharing in the humor of their position, and his hands come up to rest on Mario’s thighs, resuming his previous rhythmic tapping. Mario settles a bit more on top of him, swirling a brush in white and setting the palette down next to Will’s head.
Mario hums with satisfaction as the angle provides such easy access to Will’s whole face. He can work the entire canvas at once instead of constantly having to turn Will’s head every which way to make sure it all looks right. As he goes on, he gets funky with the colors, mixing different oranges and greens, playing with the positioning of the lines to accentuate the contours of Will’s face. Will sits as patiently as possible as Mario works him over, trying his best to keep his jittery movements below the neck. Though, every now and then his mouth will twitch to the side, like he has something he wants to say but thinks better about disrupting the flow state Mario has entered before the words can escape him.
Mostly, he seems content just to watch Mario. After Mario finishes painting his eyelids a striking blue, his eyes stay opened wide and curious. He watches intently as Mario leans forward and braces a hand next to Will’s head, getting in real close to ensure the thin black lines he’s adding to the divot of his cheeks apply as straight and evenly as possible.
“How’s it looking?” Will asks once all pigment covered brushes are far from his face. Mario sits back on his haunches, taking in his full masterpiece.
“I actually think it looks pretty sick,” Mario says proudly. Will gives him some congratulatory pats on his legs, running his hands up to his hips and then back down to his knees. Mario leans in close again, methodically checking over Will’s face, brushing a finger over any stray smudges. Once he’s satisfied with his work, he lifts himself off of the couch. As he stands, something on the desk catches his eye.
“Oooh, wait, come over here,” He says, and Will perks up on the couch. Mario snatches up a tube of lipstick and pops the cap off, twisting the bottom until color peaks through the top. He holds it up towards Will.
“I like where your heads at, Mr. Conte,” Will nods seriously, stepping forward until he’s close enough that Mario can cup his jaw. “This is why we need men like you at this company.” Mario’s hand moves with Will’s jaw as he speaks. “Ingenuity, bravery, risk taking- all desirable traits I wish more of our employees exhibited.”
“Yeah, if only all of that praise translated monetarily,” Mario says wistfully, and Will himself seems surprised by the sharp laugh that escapes him. Mario clicks his tongue after a moment. “Alright, enough fooling around.” And, as always, he’s utterly impressed by how quickly Will mutes his expression, dropping his smile in less than a second. The action in turn makes Mario laugh, which earns him a judgmental look from Will.
“Fuck you,” He says heartily, squishing his fingers together enough to smush Will’s lips, but not hard enough to mess up the makeup around them. He takes a deep breath and steadies his hand.
He holds Will’s face still as he presses the lipstick to his mouth, swiping it across his top lip a few times until it looks properly filled in. He makes a popping motion with his mouth which Will imitates, spreading the pigment to his bottom lip. Gripping his chin, Mario pulls his head down a bit, Will’s back curving as Mario applies the lipstick as carefully as he can, trying his best not to give him clown lips by overlining too far. Once he’s got an even coating, Mario tosses the lipstick aside and wipes the corner of Will’s mouth with the edges of his fingers, lifting excess pigment off with his nails to give a sharp look to the shape of his lips. It’s not until he’s finished that he realizes Will has still been staring at him this entire time, and that their faces are now so close that Mario can feel Will's gentle breath on his nose. It takes all of his willpower to not reflexively step back, because he feels like that would make it weirder. That would be admitting that it was weird in the first place. But it’s not. Because, well, it’s Will .
“I think my work here is done,” Mario says, and Will straightens up a bit, turning his head to take a look at himself in the mirror. He pops his lips a few more times and then touches them with his fingers.
“Really lathered it on there, huh,” He says, looking at where the red stained his fingertips.
“Didn’t know we were rationing,” Mario says defensively, and Will turns back to give him a look, that cherry mouth pulling wide as he smiles.
“No it’s okay, I just need to blot it on something,” Will soothes, and suddenly he’s leaning forward and giving a small peck to Mario’s forehead. Mario laughs, caught off-guard, and throws a jab at Will’s ribs. He grunts above Mario, cradling his torso as he pulls back and glares at him, clearly betrayed.
“Well?” Mario asks immediately, expectant. When Will doesn’t respond, looking confused, Mario points to his forehead. “Did any come off?” Will inspects Mario’s skin.
“Nope, nada,” He reports, pushing Mario’s hair back. “Though, there is a particularly interesting looking pimple just above your left eyebrow.” Will informs helpfully. Mario resists the urge to smack him.
“Maybe you did it too quick,” Mario suggests. For a moment, Will just stares at him. Then, as the gears get turning again, he theatrically bats his eyelashes, feigning demurity.
“Well, my my my , you are a forward young man, aren’t you,” Will jokes, bringing his hands up to cup Mario’s cheeks. Mario can feel the slight tremble of Will’s palms against his skin, and when put in contrast with the cool nature of Will’s fingers, Mario notices the heat that has risen in his face. Will then dutifully presses three firm kisses onto Mario, one on his forehead, and then one on each cheek. Mario can’t stop giggling as Will does so, feeling ever so slightly hysteric, like he just absorbed the caffeine flowing through Will’s system through touch alone.
“Okay, well now it’s coming off-” Will starts, but Mario effectively cuts off his words by lifting onto his toes and pressing a soft kiss to Will’s velvety red mouth. He actually hadn’t meant to do so, nor does he remember his brain fully signing off on the action, but he’s immediately glad he did when Will gets over his initial shock and begins to return the kiss.
It’s not by any means steamy. It’s not even passionate. It’s not anything other than a natural progression of the physicality in their relationship. Like anything else they’ve done, it comes easily. Their mouths slot together in a way that feels almost practiced, and Mario can help but smile into it, tasting the sweet synthetic flavoring of the lipstick on his tongue. It feels sappy; an act born out of simple adoration for the other rather than any sort of complicated lust. It just feels right . Why hadn’t they done this before?
It doesn’t last very long, and when they break apart it doesn’t feel like they’ve crossed into new territory. Will just looks down at him, casual as ever (though his cheeks do admittedly look a bit more tinted) and peers very intently at Mario’s mouth. After a moment, he sucks at his teeth and shakes his head in disapproval.
“No, not really your shade,” He says, matter-of-fact, and Mario shoves him playfully. He peeks around Will’s shoulder to catch a look at himself in the mirror, and he can't help but smile widely at the sight. His lips are noticeably a few shades darker than the kissed-red he would normally expect, and in addition to the marks on other areas of his face, he’s gotta admit that Will isn’t wrong. The color totally washes him out.
Mario steps past him to pick up the last remaining makeup wipe in the package from the desk, but instead of using it on himself, he tosses it at Will, who flails a little as he tries to catch it.
“I’m not helping you put that on again,” Mario says definitively, walking back to plop down on the couch, snatching his phone from where it had slipped between the cushion and the armrest.
“Wow,” Will says, sounding truly offended. “Your aftercare sucks.”
Mario just throws his head back and laughs, delightfully conscious of the sticky residue of red lipstick on his teeth.