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It was a brilliant idea, really. Maybe one of Mina's best. A real test of her skill—if she pulled it off, she could prove every last one of her doubters that they were wrong. Well, maybe not the viscounts just yet. They could come later.
Victor stood awkwardly in the doorway of her studio, his tall, asymmetrical figure clearly misplaced among the dainty mannequins strewn about. He stank of bloodlessness in a way that made Mina's nose wrinkle. "Go stand over there." she said, pointing towards a pedestal in the middle of the room and thwapping her parasol against Victor's calf.
"And if I do this, you promise to redo my stitches?" Victor asked.
Mina waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah—now hurry up and let me see what I'm working with."
Victor stiffly stepped up on the pedestal while Mina gathered various supplies and laid them out on a table. She grabbed a soft tape measure and a pen and notepad before turning to Victor. He eyed her warily.
"I've never designed an outfit for someone so green before." Mina said as she unwound the tape measure and wrapped it around Victor's torso, under his arms. His skin was cool to the touch, pulled taut against all the muscle packed into his body. Mina could feel the tissue twitch when she pulled the tape measure tighter.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Victor asked.
Mina shrugged. "Just an observation."
"You're incredibly astute." Victor replied dryly.
It became an easy rhythm, moving around Victor while marking down the measurements. The more time Mina spent up close, the more things she noticed, like pulling petals from a rose to reveal its stigma. While the sutures and staples were sloppy and falling apart, the limbs themselves fit together well. Flesh was cut carefully to match up, and wherever the size differed, muscle and tendon was inserted as a remedy.
It was almost artistic, the way the different tones of skin matched up with one another, and the various sigils on his skin were placed.
Mina wrote down the final measurement and wound up her tape measure. "Now!" she said, clapping her hands together. "Do you prefer Tea Green or Rich Mahogany?"
"Do I really need to stand here the whole time?" Victor grumbled. Mina had draped various fabric pieces over his torso, marking them with chalk in some places and pinning them in others.
Mina took a pin she had been holding between her teeth and stuck it in place. Victor didn't even flinch when it pierced his skin through the fabric. "None of my mannequins share your size. Or lopsidedness. Besides, you take pins just as well as they do."
When Victor didn't respond, Mina glanced up. His jaw was tight, brow drawn, and eyes looking anywhere but down at her. Mina frowned.
"That's not bad or anything." Mina backpedaled. "You're just… unique."
Victor grunted. "Perfect. That's what everyone wants to here, that there's no one like them."
"That's not what I meant!" Mina said.
"Then what did you mean?"
Mina set down her supplies. "Have you ever heard of The Winged Victory of Samothrace?"
Victor scrunched up his nose. "The what?"
"The Winged Victory of Samothrace. It's a Greek statue at the top of the Daru staircase at the Louvre. I saw it when I was going to fashion school in Paris."
Mina stuck out her hands and motioned for Victor to give her his. He obliged. Mina brushed her thumbs over both sets of knuckles. One was far daintier than the other, skin smooth and soft in comparison to the other's callouses. "Anyways, it's missing both arms and its head. The only other parts they've recovered are some fingers. And yet thousands of people visit that statue every day."
Victor pulled one of his hands back. "Why are you telling me this?"
"That statue is old and busted and broken in ways that probably can't be fixed, but I still think it's pretty. Lots of people do. It wouldn't have its own staircase if it didn't."
There was a brief lull. Mina took a breath. "I think you're like that statue. Focusing on the mystery of where everything belongs misses the point. You're here right now, not anybody else."
The corners of Victor's mouth pulled up into a smile. "That's funny." he said. "I didn't know you knew how to be kind."
Mina squawked and hit him over the head with her parasol.
"Can you come out already? If it doesn't fit I can fix that." Mina asked, leaning against the changing room that Victor was currently in.
"… I don't want to." Came Victor's hesitant reply.
"Why not?"
Mina heard shuffling from inside the room. "What if I look stupid?" Victor said. "Oh god, I probably look stupid. Fashions shows are for people, not corpses—"
"Victor."
"No one's gonna want to see me out there, they want people that actually look good—"
"Victor!"
Victor stopped talking.
"Let me see it, at least?" Mina asked.
There was a sigh, some more shuffling, and then the curtain opened up and
Wow.
He was gorgeous.
The fit was perfect, contouring the outline of his body to a T. The color made his mismatched, blue-green eyes pop, bright and mesmerizing against the rest of the room. Careful embroidery accentuated the bolts sticking out of his body.
Victor stared at his feet. "Is it bad?" he asked.
"It's perfect." Mina responded.
Mina bounced her leg in anticipation watching various models walk the runway in front of her. She couldn't pay attention to anything that they were wearing, not when Victor was due to walk out at any second.
The current model walked off-stage and on walked Victor. Mina was smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. The runway lessons she forced him to take were paying dividends as Mina watched Victor move with more confidence she had ever seen him possess before.
Everyone watched with rapt attention as Victor gave them a show, showing every angle of the outfit—and himself—off to the audience. His eyes caught Mina in the crowd and he smiled. He gave her one last glance before walking off stage, and Mina blew him a kiss.
She hoped the outfit would still fit after redoing his stitches.