Work Text:
Something unidentifiable lightly touches Satine’s cheek. She wrinkles her nose and it disappears. Satisfied that whatever it was is gone—and mostly still asleep—Satine allows herself to drift back into unconsciousness.
Until she feels it again. Something soft, small, and slightly damp. This time Satine whines and tries to turn her face away while swatting at the offending mystery for good measure.
“Don’t!” A familiar voice protests. “You’ll smudge it.”
Satine forces her eyes open and finds Christian staring down at her, his eyes wide and her thin brush for applying eye makeup clutched in his hand. His expression is that of someone who has been caught doing something they know they shouldn’t have been, a mixture of sheepishness and guilt. “Smudge what, exactly?” Satine asks, immediately suspicious. She raises a hand to her face to try and feel what Christian was doing.
“Don’t,” Christian repeats, catching her hand and dragging it away from her cheek.
If it were any other man touching her in such a way, Satine might have panicked. She dislikes being grabbed and then positioned where someone else wants her, as if her own movements and the position of her body in space are things others get to determine for her. But this is Christian, so Satine’s heart gives a tiny lurch—a triple beat where only one should occur that makes her feel ill—but then logic replaces instinct once more as she registers how loose Christian’s grip is, how easily she could break free if needed.
“Why were you trying to do my makeup while I was asleep?” Satine asks, more confused than ever. She subtly twists her wrist—less to demand that she be released and more to prove to herself that she can—but Christian lets go regardless, entirely nonplussed. Satine settles back against the pillows once more—not having realized how tense she had become—and Christian uses his free hand to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The gesture makes her blush.
“I wasn’t,” Christian says, carefully setting the makeup aside on a nearby table. “I can explain,” he adds, clutching Satine’s hand in both of his own now, looking at her with pleading eyes.
Sometimes Christian lets his ideas run away with him—embarking on adventures and projects that leave behind a mess in his wake—but while Satine may tease him for it and ask that he clean up the aftermath, she doesn’t understand why he looks at her afterward as if he thinks he’s done something unforgivable. If only he knew the sorts of things Andre does to her, he would realize Satine’s endurance for pain and ability to compartmentalize events then move past them is quite high. And that his own mistakes fall nowhere near the scale of things she considers reprehensible. Especially because they are mistakes—getting ink stains on a favorite dress or bumping her head against the frame while carrying her through a doorway are a far cry from Andre’s cruel and calculating choices, such as his decision to use his belt on her until she was unable to sit for two weeks, or sodomizing her without proper preparation.
Satine takes a deep breath, rubbing the blanket draped over her between her fingers to keep herself in the present. Christian must have draped it over her after she unintentionally dozed off on the chaise lounge. She raises an eyebrow. She wishes she could wipe the sleep from her eyes but she thinks she may get stopped if she tries that. “Proceed.”
“I was writing a song about you,” Christian begins, and that familiar warmth blossoms in Satine’s chest the way it always does when Christian does anything kind or loving for her, “and I came up with this line about there being constellations in your freckles. And—”
Satine can’t help but wrinkle her nose in distaste.
Christian frowns, his hands pausing in midair as her expression halts her in mid-ramble. “You dislike the constellations?” He asks, trying but failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
Satine doesn’t know them, but that isn’t the problem here. She loves the stars. “I dislike my freckles,” she corrects, unable to completely meet his gaze. She wishes they weren’t talking about this.
“What?” Christian asks—his voice elevated an entire octave with disbelief—and Satine isn’t sure she’s ever seen him look so lost, as if he thought Satine’s confidence meant there weren’t things about her appearance she wished she could change.
Satine may know she’s sexually attractive—but all of that takes work. She doesn’t just wake up and roll out of bed looking the sort of way that has customers tripping over their own feet to pay for an hour or two in her dressing room. This all requires dressing correctly for her body’s shape and her customers’ preferences, watching what she eats and drinks, trying not to burn her fingers on hot tongs to style her hair and, of course, applying makeup with incredibly thick layers of foundation until her skin looks as smooth and unblemished and flawless as Nini’s.
“Why not?” Christian asks incredulously, and Satine doesn’t know how to answer that.
Because once—on a particularly warm day—Satine began to sweat through her makeup and Andre suggested with a lip curl of disgust that she find a powder room and ‘fix her face.’
Because Harold reminds her regularly that she needs to keep them covered, otherwise she looks dirty.
Because as a teen her father forbade her from going outside in daylight lest she develop more of them.
Because as a child Satine’s mother—attempting to raise Satine to follow in her footsteps as a lady of the night—had tried soaps and powders and scrubs, bleaches and boiling water and tonics and all sorts of painful lightening treatments in a vain attempt to transform Satine’s splotchy face into something as unmarred as porcelain. Perfect.
Satine can’t think of a way to summarize her feelings about her skin nor all of those past experiences into something she wants to share with Christian, so she merely shrugs, eyes downcast.
“Well, I love your freckles,” Christian proclaims, as if he’s never considered doing anything but. “They make you seem more unreal—in the best way,” he hastens to add, “like a goddess. Like you’re made of fairy dust. Ethereal and magical and so, so beautiful.”
Satine inhales shakily then, willing herself to meet Christian’s gaze despite wanting to hide the tears currently filling her eyes. Perhaps if he were insisting she was beautiful in spite of overhearing one of Harold or the Duke’s comments, Satine may not believe Christian quite so readily. But he’s seemingly brought this up out of nowhere—she was asleep earlier for goodness’ sake—so all she can do is believe him. He really means it. He finds her beautiful, freckles and all.
Not in spite of but, rather, because of. Satine didn’t know it was possible to be loved like this.
She gives Christian a watery smile before nodding at him to continue.
Christian returns her smile but mercifully keeps talking where he left off rather than drawing attention to her unshed tears, and she loves him just a little bit more for that, too. He’s getting better at knowing when he should gently nudge her toward opening up and when he’s stumbled across a wound so raw it’s best left alone for the time being. “Then I got to thinking,” he continues, releasing her hand only so he can gesture emphatically, “well—are there constellations in your freckles? You were sleeping so soundly and I didn’t want to wake you to ask. I tried studying them but I kept getting all lost—forgetting which ones I had already examined—so I decided the best course of action was to draw lines between them all to see if I could find any constellations,” Christian concludes, slightly breathless from his ramble. He stares expectantly at Satine, trying not to fidget as he waits for her response.
Satine takes a moment to process this all, especially given that she’s only just woken up. Satine has hundreds of freckles and despite not having access to a mirror at the moment, she imagines she must look utterly ridiculous right now. So obviously she’s annoyed.
Or, well, she should be annoyed. But truthfully she isn’t quite certain what she’s feeling, but it isn’t that. It would be easy to tell Christian off for wasting her makeup, for scribbling all over her in her sleep. But there’s something undeniably sweet about the fact that he wanted to know every inch of her so well that he made a map of her freckles. Before Christian, falling asleep in the presence of a man would almost certainly mean danger. Satine could wake up restrained, to an unpaying customer having sex with her, or to someone even trying to abduct her.
With Christian, the biggest risk is that he might make a bit of a mess, and all out of love and adoration for her, even the pieces of herself that others have only ever viewed as flaws. Besides, at least he had the forethought to use something as easily removable as makeup. Given his favorite medium for creating sheet music, Satine supposes she ought to be grateful she isn’t currently covered in ink.
Satine’s lips twitch, fighting a smile. “Well,” she says imperiously, “what’s the verdict?” Off of Christian’s slightly confused look she elaborates, “Are there constellations in my freckles?”
Christian’s grin turns even more sheepish somehow. “Well, you see,” he begins, fidgeting with the bandana tied around his neck, “I’m unsure as I don’t actually know most constellations,” he admits. “Or any of them, for that matter.”
This time Satine’s reaction is impossible to hide. She laughs—and not the fake, high-pitched flirtatious giggle she uses with her customers. This one is real, the kind that originates in her belly and makes her body shake with it, the kind that lasts until her stomach aches in the best way and she can’t catch her breath.
After a long moment of looking unsure Christian joins in. But when doubling over with laughter brings them close enough that their noses brush he tries to kiss her, so Satine stops him with a hand to his chest and turns her face away. “Absolutely not,” she protests.
Christian pouts at her. “But—”
Satine silences him with a finger to his lips. Christian kisses the tip of it and she tries not to let his sweetness crumble her resolve. “Clean your experiment off of my face,” Satine instructs, “then we’ll talk about whether or not you deserve a kiss.”
Christian’s bottom lip juts out further but he obediently leaves the bed to get what he needs.
“I did learn something from this project,” Christian informs her several minutes later as he finishes wiping the last traces of makeup from Satine’s face, far gentler than she ever is with herself.
“What’s that?”
Christian locks eyes with her, tangling his fingers with hers where Satine’s hand is lying atop her chest. “I think you’re a constellation come to life. The most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.”
Satine feels the blush heating her face as it spreads across her cheeks. “Flatterer,” she accuses, though there’s no bite behind the words.
Christian toys with her fingers, his thumb stroking over the sensitive skin of her wrist. “More like a truth teller, actually.”
Satine can’t come up with a suitable response for that.
This time—when Christian bends down to kiss her—she lets him.