in their junior year of high school, when jackson’s gotten a little more comfortable in his own skin, he starts experimenting with makeup. it takes some practice, but he gets pretty good at it, and he likes the way it makes him feel. the first time stiles comes over to his house, he accidentally stumbles on jackson’s drawer of makeup, and after plenty of reassurance and lots of soft kisses from stiles, jackson agrees to show him.
Like most of the terrible, horrible, no good very bad things in Jackson’s life, his experience with makeup starts with the Kanima.
He goes to sleep and he’s a human. He wakes up with a patch of green scale on his jaw that won’t go away.
He’s watched Lydia get ready long enough to know exactly how to cover it, thankfully, so he wastes absolutely zero time in buying some spray toner, foundation, concealer, and a decent setting powder, paying extra for two hour delivery, and he only misses first period before returning to school as his usual, flawless self.
But nothing lasts forever. Stiles locks Jackson in a van, Stiles helps Jackson learn control, Jackson kisses Stiles, he becomes a werewolf, they move on, and Jackson…
…keeps wearing makeup.
It’s nothing extreme. It’s rarely more than foundation, he doesn’t add depth, he doesn’t contour, he just covers up the occasional blemish and hides some bigger pores, sets it all with the powder, and that’s it.
And then he buys a palette.
And then two.
And then he looks into highlighter.
And then he discovers the world of Beautubers.
And then, sometimes while he’s home alone, he puts on a razor thin line of liner beneath his eyes. And then an hour later, he has nearly completely transformed himself—but this time, it’s in a way he can dictate. It’s not like the Kanima. He is in control, when he adds green, or black, or white to his skin.
He loves it. He’s ashamed that he loves it. He lets himself look in the mirror for a minute, two tops, before scrubbing it off.
He has the pen an inch from his eye one day when he hears the key turn in the front door downstairs, and he almost launches himself away from the vanity when he hears Stiles voice echo through the house.
“Up here, Bilinski!”
The nickname has the desired effect, and Stiles huffs, taking his time to find his way to Jackson’s room, giving Jackson enough time to shove everything into the back of his dresser drawer.
Stiles is here to surprise Jackson, because he’s a thoughtful and considerate boyfriend. So thoughtful, in fact, that if he noticed the way Jackson’s voice is pitched a little higher for a few moments, he doesn’t bring it up.
(Stiles is too good for him. Stiles is too good for him. Stiles is too good for him. It’s like a mantra in his head, on loop, whenever he has to hide anything from his boyfriend.)
He brought breakfast, enough to feed an army (or a werewolf and a Stiles), and they’ve absolutely gorged themselves on waffles when Stiles gets up to put a movie on. Jackson rolls over when Stiles gets up, comfortable and full, only perking up when he hears Stiles voice.
“Jackson, what is this?”
He looks over lazily, eyes trailing over Stiles, taking in how good his long fingers look wrapped around—
—a glass bottle of foundation, one of the very first that he bought, thick enough to cover scales and heavy enough to smooth the rough texture.
He panics. Immediately, and thoroughly, his brain flies straight over fight or flight and lands firmly in freeze. He can’t even speak as Stiles turns the bottle over, his face scrunched up.
“Jacks, you don’t actually use this shit, do you?”
And fuck, there’s the disgust in his voice, and Jackson can hear his heart hammering away evenly in his chest. Fuck. Things were going so good, and now Stiles is going to know that Jackson is a fraud, that he’s not strong and brave and everything Stiles needs him to be, and once again he won’t be good enough for someone he cares about, and—
“Seriously, this stuff is like motor oil. It’ll clog your pores and make you break out like crazy. Who the hell sold you this, I’ll kill them.”
Disbelief takes the place of panic, and suddenly Jackson is flooded with cautious relief. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and it comes out rough, shaky, but that’s all the sound Stiles needs to snap his head up. The tube is forgotten as he immediately dives to Jackson’s side, bringing Jackson’s hand to rest on his own chest, letting Jackson feel his heartbeat as he tells him some infallible truths—that they’re both okay, and Stiles is there, and things are fine, and that truth is what brings Jackson down as he crumbles into Stiles arms.
Stiles has learned to shut the fuck up in moments like these, thankfully, and he knows that after coming down from the brink like this, Jackson needs to be the first one to speak. It takes him a moment, voice rough when he gets the words out.
“You don’t think it’s weird? You don’t think it makes me… less?”
His voice is so soft and uncertain that Stiles has to actually rack his brain to realize what he’s talking about, and when he does, his heart almost breaks. He doesn’t speak, he just sits upright and pulls his shirt off.
“Jackson, two days ago a pixie hit me hard enough I thought I cracked a rib. What do you see?”
Jackson doesn’t see anything, which… isn’t right. There should be a mark, or a bruise at least, but all he sees is smooth, flawless skin, and—
Wait. Even normally, Stiles skin wasn’t perfectly pale like that.
It takes him a second to find what he’s looking for, once he knows what to look for, and his fingers ghost over the edge of a patch of flesh that was suspiciously devoid of beauty marks.
“Dude, I’ve been using coverup forever. I’m human, you know? But the things that hurt me usually are… not. It’s the only way to keep Scott and my dad from freaking out about the bruises. Of course I don’t think less of you, dope.” he offers with a shrug, sliding down to get back to face level with Jackson again.
Jackson’s brain is still rebooting when Stiles kisses him, and he feels buzzed, high on the relief flooding through him and yet sluggish as the remainder of the adrenaline leaves his system.
He whines as Stiles slides away from him, and even though he’s no longer fearful, he’s a little nervous as Stiles pokes around his desk. Coverup was one thing, but Jackson had stacks of palettes stowed away, though now that Stiles knew what to be nosy for, he pulled one out in record time.
He thumbed through a stack as Jackson watched from the bed, somewhat encouraged that Stiles was regarding them with curiosity more than anything.
“That’s, uh… that one is my favorite, I guess.” Jackson says as he stands up, seeking out the comfort of Stiles as he wraps his arms around his boyfriends waist from behind. Stiles has a shimmering, monochromatic palette in his hands, blacks and greys in every shade imaginable, some of them almost worn through to the plastic beneath.
Stiles turns in Jackson’s arms and chews on his lip, looking from Jackson to the palette.
“Will you show me?”
Jackson’s heart leaps.
—
He has a full face on in nearly record time, even when he stops to explain what he’s doing, and he can’t help but preen under Stiles attention. The look is dramatic, and that’s why he likes it—his eyes are smoked, lashes darkened, lips blacker than coal, the whole nine yards.
“So with the blacks and greys, it’s not really a transformation, just accentuating what’s already there to make it look even better.” he says, and Stiles is staring at him with a confused expression.
“Jackson, you look great in the makeup, seriously, it’s… its fucking beautiful. And holy fuck I am going to support the shit out of this because it’s amazing, but you know that it’s only so beautiful because it’s on you, right?”
—
By the time Stiles catches his breath, Jackson’s makeup is smeared, and Stiles has hickeys, fingerprints, and black kiss marks all over his body.
