Silk & Valentines!
Gifts were plentiful in the Leblanc home— given freely and with seldom need for an occasion to pair them with. When Julius first asked for dress, his mother had bought him one - happy to coo over how cute he looked in it as soon as he’d put it on. And when he’d first asked for jewelry, his father had let him pierce his ears - chuckling in carefree amusement when Julius put his hair up in just the same way his mother always did, sounding so much like an adult in the way he played at admiring the way the light caught his new earrings in the mirror.
He’d grown up so fondly snooping about in his mother’s dressing room, admiring the beautiful things she collected, trying on her make-up, slipping his too-small feet into her shoes to stumble around in. And while Julius had never hesitated to ask for something he wanted, he’d never imagined he could love anything so sincerely as the small, slouchy, stylish make-up bag that his mother surprised him with one afternoon as he came home from school.
He spent the rest of the night trying out tiny bits of product, his very own products— swatching small portions of their beautiful colors on the back of his hands, lovingly trying them out on his own face. He felt like the canvas and the artist combined, painting little strokes of beauty on his eyelids, on his lips, on his cheeks. He’d never felt more free to express himself than in being able to create his own brand new face.
His mother laughed when she found him sitting hunched over a mirror, too excited to go to sleep— wearing far, far too much make-up.
