Pickles loved the brushes, most of all. It was his favorite part, swirling it in that gooey red mess and making Charles beautiful. He loved putting makeup on Charles, he really did, he always did. He almost felt like he was a little kid, and Charles was a mother hen who loved him. He really loved that feeling.
So there he was, ready to paint the brightest, if slightly bloody, red tint onto a pale colored pair of lips, ones you could ignore if they weren't painted how Pickles painted them.
He'd expended his eyeshadow troopers, blending and dotting his browns and creams into soft and sexy, drawing a smooth cat eye in gel and performing Charles least favorite activity, where he applied a medieval silver device to Charles's unwilling eyelashes.
They were so full, though, when curled. When he put on a good mascara, a black one that added definition and color and length and volume, they were enthralling little tufts. Really, they were. All was done but the most delicate part, the contouring highlighted Charles's bone structure, the dewy foundation and pale pink blusher was artfully applied, and his eyes were properly defined, the longest word in the dictionary, really, outlined by brushed and filled and gel-coated brows, black with product and beauty. Yes, finally, finally the lipstick.
When Pickles was young he'd always wanted to wear it, always stole the cheapest brightest reds from the drugstore. He'd had a collection, a collection of reds he'd never worn, because his lips were too thin, because he had facial hair, because it wasn't his color, because he was a man. But Charles, Charles let him do anything he wanted. So Pickles drew on a rounded cupid's bow, ignoring the sharp points of Charles's to try and make him look like Bettie Page or one of the pretty girls he'd seen in the magazines in the attic when he was a kid. But then he screws it up, and one is too big, and he goes Marilyn Monroe to fix it.
When he's finished, Pickles steps back. Charles had always hated that part, the part where Pickles scrutinized and smudged. Not more than the eyelash curler, but it was different. It was like he hated it because Pickles hated it and didn't know it, so Charles had to compensate.
Charles shined with something like almost-perfection. It was beautiful, especially the shining glisten the lipstick gave off, like a gloss, really. Pickles wished he could make his lips look beautiful like that, full, and perfect, and wet and shining. But Pickles knew better, because he could do that, if he shaved off his moustache and got fillers and wore such a brilliant red. But then he'd be mocked, and made fun of, and his fans and bandmates would abandon him and he'd be left without Charles and again with a bin of reds he would never, ever wear again.