Title: Dress Up
Rating: T (language)
Summary: Pavi and Amber have always loved to dress up... Written for vanityandvein_dot_tumblr_dot_com.

"You look so pretty, Tony!"

Carmela is six and Tony is nine. He sits still while she smears red lipstick across his lips and smiles. He's a good big brother. The only one who will play with her. Luigi doesn't have time for "baby" games. He doesn't have time for anyone or anything. But Tony makes time for her.

"Not as pretty as you," he says. He plops a plastic tiara on her head and pulls her into his lap, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She giggles and wiggles.

"You're gonna mess up your face!" she squeals. "Don't kiss me! Don't kiss me!"

Tony smacks his lips together noisily just to tease her. She shrieks and laughs harder until she's covered in red lip prints. All over her cheeks and her forehead and nose.

—

"Fucking faggot."

They're usually much more careful than to let Luigi catch them playing dress up. Carmela is seven and Tony is ten. He doesn't let her do his makeup much anymore, but that's okay because she'd rather do her own. Today is the exception.

Unfortunately.

Luigi stands in the doorway of Carmela's bedroom. His arms are folded and his mouth is turned downwards. He's taller than them both by far. Carmela cows behind Tony.

"Didn't anyone e-ever tell you not to frown so much?" Tony says. "Your face will freeze that way."

"Didn't anyone ever tell you you look like a damn girl?"

"I think he looks great," Carmela says. She steps out from behind Tony and lifts her chin like an old timey movie star.

"No one asked you, you little cunt," Luigi says. Then, for a moment, something in his face cracks. He lowers his voice and says, "Clean your fucking face up. Pop's on his way home."

—

"Not today, Carmie."

Carmela is eight and Tony is eleven. He doesn't play with her as often. He prefers his books to human company. Not that Carmela blames him. Luigi seems to be onto something when he says other people are peasants. But she isn't other people. She flings herself onto Tony's bed and her curly hair fans out in every direction.

"You promised," she whines.

"Tomorrow, then," he says, not even looking at her.

"That's what you said yesterday."

"Fine," he says. "Just- Just this once."

She sits up and beams before scuttling off. When she comes back with her wheeled suitcase of costume pieces, she picks her favorite tiara from the top and arranges it on Tony's head.

"You look so pretty, Tony," she tells him.

—

"You c-can't do that.

Carmela is nine and Tony is twelve. She looks up and sees him in the mirror. She sucks in her cheeks and meets his gaze in the mirror.

"It's my tiara," she says. "I can do what I want."

Hot tears build up in Carmela's eyes. They aren't playing dress up today. They haven't in a long time and she doesn't think they ever will again. Today, she's dressed in a black dress and he's wearing a suit.

"But you love your tiara," he says.

"Not anymore," says Carmela. "It's just some dumb piece of plastic."

She snaps it into two clean pieces and throws it in the trash.

—

"Well? What'a do you think'a?"

Carmela stares at Tony – Pavi – in silent horror. Carmela is thirteen and Tony is sixteen. Not Tony. Pavi. She can't get used to that. Just like she can't get used to the porcelain thing he's wearing over his face.

"I think you should lose the dinnerware," she says. She can't tell what expression he's making under the mask. So instead of apologizing, she says, "I can't even see you."

"That's the point'a," he says with a wave of his hand. "I'm very clever, no?"

"No," Carmela says. Then, "If you were clever, you'd make it look like a real face."

"That's an idea, sorella," he says. "The Pavi shall consider it."

—

"Another new face, sister?"

Amber is seventeen and Pavi is twenty. She looks over at him with a curled lip.

"I could ask you the same thing, " she says. "Who'd you snatch that one off of? A painted whore?"

"A GENtern."

Silence stretches between them. And then the sneer becomes a smirk.

"You didn't."

"I did'a," Pavi says with a flourishing bow. "Luigi is not'a the only one skilled with a knife."

"Well, fuck." A pause. "Does Daddy know?"

"What Papa doesn't'a know won't kill him," Pavi says. He comes into Amber's room and shuts the door before going to sit on her bed. She's at the vanity, trying to pick out a wig for the press conference.

"That's a shame," Amber says quietly.

Pavi frowns. "You two are fighting?"

"What do you think of the purple one?"

"A cry for attentzione."

She settles on a blonde wig. Shaggy in cut, platinum in hue.

"Bellisima," says Pavi. "How do I look?"

Amber looks over at her brother. His black hair is feathery and thick. His dark eyes gleam bright. And under the GENtern's borrowed face, he smiles his crooked smile.

"You look so pretty, Pavi," she says. "So handsome."