Archive of Our Own ^beta

“We need to order more wax,” Nicholas tells Midvalley over his shoulder, then looking back into the supply cupboard with a scowl. “I used most of it up on Tuesday on the guy who had his nose bitten off.”

Midvalley hums, too engrossed in stitching his cadaver’s lips shut to open his own. Nicholas returns to the cupboard, making a note of everything they’re running low on. They’ve got enough eye caps to see them through the next century, but they could do with another box of closures just in case more cadavers need them than anticipated. He’s pretty sure they’re one of the first things Vash brought up to him the first time they had a proper conversation, shouting over the thumping bass of the club and disgusting everyone around them with their talk of the differences between closures and butt plugs. Though his back is to Midvalley, Nicholas leans further in the cupboard to hide his smile, sure the other man would immediately guess the reason for it and mock him relentlessly for it.

Sure, everyone knows he’s way too attached to that blond idiot despite the fact he’s only dating him for three months, but Nicholas could care less. They haven’t seen Vash first thing in the morning when the sun’s just starting to split through the curtains, dappling him in golden light as he rolls over with a sleepy smile meant just for him. Livio’s been obsessed with Vash since the first time Nicholas introduced them, and he noticed the way Midvalley and Hoppered’s eyes lingered on him when he turned up to get lunch together one day, in leather trousers so tight it took Nicholas a good ten minutes to wrestle them off him later that night while Vash laughed at his frustrated attempts and refused to help.

Ten minutes alone with him and any of them would be as head over heels for Vash as Nicholas is - or maybe five, in Livio’s case. He’s already been forced to pretend Vash didn’t have a brother, cold all over with the horror of Livio’s joking question of if he had one and certain that a lie was better than the reality of admitting he had an identical twin brother who was the devil incarnate. He was doing a kindness to his own brother, really, in not introducing him to Nai.

There’s only another twenty minutes of his shift left. All going well - meaning no surprise deliveries upon any gurnies between now and four o’clock - and he has the rest of the day free, no plans arranged and with the possibilities stretching out in an endless wave before him. Maybe he’ll call Vash and see when his shift’s finished, suggest they go out for dinner, or to the movies, or whatever Vash’s heart desires. He’ll text him at the very least, some sort of endearment and question on how his day’s going, if he’s had any strange encounters with the odd customers he gets in the sex shop. 

Yeah, he’s down bad. 

Twenty minutes, an inventory list and no unexpected deliveries later, and Nicholas is as free as a bird. Midvalley’s still fussing over the cadaver, turning his head this way and that with his brow furrowed. Then he sighs, reaches down and gently tugs at the wire producing from their mouth, almost invisible to the naked eye but obvious to any skilled mortician. “Knew it was sagging at one side. Pass me the shears, will you?”

Nicholas retrieves a pair from the sideboard and passes them over, leaning in to watch Midvalley snip the wire flush against the cadaver’s lips and retrieve the excess. “Nice,” he tells him, gaze travelling down to the cadaver’s hands reverently crossed over his chest. “And you can’t even tell he was missing half those fingers to begin with. I didn’t think someone could bleed out from losing just their fingers.”

“They can,” Midvalley says casually, as if he hadn’t spent hours suturing and fixing them back into place, “if the shock of accidentally cutting them off with a chainsaw gives you a fatal heart attack.”

He cracks his neck and his knuckles when he pulls his coat on at the door, grateful both for them still being attached and him having the foresight to swap to his wool coat with how the temperature’s suddenly dropped. Motorcycle helmet under one arm, there’s an unexpected yet beautiful sight awaiting Nicholas when he leaves the parlour and heads for the adjacent parking lot, stopping him in his tracks: Vash himself leaning against Angelina, bundled up against the cold in a red puffer jacket and beaming at him with the brightness of the sun.

“Hey, honey.” His not-boyfriend - he really has to lock him down and make it official - is completely relaxed against Angelina, as if he didn’t flip her the one and only time he tried to drive her and left Nicholas wiping up all the cuts and scrapes he received in the tumble. He stands up straight with his hands in his pockets as Nicolas strides towards him, his own grin feeling wide enough to split his face. He’s wearing those tight blue jeans again, the ones that accentuate his long legs and strong, lean thighs. “I was starting to get worried you’d be kept later and I’d be waiting here for hours, surprise ruined!”

“Best surprise I could ask for, that’s for damn sure.” He slips one arm around Vash’s waist and cups his face in a hand, pulling him in for a kiss and feeling him smiling into it. They’re normally the same height but Vash has a few inches on him today in his flower print platforms, and Nicholas can’t quite put into words why it’s so attractive for the other man to be taller than him. “What brought it on?”

“I had a short shift at the store and wanted to see you, that’s all. And stay over, if you’ll let me.” Vash suddenly leans in, sniffing him and humming appreciatively. “You smell great. Is it roses? Did you get a new aftershave?”

He tries to keep a straight face at the innocence of his question, but feels his mouth twitch all the same. “Nope. That’ll be the scented mortuary spray: I must have got some on me by accident.”

“Oh.” Vash’s smile falters. “Well, at least it smells nice.” He makes to swing a leg over Angelina, but Nicholas jerks him back. “What?”

“You haven’t got your helmet,” he tells him, trying to sound more factual than scolding. Vash has his own designated helmet that Nicholas bought him a month into dating, playing it off as being a spare he already owned and not directly admitting to buying it for him and him alone. Right now it’s sitting on a shelf in his apartment’s garage, though, and not where it needs to be on Vash’s tufty blond head. “I’m not giving you a ride without one.”

Vash scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You’re a careful driver, I’ll be fine to - “

“No,” Nicholas says flatly, “it’s not up for discussion. Do you know the amount of careful drivers who’ve been delivered into there in body bags?” He jerks his chin at the funeral home behind them and reaches for the handlebars, toeing the kickstand back into place. “We’ll walk to my place - it’s only twenty minutes.”

Vash acquiesces, taking Angelina’s other side and saying no more about the safety of perching behind Nicholas with no head protection. “How was your day?” he says instead, throwing him the kind of smile that has Nicholas’ heart threatening to give in like the chainsaw man’s had. “Ours was super boring. There’s roadworks going on near the mall so footfall is seriously down, and we just spent the whole morning playing Snap. I told Meryl that if it doesn’t improve by five then they should just close up early and go home.”

“I don’t think the parlour’s ever been able to close early,” Nicholas tells him, mouth twitching. “Unless there was a power cut or something, and our backup generators went out. If the freezers died we’d be screwed.” Vash wrinkles his nose and he can’t help his laugh. “It was quiet today, for once. There were no makeshift nose jobs, anyway.”

“It’s still amazing you guys can do that.” Shaking his head in wonder, Vash looks at him with bright eyes and unshakeable curiosity for what most considered a grim topic. “How many noses do you think you’ve reconstructed in your career?”

Nicholas tilts his head back and frowns at the pale sun above, providing little warmth despite its appearance between the clouds. “Probably less than ten,” he says, casting his mind back through the hundreds - probably thousands - of cadavers he’s dealt with over the years. “Reconstructing them completely, I mean. Normally if there’s any damage it just takes a little wax, then some foundation and powder over the top to blend the repair in with the rest of their skin.”

“You must be really good at doing makeup,” Vash muses as they walk, hands back in his pockets and the tips of his ears pink from the cold. Nicholas makes a mental note to buy him a pair of earmuffs. “Do you do, like, eye makeup and everything on the corpses? Smokey eyes, I mean, not just neutrals.”

“Decedents, Blondie. And of course: sometimes it’s making it look more natural, but sometimes families want us to actually do eyeshadow and eyeliner for them if it’s what the deceased used to wear.”

Vash looks impressed, tilting head to one side. “I used to wear eye makeup pretty much every day. Do you reckon you could do it for me sometime?”

The request catches Nicholas short and he glances over at him, uncertain. “I didn’t think you’d want to wear makeup. Did you wear it - ?” He breaks off, unsure exactly how to word it. Raising his eyebrows, there’s a smile playing around Vash’s mouth. 

“You can say it, you know. Before I transitioned?” Nicholas nods stiffly, and Vash meets it by shaking his head. “No, actually. When I said I used to wear it, I meant like six months ago, until I got lazy and figured out I could just dye and perm my own eyelashes and eyebrows instead of waking up early to do my makeup.”

“Ah. Okay.” He’d wondered if Vash’s big doe lashes were natural or not, come to think about it, but was usually distracted by said eyes being focused on him and the most beautiful shade of blue he’s ever seen. 

“Men can wear makeup, y’know,” Vash tells him patiently, no bite behind his words. “Wearing eyeliner doesn’t make me any less trans, and a cis guy wearing eyeliner doesn’t make him any less cisgender.”

“I know.” Awkwardness feels like a weighted blanket around his shoulders. “I’m sorry if that was rude.”

He tries not to bring up the fact Vash is trans, rationalising that it’s not actually any of his business to question him about it or put him on the spot by making it a topic of conversation. As far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t care what’s between his legs so long as Vash is comfortable letting him put his mouth on it. The fact he’s more than happy to drag his head down there - and that Nicholas considers eating him out his favourite pastime - is good enough for him. That, and whenever Vash breaks out one of his straps and declares it’s his turn to top. Vash is his guy, even if he hasn’t made it official yet. Having been fairly uneducated when it came to trans people prior to meeting Vash, so far he’s made do with his own research and not looking twice at the scars beneath his pecs, shrugging them off in the same way he does to the multitude of others that cover his body.

“Nah, it wasn’t rude. You just didn’t know.” Vash smiles at him, as patient as ever. “You know you can ask me about transitioning, right? Since I’m the first trans person you’ve dated.”

“Only trans person I know, more like,” Nicholas tells him, and Vash’s jaw drops. 

“No way. Really? You don’t know anyone else who’s trans?”

“No one I’ve spent more than a few hours with, anyway,” Nicholas says truthfully, as Vash seems to grapple with the fact they ran in very different circles in their youth. “We had a funeral for a trans woman a year or two ago, and I think that was it. I was the one who organised the proceedings with her friends and family, though Hoppered did the service. Then again,” he adds, casting his mind back to something he’d read a few weeks ago, squinting in the dim light of his phone, “I suppose there’s been people I’ve known who I don’t actually know the sexuality or gender identity of, and just assumed it.”

Vash beams at him, knocking their arms together, and Nicholas considers finding that particular article and remembering its contents to have been a success. “How was the funeral? Was it sad? Serious? Fun? A celebration of life or ceremony of mourning?”

“Definitely one of the more celebratory ones. I kinda knew it from the first request being for The Edge of Glory to play when the coffin was brought in.” Vash splutters with laughter and Nicholas grins at him. “There were a few dozen people there and not a single one of them was wearing black. Instead of hymns they had all these stories about the deceased - some of them had been friends with her for, like, twenty years - and it was hard to keep a straight face for some of them. She had a lot of fun with them, by the sounds of it, and they were trying to keep the spirit of that going even without her.”

“That’s so nice.” Vash’s face is glowing at the story, and Nicholas is suddenly glad he chose to share it in detail. “I wouldn’t have expected that from a Catholic funeral home.”

“Well, we do all kinds of funerals, not just Catholic ones. You know what Livio’s like, though: he never thinks before he speaks, so he just kept his mouth shut because he was terrified of saying something rude without meaning to. Still, they loved him. Kept saying how cute he was and calling him Big Guy, which obviously only made him blush even more and made the teasing even worse.”

“Oh, poor Livio. I can just picture it.” Beaming, Vash reaches up to ruffle his hair back. “I really like stories like that. Even though she died, her funeral was filled with people who loved her and had great memories of their time together. It’s happy, despite the circumstances. I love it when people find love and peace in their surroundings.”

He’s experienced a hell of a lot of love and peace himself in the three months they’ve spent together, but holds his tongue in the knowledge saying it aloud would be both humiliating and have Vash cooing over him like an overgrown dove. “I mean it, though,” Vash adds, before Nicholas can come up with a response that isn’t spine shatteringly embarrassing. “You can ask me anything: I know you’re not gonna say anything mean or hurtful.”

Pursing his lips and wheeling Angelina around a pothole, Nicholas thinks hard. Some of his more generic questions - the effects of testosterone, how often it had to be injected and so on - were answered in his own research, so settles for something he wouldn’t find online or in a book. “I guess you always knew you were a boy, even when you were a kid?”

Vash nods, two fingers lifting to push his glasses higher up his nose. “Always. Oh my God, I remember this one time I got my hair cut short: I told Rem I wanted a boy’s haircut, so she took me and Nai to a barber and let us pick whichever style we wanted off this chart they had. Someone called me young man when we went to the store a few days later, and I remember feeling warm all over.” He hugs himself, probably twenty years on from the memory but still beaming with delight at recalling it. “It was amazing. Just pure euphoria, you know? I think part of me then was like, yeah, that’s what I want, even if I didn’t know how to word it back then.”

Nicholas catches himself smiling, softened by Vash’s cheer. “Did you and Nai come out at the same time?” Vash’s twin brother has steadily refused to be around him since the first night he met him at the club, an arrangement Nicholas is more than pleased with, but he’s curious all the same. 

“Yep. We’re the first person either of us talked to about it, since we’d talk about everything. It was reassuring, knowing my other half felt the same way.” Vash shrugs, smiling to himself. “Rem and Tesla were so cool about it. Rem barely blinked when we told her and just asked if we’d picked our names we liked and if we wanted to go pick out new clothes at the mall at the weekend.”

“Had you picked Vash already, then?” He’s never quite worked out where the hell he got a name like that. 

“Yep.” His mouth twitches. “Nai wasn’t his first choice, though. He wanted to go with Knives: Rem had to gently talk him out of it. Tesla suggested an inventor’s name - you know, like hers - but he sulked at everything she came up with so we all just left him to it.” 

“Jesus.” He refrains from commenting any further, even if Knives seems more than fitting for the colder, sharper twin. There’s no way Nai is cuddling up to any bedmate and asking them if they liked Chiikawa characters, that’s for damn sure. All the same, he’s quietly planning on buying a pair of matching keychains for them both. “It’s nice they’re so supportive of you.”

“Yeah. Not many people are as lucky as we were.” There’s a hint of something in Vash’s expression, some kind of yearning, but it’s gone before Nicholas can question him on it. He throws him a sideways look, contemplating. “Why didn’t you just ask me about any of this before now? If those are all your questions, they’re super softball.”

Nicholas shrugs. “Figured it wasn’t your job to be an educator, too. Besides, I think the only questions I still had were about your personal experience, not something I could find out for myself.”

“I practically am an educator in the store already,” Vash reminds him, shaking his head and smiling. “What, have you just been Googling anything you haven’t been sure about?” Nicholas remains silent, and he gasps. “You have!”

“Sometimes I used Reddit,” Nicholas mutters, then jerks with surprise when Vash leans over Angelina to throw his arms around him and hug him. 

“You’re the sweetest guy in the world,” he mumbles his cheek, drawing back again to beam at him with the same radiance as the sun. “You know that, right? The cutest ever.”

Nicholas shrugs him off to pat Angelina’s seat, frowning at him. “You’ll push her over if you’re not careful, Blondie.”

“Oops. I forgot she was your number one.” Vash clutches his chest and sighs dramatically, and Nicolas eyes him for a moment, deciding how to phrase it before he speaks up. 

“You know, it doesn’t matter to me one bit that you’re trans,” he says bluntly. It pulls Vash up short and he stops the theatrics, hands falling to his sides and blinking at him. “Never has. I thought you were the hottest man I’d ever seen the first time I laid eyes on you. Doesn’t matter if you have a dick or not. It never changed how I felt about you.” 

“Oh.” Vash doesn’t hug and kiss him this time but instead turns his gaze forwards again, a little hitch in his voice. “That’s good. That’s nice to hear, actually. Thanks, Nick.” 

He nods his response and they continue on their way, Nicholas pretending not to notice Vash having to clear his throat a few times but taking hold of his hand when Vash deposits it face-down atop Angelina’s seat, fingers grasping the air for him until Nicholas links them with his own. 

“It’s a big part of me,” Vash says suddenly, surprising him. He’d considered the conversation over, neatly tied off by his conviction of Vash’s beauty. “And a big part of my identity. But it’s not the main thing about me.”

“I know it’s not.” He’d probably say Vash’s pacifism is the main thing about him, unable to watch war footage on the news without sobbing and refusing to kill any insect that strayed into his apartment no matter how many legs it had. “Never thought it was.” 

Vash glances at him, and there’s something about his arched eyebrows and the little slant to his mouth that tells Nicholas he’s thinking through what to say. “I know it’s not a conventional dating experience.”

“Blondie,” Nicholas tells him, suddenly tired, “nothing is conventional about you. You’ve got a metal arm and work in a sex shop, you cook the most disgusting food I’ve ever experienced and stink out your whole apartment block with it, and you dress like you’re trying to bring the eighties back solo. I knew most of that before you even stuck your tongue down my throat.”

“My food isn’t disgusting,” Vash mutters, then raises his voice again. “I just mean - y’know. If we become serious, things might not end up like you anticipated them.” He lifts his chin, and there’s a wariness to his expression. “Family life and kids, all of that.”

He’s temporarily thrown by the subject - they haven’t discussed kids, have they? - until he remembers the morning after the first night they slept together, casually saying he’d like a pack of children. “Is this because I said I wanted enough kids for an ice hockey team?” he asks him, and Vash’s mouth twitches with a smile that seems too easily contained. “You know I was high off the post nut euphoria, don’t you? That was some kinda caveman instinct talking, not my brain.”

“Maybe just a little,” Vash says demurely, which Nicholas takes to mean he’s thinking about the way he almost sucked his soul and all his rationality out in the blowjob he gave him. 

“Besides,” Nicolas presses on, letting go of his hand to elbow Vash and make him whine, “I’m not anticipating anything. I grew up in an orphanage, remember? I’ll take whatever I’m given in life, so long as it’s good. Whatever happens happens. I don’t care what it is, so long as you don’t give up on that head game of yours.”

Vash beams at him, clutching tight when Nicholas threads their fingers together again. “No way! Especially not when it’s your dick and balls!” It’s just like Vash, to turn a potentially serious conversation about the future - their future, maybe - into a joke, but Nicholas lets it drops with nothing more than an eye roll and a tightening in his pants. “Hey,” Vash says suddenly, “I’ve got a question. How did you know Nai is trans, too? I never told you he was.”

Nicholas tries not to make the look he gives him too pitying. “You’re identical twins: it’s basic science. Ain’t no way he was cis if you weren’t.”

Vash grins, squeezing down on their interlinked hands. “Aw, look at you and your big brain. I think it’s the sexiest part about you, you know.”

“No you don’t,” Nicholas says at once, and Vash sighs. 

“Rumbled.” Fingers still linked, he reaches out with his other hand to press the metal palm against Nicholas’ pecs. “You make it so much more difficult by wearing such tight shirts. One day a button’s gonna ping off and go straight down a corpse’s throat, and what are you gonna do then? At least they can’t choke to death, I suppose. Every cloud. Anyway, I’ve got another question for you.”

“Shoot.” They stop at a red light, waiting for the change, and Nicholas tilts his head from side to side to stretch out his neck. It’s an occupational hazard, hunching over either cadavers or paperwork and dooming himself to a lifetime of neck and back issues. 

“Do you wanna go out tonight?” He turns to see Vash’s hopeful expression, rolling on the balls of his feet. “There’s a bar near my place that’s doing a Tiki night. I bet you could do a really good winged eyeliner for me, and they do really good piña coladas.”

“You’ll just pester me until I say yes, won’t you?” Nicholas says dryly, and is rewarded with a crafty smile that creases the corners of Vash’s eyes like a cat. The light changes and they cross, still holding hands over the smooth leather of Angelina’s seat. 

“Maybe. Maybe I’m just so irresistible you can’t say no.” He runs his prosthetic fingers through his hair in a gesture that’s clearly meant to be alluring, then freezes. “Do you have makeup that’s - not been used on corpses?”

“Yeah, dummy. I don’t have to walk you back to the parlour and put you on a gurney to do winged eyeliner.” Vash glares at him, and Nicholas decides to leave out the part that any makeup he’s got at his apartment has been used on silicone face masks to practice restoration techniques. "Sure, I'll do your makeup. You owe me a piña colada, though."

He’s forgotten about the moment they get to his apartment and Kuroneko makes an appearance, Vash falling to his knees and making kissing noises at her until she climbs into his lap, purring. She’s a hell of a lot sweeter with Vash than she is with everyone else, including him, and Nicholas couldn’t help but take pleasure in him mentioning that Nai’s allergies was the reason they couldn’t have pets growing up. Wolfwood one, Savarem zero. “She might rip your jacket if she starts kneading on it,” Nicholas warns him, hanging up his own as Vash holds Kuroneko like a baby and presses kisses all over her head.

“I don’t care if she does. You wouldn’t mean it, sweetie, would you?” Vash coos at her, and Nicholas trudges off to find his makeup while Vash fusses over her. Eventually the cat grows bored and wanders off to the kitchen, and Vash tosses his jacket aside as he looks to Nicholas, eyes bright. “Where do you want me?”

He’s tempted to say the sofa, the shower or the bed in the knowledge he’d be telling the truth, but they’ve already ticked those off long before now. “The bed,” he tells him, jerking his chin in the direction of his room as if Vash didn’t spend half the nights of the week in it. Chop, chop.”

Vash rolls his eyes, then yelps when Nicholas slaps his ass as he passes before it turns into a laugh. He throws himself onto the bed and sprawls across it, beaming up at him as Nicholas perches beside him. “Do you want me to sit up? Lie back? I don’t think anyone’s ever done my makeup for me - maybe Tesla when I was, like, eight, so I dunno - ?”

He’s cut off by Nicholas getting to his knees and shifting until his thighs are bracketing either side of his waist, looming over him and watching the sudden crimson spread across Vash’s cheeks and neck like poison ivy. “I need to get up close and personal to make sure it’s perfect, right?” he says, voice as casual as if he’s asking what Vash wants him to pick up at the store, and watches his throat bob with his swallow. 

“Yep,” Vash manages, hoarser than Nicholas is used to. His eyes dart down to where Nicholas is sitting back in his lap, and he settles his hands atop his thighs. “Sounds good.”

“Atta boy.” It’s a pity he can’t slap his ass again at this angle. Resolving to do it later to make up for it - hopefully while he’s balls deep in him - Nicholas instead goes for his makeup bag and starts looking for the prep material. He doesn’t need the rose scented spray Vash admired earlier, or any of the wax to repair cuts or imperfections, and so pushes them aside to go for the more regular items. Vash shifts beneath him, but only so he can get a better look at the kit. 

“Tell me the steps you take, mister mortician. I do want to know what you have to do to put someone together for viewing, y’know.”

“Kind of difficult, when I’m not used to my subject talking back.” He places a finger on Vash’s lips, only half joking, and feels them stretch out in a genuine smile beneath his touch. “Well, the thing about cadavers is that their skin dries out really quickly. You’ve gotta make sure it’s well moisturised, and we usually got a spray for that, but I’ve got a regular moisturiser with SPF here.” He reaches for it and dabs it across Vash’s forehead and cheeks, smoothing it in with two fingers on each hand. “Sorry it’s not your seventeen step Korean skincare regime.”

“Eight step,” Vash mumbles, who terrified Nicholas one early morning when he walked out of Vash’s bedroom to find him in a rubber sheet mask that looked as though he’d peeled someone else’s skin off to place upon his own. “It’s only in the mornings and before bed, anyway.” 

If they’re drinking tonight then it’ll be a long time before they crawl into bed, and doubtful that Vash will get to do even a single step of his routine if Nicholas gets on top of him first. He hovers a hand over the makeup bag until he can pluck out a foundation a similar shade to Vash’s pale skin. The blond insists he gets a tan the second he hits the beach, but as he hasn’t set foot on one in the last three months, Nicholas remains dubious. 

“Putting on the foundation in a stippling motion is the best thing to let you blend out the edges. Less is more, ‘cause it can settle into the creases of someone’s face and make them look like they’re wearing ten additional layers instead of one or two.” It’s certainly easier to apply it to Vash’s face, his skin soft and supple from the skincare and the two Stanley’s worth of water he chugs every day. “Same with powder. You don’t want to bake it in: you want a lighter dusting, especially on the cheeks. We never let the heating get too high in the parlour, since the colder it is, the more put together they stay.”

Vash hums, eyes still closed while Nicholas applies a heavier dose of powder than normal to his living, breathing subject. “Do you do blusher, too?”

“Yeah.” It’s what he searches for next, debating between two shades of pink while Vash shifts slightly beneath him. It’s surprising that he’s behaving himself so far, lying still instead of trying to grind their hips together or play footsie with him. “Not just on their cheeks: you need a little on their nose and chin too, to make their skin look warmer. Their ears as well, if their hair doesn’t cover them.”

“Oh!” Vash exclaims, lifting an eyelid to peer up at him. “Can I have it a little heavier on my nose, please? I loved that sunburnt makeup trend.”

“Whatever you’d like.” He can’t help but mirror Vash’s smile as he applies a pale pink across his nose and cheeks until he’s satisfied he looks more rosy glow than boiled lobster. “Cute.”

“Thank you,” Vash says, both eyes open now and smiling at him, catlike. “Can I get a kiss, too, before you put any lip products on?”

He gives in because he finds it hard to deny Vash anything, and especially when it involves touching him. Nicholas leans down and merely brushes his lips over Vash’s, waiting for the second he whines in annoyance to kiss him properly, mouths moving together until he can trail his tongue along Vash’s lower lip for the other man to take the hint and allow him entry. When they pull away Vash is panting, eyes bright and cheeks flushed in a way Nicholas doesn’t think he could replicate with makeup, but for his part he shifts slightly so Vash can feel the hard length of him against his hip and smirks down at him.

“We use lip stains so it keeps the colour,” he tells him, and uses his thumb to wipe the spit from Vash’s bottom lip before dabbing on the stain. “And so you don’t have to worry about it ending up all over someone else later.”

Vash arches his eyebrows, smiling up at him. He’s left them alone since the man’s already done them himself, dyed dark in contrast to his hair. “Would you be mad if it ended up all over someone else ‘cause I ruined the makeup, or cause I ruined one of your white shirts?”

“Neither.” He frowns, cleans up his Cupid’s bow with the lightest touch, then sits back in Vash’s lap to admire his work. “I’d only get mad if they were lipstick stains all over someone else’s shirt.”

“Never gonna happen while I’ve got you,” Vash says quietly, and Nicholas hides his smile in searching through his makeup bag again. 

“There’s no massively different method to applying eyeliner and mascara, other than using setting spray to make sure they don’t run under the lights if they’re too warm. And getting a good base with eyeshadow, obviously, but unless I’m doing a proper eye makeup look I just use a shade a little lighter than their skin tone.” It’s what he does now, using a pale pink across Vash’s lids then arming himself with the eyeliner pen. “Any particular style of wing you want?”

Eyes closed again, Vash’s brows pull together while he thinks then shakes his head. “Nah. Surprise me. Can you do a little one under the waterline, though? At the end of my bottom eyelashes? I like it when cosplayers do it to make their eyes look big.”

“Sure.” It’s not one he’s done before, but it’s not hard to work it out. It helps that, for all his restless energy and the way he’s always tapping his hands against something and humming, Vash is lying still and obedient beneath him. Having expected him to wriggle and whine throughout the process, Nicholas can’t help but be impressed. Finishing quickly, he squints down at the wings, turning his head this way and that to examine them, before deciding they’re near on identical. “Open your eyes: I’m gonna do your mascara now.”

Vash isn’t quite so motionless this time, flinching several times while Nicholas applies a few layers to his lashes, but he’ll allow him that when there’s a wand aimed at his eyes. They’re silent throughout, and when he’s done Nicholas sits back against Vash’s thighs to take the whole image of him in, pursing his lips. “That’s you. Wanna see it?”

“Yes!” Vash says immediately, sitting up with bright eyes, and opens and closes his hand impatiently until Nicholas produces a mirror and hands it over for him to look. “Oh, wow.” He watches Vash examine himself, tilting up his chin to squint at the blush across his nose and twin wings of eyeliner on his top and bottom lids. “Wow. I look - ” He doesn’t finish, perhaps uncertain of what word to use, but Nicholas can tell he’s pleased with the results and does it for him.

“Really fucking hot.” Vash drops the mirror and beams at him, and it’s all that matters to Nicholas. With great difficulty he ignores his hard on and swings a leg over Vash to stand and stretch, thighs tight from holding the position for so long. “Even more than you normally do.” 

Vash pulls himself into a sitting position, picking up the mirror to admire himself again while grinning ear to ear. “Well, Mona Lisa wouldn’t have been anything without da Vinci, so I think it’s more the artist than the subject.”

“That bitch doesn’t have any eyebrows,” Nicholas retorts, frowning. “I’m asking you now to please never shave yours off.”

“Been there, done that,” Vash says breezily, “and I paid dearly for following through on the intrusive thought.” He sets the mirror aside and stands up himself, a spring in his step and hands on his hips. “Do you wanna change before we go to my place? I wanna get changed before we go out.”

“Nah, I usually wear my mortuary clothes to hit up bars,” Nicholas tells him, smirking at his scowl. “Why, have you got a grass skirt you wanna wear?”

“No, but I wanna wear shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. I think it would fit the theme.” Vash’s three styles consist of slutty leather numbers, cute, cosy sweaters, or Adam Sandler inspired outfits. Nicholas has a horrible feeling this particular one will be the latter, but he’s already accepted Vash still, somehow, looks hot in oversized shirts and baggy shorts. He settles for jeans and a plain t-shirt himself, and Vash doesn’t pretend to hide how he’s ogling him as he strips off, so indulges him by very slowly shaking out the shirt and taking an age to pull it over his chest. He’s practically a saint, really. "Let me feed the cat before I go."

Kuroneko ignores him the second her bowl is filled and he meets Vash at the door, back in his flower print platforms and puffer coat as he smiles at him. "Thanks for doing my makeup," he tells him, eyes creased at the edges behind the oversized shades. "It was really kind of you."

"It was nothing," he tells him honestly, hands in his pockets and chin tilted up as his eyes trawl over Vash's cheekbones, the big blue eyes dulled by the shades, the flushed cheeks from his heavy-handed blusher. God, he's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. "Don't forget about that piña colada, now."

"Of course I won't." He presses a quick kiss to his lips - short enough to disappoint him but still long enough to get Nicholas' heart racing - then directs his next words to Kuroneko, back to them and head in her bowl. "Sorry, sweetie, but I'm stealing Daddy tonight. You'll stay over at mine tonight, right?" His last words are directed at Nicholas, who suddenly finds he's lost the ability of speech altogether at what Vash just called him. The blond blinks at him, confused. "Do you not want to stay at mine?"

"I do," he manages at last, having to swallow before he's able to say it. "So long as you call me that again."

"Call - " Comprehension dawns across Vash's face, followed by the widest grin Nicholas thinks he's ever seen him wear. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can definitely call you that again."

And, really, that's all Nicholas needs to be convinced - that, and the feel of Vash's ass under his palm when the blond takes his arm from around his waist to slip Nicholas' hand into the back pocket of his jeans.