Meaning directly over my scars. Over the twisted, grafted, melted mess that passes for the right side of my face.
Orion takes a moment to breathe before continuing. He's an alpha of few words, and now I fully understand why. It isn't easy for him to speak, and without the mask muffling his accented voice, the impediment resulting from not having lips or cheeks at all is obvious.
"When the 'erformance 'ask is torn away," he continues, fitting the half-skull prosthetic against the right side of his face in demonstration, "the audience doesn't see your scars. They see this."
The skull prosthetic clings to his skin. From where I'm sitting, the transition between Orion's real face and the skull is virtually seamless. Up close, you could see the edges. The slight difference in texture where prosthetic meets skin.
But onstage? Under spotlights?
They'd see a skull.
They'd see something just as real and convincing as the leaked photos and they'd thinkit's an act. It was always an act. The photos were part of the show.
"Can I show you?" Orion asks, stepping closer to me.
I look back at Bells to make sure she can't see me from this angle. She can't. She's engrossed in the fucking biscuits anyway.
This is the last fucking thing I want to do, but Orion is looking expectantly at me, and he took his off, so. Fair's fair or whatever the fuck the saying is. I reach up with a low sigh that's more like a growl and remove my mask, angling my face carefully so there's no risk of Bells getting a glimpse.
I swear Orion smiles.He physically can't, but it's there in his eyes.
I risk a glance at Jamie.
He's beaming.
It annoys the fuck out of me.
Like they're making some kind of stupid progress with me. Like I'm a fucking feral cat they convinced to do something domestic.
And I just know Bells is thinking the same thing if she can think about anything right now other than Orion and Jamie's stupid dick cookies.
"Here," Orion says, removing the prosthetic from his own face and carefully applying it to mine. It clings to me like a second skin. He starts to reach for a handheld mirror on the table, but his hand pauses and hovers over it. He glances at me.
I nod stiffly.
He holds up the mirror—carefully angling it away from his own face so he doesn’t catch a glimpse—and shows me.
The prosthetic covers every inch of damage as well as a mask would, transforming the entire right side of my face into a white grinning skull. The painted black socket covers my destroyed eye completely.
Like Orion’s mask, it isn’t far from the truth. But it’s visibly theatrical. He’s right. The audience would think the leaked pictures are fake, too.
"Feels weird," I mutter, reaching up and brushing my fingers against the prosthetic where it covers my scars.
Like a crepe made of cold, dead fish.
"It will hold 'etter 'ith the adhesi'e, of course," Orion explains. "It will last around six hours under stage conditions." He peels the prosthetic away from my face. I slam my own mask back over it the second his hand moves away enough. "Heat, sweat, e'erything. We… tested it."
"Thoroughly," Jamie says from his station by the tea kettle, his cheeks turning pink. "Um, don't worry. It was a different one. One just for testing. It held. My eyebrow didnot. Thank the gods for Benefit."
He taps the eyebrow in question.
"The fucking what now?" I ask warily, watching as Jamie crosses the room in a hurry to intercept Orion before he can put his golden skull mask back on. He lunges and starts showering Orion’s scarred jaw and teeth with kisses.
Orion straightens up reflexively like a spooked horse. Jamie’s too short to reach now, but that doesn’t stop him from grabbing his growling mate’s head and physically dragging him back down for more kisses.
The mental image of a raccoon trying to kiss a much taller stag pops into my head and won’t leave.
"They make areallygood eyebrow pencil," Bells says from behind me with a mouthful of biscuit. "You wouldn't know. You'd spontaneously combust if you ever stepped into a Sephora. Like a demon stepping into a church."