OF MAKEUP AND OIL

Meet Newt

Dodge is the devil. Of that Ozzie is certain. The red leather skirt Dodge suggested he wear sits between the palms of his hands and all he can think is: Dodge is the devil. It repeats like a mantra, ping-ponging in his head. Dodge is Satan incarnate. The bringer of hell-fire and brimstone. There is no way this is going to work. He says as much to Newt, Dodge's fellow Locust and the second half of his Triad.

She's lounging on his bed, inspecting her guns for the umpteenth time in preparation for the night's assignment. Their parts are neatly laid out across a white cloth, a few cables and bore brushes weighing down the corners of it while a tube of gun oil sits precariously close to the edge. And yes. That's right. There's only Dodge and Newt in their triad.

Ozzie groans in frustration. They're f*****g weird, Locusts are supposed to work in threes, but whatever, he's got more pressing matters to deal with, like the fact that there is absolutely no way this skirt is happening tonight. Yeah, Dodge got the length right, the skirt is long enough but it's tight. The waist virtually sticks to his legs. It won't even hide his untucked dick, how in all the levels of Sheol is he supposed to hide a knife under there too?

His wig cap is off and his hair flops messily over his forehead. He can see the dyed neon tips out of the corner of his eyes. His scowl deepens. No doubt he looks about as crazy as he feels: panicky and pissed. "This isn't going to work." He says, running a hand through his hair."Dodge has crap taste in woman's clothes."

I'm going to f*****g end you, Dodge, he vows.

Newt picks up what Ozzie's pretty sure is the slide on her Glock, "I would've told you that earlier chico, but you looked determined."

"Mmm," He grumbles, tossing the skirt to the side. He needs to find something else to wear that apparently isn't plaid and isn't leather and still screams 'f**k me like a w***e'. "Dodge is the f*****g devil." He repeats.

"You've mentioned. I don't agree, but you've mentioned," She sets the slide down and gingerly picks up the barrel, idly spinning the bottle of gun oil in her other hand as she looks it over. Newt bites her lip, brow furrowing in concentration. Glossy, Ozzie notes. She's wearing lip gloss."At least three times by the way."

Ozzie waves a hand dismissively, a scowl still set on his face as he walks over to his closet. The only thing he's got on is a pair of Lycra panties and his knife's thigh holster."You've got that weird Locust telepathy thing going on with him. That makes you inherently biased. You can't judge," his voice is muffled behind the fabric of his clothes, "and if any of that oil gets on my sheets, I swear to god I'm drowning yours in lube."

"You wouldn't dare, niño."

He really wouldn't, but still it's the principle of the thing. He's using his f*****g Millesimo for crying out loud. That s**t's expensive. Also, "don't call me, niño."

"Stop acting like a child then."

Fair enough.

Ozzie draws back from his closet with a sigh, holding up three different outfits. "Okay," he says, "opinion time."

"Oh no," Newt shakes her head, checking her magazine tube for any damage, "I'm not helping you look prettier than me, chico."

"Aww, you think I'm pretty?" He says dryly. A pause. "Is that why you're wearing lip-gloss?"

Newt tenses. "No." She focuses on putting her Glock back together and moves over to her rifle. Ozzie lets her. There's no reason not to. He arches a brow at her when she's done.

"Your reaction says otherwise."

"Pardon my lack of self confidence," She drawls. "It tends to get a little stomped on when our resident psycho who, by the way, almost exclusively wears large ratty sweaters and ugly joggers ends up looking hotter than me in a dress."

Fair enough.

"So you think I should go with the dress," Ozzie says neutrally. He holds it out in front of him and c***s his head to the side to examine it. "You forgot to mention your resident psycho also wears obnoxious hipster glasses, gages and, as his shrink would say, has a 'tendency towards self-sabotage'." He continues in the same disinterested tone, eyes scrutinizing the fabric in his hands."Oh, and has the natural social grace of a bull in a china shop. That one's my favorite. Remind me to thank Dodge for it."

The dress is a horizontally striped black and white piece with an asymmetrical cut from the bottom hem that Ozzie knows from experience will make it stop just above and just below his knees respectively. The shorter side has a slit up to the mid thigh. Honestly, it's not a bad choice. He nods to himself. The knife can be hidden on the upper part of his right leg and he can get to it easily through the side slit if needed--

Newt clears her throat and Ozzie pretends to be startled instead of being the unphased creep who's been patiently cataloging all her micro-expressions until this moment. Ozzie wets his lips. "Not to deny that I have some... issues or anything--"

"That mi amigo is an understatement. I know you well enough to know you'd planned that from the moment you noticed the lip-gloss," Newt stops. "Sorry," She takes a breath. Restarts. "Sorry," She says again. "I shouldn't have snapped like that, and I know I'm not you're shrink, Ozzie, and I'm not trying to be, but people aren't computers and you can't always get the answers you want out of them by pressing what you think is the right code. You understand that right?"

Ozzie nods. "Of course." Lie.

You always can. He thinks. If you can't then your not asking the right question. Saying the right phrase. Using the right body language. The words turn in his head but he doesn't voice them. He pastes on a tentative smile instead. "You gotta admit it worked though."

Newt pauses in the inspection of her rifle. She blinks. "What?"

Ozzie sets the dress on the back of the chair by his desk. "I know it may be hard to believe with me willingly cross-dressing to be demon bait and all but, dude, I'm not actually a masochist and I'd really rather not end up some demon's dinner because of a certain Locust's dress envy."

There are three monitors mounted to the wall above his desk and its top is open to reveal a makeshift vanity. Reaching into one of its many drawers, he pulls out a burgundy bra. It's one of his pre-padded ones. Perfect.

"You wouldn't--won't--die Ozzie."

"Better safe than sorry, demons get tougher when you're pissy. The less chance you give them to get under your skin the better," He shrugs, strapping the bra on and beginning to shimmy his way into the dress. "And Newt?"

"Hmm?"

"Dudes dig chicks who shoot guns. It's this really weird obsession, like the whole sweet-tea and boba thing. It's even Facebook official with groups and s**t. Plus you've got a pretty sweet rack and I have it under good authority dudes dig that too."

"Yours?"

"No, Dodge's," he deadpans, "Now help zip me up."

Newt laughs and sets her guns aside. "I'll let the comment about my 'rack' slide chica, but only because I called you a psycho."

"Well if you want to look at it from a purely objective point of view--wait chica?"

"You're a girl tonight, no?" She taps his shoulder, "turn around."

Ozzie does as he's told. "If this is part of your petty revenge plot for being hotter than you in a dress, leave the masterminding to me. You suck at i--ow!" Ozzie glares at Newt over his shoulder, "Jesus, warn a guy."

"I'm sorry you can't take a little tug, Ozzie."

I generally like my tugging to come with a little bit more of a happy ending, Newt.

"That was a force of nature," He says. "What the hell did that zipper do to you?"

"Take me away from my guns."

"Your guns are in better condition than my comics," Ozzie rubs the back of his neck and winces. "I think you snagged my hair."

"Not my fault you didn't think to pull it up beforehand."

"It's not even that long." He tugs out the remaining kinks with his fingers.

"You can man bun it. It's long enough."

"You sound like Dodge," he mumbles."Totally feeling the love here."

"I'll take that as a compliment, niña."

"Dude, come on,"Ozzie says, scandalized, "we've been over this, not cool."

"Whatever," She says and walks back to the bed, "finish your make-up and get your wig on so we can go. Dodge will already be in position by now."

Ozzie rolls his eyes and pulls out his chair. "Shame we're going to miss him making a fool of himself, he never knows what to do when people hit on him." Ozzie's reflection stares back at him through the vanity's mirror--tanned skin like light caramel, a square jaw, high cheekbones, black hair and honey coloured eyes. No stubble though. He bemoans its loss.

A moment of silence for the hair that was.

"Gross," he says mostly to himself as he lightly touches the smeared area around his eyes. The wing tips to his eyeliner streak up to his temple and what used to be a contained smokily applied eye-shadow now bleeds to the point of looking like a bruise. "I look like s**t."

Newt shrugs as she packs her guns back into their respective cases. "It's not so bad."

"I look like I got punched in the face. Twice. Hard." Ozzie sighs and reaches for a make-up wipe, gingerly pulling off his false lashes and dabbing at the war zone his eyes have become with the wet cloth. Hopefully if he's careful and blends well enough he won't have to redo his entire face. That would suck. His cheekbones are on fleek right now.

Ozzie sees Newt check her watch out of the corner of his mirror. Her fingers drum lightly on her guns' cases. "How long do you think you'll need?"

"Five to ten minutes. I have to make sure everything sets for real this time. Don't want my face melting off halfway through the night." He puts the wipe down and begins reapplying a base layer of foundation. His powder stands at the ready on his desk. The hardest part, he thinks, is going to be the re-contouring. He'll need to be extra careful with making sure it's even with everything else. "You can change in my bathroom if you need to, I think I have one of your spare uniforms in the cabinet under the sink still."

"Thank you." He hears the creak of the bed as she stands, and the sound of her light footsteps over the carpet as she makes her way to the adjoining bathroom. Her guns remain by the side of his bed.

"No problem," Ozzie calls after her, tone dry and blending ball in hand as he begins making quick, even swipes around his eyes. "It's a relief. Now I don't have to worry about you asking if I'm done yet."

"So considerate, chica."

"I'm beginning to question the validity of my previous statement. Go change."

"Yes, Ozzie." The door finally closes behind her. Ozzie lets out a sigh of relief.

Setting the blending ball to the side he dutifully continues work on his face, losing himself to the mindless rhythm of opening containers and liquid eyeliner. Of eye-shadow and penciled eyebrows made dark and high. His face is a canvas, his palette a million shades of skin, his instruments brushes and pencils made to create the illusion of highlights and shadows. Closeness and depth.

Ozzie redoes the winged tips to his eyes and replaces the fake eyelashes over his own. He makes his eyelids glow like smouldering embers with deep reds, smokey blacks and dark glitters. Makeup is probably as close to being a sculptor or a painter he'll ever get. Might as well make it look f*****g fabulous.

Finally, he ties back his hair, puts on a wig cap and heads over to his closet where he has a row of wig's on mannequin heads on the top shelf. He grabs a short black one styled in a sleek bob cut. It's streaked with highlights of dark red. He pulls it on. Ozzie nods to himself.

"Damn," He says, looking into his full length mirror, "I make a bomb-a*s girl."

Kicking the closet door closed, Ozzie grabs the heels he'd been wearing earlier and slips them back on his feet when he reaches his desk, leaning back in his swivel chair in the process. His communicator (which is disguised as a hearing aid) and phone rest in a neat pile in easy reach on the edge. He grabs them both, fitting the communicator to his ear and turning it on.

"Romeo o Romeo how art my Romeo? Does he drown in the clutches of unsavory men? Or mayhaps, my Romeo has finally grown a pair and done more than glare like an a*s in the direction of anyone with the balls to approach him." Ozzie finishes blandly.

The line is static for a moment before, "you are inscrutable." Dodge mumbles, voice crackling lowly over the frequency. Ozzie can hear a faint hint of bass in the background.

"Oh stop, you're making me blush." He says, spinning his chair around to watch the bathroom door.

"Inscrutable," Dodge repeats.

"Such a big word, daddy--" Ozzie says in Francine's voice. Small. Timid. Meek. With a hint of wonder at the unknown.

"Stop--"

"--makes me wonder what else might be--"

"Are you and Newt almost here?" Dodge interrupts with a harsh sounding cough.

Ozzie laughs. "Sometimes I wonder how you're older than me."

"Answer the question."

"I can feel your eye-roll from here," Ozzie says, dry as the Sahara. He sighs. "No. We're about to head out now. Newt's changing in my bathroom."

"Good."

Ozzie twirls a strand of the wigs hair around his finger. "Is it really that bad?" He muses, "I would've put Newt with me if it was going to be an issue. We could've been smoking hot lesbians together."

"It is fine. Just be here at the appointed time."

Ozzie's bathroom door opens, and Newt steps out in full Locust gear. "Don't worry we will be."

"I will see you then." Dodge says matter-of-factly before the line goes dead.

Ozzie huffs out an exasperated breath before getting up. He eyes Newt from where he's standing, shooting her a small grin. "Well," he says, "you ready to kick some inscrutable demon a*s?"

Newt nods, the gold circlet of the Locusts adorning her face and spreading down to cover her features like a Mycenaean funeral mask. Locusts can't talk when they have it on, but they can communicate telepathically with one another through the bonds of the Triad. Which was great and all for them, but sucked for Ozzie. Since he wasn't. A Locust that is. Nodding and weird hand gestures would have to do. Newt grabs her gun cases and hoists them over her shoulder.

"Long live demon bait," Ozzie mumbles. He pats himself down one last time, making sure he doesn't forget anything then heads to the door of his room. Eden awaits.

Reviews

[Tamelia Jade]

It just got better, honestly.
Still so great! I was a little confused by the casual change of scenery, you know? I'm going to go ahead and assume that they're still in their unofficial HQ, but... yeah, I don't know. And I want to know what Newt looks like!
Other than that, this s**t is the bomb.
Ozzie is super cool and I love him already.
Keep it up, because I will read the S**T out of this xx