sfx makeup artist!jeonghan au

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Seungcheol shifts in his seat uncomfortably. He’s been on the same chair for hours, an unstable wooden one he’d bought at a surplus shop for cheap. It was a rather comfortable chair despite being a little wobbly, but even the most luxurious chair would probably hurt if you sat on it long enough.

Jeonghan seems to take pity on him, finally, and tells him he can stretch but not so much that the latex prosthetics on his neck are ruined. Getting up, Seungcheol stretches his arms, trying not to move the pieces of latex still lying unpainted in between each of his fingers.

“You good?” Jeonghan asks once Seungcheol’s back on the chair. Seungcheol nods. Jeonghan tests the airbrush on the back of his hand, then, seemingly satisfied that the machine had produced the most disgusting shade of green Seungcheol has ever seen in his entire life, starts painting Seungcheol’s face with a look of pure concentration. His long, red hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, some strands that hadn’t quite stayed in place getting stuck in his round-framed glasses, a little powder from the prosthetic mold he used a while ago still stuck to his chin. Seungcheol stops observing him only when Jeonghan tells him to close his eyes, feeling the paint being airbrushed on to his eyelids.

This goes on long enough for Seungcheol’s to numb again. Jeonghan takes one of Seungcheol's latex-webbed hands in his own palm, and Seungcheol watches him paint it green, then another shade of green, darker this time, and several other shades until Jeonghan was using a dark brown color and both of Seungcheol’s hands looked like a cross between an elderly person’s wrinkled hand and a frog's webbed foot.

“Done.” Jeonghan smiled sheepishly. No matter how big he talked sometimes, he was just like any other artist, insecure of his own abilities. “You wanna see?”

Seungcheol tried to smile back as best as he could through the makeup. “Of course.”

The first time Jeonghan had practiced his special effects makeup on him, he kind of freaked out at the result. Right now he felt a little bit of that fear as he stared at his own reflection on the fold-out mirror Jeonghan holds in fron of him. 

He doesn’t know what he is today. The other day he was an octopus, the day before that an old man and another time a bearded anthropomorphic pig. The worst was when he was a zombie though. Jeonghan had insisted that he spew blood from his mouth and until now the taste of homemade corn syrup blood haunts him.

Today his skin is green, the skin on his neck and cheeks loose and sagging. He had exaggerated eyebags and pointy ears. His green scalp was mostly bald, but Jeonghan had been kind enough to give him a few tufts of brown, curly hair at random spots. He bared his teeth and saw jagged yellow ones with black tips where his regularly brushed and flossed teeth once were. The contacts he had put on hours ago were a reddish orange color, the pupils a small slit through the middle of each eye. He was so sure Jeonghan would be turning him into a cat when he wore them, but now he was something else he couldn’t recognize. 

 “Well?” Jeonghan asked, one hand squeezing Seungcheol's shoulder. “What do you think?”

“What am I?” Seungcheol finally questioned.

“You’re an old man demon frog,” Jeonghan explained. It still didn’t make much sense to Seungcheol, but he nodded anyway and listened to the story behind the character Jeonghan had created. The first few times Jeonghan had been a little shy with the back stories, just giving short descriptions of the characters, but lately he’d become more open and would tell Seungcheol everything about the character's life and personality. He took uncertain glances at Seungcheol as he told him about the character this time, smiling radiantly when Seungcheol pats his thigh and tells him he did great.

“I can’t see where the edges of the prosthetics are,” Seungcheol observed. He really did look bald this time. “I look more handsome than ever.”

Jeonghan laughs happily and Seungcheol decides the long hours and getting terrifyingly ugly was worth it.

After Jeonghan had taken pictures from all angles using his fancy camera, Seungcheol takes a selca with him, uploading it on Instagram with the caption “How everyone looks when they’re beside Yoon Jeonghan”.