Milkshake Hearts

Chapter 69: CFM

"Are you sure you're okay to film this today?" Shayne asks Courtney softly, as they drive to work together the following Tuesday morning, aware she was still feeling pretty emotionally vulnerable after the weekend.

"I mean, what better time to shoot a video where it's just us and you're playing fucking CFM so I'm effectively just pushing the whole video myself, than within a week of us having a pregnancy scare, terminating said pregnancy and deciding to start planning a wedding?" Courtney shoots back sarcastically, before moderating her voice, "no, I'm being silly, it's fine. I don't think there's a way that this video won't be weird for us."

"At least I get to escape into the character. You gotta play you," he sympathises, and she shrugs.

"Just don't jump all over the place while I'm trying to do detail and we'll be good, mmkay?"

The video had been Sarah's idea - her random makeup video with Damien almost a year earlier had gone alright, so more Courtney-doing-makeup content could be good, and CFM hadn't made an appearance for a while. It was a perfect match.

"And I mean, you gotta be alright with touching Shayne's face by now, right?" Sarah had added, at the time she'd pitched it. Courtney had responded by reaching over and lightly pressing against his cheek with her pointer finger instead of actually answering, because, yeah.

Sarah had selected a tight range of makeup options for her to use this time, and she was quietly glad. Her emotional messiness was enough that she didn't want to risk letting her indecisiveness from the last makeup video come in again even stronger: a single eyeshadow palette would keep things easy. Or at least, easy enough.

"So, today I'm doing makeup on someone I despise," she ends her chaotic and self-deprecating intro to the video, Shayne grumbling loudly in full CFM gruffness from off camera as she rolls her eyes.

"Courtney Freaking Miller!" he exclaims, as always, as he steps into frame, although he doesn't say anything else, instead making faces at the camera before she throws uneasiness into her tone - intentionally - and requests he sit down. He spouts some insane bullshit as he does, of course, but at least he listens to her.

To be entirely fair, he is relatively calm as she starts dabbing at his face with the base and contouring products. He keeps almost alarmingly still as he continues his crazed stream of consciousness CFM ranting, and it allows her to settle into the actual act of doing his makeup. It goes surprisingly smoothly.

"I wonder why I haven't ever done a full face on you before," she muses, as she does the contour, kind of forgetting she's working on CFM, not Shayne.

"I don't usually wear makeup-" he starts, voice strained in full CFM tone, "-because it seems like a lot of effort, and I already put so much effort into maintaining my human appearance-"

"You're so stupid," she mutters in response, reaching over to her pile of makeup again to locate the blush.

She tries to make something out of the cat pressed into the powder, but he merely sits silently and quivers his lip so she lightly presses the brush across the compact to pick up some powder and leans over to brush it onto his face.

CFM-Shayne barks loudly like a dog as her hand approaches him, and she lets out a clear, surprised yelp as she quickly leans back away from him, body turning away. Everyone on set laughs, as does she after a moment, but when she looks back over his way she can see his character slipping and an apology in his eyes. She tries to silently communicate that it's fine, before leaning over again to actually apply the blush.

As much as his talk gets continually more insane and slightly more aggressive towards her, he stays cooperative: when she asks him to make a weird face so she can do the highlight on his upper lip, he does, although he adds crazy eyes to the mix. When she implores him to be as still as possible for the eyeliner application, he freezes every muscle except his mouth.