clothes make the man

Jiang Cheng can see all the way to the water from the condo. The river curves through downtown with its towers to the docks at west, then out of his sight as it bends toward the south. Lotus Pier didn't have a view like this. The penthouse of the nicest tower in old Yunmeng doesn't smell new; that, as much as the vantage, was bundled in the price.

"A-Cheng, your appointment is at eleven." Jiang Yanli ducks her head into the living room. "Do you want me to come?"

Since the fire, they've done most things together. The condo is in both their names. "No," Jiang Cheng says, and then, with unwarranted optimism, "He'll be up."

At the very last moment, Wei Wuxian emerges from his room. Jiang Cheng has already summoned their car. "Good morning, Jiang Chang," Wei Wuxian says with a yawn. He's wearing an atrocious red sweater that goes to mid-thigh and shredded jeans that barely cover his knees. Somehow he makes this look intentional. "Let me get my boots on."

Jiang Yanli appears with two insulated thermoses. "Tea," she announces. "Have fun, A-Cheng, A-Xian. Text me if you need advice."

"I'm an artist," Wei Wuxian says breezily. "I won't let Jiang Cheng shame the family."

"Shut up," says Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian chugs most of his tea on the drive. He stares out the window, looking at the familiar scenery; Jiang Cheng looks at Wei Wuxian. This is the earliest Jiang Cheng has seen Wei Wuxian awake in a long while. If he didn't know so well the healthy tan of Wei Wuxian's skin from long Yunmeng summers, maybe the jade-like pallor Wei Wuxian wears now would seem beautiful.

"You could have taken shijie," Wei Wuxian says lazily as the parade of bulletin boards down G4 rolls by. "I know she helped you pick out your sect clothes."

Jiang Cheng presses his lips together. "You weren't here."

"Ah, yeah," Wei Wuxian says. His fingers drum on the metal cap of the thermos. "I wasn't."

After the fire, Jiang Cheng went to the Jiang family tailor. She had bolts of fabric stacked up to the ceiling, haphazard, but she knew where everything was. Jiang Yanli had her pull out heavy silks that shone like water and fine cottons that were as sheer as a falling wave. Jiang Cheng didn't know anything about fabric. He pointed to the ones he liked and Lin Meili made him an entire wardrobe of robes that made him look more powerful and composed than he ever felt. Jiang Cheng wishes he hated them.

He got away without a real suit during the Sunshot Campaign.

Abruptly, Wei Wuxian turns away from the window and leans in, draping his arm over Jiang Cheng's shoulders. "But now I'm ba-ack," he sing-songs into Jiang Cheng's ear.

Their driver drops them deep in the luxury shopping district downtown, across the street from Chow Tai Fook and Hermès. Between the two stores is a door marked only with a number. On previous visits, Jiang Cheng has come alone.

"Exclusive," Wei Wuxian says in a loud whisper as he follows Jiang Cheng up the stairs into the tailoring house. Even when Wei Wuxian is behind Jiang Cheng, it's hard to shake the feeling that he's the one in the lead. "What do you think the next step up from this is? Secret entrance behind a vending machine?"

"Welcome, Mr. Jiang," says the salesperson who meets them at the top of the stairs. "Let me take your coat. And this is—"

"My brother," Jiang Cheng says hurriedly before Wei Wuxian can say something embarrassing.

Wei Wuxian smiles. "Mr. Wei." Somehow, even though he's dressed like a squatter, he manages to look at home in this establishment. His shitty thrift store clothes fit him like they were designed for him—like the sort of thing that Jiang Cheng has to spend ¥40000 to acquire.

Their salesperson bows. "Welcome, Mr. Wei. How good of you to accompany Mr. Jiang today—a man's first suit is an occasion worth celebrating."

Wei Wuxian bounces on his heels.

They are offered glasses of baijiu, which always makes Jiang Cheng feel queasy to drink without a mixer. Wei Wuxian holds his out to toast. "C'mon," he says. "You heard the guy. It's a special occasion."

"Fine." Jiang Cheng holds out his glass. Wei Wuxian taps his own against it, his own cup always slightly lower. His throat ripples as he downs the baiju all in one go.

Jiang Cheng gets the fitting out of the way first; it's the final one for his second suit, the one he'll wear for sect matters when they arise in a less formal setting. This is a more casual fit, half-lined, made of linen in deference to the humid Yunmeng climate. Concealed beneath the jacket's Jiang purple exterior, protective incantations are embroidered on the canvas.

"Mn," the tailor says. He's old, his head as bald as a monk's. "All this purple. You think you are Eason Chan?" Like he doesn't know perfectly well who Jiang Cheng is.

Even getting hassled about his choice in fabrics doesn't diminish the feeling of putting on a perfectly fitted suit. Something made for him—not someone else's ill-fitting shoes that he's trying to fill. Jiang Cheng isn't a chameleon like Wei Wuxian; he can only be who he is, what he is, even what is asked of him is impossibly more.

"Now the finished one," the tailor says, straightening. "You'll want to wear it right out of here."

Jiang Cheng changes linen for charcoal wool pinstriped in deep purple. This suit is for Mr. Jiang of Jiang Holdings. It makes him feel a different kind of strength—the confidence he wants to hold when he steps into his father's office downtown to take care of the mundane matters of the Jiang family business.

The tailor looks Jiang Cheng up and down when he comes out of the fitting room. "Aya, put on a tie!"

Chastened, Jiang Cheng ducks back into the room and grabs the tie off its hanger, the lavender shot silk cool in his hand. He fumbles the knot on the first try, too conscious of scrutiny, but he gets it right on the second. When he turns to look at himself in the mirror, the overhead light glints off his borrowed cufflinks. No spiritual embroidery is required to engage his core. His spine straightens and his qi reflexively responds.

"Fit is good," the tailor says, satisfied. "Like it?"

"Yes," Jiang Cheng manages.

When he goes out into the showroom, Wei Wuxian is dicking around on his phone, slouched into the couch like he owns it. He looks up at the tap of Jiang Cheng's stiff-soled dress shoes on the floor. "Wow," he says. "Look at you."

The suit leaves with them in a bag. Wei Wuxian holds it as casually as he does Jiang Yanli's purse while Jiang Cheng pays the final balance and books an appointment to pick up the purple suit. "Want me to come with you again?" he says, leaning against the counter as the salesperson scans Jiang Cheng's Alipay barcode. "Give you my expert opinion on the thing you've already bought?"

"We have baijiu at home," Jiang Cheng says tersely. He's too aware of their audience and the heat of Wei Wuxian's body next to his.

In the car, Wei Wuxian hangs the suit bag on the little hook just above the door and turns his eyes onto Jiang Cheng instead of the storefronts outside. "Mr. Jiang," he says as their driver pulls away from the curve. "Will you be wearing this in board meetings while you pretend you know what a semiconductor is? The secretaries are gonna go wild."

"Stop it," Jiang Cheng says, his cheeks heating.

Wei Wuxian's eyes sparkle. "Where are your cufflinks, Mr. Jiang? We should have gone into Chow Tai Fook after." He leans across the vacant seat between them. "Or maybe you want something custom... silver, with a lotus... amethysts to match Zidian..."

"Shut up!"

"Don't you want to complete the look?" Wei Wuxian says, voice low and teasing.

Jiang Cheng clenches his fist. He shouldn't let Wei Wuxian get to him like this. Wei Wuxian flirts with everyone and everything; all he wants is to get a rise out of Jiang Cheng, the way he has since they were kids. Zidian digs into Jiang Cheng's palm. "Jiejie bought me some," he says. "I just forgot them."

Abruptly, Wei Wuxian pulls away. He doesn't take his eyes off Jiang Cheng. "Shijie has good taste," he says with a smile that doesn't sit quite right on his face.

Jiang Cheng wears the cufflinks Jiang Yanli gave him when he goes into the office. Wei Wuxian isn't wrong about Jiang Cheng's knowledge about the family business—it wasn't Jiang Cheng who'd been pushed into an engineering program or groomed as the successor. Heading a cultivation sect had been a living of its own before the decade during which they were disbanded and driven underground. Jiang Fengmian had been a child, born in Lotus Pier but raised in exile in the countryside; he rebuilt Yunmeng Jiang with Wei Changze at his side. How was Jiang Cheng supposed to live up to that?

His sect garb weighs even more heavily. The robes he wears at home are lighter than those he wears on his trips north, but they carry the gaze of a dozen junior disciples—many older than Jiang Cheng himself—and the senior cultivators who remain. The meetings he has with other sect leaders are easier in some ways. Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen certainly don't expect Jiang Fengmian when they darken his door.

"Sandu Shengshou!" Nie Mingue greets Jiang Cheng when they meet in the front courtyard of what will be the third Lotus Pier on this site in the past fifty years. "This place is coming along faster than I expected." He squints. "Are you putting HVAC in?"

"Yes," Jiang Cheng says firmly.

They head to the Jiang home afterward. Jiang Yanli recently hired a decorator; now the place looks less bare, yet less personal. She's in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner, while Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian sprawl out in the living room like the worthless lumps they are. Huaisang has one leg on the floor and one dangling over the other arm; he's fanning himself like a character in a period drama. "Jiang Cheng, look!" he says, tossing the fan open into the air and catching it neatly folded in his hand. Then he catches sight of Nie Mingjue and says, dispairingly, "Da ge, you're sweating."

Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes as he straightens the collar of his robe. "We are in Yunmeng."

They gather around the table together in their assorted finery: sect robes for Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue, a simple dress for Jiang Yanli, designer jeans and a silk bomber jacket in Nie colors for Nie Huaisang, and, for Wei Wuxian, a t-shirt and basketball shorts. Wei Wuxian spends the dinner sneaking chili peppers into Jiang Cheng's bowl. Jiang Cheng catches him at it only once; Wei Wuxian's eyes sparkle as they meet his. Then he's leaning into Jiang Cheng's space as he turns toward their guests, his head thrown back in a laugh. Chifeng-Zun's joke isn't even funny.

When Jiang Cheng gets up to make another pot of tea, Wei Wuxian follows him into the kitchen to grab a couple of beers. As Jiang Cheng waits for the electric kettle to heat, Wei Wuxian shuts the refrigerator door and leans back against it, his arms full of cans. His eyes drag up Jiang Cheng's robes like a risen anchor. "Jiang Cheng ah," he scolds. "You never dress up like this for us at home."

For a moment, everything else is forgotten. Jiang Cheng wants to get on his knees right there, to let Wei Wuxian do whatever he wants with him. To let his own fine skirts crumple beneath his knees while he draws Wei Wuxian's dick out of those ratty basketball shorts and takes it into his mouth. Jiang Cheng wants Wei Wuxian to be the one who has to bear all this weight. He's angry about it, so angry his face flushes. Why is it always him? Why is it always Wei Wuxian?

"I know, I know," Wei Wuxian continues, oblivious. "You think you don't need to impress me or shijie, that there's no special occasion. Think about it, though—isn't every day we're still alive is a special occasion?"

Jiang Cheng's mood turns again just as swiftly. "Fuck off." The water boils.

The purple linen suit fits Jiang Cheng like a glove. The protective incantations settle over him like the weightless armor, singing where they rest: over his heart, spanning his shoulders, and then the lowest above the scar that seals the flesh over his restored core. He doesn't want to take the suit off, so he doesn't—he wears it right out of the shop and into the car, his collar open and the midday sun on his throat.

"A-Cheng," his sister says when he steps into the living room, where she's working away on her laptop. "That's so beautiful! Turn around, let me admire you."

Wei Wuxian ducks his head out of the kitchen. His hair is loose around his shoulders, he's wearing the same singlet and boxers he was wearing yesterday afternoon, and he's eating prawn crackers right out of the bag. "Come on," he says, his voice scratchy with sleep. "Give us a show."

Normally, this is the point at which Jiang Cheng would back off and refuse to indulge him, but something about the suit emboldens him. "This is for jiejie," he says anyway before he does a slow spin. He's deeply aware of their eyes on him in his finery and his shoeless feet, the reinforced toes of his socks peeping out from beneath his pants. When Jiang Cheng looks up, he catches Jiang Yanli's eyes. She's smiling at him so sweetly that he wants to cry.

Softly, Jiang Yanli says, "It makes such a difference, doesn't it? Having something of your own again. Something new."

Jiang Cheng clears his throat. "Yes," he says. "I guess."

Behind him, Wei Wuxian says, "You look good."

The words wash over Jiang Cheng like a humid surge of heat rolling through an opened door. He can sense Wei Wuxian's approach before the shadow he casts stretches toward Jiang Cheng's in the sunbeam falling from the skylight. "Don't touch me with your prawn hands, asshole," Jiang Cheng says instinctively, whipping around to face him.

"Touching with my eyes only," Wei Wuxian says around a mouthful of cracker. "I got it."

When Jiang Cheng heads to his bedroom, Wei Wuxian dogs his heels, abandoning the half-eaten bag of prawn crackers on the hall table. "You didn't show me what you pay for with a suit like that," he says. "I want to see the full product."

"You can't afford one." Jiang Cheng says, then wishes he hadn't.

Wei Wuxian shrugs. "Yeah, duh. That's why I want to see it."

"Fine," Jiang Cheng says. "Do what you want."

He fidgets while Wei Wuxian steps into the bathroom and wash his hands as thoroughly as if he's been dicing chili peppers, then dries them on the neatly folded hand towel Jiang Cheng never bothers with. The fluorescent light above the sink darkens the circles under Wei Wuxian's eyes. It doesn't matter how he looks; he's magnetic, poles constantly shifting to pull Jiang Cheng closer or push him away. Jiang Cheng wants to be pulled. He wants Wei Wuxian to look at him the way he does when his eyes lift from the towel and lock onto Jiang Cheng's gaze like a brand.

"The color is perfect," Wei Wuxian says as he approaches, and then his hands are on the front of Jiang Cheng's jacket, thumbs running beneath the lapels as his hands slide up to Jiang Cheng's shoulders. "You're always wearing things that are too small for your shoulders, this is much better."

"Am I?" Jiang Cheng's voice comes out embarrassingly rough.

"Yeah," Wei Wuxian says, and then, "Come on, let me see the inside."

He doesn't wait for Jiang Cheng to respond before his fingers are on the buttons at Jiang Cheng's waist, opening him up. Jiang Cheng has to bite his lip so he doesn't make a noise. The way his body responds to Wei Wuxian against his own will is humiliating. The back of Wei Wuxian's hand rubs against Jiang Cheng through the layers of his jacket as Wei Wuxian peels back one side to reveal the interior. "Oh, you have a real pocket in here," he says, delighted. "Is it big enough to hold anything? Can it fit that massive phone of yours? Oh, they embroidered your name." His thumb drags across the characters. "This is fancy."

"Yes," Jiang Cheng manages.

Wei Wuxian takes the jacket off Jiang Cheng's shoulders, his hands touching Jiang Cheng more than really necessary to remove a jacket from an adult who could, technically, be removing his own jacket. Jiang Cheng lets Wei Wuxian take away his armor and hang it up on one of the plush hangers Jiejie bought in bulk from Taobao. "Give me your pants." Wei Wuxian is already taking them off. He unfastens Jiang Cheng's belt buckle and draws it from his belt loops before his hands go to the button and zipper at the front of the pants. When Wei Wuxian unzips them, he braces his hand on Jiang Cheng's belly, right over the scar.

Jiang Cheng can't help it; he lets out a low hiss, like a hot kettle. "Wei Wuxian."

Wei Wuxian glances up, then down again, seeming to have realized that Jiang Cheng is half-undressed. "Don't worry, I'll hang these up for you," he says as he pushes Jiang Cheng's pants down his hips.

There is one white button-down between Jiang Cheng's dick and whatever this is. Jiang Cheng shudders when Wei Wuxian runs his hands up and down Jiang Cheng's thighs as Jiang Cheng's pants pool around his feet. Any moment, Wei Wuxian is going to stop—going to laugh it all off, as if this was all a joke, just another thing to wind Jiang Cheng up. Jiang Cheng has to tell him to stop.

Wei Wuxian squats down and presses a kiss to Jiang Cheng's thigh. "Sorry." He gazes at Jiang Cheng through his long lashes. "I know I said I'd only touch with my eyes."

"Stop messing around," Jiang Cheng says hoarsely as he toes away his pants.

"You said to do what I want," Wei Wuxian says. "I'm still inspecting the goods."

After a moment of breathless silence, Wei Wuxian rises, taking Jiang Cheng's discarded pants with him. When he steps away, the terrified hope in Jiang Cheng's chest sinks like lead, but it's only to drape the pants over their own hanger. Wei Wuxian adjusts them minutely. Then he turns, leaving the pants hanging off the top of the door along with the jacket.

"Now it's your turn," Wei Wuxian says, spreading his arms wide as if to put his ratty gym gear on display. "If you want."

Jiang Cheng chokes. "Are you fucking with me?"

"Only if you're into it," Wei Wuxian says.

Before he can take it back, Jiang Cheng locks the door behind them. "Yes," he says, ashamed and turned on and wanting. "Please."

Wei Wuxian sighs with relief. "You better rail me. Do it like you look in that suit."

"Rail you?" Jiang Cheng says.

Their eyes meet in a moment of shared truth for what feels like the first time in months.

"Uh," Wei Wuxian says. "I mean, I've never done it before? But. I was thinking more, I get pounded into the mattress, you obliterate my mind with your obviously enormous sect leader dick."

"Please don't talk about my dick like that," Jiang Cheng says in reflexive horror.

Wei Wuxian grins—the grin he pulls out to smooth over every difficult situation. "What if we just jerk each other off and that's what I fantasize about?"

"Okay," Jiang Cheng says.

He takes off his own shirt while Wei Wuxian yanks his over his head and lays down on the bed. Jiang Cheng's hands tremble on the last button as he watches Wei Wuxian pull out his own dick. He's going to come as soon as Wei Wuxian touches him. He's going to spontaneously combust.

"Come on," Wei Wuxian says.

They don't kiss or anything. Wei Wuxian just wraps his hand around both of them and Jiang Cheng's brain turns off. His dick is touching another dick. Emotionally, it is like getting railed. He sucks in a ragged breath. Wei Wuxian bites his neck and Jiang Cheng comes all over them in long, messy spurts.

And then it's over.

Wei Wuxian takes a shower in Jiang Cheng's bathroom; he leaves the door open and lets the steam waft into the bedroom. Jiang Cheng watches him, the shape of his body blurred by the shower door's textured glass. Whatever wall between them lowered is rising again like a fog.

"Sorry if that was weird," Wei Wuxian says when he comes back into the room, toweling his wet hair. His soft dick swings between his thighs as he grabs a t-shirt out of Jiang Cheng's dresser. "Suits are just hot, I couldn't help it."

"Yeah," Jiang Cheng says. "I get it."

Wei Wuxian drops his wet towel into the hamper so he can put on the t-shirt. He doesn't bother to tug his wet hair out from beneath the collar before he scrounges his dirty shorts off the floor and steps into them. "Clothes really make the man." He shoots Jiang Cheng a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "You know?"