closed post for the lads: makeover montage

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan is standing in his room in the Mansion in nothing but boxers, absolutely surrounded by clothes. There are stacks of discarded robes in every color of the rainbow (except, notably, red; the Mansion had given him one of those and he'd yelped and hid it under the bed); intricate and wildly expensive guans piled in teetering towers; he's knee-deep in jeans, and boots, and button-up shirts, and dress pants. There's a tuxedo, still on its hanger, swinging from the closet door. Behind it, the closet has helpfully refilled with more options, including a few very pretty dresses that Shen Yuan did not, actually, ask for, but he can't blame it for getting confused. He's fucking confused. He's completely at a loss, in fact.

He groans and grabs an outer robe at random, pulling it around his shoulders, and then falls over backward and starfishes on the clothes-covered floor. He doesn't know what the fuck to wear on a date. Especially not a date with Binghe, a dinner date with Binghe, and of course it's going to be world-class food, because Binghe is incapable of cooking anything else. And Binghe's going to be looking at him. The whole time. And it's not for—for an apology, or even for a seduction; he's just there to talk, and to listen, and to eat, and to—to flirt!! Intentionally!! Like gay people do!!

He has to look good, but not so good that it's painful for Binghe not to ravish him, and like himself—Shen Yuan, the self he's trying to be with Binghe—but not so different from Shen Qingqiu that Binghe doesn't like him anymore because he just looks like some fucking guy. He can't wear what he would have worn on a hypothetical date with a girl, because that's way too cringe and straight. Also, he doesn't know what that would have been, either.

It would be easier to do this somewhere else, anywhere his wardrobe is limited by what he already owns or could readily buy, and not made up of anything he can possibly imagine.

He rubs his hands over his face, and then pulls two slips of talisman paper and a brush from the robe's sleeve. Writing above his head like he's texting in bed, the paper held steady by an invisible force, he finishes two different but equally urgent messages. They fold themselves up, and he paints a last few qi-imbued characters on the outside before they both zoom out of the room in opposite directions.

[Magnus and Galahad will each receive a note that only opens for them and will lead them back to his room once they read it. However, Shen Qingqiu has mixed up which message was for who, so Galahad's reads "SOS!!! date emergency!!!" and then has two little drawings of the prayer hands emoji, and Magnus' reads "I need a favor, if you have the time - your friend Shen Qingqiu."]

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

Thank you, Galahad signs at Shen Yuan; he doesn't expect him to understand, but it feels good to do it. He also squeezes Magnus' hand again -- he thinks he's maybe starting to know the kind of quiet Magnus is when he's thinking about his people back in his own world.

[peaklordshen]

"Am I--absolutely not," says Shen Yuan, flushing. "I just talked him out of proposing, are you kidding?"

He catches the sign Galahad sends him, but it's not one he remembers, or maybe just different in ASL vs Chinese sign. He gives him a little bow anyway, and tries to remember it to look up later.

Right, okay, no suits. He shuffles through some more clothes. He's already out of his xianxia underclothes, so he might as well try some more modern stuff first. He starts pulling on a pair of nice dress pants in dark grey, hopping a little to pull them up over his hips.

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, shrugging. Since Galahad squeezed his hand, he scoots a little so he can tilt his head and rest it on Galahad's shoulder. "So no suit. Those pants are nice, though. Are you more comfortable in tighter or looser things? What's your favorite color? What's Luo Binghe's favorite color?"

He cuts himself off after three questions, visions of Galahad signing slow down swimming in his head.

[onthewillowsthere]

He leans back comfortably, relaxing into the casual contact. It always feels good when Magnus does this-- it feels good to sit close with his friend, and feel all the ways their bodies can express friendship with each other.

Magnus has the questions covered as usual, so he keeps his gaze on Shen Yuan's face.

[peaklordshen]

"He wears a lot of red and black,"¹ says Shen Yuan, "but I, um. I can't wear red." The beautiful red robe is burning a hole under his bed right now. "I like green, but I have to be careful with that, because it's also a Qing Jing color, so Shen Qingqiu wore a lot of it. Maybe a, a different green, though, and not with white?" He thumbs through shirts in his closet, looking at deeper greens—forest greens, jade greens, anything further from the bamboo green he's been wearing for years.

There are a lot of button-ups in here, but Shen Yuan really associates those with like, business meetings and shit (though the idea of Luo Binghe slowly undoing all his buttons does appeal—and will not be happening, so let's just—remove that temptation for both of them). He pauses and pulls out a looser, wrap-style shirt, something that kind of evokes the shapes of his xianxia robes without actually being one. He shimmies out of the robe he'd thrown on earlier for modesty's sake and pulls it on, turning to show his (extremely adorable?? wtf) friends. He looks down at himself and flushes at how much chest it shows. "I'd have to, um. Wear something under it, but. Maybe?"

¹ So much so that it might mark him as part of a cross-canon group... along with one other resident of this Mansion...

[summerdude]

"Would you?" Magnus asks, regarding Shen Yuan with a critical eye. He likes green. It's almost as inoffensive as beige and black. Not as good as beige, but almost. "I know you said you're taking it slow and, like, not jumping right into sex again or marriage with Wives Guy, but that doesn't mean you can't, you know. Flaunt it. Halfborn goes fully shirtless on, like, all of his dates with Mallory." Halfborn is also a berserker from the 800s, but Magnus is confident that a little bit of cleavage never hurt anyone.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad shakes his head. "It would make it hard," he tries to explain to Magnus. "It's hard to-- want something and not have it." He's aware that he's speaking in that clipped way again, the words difficult to arrange properly, but he thinks of Claudius in his shirtsleeves in the garden, hair disheveled, and how much it leaves him aching, and he understands why Shen Yuan doesn't want that for Luo Binghe. "It would feel-- unfair?" to Shen Yuan. Too much, he signs to Magnus. Sorry.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods, a little surprised at how much Galahad gets it, but gratified to hear it. The gossip in him¹ wonders if he and Claudius have slept together yet—all they did on weed was talk, apparently. What does that mean about him, that he threw himself so brainlessly at Luo Binghe??

Nothing, probably, it's just that Binghe is hotter than Claudius. "Galahad's right," he says. "We need to like. Be able to talk to each other. We have important stuff to discuss." Mostly werewolf sex. He kicks through some piles of clothes; he thinks—yeah. He pulls out a tight sleeveless undershirt in the same charcoal grey as the pants, and lets the wrap shirt slip down around his waist while he pulls it on, then tugs the sleeves back up around his shoulders. He squints at himself in the mirror on the back of the closet door. It's—it's good, he thinks. Very much not the way he's ever dressed around Binghe, but not different enough that he's totally unrecognizable. And he likes the fabric of the shirt—soft and very slightly sheer, so in the right light you can kind of see his arms. Not that he earned the musculature there in any way, but still. He turns back to his friends. "Yeah?"

¹ So, all of him.

[summerdude]

Okay, sure, Magnus guesses he can understand that. Sorry, thanks, he says to Galahad. There was this one time Alex wore a particular dress to Battle Practice... and let's just say Magnus died pretty quickly that night.

To Shen Yuan, Magnus says, "Hell yeah, dude! Grey is a good color. And green."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. "You look beautiful."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan flushes at the compliment. "Nice," he says, embarrassed. "Thanks, guys." He sits back down where he was before and shakes his hair out of its tie so it falls around his shoulders. "What do you think I should do with all this? Like I said, I don't think I want to cut it, but."

[summerdude]

"Okay," Magnus says, leaning forward. He has tons of hair opinions for a guy who does next to nothing with his own. (This is because Alex has instilled her hair opinions onto him.) "Hear me out: French braid it."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has no hair opinions, or even much hair awareness, as evidenced by the fact that his own is essentially a lost cloud. A braid would be pretty, though, he thinks, so he nods.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan hums. "I don't know how to do that on myself, though," he says, "so unless you guys do...?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, dude, I'm pretty sure I remember," Magnus says. His mom had taught him, years ago. Ten years ago, somehow. But he's been plaiting all those flowers lately, surely picking up hair again won't be that hard.

[onthewillowsthere]

He lets go of Magnus' hand, since he'll presumably need it, and reaches for the green robe again.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shifts so his back is to Magnus, secretly pleased. He likes having his hair played with. "You want to try that on?" he asks Galahad. "I think I'm set, so. Open season on the fashion show."

[summerdude]

"Do you have a brush or a comb or something?" Magnus asks -- he can't believe he didn't anticipate this when he brought supplies!!! -- glancing around the room until he spots one. He goes to grab it and then sits down behind Shen Yuan. It turns out Shen Yuan's hair is already pretty un-tangled, so he uses it to pull his hair back and start separating it into sections.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I like the color." It feels impolite somehow to try on clothes when Shen Yuan is still getting ready, so he just folds it up for later.

[peaklordshen]

"You can take anything you want," says Shen Yuan. "You, too, Magnus. I kind of... don't know if it will go away? After I generated it? So if there's anything you like, please, or I'll be trapped in a clothes-whirlpool forever." He smiles at Galahad. "There's some sweaters in a pile over by the closet, the knit ones you like, with the patterns."

[summerdude]

Magnus glances around at the clothes as he starts to braid Shen Yuan's hair. "Thanks man," he says. "A lot of them are a little too colorful for me personally, but I'll take a look. Some of it looks like stuff Alex would like."

[onthewillowsthere]

He perks up at the mention of sweaters, and goes to investigate. It makes him happy that Shen Yuan knows what he likes -- he feels noticed in a way that's pleasing, not anxiety-provoking. As he sorts through the pile, he asks Magnus, "Why don't you like colors?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan relaxes under Magnus' hands and listens. This had been a good idea. Even if his friends hadn't really given him that much feedback—not at all like the gay best friends in a romcom would have—he's still glad he asked them. Just having someone around is calming him down so much, reducing the boiling in his brain to a much more manageable excited simmer, and the two of them together have such a quiet and comforting energy. It reminds him a little of being around Yue Qingyuan, except without the... sort of weird vibes sometimes, like there's something he should be picking up on but isn't.

[summerdude]

"I like most colors just fine, but too much and they just get a little overwhelming sometimes," Magnus tells Galahad, pulling in more strands of Shen Yuan's hair. This braid is getting kind of elaborate, actually; it's definitely more than three strands, but Shen Yuan has the hair to support that kind of braid. He bets it would look really good with, like, flowers tucked into it or something. "Alex was practically putting me through exposure therapy back home, but it's like what I was telling you the other day."

He doesn't say the word panic attacks, partly because colors don't trigger them, they just overstimulate him sometimes, and partly because Shen Yuan doesn't know about all that and now is not the time to bring it up, but he makes a face at Galahad over Shen Yuan's shoulder to try and communicate the idea.

"Too many is like, a crowded room. I like beige?"

[onthewillowsthere]

The comparison to a crowded room is perfect for making Galahad understand, and he nods immediately, elbow-deep in Fair Isle knits. "But you like colors on Alex."