Work Text:
Wei Wuxian hummed as he sat in front of his mirror, leaning forward to blend his bright red eyeshadow properly. He added on some eyeliner before ending it with a subtle amount of glitter dabbed on, blended in so that his eyes would sparkle only if the light hit his face just right . He also added just enough blush on his cheekbones, and again went in with just the right amount of glitter. He turned his head this way and that, admiring the way the lights from his vanity made the glitter sparkle and shine on his face.
Then, came his hair. Usually, he’d do his lips first, but he tended to hold his hair clips in his mouth out of pure reflex and he’d learned the hard way that doing this after he finished his lips ruined both his lipstick and his hair clips, and thus his hair too. So, his hair came next.
He hummed a different song around the bobby pins in his mouth, twisting and braiding and pinning his hair up in an elaborate style that he always wore on the job. Well, this job in particular. He had two different jobs, and each one had its own persona, look and style.
This job was perhaps his favourite one, the one that allowed him to dress up as prettily as he liked and show off his makeup skills. Plus, the dresses he wore always showed off his ass, and he enjoyed delicately flitting his fan in front of his face and batting his eyelashes at the men who paid him compliments.
He tucked his favourite lotus-shaped crown hairpin with its red gemstones and pearls onto his head and secured it with a few pins. It was delicate and small enough to not draw too much attention to him and yet the dangly pearls made him feel gorgeous as fuck.
Finally, came the lips. He simply used his darkest red lipstick and dabbed away the excess, making sure there was not a single trace of it left on his teeth. Then, he sprayed his face with setting spray, and sprayed his hair too (with a different spray of course).
He delicately padded across the room to where his dress was already laid out on the special stand he’d been gifted specifically for laying out his dresses on.
He pulled off his bathrobe, then took a detour to the wardrobe next to it and started pulling on his thigh harness, custom-designed and made to look like an underdress despite being able to do so much more.
He pulled open a secondary drawer, revealing a set of knives with blood-red blades and black handles with red-carved lotuses decorating it. They were slim and small and most of all, absolutely deadly in his hands.
“Ahhh, my babies! So good to see you again!”
He picked out a few of them and carefully tucked them securely in their little built-in sheaths within his thigh harness, happily humming as he worked.
The secondary harness wasn’t able to be concealed by his dress as it would end up tucked neatly into the thigh slit of his dress, but it wouldn’t matter since he was supposed to show it off anyway.
He pulled on a custom-made bra that was designed to hold more weapons and checked that his special smoke bombs and extra ammunition clips were all in and that they were the correct types.
Putting on the bra was a bit of a mission in and of itself, but he’d done worse before. The red lacy lingerie was the last piece of undergarment to go on before he delicately stepped into the dress, zipping it up with the ease of having done so dozens of times over.
Finally, he perched onto a nearby stool and grabbed his shoes, lifting up the sole to make sure the gun- pure black with the same red lotuses on its handle as his knives- and emergency knives were still there and ready to go. Then, he slipped on his shoes and wound up the straps, securing them with the buckle.
He stood, and walked, chin tilted high and proud, back to his dresser to grab his dangly pearl earrings and gently pull them on. He grabbed his red fur stole and wrapped it around his shoulders and twirled in the mirror, once, just for himself.
Then, he picked up his signature red and black fan, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.
He opened his eyes with a flick of his fan, and Wei Wuxian was gone.
In his place stood Wei Lian, shortened to Xiao Lian or XianXian as Jiang Cheng often called her.
Xiao Lian, the proud and haughty mistress of Jiang Cheng, known in their world as Sandu Shengshou, the head of the Jiang Mafia syndicate. Xiao Lian, who was the twin sister of Wei Wuxian, known as The Yiling Patriarch, known to be just as deadly as her brother and lover although nobody had actually seen her in action.
They’d just seen the bodies she’d left behind, and there wasn’t even enough proof that it was her who left the bodies either.
Either way, she was completely and utterly deadly and breathtakingly beautiful as she walked out of her room, where she met Jiang Cheng checking his signature gun in the living room of their penthouse.
“Xiao Lian.”
Xiao Lian glided across the floor and simpered up to Jiang Cheng. He drank her in as she walked towards him, eyes moving from her stilettos up to her face, before his eyes dilated and darkened slightly, sending a jolt of excitement and arousal through her.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, making her let out a small, breathy sound as she let herself be pulled into his chest, stopping herself with one of her hands placed flat against his chest while the other snapped the fan shut.
“Yes, A-Cheng?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him.
“Who’s your A-Cheng, huh?”
“Ahh, my apologies, Gonzi . This shameless one apologises for this one’s terrible mistake.”
Jiang Cheng snorted, slightly, knowing damn well that Xiao Lian- that Wei Wuxian- didn’t mean it in the slightest.
He slipped his other hand down her side and hooked a finger onto the empty harness on her thigh, pulling it- and her thigh with it- slightly up.
“Are you ready for tonight, my dear XianXian?”
“Of course, Gonzi! This Xiao Lian is always ready!”
Jiang Cheng unhooked his fingers from the harness and instead slid them around Xiao Lian’s thigh and lifted, running his fingers on the underside of her thigh as she lifted it to rest it on the couch behind him. He reached down for the gun he’d put aside earlier and slowly tucked it into her harness, tightening it and making sure that it both fit in snugly and also displayed the prominent purple Jiang Lotus all over it, marking it- and Xiao Lian- as belonging to the Jiang Mafia.
Jiang Cheng could’ve worn it himself, but he intended on keeping Xiao Lian near him at all times, and this way- even though he knew she was armed to the teeth, with even some of her hair clips being secret weapons- he could ensure that she had on some visible form of protection.
Plus, she always showed up during interrogations, somehow managing to both seduce and simultaneously scare the information they’d wanted out of their victims; she would often assist him with kills and help to maximize his intimidation factor, despite being an extremely pretty and “soft-spoken woman”. There was just something unnerving about her when she smiled her “Yiling Patriarch” smile, as if people were seeing her twin brother in her. (They were. She WAS her “twin brother”, the Yiling Patriarch. Yes, Wei Wuxian enjoyed his dual role in the Jiang Mafia way too much. Yes, Jiang Cheng enjoyed it too much to tell him to tone it down either.)
Jiang Cheng ran his fingers up and down Xiao Lian’s thigh in the soft, feather-light way he knew drove her insane. He leaned in to kiss her.
“Gonzi, please be mindful of this one’s makeup! I promise you can kiss me properly when we get back, alright?”
Jiang Cheng sighed.
“Fine then. Bear your neck for me, my beautiful lotus.”
She complied, and he gently pressed feather-light kisses down her beautiful long neck, and then moved further down to the small chest window cut out of her dress, making her gasp and clutch as him.
“A-Ch- Gonzi, we’re going to need to go otherwise we’ll be late and I know how much you hate being late,” she said in a breathy tone that made Jiang Cheng smirk in satisfaction.
“Hmm, my XianXian is right as always. Come on, but make no mistake: I will ruin your lipstick at least once tonight, so you’d better make sure to bring it with you,” he murmured, pulling her closer until he was a few millimetres away from her rosy red lips.
She blushed, rather beautifully he thought.
He let her go and she gently fanned herself as she hurried to her room to collect a purse that she could put some touch-up makeup in (and one that was sturdy enough to be used as a weapon and could also conceal weapons in them as well. She liked to be prepared, especially since they were attending the biggest yearly gala for all the people like them. Weapons, obviously, were allowed in, but the gala was hosted by the Lans this year, and they forbid the use of weapons on their premises and had people wandering through the gala to enforce this rule.
Both Jiang Cheng and Xiao Lian trusted the Lans, but the Wens would be there too and she was taking no chances.
Jiang Cheng did, in fact, ruin her lipstick in the limo on the way there, but he had also helped to hold her compact for her so she could reapply it, so she forgave him in the end, especially since he also had taken the liberty to clean her up with his tongue from where he’d spilled inside her. He repaid him in full later that night after the gala, still wearing his Xiao Lian clothes but as Wei Wuxian instead. Overall, it was a good night, and Wei Wuxian eagerly anticipated the next gala- he already had several outfit and makeup ideas ready.