make the man

author's notes & content warnings

A/N: iiiiiiiiiiit's D20 Fic Off!! I feel like every year I sign up and then immediately get busy but this year I had an old wip that fit a prompt and went oh hey this is just like that thing i started and forgot about. yay! for the prompt Aabria Approves aka fashion-centric :')

“It’s all rather uncomfortable,” Torse says, voice rumbling low enough that Maxwell swears he can feel it in the soles of his feet.

“It is,” Maxwell agrees. He’s used to some amount of finery, but Salturi finery is something else. As it happens, showing skin is a sign of wealth, and as an interplanar outsider Maxwell is not considered especially high-status. He is covered head to toe: a thin veil, fine gloves, tall boots, the sun blazing down upon him.

Torse, at least, is afforded some flexibility, by virtue of his position. An envoy from Zern is a very special occasion indeed, and so he is permitted to display his hands and feet. The rest of him is shrouded, albeit lightly, in spare silks from Marya, pinned just so.

Despite himself, and despite how uncouth it is, Maxwell has to ask: “Have you ever worn clothes?”

“No,” Torse says. Grumbles, honestly. Maxwell has been learning how to read tones in Torse’s voice, in the clicks that emanate from somewhere high in his chest. He’s been teaching himself to hear the clicks, beyond the language shared from the magic of Zood. To understand his body, beyond the realm of what he considers to be a body.

“I suppose this is a poor introduction to clothing,” Maxwell says lightly. “Typically you’re able to customize it.”

“Like your gloves,” Torse says.

At this point, some odd months into being a full-time adventurer, Maxwell has had to make some sartorial choices that were once unthinkable. Namely: his clothing is chosen to prioritize durability, not pure style. It was an agonizing adjustment at first. Now it’s simply annoying. There are days where he misses the breadth of options he once had.

But all of his gloves have survived this transition. He has good gloves, gloves for every occasion. Some for fighting, some to protect his hands. Some to hide them. Some simply because he likes them. Most in plain colors, but some in accent colors. Today’s pair are leather, caramel covered, just barely broken in enough to be comfortable.

Maxwell hadn’t realized that Torse was looking at his hands. He’s quite aware of it now.

“Like my gloves,” he agrees. “Like anything else.”

“I don’t particularly care for the way the silk feels,” Torse muses. He shifts, his cape rippling over his shoulders. It’s such a thin material, arranged oh so carefully around his spikes. Marya had suggested finding a way to dull the spikes artfully, and Maxwell might’ve been more opposed than Torse. Possibly.

He can’t help himself: he reaches out to catch the edge of the silk between finger and thumb, rubbing at it. He can’t truly feel the fabric through his gloves, can barely suss out texture beyond how delicate it is, but he holds it anyway. “Can you feel it?”

“It depends on what type of feeling you mean.” Torse shifts, and the fabric flows over Maxwell’s hand. “I cannot feel softness, but I can feel smoothness, and thinness, neither of which I care for. I understand the weight of it, but not when the covering falls from my body.”

Maxwell nods and chokes out some sort of mm-hm sound, trying his best to act as though he’s not seized with the image of ripping the silk away, just to watch what happens. There’s nothing sensual about the thought of it; Torse’s body underneath is Torse’s body, in all of its ordinary wonder. Maxwell has seen it bloodied more times than he can count.

No, it’s less about the silk or the bareness and more about the reaction. What would it be like, to undress Torse? What would he notice? Would he appreciate the process? Would he feel different, being bare after being covered? Maxwell rather feels like it would be different, but that’s awfully human of him to assume, isn’t it.

“What do you feel?” Torse asks, so quietly that Maxwell almost feels it isn’t a question for him. But who else could Torse be asking? Who else would he look to in this moment?

Maxwell rubs the silk one more time and then forces himself to let go of the fabric, although he can’t quite force himself to pull away. “I feel – I suppose it’s less about the physical sensation of the clothing, and more about the presentation. It’s very Gotch of me to care about, I know.”

“I enjoy the Gotch of you,” Torse says. Maxwell rather wishes he wouldn’t.

“I like,” he says, picking every word carefully, “that I can control what people see when they look at me. And I like that sometimes, what they see is right, but I like that it can be wrong, that I can control what parts of myself are given away. I feel…”

He falters. Torse does not press. They stand, hands close, bodies close.

“I like to see you,” Torse says at last. He does not look away. “The Salturi delegation will be expecting us.”

“I suppose they will,” Maxwell says. He does not look away either.