Chapter Text
Ashveil pulls on a pair of stockings with a resigned sigh. He never would have imagined he'd need to wear a dress for an investigation again, and after his first humiliating experience, he'd never wanted to. But he owes Kuchiba and dear old Miss Millie both, so here he is, getting all dolled up. To be fair, Miss Millie has helped Ashveil on many an occasion when he couldn't make ends meet or needed support when looking after the neighborhood rascals, so he'd have investigated any scammer stupid enough to try to dupe Miss Millie out of her fortune regardless. He just wishes he didn't have to do so in a dress.
But Kuchiba had caught the flu, her cover had been under a lady’s name, and Miss Millie doesn't know that Ashveil and Kuchiba are looking into the new painter she'd hired. The poor old dear can't act to save her life, and Kuchiba and Ashveil both know that this creep would disappear without a trace at the first hint that he'd been made. So they'd planned for a more delicate touch than usual—infiltrating Miss Millie’s charity dinner, smoking out the painter, and having Ashveil quietly scare him off before anyone was the wiser.
Until Kuchiba had gotten sick because Ashveil is, in fact, the unluckiest bastard this side of Planarcadia. They can't abandon the plan now that they've come this far, so Ashveil had—painfully and reluctantly—agreed to play the part of Lady Marguerite de Richemont and try to poach the painter away from Miss Millie. The scaring, he and Kuchiba had agreed, would come later. She had tried to placate him by saying that he could reveal himself dramatically to this dastard for maximum noir detective fantasy fulfillment, but Ashveil simply cannot move on from his previous case in which he had handed a wealthy businessman a banana instead of a business card. That disaster is too tied up in wearing a dress for him to get over it, even with the allure of actually being able to be more detective-like.
Ashveil slips into the dress and can feel himself heating up at the memory. He had looked so beautiful back then, and for what? A complete and utter failure. “Mr. N, can you help me tie it?” The dress is open back with a tie at the neck and a criss-crossing string detail on the lower back. Narrator hops onto Ashveil’s shoulder and ties the ribbon, more deftly than one might expect from a slumbernana monkey. “Too tight?” Narrator asks, but Ashveil shakes his head. Narrator then sits on a chair and fusses with the strings to make sure they aren't too loose. When he's satisfied, he tells Ashveil that he can do his hair and makeup now.
Ashveil’s hair is easy enough. He's practiced at braids and up-dos, so styling his hair takes little time. But the makeup… He props his phone up and does his best with the tutorials that Kuchiba had sent him. She had helped him the last time, and he'd learned enough to be able to touch it up himself, but doing his whole face on his own is no small feat. He manages in the end, and if Kuchiba’s reaction to the picture he sends her is any indication, he'd done a fine job.
The dress is long-sleeved to better hide Ashveil’s right arm, but to ensure the nails in his wrist aren't visible, Ashveil also dons a pair of engageantes and matching lace gloves. He steps into his heels and frowns critically down at himself. The dress seems to sit right, and though it has a double slit, it isn't so high that he's embarrassed by it. The shame of his last dress-wearing experience is suppressed somewhat by the fact that Ashveil is starting to think that he actually looks quite nice.
“It suits you, Mr. Ashveil,” Narrator says as if he’d read Ashveil’s mind. He hands Ashveil a clutch borrowed from Kuchiba.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ashveil grumbles.
He’s a bit unsteady in the heels at first, but the trial by fire that is the staircase out of the Furbobocom office is enough to make him sure on his feet. And by the time he steps out of the taxi in front of Miss Millie’s mansion, Ashveil feels like a million credits.
***
Things are going smoothly at the dinner. It's easy enough to slip into the Lady Marguerite persona, and Ashveil is a master at discreetly eating more snacks than is socially acceptable at such a high society function, so he gets to gorge himself on delicious food too. Neither Miss Millie nor her other guests seem to suspect he's not who he says he is, and that scumbag painter also seems to have locked on to Ashveil as a potential mark. The previous banana incident is now long forgotten, and Ashveil thinks that Kuchiba treating him to dinner for a week is well worth this.
Until, of course, he spots Blade across the room.
“Shit,” Ashveil hisses under his breath.
Of all the bad luck! Ashveil has been avoiding Blade recently because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about this mission, and it would destroy him if Blade found out about the whole dress-wearing fiasco. Ashveil embarrasses himself enough around Blade as it is; he doesn’t need to add “can’t tell a business card from a banana” or “lets random cops bully him into crossdressing for honestly flimsy reasons” to the list. Besides, he’d had to make up some vague excuse as to why he couldn’t hang out with Blade tonight, and having to face both Blade and his own shaky story would shame him even more. Ashveil can feel himself growing hot, and he knows that he’ll get tongue-tied and flustered if he lets his mind wander from his mission too much. He has to get back into the swing of things.
He darts away and inserts himself into a conversation with the scam artist and some businesspeople. The painter, predictably, fawns over Ashveil, and Ashveil had hoped this would help him focus on the job. But now that he knows Blade is here, he can't get Blade out of his mind. Ashveil cannot stop himself from wondering why Blade is even at this charity dinner, worrying about whether Blade has spotted him yet, or thinking about how very, very attractive Blade looks in that suit. Ashveil keeps casting surreptitious glances around the room, and it gets to such a point that one of the other ladies politely asks him if he's well.
“Oh, yes,” he lies. He laughs awkwardly, and the woman raises her eyebrows slightly. Ashveil curses internally—he's got to get it together. “My apologies, I simply—”
“Lady de Richemont.” Blade’s voice interrupts the conversation, and Ashveil’s heart drops. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Blade’s hand closes around Ashveil’s upper arm, and Ashveil gulps. The painter looks at Blade’s hand and then nods in acknowledgement.
“I didn't know you knew Lady de Richemont, Zhang San,” he says.
“Small world,” Blade replies. His grip on Ashveil’s arm tightens. “I have some urgent business to discuss with her, if you would forgive my rudeness in taking her away.”
The painter smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. “By all means, Mr. Zhang.” Ashveil looks between them and laughs awkwardly again, but Blade simply gives the group a shallow bow and pulls Ashveil away. “Bla—” Ashveil starts to say as they make their way through the house, but Blade shushes him. Eventually Blade shoves Ashveil into an empty room and locks the door. He gives Ashveil a sharp, dangerous look and folds his arms across his chest.
“Explain,” he says.
“You first!” Ashveil snaps. “What are you even doing here, first of all, and how dare you get in the way of my investigation—”
“You're also investigating that arms dealer?”
Ashveil blinks. “Arms dealer?”
Blade sighs. “The painter is an arms dealer. He also steals money from lonely old ladies. We want to intercept his next shipment.”
“Funny, I'm trying to protect Miss Millie from having her money stolen.”
“Okay,” Blade says. He takes a step closer to Ashveil. “And you have to do that in a dress?”
The embarrassment hits Ashveil like a freight train. He'd forgotten about the damn dress. But he glares defiantly at Blade, trying to swallow down his humiliation, and points an accusatory finger.
“Well, why are you intercepting a weapons dealer in a tux?”
Blade is now right in front of Ashveil, slightly shorter thanks to Ashveil’s heels. The subtle upturn of his face makes Ashveil feel warm for some reason. “We’re at a high society function,” Blade says, his voice low. “Why wouldn't I wear a tux?”
“B-because it’s distracting,” Ashveil stutters. Ashveil has never seen Blade in a suit before, but he fills it out a little too well. Blade’s hand is on Ashveil's waist now, traveling further behind to press against the bare skin of Ashveil's back. Ashveil bites back a whine.
“Says the man in a dress,” Blade mutters. “In a dress, looking this good, letting some slimy creep touch him…”
Despite Blade’s eager fingers making it difficult for him to think clearly, Ashveil laughs. Is that what this is about? “Are you jealous?”
“Hmph.” Blade pushes Ashveil against the wall, his hands roaming over Ashveil’s body. “No.”
“Oh, you so are!” Ashveil cries gleefully. And breathlessly because Blade is kissing his neck now. “I didn't peg you as the jealous ty—”
Blade covers Ashveil’s mouth. “Shut up. I'm not jealous.”
But Ashveil just gives Blade a smug grin. Blade pulls his hand away and frowns at the smudges of lipstick left on his fingers. He stares so long at his hand that Ashveil’s smile falters, and he pokes Blade’s chest to get him to say something.
“If I keep going,” Blade says slowly, “you'll be able to fix your makeup?”
“What? Yeah, I guess—mmpf!”
The words have barely left Ashveil’s mouth before Blade is kissing the breath out of him.
***
“Explain to me again how you lost him?”
Ashveil fidgets guiltily. “Someone else was scoping the place, and the mark made them, got spooked, and ran.”
“Uh huh.” Kuchiba is clearly unconvinced. “You're a terrible liar, Ashveil.”
“It's true!” Ashveil insists, his voice too loud.
“I won't bring up any whispers about how a respectable lady and distinguished gentleman disappeared together for a while before dinner, then.”
The heat rises in Ashveil’s cheeks, but he remains silent. When Kuchiba realizes he isn't going to take the bait, she sighs.
“It doesn't matter all that much anyway. That clown ended up with his accounts drained and reputation ruined. Quite the lucky break for the two of us and Miss Millie.” Kuchiba’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Not at all,” Ashveil says. Kuchiba shakes her head.
“Fine then, keep your secrets. But I just want you to know, since you bungled the job, I will not be buying you dinner for a week.”
Ashveil leaps to his feet in indignation. “That's not fair!”
“Life isn't fair,” Kuchiba says with a shrug and a small smirk. Ashveil pouts. “Now get out of my office. I have enough of a headache without you here.”