Mulan, Mulan/Shang, cross-dressing
Honestly, this could be about four of the Mulan prompts. And sorry for those getting this twice, I had a massive html fail.
o o o
His shoulders kept trying to square, his back to straighten, his chin to rise in cool defiance. Long discipline kept his gaze in his lap, staring at his own sword-calloused hands against the delicate blue silk.
He was keenly aware of every nuance of his current attire; the way the silk clung and flowed, the lack of his usual protective pads and plates, the strange dry-wet of the makeup. He was certain it was too tight in the waist but she had smiled up at him, pulling the sash even tighter, and told him that, if anything, his waist was too thick and his hips were too narrow. His fault, not the dress. The implication had briefly made him angry, until he realized that she had lived with such implication's hanging over her her whole life.
Boots clicked against the floor, circling around, briefly passing into view. She moved in armor far better than he ever would in a dress, and there were days that her lack of femininity made him angry, too. Never would she be a perfect little wife, obedient and meek, and he found it difficult to admit that he liked it like that. He was the subject of much derision and disgust at court, a man who could not control his wife.
They never saw her like this. If they had, they'd realize she'd never let anyone control her, save herself. She was small, delicate, and quite pretty, but she looked like a man, moved like a man, thought like a man. He watched her through his lashes as she contemplated him, as if he were a horse at an auction, and he almost snapped something at her, but stayed his tongue. He'd seen men eye women like they were meat at the market; cool disinterest was far better than hungry lust.
Fingers as rough as his own tilted his chin up and he met her eyes defiantly. Her brows drew in, her expression gone distasteful and he dropped his gaze, choosing instead to focus on the stitching in her armor. She made a pleased sound that didn't sound the least like a woman and dropped his chin. He forced his eyes back into his lap.
Click-click-click. She circled around to his back and he couldn't help the tension in his shoulders, the slow anger that made his hands clench where she couldn't see. He fought it down.
"You are displeased." Deeper than her normal voice, laced with hard authority, and he hated himself when it helped him relax. A military man to the end, he had lent himself well to the play of giving and receiving orders. Her voice, Ping's voice, more than anything else established her command over him, and he bent to it more willingly than he had bent for the makeup brush or to kneel before her. "Do I displease you?"
"My Lord does not displease me," he said. Too hard, too masculine, but he'd never be able to change his voice as she did. She made a low noise, neither confirming nor disparaging, and placed a hand between his shoulder blades. Heat bloomed low in his belly at her touch, and he hated himself again, wanting her as he did even now, swathed in silks and jewels like a plaything.