Even that is reassuringly Simon, blandly sarcastic and shutting him down. That more than anything else makes him feel like possibly he could handle this; learning how to stretch his own authority can be a delicate, scary process, never sure where he's overstepping, but he's reminded Simon himself plays that game and knows it better than him.
There is, too, something undeniably appealing in having before him someone Gregor sees as an indomitable force, in his life and in the Nexus, with his eyes closed and tilting his chin back to present his neck. Damn. He suddenly understands the attraction to this sort of thing. Simultaneously, he is disgusted with himself for that, and ruthlessly suppresses it. It snaps him into the detached ability to drag himself through anything he needs to without falter that Gregor often has to call on as Emperor.
Even so, he selects the positioning with care, and he really does have to steel himself. He ends up awkwardly hunched over to reach. The first press of lips to skin, several centimeters beneath Simon's jawline on his left side, is profoundly disorienting and reads entirely wrong to Gregor. This isn't right-- or maybe... He's not sure. What sex Gregor had had before Cavilo had never been all that enjoyable either. Maybe it's him that's wrong. Maybe there's just something fundamentally weak, or fragile, or not put together right about him. It wouldn't surprise him. Finding faith in himself as Emperor sometimes masquerades as finding faith in himself, full stop, but it's really not the same thing at all.
He has laid his share of hickeys before so at least there is nothing stilted or hesitating about it: he sucks, applies pressure, refrains from nipping with his teeth to finish as was his instinct, and in the end it's so clinical (as he hadn't wanted it to be, but it is survivable that way) that it's nothing more than the taste of sweat on his lips and a bruise left behind. Simon had probably counted all thirty seconds. Gregor is obscurely hurt that it is fake, somehow. Not because he wants Simon to be his in particular but just because no one ever is. It's all fake, all a lie, maybe always will be. He'll never find someone for him without Imperial obligation playing into it. It casts a depressed pallor over the whole scenario that makes him accordingly reckless, that and his newfound ability to tweak Simon, to defy what he wants of him. An ability to rebel found later in life than normal.
Gregor straightens, something darker in his eyes at having his sense of worth flattened once again, and pulls at his own collar. "You should return the favor, don't you think?" There's a note of challenge, words almost crisp, but absent of any of his private feelings. "I would take no shame in anyone thinking I would allow you to mark me." He wouldn't, really, if this were real. And it would certainly keep the rumor mill preoccupied in another direction.
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There is, too, something undeniably appealing in having before him someone Gregor sees as an indomitable force, in his life and in the Nexus, with his eyes closed and tilting his chin back to present his neck. Damn. He suddenly understands the attraction to this sort of thing. Simultaneously, he is disgusted with himself for that, and ruthlessly suppresses it. It snaps him into the detached ability to drag himself through anything he needs to without falter that Gregor often has to call on as Emperor.
Even so, he selects the positioning with care, and he really does have to steel himself. He ends up awkwardly hunched over to reach. The first press of lips to skin, several centimeters beneath Simon's jawline on his left side, is profoundly disorienting and reads entirely wrong to Gregor. This isn't right-- or maybe... He's not sure. What sex Gregor had had before Cavilo had never been all that enjoyable either. Maybe it's him that's wrong. Maybe there's just something fundamentally weak, or fragile, or not put together right about him. It wouldn't surprise him. Finding faith in himself as Emperor sometimes masquerades as finding faith in himself, full stop, but it's really not the same thing at all.
He has laid his share of hickeys before so at least there is nothing stilted or hesitating about it: he sucks, applies pressure, refrains from nipping with his teeth to finish as was his instinct, and in the end it's so clinical (as he hadn't wanted it to be, but it is survivable that way) that it's nothing more than the taste of sweat on his lips and a bruise left behind. Simon had probably counted all thirty seconds. Gregor is obscurely hurt that it is fake, somehow. Not because he wants Simon to be his in particular but just because no one ever is. It's all fake, all a lie, maybe always will be. He'll never find someone for him without Imperial obligation playing into it. It casts a depressed pallor over the whole scenario that makes him accordingly reckless, that and his newfound ability to tweak Simon, to defy what he wants of him. An ability to rebel found later in life than normal.
Gregor straightens, something darker in his eyes at having his sense of worth flattened once again, and pulls at his own collar. "You should return the favor, don't you think?" There's a note of challenge, words almost crisp, but absent of any of his private feelings. "I would take no shame in anyone thinking I would allow you to mark me." He wouldn't, really, if this were real. And it would certainly keep the rumor mill preoccupied in another direction.