the self-indulgent power dynamics AU
Jun. 5th, 2016 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Oh, God. Did he really just say yes to that? Gregor thinks, sardonically, that he imagines Captain Mustang is thinking much the same thing, with perhaps a bit more daze behind it.
But something had just come over him, watching someone who he knows for a fact-- thank you, ImpSec-- does not deserve the suspicion or jeers being laid at his feet, and Gregor, for all his passive non-interference, does have a protective streak a mile wide that has been inculcated in him through a lifetime of expectation as emperor. And one of their oldest and most loyal Komarran agents, whose file is a novel of horrific ill treatment, deserves better. Not to mention, Colonel Vorinnis irritates Gregor on a regular basis with no just cause to retaliate-- the Emperor is allowed few luxuries toward pettiness that way-- but this is one method no one can refute.
So it had just slipped out, a cool, composed, Please allow me the privilege of accepting, one of the more flattered ways of responding to a covert proposal for all that hadn't matched his tone. The blank look on Vorinnis's face had been extremely satisfying-- and for Gregor, the guilty, anticipatory curl in his stomach had set up and not gone away at seeing Mustang's face. He wants to think surely he wouldn't offer if he didn't want him to accept, but wanting him to accept in order to escape his situation is not at all the same thing as wanting him to accept because he wants him, and that shade of distinction leaves an unpleasant bitterness in his mouth that has always motivated Gregor to refuse before. To the point that he's not altogether sure Mustang was prepared for even the possibility of acceptance.
He had backed off, merely made eye contact and nodded once, subtly, a promise for later, and let the rest of the social occasion run its course in a sort of self-castigating, conflicted haze. But... if it did work, if it were genuine, in the hypothetical-- unlikely as that is-- Gregor would like having someone to take care of, someone he could let down some of his masks around and sink himself into in a rather less than physical sort of way.
Mercifully, there is not much of the evening left, and Gregor departs with only a quiet word to one of his Armsmen to escort Captain Mustang to his quarters-- the front room of his suite, specifically, the sitting room-- and to tell him he will be with him shortly. The Emperor's private quarters are not rooms anyone else is ever privy to but his Armsmen; Gregor is ferociously protective of his privacy, and so sexless as to be infamous for it among his court members. But upon arrival they are not anything remarkable, the front sitting room a comfortable, lived in sort of place, with an old-fashioned wood desk in the corner, a mix of incongruous paper books and plastic flimsies set around the console. Everything is shockingly well made, of course, but also... subdued. Lacking personality, due simply to Gregor rarely being there.
He feels badly to make Mustang wait, but he needs to sort out a couple things about his schedule, inform Alys Vorpatril of this social move (with a message rather than a conversation he decides without a shred of pity for her), and most importantly, gear himself up for the oncoming conversation.
What, exactly, is he going to do?
But something had just come over him, watching someone who he knows for a fact-- thank you, ImpSec-- does not deserve the suspicion or jeers being laid at his feet, and Gregor, for all his passive non-interference, does have a protective streak a mile wide that has been inculcated in him through a lifetime of expectation as emperor. And one of their oldest and most loyal Komarran agents, whose file is a novel of horrific ill treatment, deserves better. Not to mention, Colonel Vorinnis irritates Gregor on a regular basis with no just cause to retaliate-- the Emperor is allowed few luxuries toward pettiness that way-- but this is one method no one can refute.
So it had just slipped out, a cool, composed, Please allow me the privilege of accepting, one of the more flattered ways of responding to a covert proposal for all that hadn't matched his tone. The blank look on Vorinnis's face had been extremely satisfying-- and for Gregor, the guilty, anticipatory curl in his stomach had set up and not gone away at seeing Mustang's face. He wants to think surely he wouldn't offer if he didn't want him to accept, but wanting him to accept in order to escape his situation is not at all the same thing as wanting him to accept because he wants him, and that shade of distinction leaves an unpleasant bitterness in his mouth that has always motivated Gregor to refuse before. To the point that he's not altogether sure Mustang was prepared for even the possibility of acceptance.
He had backed off, merely made eye contact and nodded once, subtly, a promise for later, and let the rest of the social occasion run its course in a sort of self-castigating, conflicted haze. But... if it did work, if it were genuine, in the hypothetical-- unlikely as that is-- Gregor would like having someone to take care of, someone he could let down some of his masks around and sink himself into in a rather less than physical sort of way.
Mercifully, there is not much of the evening left, and Gregor departs with only a quiet word to one of his Armsmen to escort Captain Mustang to his quarters-- the front room of his suite, specifically, the sitting room-- and to tell him he will be with him shortly. The Emperor's private quarters are not rooms anyone else is ever privy to but his Armsmen; Gregor is ferociously protective of his privacy, and so sexless as to be infamous for it among his court members. But upon arrival they are not anything remarkable, the front sitting room a comfortable, lived in sort of place, with an old-fashioned wood desk in the corner, a mix of incongruous paper books and plastic flimsies set around the console. Everything is shockingly well made, of course, but also... subdued. Lacking personality, due simply to Gregor rarely being there.
He feels badly to make Mustang wait, but he needs to sort out a couple things about his schedule, inform Alys Vorpatril of this social move (with a message rather than a conversation he decides without a shred of pity for her), and most importantly, gear himself up for the oncoming conversation.
What, exactly, is he going to do?