Oh good

There's a seating area - some armchairs, some couches of varying lengths - arranged in a semicircle in front of the musicians' stage. Bastran starts walking that way, not exactly leaning closer to Caris but giving the impression that he might, at some point, soon. 

- and then he'll pause to grab a plate of snacks and refill his own wine-cup. He glances at Caris and half-smiles and jerks his head toward the seating area, hopefully conveying via facial expressions only that Caris should feel free to go ahead and pick a spot for them. 

(There are a couple of cozy two-person couches still unoccupied, and a lot of options that aren't that, and he's - mostly expecting Caris to go for the former, but he does want it to be Caris who picks.) 

This is so bizarre. 

He doesn't exactly mind but - the way seducing people works is that it's like - walking out to sea. For a while your feet are on solid ground, and you can feel that there's a lot more water around you than there used to be, but it's not pulling, it's just there...and then you step too deep, and you realize you can no longer feel the ground and the currents are shockingly strong.

Then you drown. Corentyn's beaches aren't suitable for swimming. 

Anyway, Caris has successfully intrigued him and on Caris's understanding that means the game is won and the being carried away by currents is supposed to start, but the Emperor's dragging his heels and Caris doesn't know if that means he's doing something wrong nor, if he is, what.

He'll pick a couch.

The Emperor will follow her there! He's balancing a plate of canapés and two cups of wine (he does this very skillfully). Just, you know, in case Caris does decide that he wants his own and if not, this will be easier and more fun for him if he's a little bit tipsy

- did Caris in fact pick a cozy two-person couch. If so he's going to be more comfortable being cuddly while they listen to the music. 

Yep! Cozy two-person couch. Caris is willing to be ...groped? cuddled? toyed with? whatever the Emperor thinks they're doing here, it's fine. He'll drink, too, since he's obviously supposed to. He needs to learn a spell for making alcohol less alcoholic, there definitely is one.

The musicians are very, very good. 

The Emperor isn't gropey about it, at least not right away, but - he relaxes, and nods his head to the beat, and his free hand makes vague but happy gestures. 

- at some point he'll relax enough to sort of lean against Caris' shoulder, and then look up and make eye contact. (He has at this point drunk most of his own cup of wine.) 

Well, he doesn't want to interrupt the music, so he's going to be communicating entirely in raised eyebrows. Have a raised eyebrow.

- well, Caris hasn't been initiating - things - as aggressively as Bastran usually likes, but also he's brilliant and intriguing and confident - at least he is now - and that makes up for a lot. 

The Emperor sets down his empty wine-cup on the end-table, and snuggles up against Caris. He'll maybe even reach for Caris' hand, if there's a good opening for it. 

Is Caris supposed to, what, start kissing him? Do men even kiss each other? It just seems like a very dangerous thing to do unprompted if you're wrong it's what the Emperor wants!

Well, not right now, the concert isn't over yet! It's one thing to kiss during a private concert in his suite...

...oh, that's a thought, he could arrange that for after this. Maybe. He's not actually sure what will be best for Caris - continuing to do the Caris things that are kind of ridiculously attractive (seriously, who found him and where and how) - maybe he'll use the communication-spell with one of his mages, ask them to arrange for a couple of musicians to potentially be available for a private performance in his suite, but to be clear it isn't confirmed yet. 

(This is not the first time - or even the fifth time - that he's made this request.) 

Anyway! In the meantime he will be snuggly but mostly very absorbed in the music. 

The concert ends. 

...It's probably not going to work, to - snuggle up and hopefully wait for Caris to have a bold plan for their evening - but he is perhaps going to snuggle in silence for a moment anyway, if only to buy himself time to think. 

(This is basically as expected. The Emperor loves music; this is why there are about four times as many concerts now as during the previous administration. He prefers to be left alone - or snuggling with his latest boy - afterward. ...It's not like it's the strangest hobby for an Emperor to have. It's actually pretty convenient - sometimes you can buy a little bit of his good regard just by pretending to be caught up in emotion when some musicians sing and play the harp for you.) 

Caris has spent the musical interlude considering his situation.

It's not that he can't be more forward. He doesn't particularly care to, as a personal quality, but this here is a competitive sport and winning is enjoyable regardless of what you're winning at. The problem is that he doesn't, in fact, want to do exactly what the Emperor's lovers always do, insofar as he can even guess at that, and he does not in fact want to leave the Emperor entirely satisfied and pleased with himself. You don't get married if you already have all the things you want from someone. 

And it feels like there's - something missing here, something more than the Emperor preferring to be lazy while other people make themselves busy pleasing him, which is an entirely normal preference. This feels like a test of some kind, and he hates failing tests, and he's not sure the answer is to do what presumably every single other person in this position does. He has advantages over them. He's safer, more valuable, has more powerful magic, can take a lot more punishment though absolutely no one on this stupid planet seems to appreciate this despite how it's obviously one of Carissa's better qualities - 

- what does that get you? Nothing, without the answer to the question 'what does the Emperor want'. What the Emperor wants quite obviously includes Caris figuring out what the Emperor wants without being told, and doing it without being ordered. Maybe the test is just how much research Caris put in -

- but again, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like the answer isn't one that boys often come here possessed with. 

"You don't want to give orders," Caris whispers to the Emperor's collarbone, once the others have departed. "Do you give hints?"

??????

(Caris doesn't seem nervous or scared, exactly - that's a relief - Caris is pretty clearly aiming for something, here, which might or might not be - good for the Empire - but it's definitely attractive.) 

Lean. "I–" 

this isn't on you, this isn't a fight you can lose, I know why you're here and I'm all right with that and I just want... 

There has got to be a way to say this that doesn't ruin the mood. 

"...I like when you're clever. When you surprise me. I like when you - know things I don't." He knows someone sent Caris. He doesn't need to know why. "...I like when you - win the argument." 

Well, that's easy. I am the cleverest person you'll ever meet, I am full of truly impressive surprises, and I know many things you don't. What I was hoping for was hints about what you want in bed.

He is not quite bold enough to say it. 

You don't even have an argument you're just lying here.

He is not quite bold enough to say that either. 

"Convenient," he says, instead. "I like winning arguments. I like winning most things, actually, if there's anything else around to be won." Kiss?

- sure, kiss, but briefly - though not unenthusiastically - just, they're still around kind of a lot of people and it makes it hard to relax. 

"We could go somewhere more private?" he whispers in Caris' ear.

"My rooms aren't very suitable for guests."

...yeah actually he doesn't feel like having a whole negotiation out loud about this. Does Caris seem inclined to follow him, if Bastran stands and - well, he would offer him a hand, except they're already holding hands so it's more sort of tugging him along. 

(His vague plan, to the extent he has one, is to head to his library, and - maybe while they're walking there he can figure out a good response to what Caris said before - he's embarrassed he doesn't have one already, but...not in a bad way, necessarily...) 

Caris is pretty sure the in-character and goal-accomplishing thing to do is to happily follow along, squeezing his hand. If it's also true that on some level he has completely wrong expectations about the price of defying Emperors, well, he's not perfect but he's not steering with that.

This is definitely one of the less awkward ways this could have gone and should not be faintly disappointing

They walk back to his suite. He steers them toward the library. It has some comfortable two-person nooks - he'll head for one of those, it's not like he can expect Caris to know his way around Bastran's library. 

- and this will go better if he says what he wants to happen next even though this is terrible and not the thing he wants at all actually (and it's, as usual, tempting to ask Caris what he wants but this absolutely never works -) 

"I want you to - pin me against a bookshelf and make love to me. ...Later, not quite yet. I can -" he actually doesn't want to call in musicians for a private concert, anymore, "- play the harp for you. If you'd like that." 

...He just said that out loud. He isn't entirely sure why. 

- ah, see, all right, that's straightforward. Enough so he's not even sure it counts as giving him a hint. 

They're not actually in private, he doesn't think, not unscryable private.

The harp bit is to Caris's own interests the least interesting part of that set of sentences but he is competent to pick up that it means something - possibly more - to Bastran than the rest does. "You play?" he says inanely. 

"I do. Not as well as musicians we heard, but, well, they have more time to practice."

Bastran is neither overly embarrassed nor overly pleased-with-himself about anything in that statement, it's a fine line to tread but it's not complicated. 

"I would like to play for you." (Because when he's - not performing, it doesn't count as that - when he's making music, the world is warmer and brighter and things feel - deeper and richer - and he'd like to have that while he's looking at Caris. It won't make it real but it'll mean the sex afterward is more - fun. Probably.) 

"as you command" is the wrong answer, he wants to - believe he isn't commanding it? Caris doesn't actually approve of helping him with that, but he's not going to say it when the Emperor doesn't want to hear it.

Or he isn't deluding himself, actually isn't commanding it, but knows the impossibility of conveying that. 

...