Acceptable This Time (Vader/Palpatine) PG-13. Slash.
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars and does far less creepy things with it. I am not making any profit from posting this work of fanfiction.
Warning: Not a happy fic.
Feedback: Aw, please?
ACCEPTABLE THIS TIME
I roll away from him and wait for my breath to come back, not drawing on the dark side to simply do it for me because sometimes the experience of humanity is a luxury that I can and do allow myself. Even - or perhaps especially - in the Imperial Palace, at the heart of the power I have created.
I call that power unlimited, but of course it isn't. Not really. Oh, there are no longer any of my fellow beings who have the power themselves to limit me - I have dealt with the insolent Jedi and all their kind, long ago. My apprentice, as Tarkin says, is the only one left of their religion (and that shouldn't be the case; he should be a Sith, but as a Sith he is something of a disappointment). But no being's power is truly unlimited, not even mine. The dark side is infinite, but there is only so much of its energy that I can take and channel safely through these bones. I proved that in my battle with Mace Windu, the one that left me scarred and deformed.
I wonder, sometimes, if Vader cares. If he misses the face he'd come to see as friendly, genial, comforting.
It amuses me to think that he does.
After all, I doubt that it is strictly for Sidious's sake that he is willing to forego his mask and helmet, vulnerable, letting me breathe for him - letting me use the dark side on him to force air through his battered lungs - for the time it takes to please me.
That time is short, but sometimes I exert control over my own tissues, to make it last a little longer, just to see him try harder.
There is no satisfaction for Vader in any of these interludes - at least, not a satisfaction that is physical. His suit won't permit it, and I am not willing to experiment with using the dark side on him more fully at the cost of his life. In the first place, he doesn't deserve it - since destroying the Jedi, which he did for that milksop Padmé, he has done nothing to merit the kind of effort it would take me to try and twist the dark side into a mimicry of healing for him. In the second ... I'm not even sure how one would begin to heal Lord Vader's wounds. Healing, after all, is not what the dark side is for.
Ultimately, it seems not to matter, because Vader never asks me for anything. Not even with his eyes - uncovered, now, they are once again a deep, surprising blue. I wonder if he knows that it has been years since his eyes turned the glowing yellow of a Sith? I wonder if he still sees himself the way he was when he ... not died, but was reborn. I wonder if he mourns for the self he has lost, as I know he mourns for the others - a countless, bottomless, endless grief, made more potent still by its taint of regret and a resignation Anakin Skywalker never knew: this is something not even he can fix.
He never acknowledges this grief, certainly not in my presence. Perhaps he thinks his shields are strong enough to hide it from me. But I have, after all, known him since he was a child. I see his grief, and his longing, and his silent knowing that he can never make this right, that it is, has always been, too late for him. There is no redemption for what he has done.
He accepts this - the darkness, the Sith, the metal shell that keeps him alive but makes every moment a torment - as his punishment, without complaint. He thinks he tries to fix it, but he is thwarted, at every turn, because he can never truly see healing as justice: it surprises him, comes as a shock, as a brief and brilliant gift from the Force, and his elation burns like gratitude through his veins and he becomes once more a supplicant in the face of the Force, rather than its Master.
While I've been musing and trying to breathe, Lord Vader has reattached his mask and helmet and activated the mechanisms in his suit - a prudent move, as in the shock of my own orgasm I had forgotten entirely to see to his needs - not his sexual needs, which I never bother to meet anyway, but more basic: the need to keep breathing.
A lesser Sith would be grateful, or at least appreciative, of his silent willingness to assume all the risks and take care of himself as best he can, uncomplaining.
That would be a weakness.
His breath whooshes in and out, a steadier rhythm than my own. "Is there anything else you require, my Master?"
I draw in one more, shuddering breath. The galaxy awaits the exercise of my power; no point in lingering to savor the delights of the flesh.
"No, Lord Vader. Your performance was acceptable. This time."
Warning: Not a happy fic.
Feedback: Aw, please?
ACCEPTABLE THIS TIME
I roll away from him and wait for my breath to come back, not drawing on the dark side to simply do it for me because sometimes the experience of humanity is a luxury that I can and do allow myself. Even - or perhaps especially - in the Imperial Palace, at the heart of the power I have created.
I call that power unlimited, but of course it isn't. Not really. Oh, there are no longer any of my fellow beings who have the power themselves to limit me - I have dealt with the insolent Jedi and all their kind, long ago. My apprentice, as Tarkin says, is the only one left of their religion (and that shouldn't be the case; he should be a Sith, but as a Sith he is something of a disappointment). But no being's power is truly unlimited, not even mine. The dark side is infinite, but there is only so much of its energy that I can take and channel safely through these bones. I proved that in my battle with Mace Windu, the one that left me scarred and deformed.
I wonder, sometimes, if Vader cares. If he misses the face he'd come to see as friendly, genial, comforting.
It amuses me to think that he does.
After all, I doubt that it is strictly for Sidious's sake that he is willing to forego his mask and helmet, vulnerable, letting me breathe for him - letting me use the dark side on him to force air through his battered lungs - for the time it takes to please me.
That time is short, but sometimes I exert control over my own tissues, to make it last a little longer, just to see him try harder.
There is no satisfaction for Vader in any of these interludes - at least, not a satisfaction that is physical. His suit won't permit it, and I am not willing to experiment with using the dark side on him more fully at the cost of his life. In the first place, he doesn't deserve it - since destroying the Jedi, which he did for that milksop Padmé, he has done nothing to merit the kind of effort it would take me to try and twist the dark side into a mimicry of healing for him. In the second ... I'm not even sure how one would begin to heal Lord Vader's wounds. Healing, after all, is not what the dark side is for.
Ultimately, it seems not to matter, because Vader never asks me for anything. Not even with his eyes - uncovered, now, they are once again a deep, surprising blue. I wonder if he knows that it has been years since his eyes turned the glowing yellow of a Sith? I wonder if he still sees himself the way he was when he ... not died, but was reborn. I wonder if he mourns for the self he has lost, as I know he mourns for the others - a countless, bottomless, endless grief, made more potent still by its taint of regret and a resignation Anakin Skywalker never knew: this is something not even he can fix.
He never acknowledges this grief, certainly not in my presence. Perhaps he thinks his shields are strong enough to hide it from me. But I have, after all, known him since he was a child. I see his grief, and his longing, and his silent knowing that he can never make this right, that it is, has always been, too late for him. There is no redemption for what he has done.
He accepts this - the darkness, the Sith, the metal shell that keeps him alive but makes every moment a torment - as his punishment, without complaint. He thinks he tries to fix it, but he is thwarted, at every turn, because he can never truly see healing as justice: it surprises him, comes as a shock, as a brief and brilliant gift from the Force, and his elation burns like gratitude through his veins and he becomes once more a supplicant in the face of the Force, rather than its Master.
While I've been musing and trying to breathe, Lord Vader has reattached his mask and helmet and activated the mechanisms in his suit - a prudent move, as in the shock of my own orgasm I had forgotten entirely to see to his needs - not his sexual needs, which I never bother to meet anyway, but more basic: the need to keep breathing.
A lesser Sith would be grateful, or at least appreciative, of his silent willingness to assume all the risks and take care of himself as best he can, uncomplaining.
That would be a weakness.
His breath whooshes in and out, a steadier rhythm than my own. "Is there anything else you require, my Master?"
I draw in one more, shuddering breath. The galaxy awaits the exercise of my power; no point in lingering to savor the delights of the flesh.
"No, Lord Vader. Your performance was acceptable. This time."