Acceptable This Time (Vader/Palpatine) PG-13. Slash.

[wyncatastrophe]

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

Comments

[wyncatastrophe]

Wow, thanks for the thoughtful commenting. Yeah, I dunno ... I kind of feel like Sidious is only a token human, that he has been so hollowed by the Dark Side that his humanity, like the personality of Palpatine, is really just a facade, and one that he occasionally revels in. But while Sith should draw on their passions as the source of their power, it seems to me that Sidious has few left. My head!canon, I guess: just the way I read the character. But that to me would explain his interest in how Vader (and others) see him: what good is a facade if there is only yourself to see it?

No, I've never seen the breathing-for-Vader thing elsewhere, either. But it seemed right for the scene: I couldn't imagine him managing all that for himself, but I could imagine him surrendering to it for his master, for the Palpatine he'd loved and lost. Vader clings to that shell of a man he'd respected for a very long time.

I have to go with the Infinities story in which the only thing Vader can hate enough to destroy Maul is himself. When I watch the original trilogy now, I can't help but feeling that Vader serves Sidious in large part because he feels that there is no hope for him - no redemption to be achieved, and certainly no one left to fight for. So serving is the path of least resistance, and finally - perhaps for the first time in his life - he takes that path, and surrenders to the entropy, and does his best to prop up the illusion of functioning justice in the galaxy but it's the only thing that comes close to filling the vacuum left by the loss of a real cause.

Why indeed?

*snurfle* at Palpatine's priorities. Yes, he's rather less than satisfying as a lover.