Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas. Thank him for creating Maul instead of me.

/This can't be right./

He lies next to Chancelor Palpatine, jaw resting against the older man's shoulder. Palpatine's skin is powdered, although Anakin can't understand why. It doesn't even show, as Padme's did when she was a queen, her face a doll's mask rather than a human face. But it's there, whispers of dust on soft skin, tickling inside Anakin's nostrils as he inhales his scent.

/I have a mission tomorrow. I should../

/I should be with Padme./

Palpatine's fingertips don't feel like the rest of his skin as they slide down Anakin's spine, coarse and rough. Not unlike Anakin's own hands, but he was born a slave, to labour, and battles he has gone through as a Padawan and Jedi have not turned his hands softer. But Palpatine is a politician, his tongue his only and most fearsome weapon, and Anakin doesn't think he has ever needed to work with his hands.

/He is not what he claims to be./

/This is not the bed I should be sleeping in./

/He shouldn't be strong enough to hold me still./

"So you leave tomorrow?"

Lizard's voice, sleek and silken and seductive. In fables, good creatures come with fur and warm dark eyes, but Palpatine is cool all over, like ice, pure steel behind his fragile appearance. Anakin thinks of slavery, of young girls he saw taken to the houses and beds of rich men, dressed up and pretty, but while they shared nothing with Anakin in appearance, they were same inside. Scum. Filth. That should have been behind him already.

"I have to see Padme."

Palpatine's hands slip off him as he gets off the bed, refusing an eye contact. He feels Palpatine smile at his back and wonders if it's in his blood that he always ends up serving.