His Creature
palpoke (aka snalps), 451 words, modern au, fake relationship, pining, T
Jim Snoke and Steve Palpatine's tumultuous affair was fodder for the gossip rags for decades, starting when they met as young “self-made” millionaires and continuing throughout their oft-contentious business rivalry. Wall Street considered their relationship a market indicator.
In 1965, Palpatine earned Snoke’s ire by taking a very handsome young man named Anakin Skywalker under his wing. (That Anakin became disfigured shortly thereafter did not ease Snoke's mind.) Snoke had his revenge in the 2000s when he took not one but two young men as wards.
“They’re my proteges,” Snoke told Palpatine coolly over cocktails at the Plaza, according to People magazine.
“Bullshit,” Palpatine reportedly replied.
What no one knew was that it was all an act. A show, put on to sway public opinion of things that went far beyond the two of them. With their performed on-again, off-again fire, they changed the course of world economies.
It was all pretend.
Well...not all of it.
Sure, the passionate kisses, the screaming in the streets, the walks of shame from each other’s luxury apartments, the indulgent trips to Rome, those were all fake. Going through the motions.
But the way Snoke gazed at Palpatine when he thought he wasn’t looking? The emptiness he felt whenever they had to pretend to hate each other? The longing when they were playing lovers, when he could touch Palpatine but knew it meant nothing to him?
That was real.
Jim Snoke was literally 85 years old, and his heart still skipped a beat when Steve Palpatine said his name.
Palpatine didn’t feel the same way. He couldn’t. All this time, all these years, he’d played his part perfectly. When he was supposed to be deeply in love, he appeared to be deeply in love. When he was supposed to be so angry at Snoke he couldn’t think straight—well.
If he didn’t know it was all a ruse, Snoke would believe Palpatine when he screamed that he never wanted to see him again. Their “reconciliations” were always a quiet relief. He dreaded the next blowup, even when it was his turn to instigate.
He wished they could stop pretending. But he knew if they did, it would all be over.
Oh, they’d meet at the club, they’d have drinks, they’d chat amicably. But they wouldn’t flirt. They wouldn’t kiss. They wouldn’t slide their hands over each other’s clothing or into each other’s trousers. They wouldn’t wake up in a tangle of bedsheets, naked and sore and bruised.
Snoke would never feel Palpatine’s heartbeat against his skin again.
All Snoke could do was live this life of longing, purposeless save for playing out the script Palpatine had written so long ago. All he could do was be the creature Palpatine had created.
And Palpatine would never know.
