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“Oh, Force,” Anakin whispered.
He lifted a part from the table that looked like it was filled with junk, from Sheev’s perspective. As long as Anakin liked it though, Sheev truly didn’t mind following him around and getting out his purse of credits whenever Anakin wanted to buy something. As the Chancellor of the Republic, he was more than flush with cash, and since he’d abandoned his plans for galactic domination to romantically pursue the boy he’d wanted to make his apprentice and had instead simply convinced to give up being a Jedi, he could spend it on whatever he wished.
They were deep in the bowels of Coruscant, and quite frankly the smells down here were disgusting, but—Anakin insisted that one could only find rare parts for his swiftly-growing speeder collection under the surface, at the less-legitimate markets. Sheev merely kept his hood up, and his mind sharp—any danger that approached them would be gone before Anakin could even notice it was there.
“This is a power coupling from one of the Flash 3200 series speeders,” Anakin said, turning to Sheev with an expression like the sun on his face. “They haven’t made these in over forty years! The last one I saw was when I was a child; I can’t believe they have one here.”
“Then you should have it, before someone else does, my boy,” Sheev murmured, one wrinkled hand pulling free from his cloak to place a handful of credits on the vendor’s table. “You should have anything your heart desires.”
The droid serviceworker thanked him profusely in its robotic voice and put all the credits in a lockbox before it could be snatched away by some pickpocket. Anakin made quick arrangements for the part to be delivered to their highrise apartment, then leaned in and pushed Sheev’s hood back just enough to kiss him on the cheek.
“You spoil me,” Anakin murmured. “Are you sure it’s alright?”
“What does an old man have to spend money on, other than things like this?” Sheev replied.
Once, it would have been a million things—a million plans and machinations. But all of those had been set aside—thousands of years of Sith plans in the making—for one particular boy who was just a little too strong in the Force and a little too sweet and devoted for his own good.
Sheev Palpatine loved Anakin Skywalker, and that was the downfall of the Sith.