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“You know.” Palpatine said finally, settling his teacup down with a hard clink. It was not a question, and they both knew it.
“I know.” Obi-Wan agreed.
“You know that I know.” The Sith-disguised-as-a-Chancellor stated, an utterly affronted look on his face.
“I know that you know that I know.” The Jedi smirked, before leaning forward and taking a deliberate, slow sip from his cup.
(The utter bastard, Palpatine raged, feeling the Force swell into filtering the poison that he had so helpfully laced the cup in. Kenobi couldn’t even have the common courtesy to fall over and die!)
There was a long pause. Both of them understood that they were at an impasse and neither had the option of killing the other. Palpatine was the Chancellor, and Obi-Wan knew that assassinating him would not reflect well on the Jedi Order. The Senate would have a hissy fit.
On the other hand, Palpatine couldn’t kill him yet either. Because, well, Negotiator . Plus being one of the leading generals.
Plus, Anakin would be the one to have a hissy fit.
“I’ll kill you.” The Chancellor sniffed darkly. His long, spindly fingers tapped on the desk in a series of menacing thuds. Tap. Tap .
“You will try.”
Tap, tap, tap, taptaptap taptaptap.
They glared at each other.
------- -------
The door to his office opens, and Palpatine sighs as he puts on his ‘kind face’. A smile spreads across his face, as he turns around, radiating happiness and joy into the Force. “Anakin, my bo-”
The smile slips right off his face, replaced by a dark scowl. “You.” He growls.
Kenobi grins, striding into the office with a purposeful motion. “Me.” He agrees.
The blasted Jedi settles himself comfortably into the seat. Palpatine seethes in rage, as his face contorts into murderous anger. A sudden idea comes to him, and he pulls out his comm.
“Amedda.” He snaps. “Bring us some tea. Now.”
A squeak from the other end of the comm tells him that Amedda is doing the menial task and is coming soon.
“You are too kind, Chancellor.” Kenobi purrs, and Palpatine flinches in sheer horror. Force, was this how Ventress and Grievous felt while facing this… this filth? The sheer audacity!
Jedi and Sith stare at each other silently, one glaring the power of a hundred Death Stars and the other radiating pure smugness. The door opens once more, and Amedda scurries in, fear written clearly across his face, and Palpatine relaxes fractionally, energised by the terror that his aide is leaking into the Force. The Chagrian politician places the cups on the table and flees.
Palpatine’s hand hovers over the cup, discreetly slipping another poison inside. Kenobi’s eyes very carefully focus on his own, and Palpatine resists the urge to fidget. The vial disappears as quickly as it appears, vanishing back into his robes with a quiet chink.
“Tea?” He grits out, hand actually shaking with fury as he holds out a cup of tea.
“Very well.” Kenobi sighs, accepting the cup.
They drink quietly. It irks Palpatine because the Jedi actually drinks the entire thing. The audacity! How dare he?!?
The Sith's eye twitches after several long moments of silence because the damned Jedi still does not immediately keel over and die.
“This is… very interesting tea.” Kenobi finally says after several infuriating minutes of nothing happening . “I take it that it’s made from senflax?” The Jedi chuckles. “I take it that you haven’t heard the story of how my Master made sure I was resistant to it after several rather nasty incidents where this particular neurotoxin was involved.”
Kenobi chortles quietly, shaking his head in fond remembrance. “The Cadanna mission was one of the more, ah, interesting missions.”
Palpatine’s face twisted, contorting into several varieties of a pissed-off expression before finally settling on murderous rage.
WHY WON’T KENOBI JUST DIE ?!?
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“What sorcery is this?!?” Palpatine howled, even as he directed his Sith lightning towards the defenceless Jedi that had just walked into his office. The lightning was being absorbed into Kenobi’s clothes.
The look that Kenobi shot him was one of utter innocence. “What, haven’t you heard of electrical-proof clothes? I hear that rubber is very efficient...”
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“Get out.”
“Tell me, Chancellor. Is tea an Anakin-only privilege or do you so kindly extend this gracious gift to people of the lesser-Midichlorian variety?”
--------- ----------
“Will you stop flirting!” Palpatine shouted, slamming down his data pad with a thud.
“Chancellor,” Obi-Wan gasped in exaggeration, fake-hurt on his face. “Your accusations are unfounded, my dearest Sheev.”
Palpatine gagged.
“Shut up!” The Chancellor hissed, still retching. “I’m not even your type!”
Obi-Wan blinked, startled at the sudden change in conversation. “Why do you know my type?” He asked suspiciously.
That’s it, Palpatine decided. He was going to kill this Jedi, and he was going to enjoy dipping his hands in Kenobi's blood and painting the walls with dead Jedi and -
“What do you think my type is?” Obi-Wan asked, frowning, and breaking Palpatine's line of deliciously dark thought. “Your information may be entirely incorrect, you know.”
“Blond,” Palpatine spat, shuddering, remembering the time that Satine Kryze gave him a killer stink-eye when he nearly invaded her planet. “And crazy.”
Siri Tachi came to mind too, though… how in the galaxy had she even managed to destroy his best sculpture and then thrown him off his own balcony by accident in one night?
“Wrong.” Obi-Wan sat back gleefully, interrupting Sheev’s thoughts once again. “ Willing. And with a pulse.”
Palpatine put his head in his hands, and screamed.
—-------—- ——------
“Hello there, Chancellor.” Obi-Wan says cheerfully, waving.
Cody and Anakin stare at him in utter confusion. They both knew very well that Obi-Wan harboured some sort of disdain for politicians, and even more so for the Supreme Chancellor.
What was even more odder, was the fact that the Chancellor’s face immediately turned an alarming shade of puce.
Anakin watched with morbid fascination as his Master skipped over to the Chancellor. They exchanged a few words, Obi-Wan’s face becoming more smug while the Chancellor’s features became an increasingly agitated purple.
A beat.
The Chancellor and the Negotiator stared at each other with a look that Anakin couldn’t quite decipher.
Then:
“Arghh!” Palpatine gave up all pretence of patience. He gave a scream of frustration and tackled the Jedi.
Anakin stared in amazement while Cody’s eyes bugged out in shock. Behind them, the Senators and Aides watched in stunned confusion as their Leader and their War-Hero started re-enacting a Ubardian oil wrestling match on the marble floor.
It took half-a-second for Cody to react.
With a loud battle-cry, the clone charged forward. He dove forward, ramming straight into the Chancellor. With a quick move, he dug his heels into the Chancellor’s limbs, tightening his grasp on the elderly man’s neck as he clone-piled the man.
The end result was that he ended up clinging on to the Chancellor’s back.
For a brief second, the commander’s eyes were wide with indecision. Then, his jaw set firmly, a hard look entering his features.
Oh shit, Anakin thought faintly. The Chancellor was in deep bantha poodoo now.
Palpatine yelled in shock, as Cody started noogie-ing him, rubbing a tightly-clenched knuckle over the Chancellor’s greasy hair.
“Don’t you dare.” Cody snarled fiercely, diving in mercilessly for another attack on his campaign to destroy the Chancellor’s scalp. “Hurt my general ever again.”
Obi-Wan paused, still sprawled out on the floor. An utterly soft and adoring look passing over his face as he smiled sappily at his commander.
--------- ---------
“Your thousand-year old Sith plan is incredibly stupid.” Obi-Wan drawled out. There was a solid ten beats of silence.
Palpatine paused his typing and started to breathe heavily, closing his eyes as he forced down air into his lungs.
Deep breaths, Sheev, deep breaths. That’s it.
He shoved the urge to kill the Jedi to the darkest recesses of his mind.
“Wine?” He asked, holding up a goblet.
Obi-Wan shrugged, taking the offered cup from the Chancellor’s hand. “Is it poisoned? I fear that Cody will not be pleased if I died.”
Palpatine gave him the Look, reaching down and taking a pointed sip of his own goblet. Obi-Wan sighed, and to Sith’s surprised glee, knocked it back.
“A toast.” Palpatine said, “To your death.”
“Back at you, dearest Chancellor.”
They drank. Palpatine was slightly disappointed that Kenobi didn’t show any outward signs of reaction.
"Did you know that Stewjoni’s are resistant to this particular strain of Chee Berry Poison?”
“Die. Now .”
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Somewhere in the ethereal planes of the Force, Qui-Gon Jinn stared in horrified silence.
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“Trust me, you don’t want Anakin as an apprentice.” Obi-Wan finally said, after Palpatine had finished highlighting his master plan to make the Jedi die ‘like the scum they are ’ and to make Anakin into a glorious Sith Lord.
“No?” Palpatine asked, arching an eyebrow condescendingly. “Tell me, Jedi. What would you know of what it takes to become a Sith?”
Obi-Wan took another gulp of poison before looking back at the Chancellor with consideration. Slowly, he nodded.
“Not much, Chancellor… But personally, I would prefer it if my newest Sith Apprentice knew how to put on both his socks by himself.”
“Hmm.” Palpatine frowned, and tapped his glass for a few minutes. “Fair point.”
There was a silence.
“He really is quite powerful in other ways.” The Chancellor finally spoke up. “Don’t think you’ll be able to stop me from stealing your apprentice.”
Obi-Wan’s lip curled up into a challenging smirk, practically daring the Sith Lord. “You will try.” He repeated fiercely.
--———— —---———
“As Supreme Chancellor, I command you to shut up.”
“Request denied, and moving on, did you know that tooka’s enjoy eating Nuna Turkey Jerky? Fun fact, the Nuna are also called Swamp Turkeys and are well-known for their inability to fly and their stupidity. By the way, the stupidity part reminds me of you, dear Chancellor. Anyway, Nunas are omnivores and an average Nuna feeds -”
“Shut up.”
“- and Ewoks are a species of tiny killer bears that live on the incredibly minuscule moon of Endor-”
“I will bisect you.”
“ - Bantha are native specifically to Tatooine although they are bred on many planets, and are used for both mount and resources blah blah blah -”
* Unintelligible noises of rage and items being destroyed *
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“I’ll find a way to kill you.” Palpatine snarled, throwing the data-pad via Force at Kenobi’s head.
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“I saved Anakin so many times!” Obi-Wan protested. “Are you even aware of how much stupid stuff he does?”
Palpatine sneered. “He is the most powerful Force user, you fool!”
“He thinks that nobody knows about him and Padme.” Obi-Wan told him flatly.
There was a horribly awkward pause.
“... He really thinks that?”
“Yup.” Obi-Wan sank back onto the seat tiredly. More silence.
“Ah. I see.”
--------- ---------
“Dear lord, that boy is an idiot.” Palpatine muttered, watching Anakin make starry-eyes at Senator Amidala again in front of the whole Senate at their annual dinner party.
“... Can’t argue with that.” Obi-Wan groaned, having overheard the comment and was now taking a long swing from a bottle of Alderaan wine.
At the other side of the room, Cody twitched. He had just spent the last five hours of his life watching his General empty bottles faster than a clone could disassemble a rifle.
Rex had to physically restrain him from marching over there, although the poor clone looked ready to tear out his precious blond hair after watching General Skywalker make a general nuisance of himself as he gave Senator Amidala numerous cheesy pick-up lines and regaled her with tales of the tragic events of sand .
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“Chancellor Sheev,” Mace Windu intoned dramatically, pointing his lightsaber directly at a gaping Palpatine. “You are under arrest.” Behind the Jedi Master, several other Jedi stood, lightsabers tensed and ready to make minced-Sith sauté in case things went south.
“You can’t do this!” The Sith wheezed, panicking as he hurriedly put on his old man act. “This is a conspiracy! This is clearly a Jedi plot to overthrow the Senate! This is treason !”
Nearly everyone in the room gave him the bitch, really face.
Kit Fisto held up a small holo-recorder. He pressed the play button, and a very familiar voice came out of the small device.
"I am a Sith Lord, you fools! I orchestrated the war to kill the Jedi and make my Empire! Mwahahahahahaha.”
Palpatine blanched. That was his! It was his victory day celebration speech! A gasp of horror escaped his lips before he could stop it. How the hell did the Jedi manage to bug his office without him noticing -
“This is awesome.” Obi-Wan remarked from one side, pointing a holo-cam directly at the Sith. “Nice touch on the Sheev -emphasis, Mace. Greatest day of my life, really. Say hello to your adoring public, Sheev .”
Palpatine did the only logical thing left to do.
He put his head in his hands and screamed.