ALEXIS I: THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Disclaimer: As always, everything belongs to the sublime George, and I am making no money.
Rating: R
Word Count: Approx. 7,000
Warnings: Adult concepts and themes, slash, the Emperor in sexual situations, relationship between a twenty year-old and a septuagenarian.
Summary: A tale about a young man called Alexis and how he gets caught up in things beyond his control. For those of you who read the first version, there should be enough new material to keep you interested.
Characters: Palpatine and pretty much everyone you’d expect to see at the Imperial Court circa A New Hope, plus some OCs.
Genre(s): Romance, tragedy, drama.
Pairing(s): Palpatine/male!OC and Moteé/Pestage.
Looong Author's Note: I started writing this story in 2006, a few months after finishing Room with a View. Back then, I started writing it to fill the ... ten years pass... moment in that story. It was very much tied to that story, plot-wise. The problem was that when I revisited it this year (because I found half a chapter on my laptop), I found I'd completely forgotten the quite complex plot that lay behind everything. Thenluminations requested I post it on lj and write a cut-scene which turned into Under the Covers and I found a completely different story I wanted to tell with Alexis and Palpatine, exploring questions I could never have considered in 2006, and which the infrastructure (for want of a better word) of the old story could never have supported. Much of the Vader-orientated material will be changed, but those are the only major scenes that will go. Everything else will hopefully be expanded rather than deleted and minor characters will receive a better go of it than their author previously suffered them to have.

It should also be noted that I don't subscribe to the notion that the Empire was as humano-centric as its made out to be in the EU; I see the Imperial Military as being a Core human institution and having those biases, but as none of Palpatine's advisors in the Revenge of the Sith film were human (sorry Sate) I'm sceptical that he would implement such a policy. In another canon note, though I like having some EU flavour, Palpatine will not have a legion of concubines! I mean, honestly! He’s in his seventies for god’s sake! And despite this story’s premise I am not going to let the old guy get away with more than he’s capable of (emotionally or physically), even if he’s just desperate to go OOC on me. ;) Also, I must acknowledge that I "liberated" Palpatine's liking for tisane from the wonderful works of zigsternenstaub

This is dedicated to lumy12 without whose continuous nagging encouragement I would never have written this. So, anyway, here we go – Alexis – take two!