Chapter Text
A year is not long in the lifespan of the Empire. The Empire did not tolerate weakness nor did it tolerate hesitation, mercy, or divided loyalties. It rewarded ambition into something dangerous and devoured anything less.
Ciel had survived it by being clever. Publicly, he was a rising figure within the Galactic Senate—composed, eloquent, impeccably controlled. He had once ruled Naboo under the title of Queen, despite never being a woman. The title had been political tradition rather than a reflection of gender, and he had worn it with effortless authority. Even now, long after his term ended, certain officials still addressed him as Your Majesty.
Ciel identified as male and presented himself however he pleased. Some days, he favored structured Imperial tailoring that emphasized rank and influence. On other days, he wore flowing Naboo silks that blurred expectations and traditions. Gender presentation was another language of power, and he spoke it fluently.
The Senate tower still glowed at night, its windows lit in endless vertical rows like the spine of some mechanical beast. Ciel often remained long after adjournment, eyes reflecting starlight beyond the transparisteel.
He had grown this year. He felt he was more feared and more exact in language.
Vincent had once told him that influence was quieter than spectacle. Ciel understood that now in ways he had not before. He no longer reacted to provocation; instead, he redirected it. He dismantled opponents without raising his voice.
Rumors spread that the young senator would one day eclipse older power brokers. They weren't wrong. But none of that mattered when his quarters were empty. Sebastian’s absence existed in negative space. No tall silhouette near the door. No low voice commenting on policy briefings. No gloved hand at the small of his back when corridors grew crowded.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
He could bend the Force, but privately. That truth was known only to a select circle of high-ranking Imperial officials and to his family, whose loyalty to the Empire stretched back generations. And to the Sith who trained him.
Ciel practiced in private, but not recklessly. He chose the quietest hours of the night, when activity in the Senate District softened, and even the security rotations surrounding the residential towers shifted into their slower patterns. Like most senators, he resided in a luxurious, high-security apartment complex within the Senate District on Coruscant. The upscale tower overlooked the capital city’s endless lights, and his suite included a private balcony landing platform discreetly built for personal transports.
Inside, the lights were lowered to a faint glow. Beyond the wide transparisteel windows, air traffic streamed between spires in disciplined lanes. He stood barefoot on the cool marble floor of his living quarters, sleeves pushed back, breathing slowly as he reached outward with the Force.
He did not indulge in spectacle. He focused on control. Datapads rose from his desk at a measured height, hovering in a steady line before settling back into place without a sound. A crystal tumbler trembled in his grasp, fractured into suspended shards, then drew itself back together piece by piece under his direction. He monitored the strain in his mind and the subtle pull in the air around him, choosing restraint over excess. Every movement remained contained and quiet, concealed within the privacy of a senator’s fortified residence.
He thought often of Naboo during those hours. Of his mother’s composure and his father’s expectations. Even of Sirius’ silent watchfulness.
Sirius was the only person who knew about Sebastian and Ciel’s personal attachments. Ciel had trusted his twin with the truth because there had never been a version of his life where Sirius stood outside it. If exposure ever came, it would not be through his brother. As far as Ciel believed, the secret remained contained.
He no longer intended to hide his feelings when Sebastian returned. The concealment had once felt necessary; now it felt childish. He loved him. The word sat foreign on his tongue, unspoken for a year. He did not know when Sebastian would stand before him again. He only knew that when that moment came, he would say it. He would say it out loud, without deflection and without retreat. He only hoped Sebastian would feel the same.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
He remembered the last night they trained. The training chamber built into Ciel’s luxury suite did not hum with starship engines but with the distant pulse of Coruscant traffic far below. The high-security residential tower in the Senate District sealed them behind layers of encrypted access and reinforced transparisteel. Beyond the walls, airspeeders drifted between illuminated spires. Inside, red light flashed against polished obsidian flooring and matte durasteel panels designed to absorb stray strikes.
Ciel’s lightsaber trembled for a fraction of a second. That was all it took.
Sebastian disarmed him with a twist of the Force. The weapon tore from Ciel’s grasp and skidded across the dark floor, stopping just short of the panoramic windows that overlooked the capital skyline. Ciel staggered but did not fall because he refused to give Sebastian that satisfaction. Sebastian’s blade hovered at his throat, heat pressing against pale skin.
“You hesitated,” Sebastian said smoothly.
“No, I did not,” Ciel replied, breathing harder than he would have preferred.
“You calculated incorrectly.”
The blade vanished. The overhead lights dimmed to their lowest setting, returning the chamber to a low glow that reflected the city outside. Sebastian stepped closer. In public, they were Sith and senator. In private, inside a fortified penthouse, where a few were permitted to enter, they were something far more dangerous.
Ciel had never wanted to become Sith. He had made that clear from the beginning. He did not seek doctrine or title. He wanted control over a power that had awakened in him long before he understood it. As Queen of Naboo, he had nearly crushed a diplomat’s windpipe during a negotiation. The incident had been erased from public record within hours.
Sebastian had been assigned shortly after to assess him, train him, and determine whether he was a threat or an asset.
“You leash yourself,” Sebastian murmured as he circled him, boots quiet against the polished floor.
“I do not want to become you,” Ciel replied evenly.
“I never asked you to.”
That was true.
Sebastian had never demanded allegiance to the Sith. He refined Ciel’s strength, shaped it, and taught him how to wield it without losing himself. The penthouse became their training ground because it was the one place Ciel controlled entirely: no Imperial officers or naval observers. Only security droids were stationed several levels below, coded to ignore energy fluctuations in this wing.
He stepped closer until their boots brushed.
“You hide two things from the galaxy,” Sebastian said quietly. “Your abilities and me.”
“Both would destabilize the Senate,” Ciel answered. “And my reputation.”
Sebastian adjusted the fall of fabric at Ciel’s shoulder. The Naboo-inspired tunic beneath his tailored senatorial coat shifted under gloved fingers. The contact lasted just long enough to make Ciel’s pulse spike.
The Force reacted instantly. Sebastian’s eyes darkened slightly. “Control,” he reminded him.
They clashed again. Ciel attacked first, channeling frustration that had accumulated in Senate halls thick with deception. He forced Sebastian backward, red light flashing against reinforced walls designed specifically to withstand this kind of confrontation.
“You’re angry,” Sebastian observed as their blades locked.
“I am focused.”
“You’re attached.”
Ciel’s blade faltered. Sebastian drove him back until Ciel’s spine met the cool wall beside the sealed balcony entrance that led to his landing platform.
“You mistake emotion for weakness,” Ciel said.
“I mistake nothing.”
Sebastian had once believed attachment was a liability. He had structured his life around ambition and control. Over time, that certainty had thinned in ways he did not openly acknowledge. He had grown attached to Ciel in ways that unsettled him.
He positioned himself half a step closer during Senate galas hosted in neighboring towers. He tracked threats against the senator with an intensity that exceeded Imperial directives. Assignments that separated them left him irritable, and the penthouse felt wrong in Ciel’s absence.
Ciel shoved him backward with the Force. A durasteel panel dented as Sebastian struck it.
“I am not a Sith or your acolyte,” Ciel said firmly.
“No,” Sebastian agreed as he rose. “You are something far more complicated.”
Ciel closed the distance again. Within these walls, the persona he wore in the Senate dissolved. He did not posture or charm. He did not maneuver for advantage. That openness unsettled him more than political rivals ever could.
“If the Emperor ordered you to kill me tomorrow, would you?” Ciel asked quietly.
“No,” Sebastian answered without hesitation.
The admission bordered on treason.
“I am Sith,” Sebastian said calmly. “Not faithless.”
Ciel searched his expression for mockery and found none.
He was deeply in love with him. The realization had settled long ago. It lived in the way he sought Sebastian after exhausting legislative sessions, in the way the Force intensified at even the briefest touch inside these guarded rooms overlooking the capital. He had never spoken it aloud. He feared Sebastian would dismiss it. He feared that someone raised to value dominance over attachment would see confession as weakness.
Sebastian stepped forward and placed his fingers at Ciel’s throat. The gesture was not violent.
“You are losing control,” Sebastian murmured.
“Only around you,” Ciel replied before he could stop himself.
Their eyes locked. The Force tightened between them, charged and volatile. Sebastian understood, even if he refused to name it. He would dismantle anyone who threatened Ciel. He would defy Imperial command if necessary. His loyalty to the Empire bent where Ciel was concerned, even here in the heart of the Senate District.
He did not call it love.
Ciel leaned into his touch just slightly. He said nothing further. Outside, the skyline shimmered beyond the transparisteel. Inside the fortified penthouse, neither of them stepped away.
Sebastian left shortly after.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Sebastian stood beneath a sky the color of ash, twin lightsabers ignited in either hand. Their crimson blades cast light across the smoke-choked ridgelines as blaster fire pulsed in the distance. The campaign had already stretched for months, and it showed no sign of ending. He remained at the center of it, active in the war rather than observing from orbit. Fleets repositioned at his command with exact timing. Ground assaults concluded with minimal Imperial loss and decisive outcomes. His reputation no longer lingered in whispers. It moved openly through command channels, spoken with a mixture of respect and unease.
He fought with precision, both sabers moving in seamless coordination as though they extended from a single thought. Enemy advances stalled the moment he entered the field. Defensive lines collapsed in intervals. He preferred efficiency over spectacle, but there was an undeniable elegance to the way he carried out violence. Even in the middle of open conflict, his posture remained composed, his tone courteous when addressing officers over comms, as if war were merely another formal engagement to be handled properly.
Cunning defined him as much as skill. He had no reservations about deception if it ensured victory. He lied when strategy required it. He manipulated alliances without hesitation. He understood how to draw information from enemies and how to disarm them with charm before dismantling their defenses. Seduction, misdirection, calculated betrayal—each was a viable tactic. Morality did not restrict him. Results mattered.
When he returned to Coruscant between campaigns, he carried the war with him in subtle ways: an awareness of movement, a patience honed by prolonged conflict. During training sessions with Ciel, he would deactivate one of his lightsabers and place it into Ciel’s hand. Ciel did not yet possess his own weapon, so Sebastian lent him one without comment, as though it were the most natural arrangement in the galaxy. The imbalance of experience was obvious, but Sebastian adjusted his pace, guiding each exchange. In battle, he was relentless. In training, he was exacting but composed, correcting Ciel’s stance while never relinquishing the authority that defined him both on and off the battlefield.
The Emperor observed. Training sessions became more pointed. Less about power and more about attachment.
“You mistake attachment for sentiment,” the Emperor had said, voice echoing through obsidian halls. “Attachment is leverage. It is fuel, or it is a chain.”
Sebastian knelt without protest. He had been raised within a doctrine that demanded severance from dependency. The Sith valued control above all else. Attachment invited instability. Instability invited weakness. But the Emperor did not forbid attachment, but instead reframed it.
“Love,” the Emperor continued, “can ignite fury powerful enough to drown entire systems. It can also invite mercy. Decide which path you will walk.”
Sebastian meditated on that directive. He attempted to dissect his connection to Ciel the way he would dissect military strategy. It did not cooperate. Ciel was not a tactical variable. He was not an indulgence nor a distraction.
Sebastian found himself replaying small moments instead of battles. How Ciel would sometimes fall asleep with ink on his fingers, Ciel arguing with senators twice his age and winning. Ciel reached for him without looking, certain he would be there. Was that weakness? Or was it strengthened by something deeper than ambition? He didn't know. He had never been taught the language for it.
Affection had not been part of his upbringing. Praise came in the form of survival. Approval came in the absence of punishment. Power was currency. Emotion was a tool. Love had not been defined. He could command fleets. He could bend minds. He could extinguish life without tremor. He did not know how to say, “You matter to me beyond usefulness,” let alone, “I love you.”
The Emperor pushed harder. Sebastian was ordered to channel anger through memory. To imagine Ciel threatened. To imagine him taken. To imagine him destroyed. The rage that followed startled even Sebastian. It was volcanic.
The Emperor sensed it and smiled. “There,” he murmured. “Power.”
Sebastian understood then that his attachment could annihilate worlds. He also understood something else. If Ciel stood in danger and Sebastian chose mercy for someone else, he would never forgive himself.
Across the galaxy, two men trained in opposite environments. One in marble silence. One in scorched earth.
Ciel rehearsed words he had never spoken. Sebastian searched for definitions he had never been given. Ciel feared rejection. Sebastian feared inadequacy. Neither understood yet that they were circling the same truth from different angles.
A year is not long in the lifespan of the Empire.