I was challenged to put together a Qui-Gon/Palpatine story. Challenge accepted! Lol! An AU one-shot in which Qui-Gon Jinn's unconventional methods meet Palpatine's unscrupulous ones, leading to some intense Jedi-Sith action and a little philosophy on the side. Takes place after the Jedi bring Anakin to Coruscant and before they leave for the battle of Naboo. Definitely slash!

"You think he's the one mentioned in your prophecies?" Palpatine lowered his chin to the broad chest. These stolen afternoon moments never ceased to amuse him. The galaxy was falling into his open hands, and a Jedi knight resided in his bed. Plagueis would be appalled, but then again, Plagueis and his opinions would no longer matter before long.

Jinn's chuckle reverberated into his skin as the Jedi raised a large hand and laid it along his temple. "Not just prophecies, Senator, The Prophecy."

"You've lost me," Palpatine said, drawing his slender fingers up through the thick hairs, splaying his hand against the warm flesh and reveling in the soft thump of the heart just below. So deliciously trusting. Of course, this would have to end once he became Chancellor and fell under increased scrutiny, but he loved playing these little games in the meantime. "You Jedi speak of prophecy as though all of us are equally fortunate to glimpse the future."

Jinn smiled. "The future cannot always be trusted, but I believe this will come to pass. He flows with the Living Force."

"Says you." Palpatine pushed up, feigning offense with a delicate wave of his left hand. "The rest of us must simply trust you, I assume?"

His words roused the grey Jedi at last, and Qui-Gon reached out and caught his raised hand, pulling it back to his chest with a warm laugh. He tapped the politician across the bridge of his nose, a playful edge lurking in the Force. "And you don't trust anyone, do you?"

Palpatine checked his shields. Holding. He sank back onto the firm torso, fully aware that Jinn's interest was growing again. "An unfortunate hazard of my profession. Now. This prophecy of yours…"

Qui-Gon tugged him down and kissed him, grinning against his thin lips. When he finally let go, his eyes sparkled with gentle amusement. "Be mindful of the present, Senator. You think of the future too much. Feel, don't think."

Palpatine laughed. The Jedi had no idea. "The future is my primary interest, Master Jedi. You've been around the Senate long enough to know that."

Jinn's hand caressed the soft line of his jaw and curved along the nape of his neck, pulling him in for another, longer kiss. When they broke apart, both were breathing heavily. "I've heard you're in the running for the Chancellorship. But I'd be more concerned for your immediate future, Senator," Jinn growled softly.

As Jinn rolled them over until he was on top, Palpatine carefully reached out to the Force. How gratifying it was to reduce these paragons of virtue to such states. Of course, Qui-Gon Jinn had never been the typical Jedi. Partly because of this, Palpatine indulged his dalliance, and the Jedi found some strange pleasure in his company. He wondered sometimes if Jinn sensed something from him, some tug of innate power.

Admit it or not, the Jedi craved power, and Qui-Gon Jinn had never been content to toe the party line of his people. He might well be more sensitive to the currents of the Dark Side. Palpatine tightened his shields.

Jinn chose that moment to run his hand down the senator's side. He reached between his legs, and Palpatine's fingers flexed helplessly in the sheets. "Don't you need to return…return to the Temple?" he asked unsteadily. Jinn ran his fingers playfully over him, drawing a low whine from deep in his throat.

"They're never too happy when I show up, anyway," he chuckled, pleased at the effect he was creating in the other man, watching the flush spread across the pale skin, the shifting of the narrow hips.

Palpatine closed his eyes and tried for a soft jab. "If you ever followed the wishes of the Council, you would be on it, I guarantee you."

Jinn paused, fingers stilling as they wrapped around the object of his affections. "I suppose so, but the Force isn't telling me to go there, my friend. I follow the Force, the whisperings of the Living Force." He sighed, strangely melancholy. "I wish you could understand."

Palpatine purposefully misunderstood him. "You could fake it. Don't you see the influence you could have if you were on the Council? Your ideas could be respected instead of mocked."

Jinn squeezed him gently and licked one small nipple. Palpatine arched under him, against the hot mouth that now trailed down his stomach, the long brown hair that mercilessly teased his pale skin. Jinn pulled back, a wistful smile spreading across his broad face. "You have good intentions, Senator, but your mind is so manipulative, so trained to perfection that you have lost something human in it."

Palpatine raised both eyebrows in mock disdain. "Should I be insulted?"

Jinn laughed. "You're a politician, Palpatine. Can you help it?"

"I see opportunities and I take them, Master Jinn. Do you honestly think you Jedi are any different?" Even Qui-Gon Jinn was susceptible to the typical Jedi arrogance and condescension. It made his blood boil, and only the fact that he had the Jedi naked in his bed kept him from lashing out with an additional challenge.

"I only see one opportunity here," Jinn lowered his head, and Palpatine felt the anger slide away to be replaced with something altogether much more distracting. He watched Jinn work through half-closed eyes and wondered where the man had learned such…technique. He shivered.

And what a specimen the Jedi was, too. Qui-Gon Jinn was a large man, well-muscled and masculine in every sense of the word. His body, long and hard, would keep the most demanding of lovers satisfied, as Palpatine had well discovered within the last year. Their illicit relationship began as a happy accident, a drunken event on a joint diplomatic mission. The mistake blossomed into philosophical debate, and then into more mistakes.

Of course, an opportunity like this did not often visit, so Palpatine had seized the chance to corrupt one of the Jedi's most colorful members.

Jinn chose that moment to lift his head and smile at him, tinged with the Light Side of the Force and something much darker and self-assured. He looked so delightfully unwholesome, so not like a Jedi, that Palpatine's mind temporarily stopped working. It didn't help that Jinn's efforts had ceased and left him completely unsatisfied. He certainly could not draw on the Dark Side, not with the Jedi here.

His body raged against him, and he felt his lips writhe back from his teeth in a low snarl.

Jinn's smile grew much larger. "Are you focusing on the present now?"

"Finish this," he grated, and Sidious crept into his vocal cords, a shadow of command.

"I serve at the pleasure of the Senate," Jinn moved up on the bed and lifted the slender legs in his large hands. He pressed forward slowly, his face a mask of concentration.

Palpatine twisted and gasped as he absorbed the new pressure, gripping Jinn's shoulders hard enough to bruise. The Jedi knelt overhead, his breath coming in small grunts with each thrust. The sound teased along Palpatine's nerves. His mortal enemy lay entirely within his control in this moment, with every jerk of his hips and every encouraging, exaggerated moan.

Pleased, Jinn slowed down and began a methodical pace. "I don't know why the Jedi forbid this," he murmured. "It makes no sense to turn from something so pure."

Palpatine wanted to laugh. "You Jedi make very little sense to the rest of us, sometimes." He flinched as Jinn sank deeper. "Of, ah, of course we're grateful for the protection of your graces."

Jinn sighed and paused. "But can the Republic ever truly trust an Order that you don't understand? We've become so separated from anything outside a narrow description of the Force. We aren't relatable anymore, I fear."

"Outside the Force?" Palpatine let his head fall back as Jinn resumed his movements. "I thought you Jedi believed nothing was beyond the Force."

"I don't believe it is. We are all connected through the Force, but the Order takes a dim view of those who are less sensitive to its guidance." The Jedi's hips moved faster, a rough edge in him now that Palpatine reveled to feel.

"We're second-class to the Order, you mean," he began to lift up against Jinn's hard body in response to the rhythm. Darkness clouded the edges of his vision as his core began to ache for release.

"You shouldn't be," Jinn whispered, one hand traveling up a trembling thigh to seize on the heated flesh between them. "You aren't to me."

Their release occurred almost simultaneously, tearing twin groans from their throats. Jinn collapsed on top of Palpatine, slick with sweat and unbound pleasure and flexing with the aftershocks of his satisfaction. The Jedi didn't pull out immediately but kissed him, long and slow and nearly mournful. Palpatine tensed under the brush of his trimmed beard and mustache. The Force shivered in the warm filtered air.

"What is it?" he prodded, putting one thin hand to the Jedi's broad jaw as the larger man finally pulled out and shifted onto his side. "What's wrong?"

"Sometimes…sometimes I think I feel the Force in you, Senator," Jinn said quietly. "Or is it just wishful thinking on my part? We share so much else, why not this?"

Palpatine froze, every muscle becoming rigid in a split second before he relaxed and slid his arms around the Jedi and pulled him close with a hesitant chuckle. "What are you talking about?"

"I feel something more in you." Jinn traced one thick finger over the bridge of his nose. "I wonder what your midi-chlorian count is."

"Two?" he jested softly. "Obviously not enough to get me noticed by the Order."

Jinn's finger paused on his chin. "You would have made a very interesting Jedi, Senator. I think maybe… maybe we missed something." He sighed and rolled onto his back, pulling Palpatine close against his shoulder. His bold blue eyes slipped closed. "It's much too late anyway. Living in the past does no good for anyone."

In that moment as the Jedi held him tightly, Palpatine knew, with all the clarity of the future that the other man so openly despised: Qui-Gon Jinn had to die.