Chapter Text
The sandstorm hits with a roar like rolling thunder, audible even here under the rock. Underground, the whistling wind and rattle of flying sand and debris are muted, but the voice of the storm seems to reach right through the earth to them, a low-pitched booming howl, unceasing and unsettling, utterly alien from the crash of wind and water Duncan knows from storms on Caladan.
“How long do they last?” Jessica whispers.
“Hours.” He’d experienced one in his time with the Fremen: the terrifying speed with which a smudge on the horizon had become a wall of sand eating up half the sky, the hiss and boom of the wind against the rock of the storm-sealed sietch. The Fremen around him, accustomed to such storms from birth, had gone on about their daily business with a shrug, but the drumming of the storm had seemed to reach into his bones.
They do their best to chew through some of the emergency food rations—hard tack and something salty and leathery that may have once been meat—sitting at the dust-covered table in the front room of the complex, which seems like it had once been a kitchen and mess hall for the people who worked here.
“Eat something,” Jessica says to Paul, who is breaking pieces off his hard tack without putting any in his mouth. She herself is eating with more duty than enthusiasm, but who knows when they’ll get another meal. Now that he’s adjusted to the dim orange glow of the emergency lights, the deep shadows under her eyes are apparent.
He shouldn’t be seeing her like this. He is used to her regal and commanding, composed and elegant in Atreides green and black, as much the lady of the house as any highborn could ever hope for. Not hiding in a hole in the rock, still in the nightclothes she’d been snatched out of bed in, hair unkempt from the desert wind and face grey with exhaustion and grief. Has she had even one moment to herself to mourn the loss of her lover and companion of twenty years?
It fills him with rage.
The storm roars and wails overhead. There is no way to tell what time it is in this windowless box, but it must be near evening now.
“We’ll be here at least ‘til morning,” he says, when he thinks they have choked down as much of the emergency rations as they can. “There are sleeping quarters down the hall. You should get some rest. I’ll watch the door.”
“You need sleep, too,” Paul says, and fucking hell, he does, but now that he has found them alive and kept them alive, there is no force in the universe that will make him lower his guard until they’re somewhere safe.
“I’ll watch the door,” he repeats.
He should keep his stillsuit on through Arrakis’s cold, arid night. But it’s stiff and foul with Sardaukar blood and he has no way to clean it here. The only other clothes he has are the simple shirt and trousers he escaped the palace in. Which also have blood on them, but at least it’s dry.
He takes some bedding from one of the rooms down the hall and spreads it on the floor against the chill, thinking maybe he can stretch out his tired limbs and still watch the door. But as soon as he lies down exhaustion washes over him, the old soldier’s instinct to sleep wherever and whenever one can. So. Sitting up against the wall it is.
Alone, without the focus of an immediate fight, he cannot hold the horror at bay any longer. All those people. All those people. Dead and burnt on a Harkonnen pyre by now, or enslaved if they lived, and who’s to say which fate is worse?
All the soldiers he had helped train. The finest Caladan had to offer, hand-picked to guard the Duke and his family on Arrakis. Had any of them realized they were hopelessly outgunned, determined it was smarter to run and live to fight another day? Or had loyalty held them to the last?
He hopes some of the palace staff, at least, had had sense enough to flee before it was too late. But there had been so little time.
Thufir. Surely he is smart enough to have gotten out, with enough luck.
Gurney. He’s a tough old bastard, but also not one to leave his soldiers behind.
Leto.
The Duke is dead. He’d been certain of it that night, Harkonnen and Sardaukar blood still hot on his swords. No other circumstance could have stopped Leto from leading his soldiers in that battle.
By the time he’d made it to the palace courtyard, it had been clear the compound was overrun. To stay was nothing but suicide.
Leto was dead.
Paul and Jessica were missing.
His priority, then, was to stay alive long enough to learn their fates. If they lived, he would find them. If they were dead, he would avenge them.
That was what he had decided, and it had been the rational and tactically sound decision. And yet, somewhere in the back of his head, there had also been a whisper: I’d know. It was a superstition more befitting Paul’s witch mother than him, but he couldn’t escape the thought that if Paul were dead, he would feel it.
It doesn’t matter, he tells himself now. Whether by reason or instinct, he’d been right. Paul and Jessica are alive, and he’ll do everything within his power to make sure they stay that way.
The storm howls loud enough that he almost doesn’t hear the quiet footsteps in the hallway behind him. Almost, but not quite. He turns his head as Paul’s shadowed form appears in the doorway.
“Can’t sleep?”
Paul shakes his head. “Can I sit here a while?”
“Of course, my Lord.”
Paul makes a face. “Don’t call me that.” He slips off his shoes and settles barefoot on the pile of blankets next to Duncan, his back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest and skinny arms wrapped around them, the bandaged one held carefully.
“How’s the arm?” Duncan asks.
“Doesn’t hurt,” Paul lies.
“You fought well,” he says quietly. “Still shouldn’t have done it. But you fought well. I’m proud of you.”
“I killed someone.”
“At least one.” He would say that it’s no stain on your soul, killing someone who was trying to kill you. He would say that drawing the blood of a Sardaukar is something that many a warrior would brag about to to anyone who would listen. He doesn’t think Paul wants to hear either of those things.
“I don’t even…really remember it? Everything was so fast.”
“Yeah. It’s like that sometimes.”
Duncan does remember it, though. The split-second glimpses he had caught of Paul fighting, teeth bared as he blocked the full weight of a heavy Sardaukar sword. There had been fear there—of course there had been—but there had been something else too, something lithe and fast and vicious that Duncan has only glimpsed a few times.
He has been watching Paul fight since he was five years old, whacking at his knees with a wooden training sword. He’s seen him train tired, hurt, grumpy, resentful, eager, playful; too cocky for his own good; keyed up and itching to burn off teenage energy; triumphant when he masters a new skill and frustrated when he doesn’t.
There have only been a handful of times when he has dared to push him hard enough to get him out of his own head, and then keep pushing—past frustration, past exhaustion, past the point where most students start to get sloppy with fatigue and a good teacher knows to stop before someone gets injured. Not so with Paul. Those are the times when something starts to come to the surface in him, something explosive and ruthless, as if the thing that had to be exhausted was his will to hold it back.
In those moments, there is something a little bit scary about Paul.
None of that is present now. Paul sits curled in on himself, chin resting on his knees, staring somewhere into the middle distance of the dimly lit room. He doesn’t weep, for his father or his House or the certainty he’d known all his life. He just looks numb with horror and loss.
“What do we do now?” he asks after some time, his voice quiet and raw.
“Wait out the storm. Get to Sietch Tabr. Figure out our next move there.” He puts a hand on Paul’s shoulder, watches him squeeze his eyes closed against a sudden stab of emotion. “Can you do that?” he asks, in the voice he uses when he’s telling Paul to get up and try a new skill again, after a blow that’s just knocked him flat.
“Yeah,” Paul says, as he always does.
“That’s my boy.” He gives Paul’s shoulder a squeeze. Paul still has his eyes closed, dark lashes against bone-china cheekbones in the orange gloom.
My lord Duke, he reminds himself yet again. But right now Paul just looks like a boy, a scared boy with the weight of grief and uncertainty on his shoulders, and the desire to pull him into his lap, the way he had when Paul was a small child, is an ache that Duncan feels in his marrow.
“C’mere,” he says, holding his arms open.
It takes Paul a minute to recognize what he is offering. And it’s considerably more awkward than when Paul was small enough to fall asleep on his chest after a long day of scrambling around through the woods. But he folds himself into Duncan’s lap, bony knees on either side of his thighs and face tucked against his neck, and inside the circle of his arms a little bit of the tension seems to drain out of him.
Nothing is spoken, but he can feel it, the moment the energy shifts. Paul’s nose under the hinge of his jaw, the most cautious brush of his lips, something so barely-there it feels like an offering to pretend it isn’t, if he wants. And he should; he should stop this right now, but he doesn’t, and the next kiss is surer, hot and open and wet against his pulse point.
He swallows. Between one breath and the next he has become acutely aware of everywhere they’re touching, the weight of Paul’s body, his warmth, the heat of his breath, the way Paul’s legs are spread open across his thighs in a manner that did not seem nearly so suggestive a second ago. He should stop this, he thinks as Paul plants soft kisses along his jawline, a little bit shy, but deliberate and attentive. He should stop this. But…the truth of it is that he is tired, and heartsick, and he is simply out of strength to refuse a little bit of sweetness, when it’s being offered so willingly.
And who is he, anyway, to deny Paul this simple comfort, if it’s something he would so happily provide?
Who is he to deny Paul anything?
Paul’s mouth has reached his, their lips a whisper apart, the tips of their noses brushing, and still Paul waits. Waiting for some signal of assent, perhaps, as he sits balanced on the knife’s edge between pushing him away and giving in, unable to let go of the last few shreds of propriety or honor or duty or whatever else he may call it at this point.
“Duncan,” Paul breathes against his mouth, and he swears sometimes the boy knows exactly what he’s thinking. “What could it possibly matter now?” There is just the slightest edge of desperation in his voice, and at that, the last thread of his resolve snaps.
All he has to do is move his hands, from Paul’s shoulders to his waist, and Paul knows he’s won. He surges forward against him, and then they’re kissing, and Duncan is kissing him back, the way he’s wanted to so, so many times. Paul’s lips are not quite so soft this time, chapped and scoured by the desert wind and sun, but they are pliant and eager, parting easily for his tongue, and when he puts a hand in Paul’s hair to tilt his head just so Paul makes the softest, sweetest little whimper into his mouth, and fuck, he knows they must be quiet but he’d do anything to make Paul make that noise again.
Paul adapts easily to letting him take the lead, but he’s a quick study too, copying the way he uses his tongue, chasing his mouth when he pulls back even a fraction of an inch, and it’s unbearably sweet. Paul’s hands are around the back of his neck, digging into his hair and leaving his braid in disarray, and his own hands are everywhere, his head spinning with the sheer thrill of being able to touch Paul this way, finally, finally, if even through a layer of clothing. When he drags a slow, firm hand down the inside of Paul’s thigh and back up again Paul whines audibly enough that he feels compelled to whisper, “Shh, shh” against his lips. He has a brief flash of terror at the thought of Jessica waking and finding them like this, and then Paul grinds down against his lap and he forgets about everything else.
Paul rocks against him, slow and insistent, breaking away from their kisses every now to sneak a glance at his face, checking to see if he’s doing it right, so Duncan puts his hands on his narrow hips and slows him down even more, right to the edge of frustration for both of them, while he kisses Paul’s neck, his collarbone, the sharp blade of his jaw, fighting the wild urge to leave a mark, to stake his claim. Make it last, he thinks. This could be—should be—the only time we get to do this, so make it good.
“You’re getting hard,” Paul whispers in his ear. He looks delighted by it.
He snorts out a breathless laugh. “What did you expect?” They should be signing; they are not totally silent like this, but he can’t seem to take his hands off Paul’s hips long enough to do it.
“You want me.” He says it like a taunt, a devilish, secret smile on his face. There is no imaginable countermeasure but honesty.
“Desperately,” Duncan says, and then his mouth is occupied again.
“Will you touch me?” Paul breathes the next time he pulls back. And—God, the thought goes straight to his cock; he almost reaches for him right there, but—
“My hands are filthy.” The desert caked under his nails, the blood of at least a dozen men imperfectly wiped off with a dry cloth. It seems profane to touch Paul like that.
“Like this, then,” Paul says, guiding his hand between his legs, where—oh fucking hell—he can feel the hard length of him through the thin linen of his pajama pants, a wet spot already forming on the fabric. He adjusts himself a little so he can rut against Duncan’s hand, and God, he is mesmerizing like this, head thrown back, pale throat exposed, every stroke of Duncan’s hand drawing a ragged gasp from him—siren, sylph, divine witch-boy, eagerly coming apart in his calloused soldier’s hands.
It is suddenly not enough. “Lie down,” he gasps, guiding Paul down on the blankets when he just stares at him, hazy-eyed with lust, tugging his pants down just enough to get his mouth on him. His hands are filthy but they’re on Paul’s hip, on the curve of his ass, while Paul bites his lip, then his fist, to keep down the noise that wants to come out when he spills in his mouth.
Paul is panting afterward, lying flat on his back while Duncan gently slides his pants back up his hips, and when he slides up to lie next to him he has color high on his cheeks, hair a mess, mouth kiss-swollen—absolutely beautiful.
Paul wants to keep kissing after that, pulling him in close, grimacing a little at first at the bitter-salt taste of his own spend in Duncan’s mouth but then diving back in with determination. At some point his slim thigh works its way between Duncan’s own and becomes impossible to ignore.
“Can I do something for you?” he whispers, his fingers trailing over the waistband of his pants. “I want to.”
He’s stopped caring about how clean or dirty anyone’s hands are at this point. He lets Paul work his pants open, clumsy in the dim light, and wrap his slender fingers around his cock.
He hears Paul suck in a shaky breath in as he starts touching him, as if this is just as arousing for him, and that nearly does him in right there. He is not doing anything particularly complicated, just stroking him slow and firm and steady. He wonders if this is how Paul touches himself and that nearly does him in as well.
“Is that good?” Paul is looking at him through half-lidded eyes, that wicked little smile on his face again, and he can’t do anything but nod, feeling the heat in his own face, because why does this feel so much more like taking something, even though Paul is clearly not doing anything he doesn’t want to?
“When we get somewhere safe,” Paul breathes in his ear, “you’re going to fuck me properly.” And now it’s his turn to stifle a moan.
Paul, clearly seeing he has the upper hand, decides to press his advantage. “How would you have me?” he whispers. “On my back, with my legs spread for you?” That makes his cock twitch in Paul’s hand, and he knows Paul feels it too, but two can play at this game.
“You know,” he manages, “on your hands and knees is easier for a first time.”
“Oh a first time,” Paul says, still stroking him with that maddeningly steady rhythm. “All right then.”
“Paul.” He has to bury a groan against Paul's shoulder. “You’ll be the death of me, I swear.”
Paul leans close, his gaze suddenly fierce. “Not if I can help it,” he hisses, and Duncan comes like that.
They lie close together for a long time after that, his face tucked against Duncan’s shoulder, the solid weight of Duncan’s arm around his back. They don’t talk; there is nothing that could be said now that they have not already said without words.
It’s soothing, lying here with Duncan’s familiar warmth and shape and scent. He could fall asleep here, he thinks, despite the roar of the storm outside and the hard floor beneath him. He might not even dream.
Duncan won’t sleep, though; he knows that. And eventually he eases his way out of Paul’s arms and sits up, moving back to the spot where he’d been keeping watch.
He doesn’t ask Paul to leave, though. After a minute he feels a blanket being pulled over him. And after another minute he feels Duncan’s warm, familiar, calloused hand curl around his ankle under the blanket. A single point of contact, easily withdrawn should his mother walk in.
He can feel it now, creeping back around the edges: the yawning sense of dread that has been with him since he landed on Arrakis, the feeling that he is trapped on a path laid out thousands of years before his birth; that terrible things are going to happen, and will keep happening, and no set of choices he can make will be able to stop them.
It had been nice, though, not to feel it for a little while, while Duncan’s hands were on him.
He feels, sometimes, when too much spice hangs in the air, like he can see all the choices in the universe, an infinite hall of mirrors, except as soon as you take one step the whole thing shifts. A new set of choices. Effects that cannot be undone, paths that can no longer be returned to. It makes him feel insane.
They’d made a choice together, hadn’t they? And for a few brief minutes the universe had closed down to the two of them breathing together, Duncan’s hands and his mouth and the feeling of their bodies against each other, letting Duncan please him and giving pleasure in return. It had been bliss.
Once a choice is made, some pathways will close off forever. There is no reversing from effect to cause; the road cannot be traveled backwards. Some pathways close. But sometimes new ones open.