Chapter Text
Feyd is no stranger to sleepless nights, but for once it's not because of his dreams.
He sits up on the bed, unaccustomed to the quiet, the calm, and the dip of another person's weight nestled in beside him. Paul is fast asleep on his stomach, his back rising and falling with each puff of breath, radiating warmth Feyd can feel through the pooling of blankets around them. Paul's face is turned toward him, away from the glowglobe kept alight at the far side of the room. The corner of Paul's eye closer to the light is crinkled slightly. From time to time he twitches and digs into the bedsheet, shunning the light.
Feyd tips his head back against the carved headboard. Facing away from glaring things, toward the lesser evil - is that how Paul came to be in Feyd's bed, offering his hand in exchange for shelter? Giving up his body to be enjoyed like some bartered trophy?
Feyd used to consider the recent turmoil on Arrakis to be a humiliation, a nuisance. In light of what it got him, though, he's happy to revise his opinion.
For a while he believed Paul to be dead. Fled on a half-broken ornithopter into a sandstorm howling at eight hundred kilometers per hour... Nothing survives such a storm, Rabban reported. Much as Feyd despises his oaf of a brother, he conceded the point. Nothing survives such a storm, indeed. Paul Atreides had to be dead.
The concession left a foul taste in his mouth. It shouldn't have mattered to him if a stray Atreides survives or not. If anything, Paul's death should have brought him relief, an end to the maddening replay of visions he couldn't tell apart from reality. Paul Atreides, blue-eyed, waiting for him in the desert. Paul Atreides, young, soft-lipped, kissing him in the mist of rain. Both of them illusions...
Paul Atreides, dead on Arrakis. The real one.
But facing the disparity didn't put an end to Feyd's dreams. The vision only grew more frequent and disturbing. Before, he used to startle awake with the force of his jealousy, longing, frustration. After Paul's disappearance he took to shouting himself awake like a madman, a terrible, impossible pit of regret churning in his stomach. He was so close, only one step remained in the dream until Paul Atreides was his, and that path had been sealed off forever in reality. Had it really happened behind his back, just like that? Had Rabban and the Baron really dared to snuff out Paul before Feyd had the chance to own him?
They humiliated you, Paul said, and he was more right than he could possibly imagine. Yes, Feyd's worthless relatives humiliated him. They utterly violated his territory and took Paul away, and then they had the gall to make him governor of Arrakis, when there was nothing left there for him to pursue.
Feyd has never been so glad to be proved wrong.
The Paul he found kneeling in the Fremen caverns is a savage creature, hardly any trace left of the boy he met on Caladan. Nine soldiers were butchered at his crysknife before he allowed himself to be captured. He was drenched to the elbow in blood, not a single patch of red on his face; every kill must have been neat. On the ornithopter he was a statue of measured calm, his eyes cool and shuttered, brilliantly blue. Feyd had half a mind to fuck him there on the floor of the transport just to see if it would rattle him, drive a rift in him Feyd could dig his fingers into.
He was pleasantly surprised to learn he wasn't the only one who had fucking in mind. For the same motive, too: Paul's eyes never left him as they rutted together, appraising him and looking to pierce a rift in his armor. So deliciously subtle about his manipulation. He called Feyd's name like an invitation and said please, opened up his body in willing surrender. It boils Feyd's mind just to recall how it felt - how could he refuse it, in the moment?
"Paul," he says quietly, testing how it sounds. It's the first time he's said Paul's name since they parted on Caladan.
The Paul curled up beside him doesn't stir. Feyd reaches down and peels the blanket from his shoulders, down the thin arch of his back and the dipping of his waist. Whatever the Fremen did to train him, they didn't feed him well enough for it. Paul on Caladan was lean but well-balanced, nimble, soft in some places. Now he borders on skeletal under the wrapping of the stillsuit. His muscles, while fitted sufficiently for the purpose of survival, are wiry and corded, giving off the impression of desperation rather than strength.
Feyd lays a hand between Paul's shoulder blades where he can feel the ribs swell with each inhale. He strokes gently down Paul's back, as one might stroke a docile pet. Paul's lashes flutter over the circles under his eyes. His face is transformed from the last time Feyd saw him. Still beautiful, but displaying none of the good-natured openness he wore on Caladan. He has the bitterness of a chased animal about him now, moody and anxious. His cheeks have gone gaunt and his handsome brow is shadowed in doubt.
And his eyes... his Fremen eyes. So far gone in spice addiction that the whites are flooded in electric blue.
Removed from Arrakis, he'll start going jittery unless Feyd feeds him regular doses of melange. The prettiness of his blue eyes aside, their extensive and vivid coloring points to trouble. It'll be difficult, if not impossible, to wean him off spice cleanly. Until then he'll have to wear the glaring proof of his addiction in his eyes. A disgrace to any highborn.
Not to say that Paul would be bothered by petty disgrace. He's driven by other, more urgent needs, as he has asked so plainly of Feyd. The need to avenge his dead father, the need to protect his living mother. To murder Feyd's relatives on Giedi Prime and preserve his homeworld of Caladan. Paul was so wary speaking of these needs, thinking he's asking Feyd to move mountains for the sake of owning one scrawny, poorly-kept body. A cheap bargain Feyd had little reason to agree to.
What Paul doesn't know is how little reason has to do with Feyd's desiring. He doesn't know that Feyd has been looking at him through a one-way window his whole life, unable to open the latch and reach inside, simmering in frustration. Now that Feyd's been freed from the confines of his dream, he'll jump at the first opportunity to have Paul. The price Paul named is trivial in comparison. Everything he's asked Feyd will do, ten times over, if only it ties Paul to him more securely.
But of course, he won't tell Paul that. There's no fun in the hunt if Paul knows he will walk into the trap eagerly. Certain cards are meant to be played close to the chest... on this, at least, he's in agreement with Paul.
He waves off the glowglobe and lowers himself back onto the mattress, knowing he'll sleep dreamlessly from this day onward.
"Your timing is convenient," Feyd tells him the next morning, over breakfast. "The Arrakeen North has just been secured, spice production is back on track. Reasonable time for me to report back to the Baron on Giedi Prime. We'll leave within the month."
Paul nods along and surveys the fruits and vegetables heaped in a bowl before him. There's also veal, eggs, iced water, some three or four types of vitaminized drinks. It's a frugal spread by a Harkonnen noble's standards, bordering on military, and by a Fremen standard it's positively lavish. Paul bites into a strawberry. He'd forgotten such a thing existed.
His thoughts go back to his mother. His sister, soon to be born in the desert, who hasn't yet learned the taste of fruits.
"When we're done," he says, "I'd like a ship prepared to bring my mother to Caladan."
He doesn't mention his sister, the better to protect her.
Feyd toys with the pear he's picked. "Shall I do that? I don't know."
Paul's Bene Gesserit training helps him suppress the strain in his jaw before it shows. He smiles instead, saccharine-sweet.
"What do you want, dear cousin?"
"Hmm. Give me your hand."
Feyd leans over and takes Paul's wrist before he can respond. It's the hand holding the fork. Paul hasn't used a fork since joining the Fremen, who use their own type of utensil, but his training has been ingrained in muscle memory since childhood. He knows what Feyd reads in his grip.
"Who taught you?" Feyd says, examining how the tips of Paul's thumb, forefinger, and middle finger rest in a triangle around the balance point of the handle, allowing for precise control should he need to hurl it at an attacker.
"Duncan Idaho. Gurney Halleck. Thufir Hawat," Paul recounts obediently. "My mother."
"Your mother, the Bene Gesserit. She's a fighter?"
"Yes."
Feyd cocks his head. "Our House has had advisors from the Sisterhood. They didn't teach me anything."
"It's forbidden. They don't train others unless they mean to take a girl as a student."
"Or unless it's your son," Feyd says.
And look what price she paid for the deviation, Paul thinks.
"Will you prepare the ship?" he says.
His hand is still caught in Feyd's. Feyd's thumb, blunt-nailed, rubs slow circles into the underside of Paul's wrist. He's got his head propped on his elbow, just a bit of sleep left on him that disguises him for something lazy and easy-tempered. His shirt is loose and open to the chest, identical to the one the servants left for Paul.
"If you want a ship, you can make me give it to you." He yawns hugely. "Use that trick of yours."
"The Voice?" Paul snorts despite himself. "If you'll excuse me, I got a knife on my throat the last time I tried that on you. Not my idea of a good time."
"It's not?"
Paul blinks. Did he just mishear - but there's no mistaking the teasing tone. Feyd continues to rub circles over the sensitive inside of Paul's wrist. There's that quirk on his mouth that folds away his cruel edges, replacing them with charm.
Belatedly, Paul realizes they're seated much closer than household etiquette would have it. Even his mother and father used to dine some distance across. Feyd's servants have laid the table so that he and Paul sit on either side of the same corner, their knees bumping into each other. Clearly, there have been instructions.
Is he flirting with me or fucking around with me?
"Your Voice, can you teach me how to do it?" Feyd says.
Paul, momentarily distracted, assesses Feyd's voice. Limited range in the higher resigter, clarity of tone impeded by a rasp. A typically male vocalization.
"I don't think so. It's a technique developed for female voices. I was an exception, and my grasp of it isn't as nuanced as it should be."
"Teach me how to resist it, then. I don't like weapons I can't deflect."
Paul weighs the idea. "If I teach you, will you prepare the ship?"
Feyd gives Paul's wrist a squeeze and lets go in favor of pouring himself a supplement drink.
"I will."
"And if I refuse?"
Feyd shrugs. "I'd still get that ship. My husband asks for it, after all."
He answers Paul's stare with a satisfied smirk. Definitely fucking around with him, and flirting with him on top of that. Feyd downs his supplement glass, makes a face, and stands.
"I think I'll go check on the spice refineries. Finish eating, do whatever you want to pass the time. No one will bother you."
"You've told the staff about me?" Paul says sharply.
"Just that I got a new pet. Don't fret, darling. I've weeded out the ones who talk." He makes a slashing gesture that articulates exactly what he means by weeded out. "Leading by examples, so to speak. The rest will be silent as the grave. They don't know who you are, anyway, and an anonymous boy's hardly more scandalous than the lung-eater triplets I used to keep."
He ruffles Paul's hair in passing like he's some sort of curly-furred lapdog. Paul, outraged, misses the chance to protest before Feyd's out of the room.
A minute later, a visibly nervous servant comes in with a fresh platter of strawberries.
Paul spends the coming days in a strange state of suspension, constantly on alert, held back like a spring pressed tight and waiting to be released. Nobody bothers him, as Feyd promised. The guards act as if they can't see him in the corridors, the servants stand meekly to the side with bowed heads. Everything he may need is delivered to his room before he asks. His old room still has the holobooks he used to watch, stacked in the drawers in tidy rows of nostalgia.
He doesn't open the holobooks. He goes out to the balcony and watches the desert shift in the horizon, reminding himself that this, the blistering hotness of sand, and not the childhood warmth contained in the books, is what he must depend upon. He's in hostile territory. His own husband-to-be is his enemy, who'd sooner laugh to see him suffer than help him.
To his credit, Feyd does a superb job of feigning otherwise.
He moves in to Paul's old quarters like it's the most natural thing to do in the world. He's sauntering in and out of the room during the day, and when Paul's out wandering another part of the residence, they run into each other far too often for it to be blamed on coincidence. Paul would be pacing the granite-hooded gardens, lost in ruminations, and a pale arm would circle his waist and make him trip over his feet. He'd be resting on a bench and a nose would poke rudely into his nape, startling him.
Ever since his life came to to depend on it, Paul has grown rather reactive to sudden appearances. Feyd doesn't seem to mind bearing the consequences.
"I have a name, you know," Paul says drily, after he nearly brains Feyd on the nearby pillar. "You could try using it."
Feyd makes no attempt to break free from where he's shoved up against the pillar. In fact, he's taking advantage of their position to palm Paul's ass shamelessly through the thin fabric of his pants. He uses his grip to haul Paul closer until their hips are slotted together. As Feyd is dressed just as lightly, Paul can feel everything through the cotton layers, including exactly what stage of arousal Feyd is speeding through.
"Your name? I call it often enough," Feyd says distractedly. "Unless you think it's another man you had in your bed last night. Let me - remind you - who it was -"
By this point they're wrestling for control over the clasps on Paul's pants, of which thankfully there are many, but they don't do much to delay the inevitable. Paul ends up whimpering in the shadow of the pillar while Feyd grinds their bare cocks together at a torturously languid pace, murmuring Paul's name in between the slick noises of their kissing. Feyd's fingers are sunk to the knuckles inside him, working to produce that swelling new pleasure he's helpless against.
Truth be told, when Paul resolved to use his body as bait, he thought it would be an uphill battle to win the Harkonnen's favor. From Caladan he'd gotten some sense of Feyd's interest in him and of his appetite for sex. If he played into it cleverly, as Lady Fenring did, and if he pulled the right strings regarding Feyd's sensitivity to humiliation, his dislike of the Baron, Paul may set himself on the path to saving his mother and sister, perhaps even his House...
Yet in his heart of hearts, Paul doubted his prospects. What if he'd misjudged on Caladan? If it was only himself, and not the na-Baron, who had been shaken to the core by the other? Lady Fenring was beautiful and mature, in full command of her attractiveness. Paul, as Chani succinctly put it, was rather a prude. What did he know about seduction that would buy him Feyd's attention?
Paul didn't imagine his doubts would be dispelled quite so thoroughly and vulgarly, often in broad daylight and with his pants shoved down to his ankles, but he'll take what he can get.
Whether he can take what he gets is another matter. Feyd's libido is boundless and appalling. Paul, having educated himself on a series of polite holobooks, thought sex would be a private affair conducted behind a closed door and curtains, probably in the cocoon of a well-cushioned bed. Turns out Feyd is happy to tackle Paul to the floor if the nearest piece of furniture isn't available. He's even less discriminating about timing. Morning, evening, middle of afternoon, it makes no difference to him. Once, at dawn, Paul is jolted awake by the sudden sink of the mattress as Feyd climbs onto him, draping his weight over his back and sliding into him from behind with a casual roll of his hips. Paul is still loose and sore from the night before, and the angle means he's penetrated unbearably deep inside, the whole thick length of Feyd's cock seated snug and pulsing in him. What feeble complaints he musters are killed off by Feyd's hand pressing into the small of his back, pinning him in place.
Feyd fucks into him like that, hitting his prostate with each stroke and saying laughing, obnoxious things like tighten up for me, Duke, and not going to come so early, are you? I haven't even touched you yet. Paul really should brain him against a pillar for it, if for nothing else.
Afterwards he flips Paul over and swallows him down without the least care for his gag reflexes. His throat constricts around the head of Paul's cock, he digs his nails hard into Paul's ass, lifting him off the bed - and abruptly, that's it for Paul. He bucks up and comes with a strangled cry, distantly aware of Feyd choking on it and making low pleased noises in the back of his throat.
It takes a few minutes for the spots to recede from Paul's vision. When they do, Feyd has crawled up his still-convulsing body and is watching him with an expression like a cat that got the cream. He stoops to lick into Paul's slack mouth, his own mouth dripping Paul's come.
"Liked it much?" he says.
Paul growls and bites down spitefully on his tongue. Then Feyd is hard again, and Paul curses his gift of foresight for leaving out certain vital details about the ordeal he was signing up for.
As if that were not enough... there's something else about the way Feyd treats him that throws him off balance. Out of all the things he expected of Feyd, he didn't think the Harkonnen would imitate being a lover. Paul anticipated... in bed, he anticipated being taken, cruelly; he's seen how Feyd took Margot, utterly without regard to her comfort. If that's how he treats the lady of Fenring, it seemed plain how he would treat Paul, a plaything, a trophy from a finished war that he may abuse without consequence.
Outside of sex, Paul thought he'd be tested for his worth. He is the only surviving Atreides child, with Harkonnen blood from his mother's side, having received Bene Gesserit training and an accepted Fedaykin warrior of the Fremen people. He'll have his uses as a political pawn. No doubt Feyd is conscious of it, and he'd be a fool not to make the most of it.
For the time being, though, Feyd is pretending to be just such a fool. He asks nothing of Paul except to touch him and explore him, and to goad him into silly banter that serves no purpose. Their meals include a growing number of dishes Paul likes. He gets accustomed to having Feyd's fingers card through his hair as he sleeps, and sometimes when he wakes, Feyd's forehead is tapped against his, their breathing evened out in sync. When they lie together Feyd gives as much pleasure as he gets. When they kiss, he cradles Paul's face in his hands as if it were an act of cherishing, and when he calls Paul's name the purr of his voice is laced with incomprehensible notes of affection.
Despite knowing the Harkonnen for what he is, Paul is almost fooled. A superb ruse, he thinks again grimly, and in poor taste. Playing lover when Feyd's nothing less than his master is just as harsh as abusing him in bed, if not worse. Feyd's behavior bears too much resemblance to the life Paul was part of on Caladan, when he thought two people could live together in love. It reminds him, excruciatingly, of his parents, and the sweet vague hope Paul used to nurture that one day he may be part of a similar union. A wish he buried in his heart upon his father's death.
It's crueler than cruelty for that wish to be invoked in him now, when he couldn't be further from having it, and from the last possible person in the world who'd give it to him. Feyd-Rautha, this cunning, arrogant conqueror. Feyd is playing with him like a cat plays with a mouse, tossing him around, instinctively knowing what hurts him most and exploiting it. Paul should loathe him for it.
"All good?" Feyd whispers, touching the chain-linked veil drawn over Paul's face. The rest of him is wrapped head to toe in the shapeless black robe of Bene Gesserits. A fitting disguise for his journey to Giedi Prime.
Paul doesn't answer, too conscious of the Harkonnen officers packed around them in the transport, motionless in their uniforms. They don't quite dare to watch him and Feyd out of the corners of their eyes, but Paul feels their curiosity anyway, probing in from every direction like needles. A Bene Gesserit, accompanying the na-Baron to his homeworld. Is he finally taking a wife?
Feyd leans in and presses a kiss on the corner of Paul's mouth. His breath is hot through the coldness of the metal veil caught between their lips, a bright contrast. Paul tries not to notice how the back of Feyd's hand brushes furtively against his as the Harkonnen turns away.
The memory comes to him unbidden, then, of seeing his mother reach for his father's hand, in the darkness of the landing transport before the hatch opened to the blistering heat of Arrakis for the first time.
"Initiate departure," Feyd says. "Send word to the Baron we'll be there shortly."
Paul is grateful to remain hidden behind the veil. For the briefest instant, it feels as if the slight buoying sensation of the carrier lifting off the ground may be enough to break him apart.
Feyd has never thought of Giedi Prime as a particularly interesting place to be. A convenient place, is all he can say of his homeworld, where the climate is perennially cool, the people dull, and the politics of no concern to him except to cater to the Baron's desires. He did have some fun puttering around at the military base on the planet, which in his opinion is the only branch of their family business worth attending to. There is real talent to be found there, and several of the officers who used to be his childhood sparring masters have survived to become captains and generals and such. Feyd would have liked to put himself to good use among them. A career, if a na-Baron is capable of building such a thing, in a field that followed his natural inclinations.
But of course, the Baron didn't allow Feyd to exercise any control where it may detract from his own. A favored puppet, Feyd has been, but a puppet nonetheless. Subject to test after test after test of his obedience. Deprived of the thing he most enjoyed - to fight in battles of his choosing - precisely because he enjoyed it the most.
Such was the nature of his place on Giedi Prime, his role: groomed to be a formidable heir and never his own master.
Feyd has warned the Baron that he'll drown him in the tub for it, eventually. His dear uncle knew he wasn't joking. What he didn't know was that the day would come much sooner than he prepared for.
Shortly after the communication channels reconnect, the Baron transmits that he'll receive them in his private quarters. To Feyd's side, Paul twitches in distress. It's obvious what he's thinking. Not the audience hall. Does the Baron suspect?
Feyd doesn't bother telling him it's nothing out of the ordinary. It has always been the private chambers for him. The bedchamber, to be exact. Whenever he goes to see the Baron there's a half-half chance as to whether he'll be alone or surrounded from the waist down by naked prostitutes, boys of Feyd's age and a similar build. The insinuation has been as transparent as it's repulsive.
Perhaps because Feyd is accompanied by a Bene Gesserit, the Baron is alone when they're announced to the room. Feyd enters first, steps aside so Paul may come forward. Paul bows to the Baron in a picture-perfect mimicry of how a visiting Sister would pay her respects. Feyd waves away the guards, signalling for a private audience - the Baron doesn't object - Paul approaches the Baron, and Feyd, his senses heightened in the hunt, catches the discreet rustle from inside Paul's sleeve, a knife being unsheathed.
Paul pushes back his hood and veil.
"Hello, grandfather," he says.
The Baron surges up from his seat and opens his mouth to shout, and freezes in place when Paul adds, in a Voice so gentle it's almost sweet, "Be silent, please. Don't move. Let's not be interrupted... we've some things to talk about."
"I have just the tool for that," Feyd supplies, activating the auditory barrier and closing off their conversation from outside ears. Paul gives him a faint smile.
As soon as he's freed to speak, the Baron seethes, "Feyd, idiot. I prepared you against every trap and espionage, and you fall for whatever coddling lies this Atreides fed you?"
"Lies?" Feyd says thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say there were many lies involved. He's not very talkative in bed." The Baron's eyes bulge in their sockets.
For some unfathomable reason, Paul's smile toward him has soured to a disapproving glower.
"Feyd," he says through his teeth.
Feyd holds up his hands. "All yours now, all yours," he says. "I have nothing to say to him. Have your way, only don't make it too easy and painless, hmm? Some of us have been looking forward to this for decades." He narrows his eyes. "Actually... is that ring you're wearing a beacon, uncle? You're quicker than I gave you credit for." To Paul he explains, "He called security before you immobilized him. I'll take care of it."
He pulls out his blade as he heads for the exit, the longer black one he kept out of the original pair. The white one, the one hooked smartly at the tip, he slipped in Paul's sleeve at the last minute, the better to carve up flesh at close range. Where else could Paul find a more considerate spouse, really?
He salutes Paul by the door, tapping on his side to engage the shield generator.
"While you're at it, darling, you may want to ask how he toyed with your mother before she was stolen. Can't have been pretty. Was she old enough to remember any of it? No? Well, good for her..."
Rabban arrives characteristically late to the scene. He's still in his sleepclothes, a wild look of confusion and uneasiness about him. Only a handful of his men are trailing him. Feyd leans back on the closed doors and crosses his arms, blocking the way in.
"Brother," he says, by way of greeting.
"What are you doing here?" Rabban barks.
"It's early morning. What are you doing here?"
"I - the guards alerted me." Rabban's frightened-rabbit gaze flits between Feyd and the door at his back, noting the unusual quiet, the lack of any sound issuing from inside. Feyd can see the cogs in his mind turning with conjectures. Even his thick head can't land him far from the truth. There's too many bodies piled around Feyd's feet for that, Harkonnen soldiers who wouldn't dare to attack their na-Baron under ordinary circumstances.
"Is this," Rabban says, and has to clear his throat. "Are you - is this your doing?"
Feyd kicks cheerfully at the nearest body, rolling it over. "What do you think?"
He's braced for Rabban to pounce on him any moment. Better for him to get things over with while the guards following him haven't had the time to think it over, to contemplate sides between their cruel, stupid master and another cruel, but marginally more reasonable, new master. It shouldn't be hard to guess whose side they'll take.
Rabban doesn't pounce on him. Feyd watches in fascination as he makes the obvious wrong choice between fight or flight - that is, to hesitate, and do neither, and expose himself as weak in front of his subordinates.
"Is the Baron - is he - alive," Rabban says.
Feyd shrugs carelessly. "Haven't checked since ten minutes ago."
That seems to tilt the scale in favor of flee. Rabban slinks back to his soldiers, edging toward the corridor that provides the shortest route to the hangar where his ship is located. It's a pitiful picture, the way he cowers. Feyd wonders that he ever seriously thought him to be a threat, even considering he was five years old at the time and Rabban fully grown, making Feyd choose between kissing his boot and being beaten senseless.
"Not so hasty, brother," Feyd says to his back. "We've an account to settle between us before you can go. I hear you helped murder the family of my betrothed. Rude of you, I say."
Rabban stops in his tracks - another mistake. A fatal one.
"Betrothed?" he stammers.
It's the last word he says.
Paul emerges from the room not long afterwards, hood still thrown back, radiating the vicious serenity of a man who's just had his fill of revenge. Unlike the clinical efficiency of his kills as a Fremen, Paul has allowed himself to be splattered with blood as he pleases. His curls are swept back from his face, exposing the clean line of his forehead and the flush in his cheeks, dotted attractively in red. Everything about him is stunning.
He steps over the heap of corpses, barely sparing a glance for the one that used to be Rabban, and holds out his hand to Feyd. Feyd takes it immediately and feels the hard hilt of his knife being pressed into his palm. A blade given to Paul untarnished, returned dripping and well-used.
"The tip should be sharper, I think," Paul comments. "The balance is a notch off."
"That's what I told the armorer," Feyd says, and then he can't restrain himself anymore. He drags Paul in by the collar and takes his mouth. It's a marvel how he opens up for Feyd without resistance, easy as if he's been doing it all his life.
The people who say vengeance does nothing but to prolong the cycle of violence, they were wrong. Paul finds it brings back peace of mind like he hasn't had since the night House Atreides fell. A closure for his soul, like passing through a cascade of icy water and emerging cleansed on the other side. Walking through the monochrome halls of Giedi Prime, following where Feyd leads him, Paul is blissfully, finally calm. He is fulfilled.
Mother, I've succeeded, he thinks. I managed the narrow escape I saw in my vision. We'll be safe together, you and my sister and I.
In his heart he fancies he sees her image, whole and healthy in the gilded dress she used to wear on Caladan when the weather was cool. A child, a young girl, clings to her leg, and she picks her up and lays her small head on her shoulder. It's his sister. His unnamed, faceless sister smiles impishly at him and signs a discreet question at him, cookies after dinner? Their mother pretends not to notice.
This image, this fantasy, is so vivid that Paul tries to convince himself it's a premonition, a future that'll come to pass. There's some spice left in him still. A remnant of his Fremen days locked into his system by his Bene Gesserit affinity for divining the future. The blue is ebbing from his eyes with each passing day, but he continues to have visions at night, few and far between, incomplete glimpses of the possibilities that lie ahead. These glimpses tell him he's veering further and further away from the original vision, the all-destroying holy war in his name, and closer to the image of his mother and sister, safe, protected, content.
He wonders if the Sisterhood senses it too, that their once-prospect for Kwisach Haderach has failed them and made himself into a human being who yearns for human things.
If they do sense it, Paul doesn't hear about it. The Bene Gesserit in residence at the Harkonnen homeworld is a woman with silent, shrewd eyes. Upon seeing Paul she says unerringly, "My Lord Duke," and bows a shallow bow.
"Do I know you?" Paul says.
"Your mother did."
Paul feels his lips twist. "She's alive, if it means anything to you."
The Sister doesn't betray a reaction. "Shall we see her arrive soon on this planet?"
"She'll be at Caladan for my father's funeral. You see, it's been delayed a while."
The woman bows again. When she rises, uneasiness flickers over her features and her hands vanish into her sleeves. For a trained Bene Gesserit it's nothing short of falling to her knees trembling with fear and -
- guilt?
With a flash of understanding Paul thinks, there was a Reverend Mother behind this. The Sisterhood was complicit in the downfall of our House.
Or were they the orchestrators, brutal and conniving as they are?
"Would you like to be transported out to Kaitain or to the Sisterhood planet?" Paul says blandly.
The Bene Gesserit's words are cautiously toned. "I was assigned to serve as the Harkonnen advisor in the long term. Every Great House keeps an advisor in residence, as my lord recalls. We can send for another of us should you prefer a replacement for House Harkonnen..."
"I am the replacement," Paul says.
The Bene Gesserit darts a glance at Feyd and back.
"What he says," Feyd drawls.
Paul can tell the precise instance it becomes clear to her that he and Feyd are not just one-time allies brought together by circumstance. Maybe it has something to do with how Feyd wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him closer. The woman says nothing further; Paul doesn't see her again before she's off planet.
The message they send out to the Great Houses is worded in simple terms.
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and Glossu Rabban have perished in settlement of a blood feud. House Atreides declares peace with House Harkonnen. Paul Atreides-Harkonnen is returned to Giedi Prime.
Returned, is the word Feyd uses, as if Paul were a misplaced possession brought back to where he belongs. Paul supposes that's how Feyd views the situation, and it's reflected in the attitude of his subjects, who for the most part accept him as a lord of their ruling family. It helps that Paul fits comfortably in the formal attire of House Harkonnen, the straight, severe cut of it, the black velvet linings, and the pressed-down collar complementing him like he was born into it. Blood doesn't lie, after all. Save for the curls tied back at his nape, Paul could pass for a Harkonnen scion with his looks alone.
Paul catches Feyd's eyes go hooded with satisfaction, noting the same thing.
There are others, however, who are upset by the ducal signet on Paul's ring finger and the crest of House Atreides pinned to his collar.
"Let them babble their complaints," Feyd says dismissively. "Better to have all the rotten teeth rattle in their seats before pulling them out in one go. It's neater that way."
"It'll get worse once they learn you're delivering my mother to Caladan."
"Who says I'm taking your mother to Caladan?"
"You promised," Paul says levelly.
Feyd comes over to stroke his head like he's a charming but especially dense pet. "I didn't say I'd do it. You should go. Things will be smoother if you extract her from the Fremen, and you can stop by Arrakeen to oversee the transition while you're at it."
"The transition?"
Feyd hums. "Ah, I didn't mention. I'm ordering full retreat from the Arrakeen perimeters, although I think it'll be a while before you have enough of your men deployed there to take over - summoned from Caladan, scraped together on Arrakis, have your pick. Perhaps your mother can be installed there to oversee the procedures?"
When Paul continues to stare at him uncomprehendingly, he adds, "Have Arrakis. It's an engagement gift."
He says it so casually that one would think it costs him nothing at all to say it, instead of the richest, most expensive planet in the known universe. Arrakis, the sole source of spice. And Feyd is throwing it away - giving it away, to Paul, in the space of a sentence. Paul can hear he is sincere. His Bene Gesserit faculties prevent him from suspecting otherwise.
Duke of Arrakis, Paul's father once said to him, reminding him of their newfound responsibility on the planet. It dawns on Paul now that he didn't truly accept the responsibilty as his own, except in hindsight, when his House was already in ruins and he was a boy dead and reborn in the desert, finding in the Fremen a new family to protect. Stilgar, Chani, his comrades in arms. His people. His Arrakis.
That's what Paul gave up - his people and his second home - in escaping the terrible fate of Lisan al-Gaib, the false messiah who would kill billions, and becoming a Harkonnen consort in a foreign world instead. He's certain he made the right choice for the greater good. If he had to sacrifice a piece of his heart to do it, so be it. He has done what must be done.
He didn't realize how much it's weighed down on him until now, when the yoke is suddenly, unceremoniously lifted from him, and he has in his grasp the thing he thought he'd lost forever.
He'll be on Arrakis again, with the people he loves.
"You should wait a bit to leave, I think," Feyd continues, oblivious to Paul's thoughts. "It won't be long until the house cleaning's complete. I don't trust the planetary orbit to be safe for travel until I've picked the naval units clean. My uncle had a tight grip on their upper ranks."
"Will there be civil war?"
"I haven't been idle to that extent. Some reassignments, a few executions here and there will do. Maybe a round at the arena to finish things off."
Paul picked up a vague description of the Harkonnen arena from one of his holobooks, but he hasn't retained the details. "Making an example," he guesses.
"The opposite, actually. Closer to a goodbye courtesy - provided we don't drug them like common gladiators and shame them. It's an honorable way to go. I'm thinking three or four generals who've given lifetime service will deserve that. They've been useful for the family."
It makes sense, in a savage, unforgiving light, and Paul has lived through enough of a savage and unforgiving world himself to see this is Feyd being respectful of these generals, even if not merciful.
"Who will fight them?" Paul says.
Feyd makes an ambiguous gesture. "Usually the younger officers do, the ones that are in their prime for combat, and wearing a shield generator so we can be sure who'll end up winning." Absently he thumbs along the edge of his knife which, per his request, has been sharpened at the tip. "You know what, maybe I'll fight them myself," he muses. "It'll be good for morale."
Judging by the way his eyes glint with anticipation, he wouldn't be doing it entirely for morale. He'll enjoy it. Paul could stay by the sidelines and be a spectator to the event, let Feyd bloody his hands, and fifty thousand people will cheer him on and applaud him and, at the end of it, they may or may not forgive him for bringing an Atreides onto their homeworld.
"It should be me in the arena. I'll fight them," Paul says.
He's thinking of Jamis, the death he didn't want to cause. The fight that took him across the threshold to a new life. A rite of passage.
Paul hasn't proven himself on Giedi Prime yet.
Without needing to say a word in explanation, Feyd seems to read his line of thinking. He wraps a hand around Paul's nape, warm, as it's always been since the day they first kissed on Caladan, and brings their foreheads together.
"You'll fight well," he murmurs, with deep-running joy.
Looking back in time, Paul becomes aware that his fight with Jamis was a show in its essence. He had to show to the Fremen that he's capable of killing, a warrior who can do his water's worth among them. The arena on Giedi Prime is no different. Paul dons the lightweight armor of the native fighter, short-sleeved, the fabric split three ways around his hips. He makes sure his hair is pulled back to expose his face, pale like a Harkonnen should be. He sheathes his crysknife and takes the twin blades that are standard choice for ceremonial battles on Giedi Prime. Ready to be put on display for the ring of onlookers, their hostile judging minds, and to carve himself a high seat in their regard.
Under our glorious black sun, we welcome to these special festivities our beloved leader... Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen!
He salutes Feyd in the Harkonnen fashion when the new Baron emerges on the podium, bends his knees in a bow appropriate for blood relatives. Fireworks burst overhead in a shower of black ink as he pivots on his heels and stalks back the way he's come, angling to receive the sacrificial lambs.
The crowd doesn't cheer for him, at first. Paul throws away his shield generator, slices open the throat of the nearest general with a clean diagonal strike, and then the roar hits him, people in the stands coming awake to the adrenaline of violence. Paul shrugs off the body before it can crush him. The sound of it hitting the ground is drowned out in the feverish chanting of the spectators.
The other three are trickier to deal with, but they come one at a time, not wanting to mar their final moments with disgrace. Paul gives them a quick, dignified death. He has the skill for it this time, no longer being the shaking boy he was in front of Jamis. He showcases every inch of the fighter that he is, so no one can say it's a dishonor for the generals to have fallen at his blade, and no one can accuse Feyd of taking in an unworthy cousin - and later in the future, an unworthy husband. Paul will play his part to the full. He owes it to the fate he's chosen.
The crowd is delirious with excitement by the time he finishes. Their cry of approval is deafening, echoing off the triangular walls of the arena, Paul Atreides-Harkonnen! Paul Atreides-Harkonnen!
The shouting and the fireworks continue well into the evening.
In the recess of the master chamber, lit up at uneven intervals by the fireworks outside the window, Paul steadies his balance on Feyd's chest, having just lowered himself onto Feyd's length and taking a moment to adjust to the invasion. His muscles are tired from the exertion in the arena. His mind is a beehive of activity, and he can't quite tell if the distant rumbling of the chanting masses is calling out his name, or Feyd's.
"They're wanting you out there - ah," he gasps as he bottoms out. "Won't you take part in your own celebrations?"
Feyd takes hold of Paul's hips and forces the remaining length of him inside. "I'm in it," he says shortly. His grip on Paul is bruising in the way it becomes when he's unusually impatient, provoked by the same bestial fulfillment that's fanning Paul's lust. Paul thinks he could come from the slightest touch along his cock, a single nudge on the right spot inside of him - or even a touch of a fingertip around his navel, where he's sensitive - it won't matter, he can go again, and again. The night is infinite and they're two animals mating in heat.
They could go on forever and the only thing that matters is the mindless intertwining of their bodies...
Paul wakes up with a scream lodged in his throat, disoriented, not knowing when he fell asleep or where he is. He was with Feyd, and then he was in a vision, a dream, and he couldn't break free from it, there was no narrow escape to guide his way forward. He was trapped. It was one terrible choice or the other terrible choice, and Paul is so sick of this, he thought he'd managed to free himself for good...
He gradually comes to in the cool dark of the chamber. Feyd is crouched over him, observing him wordlessly.
"You're afraid," he says, neither judging nor comforting, only stating what is. "Of what?"
Paul tries to run his hand over his face and discovers that Feyd has both of his wrists pinned down on the mattress. Feyd's knee is over his thighs, as if to restrain him from a struggle he doesn't remember.
"I'm not afraid," Paul says, and swallows to wet his mouth.
"It's been a while since you had a nightmare like this."
Paul grimaces. Those first few weeks following their reunion on Arrakeen were tumultuous, to say the least. "No... it's different from before."
"What was it about? Tell me."
"The arena," Paul lies, hoping he replied swiftly enough to fool Feyd.
"Hmm."
Paul looks down, trailing Feyd's line of sight, and sees that his hands are shaking.
"No, you're right, I'm afraid," he admits. "Only a little. It'll go away."
"Go away. Is that what you believe?"
Paul squirms irritably. Feyd lets go of him.
"Fear is the mind-killer. I will let it pass over me," Paul recites. "What do you know about fear, anyway? For all I know you never felt it in your life."
It comes out more belligerent than he intended. There's a frown forming on Feyd's face, like he wants to pick a needle out of his sole that's stuck deeper in than he thought.
"Don't be absurd, of course I've felt fear. I was swamped in it growing up. I wouldn't have survived without it."
This pulls Paul further out of the aftertaste of the vision. He sits up carefully on the bed, shifting to face Feyd.
"What do you mean?" he says.
Feyd shrugs on his nightshirt and stretches over for the nightstand, picks up a carafe of water and two empty glasses. He pushes one of them into Paul's grasp.
"It means, Paul Atreides, that I am made out of fear," he says matter-of-factly. "You've had the displeasure of meeting my relatives. What do you think the Baron would have done if I fell short of being the perfect heir-alternative to Rabban? I didn't have the privilege of being ugly as fuck like my late brother. I saw how the Baron looked at me. I assure you, if I'd failed one test out of the countless many he set up in my path, I'd be a sack of meat lying dissected in his bed."
Paul can imagine the horror of it luridly.
"So I was afraid - of that, and of many other things - the list is rather long and boring. But the point of it is, I survived them all. I outpaced the wolf on my heels. Fear and pain made me faster, sturdier, whetted me into a weapon. They're good company, really. Makes something useful out of you."
"Useful," Paul says. Feyd doesn't appear the least bothered to describe himself in this manner. If anything, he sounds pleased. Paul recalls how he spoke of the generals he put to the arena, appreciatively, they've been useful to the family.
For the rest of his officers Paul knows him to deal a ruthless whipping hand, driving the frightened sheep to run faster, make themselves useful, lest they fall behind and be discarded from the herd. Leading by examples was how Feyd put it, having killed off the gossiping staff at Arrakeen so the others would see and suffer and be better. The same good company of fear and pain that Feyd had growing up, applied to the people he governs in a mirror-projection.
It is eerily similar to the Fremen creed. Be strong or the desert will take your life. Do more than your water's worth, or we will take your water. The Fremen part of Paul sees the logic in it, though the younger, kinder part of him from Caladan resists.
But if that is truly Feyd's nature, there is one puzzle-piece that does not fit in the picture.
Feyd has given Paul nothing resembling fear or pain. He's given Paul shelter, if incomplete; a knife in his sleeve to carry out revenge; Arrakis, his home, when he thought it was lost; a platter of strawberries, a steadying hand, a glass of water. He has showered Paul with gifts and asked nothing in return... not yet. Paul has been wondering since the day they met on Arrakis, when Feyd means to ask. What terrible, exorbitant price he means to extract from Paul, that he would mend Paul's cracked soul whole again and wait so long to name his end of the deal.
Paul can't bear to wait any longer.
"What's my use, Baron?" he says quietly.
Feyd looks at him like it should have been obvious by now. "You were born priceless to me. Nothing else is required."
Paul meets the clear black pool of Feyd's eyes and thinks, I should have seen this coming.
And he did, didn't he? The signs were glaring. He only chose to ignore them because he didn't want to face the staggering enormity of their implications and, at the same time, because he wanted to believe in those signs, desperately, was drawn to them like a man dropped in a desert straining toward the illusion of an oasis. A superb pretense of a lover, he once thought, and pushed away the lingering idea that it may, after all, not be a pretense.
But Paul has seen how Harkonnens love. He has seen his mother love his father. She was a cold woman, Leto made her generous; she was fearless, until she learned she would lose him; when he wished to have a son, she threw aside the most critical command of her Sisterhood, to conceive a daughter, and risked everything for the sake of making her husband smile. Every day she spent by Leto's side was spent loving him with unwavering devotion.
Paul sees the same signs in Feyd.
He loves me, Paul thinks. He may not know it, he doesn't have the word for it, but he loves me.
"What are you afraid of?" Feyd insists. He folds Paul's hands into his own, hiding the fine tremor still running through them in the cup of his palms.
"I had a dream," Paul says numbly. "I dreamed I was back where I started... and nothing I've done to change the future mattered at all."
A vision of banners flying in savage winds, Atreides banners, and underneath them hundreds of thousands of soldiers marching out to alien worlds. The troops glitching in and out of focus, for a few seconds wearing the sand-colored armor of the Fremen, and then the deep green of House Atreides, back to the Fremen, and the third time, switching - horrifyingly - to the black of House Harkonnen.
Harkonnen soldiers marching under the Atreides banner, ready to kill and conquer in Paul's name.
A war in my name!
It's a fresh spin on the vision that used to haunt him. He has never before glimpsed the Harkonnen forces fighting in his war. He does now, and the most terrifying part of it is that Paul can tell precisely how it'll play out, a word is all he needs to speak and Feyd will follow him into war unquestioningly. And with him, the whole of Giedi Prime will follow.
"You're afraid of losing control?" Feyd says.
"I'm afraid of gaining it," Paul says, and can't speak anymore for the tears that choke him.
He should have been more conscious of the changing calculus of power. Foolishly, he believed peace would come if only he disarmed the Harkonnen threat looming over Arrakis. He failed to take into account the other, far more dangerous beast reigning over the Imperium, who can crush worlds and force wars with a wave of his hand.
The Emperor, who is a jealous man.
He had Paul's father killed for growing too prominent among the Great Houses. It should have been plain to Paul that he won't forgive another Duke of Atreides coming into power, allied to the Baron Harkonnen and uniting the two most influential houses in the Imperium.
Thus the seed for violence was sown when Paul joined himself to Feyd. What he sees in his vision is merely the aftermath. The Emperor, intent on eliminating them, wages war upon their Houses. Paul can't stand aside and let his people be butchered. He calls his soldiers to arms - the troops line up and he cries out, long live the fighters! - the vision is so clear it can't be anything less than a premonition. Caladan is burning. Giedi Prime turned to a fortress. Arrakis' moons become the battlefield, and there are so many dead bodies with their faces upturned that Paul recognizes...
Among them is a body sprawled on the floor, glassy-eyed, a short white knife buried to the hilt in its chest.
The scenery around it flickers like a kaleidoscope, the patterned tiles of the Arrakeen residence or the slope of a sand dune, a crowd gathered watching or in a deserted hall, early morning, in the dark of night, one month or two months or ten years into the future. But the body is always on the floor, a cold fixture in the vision. Paul wishes he couldn't see who it is. He would have given anything to remain ignorant.
Feyd's corpse has his face stubbornly turned toward Paul, like he insists on looking at him one last time before death tears him away.