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Paul Atreides, Duncan notes with some regret, is becoming quite beautiful.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with being beautiful. That should be obvious to anyone. It’s simply a fact of life, like being born tall, or short, or with ginger hair. And it’s not like Duncan ever wished for Paul to grow up ugly. Nobody could possibly benefit from that, least of all Paul.
All the same, he can’t help but feel as though there’s something deeply, terribly unfortunate about Paul’s beauty. Something calamitous, something strange — some herald of future disaster.
Duncan has had this feeling before. It was out in the dust-towns of Giedi Prime, where slavery is the rule of law and objection is certain death. He has seen firsthand the fear and dread and death-cloud doom that follows particularly beautiful young girls, haunted by the knowledge that their preternatural beauty will most likely lead them to a forced commission in the Harkonnen militia’s private pleasure-houses. Some self-mutilate or scarify in order to stave off the possibility; some attempt to flee. Some acquiesce, hoping their compliance will protect them from the worst of Harkonnen savagery. With few exceptions, they are never seen or heard of again. They are swallowed whole by House Harkonnen.
Another course in an endless feast, purchased in blood and spice-money, supplied for the rapacious mouth of the Baron himself.
Paul Atreides is becoming quite beautiful. But it’s the kind of beauty that bad men covet.
He’s nimble as a cat, sure, but he’s slight. Not a pound of muscle on that kid, fuck — he’s thin as a rail, as delicate and lyrical as the nine-stringed balliset Gurney keeps tucked beneath his bed. He’s sylphlike, elegiac, pretty in the way a rare specimen of waterbird might be called pretty. Bow lips. Temple-dancer frame. Seashell-coloured fingernails.
This, this beauty. This fey look. Whatever it is, it most certainly doesn’t come from Paul’s father. Oh, sure, Duke Leto Atreides is a good-looking man. Not a strapping action hero or anything like that, ha, but strong and just, masculine in his own right. No, there isn’t a doubt in Duncan’s mind where Paul’s more androgynous qualities stem from: the weirding woman, the Bene Gesserit witch.
Lady Jessica’s influence on Paul, both in terms of genetic inheritance and Bene Gesserit training, is something Duncan quietly resents. Paul’s heart lies with his House; the witch’s loyalties lie with her twisted coven. Her ends are unknown, her abilities are unclear, and the sway she holds over both father and son is dangerously powerful.
Paul is young, impressionable; not quite a boy, yet not quite a man, still vulnerable to the whispering of witches. The gnashing of falcons. The circling of vultures. The grasping of Harkonnen harriers.
Prey.
He has the look of prey, and Duncan regrets it.
(But fuck, he must be a bad man — because he covets it. He does.)
Four paces away, Paul is training. Duncan watches him while cleaning his weapons, his face carefully neutral.
Paul lunges. He attacks the canvas-wrapped dummy, knives glinting. His blows are aimless, half-hearted. Clearly, he isn’t in the mood to fight — but training hours are regimented by schedule, not Paul’s whims. And besides, Paul rarely is in the mood to fight. Especially in the mornings.
Duncan isn't fully aware of the details, nor is he interested in interrogating either Jessica or Doctor Yueh, but he’s gathered by now that Paul is prone to intense, vivid dreams. The content of these dreams is, naturally, a mystery to Duncan. But from what he can gather, these dreams serve little more than to exhaust and distract Paul come morning. They drain him.
The suspensor lights glide towards Paul, casting his profile in pale amber.
Paul is soft, in his own way. He’s soft around the mouth. Soft around the eyes, which are dark and sloe and distant. There’s softness in his back, which Duncan knows is pale and scarless. Sharper touches — a fine nose, wide brows, the beginnings of lean muscle — peer through those softer features like maturity emerging from childhood. They gave his face some character. Some contrast.
But he is soft all the same.
And he is pretty.
Paul moves to gut the training dummy. He moves with a careful deliberation, his steps well-measured, but his knife moves too slow towards the dummy’s underbelly. His form is imperfect. He’s slacking.
He’s dreaming with his eyes wide open.
Well, that won’t do.
Duncan rolls his eyes, back pressed against the stone pillar. The ancient walls of Caladan Keep are pleasantly cool against his clothed skin, like a salve.
“You know, the point of training with a dummy,” Duncan says, pointing the pommel end of his dagger in Paul’s direction, “is to practice proper forms, to commit them to sense memory. If you’re just gonna reinforce sloppy habits, there’s no point.”
Paul glances towards Duncan and huffs, fringe in his eyes, “You sound like Gurney.”
“Oh, c’mon. Low blow,” Duncan laughs. With idle confidence, he flips his dagger. The steely, reflective blade makes a full rotation in the air, spinning like the needle of a compass — then, when the blade reaches the apex of its ascent, Duncan snatches the dagger back out of the air. This act of circusry doesn’t seem to particularly impress Paul.
“Thumb in contact with your forefinger,” Duncan says, demonstrating the proper form with his own hand. “Get that grip right, prince.”
“Not a prince,” Paul deadpans, but he does adjust his hold on the handle of his knife, bone-white fingers flexing carefully against the treated leather.
“Well, you’re a Duke’s son, so… close enough, right?”
“Only the Emperor’s sons are princes.”
“Well, the Emperor has no sons.”
“Thus, this universe has no princes,” Paul agrees wryly.
“Then you’re the closest thing we’ve got, huh? I rest my case,” Duncan waggles his brows. “Now, try that little manoeuvre again. And move like you mean it, alright?”
Paul nods, turning to face the battered training dummy once more. A beat passes. He sucks in a cool, controlled breath — then moves to strike, his knife hissing through the air with wicked precision. The blade glints. Paul’s fingers curl around the grip, forefinger snug against his thumb. (Ah, so the boy can listen, isn’t that nice?)
There’s a quiet, cottony thunk as the blade lodges itself deep within the dummy’s insides. A nice, clean blow.
“There you go. Not bad,” Duncan says. “Think you could manage it on an opponent who can actually dodge?”
“Is that a challenge, Duncan Idaho?”
“Shield up, prince.”
Paul ignites his shield; Duncan does the same. He twirls his blade idly, his body warming up, eager to see some action. He could never hang back and watch for very long. Not his style.
“You know,” he says, a grin spreading across his face, “you’re presently facing the greatest warrior Caladan has ever produced.”
“And the humblest, clearly.”
“Three hundred men I have lain to waste,” Duncan continues, undeterred, “in my quest to master the art of war, and I have achieved ascendency in swordsmanship like none before me —”
“Duncan, I know for a fact Gurney can best you six times out of ten.”
Duncan wavers. Paul is — well. Hm. He’s not wrong, exactly. Still, Duncan tries to retain his bravado, entreating Paul to a smile, ”Oh, c’mon. You and I both know that old man’s past his prime.”
“Six out of ten isn’t a bad ratio for an old man,” Paul points out.
Duncan sighs, settling into a battle stance; elbows out, body tilted at a 45 degree angle, his shield rippling with a perceptible shimmer.
“Fine, fine,” he grouses. “If I’m so second-rate, subduing me should pose no problem, right?”
Paul hesitates, then nods.
Atta boy, Duncan thinks, fond.
Paul takes off first, body bending like a hollyhock. Duncan sidesteps the knife easily. Paul is fast, but he’s predictable.
No two warriors are exactly alike. Each has his own style; his own manner and method. War is a language spoken with many accents. Paul’s style is unrefined, but Duncan still delights in watching it develop. Paul flows like the rivers of Rossak: moving with more speed than power, more flexibility than force. He’s no match for Duncan in either size or strength, so he compensates in celerity. In tempo. Duncan scrapes the edge of Paul’s shield, and Paul twists away, light on his feet. He keeps his body weight balanced on the balls of his feet, like a dancer suspended on hardblock shoes. An unusual quirk.
Their blades meet, steel singing, shields shimmering. Paul is pink-faced, sweating. Duncan grins. He could do this for hours . Emboldened, he gets down low, swiping upwards to make contact with Paul’s exposed flank.
He could kill Paul here, if he wished it. Leave him gutted-open on the training room floor, wet with blood, with the scent of death. But he does not wish it. He could never . So he blunts the strike, pulling his punches, allowing Paul just enough time to scramble back as blue wavers into red.
Paul is on the backfoot now, just barely fending him off — he parries well, but he’s on the defensive. Cornered.
Duncan is dry-mouthed with excitement.
A warrior is at his best when he’s cornered, when his back is up against the wall. It’s there and then that the noble disappears and the animal awakens: that pure, primitive urge to survive. Belamutati, the will to life.
Duncan surges forwards, angling for Paul’s throat, and Paul moves. He moves like he means it. He throws himself diagonal, arcing into a combat roll — shoulder-to-hip-to-knees, just like Duncan taught him. He’s up on his feet in and a flash, and he whirls, knife hurtling towards Duncan’s underbelly, his grip white-knuckled around the grip of his knife, forefinger laid against his thumb —
Duncan’s heart swells with pride.
Good form. He’s making steady progress.
Then, with a flick of his hand, Duncan reaches out and catches Paul by the wrist. Paul blanches visibly — tensing perceptibly, already aware that he’s lost.
… But he has a long way to go.
Duncan twists Paul’s wrist, Paul’s knife clattering to the floor as Duncan yanks Paul down into a submission hold.
“Oof!”
They land in a heap; Paul supine, hair in his face, breathing hard. Duncan lands on top, victorious, one knee planted between Paul’s parted thighs.
“Do you yield?”
“Do I have a choice?” Paul pants.
“Nope,” Duncan says, leaning back onto his haunches.
“... How’d I do?”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad, but no dice?”
“But no dice, little prince.”
The suspensor light roves around the room aimlessly, shadows shifting against the wall. Duncan sheathes his knife.
Duncan shifts onto his knees, making space for Paul to stand. But Paul makes no move to get up. He simply lays there, motionless, his back flat against the cool ground, his gaze riveted to the ceiling. His dark, exhausted eyes settle over the stonework, tracing over the cracks and the whorls in the ancient rock face — yet Duncan has the strange, hazy feeling that Paul is staring straight through it, and perhaps through all of Caladan, his mind elsewhere, traipsing through worlds yet unseen...
“Dreams again?” Duncan hazards, lowering his voice a half-measure.
Paul laughs, voice tremulous and wan.
“... You can tell?”
“When it comes to you? Yeah,” Duncan says. “I can tell.”
Paul lifts one hand. He has beautiful hands: musical hands, thin and long and light. In the Atreides battle language, he signs, It is what it is.
“So, what kinda dreams are we talking? Good dreams? Bad dreams?”
“Both,” Paul murmurs. “Neither. I don’t know.”
“Tell me about ‘em.”
With his hands, Paul speaks: Sand and sky. Someone else’s blood. Bare plants with roots reaching deep into the ground. My father’s signet ring, hot in my hand. You.
“Me?” Duncan laughs.
Yes.
“Wow, very flattering. I’m honoured to play a starring role in your ominous, blood-soaked dreams.
I saw you clean-shaven, Paul signs. Then, he repeats himself, speaking with his voice — hoarse, uncertain, “I saw you clean-shaven.”
“Really? Did I look good?”
Paul sits up, reaches over, and gives Duncan a half-hearted shove. Duncan laughs.
“What! I’m just asking. Maybe I should change up my look, y’know?”
“The stubble is fine,” Paul says, slumping back down to the ground. “You look good.”
There’s something there, in the way he says that — but Duncan allows it to pass between them unacknowledged.
“If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll start growing your own someday soon, eh?”
Paul runs a hand over his face thoughtfully, considering the notion.
“It wouldn’t suit me.”
“You never know.”
“No. I know,” Paul says. He turns his head towards the window, eyeing the misted glass. There is a hard, wet look of rain in the foothills; the seas of Caladan churning uneasily, as wine-dark and thick as syrup. Paul moved to sign once again, the shape of his fingers fraught: Things are going to change.
Duncan frowns, signing back with his own broad, brown hands.
Has something happened?
No, Paul signals, index and middle finger stiffened into tense claws. No. Not yet. But I can feel it. It’s hard to explain, but —
I believe you, Duncan responds. It isn’t a lie.
Paul shifts his shoulders uneasily.
Mom’s drilled the litany into me a thousand times by now — but I guess I’m weak. Because I fear it, Duncan. I fear what’s coming.
What’s coming, Paul?
I don’t know, Paul smiles helplessly, eyes crinkling around the edges. And that’s what terrifies me. The uncertainty of it. But somehow, I know, whatever’s coming — it’ll take me away from this place. Paul pauses, fingers suspended in midair. Then, with an air of faint trepidation, his fingers curve to continue — It’ll take me away from you.
Duncan senses, then, the shift in the atmosphere — too late, perhaps. He pulls himself away, shifting onto his knees to stand, but Paul catches him by the sleeve, urging him to stay.
Duncan, he signs, and his eyes are so dark, darker than the roiling seas beyond their dreary window. I know you want me.
There’s pain in Paul’s eyes: deep, fructifying, potent pain. And there is desire. Wild, reckless desire.
Duncan is no stranger to desire. Nor is he a stranger to being desired. But with Paul, it is different. It’s overwhelming. It’s fucking terrifying. Maybe it’s because Paul is the Duke’s son. Maybe it’s because he’s the son of that Bene Gesserit witch, blessed (or perhaps cursed) with her coven’s power of seduction. Maybe it’s because he’s so delicate, so lovely, so glass-blown — so preylike, that Duncan fears breaking him, fears becoming the thing that annihilates him. Or maybe it’s just because he’s Paul. And he’s Duncan.
“... Paul. Hey. We’ve talked about this before,” Duncan says, clearing his throat, feigning interest in the training dummies stacked on the other side of the room. “We can’t…”
Why not? Paul signs with his free hand, brows pulling into a frown.
“Why not? Why — shit, there’s a million, billion good reasons why not. I mean, you’re the Duke’s son, first of all.”
Before I’m an Atreides, I am myself. And I —
“Paul,” Duncan reproaches him, voice low and angry. “If you want to discuss this, use your words.”
Paul colors, face red, but he acquiesces.
“I want you too,” he says, voice hushed — but urgent. Raw. “Shouldn’t that matter? What we both want?”
“Want has nothing to do with it,” Duncan counters. “You have your station to the think of, and I — shit, I’d be court-martialed and jailed if I even laid a finger on you, kid —”
“Not a kid,” Paul protests, fingers curling into the fabric of Duncan’s overshirt. “Not anymore.”
A replete pause. Paul has risen to his knees to face Duncan directly; his gaze is tremulous, yet defiant. Duncan can see the fear in him: taste it, even. Yet he knows, right down to the marrow, that Paul is not a child. These are not the eyes of a child — nor are they the eyes of a weakling.
He has his father’s fire.
“No,” Duncan allows him, sotto, his voice pitched to a murmurous baritone. “You’re not.”
“Duncan,” he says, nearly whispering. “Something’s happening. To me. I don’t know what it is, but — I just know I have no control over it.” Paul inches ever closer, knees scooting over the training floor; Duncan, ever a fool, does not move away. “It’s all been decided for me. Where I belong, who I belong to, where I’m meant to be — this, this Path, it’s all been laid out before me.” Paul laughs, and it’s a deeply, deeply bitter sound, old beyond his years, impossibly heavy with regret. “Oh, Duncan. I haven’t even been given a chance to consider what I might choose for myself — if I could. Were I able.”
“Paul, you’re not making sense.”
I know, I’m sorry, Paul signs. He lifts his free hand against Duncan’s cheek, signing his next words against the curve of Duncan’s cheekbone, fingers rasping against dark stubble. Duncan reads his words from the corners of his eye — Just this once, Duncan. Just this once.
He is close. Too close, body arching against Duncan’s.
Duncan could throw Paul. He could cast him aside with a gesture, stand up, walk out — he could end this disastrous infatuation with a word. He could deny Paul, if he wished it.
He does not.
“Fuck, Paul. Fuck. You’ll be the death of me, you know.”
Paul’s body snakes against his; a skinny, narrow chest laid overtop Duncan’s own. He presses his nose against Duncan’s, breathes against him. He smells of sweat and angelica and the dilute spice-tea he drinks for breakfast, faintly sweet and cinnamonic. He’s slight, and he’s warm, and he’s alive, and he’s beautiful.
Paul Atreides has become very beautiful.
This world is not kind to beautiful things, Duncan knows, and it’s this thought that keeps him in terror as Paul Atreides kisses him.
Paul kisses him full on the mouth. It’s a slow, lush, clinging kiss; cautious, gun-shy, inexperienced yet earnest. He sucks Duncan’s lower lip into his mouth, and Duncan allows him. He’s spellbound. He’s intoxicated. He’s foolishly, idiotically frozen in place. Paul must intuit that he has the upper hand, because he immediately moves to pour himself into Duncan’s lap.
Fuck, he’s light as a bird. Like he weighs nothing at all. Like he’s hardly there. Against his better judgment, Duncan finds himself winding his arms around Paul’s waist, securing him by the hips. And he’s kissing back, damn him. He’s kissing his master’s son back, his mouth crushed against Paul’s, their breath mixing.
His hands form idle shapes, speaking in the Atreides battle-tongue — Paul, Paul, fuck, but you’re beautiful, you know that, don’t you? Paul’s eyes are shut, his hands fisted in the lapels of Duncan’s loose linen shirt.
Duncan’s hands continue to speak, Do you even know what power you hold over me? But Paul does not read his gestures, does not see them, does not hear him. He squirms in Duncan’s lap, overcome. His breaths come fast, then faster, ad when Duncan’s tongue slides into his mouth, he welcomes it with a moan.
Paul's moan is half-surprise, half-relief, all pleasure. All want.
No man could resist him. Duncan is certain of it.
(Perhaps he was the one imperiled all along.)
Duncan is no stranger to acting irresponsibly. He drinks, he brawls, he picks stupid fights, he draw his blade and stands his ground when the odds are stacked against him. Still, he feels as though he is broaching some new, unforeseen heights of irresponsible action.
He sits in Paul’s bedroom, perched on the edge of Paul’s unmade bed. In front of him, Paul is sliding down to his knees, rubbing his cheek adoringly against Duncan’s inner thigh.
Duncan feels like a bastard. He feels like a reckless, selfish, irresponsible fucking bastard — screwing around with his lord’s son, his pupil, his friend...
“If your mother were to walk in on us,” Duncan whispers, his pulse jumping, “or even a servant —”
“No one will walk in,” Paul says.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Paul says. “Now, let me do this.”
“Paul...”
“Duncan, I want this.”
Duncan falls silent. Paul — correctly — interprets his silence as assent, and moves to tug down Duncan’s zipper. His head is bent, his mop of dark hair casting a shadow over his features. Still, Duncan can still make out his eyes. They’re glassy. Dazed.
Moving slowly, carefully, Paul pops the button on Duncan’s trousers and frees his hot, heavy cock. For a moment, Paul sits there, suspended on his knees, and stares. It’s a little disquieting, but Duncan senses no uncertainty from Paul. Nervousness, yes — Paul has never done this before — but he’s determined. He wants this. Fuck. He really does.
Paul lets out a hot, shaky exhalation, which skates tantalizing over the surface of Duncan’s overheated skin. Then, Paul reaches out to wrap his hand lightly around the shaft, angling Duncan’s cock upwards so he can lean forwards and press a kiss to the tip. It’s a rather chaste kiss, admittedly. Gentle, dry. Paradoxically innocent. Reverent, perhaps.
Oh, Paul.
Paul parts his beautiful lips, his tongue flicking out somewhat shyly to trace a vein along the underside of Duncan’s cock — Duncan twitches at the sensation, his arousal filling out. Paul’s tongue is hot, slick; the glide is liquid-easy. Paul must feel Duncan’s desire, because he seems emboldened. Galvanized. He licks a long stripe all the way down to the base of Duncan’s cock, tonguing around the shape of Duncan’s heavy balls, his grip tightening as he strokes the shaft.
His mouth roams. He sucks hot, open kisses against the glans; sloppy, wet, wonderful, fuck. He wraps his lips around the head, pushing himself to take Duncan’s girth into his mouth. It’s an obvious challenge; Duncan is thick, and Paul is inexperienced.
But fuck, he looks gorgeous. Paul is shameless, greedy for it, utterly debauched — his pretty little lips wrapped around Duncan, face flush, eyes dewy with unshed tears as he bobs back and forth, throating Duncan’s cock. The sound of it is frankly obscene: the room is filled with these wet, sloppy slurps that are completely and utterly pornographic in nature. And that’s without even mentioning the sounds that Paul is making, fuck — these soft, sweet little moans and gasps. Each and every one of them sends a fresh shockwave through Duncan’s libido, and Duncan soon finds himself gripping Paul by the hair, hard, fighting tooth and nail against the instinct to buck up and fuck Paul’s mouth.
God preserve him, Paul’s mouth is heavenly . Soft, pliant, velvety. And though Paul himself is inexperienced, he’s a fast learner: he alternates between licking, sucking, and throating, eagerly to explore each and every inch of Duncan’s enormous cock.
“Have you dreamt of this too?” Duncan breathes, carding his hands through Paul’s dark, curly hair. Paul glances up; his eyes are distant, glazed-over, misted with tears… but there’s a pleasure there, a hazy satisfaction, as though all is right with the world. As though he was born for this, this exact moment, down on his knees for Duncan Idaho, his clever tongue swirling idle patterns around the head of Duncan’s cock.
Paul smiles, rearing back. He nuzzles against Duncan’s cock, nose pressed against Duncan’s pelvic bone.
In the Atreides battle language, he signs, Who can say?
His lips ghost up the sides of Duncan’s spit-slick cock, massaging Duncan’s heavy sac with one hand. It is a torment, and it is delicious . Duncan’s pulse pounds painfully in his cock, electric with desire, fingers twisting hard in Paul’s hair.
“Duncan,” Paul murmurs, his voice already wonderfully wrecked. “Mn. Duncan. Do you want to fuck me?”
Duncan lets out a string of extremely colorful profanity. Paul raises a brow, laughing soundlessly.
“Such blasphemy in the House of Atreides. There’s something you don’t hear every day.”
“Damn you, Paul. You are a devil,” Duncan pants, chest heaving. “You are a devil, I swear it — and you know what I want. You’ve always known, damn you. Too clever for your own good.”
“Just clever enough, I think,” Paul says, rising to meet Duncan for a renewed kiss.
Duncan’s lips are sore, perhaps bruised. Paul kisses hard, kisses hungrily. As if Duncan is the water that slakes him, the sustenance that sates him, the spice that sustains him. A flattering thought. Duncan closes his eyes, returning Paul’s kiss with a deep, contented hum. He feels half-drunk on Paul. He feels tipsied. It’s a pleasant sensation, if something unmooring.
“Undress,” Duncan says, voice rough to even his own ears. “Wanna see you, Paul.”
He feels Paul’s smile curve against his lips, soft and self-satisfied.
Slowly, Paul acquiesces. He yanks his shirt up over his head, shimmies out of his breeches. He’s smooth all over, unmarked. It almost hurts to look at him, really, to see him so scarless and so whole, to know he’s never once tasted the cruelty of battle. To know he’s still so pure. Duncan settles a large hand over Paul’s hipbone, cock twitching, his heart opening up into an aching yawn of desire.
“You’re perfect,” Duncan says.
“... You're exaggerating.”
“I’m really not,” Duncan says.
Paul’s smile turns somewhat foxlike. He’s radiant, triumphant. His long, skinny legs curl coyly against the rumpled sheets. His eyes are half-mast, muzzy with want. It’s maddeningly sexy.
Duncan reaches between the two of them, stroking them together — his big, dark cock flush against Paul’s own. Paul gasps beautifully at the sensation. Duncan jerks them off nice and slow, acclimating Paul to the sensation. Paul’s thighs tremble. His throat bobs. He’s leaking, he’s wet; his cock is hard and hot against Duncan’s own, so sweet and so rosy and so slender, twitching softly.
He could probably come just like this. They both could. But Duncan was promised something more.
And, God forgive him, he’s gonna fucking take it.
“Hands against the headboard, your Grace,” he murmurs, releasing Paul with a kiss at the corner of his lips.
“Duncan?” Paul blinks, looking a touch woozy. Duncan smiles, kisses him again, and repeats his command.
“Hands against the headboard. Facing the wall. We’re gonna get you ready.”
“Oh,” Paul swallows, his eyes going wide. There’s anticipation, there — a touch of nervousness, perhaps. But eagerness, too.
He complies, turning to face the opposite wall, hands braced against the panelled headboard. It’s a lovely headboard, Duncan thinks — burgundy-black zitan, painstakingly etched with a repeating pattern of Salusans bulls, flags, and matadors.
“I’ll be careful,” he says. “We’ll go slow, alright? And if you ever feel like stopping — ”
“I don’t,” Paul says.
“Well, you don’t feel like stopping now. But if, at any point, you feel uncomfortable, or nervous, or like you need a break —”
“Duncan Idaho,” Paul interrupts him, throwing a hot-tempered gaze over his shoulder. “Shut up and touch me.”
Duncan leans back, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh-hoh, the prince brokers no arguments.”
“Not a prince,” Paul says. Then after a moment’s consideration, “But I am your liege , so you should listen to me.”
Duncan laughs, sotto.
“You’re not my liege. You’re my liege’s brat son.”
“... Close enough.”
“Close enough,” Duncan agrees, reaching out to cup the curve of Paul’s ass with one hand.
Duncan would not do this with Paul without a lubricant. Fortunately, Paul has supplied one. Frankly, Duncan has no fucking idea how Paul got a hold of such a thing. For his own sanity, he decides not to question.
He pours it over his fingers, then warms it between his hands. Paul waits, his palms flat against the zitan, back rising and falling with the steady rhythm of his breathing. He arches like a cat, spine curved like a question. The small of his back is dimpled. There’s a sandy freckle on his upper thigh.
He tenses very slightly when Duncan’s finger first presses against his hole. This is to be expected. Duncan has the hands of a career warrior: his fingers are thick, rough and somewhat calloused. The intrusion is certain to be somewhat uncomfortable, doubly so considering the fact that Paul is a virgin. But Paul doesn’t tell Duncan to stop or to slow. He just bites his lip, his voice a hushed, throaty whisper when he says, “Keep going.”
So Duncan continues. He crooks his finger inside Paul — Paul is tight, hot. Paul mewls in response. It’s difficult to tell if this noise is one of pleasure or pain, or if that’s even a meaningful binary at this point. Duncan slips a second finger in, pumping them in and out of Paul with a soft wet schlickk sound.
“How’s that feel?” Duncan ask. His free hand travels around to roam over Paul’s flank, waist, and chest, idly toying with Paul’s nipples as Paul squirms ever slightly on Duncan’s fingers.
Paul closes his eyes.
“Feels…” Paul starts. Then, he jumps, eyes flying wide open as he’s startled by some sudden sensation. “Mnn. I felt something, just then. Do it again.”
Demanding, this one.
Duncan fingers Paul carefully, thoroughly, reaching for that spot deep inside him that makes his toes curl. Two fingers becomes three. Paul’s body begins to relax, to accept the intrusion — and the pleasure of being stimulated from within.
“Duncan,” Paul gasps, scrabbling at the headboard, “Duncan — ah, hahh, now. Do it now. Please. Fuck me.”
“Yeah? You’re sure?”
“Duncan!” Paul pants. “Don’t be so sure I won’t use the Voice on you!”
That shocks a genuine laugh out of Duncan.
“Shit, Paul. You are a menace.”
Paul leans forwards, pressing his forehead against the headboard with a dull thunk.
“Maybe so,” he murmurs. “But only because I want you.”
If Paul’s trying to seduce him, it’s a resounding success. Duncan is completely and utterly seduced. He withdraws his fingers, wiping the excess lube against the sheets. Paul whines a little at the loss, but he doesn’t fuss too much. He knows what’s coming next.
Duncan lines the head of his cock up against Paul’s hole. The air between them crackles with expectation. Paul is perfectly still, body locked-up with anticipation. He may very well be holding his breath. It’s hard to tell, from behind — Paul keeps his face obscured, his expression masked by the fall of his hair and the shadowy black zitan.
Duncan rubs the head of his cock against Paul’s hole. Paul hisses quietly
“Y’know,” Duncan says, voice unspooling between them, dark and soft, black Bengaline silk and little coal fires, “I’ve dreamt ‘bout this too.” And then, because Paul can’t see him, he says with his hands, I think I’d die for you.
He presses in, fucking into Paul proper. Paul keens.
“Ah! Duncan!”
“Paul.”
All of a sudden, their bodies make sense. Paul, trapped somewhere between a boy and a man, between his mother and his father: glass-blown, sloe-eyed, fashioned from quartz. Duncan Idaho, absurdly named, strong and big and dark all over, his coalfire eyes and his coalfire heart roiling and raging with too much, too much love.
Duncan rocks his hips, his cock dragging deliciously against the Paul’s inner walls. Paul responds with something like a choked sigh, fumbling desperately for some sort of purchase against the cool zitan headboard.
“Paul —”
“Duncann… ahh… take… take my han—d…. mnngh!”
Duncan slams into Paul, fucking into him hard, right to the root.
It’s a cruelty. It’s rapacious; covetous. But he takes Paul’s hand. They intertwine their fingers, Paul’s moans filling the room with an obscene echo as Duncan takes him.
He’s dizzied, he’s blurried; like cold rain against the window, like mineralized steam filling up a glass-paneled hothouse. Forming new thoughts suddenly seems all but impossible: there is nothing but sensation, but primal feeling . There’s Paul’s body. Duncan’s body. The places where their bodies meet; the awful fault lines where they do not.
Paul arches, mewls, cries out. He fucks back against Duncan, setting the pace, demanding more more more. His voice is so sweet. So lovely. But Duncan can hear the fear in it, too. The desperation.
But somehow, I know, whatever’s coming — it’ll take me away from this place. It’ll take me away from you.
Duncan grips Paul by the waist, burying his face against the crook of Paul’s neck. He cannot imagine a universe in which he leaves Paul willingly. Not of his own will. He simply isn’t strong enough.
No man could possibly be strong enough to resist this, to resist Paul.
As Duncan hops back into his pants, he asks, “So. What else do you dream about?”
Paul lies on the bed, half-dressed, eyeing Duncan with the idle watchfulness of a cat. With his hands, he responds, A red hawk in the desert.
“A red hawk? Like the one on the Atreides coat-of-arms?”
Just so.
“Didn’t think there were red hawks in the desert.”
Me neither. But maybe there are.
“Maybe.”
I’d have to double-check the filmbooks.
Duncan rests the heavy treads of his boots on the edge of Paul’s bedframe, fingers working nimbly to yank the laces into sturdy knots.
“So, the hawk. It just flies around, or..?”
It surveys the desert. It waits. It watches for mice.
"It's hunting."
It's hunting.
“And I’m there. And I’m clean-shaven, apparently.”
You’re there. With all your swords and your knives.
“That does sound like me.”
Paul turns his cheek against his mattress, pensive. For a spell, the room is filled with nothing but the sound of Duncan redressing himself: the clicking of buttons, the rasp of zippers, the rustle of fabric. The silence goes on long enough that Duncan almost wonders if Paul has fallen asleep.
Then, like a plume of smoke, Paul’s voice rises softly, sunbaked, scoured: “It does, doesn’t it.”