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Paul hadn’t intended to remain in the city.
After completing his reconnaissance mission, he had meant to sneak out of Arrakeen after dark, to depart with the rest of the crowds leaving the city following the gladiatorial spectacle.
But when he hears the three people who fought today – no, the three prisoners who were murdered – were the last of his loyal Atreides retainers? A rage so absolute, so all-encompassing fills him that he doesn’t realize he’s missed his rendezvous with Stilgar until he’s already inside the palace walls.
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen dies tonight.
It’s embarrassingly easy for Paul to sneak through the corridors. He knows these halls like the back of his hand, and the Voice makes short work of any suspicious guards.
He bares his teeth in a fierce grin when he spots his target, strolling with maddening nonchalance down an empty hallway.
He follows on soundless feet. He thinks he has been circumspect – the Fremen have taught him much of stealth, after all – when:
“You’re following me.”
Paul bites back an instinctive curse at getting caught. “Am I?” He pitches his voice slightly higher than his normal register. “I may have gotten lost,” he adds in what he hopes is a coy tone.
Feyd-Rautha circles him like a predator and he draws on all his Bene Gesserit training so as not to shiver.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we? You seem… familiar.”
“I don’t think so.” Paul knows his disguise is immaculate — his mother has always praised his ability to wear the likeness of a woman. And Feyd-Rautha has never met him as Paul Atreides, heir to a Great House. “I would remember one such as you, my lord na-Baron,” he says smoothly.
He holds still (like prey, like the desert mouse he suddenly feels he is) as the Harkonnen steps closer.
“Curious,” Feyd Rautha says softly. He brings the tip of his blade – the one that took the life of Paul’s men – to rest delicately at the base of Paul’s throat. Paul tamps down a surge of rage at the sight of it. “You're not afraid.”
Feyd-Rautha’s eyes are lit up with an almost childlike delight. It looks so wrong, too angelic on a face that hides so much wickedness within.
He leans in to search Paul’s face, and for a moment Paul fears his blueing eyes might give him away. Until he remembers, with much relief, that melange is used by a fair number of wealthy Arrakeen citizens, such as the one he’s impersonating now. It is fortunate his eyes are not yet the blue within blue of a desert-dwelling Fremen.
“Tell me your name.”
Playing his part, Paul smiles indulgently at the order in Feyd-Rautha’s voice, as one might humor a small child.
“I am Lady Atreia.” He sweeps into deep curtsy, eyes cast down demurely but senses alert to any abrupt movement. “I am here to honor your coming of age.”
Feyd-Rautha’s gaze sharpens. He glances at their surroundings, as if suddenly realizing where they are. “How did you get past the guards?” he demands. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Guards?” Paul is suddenly aware that his alias will hold up to mild scrutiny but no further. Seeing no other option, he steels himself to use the Voice.
But – there is no telling if Feyd-Rautha has been trained to resist it, as he has. In which case more delicate measures will need to be taken…
“May I ask what you are doing here?” As subtly as he can, Paul allows a thread of suggestion to resonate through his words.
He resumes walking, toward what he hopes is an undefended exit. His window of opportunity has passed, he thinks angrily. It is too risky now to stay.
Feyd-Rautha follows at his heels, and he grimaces. His mastery of the Voice is not enough that he can use it on a guard while keeping Feyd-Rautha under his thrall.
“You are not partaking in your own celebrations, my lord?” he presses.
The Harkonnen grunts softly, eyes squinted as though suffering a headache. “You’re Bene Gesserit,” he accuses.
Paul is surprised by the speed with which he has deduced it. But it matters little. Feyd-Rautha is already under his spell.
“What,” he says, injecting more power in his voice, “makes you say that?”
“I remember now,” Feyd-Ratha murmurs, slurring. “I dreamed about you last night.”
Paul nearly trips over his feet. He had not considered the fact that Feyd-Rautha is just as much a product of Bene Gesserit breeding as he is, that he is just as likely to manifest signs of their shared heritage.
“Pleasant dreams, I hope,” he manages to reply. If Feyd-Rautha knows of his subterfuge, if he has Seen that ‘Lady Atreia’ is no lady at all, but in fact his blood-sworn enemy –
“Don’t mock me, woman,” Feyd-Rautha growls, to his relief.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
The Harkonnen scoffs, staggering with the movement.
Paul, observing how powerful his hold is over Feyd-Rautha, has a thought.
If he can get Feyd-Rautha alone without anyone seeing them, Paul reasons, he still has a chance to take this enemy off the cheops board. And, thanks to his mother’s training, he’s familiar enough with Bene Gesserit practices to make it look like one of the order killed the Harkonnen heir. He would enjoy that very much indeed, he thinks darkly, pitting the Baron against the Reverend Mother Mohiam. If he’s lucky, House Harkonnen and the Bene Gesserit might destroy each other in the process.
He turns and leans in close, lips brushing over Feyd-Rautha’s ear. “Won’t you show me the way to the guest quarters, my lord?”
Eyes glazed over, Feyd-Rautha nods. He leads them down another corridor, away from the exit Paul had been aiming for. He seems to come out of his daze once they reach their destination. “Where are we?” he mumbles in confusion.
“This is the guest wing.” Paul is familiar enough with the palace’s layout to recognize it. Judging by the layer of dust on the floor which is... dustier than normal, these quarters haven’t been touched in months. It’s just as well, given what he means to do tonight.
“Thank you for showing me the way.” Choosing a room at random, he enters, knowing Feyd-Rautha will be too curious to leave.
He seats himself on a carved stool. “Come here,” he whispers. He layers the suggestion powerfully into his voice, but he has a feeling that even if he hadn't, Feyd-Rautha would still have obeyed without hesitation.
“Kneel,” Paul orders. Feyd-Rautha falls to his knees immediately. His gaze is upturned, wide-eyed like a child’s.
Paul strokes a thumb over that pretty pale neck on display. How easy it would be to just press down and squeeze, his enemy offering no resistance, or to order the Harkonnen to take his life with his own knife.
His nails dig into the pulse point beneath his fingertips and to his shock, Feyd-Rautha whines, a high-pitched, animal sound of need.
Experimentally, he presses down again, and watches as the Harkonnen's pupils dilate, his mouth dropping open with a startled gasp.
And just like that, Paul’s bloodlust makes way for something else, a different heady feeling that rises within him, like a slumbering sandworm waking to a thumper’s call.
Throwing caution to the winds, he orders Feyd-Rautha to strip down with a snarl. Yes, he decides, this is how he will make the villain pay for his crimes.
He lets himself nip and slap, leaves bruises and teeth-marks, paints his anger and pain in punishing strokes across the canvas of Feyd-Rautha’s pale skin. And oh – how beautifully the Harkonnen takes it, arching under Paul’s touch. In fact, Paul is pleased to find, he leans more eagerly into it, the more violently Paul ravages his body, rather than shying away.
Oh, you pitiful, broken thing.
For that, he now sees, is what Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is, beneath all his masks of cruelty and bravado. He wants nothing more than to be hurt, to be desired, to be stripped down to his base self and devoured.
And Paul will gladly oblige him.
He marvels at the lovely cry of pain Feyd-Rautha lets out as Paul enters him. It’s too fast, too rough for Paul’s own liking, but the blissed-out look on Feyd-Rautha’s face tells another story. The Harkonnen sobs as Paul sets a punishing pace, slapping away the hand that wanders towards his ignored erection.
“You’ll come on my cock or not at all,” Paul commands. He strokes a possessive hand over Feyd-Rautha’s flank, a gentleness at odds with the violence of their coupling, and Feyd-Rautha whimpers like a wounded stray.
“Please.” His voice is a harsh, cracked sound, barely audible against the sandstone floor against which his cheek is pressed.
The word makes Paul groan. His grip on Feyd-Rautha’s side tightens, leaving what are sure to be finger-shaped imprints behind. “Beg me again,” he orders.
“Please let me – please – please –!” He presses desperately against Paul’s invasive touch.
“Do you think you deserve it?” Paul hisses in his ear. Slowing his pace, he jerks his hips harshly, the downward force of it pressing Feyd prone, crushing his cock against the ground. “You think a beast like you deserves pleasure?”
He feels Feyd-Rautha flinch, a full-bodied shudder beneath him. Ah, not a Beast then. That at least answers his questions about Feyd-Rautha’s relationship with his brother Rabban.
“Shh, sweetling,” he soothes. “You’re nothing like him.” He presses a kiss, full of teeth, to the back of Feyd-Rautha’s pale neck, and the Harkonnen keens wordlessly. “You can be good for me, can’t you?”
This, he realizes, is Feyd-Rautha’s greatest fear, his secret shame – that in his heart of hearts, he is capable of being good. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad. The universe hates Harkonnens for being evil; a Harkonnen hates himself for not being evil enough.
“Yes,” Feyd-Rautha pants out. His voice is so full of want and self-loathing, it thrills Paul to hear it.
“That’s it.” Paul lets his strokes turn languid – though not soft, never that. He grips Feyd-Rautha’s chin, baring the Harkonnen’s throat, bitten red like a brand of his ownership. “You’re perfect like this, you beautiful monster.”
His hips stutter as he nears his release. Feyd-Rautha is an exquisite sight beneath him, writhing and wanton, his savagery temporarily leashed, tamed by Paul’s brutal touch alone. The thought is enough to send Paul over the edge, and he bears down into that beautifully pliant body, taking his pleasure without a thought for Feyd-Rautha’s own.
As he spills with a groan, he hears Feyd-Rautha give a choked-off cry, but he ignores it, fucking the Harkonnen through the aftershocks.
By the time he pulls out, Feyd-Rautha is already halfway to unconscious. He drops like a stone as Paul releases him, eyes half-shut as he falls to the ground in an inelegant sprawl, too fucked-out to move. Only a darkened patch of wet dirt on the floor betrays evidence of his shameful pleasure.
Oh, how Paul wishes he had a bit of mimic film to capture the lovely sight.
Instead, he leans down and presses a light kiss to Feyd-Rautha’s temple. With a hint of power, he whispers, “Sleep. We’ll meet again, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.”
He’s gracious enough to drape a blanket over Feyd-Rautha’s bare form before he departs the room.
As Paul goes to exit the palace, a dark smile overtakes his face. He had planned to kill Feyd-Rautha tonight. But now that he’s seen how pretty his enemy looks on his knees, how beautifully he takes punishment… Paul thinks that perhaps, when this is all over, he may find a reason to let Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen live.