Chapter Text
Uncle liked to say that Feyd-Rautha was in possession of two skills in which he was particularly talented: killing and fucking.
When Feyd was little, he had said it with pride. Then, as he got older, with increasing derision. The traits of a spirited, delightful young child were, apparently, the very same that defined an idle and ungrateful young man. Uncle liked to point that out, too.
But if Feyd had harboured any hope that the Baron had brought him along to Arrakis because he meant to subject anyone to his talents—either or, really, it would have made no difference to Feyd—he was sorely disappointed. Because by the time he was finally allowed off the ship alongside Uncle and Piter, their procession heralded by the screams of dying men and shudders of distant explosions, the Noble House of Atreides was already in its final death throes.
The battle for Arrakeen, such as it was, was over.
Feyd had not been allowed to partake.
Uncle had forbidden it, of course. He knew how Feyd longed to fight, and while he was usually in the habit of giving into his favourite nephew’s every whim, in this he had remained firm. Feyd was not here to fight. He was Uncle’s heir—here to observe—here to learn. This was something that had been happening more and more frequently over the past two years, ever since Feyd had turned fourteen, much to his chagrin and his uncle’s continued delight.
Still, it didn’t make the humiliation any easier to bear. Feyd certainly made no effort to hide his irritation as they made their way through the Arrakeen keep, his hands flexing idly as though imagining them wrapped around a blade—or a throat.
The air inside the keep was thick with smoke, the ground matted with blood. Feyd watched as soldiers ran back and forth, scouring the halls for stragglers. Occasionally, the air would shake with an explosion from somewhere outside.
Uncle and Piter were walking up ahead, deep in hushed conversation. Something about some prisoner.
Feyd glared at their backs. Did Uncle truly think so little of him? Did he believe Feyd incapable of handling himself in proper combat? That his skills were suited for nothing more than the flashy spectacle of the arena? Why bother going through the trouble of bringing him off-planet at all then, if all he was going to do was stand around uselessly like some hapless child who—
A crash came from somewhere in the keep. There was the sound of someone screaming, then of something shattering.
“D’you hear that?” The soldier walking closest to Feyd glanced around nervously. He was right to be. The task of guarding any highborn was a difficult task at the best of times. When the target you were meant to be guarding was the size of a Salusan bull, it was a monumental one…
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the ruler of Giedi Prime, second most powerful man in the Empire and, as of quite newly, conqueror of House Atreides, glided smoothly along the grand stone corridor. As unwavering as a statue and quite as magnificent—and a great deal more terrifying.
His tailors and personal armourers had undoubtedly been working towards this joyous occasion as much as his spies and generals. He wore a robe made entirely out of black silk, silver fastenings glinting in the sparse light, long train unfolding to make him look impossibly tall and imposing as he rose up on his floating suspendors. He went nowhere without them. Couldn’t, probably. Rumour had it he could no longer walk unsupported.
The only thing that could bring Baron Harkonnen to make use of his own two legs these days, some said, was if it meant getting between those of a pretty young boy.
They didn’t say it to his face, though. Most people tended to take great care what they said to the Baron’s face.
Perhaps that was why Piter de Vries waited until he had floated past him before he came to an abrupt halt.
“You did what?!”
When the Baron didn’t answer him, he said, “Have you lost your mind? He is dangerous! Potentially deadly! Even more so than—” he shot a very brief glance back at Feyd before scurrying after his employer, speaking in a fast whisper. “Do you not remember our intel?”
“There is nothing wrong with my memory,” Uncle interrupted. The mechanical whine of his suspendors amplified by the high, arched ceilings. “Perhaps it is you, my dear Piter, who have forgotten your promise to me? That he would be delivered unharmed? My mind has not changed.”
“On that, I would beg to differ!” Piter hissed. “You would indulge your vices so carelessly while denying me mine? Why keep me around at all then, if you will not take my advice?”
“You make me question that every day,” Uncle said, his tone flat with disdain. “Indulging your vices is all that keeps you loyal to me, I suspect. Costing me a fortune a day, with the habits you keep…” He scoffed. “Deny indeed!”
Feyd’s attention drifted as their bickering continued. Frankly, he had no interest in the petty squabbles that formed the cornerstone of Uncle’s relationship with that weasel of a mentat of his and found his attention drifting instead toward the shadows that stretched down the intersecting corridors.
He was hoping he might catch a glimpse of a survivor. An Atreides soldier, maybe, still clinging stubbornly to life. The idea sent a surge of excitement through him. He would have relished the chance to kill at least one of them himself, perhaps with a single stab to the throat. Anything to relieve the tedium.
But no such opportunity presented itself, and Feyd was left to simmer in his frustration as they approached a pair of grand wooden doors.
“Feyd, my darling,” Uncle turned his head, his heavy-lidded gaze settling on Feyd, “This is where I must ask you to take your leave. Retire to your sleeping chambers, won’t you? And rest well. We shall dine together later.”
“Why?” Feyd asked, eyeing the doors with sudden interest. “What’s happening?”
Uncle smiled; a broad, oily grin. “I have an appointment with the Duke…”
And with that, the Baron pushed the doors open and disappeared inside followed by his guard detail, his mentat slinking after them like an offended cat, leaving Feyd out in the corridor. Alone at last.
Not until after the doors had slammed shut did it occur to him that Uncle had neglected to specify exactly where his sleeping chambers were.
Feyd had never been to Arrakis and would not have set foot in Arrakeen even if he had—the Harkonnens had held court in Carthag—and, despite his initial anger at having been left out, he found he was curious.
The interior of the Arrakeen Keep was grand but minimalistic. Long, narrow windows lined the walls, allowing for some natural light to seep through while at the same time keeping the fierce mid-day heat at bay. There was no heat now, though, and the only light came in bursts of orange, yellow and purple from the ongoing battle outside. Some renegade Atreides survivors must have made it all the way to the anti-aircraft canons, judging by the size of some of them.
Still fighting, then. There was hope for that kill yet.
Since the Duke and his family hadn’t had much time to get settled, most of the rooms Feyd came across were empty, or else teeming with black-clad Harkonnen soldiers working to clean the place of valuables and drag away the bodies of Atreides guards and servants. Their blood created blotches on the walls and long smears across the floor that appeared dark violet in the dim, orange light of the suspendor lamp that floated silently beside him in mid-air.
At the bottom of a short flight of stairs, Feyd came to a door that immediately caught his notice.
It stood slightly ajar. A ribbon of golden light stretched out into the hallway from inside, as though beckoning for him to come closer, and Feyd was struck by an inexplicable feeling that he was supposed to be here…
He paused, his boots grinding faintly against the rubble on the floor. The door itself was carved with geometrical patterns, its handle impressed upon an ornithopter thrust bar. How interesting.
He flicked his eyes around the dark hallway, then carefully opened it the rest of the way.
It was a bedroom. Small, but elegantly furnished and, unlike the other rooms he had passed, it seemed untouched by the chaos. Even more interestingly, it appeared very obviously lived in. A bed with an elaborate headboard of carved fish rested against the far wall, while another was lined entirely with shelves filled with books and data slates. On a low table near the centre, a curious display of objects caught his eye: a crysknife replica, a small globe of some unknown planet (Caladan, perhaps), and an array of miniature sandworms carved from wood. Feyd stepped closer, his gaze lingering on the sandworm figurines.
That was when he heard it.
A sigh.
The sound was so soft it was barely audible, and had it not come at the precise time it did, Feyd would not have caught it over the distant rumble from the ongoing siege. His head swivelled around.
There, on the bed, lay a boy.
Feyd blinked, startled. He hadn’t noticed the boy at all, which seemed impossible. He lay sprawled on the edge of the mattress, dressed all in white and perfectly still, his body barely disturbing the neat folds of the bedding. The only sign of life was the faint rise and fall of his thin chest.
He was beautiful.
He looked to be about Feyd’s age, or a little younger maybe. His face, turned partially towards the wall, revealed sharp, delicate features, and a tumble of dark curls spilled across the bed sheets like ink on parchment. And… he was bound. Feyd could see the rope sticking out from underneath the hem of his clothes, tying together his wrists and ankles. A gag had been fastened around his head, the thick ream of fabric wedged between his lips.
What the…?
Very carefully, Feyd inched forward, his eyes scanning the room for some sort of hidden danger.
For surely this had to be a trap. The boy was too perfect, too conspicuous both in his placement and presentation.
He came to a halt at the foot of the bed, eyes narrowing as he began working through the possibilities.
Could someone have left the boy behind as bait? Feyd didn’t know whether Uncle’s particular tastes were widely known among the other Houses, but if the Atreides were privy to such intel then wasn’t it possible they could have put this boy here—with poisoned needles hidden in that pretty hair of his, perhaps, or cyanide smeared across his lips—with the precise aim to lure him in?
It wasn’t a very good strategy if they had. Baron Harkonnen, of course, would not have entered the keep during active combat and thus would not have discovered any boys placed anywhere… Not until long after the fighting had died down anyway, at which point the soldiers would have already rounded up any survivors to either bring back to Giedi Prime as slaves or have executed those who served no further purpose. Nor was it very likely that Uncle would have ventured all the way down here even if he were to inspect the keep himself.
But… Feyd cast a quick glance back over his shoulder at the door. There had been soldiers out in the hallway. Surely they would have found the boy?
In other words, he must have been placed here after the attack, and for a reason. He was for someone, that much was clear. But if not for Uncle, then who?
The answer came to him at once. For me.
The realisation hit him with sudden clarity. All the little details around him coming together all at once like pieces of a puzzle. Uncle sending him away without specifying where to go, a bedroom far away from where anyone of importance would be spending the night, and yet irresistible to Feyd. De Vries would have known he’d be drawn to it, he was good at that sort of stuff. Predicting behaviour was how he planned all his schemes… Had the two of them conspired against Feyd to place this boy here for him to find?
Not a trap then, but a gift.
A whore.
Feyd tilted his head, studying the boy’s profile. Uncle had given him a whore.
And not just any whore. This was one of Uncle’s personal pets. Had to be. Uncle had a type for sure, though it changed from time to time, and recently it had been boys precisely like this one. Skinny and gorgeous, with clear skin and wild, dark hair. Feyd had seen them. They came and went before they ultimately, and without fail, disappeared.
In a way, Feyd felt rather justified in blaming his uncle for even recognizing that that boy was beautiful at all.
Men will be attracted to anything that looks breedable, Feyd had once been told. It’s biology. Human nature. It’s the way things are. Feyd had only scoffed at that. What a laughably naïve perspective. He knew better of course, and none of Uncle’s boys had ever looked remotely breedable…
No, what truly attracted men was power. Feyd had learned this the hard way—in a thousand hard ways—and now it was apparently his turn to teach this boy.
How interesting.
The gift was personal in nature, perhaps, but not in presentation. A sleeping whore, bound and already on the bed held little appeal to him.
But he wasn’t stupid. This was a test—just like everything was wherever dear uncle was concerned. That man never did anything without a purpose.
He leaned a little closer. The boy was gagged. Why was he gagged? Who would wish to keep a pleasure slave silent, what would be the point of such a thing? Feyd exhaled sharply through his nose. Perhaps the gesture was intended as an insult. Uncle’s way of asking Feyd if he truly had the guts to do the things to the boy that he would. And, if he did, whether he would be able to stomach the cries of pain and despair. To keep going and finish the deed.
Or perhaps it was an explicit invitation to indulge in all of those things?
Feyd’s face felt like a lifeless mask as he surveyed the supine form, disdain and apprehension mixing in with the stirring interest in the pit of his stomach.
Had Uncle truly brought him all this way off planet just to train one of his pathetic, short-lived little pets? His lip curled in disgust. Did Uncle truly hold him in such low regard as to offer him this in consolation for not letting him partake in the sacking of Arrakeen? An unresisting body he could tear into or tear apart like some fucking dog?
That was when he noticed that the boy’s clothes looked different.
In the orange light of the floating lamps, he’d assumed they were the white of Giedi Prime’s slave attire, but now upon closer inspection he saw that the thin fabric was, in fact, of a distinctly different make. It was… Feyd reached down and touched the hem of the boy’s trouser leg, rubbing it between thumb and index finger. The cloth was soft and of a high quality.
He allowed himself another quick glance around the room. It was a bedroom… Could it be that the boy was no pet at all, and that the room Feyd had retired to was his?
A servant then, perhaps? Someone from the household? And he was clearly not Fremen, which left only one option: Uncle had given him an Atreides.
Well, not an actual Atreides, of course. The Duke and his little family were all accounted for and either dead or dying, Feyd knew. Uncle had acted quite the martyr about it. He had wanted Duke Leto’s teenaged son—the child Paul, with his young body—for himself. But Uncle was a cautious man, and caution had warranted he throw his precious little Paul to the worms along with the duke’s concubine, young body and all, and that was the end of that.
Maybe this boy had been one of Paul Atreides’ personal attendants. The son of an important counsellor perhaps, or a childhood friend brought along from the home planet to make the new fief feel more like home.
And now he was here. A captive. A prize.
A prize for him.
Well… A cruel smile broke across Feyd’s face. That changed things quite a bit, didn’t it.
As he looked down at the bound boy, he imagined he could hear his uncle’s voice. My lovely, ungrateful nephew. Don’t you see how you’re wasting your potential! Fucking and killing, those are the only things you’re good at!
Oh, I hear you Uncle, he thought. Loud and clear. Message received and all…
But which one was he asking Feyd to do here now?
When Paul awoke, he was lying on his back. There was a moment of perfect weightlessness, as though he was floating on still waters, before his senses began to return to him and he became aware of several things one after the other in a series of increasingly horrifying discoveries.
The first of which was that he couldn’t move his body.
He could feel his arms pinned underneath him, the knuckles of his hands pressing up uncomfortably against the small of his back, the warmth of the mattress under him. But his limbs felt numb and oddly detached, as if they weren’t his.
His mouth was dry as cotton, and there was something pressing against his teeth. Curiously he nudged it with his tongue and felt the rough texture of wet fabric. It was wedged in between his teeth and pulled taut across his lips. A gag. A feeling of ice-cold dread washed over him.
Paul tried to focus—something was wrong, very wrong—but his thoughts swirled around like dust in the wind, and he was having difficulties concentrating, his mind as syrupy slow as his limbs… Which was how he came to his second discovery that he had been drugged.
But his third discovery was by far the worst, and it was this: he was not alone.
Very carefully, he cracked one eye open, peering up into the blurry orange darkness. It had to be nighttime still. At first he couldn’t see anything, then a dark shape came into view.
A man was standing by the foot of his bed.
He was tall and muscular, clad in all black. As pale and still as a marble statue. He was completely hairless.
Paul’s breath caught in his throat.
Harkonnen.
“You’re probably thinking of doing something stupid right now,” the man said quietly to Paul. His voice was deep and rasping, slightly hoarse. “Something brave. That’s what I heard about you Atreides, anyway.”
They must have attacked during the night, Paul thought. Just as his father had expected. But how could they have gotten in? The palace had been searched through and through—
“Your soldiers sure are living up to your creed. Do you hear them?”
Paul couldn’t turn his head but followed the man’s movements with his eyes as he approached him, trying to take in as many details as possible—not knowing which might serve him. His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest.
“I imagine you’re the same. Except they’re out there, and you’re in here with me…” The man flashed him a crooked smile, and Paul was shocked to see that his teeth were pitch black. “Doesn’t make much of a difference in the end. House Atreides is finished.”
As he came closer, Paul realized the man was younger than he’d first thought. He had a handsome face with strong features and full, symmetrical lips. His exceptionally white skin in combination with the total lack of hair, put Paul in mind of one of those realistic-looking porcelain dolls, before the artist had attached the hair and painted on the little details like eyebrows and freckles.
Except that there was absolutely nothing doll-like about this man.
He carried himself with a fluid sort of grace, as though even the few short steps he was allowed to take within the confines of Paul’s bedroom he would stalk. Like a predator. He’s a fighter, Paul noted. Well-trained. Like Duncan. Except Duncan moved differently, powerful and feline, like a great tiger on the prowl.
This man did not move like that, he moved like a reptile, Paul thought. His head didn’t seem to move as much as it did on a regular person. Like a snake.
“I was hoping for Paul Atreides, you know.”
Well, Paul thought, bracing himself. You found me…
He fought back a flinch as the man reached for his face. But his touch was surprisingly gentle as he brushed the hair off Paul’s forehead, trailing his fingers down his cheek. Then he pushed the tip of his index finger under Paul’s chin and tipped his head back.
“I heard he’s quite the looker. A great beauty, just like his mother…” He wiggled his finger back and forth, making Paul’s head tilt this way and that while he spoke. He smiled again, and this time it was even more unsettling. “If you’re into that sort of thing. I was so looking forward to our meeting.”
Paul stared up at him.
He’s toying with you, he thought. He’s trying to scare you, intimidate you—don’t let him!
But it was hard to see how he could prevent the Harkonnen from doing exactly as he pleased from the position he was in. Unarmed and bound on hands and feet, his mind still sluggish from whatever drugs he had been given… How could you be any more helpless than that?
But he couldn’t give up. That was luxury he didn’t have right now. Remember your training, he thought frantically. Every part of your body is connected, if the drugs are still coursing through your veins, you can find it.
He began to focus on his breathing, taking slow, deliberate breaths through his nose, in and out. Just like his mother had thought him. Concentrate, concentrate—
“But I suppose Uncle’s got him. He’s wanted him for a long time.”
The hand under Paul’s chin moved down to his neck, letting it rest there for a moment and giving a light squeeze before it withdrew. Paul’s head flopped limply to the side.
“Such a shame… Is he as pretty as you?”
Paul blinked; concentration broken by the unexpected question. As me…?
The man was studying him with a sort of detached curiosity, as if Paul was some vaguely fascinating puzzle he’d come across, bald head cocked to one side.
Paul frowned. The Harkonnen had called him Atreides, but had just now referred to Paul Atreides as someone else. He doesn’t know who I am, Paul thought. But… that didn’t make any sense, did it? Who else was he supposed to be? Paul was an only child, he—
They’re dead. Realization hit him like a wave of ice-cold water in the pit of his gut.
If the man didn’t think Paul was Paul, it had to be because he couldn’t be. Because Paul Atreides wasn’t supposed to be here. Paul Atreides was supposed to be dead. Dead, or already handed over to this man’s uncle. I was the best protected person within the keep, more so than even father… Panic gripped Paul's chest like an iron claw. Mother! Father! Where were they now? Were they already—No. No, if Paul was still alive then surely there was a chance they were too, they had to be!
But this thought quickly gave rise to another question: why was he alive? He’d been bound, gagged and drugged for good measure, yes. But still kept alive.
“You have such beautiful eyes, Atreides… I suppose Uncle thinks he’s given me quite the gift.”
A gift.
A mistake, Paul realized. Nothing else could explain it. Someone had made a mistake. What he understood was this: he had been captured and kept alive for a purpose. He was to be a gift or a trophy for this man’s uncle, but instead he had been left behind here, which could only mean one thing—Paul had been handed over to the wrong person. And by some wild stroke of luck, this man had no idea who he was.
Well, that makes two of us, he thought. I’ve no idea who you are, either.
But there is information in every spoken word, as his mother would have said. Listen well and connect the threads in your mind.
Uncle, uncle, uncle… could it be? The Baron Harkonnen had two nephews. One of them was Glossu Rabban, the man only called the Beast for his penchant for cruelty and sadism. But Beast Rabban was old. Old enough to have known Gurney back when he was still a slave at Giedi Prime.
That left only option… Paul was at the mercy of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.