Chapter Text
There are many here who want him dead.
Feyd can see it. The fremen are easy to read; a people that do not think to conceal their intentions from him, their hate unhidden, their motives not nearly as confounding as those of their prophet. It blazes in their eyes, a heat as blistering as the desert of this planet, one that kissing Atreides ring so boldly has only inflamed. What threat he’ll find from that will not be made with words. Feyd isn’t Bene Gesserit-trained but he doubts these desert rats play politics the same as the Landsraad, battles waged across another field, perhaps more likely to simply go for a knife.
Feyd can admit he admires that.
It’s so rare to find warriors in this universe of battle trained politicians, rare enough to be refreshing.
Desert rats these fremen may be.
But ones that can kill Sardaukar.
“We will talk.” Paul agrees; turns to face those he rules, does so with the silent, eerie movement of one used to moving across sand. “Send word to the Landsraad. The other Great Houses will know of what occurred today, they will be told it as they wait above us in their ships, they will know that to attack Arrakis is to move against their Emperor.”
It rings out like prophecy.
Perhaps in many ways it is. The fremen take their cue to murmur—a rising sound, reverent, words in a language Feyd doesn’t understand but thinks sound nearly like a prayer—this how it starts, negotiations soon to begin for the hand of the Princess Irulan, and in the middle of it all someone steps out of the crowd to leave the room. They walk like Atreides had turned, the same eerie grace made of silence, what could walk across a desert and not disturb a single grain of sand. Feyd won’t have even realised who it was if not for how the new Emperor stills, a moment just as silent but uncharacteristically jerky.
Stilted.
It makes her stand out; the eyes that watch her identify the fremen woman he’d taken for Atreides pet as the one who has turned to leave, Feyd observing with interest as Atreides finds her as she moves through the crowd. He does not stop her, a half moment where instead he watches her go.
Atreides does not follow.
Instead he turns away to once again address the emperor he's just deposed.
“I will not harm you, nor will any fremen,” Atreides says softly; no pain, no longing, for all he’d stared after a fremen woman he shows nothing of that now. “Rooms will be prepared to house you. While negotiations are underway for your daughters hand you and your entourage will remain here as my guests.”
It will take time to be certain of whether ‘guest’ is another word for ‘prisoner’.
“Your majesty is generous.” Shaddam Corrino nods; still regal though the title must sit strangely in his mouth, the rank stripped but the man remains, one that learned double speak from the moment he could talk. Though defeated he seems to have pulled himself together enough to remember that. “You may yet prove your fathers son.”
There is a deliberate softness in the words. It rings the same as ‘guest’ had—warmth with the potential to be hollow—both compliment and threat.
Atreides is unruffled, smiles and dips his head. “When we join our houses I will be yours too.”
“Who negotiates for you?” The Princess Irulan has stepped forwards.
Blue within blue eyes drift to her. “My mother.”
There’s an unshakeable confidence in his voice.
Atreides glances to the Lady Jessica, sat adorned in fremen robes, her face decorated with blue markings, what passes between them unfathomable.
Each house has their own Battle Language of course, their own set of codes, but the Bene Gesserit training has always sat outside of bloodline. Feyd wonders if the late Duke Leto Atreides had ever felt left out of secret communications between mother and son. Though perhaps in the presence of a Reverend Mother they speak only with what has been taught by their House, but what does that mean for the fremen? He wonders if they can follow the threads of this, of conversations held within a series of glances, if their ways have a mirror to it.
Princess Irulan nods. “Then we shall begin.”
“I will join you both later to finalise the terms.” Paul Atreides replies with a courteous dip of his head. “But first I must speak with my cousin.”
There is rage in the glare of a man with a scar on his cheek, his eyes free from spice, obviously not fremen despite standing amongst them. He tenses, looks about to speak, to step forwards, but Lady Jessica stops him with a hand on his arm. Feyd can find no sign of disapproval for her sons decision to spare his life, has perhaps expressed it secretly and received what explanation she requires in his answer. The Truthsayer shows no such calm, the Reverend Mother Mohiam looks between him and Atreides, an urgency in her eyes as if she can see some terrible purpose.
Feyd wonders what she thinks she knows.
There had been good reasons for his Uncle's fear of Truthsayer's. She has eyes like Jessica. Mohiam has eyes like Paul; opened to a sight inaccessible to others, looking through the world as well as at it, looking through people as well as at what rises to show across their faces.
Eyes that won't be satisfied until they see the shape of bone.
Atreides smiles.
“Do not worry so, Truthsayer,” He says; tone far from soothing, a sharp mockery in his voice, a cruel kind of humour in his eyes. “You know well what could have happened here today…is this not a better alternative?”
Mohiam meets his gaze with cool aloofness. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
The shift is immediate, the humour dies, leaves what cruel thing lurked beneath it. “I know exactly what I’ve done.”
Feyd wonders what happened to him in the desert.
What made Atreides something the Bene Gesserit so clearly fear.
The question remains unanswered, Atreides inclines his head towards the door, four fremen splitting off to fall in step around them as Feyd follows. As they leave Lady Jessica begins to rise from her chair, eyes on Irulan—the Princess so recently promised to Feyd, now to be his cousins wife—her lips sharp with another of those enigmatic smiles. Whether it be pride or relief Feyd cannot tell, only a moment to consider it before still more fremen block his view, advancing on Shaddam and the remainder of his entourage.
How quickly it’s all changed.
Two family members dead, an exact trade for the ones now gained. Though Feyd thinks of Lady Jessica’s pregnant belly and adjusts that number to three—the blood of the Harkonnen’s found within the enemies they’ve had for centuries.
Atreides leads the way.
The stone corridors are known to him. This the old Residency where he’d lived, the place the old Duke had chosen when he’d come to Arrakis, a layout well remembered.
When Atreides stops outside a door the guards do not follow them inside.
One of the fremen opens it, reveals a room containing one long table, chairs at either end, more laid out along a length intended for hosting banquets. Atreides gives a soft command in the fremen tongue—not the first time Feyd’s heard him speak in such lilting tones—the guards bowing their heads as he enters the room. They’ve taken places on either side of the door, now murmur something that includes the by now familiar words ‘Lisan al Gaib’, closing it once Feyd follows their prophet inside.
It’s the first time they’ve been alone.
Feyd will ensure it’s not the last.
There’s the rising thought to pounce immediately, to force Atreides up against the door, to pin him before he can dance away. It’s eager but not necessarily overambitious. Feyd knows he could have a hand over Atreides mouth before he could call for help, could trap with a body flush against his, a practical demonstration of what can be done with superior strength.
It’s a nice thought.
Feyd lets it remain so; for the moment they both seem content to silence, so very curious because his cousin had led them to this room, now he examines the walls of stone and seems transfixed.
“This is where my father died.” Atreides says.
It near echoes.
The ceiling is more than high enough for that, sound reverberates, nothing soft to absorb it, nothing soft but the two things of flesh standing here alone. There is something hungry in his voice—a hope, a searching thing as he looks with searching eyes—and while Feyd knows how Leto Atreides met his end the Duke’s son should not. Yet his eyes map it; flick around in one quick sweep, no Mentat’s power of computation, more watching a scene unfold here as if finding it etched in the walls. A memory waiting to be read by one who can make even stone speak.
This is where my father died.
“This is where your father nearly killed my Uncle.” Feyd replies.
The reminder pleases, further soothes what still grieves, the hurt thing that bleeds beneath the skin. Paul Atreides seems to draw out of the past, out of his strange communion with stone. Feyd will remember that it can be done, but for now he relishes how good it feels, an undeniable power in reeling a messiah away from prophecy.
Atreides glances towards him with a smile.
“Will you seek revenge?”
Feyd laughs. “Why would I?”
It’s a question Paul Atreides wants to answer. He tilts his head—a moment Feyd is stripped to the bone, every one of the Baron’s touches clear upon his skin, the gladiator ring of House Harkonnen laid bare—then Atreides nods. “Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
The vulnerability unsettles.
It hurts.
Feyd licks dry lips, a craving for more settling like an itch under his skin, as primal as thirst, as dying from it mere steps before a well. There’s a wish to wrap a hand around Atreides throat, to squeeze as blue within blue eyes continue cutting deep. It’s still nothing he’s admitted, this revelation made by observation one that requires no confession, what Atreides knows hasn't required Feyd to stumble.
He finds a strange addiction in being seen so clearly without words.
Atreides steps towards the chair opposite the head of the table. Once his father had lain there, trapped, had bitten a hidden tooth and unleashed death while paralysed and beaten. His bare hand rests on the arm.
It puts his back to Feyd.
An error trained out of every noble son, the lesson of what even around a friend might prove a fatal mistake, and for all he’s kissed a ring Feyd certainly isn’t that. Has the memory of grief distracted him to this? Whatever it is Atreides lets it happen, must have realised by now what he’s done, doesn’t turn to put Feyd back in his sights. It gives ample opportunity; Feyd’s eyes wander past the tease of pale skin at Atreides neck, down to the small of his back, linger there in a moment of pure self-indulgence, then continue down slim thighs.
Feyd could end it right now.
The blade he carries had not been confiscated when he was escorted here. He could unsheathe the emperors gift—or does it belong to Atreides now? the knife a spoil of war—could rest the point against his spine, sink it deep, could sever the cord and watch him fall.
One neat little cut would cripple this deadly thing.
Feyd chuckles. “So careless of you cousin.”
There is no startle.
If there’d been any doubt that this is deliberate Atreides now refutes it, answers without turning around. “Then teach me the lesson.”
No one goads Feyd like this.
No one has dared show him their back after a fight. It tantalises—the fact that this is a test, not one of his Uncle’s, this close to a true gamble—Atreides standing here alone and so very vulnerable. He does not wear a shield, the full length of him unguarded, displayed from the head of dark curls to the tendons at the backs of his ankles. Feyd looks for tension and finds none, pauses a while longer, wants him to know that he’s thought about taking him up on this offer. It’s a very pretty one too. Feyd indulges in another slow appreciative once over, lets his eyes linger on the slim waist.
He knows one day soon he’ll put his hands there.
“I could teach you a lesson.” Feyd says consideringly.
He knows he’s grinning when he walks up behind him, looming at his back, a heady thrill at what Atreides has chosen to do now they’re alone. Feyd closes the distance, as near as when they’d fought, brings their bodies not quite flush but sharing space, sharing warmth.
And Atreides is warm.
This close Feyd could lean towards his ear; could curl against him, could nuzzle in and breathe what scent there is beneath the spice, could seek his throat and bite a mark there.
Feyd could taste all manner of possibilities.
He could be gentle, could tuck the wild curls away and press a kiss behind an ear, lips as soft as they’d been against the ring. The reward had been a blush then, perhaps this would get Atreides to shiver. There’s still more that thrills; the restriction of his own restraint, of being close enough to prove he could have a taste, the strain in wanting something and saying not yet. The affirmation of that entices, of not taking with hands that so easily could, of knowing that there is purpose in a chase.
That there is power.
“Let’s not end the game so soon.” Feyd murmurs soft against the shell of his ear.
“You yielded.” Atreides sounds surprised, speaks of their fight as if that moment was special somehow, as if it’s a flavour he’d heard described but never tasted.
“I did.”
Feyd draws back, a step to the left and then he’s brushing past him almost innocently, isn’t surprised when Atreides doesn’t so much as flinch. He rests his elbows on the back of a chair, turns and now can see his cousin’s face, curious at what might be uncovered in the absence of an audience. The Baron had worn many different faces, all true to some extent, all with a purpose only the old man ever knew. Yet when Feyd looks he finds Atreides as before—can’t yet say if it’s truly the face he wears in private—haunted by something only he can see, no mask slipping because it’s not a mask, is it?
Muad’Dib might be a persona but it might be too simple to say that makes it false.
Not when Feyd knows the whole of it is only a part of what is here. In this solemn, finely crafted thing; dark lashes a suitable frame for eyes so blue, not even a year since first Atreides stepped foot on Arrakis and yet already this.
Feyd’s demon from the dunes.