Paul Atreides - Blog Posts
For you to stay with me
Paul Atreides x fem!reader
Summary: Paul wants to keep you by his side no matter what the cost.
Word Count: 574
Warning: ANGST, possessive behavior, poisoning, escape attempt, abuse of power.
note: since it's Halloween, this story is inspired by a dialogue from Crimson Peak.
You walked aimlessly through the corridors of the Palace, your vision blurred by tears, your steps not so steady. You walked as fast as possible, trying to get as far away from him as possible. You wanted to summon a shai-hulud and head out into the desert, but you couldn't do that in your current state of health.
You tried to breathe properly, but instead you just sobbed, reality crashing down on you more severely with each passing minute. Some servants passed by you with worried or scared expressions, but they didn't say anything and just walked on.
You tried to walk faster but you felt dizzy, so you let out a groan of frustration and placed your hands on your knees, taking a deep breath. The moment was interrupted when two thin, slightly calloused hands held you and guided you to lean against a wall.
Paul.
He made you lean your back against the wall as you tried to free yourself. He held your hands tightly inside his, towards your chin. You were in such bad health that you hadn't even heard him approaching.
"Calm down, calm down, please." he spoke in a soft voice, which you now knew was just a facade.
You moaned weakly at the pain of the grip on your wrists and continued trying to free yourself uselessly, tears now flowing freely down your face. You let out a painful sob and felt your knees weaken.
"Let's talk, calm down." Paul speaks again and you turn tearful eyes to him.
"Talk? How can you ask me that?" you twist your wrists in a frustrated attempt to free yourself. "Let go of me!"
Paul was poisoning you. He knew you wouldn't accept being his concubine after he married Princess Irulan, he knew you would leave and might never see you again. He asked you for some time to talk a few weeks ago and you accepted after much insistence from him, but the conversation ended up being postponed and you remained in the Arrakis palace for longer.
Every time you thought about leaving, Paul found a way to distract you and make you change your mind, and when he started failing to convince you to stay, you started to feel really bad about your health. You felt dizzy, weak bones, some pain, so it was difficult to get to the desert to summon a sandworm.
You would suspect that it was due to the food or the environment, after all you have been used to being exposed to the spice throughout your life and being in an environment with almost no spice could have induced this effect. Well, that could be it, but wasn't.
You knew you shouldn't listen, but you arrived early at Paul's boardroom and overheard him talking to his mother, openly admitting that he had been poisoning you by putting the substance in your food and drink for weeks. He looked scared while he was telling you this, you tried to get out of there but you made noise and he heard you.
"Be reasonable." he begged while still holding your wrists tightly.
"You lied to me." you sniffed
"I did."
"You poisoned me!"
"I did."
"You told me you loved me!"
"I do." you looked into Paul’s pleading eyes. "I do." he repeated.
You tried to pull away, your wrists already sore from his grip, but you felt another dizziness and your consciousness slowly left you.
DUNE MASTERLIST
*AO3 LINKS*
Lady Jessica
Broken trust - oneshot
The waters of purity - oneshot
Leto Atreides
I'm not the only one - series
Paul Atreides
What about me and you together? - oneshot
For you to stay with me (AO3)
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen
LET THE WORLD BURN - oneshot
Dune girls only have two moods:
Jessica: *raises Paul to be a messiah, lets Alia be possessed by her ancestral memories*
Paul: *is a messiah*
Alia: *gets possessed by ancestors*
Jessica: I can’t believe you two.
just watched dune (both parts) and am rereading the book. I may have a strange hyperfixation on characters who see the future but feel as though they can do nothing to change it. Clairvoyance as a curse instead of a gift.
｡⋆𖦹.✧˚──
the wind in the desert is not quiet. it howls through bone and ruin. it sings of forgotten blood and shattered names. paul has stopped pretending to sleep. the wind keeps him company. so do the ghosts.
he walks the edge of the ridge, cloak dragging behind him like the shadow of a future he no longer wants. fremen eyes watch from the rocks, but they do not follow. they know he walks into something only he can name. he finds feyd there, as he knew he would — standing where the sand meets stone, where the cold creeps up through the soles of their boots like warning. the last harkonnen. the beautiful knife. the mirror with a smirk.
"you’re late," feyd says, though neither of them agreed to meet. paul looks at him, and it feels like looking into the center of a storm.
"or maybe you were early."
feyd snorts, fingers flexing at his sides, like he’s itching for a blade but knows better than to draw.
"maybe we were always here."
──
their first fight ends in silence. not because it isn’t violent. it is. it’s everything. a storm of movement and breathless calculation. sand kicked up in flurries. blades kissing too close to skin. but it ends not with blood, not yet. it ends when feyd’s knife is pressed to paul’s neck, and paul’s hand is buried in feyd's hair, tugging his head back with just enough control to make it dangerous. they’re breathing hard. they’re too close.
"this isn’t how you kill a messiah," paul whispers.
"this isn’t how you fight one," feyd answers, and neither of them move. the blade doesn’t cut. the hand doesn’t release.
──
at night, they fall into the sand like it’s the only place they belong. the fremen sleep in a circle behind them, pretending not to notice. or maybe pretending not to care.
"you think this ends with one of us dead," feyd says, staring up at the stars that don’t blink. "but i think it already ended, long before we met."
paul turns his head. "how poetic of you."
"fuck you."
pause.
"you ever wish you'd never been born into this?"
paul doesn’t answer for a long time.
"every day."
"yeah. me too."
they lie in silence. it stretches between them like a wound.
──
there is blood, eventually. of course there is. you don’t put two blades this close without drawing something red. but it’s not a deathblow. not yet.
feyd bites his lip until it splits, staring down at paul after another fight that ended in stalemate and bruises. "you want me to kill you, don’t you?"
paul says nothing.
feyd drops the knife. it thuds against the sand like a heartbeat. he steps closer. waits for resistance. it doesn’t come.
"you want to see if i’ll be the one to do it. take the crown off your head. end the prophecy. end you."
paul looks up, eyes glowing like he swallowed the sun.
"i want to see if you can stand to look at me and still be human."
feyd flinches.
──
when they kiss, it’s not soft. it’s not gentle. it’s not sweet. it’s a warning. they bite. they bleed. they hold each other like dying men who’ve forgotten how to pray. paul tastes like dust and fear and something ancient. feyd tastes like fury, like burning, like something broken pretending it never was.
they do not speak after. they lie in the silence.
paul’s head rests on feyd’s shoulder. feyd’s fingers twitch against paul’s ribs, like he’s not sure if he wants to hold him or crack him open.
──
"i dreamed of a future where we killed each other," paul says one morning, voice quiet, like confession.
feyd lights a smoke, eyes hooded. "sounds like a happy ending."
"i died with your name in my mouth."
feyd freezes.
he exhales, slow. "was i the one who killed you?"
paul doesn’t answer.
and in that silence, feyd closes the space between them again. not like a lover. like an ending. like a war that forgets it was ever made of men.
a/n: eww i hate this. something about tumblr just makes my writing like twenty times worse. it doesn't help that i'm having the worst hangover of my life while i wrote this..
"I accepted to be your wife only to save my father's life. You and I both know that that woman is my true wife and you are merely an agreement with a title, this is a political matter and we must seal the peace and ally with the Great Houses of the Landsraad. Formalities will be respected. But you, Paul Atreides, will get nothing more from me than the name. No child, no caress, no glance, no moment of desire. You will be less than a concubine and you will never know a moment of tenderness from the woman to whom you are bound. Whereas Khayt and I, history will call us wives and matriarchs of the Corrino dynasty."
@forestgoblinteatime
@theseeker1864
“Fear is the mind-killer.” — DUNE
@gerbilmongolski
@danem111
The Gom Jabbar
@fluerdemal
@filteredair
Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica and Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in DUNE (2021)
@gerbilmongolski
@filteredair
Dune ( 2021) dir. Denis Villeneuve
Data substituted or modified via tiny wormhole transport
Microcircuitry
