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Chapter Text

He had been fifteen when they first started loving each other. Heated kisses in the dark hallways after strategy meetings, slow exploration during the hours of training, and- not often enough for Paul- nightly visits when they were tried and true. When Duncan couldn't hide away from him and Paul was only glad to have this amazing warrior so dearly devoted to him. Duncan reminded him of sea salt, waves, and thunderstorms.

It was a year later that they moved to Arrakis. Dune. The desert planet. He was sixteen when he lost his father to the Baron and his Duncan to the Sardukar. When he first killed a man to lay out the Golden Path, the only path that could save his mother and unborn sister. And he followed. Because the past was part of the flow of the river and he was only a small pebble making a ripple. His Duncan was lost, he'd had to move on. The Imperium needed him to take control- the holy war needed him to run the course. And when his time was over, he would pass into the river softly, quietly.

"Here I am, here I remain." He said as he took the throne. And the people would think of his power, that he was speaking about his reach, his control.

He meant that this was his place in time.

It was the Tleilaxu and their Ixian machines that brought the human out of him, with their gift; they single-handedly ruined him without thought. He knew it would happen, but it still hurt him when they brought the ghola into the throne room in the Arrakeen Keep. Brought out of the very sands of time, there stood Duncan Idaho.

Alia, his sister who knew all things- Alia of the Knife they were already calling her since the tender age of five- she gave him a look that said much but most importantly; They mean to harden you or hurt you.

But Paul was not Paul. He was Muad'dib- He Who Would Show the Way- and because of his twelve year war, there was always someone trying to harm him. To bring down his Empire and spread chaos throughout the galaxies. But without him, there would be no more spice. The Fremen would not allow it, not after the Harkonnens; not after Shaddam IV.

"You bring an assassin as a gift," Paul said, but his Voice was not his own.

The Tleilaxu emissary was trembling, working through his imposing fear, and she spoke back; "They said Muad'dib knew all things."

"And you still brought this thing to my court?"

The Duncan frowned as they continued on about him as if he were a product. 

"My lord, I was told you would know and still accept this gift. Does this ghola not please you? We can retrain him if you'd like…" The emissary said with a shaking voice. She had not been a part of the ghola's creation. Paul could see this clearly in the sweat of her fear and it gave him pause.

He could see the road they hoped to set forth for the Duncan; to set a trap, to dispose of the Atreides line from within. He knew that this ghola would never be his Duncan, yet he was intrigued. How was this thing built? Did it know what Duncan knew, see what Duncan once saw?

"Do you know who you are and what your purpose is, ghola?" He repeated out loud, finally addressing the man he never thought he'd see again. The old flesh remembered its purpose and the Duncan saluted him in the old Atreides way.

"I am told that my name is Hayt, that you are an Atreides. My purpose is to follow you, the Emperor, until my dying breath."

Paul smirked. “Hayt.” They were clever with their ghola tanks. "That is what is buried in your cells. They gave you other orders, tell me what they are."

The Duncan nodded, all but confirming what Paul already knew. "I am built to assassinate you, your Grace." Ah, there it was, that old Sword Master is still inside that machine!

The Tleilaxu emissary and her entourage shifted nervously.

Paul's smile grew. "You will stay."

At his side, Chani reacted with shock. A small movement, but not small enough to be lost on him, a hand brushing across her stomach. Ah yes, their new son. Their first had been killed offworld, during a rebel-attack. He could still see the babe's open throat stare at him from across the passage of time. And he felt that his time was getting cut short, his feet would have to turn from the Path and leave his second son to walk the rest alone. 

"No harm shall come to Irulan and Chani, I assume. It is just me that you are built to kill."

It seemed to unnerve the others in the room that he spoke so suavely about his own death and it further disturbed them when Duncan answered with his trademark smirk and his honest voice; "this is truth, my lord."

Paul Muad'dib had strayed out of thought and time, he was endless. His name would carry over thousands of years, what was age now that he had been immortalized?

He knew not how old he was anymore.

He was both older than stars and younger than rain, he was both god and man.

His Duncan knew that before they even came to Arrakis. This ghola did not understand. "I recognize you." The ghola had said and the echo of time passing made Paul stop his walk through his gardens. Desert plants, he loved them for their durability. Their presence of time and use of purposed systems. Hardy things that scarcely survived in the deep desert without careful cultivation.

Like his Duncan.

"I recognize you, Paul Muad'dib, but not as you are." The ghola repeated with more clarity. Paul nodded.

"You are from a different time, Hayt."

The Ixian eyes discomforted Paul. This was not his Duncan, he knew, but he couldn't help how much he wanted that part of his past again.

The river no longer flowed for him, he kept skipping through. From the past to the future, to the now. It was jumbled. All he knew was that his sister was in play here. It would be her in this place and time and endeavor, and there was a darkness leering at the edges of his mind.

The old words came back to him. Fear is the mind killer.

He breathed deep as he came up to the door in the barracks of his own keep. There was a Duncan in there, but would that be enough? The door opened as if he had sent his thoughts ahead of him and the Duncan ghola stared at him with those steel eyes.

Oh, how he wished to see Duncan's real eyes again.

"My lord," the ghola said as if the visit had not been expected. For Paul, it had been a matter of waiting. "You look troubled."

"You are not mine." He whispered to himself and the Duncan shifted.

That face. It betrayed so many of the same emotions! So many of the same facial reactions that Paul had buried into his subconscious so he could survive the desert. "I am your faithful servant, your Sword Master. I am yours." The ghola said as if that was all he ever needed to be.

"Yes." Paul said. "You are my Sword Master."

"Then what do you mean to say?" The ghola's hands spread out wide in a retreating gesture. Paul's blue-within-blue eyes followed, watching the skin react the same way it had for his Duncan so long ago.

"You were once mine, now you belong to Atreides. Any Atreides that suit your masters. But your flesh is remembered by this body." Muad'dib said and his Voice was law.

It was many days before Paul stood before his ghola, but he would never see him again. At least not in any traditional sense.

His eyes, burned out by the illegal stone burner in the lower parts of Arrakeen, would not be able to see anything but the Golden Path. A path that he feared now more than ever before. But Duncan was there, ever-present in the line of time. Paul could see him on the edges of the Path, sometimes so clearly that he felt as if Duncan was standing right in front of him. Sometimes, it was merely a glimpse of wrath and blood and turmoil. A Great Maker with the face of a boy.

The well of time was so accessible now. But he could not see the moments as they were, only remember what they are supposed to be. In one moment, he could see Duncan cry over the loss of his eyes; another would have Duncan run a blade through his chest. In yet another he could see Duncan finally remember everything.

And this was the night of choice.

"My lord Duke," Duncan kneeled before him. In his private chambers. Chani was gone, sent to the sietch to bear their child, still an event that was nearing the precipice. He would not see her until she gave birth.

He, himself, was sat upon his bed, blinded, crippled. Unable in the eyes of Fremen, but still Padishah Emperor Muad'dib of the Known Universe. Paul had chosen fine linens to cover his body today and Duncan was gripping the cloth at his knee. He sighed, knowing that the next moments were filled with choices. "I cannot see," he whispered. "Duncan, would you pour me a cup of water?"

Duncan's sharp intake of breath, he felt it. The way those white eyes strayed to his own blackened ones, he felt it. The guilt that the ghola dutifully swallowed down… he felt it. "So it is true what they're saying in the streets." The ghola said woefully. Paul felt a large, calloused hand pass over his face with the gentleness of a lover and he sighed again. "Damn them! Damn those nuclear burners!"

"Water, Duncan." Paul commanded softly, hearing the sounds of the ghola's movement. He smiled to himself; he never needed the Voice to command his Sword Master.

"What would you have us do to the traitors? Using atomics like that in a residential area of the city, that's a dangerous business indeed."

"It was not the old Fremen as we knew them, so who deserves such a punishment?" Paul asked, tilting his head towards Duncan because suddenly he could see it so very clearly. Likened to seeing through water until re-emerging to clear sky and a bright sun. Duncan's face was so familiar, he could imagine that those eyes were full of his previous life, colored by days spent together. For effect he paused long enough to study the passing of this timeline, and then smiled at Duncan with unerring accuracy. "I know it was your previous teachers who instilled the murder in you, and when that didn't work- or because it never would- they sent rebels in your place."

Duncan's stillness belied his Ixian work. This ghola was a machine, made human. Necromancy at its finest.

"Do you think I'm a fraud? Telling others that I can see when so clearly I have been blinded by both power and rebellion?" Paul faked a laugh. "I am still an Atreides, Duncan. Do you doubt that?"

"No, my lord."

Paul stood; this moment he knew. The Duncan would back away, torn between his loyalty to the Atreides and his built-in mission. "Kill me now then. If you doubt me for even a heartbeat."

The sands shifted, the danger passed. The ghola had failed the Tleilaxu test and yet unlocked what they could never have done alone. Paul held out an arm, beckoning for the ghola to come ever closer, and Duncan answered. The belt and all its weapons were left behind. Duncan's body was the same; hands rough on Paul's face; beard warm and living and welcoming; body pliant to his own though he had grown so much and yet so little.

"I recognize you." Duncan whispered. Over and over.

"Undress me, Duncan." He said and the ghola obeyed immediately, starting at his simple boots.

When those hands reached his face, they continued over the indentations of the stillsuit's nosepiece on his cheeks and into his hair, weaved into the curls, and brought him slowly upward to meet the ghola's mouth with his own. "It has been a very long time since I last tasted your tongue." Duncan breathed against his lips.

Paul moaned. This was his Duncan.

"I remember… you called for me." The ghola continued, moving his teeth down Paul's chin to his throat then his shoulder. "I couldn't let them have you. And now, you're not you."

Paul gasped. This was dangerous. He reveled in it. "I am present now, this much is true," He swallowed, his mouth was dry even here in the Keep, with his expensive moisture seals. "Where I will go and when I will go remains a mystery even to me."

Duncan groaned in disquiet, his hands tightened on Paul's body as if he would disappear in a mist. "Stay with me."

These words hit him from all sides; from the present and the future, from that day so long ago. Before the Sardukar came to Arrakis. In his own voice.

When his body was much younger and more familiar to himself.

Walk without rhythm.

Duncan instinctively knew what to do with him. He was laid back, he stared at what would have been the vaulted ceiling of his Keep. And the ghola hands touched every part of him that could be reached; his arms, the folds of his knees, the not-so-soft parts of his stomach, over the scarring around his eyes. He felt Duncan touching his privates. His body's water knew what was most important and filled the protuberance that came with being a man.

Paul's body felt the pleasure, it reacted as any man would. He planted his feet and his back arched with every pull. Duncan should be smirking, pleased by the fact that there was still something human inside Paul….

One day, Duncan will hate him.

It was not until his own son came to him that he knew how he had doomed them.

For all of his prescience, all of that magic in the spice, he was still blinded to the true end. But his son… Leto II. The twin who gave him Sight. That child could see through eons, could conquer entire galaxies with only a powerful word.

Paul could see the wake of destruction in a massive Wormtrail.

"Father." The boy, only nine or ten years of age, said in a voice that included the thousands of years since humanity's beginnings. Paul could feel it. His mother and father and all the ancestors before them, they stood in the form of a young man.

A man-no-more.

"Monstrous." Paul whispered.