#⋯ a mind like a machine ☓ ཾ MARVEL BARDOT ≀ angeldored.

[lyctoralsaints]

"what if they kissed" –– @angeldored from marvel for. shrug emoji (look at me getting the washing machine generator going)

the mentat spoke, and though paul was a capable mentat himself, he listened. marvel was, well –– a marvel. night had already settled beyond the dense, metal walls here in the palace of the atreides in arrakeen, on the desert planet known as dune; all his advisors besides marvel were resting, doubtlessly. his most trusted tactician and perhaps one of his closest friends, the other boy was who paul turned to when he needed a confidant. his dreams had been no different lately, but he had sought marvel's comfort, anyways; the lull of his voice, the imperceptible beat of his heart –– though paul knew its rhythm. he reaches out only when marvel's voice begins to waver, begins to quiet. hands come to settle on either side of a kind visage and he, without hesitation, draws him in. the first kiss cleaves the universe open to starbursts behind his eyelids when they fall closed over his eyes. the second kiss? well, it is a losing battle from there, admittedly. his mind could calculate a thousand digits but it cannot conclude when it was that he had fallen into this yearning, this need. mouths  pressed  together  feels  right,  even  if  he  kisses  like  a  man  who  is  destined  to  die;  that  may  very  well  be  the  truth,  if  he  were  to  pull  away  now  and  marvel  were  to  walk  away  from  him. when he finally wills himself to withdraw, his lungs ache as much as his heart; a steady strumming behind his sternum that could send the duke to his knees if he wasn't still cradling marvel's face betwixt scarred appendages. leaning closer, he rests their foreheads together, grins like there are stars in his teeth. who would he, the duke paul atreides, be if he didn't have his mother's capacity to love against all better judgment? who would he be if he didn't find stability in the way his hands rove through dark strands, the collision of sea - and - earth optics, and the suffocating bliss of being kissed in the dead of night when everyone else sleeps?