Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12201180.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Prelude_to_Dune_-_Brian_Herbert_&_Kevin_J._Anderson_&_Stephen_Youll, Dune
      Sequels_-_Brian_Herbert_&_Kevin_J._Anderson, Dune_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Gilbertus/Erasmus, Erasmus/Omnius
  Character:
      Gilbertus_Albans, Erasmus, Omnius, Captive_Slaves
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Dune_Setting, Prequel, Robot, Human, Mentat,
      Computers, Sex, Robot_Sex, Male_Slash, Father-Son_Relationship, Love,
      Love/Hate, Hate_Sex, Domination, War, POV_Third_Person, Teaching, Logic,
      Science_Fiction, Science, Psychopathology_&_Sociopathy, Sexual_Confusion,
      Explicit_Sexual_Content, Confused_Behavior, Human_Computer, An_Unexpected
      Journey, Drug_Use, Emotional_Manipulation, Master/Servant
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-09-27 Chapters: 1/? Words: 3385
****** Trail of Crimson ******
by PinkSugarCrystal
Summary
     A story concerned with the relationship of the feared sentient robot
     Erasmus and his too-be Mentat pupil, Gilbertus Albans.
     When Gilbertus, a curious, precocious individual, is unexpectedly
     removed from his slave pen and taken under the wing of the
     intelligent, superior Erasmus, the two cultivate a relationship
     fueled by both hate and love, in an attempt to train Gilbertus to
     think like a supercomputer.
     Rated E for Explicit Sexual Content, Grisly Violence, Nudity, Drug
     Use, and Brief Strong Language.
I was not able to find any fanfiction involving Erasmus or Gilbertus, a robot
and his Mentat pupil from Dune: Machine Crusade, so after some brainstorming
and constant re-writes, I just decided to write the first one, myself. This
story contains content that would in no way be in the actual books, including
sexual relations (which’ll be later in the story) and other mature themes. This
won’t be a long story, but it’ll still be updated quite a bit along with my
Clone Ways fanfic Rebels of the Underground. Still, I hope you enjoy, and
forgive me for ruining the precious canon. This story does not necessarily
focus on the politics of Machine Crusade, but instead the said relationship
above. You have been warned.
Also, dear God I’m sorry I’ve written this. This is probably going to offend a
bunch of Dune fans.
CHAPTER_1~The_Thinking_Machine
They were all huddled close together and shuddering like the leaves of an aspen
tree in the approaching Fall, their half-naked bodies clinging together with
dirty, sticky skin and hair that fell down their sullied faces in clumped, oily
tendrils. These were their homes: small, unclean pens located in the property
of an ostentatious, vernacular abode that belong to of high superiority. Some
may have said they were lucky. They were able to be alive in these times of war
and political turmoil instead of being caught in hot, nearly-destroyed planets
and blown into smithereens, but those who spoke in such a way never saw the
conditions these slaves thrived in. Most of lost hope, they fought to stay
alive every day, for a small glint of optimism that there would be a better
future for themselves and their children.
At this given moment, fright filled them all to their very core. Locked secure
in their pens, the sound of footsteps, quiet yet reverberating in their ears,
filled the room. They came ever so slowly, as if the feet creating them
belonged to an individual whose existence was to cause misery among them. There
was little truth behind that statement, but the individual currently walking
amongst their pens was one who took avid pleasure in seeing them slowly
deteriorate in both physical and mental nature. Standing 7’, cloaked in a
crimson and silver robe, and wielding a small yet powerful pistol within his
metalloid fingers, Erasmus was their sole owner, and he saw them as both mere
insects and guinea pigs for his experiments on the study pertaining to human
behavior and nature. What the sentient robot had witnessed and discovered had
fascinated him, but overtime began to both bore and disgust him, and as the
experiments grew awry the lives of his captives began a steady decline.
As he was here now, their primal fears had returned more than before. The smell
of urine and shit soon permeated the room, mingling with sweat and a cacophony
of quiet whimpers and weeps. The robot ignored their emissions and continued
his quiet walk down the path in the middle, peeking into each pen with a stoic
look on his face. Normally, he would occasionally clink his gun against his
inner thigh as a way to frighten the captives, startling the ones near him.
This game for him never got old, and he would chuckle at their reactions before
making his way to inspection. However, today was much different that his usual
“visits”, and it appeared that he was looking for something…or someone.
All huddling close to the wall, he merely glanced at them all before continuing
his way down. He continued to do so for a while, occasionally turning his head
when the rats skitted along the floor, their claws digging into the cement
earth. The noise soon became grating on him, and he eventually picked up on one
the rats and slaughtered it with a single hand, his flow-metal palms crushing
into their bones and ending their lives promptly. He dropped the bloody,
fragmented carcass on the floor for the other rodents to feast on while he
continued his search. A nearby young female repressed her squeal and watched in
avid curiosity as the puddle of blood beneath the rodent grew.
The automaton eventually reached the near-end of the pens, peeking in with the
same stoicism and fierceness as he did the others until he saw just what he was
looking for. There, sitting near the door of the pen, was a little boy of age
nine. He looked up at the robot with a mixture of fright and keen curiosity,
his watery blue eyes remained fixated on Erasmus’ optics. His curly blonde hair
sprang in different directions, some of it pulled into a ponytail. A woman, who
couldn’t have possibly be the boy’s mother, was firmly grasping onto the
child’s arm, in a feeble attempt to pull himself against the wall away from
their stall door. However, she had obviously not been given enough time, as she
lay frozen against the wall while remaining grasped to the boy’s arm, who was
obviously trying to pull himself away.
Erasmus smiled perniciously, almost exposing teeth. This was the one he was
looking for, and the crestfallen look on the woman’s face showed that she
realized the boy was the robot’s intention of coming here.
The automaton unlocked their pen door and brought his lithe, muscular arm to
the boy’s hand, before bringing him up to his feet and pulling the boy towards
his body, having him stand by his side. At that abrupt moment, the woman began
to howl and ran over toward her son. Erasmus caught onto her sudden movements
and pulled his pistol out of a pocket in his cloak, promptly aiming it at her
head and pulling the trigger. A sound of rolling thunder resounded throughout
the room, accompanied by a woman’s scream as she fell over onto the cement
ground. Blood, broken bone, and tissue spilled onto the earth and flew onto the
robot’s body and cloak.
She was as good as dead, and now the sound of the gun and the fresh coppery
scent of blood roused the other captives, some of them screaming in rage and
fright. Irritated and amused, Erasmus aimed his gun at a furious, elderly male
slave and shot two rounds into his chest. An explosion of blood and organic
matter flew from his abdomen and onto the other captives that shared his living
quarters. Some promptly became quiet, but others continued to weep and scream.
He emptied more rounds into the vocal ones and was rewarded with blood and
masses of bone matter flying upon him, coating his shiny, flow-metal body in
their grimy viscera. He was enjoying this, but he couldn’t waste any more time
among them.
When most of the captives reduced themselves down once again to quiet whimpers
and choking sobs, Erasmus placed his gun back within his cloak and pulled the
boy out of the stall-house. To his surprise, the boy had not made a sound
during the whole ordeal, but only stared in shock as the robot massacred his
way back into the warm sunshine, which greeted them as if nothing awful had
just happened moments ago. Erasmus smiled as the rays hit his cloak,
penetrating his flow-metal skin and heating him to the core. He gave a
mechanical purr of comfort and ushered the boy with a small shake of his arm,
leading him to his abode on his estate.
As they walked over to it, the boy began to weep quietly.
“I am not going to hurt you, young human,” was the robot’s reply to the boy’s
reaction. “Come, help me wash this organic matter off of me, and I shall tell
you why I have brought you with me.”
The boy sniffed and restrained his tears and whimpers as they entered Erasmus’
immense domicile, incredibly spacious and comfortable looking, decorated by one
with an acute sense of luxury. The doors behind them automatically shut, and
Erasmus led the boy up a flight of massive, marble stairs located in the center
of the room, the footsteps of the robot giving off an eerie ambiance to an
otherwise normally silent residence. The boy looked around in awe—never before
in his life had he seen such luxury before. Of course, most of his life had
been locked away in those pens or in the decrepit, marshy area around its
perimeter, and seeing all this alarmed and frightened him.  Without thinking,
he squeezed his hand tighter into Erasmus’ secure grasp. The robot felt the
boy’s heartrate increase and his anxiety growing by the minute, attempting to
hide it by distracting himself by the unfamiliar, avant-garde decorum. Erasmus
let the boy clutch at him harder as they made their way up the staircase and
down an immaculate, marbled hallway decorated with innovative statues and alien
artwork.
The boy looked at the morbid art pieces with wonder before being pulled through
two white, double-doors. Before he knew it, he was standing in a well-
appointed, light blue bathe room being swiftly disrobed by Erasmus’ nimble
figures. The boy shuddered and looked down upon his naked form.
His body was splattered with blood, flesh, and bone marrow, and the stained,
crimson pile of his normally-brown rags shown that imprints had sunk right
through to his legs, and his naked chest had been hit with sprays of gore. He
began to cry again as the robot filled the tub with hot water, picking up the
naked boy securely under his arms and carefully depositing him into the
bubbling water. The boy felt the urge to run, but he saw the robot’s gun
chinking within his robe, and he knew Erasmus was much faster than he. The
clean scent of the water was soon filling his senses, but out of instinct,
found himself pressing against the back of the tub, tucking his still-stained
legs to his belly and chest.
Erasmus saw his swift reaction and merely frowned, raising himself from his
squatting position over the faucet and removed his robe, dripping with copious
bodily fluids. He rolled it up neatly in his hands, spreading blood across both
his arms like a large paintbrush, before he gently set it aside on a towel. The
boy couldn’t help but stare at him. Now that they were both completely naked
and covered in the same substances, he felt the primal fears begin to fade and
instead be replaced with a slow-growing anger, carefully aerating to the
surface.
Once the tub was mostly full, the robot switched off the faucet and lowered
himself into the water. Remaining taciturn, the water rose to a high level,
just below the boy’s chin, who turned to look away from the Erasmus. The robot
sensed his anger, and tactfully handed the boy a towel to scrub himself with.
The boy did so, his bottom lip slowly going under hit top one and his eyes once
again watering up. He continued crying, but silently, watching as the teardrops
splashed delicately into the bathwater.
Erasmus kept his eyes on the boy as he started washing the corporeal matter off
his chest. “I have states previously that I am not to hurt you, young human.”
“You already have,” the boy murmured, watching particles of flesh that were not
his own begin to pry away from his body. He trembled.
“Do you not have a curiosity of why you are here with me, in the same bathtub
as I?”
“Of course I do!” the boy spat. “But you’re expecting me to not pretend I just
witnessed you massacre a whole group of people, including my step-mom? Isn’t
that one of the reasons why I’m in the bathtub with you?”
The robot remained silent for a moment, and the boy clenched. He felt he had
just angered the Erasmus, but felt he did not care. However, instead, Erasmus
regarded his statement and replied to him in a tone of stimulated calmness.
“You are acting strangely tranquil for a boy covered in his own step-mother’s
organics, as well as those of brethren. I have noticed something about you,
young human.”
“And that’s what?” the boy asked virulently.
Erasmus arched his back against the faucet, crossing hid arms above his now
clean chest.
“I noticed you were a lot different that your slave peers. You are rebellious
and wild, yet you regard beings like me and other thinking machines with an
avid curiosity instead of fear or indifference. Have you ever thought that you
look at the world and react to it in a different way than most other beings of
your species do?”
“N-no. I don’t…I don’t know what you mean or what you’re talking about.”
“That’s because you are young, and don’t understand yourself, yet.”
“And you expect me to believe that you understand me well?”
The automaton tittered and began to laugh. “In all admittance, it is hard for
somebody outside your race to understand your arbitrary behavior. I have
conducted experiments for years and most end in futile and confusion on my
part. I regard myself as quite observant and intelligent, young human. I am a
thinking machine. However, I attempt to look at all that is organic and
inorganic as if each and every member of both classes belongs in a system—as
most of them possess and belong in one. However, your race seems too muddled
and distracted to be following some sort of course or laws of nature.
Although…I have been taking notes on your behavior, young human, and I see a
fascinating pattern of how you react to what’s around you and your emotional
displays toward them.”
“So you’ve…spied on me?” the boy asked, now looking at the droid in fright, his
eyes widening.
“Spying is for those trying to collect and report information to an upper
divisionary of an enemy. Consider what I have done research out of eager
curiosity.”
“That’s weird. You’re wasting your time, robot.”
Erasmus felt affronted. “We all have our habits and idiosyncrasies, young
human. You are with me now because I’m interested in you. I am not to hurt you,
but to house you here, within my abode.”
“But why?” the boy hastily asked. “Do you actually care for me?”
“You could say that,” Erasmus confided gleefully, grabbing the rag again and
continuing his ministrations on his abdomen and below. “As I have said, young
human, you are different and you have the potential to think logically. You do
not believe me, but I know a lot more about you than you realize.”
The boy broke out of his fetal position against the back of the tub, looking at
the robot with a fierce mix of many emotions. He didn’t understand the
automaton’s behavior one bit, nor did he understand the reasoning behind his
actions. It was as if the automaton, himself did not know what he was doing,
but deep inside, the boy had a feeling he truly did know, and that he was right
about the robot truly not knowing himself. The boy was now frightened that the
malevolent figure, whom he always feared, was now showing interest in him and
treating him hospitably, but both passively and aggressively.
The robot suddenly began laughing again. “You’re thinking about everything I’ve
said to you, and are trying to insert reasoning behind it. Do many children
your age do that?”
The boy remained silent and continued to scrub blood off his body, digging
fiercely into the spots that were stained with a darker crimson. The robot
continued brushing the rag against his thigh, until the boy suddenly stood up
and brought his own rag to the automaton’s neckline, scouring it hard enough
that the robot might feel a mild discomfort. Erasmus simply sat there
nonchalantly, waiting patiently as the boy finished rubbing the profuse strands
of tissue off his breast before grasping the thin layer of matter between two
fingers and flinging it into a nearby garbage disposal. The boy then sat down
and got back to work on his own body. Erasmus simply sat there and pondered
over the boy’s behavior, before the organic looked at him in the eyes and
smiled defiantly.
“You’re thinking about why I cleaned you, and are trying to insert reasoning
behind why I would even bother to do so,” the boy mumbled before turning away.
Once they had finished, Erasmus pulled the drain and stepped out of the tub,
dripping cerise droplets onto the towel below. The boy simply sat in the punch-
colored water, watching in morbid fascination and disgust as the strands of
human matter and rivulets of blood were slowly sucked into the drain like party
streamers. The robot disposed of his dirty robe inside a hamper and replenished
himself with a new one, this time white and much thinner than the previous. He
buttoned it with sprightly fingers before handing a similar number to the boy,
who slowly gripped it as if it were tainted with rat poison. He dressed himself
in the comfortable attire and stood there, watching Erasmus as he worked
irritably on one spot of his prominent cheek, standing in front of a grandiose
mirror and closely inspecting the spot. The boy attempted to walk, but because
the robe was designed for a robot over 7’ and not a small boy yet to reach
puberty, he continued to stumble and nearly collapse onto the wet floor.
After another feeble attempt, the robot finally picked him up with little
effort and carried him in his arms, supporting the boys buttocks with one arm
and resting his hand in the boy’s golden hair, gently keeping him across his
chest as he walked out of the bathroom and head down the end of the hallway,
where a good-sized, red recliner resided. Erasmus walked over to it and sat
down gently, rearranging the boy so that his legs dangled off to the side the
chair’s armrest. The boy, much to his surprised, complied, and rested his
dripping head sleepily against the robot’s warm, exposed chest. His body still
remained tense, but he still let the robot keep his arm resting across his leg.
“I don’t want tomorrow to ever happen…” the boy whispered sleepily, closing his
eyes, savoring the evening splaying across them both. “I’m scared…”
“You mustn’t think that way,” Erasmus said, staring straight down the quiet
hallway. “You think I’m malevolent, but you don’t know how much I care for you
right now.”
“I don’t know if I believe you…”
“That’s expected, but you’ll realize it soon enough. This is your home now,
young human.”
The boy sharply exhaled, and the robot relaxed his hand in the boy’s wet locks,
delicately twisted a finger through the fine protein organics. As wet and
greasy as the boy’s hair had been, it still felt terribly soft and warm against
his metal digits.
“This isn’t right,” the boy sighed. Erasmus simply caressed the boy’s back and
cooed gently in his ear, preening the boy’s hair with his dexterous fingertips,
lightly pulling out the excess strands and rocking him gently in his lap. He
could now sense the boy was absolutely terrified. Too sleepy to fight or think
clearly, his muscles were tense and contorted, even more disturbed by the fact
that this robot, with whom he was familiar with his harsh forbearing’s upon he
and others of the lower servant caste, was now cradling him gently in his
strong, metallic arms.
It was at that moment the boy realized Erasmus had never put him through harsh
comportments before. Never scolded or hurt him in any way—but whether that was
because the robot was always fond of him or never caught him attempting to
escape from his view whenever he approached he didn’t know, but his chest felt
crumpled and his stomach remained tight.
He couldn’t fathom that he wasn’t dreaming, but this was the cold reality—and
it had all happened in just a span of a few hours. No warning, no
prognosticating, no foreshadowing…it all just happened in a flash, and here he
was, on the lap of feared Erasmus.
Before he fell asleep in the arms of the robot, he truly wondered if he was
better off than those slaves of the lower caste.
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