Fanfic - SPN: Walking Nightmares - Ch. 1: Lost
Title: Walking Nightmares [Evil!Sammy Universe]
Author: eboniorchid
Full Header for the Series
Chapter One: Lost
[031.Distressed]
"No."
Sammy smiled at him, awkward and bashful, but present and real. "Is this okay?" He gestured at the spread of greasy diner food. "I mean ... it's been a while, right?"
Dean didn't reply so much as hum around the wad of bacon-cheeseburger in his mouth, working to keep the crinkle at the corner of his eyes. He batted a hand at the fly over his shoulder and tried to ignore the creeping shadows in the room.
"No."
Sam's smile faltered, his wide eyes stuck on the buzzing bug as it seemed to grow in flight, a black hummingbird stalled over ketchup-covered fries.
"What the- ... ?" Dean knocked his chair over trying to get away from the morphing animal as it advanced.
"No!"
The bird became a misshapen bat, its massive body like a hole swallowing the light, blocking Dean's every route except retreat. "Sam!" Dean couldn't see his little brother anymore, the doorknob jabbing into his naked back as he yelled over the buzz that had become a screech. "Sammy!"
"Not strong enough."
As the bat became a roaring, frenzied, slashing bear, Dean fought, barehanded and fierce, yanking at a door that never opened and hoping that the monster would follow him out into the night. "Sam! Stay there! I'll- ..." The door shoved away under his shoulder and he went down with the creature clawing deep into and onto him.
All the lights went out.
"No no no no no no no …"
Desperate noises and pleas crept into Dean's ears like specters with nails sinking and scraping and he shivered out of the haze of sleep.
"Dean!"
His name was the trigger that cracked the sluggishness under his skin and he stilled. Assess the situation. Was Sam fighting with someone? Defense mode took hold without further thought, but- ... No, Sam was fighting with himself, his body twisting and nightmare-driven. The fear in Dean's gut had no conscious reference right then, but it was fear for Sam, deep and quaking, as his brother's voice grew louder. He held his breath, listening for the creak or crash of the door springing open to let in guards whose allegiance Dean didn't really know. He couldn't, wouldn't, let them see Sam at his most vulnerable, so he risked himself, cautious fingers brushing his brother's arm in the dark. "Sam, wake up."
"NO!"
Cringing but determined, Dean's voice rose toward a rival shout. "Sam!"
The first thing Sam did when he started, awake, was sit up and reach for Dean, grabbing blindly to his left as if he thought there would be nothing there. Finding Dean's form with his hand, he mapped it in the dark, his voice coated with anxiety as it worked through nearly hyperventilated air. "Dean?!"
Sam's tone had Dean snapping up beside his brother, instinctual concern hurtling him immediately into big brother mode, though he hadn't been in that role for weeks at least. "Yeah, Sam. I'm here. What's wrong?"
Sam stilled, looking around the dark room lit softly by glowing patches of reflected moonlight. When he finally looked at Dean, he blinked, slow, like he had to work to make his eyes focus properly and there was something in those eyes, as if they'd been cloudy skies before and now the sun was hesitantly peeking through. Suddenly Dean was drowning not only in concern but in more hope than he should dare, because … maybe this was it … maybe Sam was waking up from his two-year sleep in the dark. But then Sam's anger flared up hot, though his eyes didn't lose that sheen of desperation, and he shuddered, shoving away the covers and his brother as he jetted from the bed into the bathroom. He didn't even get the door completely closed before Dean heard the clunk of knees on tile and the gag of Sam retching into the toilet, something like a sob following on the heels of each jerk of his stomach.
Dean was up and across the room before he even thought about it, pushing at the half-open door, but it pushed back, hard, nearly taking off his fingers as it slammed shut on the sounds of Sam's sickness. He leaned heavily against the door, heart thudding, lungs clawing for air, and he called to his brother, to the man he hoped was really his brother this time and not his master, his owner. "Sammy! Let me in, Sam. It's okay. Just let me in. Sammy, please."
Between heaves, Sam seemed to mutter under his breath, sounding more hurt than angry, but none of the words soaked through the door enough for Dean to understand. He felt it, though, something twisted up and wrong, like their life had momentarily malfunctioned and he was caught between the gears. A rush of guilt spilled into his system, like a toxin dumped without care into clear streams, and he realized that Sam's curses were directed at him, as if Sam's stomach was empty because Dean had poisoned him.
"Sam, come on. What did I- ... You know, whatever it is, just- ... I'm sorry. Okay? Sammy just- ... Let me in. ... Please!"
"No!" Sam's voice was hard, but still so like his Sam and not like the man he'd spent weeks kneeling for. Dean swallowed down the pleas choking him and pressed tighter against the door as if he could will it to open.
"How could you?" Sam's words were soft, almost wholly muffled by the wood of the door, but Dean heard them well enough and they made him ache worse than he had that first day, feeling Sam's fall hot around him. Somehow he'd done this. He didn't know how, but he'd done this. The thought slammed around in his head and he didn't even know what it was that he'd done, but he felt the surety of culpability deep enough to stumble back, mirroring Sam as he threw-up into the desk-side trashcan.
As he emptied himself into the bin, he heard the water running in the bathroom, and as he stayed bent over, dry heaving now and then, the sounds of gargling came through and he wondered who'd walk out of that room. When the door finally creaked open, his body felt heavy and light at the same time and either way it was unwilling to move. So, he didn't see the face of the man who came up next to him and began to rub gentle, soothing circles into his back.
"Hey. How are you doing?"
"I'm … okay." What he really wanted to say was 'it depends … on who you are.'
"Yeah? Never figured you for a sympathy sickness type, Dean." There was a soft chuckle at the end of his phrase that could've washed down Dean's hope if he let it, but he didn't.
"Are- … Are you okay?" His stomach shivered inside him, but he didn't gag again.
"Yeah. Probably just something I ate. And apparently something you ate too. I'll have to talk to Corinne about whatever the hell it was that she sent up last night."
Dean pulled himself up, reaching for the Kleenex box on the desk to wipe his mouth, but he remained facing away from Sam, letting those fingers trace an 'O' over his lower back, slowly. He had to ask, though, had to try to understand. "What about your dream?"
The hand on his back paused for only a moment before continuing its rounds. "What about it?"
"You freaked out when you woke up, like when we were hunting together and you had those … visions."
"So?"
"So, was it the same?"
"I don't think that's any of your business, whore."
Dean's head dropped with that single word as he closed his eyes and shoved away the grief of hopes suffocating once again.
"What?" Sam moved in close behind him, his hands finding Dean's upper arms as he leaned in to his ear. "Were you expecting something different? Maybe someone different?"
Dean exhaled, strained and shaky, hating the way this Sam could make his hope seem pathetic and futile.
"Time with your dreamboy is restricted to dreamland, Dean. He doesn't get to play outside with the big boys. I'm never going to wake up weak like that. You have to know that."
A vocal confirmation should've gone there, but Dean wouldn't do it, couldn't play a game that moments before had seemed so close to ending.
"Whore ..."
"Fuck. … Fuck!" He bared his teeth, edging towards screaming as his vision blurred, every muscle taut with the urgent need to destroy, destroy, destroy. "Why won't you let me see him?!" My Sam. The Sam you used to be. He wanted to turn, wanted to batter the imposter until he bled back into his Sam, but he couldn't do it, as if some part of him could hold onto hope a little longer if he didn't have to see the ugly truth in his brother's eyes, didn't have to feel demonic strength refuse to flinch under his fists. "Are you punishing me?! For some crime I don't remember?! Because, fuck, if this is justice then- … I must've been a monster." His breath huffed raggedly even as his brother wrapped his arms around him and held him close, his desperation past every stage of containment. "I just wanna see him, just for a minute. I know he was here, just- … Please … sir." He ate his tongue this time, the honorific offered like a vagrant on one knee before the throne. If he could see his Sam, know that his brother was out here in the real world, even captive in the heart of this monstrosity somewhere, if he could know that the real Sam wasn't just a dream in his feverish mind, he could- … he could keep his head together, keep trying to live this out, work it out, fix it.
The silence felt too long, but in clinging to a thread of hope, Dean thought he could nearly wait forever.
"He is holding you." Sam's voice was strong but gentle, an edge of frustration only somewhat sharpening his words, and his effort at patience was tangible. Dean didn't know whether to praise or hate that restraint and all its corollaries. "He has been holding you, fucking you, putting food in your stomach, and making sure that all your bruises are his doing and no one else's. He is me, Dean. You've gotta get this out of your head. There isn't some wonderland out that window for you and some weak fuck who used be me to go frolic in. This is what we've got … and this is what I am." Sam spoke warm against his ear even as Dean's head shifted in an unconvincing shake. "I'm your owner."
Sam took a deep breath, pressing his forehead into the back of Dean's skull for a moment before pulling back. "This is what you are, Dean. You're a whore and you're always going to be a whore. I'm not really going to change, more power and more status probably, but nothing else will really change."
Dean stared at a bar between the windows in front of him, looking through it more than looking at it. He was working to let the words just filter through his mind without sticking, to be heard without being processed and incorporated. It wasn't really working, though, all the words sinking like rocks in a lake, but he still struggled not to react when Sam's hands seized his hips and held them captive as Sam did a slow grind against his ass, a clear message despite the lack of obvious arousal.
"You. Are. A whore. Period. … But somehow you still can't get that through your head, so …" Sam stepped back and away, taking a deep breath then letting it out slowly. "I'm putting you on punishment."
Sam's words were firm but softer. It made Dean turn around to face his brother, his eyes meeting Sam's across the few feet that separated them. "More than this?"
"This isn't punishment, Dean. It's just life."
The stark belief in Sam's eyes forced Dean to look away, lips drawn inward as he quick-sifted through the contradictory information in front of him. "So, you're punishing me for something I did recently?" Confused now more than angry, his eyebrows tipped inward. He thought that he'd worked to stay on Sam's good side, or what passed for it these days anyway. It had been at least two days since Sam had really punished him, the occasional slap or pain play notwithstanding. He'd even been good in his dreams.
Sam seemed to roll the words around in his mouth before letting them go. "Did. Do. Yeah."
"That doesn't-..." Dean shook his head, peering at his brother like a stranger and wanting to say that this didn't make sense, that it didn't fit Sam's pattern here: crime, notice, judgment, punishment. If he'd done something wrong, Sam would've told him so when it happened, let him know that punishment was coming just as soon as Sam's mood and schedule would permit - immediately if possible. It was a technique built for animals and children and fuck if he liked to admit it, but all the evidence said it kind of worked. "Why wait?"
Sam's head tilted off to one side, eyes gleaming with a challenge Dean didn't understand. "Why not use the drug and skip all the work entirely?"
Dean's gaze flitted away again, the floor receiving a glare meant for his brother.
"Because ... I'd hoped that you would come to your senses."
Dean risked a glance back up, noting that his brother's expression had softened by some miniscule amount as his voice took on a decidedly disappointed quality. Dean's mind ran back over everything he could remember, every recent and salient moment of Sam's disapproval, but besides an attitude that he worked to squelch and a problematically overactive dreamlife, there were no other chronic issues that he could see and he'd already received punishment for both. He shook his head slowly, watching his brother for some clue before finally giving up. "About what?"
"Have you thought about escape?" Sam's voice was suddenly harsh, lips were tight over barely parted teeth.
Dean's eyebrows lifted as he considered his brother, more than a little surprised and speaking slowly, as if that could disarm his new interrogator. "I haven't planned anything, if that's what you're asking."
Sam was on him before he could blink, a hand in his hair, yanking his head back, as the mint of his breath scorched hot over the skin of Dean's chin and neck. "Have you thought about escape?"
Dean was breathless, the words spilling out like Sam's tone alone could snap his neck. "How do you expect me not to?!"
"The same way that I expect you not to spend time trying to figure out how to fly to Never-Never Land by jumping out the window and flapping your arms! It's impossible and attempting it would be insane since failure is a foregone conclusion."
Dean blinked at his brother through shuddered breaths and for the first time it really sunk in. Sam wasn't just saying that to keep him from trying something and this wasn't just some mind game. He really didn't believe that Dean would ever be able to escape. It might have been arrogance, maybe, but somehow Dean didn't think so.
"This is your life, Dean, and this is always going to be your life!" Sam all but threw Dean away as he let go of him, staying close enough to menace while Dean fought to stand upright instead of shrink away like the upper half of his bravado. "You're a whore and you're just going to have to learn to live with that. … Which is why I'm putting you on punishment until I think you really get it."
Winded by Sam's words as much as his aggression, Dean knew he should let his eyes drop but he couldn't, entranced by Sam's restrained intensity. "What does that mean, though? 'On punishment.'" His voice wobbled weakly in his ears and he swallowed to strengthen it. "Is it- … How many … strokes?" Fear-fed tension stiffened his body as he waited to hear the number, wondering if Sam would bleed him daily with the whip, hundreds of strokes over.
"I will whip you, but that's not what this is about." Sam held himself and his tongue still for a breath. "I'm taking away some of your privileges."
"My privileges?" What could those possibly be when he had so few good things here?
"Yes, privileges. I told you from the start that you had it better than so many people, but I don't think you've ever really believed me. So, I'm not going to show you everything, but maybe being on punishment for a while will help you be more grateful for the situation that I've chosen for you."
Dean's tension gave way to a shudder, wariness creeping coldly through his veins. Most of what Sam had said before about the way other whores lived was horrific. Some were kept in cages, used by multiple people, never really used at all - only hurt, drugged until they would hurt others to get the 'reward' of use by their owners. He felt the door to his emotions snap shut with a safety lock clicking into place and his eyes fell away from his brother's as the back of his mind filled up with fog.
"For starters, I'm changing your sleeping arrangements."
"How?" His breath raced at the thought of being locked in a cage like some kind of animal.
"You won't be sleeping free of restraints for a while."
He could almost breathe easier. "You're gonna chain me at night?" That wouldn't be too bad, right? He was mostly sleeping then anyway. Usually. So it would be fine. Sure.
"Full body rope bondage actually, with your legs bound up bent so it's easy enough to use you if I want. And you'll be gagged and plugged so all your holes get used to being filled."
He was trying to think about this logically, strategically, unemotionally. "Every night?"
"Until I say otherwise. Yeah."
He worked not to raise his voice, though anger was more comforting than the fear pounding on his inner door, fighting to get out. "How am I supposed to sleep like that, Sam?"
"You'll learn, but I'll try to make sure to exhaust you before I set you up for sleep. And if you start to have serious fatigue issues then … I can just put you down every so often."
"Put me down?" The words rolled like molasses-coated marbles in his mouth, but the pieces came together. Somewhere caught in the grey between days and nights spent hurt and humiliated, Dean vaguely remembered mornings when he felt like he'd missed something, his body aching as it washed away the last of some phantom toxin. He regarded his brother again cautiously, a different kind of fear scraping down his throat. "Do you already do that?"
Sam watched him solemnly, but was silent too long before his voice returned with a hesitant waver that quickly snapped back to matter-of-factness. "I ... keep you healthy."
"What does that mean?" Concocted images flitted through Dean's mind: needles in sleepy arms after hard nights, doctors' hands roving, fixes pumped into his skin so he could be ready for the next round in a day or two, so he was well enough to be more eager than broken, so he lived long enough to serve. He keeps me healthy for his use against my will. Like Sammy kept him sane, kept him fun.
"Whatever it needs to."
If thoughts of escape had been white noise in his mind before, they came crashing to the back of his eyes right then as he faced the frightening reality that despite his mental calendar, he'd never really know how long he'd been here, and despite his work to keep some dignity, some sanity, he'd never really know what happened to him while his mind was medically shoved away. He wanted to throw up, as if he could forcibly remove that news from his reality, his history, his consciousness. This was something he really didn't want to know here. He could handle a lot, but- … He couldn't make his brain function all of a sudden.
"So …" Sam was already taking a deep breath and moving onto something else, unfazed or unwilling to linger.
Focus.
"Besides the new sleeping arrangement, you'll now be disciplined daily, even when you haven't specifically earned a punishment. That way, you can remember why it is that you want to avoid such things. When earned, punishment will be in addition to your daily discipline and, unlike in the past, I won't be splitting major blocks of lashings into more manageable parts. If you rack up five hundred strokes during the day, you'll take them all before I put you to sleep. I don't care if you're bloody and dazed when I'm through, because maybe it'll mean that you'll be too tired and too hurt to be anything other than good the next day."
Word by word, Dean felt a barbed wire fence grow up where a chalk perimeter used to be. 'Obey or suffer' became 'obey and suffer or suffer and suffer some more'.
"You'll also be punished when you don't show initiative often enough. I don't want to have to tell you to do your job all the time. I want you to just do it. Beg me to fuck you. Beg to suck my cock. Beg me to hurt you. Beg to give me what I like and show me that you're a good whore. Like right now, if I was standing here hard - which I'm on my way to, by the way - and you were right there, why not just … go to your knees and beg to service me with your mouth?" Sam's hand gestured casually from his slave to his boxers like this setup was the most obvious thing in the world. "If I looked like I was bored and needed some entertainment, why not just … beg to perform for me, beg to use one of the toys from the box and beg me to watch you? I shouldn't have to ask all the time, whore."
Dean shivered, but he didn't know why. It would still be the same stuff, wouldn't it? He just had to be more active now, more eager. He nodded, subtly and mostly to himself, but inside he was shouting, memories of smashing metal into glass acting as the cacophony underlying the drumming whisper of run ... run ... ru- ...
"Whore?!" Sam's bark made Dean flinch back to the world outside his mind. "What did I just say?"
Dean bit his lip and kept his eyes down. "I- ... Umm- ..."
"I said: You know what your purpose is, so fulfill it. Is that clear?"
They'd worked on this some before, right? He could do it. Didn't want to. Didn't matter.
"And no names."
His internal pep talk came to a halt, eyes shooting up to Sam's. "What do you mean?"
"Most whores don't have the privilege of calling their owners by name, or of keeping their own."
"But what does that mean?"
Sam's eyes flashed as he delivered a quick, hard slap. "Don't get smart with me, whore. It means exactly what I just said. I don't want to hear my name from your filthy mouth again. At least, not unless you've earned that privilege, which you certainly haven't at this point."
Dean kept his head turned away, cheek stinging as he closed his eyes for a moment to calm the rage spiking to hurtle the fear. When he turned back to Sam, all he saw in his brother's eyes was a bit of impatience. Sam really didn't see a problem in any of this, even stripping him of his name and his right to call his own brother by name. It made him wonder, not for the first time, if those flickers of some other Sam, his Sam, were just echoes of something that was already gone. "Who are you?"
Sam blinked, tilting his head one way then the other, then he let his words out, calculated and strong. "My name is Commander Sam Winchester and that is how you should refer to me when someone asks who your owner is. You, though, whore, can call me 'Sir' or 'Master', nothing else. And since you seem to be so mixed up about what you are, I won't be using your name either. What you are is all that matters right now."
"You can't just take my name, Sam." This was not a game that he would play. This was not a sacrifice that he could rationalize. He could not, would not, do it.
Sam's hand crashed into him again, making him stagger, but he brought his eyes back to his brother, defensive fire blazing. "I can do whatever I want, whore. Or haven't you read the Litany lately? Everything that you have and are belongs to me. Even your name. So if I want to take it from you and throw it in the trash, never to be seen again, then I can do that. … Let's say I just did that. Your name is gone. What do you write on your little imaginary nametag now?"
Dean shook his head and glared, jaw tight.
"Oh come on. You know what you are. I say it all the time. You even say it all the time. What's the difference with me only calling you that? You already answer to it."
"But I have a name, Sam, and maybe you've called me ... whatever ... made me say that's what I am, but I won't tell you to call me that like it's my name, because it's not."
"Fifty strokes." Sam shrugged. "If I have an order for you and need to get your attention from across the room, now that I've taken away your birth-name. What should I call you?"
"No."
"You've got a hundred now. Do you really want more? Because that's the only question on the board right now. You know that you'll give me what I want eventually. You always do, because you've been out of options for a long time and you know that. So, what should I call you?"
He shook his head, holding ground that he couldn't lose and still keep himself.
"A hundred and fifty. Do you just want me to make you cry? Are you doing this because you want to give me an excuse to hurt you? Because, if so, just give me what I want and then go get the flogger and beg me to bleed you." Sam reached out to brush his fingers through the hair at Dean's temple and Dean had to work not to flinch though the gesture seemed almost tender, like the shift in Sam's tone. "You know I'm always happy to give you pain if you need it, to help you keep your head on straight. Is this question really that hard for you? Do you want me to give you the strokes now to make you give me what I want? Would that be easier? Then you can even go to sleep with a clean slate."
Dean watched the strained gentleness in his brother's eyes. If he said 'no' again, the next round would hit two hundred strokes, which was way out of his range for handling pain. He kept his mouth shut and his head still, but pressed his anger out through clenched teeth with the heat of his breath.
"You can answer the question and have your strokes tomorrow. Or you can ask me to get the answer out of you now and start fresh tomorrow. Or … you can keep being stubborn and rack up hundreds of lashings until the only thing on my schedule tomorrow is skinning you alive, slowly, with your favorite flogger." Sam's tone altered again, tipping into something patronizing and victorious. "And, of course, if that doesn't work ... there's always the drug."
Dean glared his rage but had no traction, finally looking away, hating that Sam was right. His lungs shook with the effort to breathe rather than scream as he crossed his arms tight over his chest.
"You'll be calling me 'Sir' or 'Master'. … What should I call you?"
Dean opened his mouth then closed it, opened it then closed it again. He'd said it was what he was, but never who he was, like 'Dean Winchester' was already dead and he was just some fuck-ready body named 'Whore'. He knew that he should just let things go, relent, but he couldn't. Even knowing that he wouldn't win, he still had to fight sometimes. And this? His name? The name his parents had given him? The name that was damn near all he had left of his family and his life and himself? He couldn't just … give it up … like it was nothing. He just couldn't. He shook his head. "I can't. I- …"
"Shhh. It's okay." Sam's hand was warm on his arm. "Get me the flogger and beg for what you need before you end up earning more than you can handle. I'll straighten you out. Don't worry."
Dean found himself staring at the hand on his arm, a tremor leaking from his core to every extremity as anger and loathing crashed around inside him. He didn't want to be 'straightened out' or 'handled' or 'helped'. He wanted- … He wanted the brother he'd seen wake up tonight, scared and angry and lost but aware enough to cuss the world out while he puked. "… Don't."
"Whore …" The word came out thickly, made heavy by a warning that was caked-on like mud over cleat spikes. It made Dean's arm bunch under his brother's hot hand and he wondered if his teeth would end up polished and sharp from all the grinding.
"You want me to beg to be beaten into submission."
"I want you to be reasonable, to want to be able to walk tomorrow, to want to keep most of your skin and blood and strength … to want to avoid more pain."
He didn't want to see it, but the truth was clear even in the dark of night.
Today or tomorrow. It wasn't like if he held out, anyone would be coming for him. It wasn't like if he could just keep Sam talking until the sun came up he'd transform back into the Sam he used to know. All it came down to was the question of when, today or tomorrow, just like Sam had said, but either way it was all the same. Whenever he had choice, which may not have even been the right word for this situation, his options were always sex or pain, now or later, a lot or a whole lot more. This time he'd gambled the nothing he had and pulled 'pain', 'now', and 'a lot'. If he kept resisting, the pain would get to be not only 'a whole lot more', but debilitating, maiming. Sam might even beat him to death. Or he'd just give up and drug him into submission and Dean would lose himself in a way far worse than physical pain.
"Get the flogger and beg for what you need."
Dean took a deep breath and then another, letting his auto-pilot kick in as he dipped his head, pulling away and waiting by the toybox for the click of a lock rolling open at Sam's will. Then he reached in for the flogger and came back to Sam, slowly sliding to his knees, head down. His throat creaked as he thought about the fate of his back, almost perpetually bruised now, but he knew that this could be far worse and he just couldn't do what Sam was asking on his own. Survival was trumping dignity in a way he couldn't respect anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to martyr over it either and something human in him cracked as he clawed at some semblance of a life, aching to forget that he would spend it on his knees.
"Beg."
Dean yielded with bitterness leaking from his lips, offering up the whip across his open palms as his brain stomped, angry-slow, through the proper words. "Please … discipline me … sir."
Sam's fingers settled on the flogger's handle and Dean's eyebrows tipped into a tense V, lips drawn closed as he prepared for the inevitable. "Kiss it."
He pressed his lips to the leather like the brittle prayer of a hostaged nonbeliever.
"Go stand at the end of the bed, legs spread, arms too, and I'll restrain you for your two hundred strokes."
His eyes flashed up at his brother. "But you said- …"
"You earned one-fifty, but you need two hundred, so you don't repeat this mistake." Fighting instead of asking for help was a worse crime than he'd thought. "Besides … it'll help you sleep."
"But - ..." Dean's fingers began to curl, instinctive, around the tendrils of the whip as if he could keep them from their owner even as Sam pulled them away.
"Go."
Dean stood up slowly, eyes burning into his brother's, but then he was turning and walking stiffly away until he was at the bottom of the bed, feet shoulder-width apart as he raised his arms up and out. Resistance now would only earn him hundreds more than even the punishment to come. Sam followed soon after him to slide his leather cuffs into place, ankles first, then wrists, each chained to the nearest bedpost, tightening them until Dean could feel the skin of his back, ass, and thighs pull taut.
Sam's heat moved away when he was through and Dean felt the soft wind of the flogger rushing through the air inches from his skin as Sam took his time, found his rhythm, before he finally let it land. Right. Breathe. Left. Breathe. Right. Breathe. Left. Breathe. Each strike slid between his shoulder blades with a thud-brush that made each bit of breath move in a two-beat process. Out-out. In-in. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. It was like a massage, at first, instead of pain, but things slowly started to get heavy and he strained against his bonds.
"Fifty."
The flogger moved from a deep thud to a hard slam and Dean's fingers twisted into fists as he gritted his teeth, taking on the heavy beat of slam - slam - slam - slam. By the time Sam said "a hundred," Dean's eyes were squeezed shut and he felt shaky, nauseous, but when asked for his answer, what he replied was a jagged "no!" As the steady rhythm rose to something faster, though, his breath worked to survive like the rest of him and he realized that his jaw was clenched, that he was holding everything in and he would break faster that way, his mouth aching and tasting of coppery ash.
His first truly free noise was wrenched from him, thrown out of his body as so many leather tails pounded into his skin. Shouting meant he didn't have to throw up, even if the stuttered groans grew louder as he began to shake his head, wrists and arms stretched sore as he tried to get away, even knowing that he couldn't. Still, he didn't realize he was crying until he tasted it, heaving in cool tears and warm sweat between every 'god,' every 'please,' every 'Sam,' every 'sir,' and he didn't stop shaking even when Sam paused after sighing "one fifty."
Begging for the end sat on the tip of his tongue, but without the painful smack of leather on skin, he couldn't let it out. He just shook his head, tasting teeth-bloodied lips as his vision swam.
Breathing hard, Sam seemed to pace behind him, his voice loud. "What should I call you?"
Whore. "Don't do this." His words were a trembling whisper.
"It's already done. Your name is gone. I sent it through the shredder, then I incinerated all the tiny pieces. So what should I call you? What's the only name that applies now?"
Whore. Dean started to shake his head again, but ended up yelling, tears springing to his eyes as the handle of the whip scraped, broad-side and deep, down his freshly-whipped back. When it settled then lifted away at the base of his spine, Dean was still making incoherent noises though he quieted eventually.
"Your name is gone because it needed to go. The man who wore that name before was likely to get himself killed, trying to hold onto a past that was already dead."
Dean heard Sam swallow heavily behind him and he almost mumbled thoughts about who'd be doing the killing, but heightened pain hadn't heightened his idiocy.
"And if you keep acting like some brat instead of the whore you've been trained to be, then I'll never have a reason to even think about giving your name back. I won't let you wear it unless and until you have the man you used to be under control."
There was a sob in Dean's throat that he wouldn't let out. He just shook his head, all the more defiant because he could already feel himself folding, his body begging his stubborn mouth to say the word Sam wanted.
"Fine."
Sam's word was more angry than smug and he didn't take the time to savor it. He just stepped back and swung hard enough to have Dean shouting from the start, strung tight like he'd been nailed to a cross. Dean's consciousness fled or was stolen away into the burning red of pain as it fell like a rain of war-hammers into his system until he was yelling and sobbing without end, his palms slick with self-drawn blood. He couldn't even catch his breath when Sam stopped, it was all just garbled pleas and sniveling that he didn't have enough mind to mask or deny.
"That was two hundred." Sam crept into his space, the heat of his breath enough to make Dean choke on his own, internally begging not to be touched or fucked or beaten anymore, as if getting away was an option, now or ever. "You had enough now?"
Dean already knew his answer, but Sam's fingers playing at his hip made his head drop-nod in a sob he couldn't stop.
Sam breathed slowly and spoke low. "What should I call you?"
Not Dean. The word fell, robotic. "… Whore."
"Who are you?"
His mouth hurt, throat hurt, head hurt, heart hurt. "… Whore."
Sam got right up close, lips against his ear, a hand on his bruise-hot back. "Who is 'Dean Winchester'?"
Stop. "I- … dunno sir." His muscles clenched enough to make a whimper slip because he wasn't sure that his statement was a lie.
"So you don't answer to that?"
Dean started to shake his head, but stopped, the discomforting press of Sam's hand urged him forward, though, onward into the dark. "… No, sir."
"What do you answer to?"
"… Whore."
"That's the right name, isn't it? Fitting for an owned slut like you?"
The shift of Sam's hips right then told Dean that after this he'd have to- …. Sam would bruise him on the inside too, make him beg. Fucking slut. "Yes, sir." He felt so much hate that his lungs and veins were setting like concrete, but he wasn't sure who all that hate was for anymore. Whore.
"So tell me again so neither of us forgets. From now on your only name is what?"
His hitched breaths had quieted their way to nothing though he still stood shaking. He could do this, though, had to, and it almost felt easier when Sam's fingers pressed into his pain, his throat scratchy as he replied through lips that felt impossibly heavy, the poison of his words making them swell. "Whore … sir." In the aching dark, Dean felt his soul rip. "Whore is … my only name."
"And it will be that way until I decide otherwise, but no matter what you answer to, 'whore' will always be your most important name. Is that clear, whore?"
All Dean's pleading, his anger, his sadness, his fear, had been beaten flat and chased away like inconsequential bugs and the floor seemed to weave under his feet. He could only steady a mind on the edge by giving in and giving himself an end. Even lost and broken, he found the strength to say 'yesssir' before collapse pulled the shade over his eyes.
Chapters: 1.Lost - 2.Exposed - 3.Used - 4.Hurt - 5.Modified
Author: eboniorchid
Full Header for the Series
Chapter One: Lost
[031.Distressed]
"No."
Sammy smiled at him, awkward and bashful, but present and real. "Is this okay?" He gestured at the spread of greasy diner food. "I mean ... it's been a while, right?"
Dean didn't reply so much as hum around the wad of bacon-cheeseburger in his mouth, working to keep the crinkle at the corner of his eyes. He batted a hand at the fly over his shoulder and tried to ignore the creeping shadows in the room.
"No."
Sam's smile faltered, his wide eyes stuck on the buzzing bug as it seemed to grow in flight, a black hummingbird stalled over ketchup-covered fries.
"What the- ... ?" Dean knocked his chair over trying to get away from the morphing animal as it advanced.
"No!"
The bird became a misshapen bat, its massive body like a hole swallowing the light, blocking Dean's every route except retreat. "Sam!" Dean couldn't see his little brother anymore, the doorknob jabbing into his naked back as he yelled over the buzz that had become a screech. "Sammy!"
"Not strong enough."
As the bat became a roaring, frenzied, slashing bear, Dean fought, barehanded and fierce, yanking at a door that never opened and hoping that the monster would follow him out into the night. "Sam! Stay there! I'll- ..." The door shoved away under his shoulder and he went down with the creature clawing deep into and onto him.
All the lights went out.
"No no no no no no no …"
Desperate noises and pleas crept into Dean's ears like specters with nails sinking and scraping and he shivered out of the haze of sleep.
"Dean!"
His name was the trigger that cracked the sluggishness under his skin and he stilled. Assess the situation. Was Sam fighting with someone? Defense mode took hold without further thought, but- ... No, Sam was fighting with himself, his body twisting and nightmare-driven. The fear in Dean's gut had no conscious reference right then, but it was fear for Sam, deep and quaking, as his brother's voice grew louder. He held his breath, listening for the creak or crash of the door springing open to let in guards whose allegiance Dean didn't really know. He couldn't, wouldn't, let them see Sam at his most vulnerable, so he risked himself, cautious fingers brushing his brother's arm in the dark. "Sam, wake up."
"NO!"
Cringing but determined, Dean's voice rose toward a rival shout. "Sam!"
The first thing Sam did when he started, awake, was sit up and reach for Dean, grabbing blindly to his left as if he thought there would be nothing there. Finding Dean's form with his hand, he mapped it in the dark, his voice coated with anxiety as it worked through nearly hyperventilated air. "Dean?!"
Sam's tone had Dean snapping up beside his brother, instinctual concern hurtling him immediately into big brother mode, though he hadn't been in that role for weeks at least. "Yeah, Sam. I'm here. What's wrong?"
Sam stilled, looking around the dark room lit softly by glowing patches of reflected moonlight. When he finally looked at Dean, he blinked, slow, like he had to work to make his eyes focus properly and there was something in those eyes, as if they'd been cloudy skies before and now the sun was hesitantly peeking through. Suddenly Dean was drowning not only in concern but in more hope than he should dare, because … maybe this was it … maybe Sam was waking up from his two-year sleep in the dark. But then Sam's anger flared up hot, though his eyes didn't lose that sheen of desperation, and he shuddered, shoving away the covers and his brother as he jetted from the bed into the bathroom. He didn't even get the door completely closed before Dean heard the clunk of knees on tile and the gag of Sam retching into the toilet, something like a sob following on the heels of each jerk of his stomach.
Dean was up and across the room before he even thought about it, pushing at the half-open door, but it pushed back, hard, nearly taking off his fingers as it slammed shut on the sounds of Sam's sickness. He leaned heavily against the door, heart thudding, lungs clawing for air, and he called to his brother, to the man he hoped was really his brother this time and not his master, his owner. "Sammy! Let me in, Sam. It's okay. Just let me in. Sammy, please."
Between heaves, Sam seemed to mutter under his breath, sounding more hurt than angry, but none of the words soaked through the door enough for Dean to understand. He felt it, though, something twisted up and wrong, like their life had momentarily malfunctioned and he was caught between the gears. A rush of guilt spilled into his system, like a toxin dumped without care into clear streams, and he realized that Sam's curses were directed at him, as if Sam's stomach was empty because Dean had poisoned him.
"Sam, come on. What did I- ... You know, whatever it is, just- ... I'm sorry. Okay? Sammy just- ... Let me in. ... Please!"
"No!" Sam's voice was hard, but still so like his Sam and not like the man he'd spent weeks kneeling for. Dean swallowed down the pleas choking him and pressed tighter against the door as if he could will it to open.
"How could you?" Sam's words were soft, almost wholly muffled by the wood of the door, but Dean heard them well enough and they made him ache worse than he had that first day, feeling Sam's fall hot around him. Somehow he'd done this. He didn't know how, but he'd done this. The thought slammed around in his head and he didn't even know what it was that he'd done, but he felt the surety of culpability deep enough to stumble back, mirroring Sam as he threw-up into the desk-side trashcan.
As he emptied himself into the bin, he heard the water running in the bathroom, and as he stayed bent over, dry heaving now and then, the sounds of gargling came through and he wondered who'd walk out of that room. When the door finally creaked open, his body felt heavy and light at the same time and either way it was unwilling to move. So, he didn't see the face of the man who came up next to him and began to rub gentle, soothing circles into his back.
"Hey. How are you doing?"
"I'm … okay." What he really wanted to say was 'it depends … on who you are.'
"Yeah? Never figured you for a sympathy sickness type, Dean." There was a soft chuckle at the end of his phrase that could've washed down Dean's hope if he let it, but he didn't.
"Are- … Are you okay?" His stomach shivered inside him, but he didn't gag again.
"Yeah. Probably just something I ate. And apparently something you ate too. I'll have to talk to Corinne about whatever the hell it was that she sent up last night."
Dean pulled himself up, reaching for the Kleenex box on the desk to wipe his mouth, but he remained facing away from Sam, letting those fingers trace an 'O' over his lower back, slowly. He had to ask, though, had to try to understand. "What about your dream?"
The hand on his back paused for only a moment before continuing its rounds. "What about it?"
"You freaked out when you woke up, like when we were hunting together and you had those … visions."
"So?"
"So, was it the same?"
"I don't think that's any of your business, whore."
Dean's head dropped with that single word as he closed his eyes and shoved away the grief of hopes suffocating once again.
"What?" Sam moved in close behind him, his hands finding Dean's upper arms as he leaned in to his ear. "Were you expecting something different? Maybe someone different?"
Dean exhaled, strained and shaky, hating the way this Sam could make his hope seem pathetic and futile.
"Time with your dreamboy is restricted to dreamland, Dean. He doesn't get to play outside with the big boys. I'm never going to wake up weak like that. You have to know that."
A vocal confirmation should've gone there, but Dean wouldn't do it, couldn't play a game that moments before had seemed so close to ending.
"Whore ..."
"Fuck. … Fuck!" He bared his teeth, edging towards screaming as his vision blurred, every muscle taut with the urgent need to destroy, destroy, destroy. "Why won't you let me see him?!" My Sam. The Sam you used to be. He wanted to turn, wanted to batter the imposter until he bled back into his Sam, but he couldn't do it, as if some part of him could hold onto hope a little longer if he didn't have to see the ugly truth in his brother's eyes, didn't have to feel demonic strength refuse to flinch under his fists. "Are you punishing me?! For some crime I don't remember?! Because, fuck, if this is justice then- … I must've been a monster." His breath huffed raggedly even as his brother wrapped his arms around him and held him close, his desperation past every stage of containment. "I just wanna see him, just for a minute. I know he was here, just- … Please … sir." He ate his tongue this time, the honorific offered like a vagrant on one knee before the throne. If he could see his Sam, know that his brother was out here in the real world, even captive in the heart of this monstrosity somewhere, if he could know that the real Sam wasn't just a dream in his feverish mind, he could- … he could keep his head together, keep trying to live this out, work it out, fix it.
The silence felt too long, but in clinging to a thread of hope, Dean thought he could nearly wait forever.
"He is holding you." Sam's voice was strong but gentle, an edge of frustration only somewhat sharpening his words, and his effort at patience was tangible. Dean didn't know whether to praise or hate that restraint and all its corollaries. "He has been holding you, fucking you, putting food in your stomach, and making sure that all your bruises are his doing and no one else's. He is me, Dean. You've gotta get this out of your head. There isn't some wonderland out that window for you and some weak fuck who used be me to go frolic in. This is what we've got … and this is what I am." Sam spoke warm against his ear even as Dean's head shifted in an unconvincing shake. "I'm your owner."
Sam took a deep breath, pressing his forehead into the back of Dean's skull for a moment before pulling back. "This is what you are, Dean. You're a whore and you're always going to be a whore. I'm not really going to change, more power and more status probably, but nothing else will really change."
Dean stared at a bar between the windows in front of him, looking through it more than looking at it. He was working to let the words just filter through his mind without sticking, to be heard without being processed and incorporated. It wasn't really working, though, all the words sinking like rocks in a lake, but he still struggled not to react when Sam's hands seized his hips and held them captive as Sam did a slow grind against his ass, a clear message despite the lack of obvious arousal.
"You. Are. A whore. Period. … But somehow you still can't get that through your head, so …" Sam stepped back and away, taking a deep breath then letting it out slowly. "I'm putting you on punishment."
Sam's words were firm but softer. It made Dean turn around to face his brother, his eyes meeting Sam's across the few feet that separated them. "More than this?"
"This isn't punishment, Dean. It's just life."
The stark belief in Sam's eyes forced Dean to look away, lips drawn inward as he quick-sifted through the contradictory information in front of him. "So, you're punishing me for something I did recently?" Confused now more than angry, his eyebrows tipped inward. He thought that he'd worked to stay on Sam's good side, or what passed for it these days anyway. It had been at least two days since Sam had really punished him, the occasional slap or pain play notwithstanding. He'd even been good in his dreams.
Sam seemed to roll the words around in his mouth before letting them go. "Did. Do. Yeah."
"That doesn't-..." Dean shook his head, peering at his brother like a stranger and wanting to say that this didn't make sense, that it didn't fit Sam's pattern here: crime, notice, judgment, punishment. If he'd done something wrong, Sam would've told him so when it happened, let him know that punishment was coming just as soon as Sam's mood and schedule would permit - immediately if possible. It was a technique built for animals and children and fuck if he liked to admit it, but all the evidence said it kind of worked. "Why wait?"
Sam's head tilted off to one side, eyes gleaming with a challenge Dean didn't understand. "Why not use the drug and skip all the work entirely?"
Dean's gaze flitted away again, the floor receiving a glare meant for his brother.
"Because ... I'd hoped that you would come to your senses."
Dean risked a glance back up, noting that his brother's expression had softened by some miniscule amount as his voice took on a decidedly disappointed quality. Dean's mind ran back over everything he could remember, every recent and salient moment of Sam's disapproval, but besides an attitude that he worked to squelch and a problematically overactive dreamlife, there were no other chronic issues that he could see and he'd already received punishment for both. He shook his head slowly, watching his brother for some clue before finally giving up. "About what?"
"Have you thought about escape?" Sam's voice was suddenly harsh, lips were tight over barely parted teeth.
Dean's eyebrows lifted as he considered his brother, more than a little surprised and speaking slowly, as if that could disarm his new interrogator. "I haven't planned anything, if that's what you're asking."
Sam was on him before he could blink, a hand in his hair, yanking his head back, as the mint of his breath scorched hot over the skin of Dean's chin and neck. "Have you thought about escape?"
Dean was breathless, the words spilling out like Sam's tone alone could snap his neck. "How do you expect me not to?!"
"The same way that I expect you not to spend time trying to figure out how to fly to Never-Never Land by jumping out the window and flapping your arms! It's impossible and attempting it would be insane since failure is a foregone conclusion."
Dean blinked at his brother through shuddered breaths and for the first time it really sunk in. Sam wasn't just saying that to keep him from trying something and this wasn't just some mind game. He really didn't believe that Dean would ever be able to escape. It might have been arrogance, maybe, but somehow Dean didn't think so.
"This is your life, Dean, and this is always going to be your life!" Sam all but threw Dean away as he let go of him, staying close enough to menace while Dean fought to stand upright instead of shrink away like the upper half of his bravado. "You're a whore and you're just going to have to learn to live with that. … Which is why I'm putting you on punishment until I think you really get it."
Winded by Sam's words as much as his aggression, Dean knew he should let his eyes drop but he couldn't, entranced by Sam's restrained intensity. "What does that mean, though? 'On punishment.'" His voice wobbled weakly in his ears and he swallowed to strengthen it. "Is it- … How many … strokes?" Fear-fed tension stiffened his body as he waited to hear the number, wondering if Sam would bleed him daily with the whip, hundreds of strokes over.
"I will whip you, but that's not what this is about." Sam held himself and his tongue still for a breath. "I'm taking away some of your privileges."
"My privileges?" What could those possibly be when he had so few good things here?
"Yes, privileges. I told you from the start that you had it better than so many people, but I don't think you've ever really believed me. So, I'm not going to show you everything, but maybe being on punishment for a while will help you be more grateful for the situation that I've chosen for you."
Dean's tension gave way to a shudder, wariness creeping coldly through his veins. Most of what Sam had said before about the way other whores lived was horrific. Some were kept in cages, used by multiple people, never really used at all - only hurt, drugged until they would hurt others to get the 'reward' of use by their owners. He felt the door to his emotions snap shut with a safety lock clicking into place and his eyes fell away from his brother's as the back of his mind filled up with fog.
"For starters, I'm changing your sleeping arrangements."
"How?" His breath raced at the thought of being locked in a cage like some kind of animal.
"You won't be sleeping free of restraints for a while."
He could almost breathe easier. "You're gonna chain me at night?" That wouldn't be too bad, right? He was mostly sleeping then anyway. Usually. So it would be fine. Sure.
"Full body rope bondage actually, with your legs bound up bent so it's easy enough to use you if I want. And you'll be gagged and plugged so all your holes get used to being filled."
He was trying to think about this logically, strategically, unemotionally. "Every night?"
"Until I say otherwise. Yeah."
He worked not to raise his voice, though anger was more comforting than the fear pounding on his inner door, fighting to get out. "How am I supposed to sleep like that, Sam?"
"You'll learn, but I'll try to make sure to exhaust you before I set you up for sleep. And if you start to have serious fatigue issues then … I can just put you down every so often."
"Put me down?" The words rolled like molasses-coated marbles in his mouth, but the pieces came together. Somewhere caught in the grey between days and nights spent hurt and humiliated, Dean vaguely remembered mornings when he felt like he'd missed something, his body aching as it washed away the last of some phantom toxin. He regarded his brother again cautiously, a different kind of fear scraping down his throat. "Do you already do that?"
Sam watched him solemnly, but was silent too long before his voice returned with a hesitant waver that quickly snapped back to matter-of-factness. "I ... keep you healthy."
"What does that mean?" Concocted images flitted through Dean's mind: needles in sleepy arms after hard nights, doctors' hands roving, fixes pumped into his skin so he could be ready for the next round in a day or two, so he was well enough to be more eager than broken, so he lived long enough to serve. He keeps me healthy for his use against my will. Like Sammy kept him sane, kept him fun.
"Whatever it needs to."
If thoughts of escape had been white noise in his mind before, they came crashing to the back of his eyes right then as he faced the frightening reality that despite his mental calendar, he'd never really know how long he'd been here, and despite his work to keep some dignity, some sanity, he'd never really know what happened to him while his mind was medically shoved away. He wanted to throw up, as if he could forcibly remove that news from his reality, his history, his consciousness. This was something he really didn't want to know here. He could handle a lot, but- … He couldn't make his brain function all of a sudden.
"So …" Sam was already taking a deep breath and moving onto something else, unfazed or unwilling to linger.
Focus.
"Besides the new sleeping arrangement, you'll now be disciplined daily, even when you haven't specifically earned a punishment. That way, you can remember why it is that you want to avoid such things. When earned, punishment will be in addition to your daily discipline and, unlike in the past, I won't be splitting major blocks of lashings into more manageable parts. If you rack up five hundred strokes during the day, you'll take them all before I put you to sleep. I don't care if you're bloody and dazed when I'm through, because maybe it'll mean that you'll be too tired and too hurt to be anything other than good the next day."
Word by word, Dean felt a barbed wire fence grow up where a chalk perimeter used to be. 'Obey or suffer' became 'obey and suffer or suffer and suffer some more'.
"You'll also be punished when you don't show initiative often enough. I don't want to have to tell you to do your job all the time. I want you to just do it. Beg me to fuck you. Beg to suck my cock. Beg me to hurt you. Beg to give me what I like and show me that you're a good whore. Like right now, if I was standing here hard - which I'm on my way to, by the way - and you were right there, why not just … go to your knees and beg to service me with your mouth?" Sam's hand gestured casually from his slave to his boxers like this setup was the most obvious thing in the world. "If I looked like I was bored and needed some entertainment, why not just … beg to perform for me, beg to use one of the toys from the box and beg me to watch you? I shouldn't have to ask all the time, whore."
Dean shivered, but he didn't know why. It would still be the same stuff, wouldn't it? He just had to be more active now, more eager. He nodded, subtly and mostly to himself, but inside he was shouting, memories of smashing metal into glass acting as the cacophony underlying the drumming whisper of run ... run ... ru- ...
"Whore?!" Sam's bark made Dean flinch back to the world outside his mind. "What did I just say?"
Dean bit his lip and kept his eyes down. "I- ... Umm- ..."
"I said: You know what your purpose is, so fulfill it. Is that clear?"
They'd worked on this some before, right? He could do it. Didn't want to. Didn't matter.
"And no names."
His internal pep talk came to a halt, eyes shooting up to Sam's. "What do you mean?"
"Most whores don't have the privilege of calling their owners by name, or of keeping their own."
"But what does that mean?"
Sam's eyes flashed as he delivered a quick, hard slap. "Don't get smart with me, whore. It means exactly what I just said. I don't want to hear my name from your filthy mouth again. At least, not unless you've earned that privilege, which you certainly haven't at this point."
Dean kept his head turned away, cheek stinging as he closed his eyes for a moment to calm the rage spiking to hurtle the fear. When he turned back to Sam, all he saw in his brother's eyes was a bit of impatience. Sam really didn't see a problem in any of this, even stripping him of his name and his right to call his own brother by name. It made him wonder, not for the first time, if those flickers of some other Sam, his Sam, were just echoes of something that was already gone. "Who are you?"
Sam blinked, tilting his head one way then the other, then he let his words out, calculated and strong. "My name is Commander Sam Winchester and that is how you should refer to me when someone asks who your owner is. You, though, whore, can call me 'Sir' or 'Master', nothing else. And since you seem to be so mixed up about what you are, I won't be using your name either. What you are is all that matters right now."
"You can't just take my name, Sam." This was not a game that he would play. This was not a sacrifice that he could rationalize. He could not, would not, do it.
Sam's hand crashed into him again, making him stagger, but he brought his eyes back to his brother, defensive fire blazing. "I can do whatever I want, whore. Or haven't you read the Litany lately? Everything that you have and are belongs to me. Even your name. So if I want to take it from you and throw it in the trash, never to be seen again, then I can do that. … Let's say I just did that. Your name is gone. What do you write on your little imaginary nametag now?"
Dean shook his head and glared, jaw tight.
"Oh come on. You know what you are. I say it all the time. You even say it all the time. What's the difference with me only calling you that? You already answer to it."
"But I have a name, Sam, and maybe you've called me ... whatever ... made me say that's what I am, but I won't tell you to call me that like it's my name, because it's not."
"Fifty strokes." Sam shrugged. "If I have an order for you and need to get your attention from across the room, now that I've taken away your birth-name. What should I call you?"
"No."
"You've got a hundred now. Do you really want more? Because that's the only question on the board right now. You know that you'll give me what I want eventually. You always do, because you've been out of options for a long time and you know that. So, what should I call you?"
He shook his head, holding ground that he couldn't lose and still keep himself.
"A hundred and fifty. Do you just want me to make you cry? Are you doing this because you want to give me an excuse to hurt you? Because, if so, just give me what I want and then go get the flogger and beg me to bleed you." Sam reached out to brush his fingers through the hair at Dean's temple and Dean had to work not to flinch though the gesture seemed almost tender, like the shift in Sam's tone. "You know I'm always happy to give you pain if you need it, to help you keep your head on straight. Is this question really that hard for you? Do you want me to give you the strokes now to make you give me what I want? Would that be easier? Then you can even go to sleep with a clean slate."
Dean watched the strained gentleness in his brother's eyes. If he said 'no' again, the next round would hit two hundred strokes, which was way out of his range for handling pain. He kept his mouth shut and his head still, but pressed his anger out through clenched teeth with the heat of his breath.
"You can answer the question and have your strokes tomorrow. Or you can ask me to get the answer out of you now and start fresh tomorrow. Or … you can keep being stubborn and rack up hundreds of lashings until the only thing on my schedule tomorrow is skinning you alive, slowly, with your favorite flogger." Sam's tone altered again, tipping into something patronizing and victorious. "And, of course, if that doesn't work ... there's always the drug."
Dean glared his rage but had no traction, finally looking away, hating that Sam was right. His lungs shook with the effort to breathe rather than scream as he crossed his arms tight over his chest.
"You'll be calling me 'Sir' or 'Master'. … What should I call you?"
Dean opened his mouth then closed it, opened it then closed it again. He'd said it was what he was, but never who he was, like 'Dean Winchester' was already dead and he was just some fuck-ready body named 'Whore'. He knew that he should just let things go, relent, but he couldn't. Even knowing that he wouldn't win, he still had to fight sometimes. And this? His name? The name his parents had given him? The name that was damn near all he had left of his family and his life and himself? He couldn't just … give it up … like it was nothing. He just couldn't. He shook his head. "I can't. I- …"
"Shhh. It's okay." Sam's hand was warm on his arm. "Get me the flogger and beg for what you need before you end up earning more than you can handle. I'll straighten you out. Don't worry."
Dean found himself staring at the hand on his arm, a tremor leaking from his core to every extremity as anger and loathing crashed around inside him. He didn't want to be 'straightened out' or 'handled' or 'helped'. He wanted- … He wanted the brother he'd seen wake up tonight, scared and angry and lost but aware enough to cuss the world out while he puked. "… Don't."
"Whore …" The word came out thickly, made heavy by a warning that was caked-on like mud over cleat spikes. It made Dean's arm bunch under his brother's hot hand and he wondered if his teeth would end up polished and sharp from all the grinding.
"You want me to beg to be beaten into submission."
"I want you to be reasonable, to want to be able to walk tomorrow, to want to keep most of your skin and blood and strength … to want to avoid more pain."
He didn't want to see it, but the truth was clear even in the dark of night.
Today or tomorrow. It wasn't like if he held out, anyone would be coming for him. It wasn't like if he could just keep Sam talking until the sun came up he'd transform back into the Sam he used to know. All it came down to was the question of when, today or tomorrow, just like Sam had said, but either way it was all the same. Whenever he had choice, which may not have even been the right word for this situation, his options were always sex or pain, now or later, a lot or a whole lot more. This time he'd gambled the nothing he had and pulled 'pain', 'now', and 'a lot'. If he kept resisting, the pain would get to be not only 'a whole lot more', but debilitating, maiming. Sam might even beat him to death. Or he'd just give up and drug him into submission and Dean would lose himself in a way far worse than physical pain.
"Get the flogger and beg for what you need."
Dean took a deep breath and then another, letting his auto-pilot kick in as he dipped his head, pulling away and waiting by the toybox for the click of a lock rolling open at Sam's will. Then he reached in for the flogger and came back to Sam, slowly sliding to his knees, head down. His throat creaked as he thought about the fate of his back, almost perpetually bruised now, but he knew that this could be far worse and he just couldn't do what Sam was asking on his own. Survival was trumping dignity in a way he couldn't respect anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to martyr over it either and something human in him cracked as he clawed at some semblance of a life, aching to forget that he would spend it on his knees.
"Beg."
Dean yielded with bitterness leaking from his lips, offering up the whip across his open palms as his brain stomped, angry-slow, through the proper words. "Please … discipline me … sir."
Sam's fingers settled on the flogger's handle and Dean's eyebrows tipped into a tense V, lips drawn closed as he prepared for the inevitable. "Kiss it."
He pressed his lips to the leather like the brittle prayer of a hostaged nonbeliever.
"Go stand at the end of the bed, legs spread, arms too, and I'll restrain you for your two hundred strokes."
His eyes flashed up at his brother. "But you said- …"
"You earned one-fifty, but you need two hundred, so you don't repeat this mistake." Fighting instead of asking for help was a worse crime than he'd thought. "Besides … it'll help you sleep."
"But - ..." Dean's fingers began to curl, instinctive, around the tendrils of the whip as if he could keep them from their owner even as Sam pulled them away.
"Go."
Dean stood up slowly, eyes burning into his brother's, but then he was turning and walking stiffly away until he was at the bottom of the bed, feet shoulder-width apart as he raised his arms up and out. Resistance now would only earn him hundreds more than even the punishment to come. Sam followed soon after him to slide his leather cuffs into place, ankles first, then wrists, each chained to the nearest bedpost, tightening them until Dean could feel the skin of his back, ass, and thighs pull taut.
Sam's heat moved away when he was through and Dean felt the soft wind of the flogger rushing through the air inches from his skin as Sam took his time, found his rhythm, before he finally let it land. Right. Breathe. Left. Breathe. Right. Breathe. Left. Breathe. Each strike slid between his shoulder blades with a thud-brush that made each bit of breath move in a two-beat process. Out-out. In-in. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. It was like a massage, at first, instead of pain, but things slowly started to get heavy and he strained against his bonds.
"Fifty."
The flogger moved from a deep thud to a hard slam and Dean's fingers twisted into fists as he gritted his teeth, taking on the heavy beat of slam - slam - slam - slam. By the time Sam said "a hundred," Dean's eyes were squeezed shut and he felt shaky, nauseous, but when asked for his answer, what he replied was a jagged "no!" As the steady rhythm rose to something faster, though, his breath worked to survive like the rest of him and he realized that his jaw was clenched, that he was holding everything in and he would break faster that way, his mouth aching and tasting of coppery ash.
His first truly free noise was wrenched from him, thrown out of his body as so many leather tails pounded into his skin. Shouting meant he didn't have to throw up, even if the stuttered groans grew louder as he began to shake his head, wrists and arms stretched sore as he tried to get away, even knowing that he couldn't. Still, he didn't realize he was crying until he tasted it, heaving in cool tears and warm sweat between every 'god,' every 'please,' every 'Sam,' every 'sir,' and he didn't stop shaking even when Sam paused after sighing "one fifty."
Begging for the end sat on the tip of his tongue, but without the painful smack of leather on skin, he couldn't let it out. He just shook his head, tasting teeth-bloodied lips as his vision swam.
Breathing hard, Sam seemed to pace behind him, his voice loud. "What should I call you?"
Whore. "Don't do this." His words were a trembling whisper.
"It's already done. Your name is gone. I sent it through the shredder, then I incinerated all the tiny pieces. So what should I call you? What's the only name that applies now?"
Whore. Dean started to shake his head again, but ended up yelling, tears springing to his eyes as the handle of the whip scraped, broad-side and deep, down his freshly-whipped back. When it settled then lifted away at the base of his spine, Dean was still making incoherent noises though he quieted eventually.
"Your name is gone because it needed to go. The man who wore that name before was likely to get himself killed, trying to hold onto a past that was already dead."
Dean heard Sam swallow heavily behind him and he almost mumbled thoughts about who'd be doing the killing, but heightened pain hadn't heightened his idiocy.
"And if you keep acting like some brat instead of the whore you've been trained to be, then I'll never have a reason to even think about giving your name back. I won't let you wear it unless and until you have the man you used to be under control."
There was a sob in Dean's throat that he wouldn't let out. He just shook his head, all the more defiant because he could already feel himself folding, his body begging his stubborn mouth to say the word Sam wanted.
"Fine."
Sam's word was more angry than smug and he didn't take the time to savor it. He just stepped back and swung hard enough to have Dean shouting from the start, strung tight like he'd been nailed to a cross. Dean's consciousness fled or was stolen away into the burning red of pain as it fell like a rain of war-hammers into his system until he was yelling and sobbing without end, his palms slick with self-drawn blood. He couldn't even catch his breath when Sam stopped, it was all just garbled pleas and sniveling that he didn't have enough mind to mask or deny.
"That was two hundred." Sam crept into his space, the heat of his breath enough to make Dean choke on his own, internally begging not to be touched or fucked or beaten anymore, as if getting away was an option, now or ever. "You had enough now?"
Dean already knew his answer, but Sam's fingers playing at his hip made his head drop-nod in a sob he couldn't stop.
Sam breathed slowly and spoke low. "What should I call you?"
Not Dean. The word fell, robotic. "… Whore."
"Who are you?"
His mouth hurt, throat hurt, head hurt, heart hurt. "… Whore."
Sam got right up close, lips against his ear, a hand on his bruise-hot back. "Who is 'Dean Winchester'?"
Stop. "I- … dunno sir." His muscles clenched enough to make a whimper slip because he wasn't sure that his statement was a lie.
"So you don't answer to that?"
Dean started to shake his head, but stopped, the discomforting press of Sam's hand urged him forward, though, onward into the dark. "… No, sir."
"What do you answer to?"
"… Whore."
"That's the right name, isn't it? Fitting for an owned slut like you?"
The shift of Sam's hips right then told Dean that after this he'd have to- …. Sam would bruise him on the inside too, make him beg. Fucking slut. "Yes, sir." He felt so much hate that his lungs and veins were setting like concrete, but he wasn't sure who all that hate was for anymore. Whore.
"So tell me again so neither of us forgets. From now on your only name is what?"
His hitched breaths had quieted their way to nothing though he still stood shaking. He could do this, though, had to, and it almost felt easier when Sam's fingers pressed into his pain, his throat scratchy as he replied through lips that felt impossibly heavy, the poison of his words making them swell. "Whore … sir." In the aching dark, Dean felt his soul rip. "Whore is … my only name."
"And it will be that way until I decide otherwise, but no matter what you answer to, 'whore' will always be your most important name. Is that clear, whore?"
All Dean's pleading, his anger, his sadness, his fear, had been beaten flat and chased away like inconsequential bugs and the floor seemed to weave under his feet. He could only steady a mind on the edge by giving in and giving himself an end. Even lost and broken, he found the strength to say 'yesssir' before collapse pulled the shade over his eyes.
Chapters: 1.Lost - 2.Exposed - 3.Used - 4.Hurt - 5.Modified