Fanfic - SPN: Going Down - Ch. 6: Sway
Title: Going Down [Evil!Sammy Universe]
Author: eboniorchid
Full Header for the Series
CHAPTER SIX - SWAY
Dean wasn't thinking. Not like he'd thought he would. And as one day and night became two and then three, the positions became harder to maintain, the challenges heavier, if not more complex. Sam bound him more tightly, more strictly each day, forcing every part of his body from his head to the bridges of his feet to stay just so until he trembled and ached. And the weight of every tray? The heat of every dish? They inched upward until Dean didn't even bother trying not to groan and grunt and sometimes beg with the only noises he could make. But the routine remained the same. He had one chance, every morning, to say something to his brother, to say the only thing that seemed to matter to Sam right then. And Dean? It wasn't just that he didn't want to do it. He couldn't. He wouldn't let Sam win this way, wear him down by giving him exactly what he'd said he wanted. If anyone gave up, Dean promised himself that it wasn't going to be him.
Of course, he'd never heard of or ever imagined there'd be such a thing as a designer for human furniture, someone Sam could hire to advance this particular form of torture to more art - and likely more pain - than Sam felt he could think up alone. That... did not inspire any positive thoughts in Dean's mind at all. But what could he do?
The man brought a box of equipment and said there was more in his truck downstairs if need be. Dean just watched from his usual place, though not his usual position, kneeling upright beside the couch. The man brought over a pair of slim, similarly sized pillars, maybe a foot tall, then a complimentary pair that were another eight inches higher or so. Then he arranged them near the couch so there was still enough room to stand and walk between them and the couch, having Sam test the placement to make sure it was to his liking.
The man put down two small ramps as well. They seemed to be cushy and somewhat like plastic covered pillows, setting them down up near the arm chairs where Sam often sat across from the couch. Then he placed two more plastic-coated cushions, just slimmer and rounded, on top of each of the short pillars. It all made Dean look at the full setup with worry squirming in his gut. What exactly were they building? A new and improved table? Would he still be bound? He couldn't quite figure it out.
"Do you want a stem in the middle? And do you want glass or plastic for the top?"
"Is the stem painful?"
"It can be if that's your preference. And glass would be heavier if you would like it to be more challenging that way as well." The man's mouth stayed open a moment longer as if on the verge of saying something else, but he shut it and Sam didn't encourage any commentary.
"Then we'll do both. Grab a few of the guys downstairs to help with the top."
The man nodded, "yes, Commander," and strode back out the door.
Sam didn't bother directing Dean to move into the odd arrangement. He just strode over and grabbed Dean by the hair, halfway dragging him as Dean struggled to crawl-slash-throw himself forward on the carpet to keep up as Sam maneuvered him between the pillars and the small ramps. "On your back."
Dean went down on his back slowly, careful not to press too hard or at the wrong angle on his ass since the plug Sam had fitted him with that day was far from comfortable at its size. When it rubbed him in so many wrong and right ways as he lay flat, Dean internally applauded himself for not groaning. Sam directed him to put his head up between the pillow wedges so they were just below his shoulders. The placement put Dean's knees near the pillars and Sam adjusted them, bringing them a little closer to the couch and then sizing it all up again with his eyes.
Dean wanted to say "coffee table?" nonchalant and knowing, but he had a rubber ball strapped into his mouth and even if he'd been able to talk, he hadn't forgotten how serious this could be, how intense. The man had left to get a heavy glass top, for fuck's sake, and a potentially painful "stem" for the middle, whatever that was. The fact was that however they built this - and Dean was starting to imagine how - he would become a table on his back for a day. And if Sam liked it, maybe for a while.
The commotion outside wasn't loud, but it was enough to make Dean tip his head back awkwardly, hair rubbing into the carpet as he looked at the door upside down. When the door opened and there were two bodybuilder types carrying in a large flat box almost as tall as they were, though, Dean snapped back to fully laying down and tried not to think about what would happen if he couldn't hold that up himself. His stomach was suddenly blooming riots, his breath too shallow and too quick. When the designer guy finally walked over to join Sam in looking down on him, Dean was working to focus on the task and not whether he could do it or not. He didn't have a choice. He'd do it or Sam would probably let the glass crush him. "Useless furniture," Sam had said to a maid the day before, "may as well be broken furniture. It's no loss if something that already doesn't work becomes damaged. I obviously need to replace it either way."
The designer asked Sam's preferences for "handling" and Sam shrugged, a dismissive hand indicating Dean with little interest. The fact that he made no move to crouch down on the floor or do anything else seemed enough of a statement to the designer, though, and he bent to position Dean on and around the building blocks he'd already laid out on the floor. Dean almost wanted to resist, to pull his leg or arm away from the man as he reached for it, but Sam's supposed disinterest didn't carry into the current set of his eyes. Sam was watching him not like a hawk but like a vulture, daring him to suggest in any way that he was ripe for being torn apart. So, Dean obeyed the man's precise "handling."
His calves were propped, one each on the lower padded pillars, his legs spread obscenely and his hips tilted slightly upward, as if in offering, gravity making the press of the plug in him heavier, sinking it deeper. And his arms? He'd almost guessed correctly. The tip of each ramp was slipped under his shoulder with the backs of each arm taking the incline upward, which ended at each elbow. His arms and the ramps were set perpendicular, outward from his shoulders, however, and not down parallel to his body, his forearms were then set to standing at the end of each ramp and his mitted fists pointed at the ceiling. Those, he could see now, would be what held up the glass, in addition to the taller pillars beside his spread wide legs.
The designer stepped aside for a moment, digging in his equipment box, and came back with ... a weirdly shaped small blanket or article of clothing - though where it would fit Dean couldn't quite figure out. It was clearly heavy though, leather all over but weighted inside by something else, something that made it move in rectangular sections, more like a chain of ammo than the flow of cloth. It made Dean think about the few times he'd been in a dentist chair and had to wear the lead vest for an X-ray.
"Up," the guy said. "You've seen the configuration, now, so you know how you should be. There's one last piece, though."
Dean eyed Sam for confirmation, a slight nod giving him leave to move up to kneeling and then, with the designer's coaxing and Sam's lack of intervention, all the way to standing. Standing was something he never did during the day anymore. When he woke, sometimes it was allowed, and just before he was chained at night. He didn't analyze how weirdly wrong it felt to do it now, how his eyes avoided Sam's, how it all made his stomach swim even if his muscles and joints seemed grateful for this sort of stretch. The rules of being furniture were sinking in far deeper than his skin.
The way the man fit the leathered casing around his abdomen, though, was new and Dean's focus was dragged there easily. It was, he realized belatedly, kind of like something women wore in pornos and sometimes in strip clubs or Victoria's Secret ads. There was a point centered just below the middle of his chest with a slight downward slope to the leather as it angled out to his sides and the length of the accessory covered everything from his sternum down over his stomach to end right at his waist, dipping with a curve just above his groin. Then the rest of it was wrapped around his back and... tightened.
It wasn't much at first, barely noticeable, but as the man adjusted something behind him, Dean felt the structure and the weight of the clothing more and more, his sides and stomach, even his ribs and lungs, seeming to compress under its pressure. His fingers did the only thing that they were good for now, curling into tight balls of folded knuckles as he waited and endured. Just as he was about to begin protesting, the designer made a final hard tug on whatever was controlling the fit and Dean felt the air forcibly pressed out of him, his body instinctively straining to pull away but only making the pressure worse. His breaths after that had enforced shallowness, too short and likely to make and keep him dizzy if he wasn't careful. But the man stepped aside after that, apparently done.
"Back on the floor." Sam's voice was all the draw Dean needed to look back up at his brother, consciously slowing the speed of his breathing so he wasn't panting, so it could almost seem like none of this mattered. But looking into those cold, too smart eyes, Dean just found himself seeking out the carpet on his knees.
Corset. He remembered the word as he lay down to reposition himself like he'd been shown before. It meant the tails of silken strings or ribbons were what Dean felt being crushed under his ass as the designer explained it all to Sam.
"The waist cincher is especially built to help maintain stability for the stem's base, but how much you want the weight distributed is up to you. If we use a smaller base, he will feel most of the weight. His breaths are somewhat shallow now, as is to be expected, but with the smallest base, it will feel like he's being crushed just at that one point, like the stem might sink into his body and kill him - though it won't. And the largest bases will feel more like he has a stack of books on him, heavy, yes, but bearable, unlikely to kill him. And of course there is a range, we have several middle sizes."
Dean watched the conversation from the floor, his legs spread and his arms in their designated altered bench press position. He was so sure, so bitterly cynical, about what option Sam would choose that he almost missed Sam's actual reply.
"Do you have an aesthetic recommendation? It needs to look good and be able to last all day."
The man tipped his head obligingly and retrieved a disc about the size of a baseball cap. "I think a lower middle size would do well and this one is black with a high gloss treatment so it would look excellent against the leather and contrast well with his skin."
Sam considered it for a moment and nodded. "Proceed then."
The man walked out of Dean's range of vision for a moment and then returned with the glossy metal disc fitted to the bottom of a thick matching metal tube with some kind of thick clear plastic-looking cap on top. Then he bent to set the metal base in the middle of Dean's abdomen and there was a thunk of magnetized metal latching together, apparently even through the layer of leather overlaying the companion metal. It explained the heaviness of the strange clothing at least.
"Now, if you would assist me with the glass, commander- ... Oh." The man quickly stood and stepped away as a giant round piece of glass with beveled edges, almost as wide across as Dean was tall floated into (Dean's) view.
"Already on it." But Sam wasn't looking at the glass. He was looking at Dean and the hunger there wasn't for sex. It was a glimmer of what Dean had seen the other recent time they'd played with glass and he found his stomach twisting like a child tangled up in sheets full of nightmares.
He could drop that and cut me to pieces and probably jack off afterwards. Dean remained very still and though he couldn't look away, he put no fight in his expression, no challenge in his eyes. He submitted to this, he would do what Sam wanted. He knew that meant whatever Sam wanted. Sam didn't have to prove it to him again.
He'd never been so grateful to feel the awkward weight of an entire glass table top settle on the flat of his fists and the middle of his abs, to know that he was framed like a giant bug under glass, completely on display. At least, he reminded himself as Sam stepped away to speak with the designer, I am not bleeding out into the carpet. If he hadn't been gagged and restrained so tight at his core that breath was a limited thing, Dean might have even laughed. The kind of laugh that ached even before it came out because his life was so fucked up that these were his moments of gratitude.
His life was like a sickness he had no cure for. All he could give it was his time, and maybe a hint of hope. Sometimes. Usually when he was feeling especially stupid or delusional. Maybe right then was one of those times.
**********
Being able to see Sam eat breakfast again stirred up strange things for Dean, discomfort mixing with something he wouldn't let himself believe was nostalgia. It was easier to name the trace of want in him "hunger," a desire for food, even if he knew that wasn't exactly true. Before the recent role shift, Dean had always either sat at the table by the door with Sam at breakfast or knelt on the floor beside him as Sam fed him with his fingers. But he'd spent days now on his hands and knees in the morning and much of the afternoon, his back hoisting Sam's breakfast and lunch to whatever height and in whatever way Sam deemed appropriate, up to and including the use of wooden boxes under his hands and knees just the day before. Dean had been pretty sure today would be worse, but .... somehow getting to actually see Sam, even in this weird way felt ... calming. He wasn't entirely sure what that said about him. Good whore. Good it. Don't you see? You like this.
It was like... maybe as hard as this was, as heavy, as vulnerable as it made him... he could do this for Sam. Not the monster, but the man, the brother he wanted to show that he was still committed to. Apologizing wasn't going to do that. Sam was confused. Dean knew the truth and had to endure whatever Sam threw at him until Sam understood that Dean wasn't going to apologize for calling out the lies they'd been pumping into him. I will show you that I'm right. And maybe you will start to understand. So Dean settled in to the demonstration, watching Sam finish his breakfast, then start in on his paperwork.
Mid-morning, someone knocked on the door, but didn't step in. Sam called out to them instead. "Robbie, come on in."
Sam got up to meet the soldier somewhere just inside the door, the sound of hands coming together for a strong shake echoing down Dean's back in a way he couldn't let himself think about for too long. "Have a seat. Sorry you had to trek all the way out here, but I'm prepping for the weekend raid and needed to deal with some household issues."
The man sat in the chair by Dean's already tiring right arm, but Dean didn't try to really look up at him just yet. The angle made him much harder to see than Sam, though Dean knew the guy had a full access view of him, even if he didn't seem to flaunt it. "I can see that."
Sam sunk into the couch, smirking at the young officer. "I'm a details kind of person. And I know a lot of people believe that how you do anything is how you'll do everything. So ..." It wasn't a test, but Dean could hear the expectation in Sam's voice and Robbie didn't disappoint.
"As it is at home, so it is in your territory."
"Exactly."
For a moment, they were both quiet, something lost in the exchange when Dean could only see Sam's face.
"Am I here for a lesson then?" Robbie's voice was lower, quieter, more careful, but Dean wasn't sure if that marked fear or something else.
When Sam set his boot over Dean's cock and balls, though, his heel digging the plug deeper, Dean's own fear spiked. He was a table, not a whore. He was furniture. Sam couldn't have someone else use him like that. Sam hadn't even used Dean himself since before the party. And there was a table on top of him anyway, right? So-... Dean grunted against the gag as the plug began to vibrate in him and Sam rocked his boot back and forth over his groin, making Dean ache in ways that, unfortunately, weren't unpleasant at all.
No, Dean thought, no, no no.
Sam never looked directly at Dean, but he didn't have to. The sadistic smirk on his face stayed and all Dean could do was close his eyes and hope the gag would do its job. "Yes and no. Tell me how the sweeps are going. Coded, but detailed."
Robbie's exhale was audible, but he started in immediately, speaking English, but with so many references that made no sense that Dean never fully caught the thread of what he was saying. They searched for some things, found some, managed some, some remained unfound. Immigrants arrived. The raid would address the immigrant problem somehow and- ... Dean groaned as the vibrations slid into a faster zone, Sam's boot pressing hard against Dean's hard cock, rubber soles giving it friction enough to pool heat and shame and want in the same place where a table's base weighed him down and corset ribbons bunched. Fuck. His stomach muscles couldn't stop twisting and he turned his head to the side as much as he could. Because this guy he didn't even know, this fucking marine like his dad, was going to watch him blow his top on the floor like this, under Sam's boot like this, made into a fucking spread-legged table, and he could do nothing about it. The tension slipping down Dean's arms to his shoulders, down his shoulders to his chest, made everything even tighter, his breaths coming too fast. And the man just kept talking, stumbling sometimes, but talking, military strategy and weaponry and resources and god this was what Sam did, Dean should've been focused, unravelling the puzzle, but his brain was broken, half its fuel throbbing under Sam's boot, half hazy from decreased oxygen.
He cried out and came as Sam leaned in and put his weight on that leg, grinding the come out of Dean's balls as he moaned. It had been too many days since he'd come. His body didn't seem to care that anyone was watching or that Sam had done it with the same fucking boots that had stomped him into bloody bathroom tiles. Eventually, he noticed that Robbie's litany had stopped.
Sam leaned back, his boot present but no longer pressing down, and Dean did his best not to shiver out of his skin at the continuing contact on all the too-sensitive parts of him. "Have you considered the position of Sub-Commander?"
A beat of quiet breathing dropped into the room and Dean didn't have to see the man's face to know gears were shifting in his mind. "Often, sir."
"I know it is ... unconventional, but I'm considering creating a sub-commander position for all of the Snake's territory after the raid. What do you think about that?"
"In terms of politics? I am still somewhat early in my studies of Fallen political systems, but from a tactical standpoint, it would be much easier to keep - or get - the region running smoothly if you could delegate its care to one officer you could trust."
Dean wouldn't have said that the man was angling for the job exactly, but he chose his words for a reason, a mix of humility and expertise, distance and loyalty.
"That was my thinking. Do you have any recommendations?"
Robbie hesitated, but Sam, in his infinite patience, stretched his arms out over the back of the couch and waited for the other man to offer something interesting.
"It occurs to me that there were no other officers but myself and Officer Genovesi at your recent dinner party and we have led many of your recent front line sweeps. So perhaps I or Arianna would be fitting for the position." It wasn't actually a question, though it could have been.
"And if I prefer that both your continued expertise remain on the front line?"
With his own breathing slowed enough to keep the world from going gray at the edges, Dean could tell this was some form of test, though how exactly the marine could pass, he wasn't sure.
"With all due respect, sir ..." Robbie paused, but Sam didn't stop or interrupt him. "I believe it would be far easier to train lower ranked field agents to use proven strategies than it would be to cultivate both the political skill and the fealty bond that would be necessary for the long-term stability you seem to be seeking."
"You're saying that if I try to bring someone else up, they might get confused about the 'sub' part in their title?" Sam leered like they really were talking about sex and not military hierarchies. And from the officer's reply, Dean couldn't tell exactly what he thought of that.
"It would seem a waste to have to dispose of assets that might have been better controlled in alternative positions." The tone held neither fear nor discomfort, nor even flirtation. Maybe the guy was just used to dealing with Sam like this.
"Mmm." Sam hummed and nodded. Then suddenly stood and stepped to the left of Dean's table, offering his hand across the space between him and Robbie. "Feel free to assign Arianna however you like, but the rest of your team stays in this region. You'll have to do some heavy recruiting and retraining, but come Monday, the job is yours."
Robbie stood too, clasping Sam's hand in a shake to seal the agreement, but Dean's eyes caught on the black BDUs, both jacket and pants, and the grey t-shirt up top with MARINES written in tall block letters he could read even upside down. And he couldn't ignore it. He couldn't ignore it. There was a hard, thumping thing in his chest, like a rock trying to break its way out. He was lying on the floor just inches from them, hearing deals about a war his kind were apparently losing by regions and not inches. And the ghost of John Winchester was haunting him.
He didn't know what he was doing until it was done, the glass shoved up and thrown to the side with fists and knees, it's top crashing toward the two standing men. But then... it wasn't, its movement redirected, spinning it end-over-end toward the front of Sam's desk like a fly swatted out of the way. Dean heard the glass crack against the wood as pain exploded behind his eyes, blinding him for a moment as he shouted, clutching his head as his body snapped itself into a protective ball, hampered by implements still attached to him and too far gone to know it wouldn't help anyway. When the internal pain faded, though, his cheeks wet with the aftermath of it, Sam's power was already climbing onto him, like an elephant all but crushing him into the ground. He yelled into the gag, desperate to get up, but couldn't move, could barely breathe.
As if nothing at all had happened, Sam resumed his conversation with Robbie about their next steps and then escorted the man to the door, each of them repeating the same phrase as he left. "The Rise is All."
The words filtered through the aching haze in Dean's mind as if highlighted or circled on a chalk board, but Dean didn't care. He was going to claw something apart. Or be crushed to death for trying. He couldn't do this. He couldn't do this anymore.
Once the door was closed, Dean wasn't sure what to expect and he wasn't sure whether to be grateful or terrified that the stem and base of the table detached themselves from the leather contraption around his middle, or that the back laces began to unravel, loosening the corset's hold on him. He hadn't heard Sam approach (him), but with Sam that didn't matter. Sam could strip the skin from his bones if he wanted without lifting a finger. Dean didn't have to have seen him do it to know that what he saw in this room was barely a fraction of what Sam could do. Sam had proven that the day he'd shown his hands, all his cards burning outside the window like the world was made of fire.
"Hands and knees." Sam said it from the door, but walked closer as Dean considered whether to move or not. His decision didn't matter. He was yanked like a life-sized action figure, lifted and maneuvered into place with Sam's power, the corset falling to the floor, its ribbons trailing over his skin in a way that made him want to shiver, but he resisted it. He resisted everything.
Sam was lucky the shape in Dean's mouth was synthetic and not flesh and blood from the way Dean's teeth were digging into it. It hurt, but the pain in his jaw kept his mind clear and he glared at the bathroom as he waited for his brother to try to command or move him again. Sam didn't do either, though, just stood somewhere off to Dean's left for long enough for Dean to consider looking over, even though he never did.
"Do you just like being rude and useless?" Sam's voice was quiet and calculating, cold but oddly neutral rather than intense. He just sounded... genuinely curious, like he thought he might be coming to a strange scientific realization, but wasn't sure and needed to seek proper confirmation. "I make you put away the parts of you that mean nothing here, even if you prize them, and I try to teach you a trade - more than one now - that would make you worth something to me. I try to give you a place in this household, in this world, but you... would rather be little more than a rabid dog... something left on the street with the trash or put down."
Sam was still trying to puzzle it out, but an edge had crept into his voice, like frozen lightning giving off sparks, and Dean could feel the sharpness of Sam's heat begin to sink into his skin like a hundred tattoo needles. He still maintained his glare, even when his body wanted to do whatever necessary to make the growing ache stop.
"You would rather be useless. I get it. You're so... disgusted with what I make you do, so... exhausted by the idea of having to fucking work to earn your keep and not act like a tantruming four year old when anyone who might actually matter is around... that you would rather have: No. Place. At all." The heat Dean had been expecting arrived in a gust, rolling over him and churning all the air in the room to sauna level temperatures. "Okay!" Sam laughed, his enthusiasm almost childlike, almost innocent, but so far from it that Dean couldn't help the way his eyelids flickered, his resolve shaking for a moment.
Dean didn't remember leaving the floor. It all happened too fast. He was on carpet, then slammed down on bathroom tile, and then up again to slam into the shower wall. He dropped from there into the bathtub with nothing but a gravity assist, the pain of his full weight cracking shoulders, hips, and knees against the ceramic, making him shout.
Sam didn't have to hold him down anymore. Dean couldn't have moved quickly after that even if he'd wanted to. The blood in his mouth from where the full-body ping-pong had made him bite hard enough to loosen a tooth in his mouth was too much to swallow, but he groaned as he tried anyway. Then the gag unlatched from the back of his head with the snake-like slip of leather sliding over leather, hair, and skin. Sam's power pulled it out and dropped it on the tile floor as Dean coughed, dripping blood from the corner of his mouth. He felt the locks at the base of the mitts snap open way too early in the day and tried to be angry still instead of worried, to just be pissed off instead of feel the pain that shook up his body every time he shifted even just to breathe. Then the mitts were gone too, their leather smacking the floor as Sam's power dropped them by the gag.
There were replacements, however. And with the amount of metal - chains and cuffs and a collar - that came flying into the room in a heap and landing with a crash on the floor? Dean wouldn't have been surprised to learn that his sleeping arrangements had been altered again. These Sam actually attached by hand, seeming to relish every jerk and squeeze, snap and lock, every length of chain dragged over Dean's skin and every iron weight padlocked onto every key point.
Dean didn't go quietly exactly, but his every attempt to push his brother away or pull away himself resulted in nothing at all. It was like he was a child and Sam the adult bully who didn't even flinch at his swings. His head ached, his body ached, and he'd accomplished nothing. When Sam stepped back Dean could lift and move even less than before. The chains themselves ran behind his back, binding the back of the metal collar to both of his wrists, binding his wrists together at his tailbone and linking them to the cuffs at his ankles, tight enough to keep his knees bent. And where each set of cuffs was joined, Sam locked on a disc weight, like from a barbell system, something just heavy enough to keep him from trying any fancy moves, whether for escape or violence.
The weights were a new factor in their fucked up punishment scenario and the one at the front of Dean's neck was the worst. Without his hands, he would never be able to pick it up without bordering on breaking his neck. He could barely even drag it along the smooth ceramic bottom of the tub. He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that his head was near the drain.
It was only then that he really thought about where he was and what had been put on him. He wasn't so sure about rebellion then. "Sam?"
Sam ignored him and flicked the switch to close the drain, turning the cold tap on low so the water was just a thin stream striking and then flowing across Dean's cheek.
Dean shut his eyes and didn't think about drowning in a bathtub. He closed his eyes and didn't think about his brother just nonchalantly letting this trickle of water build up until it was above his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his breathing because- ... "Fuck, Sam. It was just a table, okay? I'll- ... I dunno, you can make me pay for it, okay? I'll pay for it." And he knew what he was saying and what he still wasn't, what he was acknowledging and what he wasn't, even as he felt the water begin to pool and as the small pool began to grow and spread back toward his arms and then his legs. "Okay? Sam? I didn't mean to--" But he had, hadn't he? Even just for a second?
Sam said nothing. He just stepped back from the tub and left the bathroom.
"Sam!" Dean only shouted once, then forced himself to shut up. Sam would come when he felt like it. When Dean was drowning probably. Sam would come when he thought Dean might actually have suffered adequately and- ... Dean couldn't help shuddering as the cold water began to build enough to lap gently at his limbs, to spread icy fingers into his dampening hair. "Jesus, Sammy." He said it to himself, but there was a louder part of him that didn't need to be vocalized for him to hear it. Just say you're sorry. How hard is that? Just say you're fucking sorry.
But was he? Sure, he hadn't followed "The Rules" in public and they were probably there for a reason and as much as Sam had made his life incredibly challenging for the past few days there hadn't been real pain except that first night and just now... and maybe right now he deserved it, but nothing had happened. Nothing had actually happened. Was Sam really flipping his lid about a not-even-actually-ruined dinner party and a completely useless attempt at fucking up his meeting? It made no sense.
The water didn't care if Sam's reasons made sense.
Laying on his side, Dean could already feel the water climbing up his left eye and he lifted his head a little, but immediately felt the strain in his neck and opted instead to just keep himself calm and focused, tracking the water's rise. He felt it on the corner of his lips as well, the water starting to cover his forearm and half of his foot. In a few minutes it would be up to his nose and he would have to lift his head. He would have to find away to keep some air-receiving part of him above the water or drown. So he breathed through his nose, steady and careful, trying to strategize.
The cold crawled all over him, icy water spreading over his skin and cooling the rest of him like he'd stretched out to float on some once-frozen lake at the start of spring. He didn't think about being pulled down from the surface, no longer buoyant, but his mind supplied the image anyway. He didn't flail as he sank in that not-quite-dream, just drifted down to the bottom of that lake and slowly let his breath bubble away.
He forced himself to turn onto his back as the water began to stroke against his nose, even though that meant crushing his arms underneath him. It would give him a few more inches, even if it soaked his hair completely. He got the weight at his neck to angle one side onto his chest but never fully up and on it, ensuring that his body still had to twist to accommodate, his head still too submerged. And the water kept rising.
Cursing only meant water in his mouth and having to remember to swallow instead of spit it out. It gave him an idea, though, and he shifted again, putting his open mouth under the spout, drinking down the slim stream, timing his swallows and just trying to keep his eyes closed against the splash. The water stopped rising, but his stomach slowly filled. He wasn't sure how long he'd been drinking from the bathtub faucet, but it began to wear on him almost as much as the frigid water around him. He was so cold, inside and out, and the water didn't stop coming, the stream beginning to feel like a waterfall, like he was drowning even though he was still breathing. And he couldn't call to his brother because even if Sam gave a damn, Dean knew he couldn't stop drinking. The water was already too high. He had to just keep- ... keep going.
When his stomach started to ache, though, started to press against other things inside him, the water wanting out, he knew he had to stop, knew he'd done little more than delay the inevitable. He drank more, though, drank until he groaned with tight shut eyes, turning away as the water once again ran down his face.
But then the cold tap squeaked as it spun to the right and the water stopped flowing.
Dean didn't have to see the shadow fall in the unlit bathroom to feel his brother's presence, even if it wasn't like a sauna anymore. "Sam?" It was dumb, probably, that note in his voice that asked Sam for help, but he couldn't turn it off now. His neck hurt, his arms and back hurt, his stomach and sides hurt, and he was barely keeping his face above the water.
The drain switch flicked and Dean had never been more grateful to hear the loud monster-in-the-pipes sound of plumbing sucking down a bathtub full of water. Even if sometimes he thought about it, he didn't really want to die. Not today, anyway. And not like this.
He knew they'd rounded a corner, though, that they were nearing an end of this - whatever this resistance had been. He knew what his brother wanted and while he couldn't yet give it to him, he could feel the inevitable reality looming and stepping closer. And as the cold water that had swaddled him crept away, Dean shivered, the air on wet skin even worse than the water.
"Cold?" The deep hard sound of Sam's voice felt even darker than before and where Dean had held half a sliver of hope just the moment before, he found only a black stone knife ready to gut him. Whatever this was, Sam was not helping him.
Dean answered honestly anyway, his voice rough and halfway to defeated but unwavering. "Yes, sir."
He opened his eyes as he shifted back onto his side. Glancing up at Sam wasn't his best idea, though, the natural light from the bedroom painting his brother with oil-deep shadows, his stature too tall to seem like anything less than a giant when Dean's vantage point was from a bathtub floor. As he watched and heard Sam unzip his fly, though, that was worse, his pulse slamming from second into fifth gear without any warning at all. Maybe he didn't let his mind run ahead of the seconds passing right then, past the way Sam's hand worked into his pants, around the Y-front of his briefs, and came back out holding his semi-soft cock. But Dean knew well enough what was coming to keep his mouth shut and then shut his eyes too as hot yellow piss began to pour onto him, the stream angled to splash over every patch of skin from his ass to his feet, and then up to his face, extra droplets landing hard as Sam shook off.
"I won't wait for a 'thank you'. We both know you have shit manners anyway."
When Sam walked away this time, he shut the door behind him, leaving Dean in total darkness, a little warmer but shuddering anyway. He reeked of piss, felt it soaking into his skin, and set his jaw against wanting anything else, wishing for any way else. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And when his bladder gave up and forced his own body-heated water out of him, he decided not to care about that either. He was disgusting. Fucking useless. But, hey, at least for a moment he was warm.
When Dean laughed, it was in fragments, jagged chunks of nothing recognizable. And that was fine. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Just like the rest of him.
Chapters: Prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
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Author: eboniorchid
Full Header for the Series
CHAPTER SIX - SWAY
Dean wasn't thinking. Not like he'd thought he would. And as one day and night became two and then three, the positions became harder to maintain, the challenges heavier, if not more complex. Sam bound him more tightly, more strictly each day, forcing every part of his body from his head to the bridges of his feet to stay just so until he trembled and ached. And the weight of every tray? The heat of every dish? They inched upward until Dean didn't even bother trying not to groan and grunt and sometimes beg with the only noises he could make. But the routine remained the same. He had one chance, every morning, to say something to his brother, to say the only thing that seemed to matter to Sam right then. And Dean? It wasn't just that he didn't want to do it. He couldn't. He wouldn't let Sam win this way, wear him down by giving him exactly what he'd said he wanted. If anyone gave up, Dean promised himself that it wasn't going to be him.
Of course, he'd never heard of or ever imagined there'd be such a thing as a designer for human furniture, someone Sam could hire to advance this particular form of torture to more art - and likely more pain - than Sam felt he could think up alone. That... did not inspire any positive thoughts in Dean's mind at all. But what could he do?
The man brought a box of equipment and said there was more in his truck downstairs if need be. Dean just watched from his usual place, though not his usual position, kneeling upright beside the couch. The man brought over a pair of slim, similarly sized pillars, maybe a foot tall, then a complimentary pair that were another eight inches higher or so. Then he arranged them near the couch so there was still enough room to stand and walk between them and the couch, having Sam test the placement to make sure it was to his liking.
The man put down two small ramps as well. They seemed to be cushy and somewhat like plastic covered pillows, setting them down up near the arm chairs where Sam often sat across from the couch. Then he placed two more plastic-coated cushions, just slimmer and rounded, on top of each of the short pillars. It all made Dean look at the full setup with worry squirming in his gut. What exactly were they building? A new and improved table? Would he still be bound? He couldn't quite figure it out.
"Do you want a stem in the middle? And do you want glass or plastic for the top?"
"Is the stem painful?"
"It can be if that's your preference. And glass would be heavier if you would like it to be more challenging that way as well." The man's mouth stayed open a moment longer as if on the verge of saying something else, but he shut it and Sam didn't encourage any commentary.
"Then we'll do both. Grab a few of the guys downstairs to help with the top."
The man nodded, "yes, Commander," and strode back out the door.
Sam didn't bother directing Dean to move into the odd arrangement. He just strode over and grabbed Dean by the hair, halfway dragging him as Dean struggled to crawl-slash-throw himself forward on the carpet to keep up as Sam maneuvered him between the pillars and the small ramps. "On your back."
Dean went down on his back slowly, careful not to press too hard or at the wrong angle on his ass since the plug Sam had fitted him with that day was far from comfortable at its size. When it rubbed him in so many wrong and right ways as he lay flat, Dean internally applauded himself for not groaning. Sam directed him to put his head up between the pillow wedges so they were just below his shoulders. The placement put Dean's knees near the pillars and Sam adjusted them, bringing them a little closer to the couch and then sizing it all up again with his eyes.
Dean wanted to say "coffee table?" nonchalant and knowing, but he had a rubber ball strapped into his mouth and even if he'd been able to talk, he hadn't forgotten how serious this could be, how intense. The man had left to get a heavy glass top, for fuck's sake, and a potentially painful "stem" for the middle, whatever that was. The fact was that however they built this - and Dean was starting to imagine how - he would become a table on his back for a day. And if Sam liked it, maybe for a while.
The commotion outside wasn't loud, but it was enough to make Dean tip his head back awkwardly, hair rubbing into the carpet as he looked at the door upside down. When the door opened and there were two bodybuilder types carrying in a large flat box almost as tall as they were, though, Dean snapped back to fully laying down and tried not to think about what would happen if he couldn't hold that up himself. His stomach was suddenly blooming riots, his breath too shallow and too quick. When the designer guy finally walked over to join Sam in looking down on him, Dean was working to focus on the task and not whether he could do it or not. He didn't have a choice. He'd do it or Sam would probably let the glass crush him. "Useless furniture," Sam had said to a maid the day before, "may as well be broken furniture. It's no loss if something that already doesn't work becomes damaged. I obviously need to replace it either way."
The designer asked Sam's preferences for "handling" and Sam shrugged, a dismissive hand indicating Dean with little interest. The fact that he made no move to crouch down on the floor or do anything else seemed enough of a statement to the designer, though, and he bent to position Dean on and around the building blocks he'd already laid out on the floor. Dean almost wanted to resist, to pull his leg or arm away from the man as he reached for it, but Sam's supposed disinterest didn't carry into the current set of his eyes. Sam was watching him not like a hawk but like a vulture, daring him to suggest in any way that he was ripe for being torn apart. So, Dean obeyed the man's precise "handling."
His calves were propped, one each on the lower padded pillars, his legs spread obscenely and his hips tilted slightly upward, as if in offering, gravity making the press of the plug in him heavier, sinking it deeper. And his arms? He'd almost guessed correctly. The tip of each ramp was slipped under his shoulder with the backs of each arm taking the incline upward, which ended at each elbow. His arms and the ramps were set perpendicular, outward from his shoulders, however, and not down parallel to his body, his forearms were then set to standing at the end of each ramp and his mitted fists pointed at the ceiling. Those, he could see now, would be what held up the glass, in addition to the taller pillars beside his spread wide legs.
The designer stepped aside for a moment, digging in his equipment box, and came back with ... a weirdly shaped small blanket or article of clothing - though where it would fit Dean couldn't quite figure out. It was clearly heavy though, leather all over but weighted inside by something else, something that made it move in rectangular sections, more like a chain of ammo than the flow of cloth. It made Dean think about the few times he'd been in a dentist chair and had to wear the lead vest for an X-ray.
"Up," the guy said. "You've seen the configuration, now, so you know how you should be. There's one last piece, though."
Dean eyed Sam for confirmation, a slight nod giving him leave to move up to kneeling and then, with the designer's coaxing and Sam's lack of intervention, all the way to standing. Standing was something he never did during the day anymore. When he woke, sometimes it was allowed, and just before he was chained at night. He didn't analyze how weirdly wrong it felt to do it now, how his eyes avoided Sam's, how it all made his stomach swim even if his muscles and joints seemed grateful for this sort of stretch. The rules of being furniture were sinking in far deeper than his skin.
The way the man fit the leathered casing around his abdomen, though, was new and Dean's focus was dragged there easily. It was, he realized belatedly, kind of like something women wore in pornos and sometimes in strip clubs or Victoria's Secret ads. There was a point centered just below the middle of his chest with a slight downward slope to the leather as it angled out to his sides and the length of the accessory covered everything from his sternum down over his stomach to end right at his waist, dipping with a curve just above his groin. Then the rest of it was wrapped around his back and... tightened.
It wasn't much at first, barely noticeable, but as the man adjusted something behind him, Dean felt the structure and the weight of the clothing more and more, his sides and stomach, even his ribs and lungs, seeming to compress under its pressure. His fingers did the only thing that they were good for now, curling into tight balls of folded knuckles as he waited and endured. Just as he was about to begin protesting, the designer made a final hard tug on whatever was controlling the fit and Dean felt the air forcibly pressed out of him, his body instinctively straining to pull away but only making the pressure worse. His breaths after that had enforced shallowness, too short and likely to make and keep him dizzy if he wasn't careful. But the man stepped aside after that, apparently done.
"Back on the floor." Sam's voice was all the draw Dean needed to look back up at his brother, consciously slowing the speed of his breathing so he wasn't panting, so it could almost seem like none of this mattered. But looking into those cold, too smart eyes, Dean just found himself seeking out the carpet on his knees.
Corset. He remembered the word as he lay down to reposition himself like he'd been shown before. It meant the tails of silken strings or ribbons were what Dean felt being crushed under his ass as the designer explained it all to Sam.
"The waist cincher is especially built to help maintain stability for the stem's base, but how much you want the weight distributed is up to you. If we use a smaller base, he will feel most of the weight. His breaths are somewhat shallow now, as is to be expected, but with the smallest base, it will feel like he's being crushed just at that one point, like the stem might sink into his body and kill him - though it won't. And the largest bases will feel more like he has a stack of books on him, heavy, yes, but bearable, unlikely to kill him. And of course there is a range, we have several middle sizes."
Dean watched the conversation from the floor, his legs spread and his arms in their designated altered bench press position. He was so sure, so bitterly cynical, about what option Sam would choose that he almost missed Sam's actual reply.
"Do you have an aesthetic recommendation? It needs to look good and be able to last all day."
The man tipped his head obligingly and retrieved a disc about the size of a baseball cap. "I think a lower middle size would do well and this one is black with a high gloss treatment so it would look excellent against the leather and contrast well with his skin."
Sam considered it for a moment and nodded. "Proceed then."
The man walked out of Dean's range of vision for a moment and then returned with the glossy metal disc fitted to the bottom of a thick matching metal tube with some kind of thick clear plastic-looking cap on top. Then he bent to set the metal base in the middle of Dean's abdomen and there was a thunk of magnetized metal latching together, apparently even through the layer of leather overlaying the companion metal. It explained the heaviness of the strange clothing at least.
"Now, if you would assist me with the glass, commander- ... Oh." The man quickly stood and stepped away as a giant round piece of glass with beveled edges, almost as wide across as Dean was tall floated into (Dean's) view.
"Already on it." But Sam wasn't looking at the glass. He was looking at Dean and the hunger there wasn't for sex. It was a glimmer of what Dean had seen the other recent time they'd played with glass and he found his stomach twisting like a child tangled up in sheets full of nightmares.
He could drop that and cut me to pieces and probably jack off afterwards. Dean remained very still and though he couldn't look away, he put no fight in his expression, no challenge in his eyes. He submitted to this, he would do what Sam wanted. He knew that meant whatever Sam wanted. Sam didn't have to prove it to him again.
He'd never been so grateful to feel the awkward weight of an entire glass table top settle on the flat of his fists and the middle of his abs, to know that he was framed like a giant bug under glass, completely on display. At least, he reminded himself as Sam stepped away to speak with the designer, I am not bleeding out into the carpet. If he hadn't been gagged and restrained so tight at his core that breath was a limited thing, Dean might have even laughed. The kind of laugh that ached even before it came out because his life was so fucked up that these were his moments of gratitude.
His life was like a sickness he had no cure for. All he could give it was his time, and maybe a hint of hope. Sometimes. Usually when he was feeling especially stupid or delusional. Maybe right then was one of those times.
**********
Being able to see Sam eat breakfast again stirred up strange things for Dean, discomfort mixing with something he wouldn't let himself believe was nostalgia. It was easier to name the trace of want in him "hunger," a desire for food, even if he knew that wasn't exactly true. Before the recent role shift, Dean had always either sat at the table by the door with Sam at breakfast or knelt on the floor beside him as Sam fed him with his fingers. But he'd spent days now on his hands and knees in the morning and much of the afternoon, his back hoisting Sam's breakfast and lunch to whatever height and in whatever way Sam deemed appropriate, up to and including the use of wooden boxes under his hands and knees just the day before. Dean had been pretty sure today would be worse, but .... somehow getting to actually see Sam, even in this weird way felt ... calming. He wasn't entirely sure what that said about him. Good whore. Good it. Don't you see? You like this.
It was like... maybe as hard as this was, as heavy, as vulnerable as it made him... he could do this for Sam. Not the monster, but the man, the brother he wanted to show that he was still committed to. Apologizing wasn't going to do that. Sam was confused. Dean knew the truth and had to endure whatever Sam threw at him until Sam understood that Dean wasn't going to apologize for calling out the lies they'd been pumping into him. I will show you that I'm right. And maybe you will start to understand. So Dean settled in to the demonstration, watching Sam finish his breakfast, then start in on his paperwork.
Mid-morning, someone knocked on the door, but didn't step in. Sam called out to them instead. "Robbie, come on in."
Sam got up to meet the soldier somewhere just inside the door, the sound of hands coming together for a strong shake echoing down Dean's back in a way he couldn't let himself think about for too long. "Have a seat. Sorry you had to trek all the way out here, but I'm prepping for the weekend raid and needed to deal with some household issues."
The man sat in the chair by Dean's already tiring right arm, but Dean didn't try to really look up at him just yet. The angle made him much harder to see than Sam, though Dean knew the guy had a full access view of him, even if he didn't seem to flaunt it. "I can see that."
Sam sunk into the couch, smirking at the young officer. "I'm a details kind of person. And I know a lot of people believe that how you do anything is how you'll do everything. So ..." It wasn't a test, but Dean could hear the expectation in Sam's voice and Robbie didn't disappoint.
"As it is at home, so it is in your territory."
"Exactly."
For a moment, they were both quiet, something lost in the exchange when Dean could only see Sam's face.
"Am I here for a lesson then?" Robbie's voice was lower, quieter, more careful, but Dean wasn't sure if that marked fear or something else.
When Sam set his boot over Dean's cock and balls, though, his heel digging the plug deeper, Dean's own fear spiked. He was a table, not a whore. He was furniture. Sam couldn't have someone else use him like that. Sam hadn't even used Dean himself since before the party. And there was a table on top of him anyway, right? So-... Dean grunted against the gag as the plug began to vibrate in him and Sam rocked his boot back and forth over his groin, making Dean ache in ways that, unfortunately, weren't unpleasant at all.
No, Dean thought, no, no no.
Sam never looked directly at Dean, but he didn't have to. The sadistic smirk on his face stayed and all Dean could do was close his eyes and hope the gag would do its job. "Yes and no. Tell me how the sweeps are going. Coded, but detailed."
Robbie's exhale was audible, but he started in immediately, speaking English, but with so many references that made no sense that Dean never fully caught the thread of what he was saying. They searched for some things, found some, managed some, some remained unfound. Immigrants arrived. The raid would address the immigrant problem somehow and- ... Dean groaned as the vibrations slid into a faster zone, Sam's boot pressing hard against Dean's hard cock, rubber soles giving it friction enough to pool heat and shame and want in the same place where a table's base weighed him down and corset ribbons bunched. Fuck. His stomach muscles couldn't stop twisting and he turned his head to the side as much as he could. Because this guy he didn't even know, this fucking marine like his dad, was going to watch him blow his top on the floor like this, under Sam's boot like this, made into a fucking spread-legged table, and he could do nothing about it. The tension slipping down Dean's arms to his shoulders, down his shoulders to his chest, made everything even tighter, his breaths coming too fast. And the man just kept talking, stumbling sometimes, but talking, military strategy and weaponry and resources and god this was what Sam did, Dean should've been focused, unravelling the puzzle, but his brain was broken, half its fuel throbbing under Sam's boot, half hazy from decreased oxygen.
He cried out and came as Sam leaned in and put his weight on that leg, grinding the come out of Dean's balls as he moaned. It had been too many days since he'd come. His body didn't seem to care that anyone was watching or that Sam had done it with the same fucking boots that had stomped him into bloody bathroom tiles. Eventually, he noticed that Robbie's litany had stopped.
Sam leaned back, his boot present but no longer pressing down, and Dean did his best not to shiver out of his skin at the continuing contact on all the too-sensitive parts of him. "Have you considered the position of Sub-Commander?"
A beat of quiet breathing dropped into the room and Dean didn't have to see the man's face to know gears were shifting in his mind. "Often, sir."
"I know it is ... unconventional, but I'm considering creating a sub-commander position for all of the Snake's territory after the raid. What do you think about that?"
"In terms of politics? I am still somewhat early in my studies of Fallen political systems, but from a tactical standpoint, it would be much easier to keep - or get - the region running smoothly if you could delegate its care to one officer you could trust."
Dean wouldn't have said that the man was angling for the job exactly, but he chose his words for a reason, a mix of humility and expertise, distance and loyalty.
"That was my thinking. Do you have any recommendations?"
Robbie hesitated, but Sam, in his infinite patience, stretched his arms out over the back of the couch and waited for the other man to offer something interesting.
"It occurs to me that there were no other officers but myself and Officer Genovesi at your recent dinner party and we have led many of your recent front line sweeps. So perhaps I or Arianna would be fitting for the position." It wasn't actually a question, though it could have been.
"And if I prefer that both your continued expertise remain on the front line?"
With his own breathing slowed enough to keep the world from going gray at the edges, Dean could tell this was some form of test, though how exactly the marine could pass, he wasn't sure.
"With all due respect, sir ..." Robbie paused, but Sam didn't stop or interrupt him. "I believe it would be far easier to train lower ranked field agents to use proven strategies than it would be to cultivate both the political skill and the fealty bond that would be necessary for the long-term stability you seem to be seeking."
"You're saying that if I try to bring someone else up, they might get confused about the 'sub' part in their title?" Sam leered like they really were talking about sex and not military hierarchies. And from the officer's reply, Dean couldn't tell exactly what he thought of that.
"It would seem a waste to have to dispose of assets that might have been better controlled in alternative positions." The tone held neither fear nor discomfort, nor even flirtation. Maybe the guy was just used to dealing with Sam like this.
"Mmm." Sam hummed and nodded. Then suddenly stood and stepped to the left of Dean's table, offering his hand across the space between him and Robbie. "Feel free to assign Arianna however you like, but the rest of your team stays in this region. You'll have to do some heavy recruiting and retraining, but come Monday, the job is yours."
Robbie stood too, clasping Sam's hand in a shake to seal the agreement, but Dean's eyes caught on the black BDUs, both jacket and pants, and the grey t-shirt up top with MARINES written in tall block letters he could read even upside down. And he couldn't ignore it. He couldn't ignore it. There was a hard, thumping thing in his chest, like a rock trying to break its way out. He was lying on the floor just inches from them, hearing deals about a war his kind were apparently losing by regions and not inches. And the ghost of John Winchester was haunting him.
He didn't know what he was doing until it was done, the glass shoved up and thrown to the side with fists and knees, it's top crashing toward the two standing men. But then... it wasn't, its movement redirected, spinning it end-over-end toward the front of Sam's desk like a fly swatted out of the way. Dean heard the glass crack against the wood as pain exploded behind his eyes, blinding him for a moment as he shouted, clutching his head as his body snapped itself into a protective ball, hampered by implements still attached to him and too far gone to know it wouldn't help anyway. When the internal pain faded, though, his cheeks wet with the aftermath of it, Sam's power was already climbing onto him, like an elephant all but crushing him into the ground. He yelled into the gag, desperate to get up, but couldn't move, could barely breathe.
As if nothing at all had happened, Sam resumed his conversation with Robbie about their next steps and then escorted the man to the door, each of them repeating the same phrase as he left. "The Rise is All."
The words filtered through the aching haze in Dean's mind as if highlighted or circled on a chalk board, but Dean didn't care. He was going to claw something apart. Or be crushed to death for trying. He couldn't do this. He couldn't do this anymore.
Once the door was closed, Dean wasn't sure what to expect and he wasn't sure whether to be grateful or terrified that the stem and base of the table detached themselves from the leather contraption around his middle, or that the back laces began to unravel, loosening the corset's hold on him. He hadn't heard Sam approach (him), but with Sam that didn't matter. Sam could strip the skin from his bones if he wanted without lifting a finger. Dean didn't have to have seen him do it to know that what he saw in this room was barely a fraction of what Sam could do. Sam had proven that the day he'd shown his hands, all his cards burning outside the window like the world was made of fire.
"Hands and knees." Sam said it from the door, but walked closer as Dean considered whether to move or not. His decision didn't matter. He was yanked like a life-sized action figure, lifted and maneuvered into place with Sam's power, the corset falling to the floor, its ribbons trailing over his skin in a way that made him want to shiver, but he resisted it. He resisted everything.
Sam was lucky the shape in Dean's mouth was synthetic and not flesh and blood from the way Dean's teeth were digging into it. It hurt, but the pain in his jaw kept his mind clear and he glared at the bathroom as he waited for his brother to try to command or move him again. Sam didn't do either, though, just stood somewhere off to Dean's left for long enough for Dean to consider looking over, even though he never did.
"Do you just like being rude and useless?" Sam's voice was quiet and calculating, cold but oddly neutral rather than intense. He just sounded... genuinely curious, like he thought he might be coming to a strange scientific realization, but wasn't sure and needed to seek proper confirmation. "I make you put away the parts of you that mean nothing here, even if you prize them, and I try to teach you a trade - more than one now - that would make you worth something to me. I try to give you a place in this household, in this world, but you... would rather be little more than a rabid dog... something left on the street with the trash or put down."
Sam was still trying to puzzle it out, but an edge had crept into his voice, like frozen lightning giving off sparks, and Dean could feel the sharpness of Sam's heat begin to sink into his skin like a hundred tattoo needles. He still maintained his glare, even when his body wanted to do whatever necessary to make the growing ache stop.
"You would rather be useless. I get it. You're so... disgusted with what I make you do, so... exhausted by the idea of having to fucking work to earn your keep and not act like a tantruming four year old when anyone who might actually matter is around... that you would rather have: No. Place. At all." The heat Dean had been expecting arrived in a gust, rolling over him and churning all the air in the room to sauna level temperatures. "Okay!" Sam laughed, his enthusiasm almost childlike, almost innocent, but so far from it that Dean couldn't help the way his eyelids flickered, his resolve shaking for a moment.
Dean didn't remember leaving the floor. It all happened too fast. He was on carpet, then slammed down on bathroom tile, and then up again to slam into the shower wall. He dropped from there into the bathtub with nothing but a gravity assist, the pain of his full weight cracking shoulders, hips, and knees against the ceramic, making him shout.
Sam didn't have to hold him down anymore. Dean couldn't have moved quickly after that even if he'd wanted to. The blood in his mouth from where the full-body ping-pong had made him bite hard enough to loosen a tooth in his mouth was too much to swallow, but he groaned as he tried anyway. Then the gag unlatched from the back of his head with the snake-like slip of leather sliding over leather, hair, and skin. Sam's power pulled it out and dropped it on the tile floor as Dean coughed, dripping blood from the corner of his mouth. He felt the locks at the base of the mitts snap open way too early in the day and tried to be angry still instead of worried, to just be pissed off instead of feel the pain that shook up his body every time he shifted even just to breathe. Then the mitts were gone too, their leather smacking the floor as Sam's power dropped them by the gag.
There were replacements, however. And with the amount of metal - chains and cuffs and a collar - that came flying into the room in a heap and landing with a crash on the floor? Dean wouldn't have been surprised to learn that his sleeping arrangements had been altered again. These Sam actually attached by hand, seeming to relish every jerk and squeeze, snap and lock, every length of chain dragged over Dean's skin and every iron weight padlocked onto every key point.
Dean didn't go quietly exactly, but his every attempt to push his brother away or pull away himself resulted in nothing at all. It was like he was a child and Sam the adult bully who didn't even flinch at his swings. His head ached, his body ached, and he'd accomplished nothing. When Sam stepped back Dean could lift and move even less than before. The chains themselves ran behind his back, binding the back of the metal collar to both of his wrists, binding his wrists together at his tailbone and linking them to the cuffs at his ankles, tight enough to keep his knees bent. And where each set of cuffs was joined, Sam locked on a disc weight, like from a barbell system, something just heavy enough to keep him from trying any fancy moves, whether for escape or violence.
The weights were a new factor in their fucked up punishment scenario and the one at the front of Dean's neck was the worst. Without his hands, he would never be able to pick it up without bordering on breaking his neck. He could barely even drag it along the smooth ceramic bottom of the tub. He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that his head was near the drain.
It was only then that he really thought about where he was and what had been put on him. He wasn't so sure about rebellion then. "Sam?"
Sam ignored him and flicked the switch to close the drain, turning the cold tap on low so the water was just a thin stream striking and then flowing across Dean's cheek.
Dean shut his eyes and didn't think about drowning in a bathtub. He closed his eyes and didn't think about his brother just nonchalantly letting this trickle of water build up until it was above his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his breathing because- ... "Fuck, Sam. It was just a table, okay? I'll- ... I dunno, you can make me pay for it, okay? I'll pay for it." And he knew what he was saying and what he still wasn't, what he was acknowledging and what he wasn't, even as he felt the water begin to pool and as the small pool began to grow and spread back toward his arms and then his legs. "Okay? Sam? I didn't mean to--" But he had, hadn't he? Even just for a second?
Sam said nothing. He just stepped back from the tub and left the bathroom.
"Sam!" Dean only shouted once, then forced himself to shut up. Sam would come when he felt like it. When Dean was drowning probably. Sam would come when he thought Dean might actually have suffered adequately and- ... Dean couldn't help shuddering as the cold water began to build enough to lap gently at his limbs, to spread icy fingers into his dampening hair. "Jesus, Sammy." He said it to himself, but there was a louder part of him that didn't need to be vocalized for him to hear it. Just say you're sorry. How hard is that? Just say you're fucking sorry.
But was he? Sure, he hadn't followed "The Rules" in public and they were probably there for a reason and as much as Sam had made his life incredibly challenging for the past few days there hadn't been real pain except that first night and just now... and maybe right now he deserved it, but nothing had happened. Nothing had actually happened. Was Sam really flipping his lid about a not-even-actually-ruined dinner party and a completely useless attempt at fucking up his meeting? It made no sense.
The water didn't care if Sam's reasons made sense.
Laying on his side, Dean could already feel the water climbing up his left eye and he lifted his head a little, but immediately felt the strain in his neck and opted instead to just keep himself calm and focused, tracking the water's rise. He felt it on the corner of his lips as well, the water starting to cover his forearm and half of his foot. In a few minutes it would be up to his nose and he would have to lift his head. He would have to find away to keep some air-receiving part of him above the water or drown. So he breathed through his nose, steady and careful, trying to strategize.
The cold crawled all over him, icy water spreading over his skin and cooling the rest of him like he'd stretched out to float on some once-frozen lake at the start of spring. He didn't think about being pulled down from the surface, no longer buoyant, but his mind supplied the image anyway. He didn't flail as he sank in that not-quite-dream, just drifted down to the bottom of that lake and slowly let his breath bubble away.
He forced himself to turn onto his back as the water began to stroke against his nose, even though that meant crushing his arms underneath him. It would give him a few more inches, even if it soaked his hair completely. He got the weight at his neck to angle one side onto his chest but never fully up and on it, ensuring that his body still had to twist to accommodate, his head still too submerged. And the water kept rising.
Cursing only meant water in his mouth and having to remember to swallow instead of spit it out. It gave him an idea, though, and he shifted again, putting his open mouth under the spout, drinking down the slim stream, timing his swallows and just trying to keep his eyes closed against the splash. The water stopped rising, but his stomach slowly filled. He wasn't sure how long he'd been drinking from the bathtub faucet, but it began to wear on him almost as much as the frigid water around him. He was so cold, inside and out, and the water didn't stop coming, the stream beginning to feel like a waterfall, like he was drowning even though he was still breathing. And he couldn't call to his brother because even if Sam gave a damn, Dean knew he couldn't stop drinking. The water was already too high. He had to just keep- ... keep going.
When his stomach started to ache, though, started to press against other things inside him, the water wanting out, he knew he had to stop, knew he'd done little more than delay the inevitable. He drank more, though, drank until he groaned with tight shut eyes, turning away as the water once again ran down his face.
But then the cold tap squeaked as it spun to the right and the water stopped flowing.
Dean didn't have to see the shadow fall in the unlit bathroom to feel his brother's presence, even if it wasn't like a sauna anymore. "Sam?" It was dumb, probably, that note in his voice that asked Sam for help, but he couldn't turn it off now. His neck hurt, his arms and back hurt, his stomach and sides hurt, and he was barely keeping his face above the water.
The drain switch flicked and Dean had never been more grateful to hear the loud monster-in-the-pipes sound of plumbing sucking down a bathtub full of water. Even if sometimes he thought about it, he didn't really want to die. Not today, anyway. And not like this.
He knew they'd rounded a corner, though, that they were nearing an end of this - whatever this resistance had been. He knew what his brother wanted and while he couldn't yet give it to him, he could feel the inevitable reality looming and stepping closer. And as the cold water that had swaddled him crept away, Dean shivered, the air on wet skin even worse than the water.
"Cold?" The deep hard sound of Sam's voice felt even darker than before and where Dean had held half a sliver of hope just the moment before, he found only a black stone knife ready to gut him. Whatever this was, Sam was not helping him.
Dean answered honestly anyway, his voice rough and halfway to defeated but unwavering. "Yes, sir."
He opened his eyes as he shifted back onto his side. Glancing up at Sam wasn't his best idea, though, the natural light from the bedroom painting his brother with oil-deep shadows, his stature too tall to seem like anything less than a giant when Dean's vantage point was from a bathtub floor. As he watched and heard Sam unzip his fly, though, that was worse, his pulse slamming from second into fifth gear without any warning at all. Maybe he didn't let his mind run ahead of the seconds passing right then, past the way Sam's hand worked into his pants, around the Y-front of his briefs, and came back out holding his semi-soft cock. But Dean knew well enough what was coming to keep his mouth shut and then shut his eyes too as hot yellow piss began to pour onto him, the stream angled to splash over every patch of skin from his ass to his feet, and then up to his face, extra droplets landing hard as Sam shook off.
"I won't wait for a 'thank you'. We both know you have shit manners anyway."
When Sam walked away this time, he shut the door behind him, leaving Dean in total darkness, a little warmer but shuddering anyway. He reeked of piss, felt it soaking into his skin, and set his jaw against wanting anything else, wishing for any way else. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And when his bladder gave up and forced his own body-heated water out of him, he decided not to care about that either. He was disgusting. Fucking useless. But, hey, at least for a moment he was warm.
When Dean laughed, it was in fragments, jagged chunks of nothing recognizable. And that was fine. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Just like the rest of him.
Chapters: Prologue - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
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