Fic: Sin's a Curse and the Cure Is Worse
Dec. 22nd, 2009 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mya_rofkiTitle: Sin's a Curse and the Cure Is Worse
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mya_rofki
Rating: NC-17
Words: 7,300
Characters: John/Sam, Dean/Sam
Warnings: noncon, underage, incest (Read the summary and you'll have a pretty good idea of whether this is your thing.)
Summary: A story in which John catches Sam and Dean together and loses it, violently.
Written for a (possibly triggery)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spnkink_meme prompt. Highlight to read. "John punishes Sam for having sex with Dean, by raping him, more graphic the better. Comfort from protective Dean is part of the kinkage. Edit: I also want Sam to be around 14 yrs old, and for the rape to happen in the front seat of the Impala."
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I'm making no money off of them.
“This is what you like?” Dad shouts.
No. Sam shakes his head. No. But Dad has a fist twisted in the stretchy cotton of his t-shirt so tight Sam can feel the fabric like cable cutting steely into his throat. He didn’t ever imagine cotton could hurt so much, but Dad’s really good at making seemingly harmless things into weapons. Sam can’t even talk he’s so scared, can’t defend himself as Dad rages in his face.
“This is what you want?” Dad screams. “To do sick things with your brother?”
Dean is still on the floor, on his knees. Blood drips from his mouth where Dad punched him, but it wasn’t really hard enough to keep him down this long. Dean’s taken much worse from monsters and struggled up to fight again. Shock and shame, not pain, keep him silent and immobile. Dean doesn’t protest as Dad drags Sam out of the bedroom.
They stumble down the hall, out into the vibrating spring night. Tiny little frogs sing out mating calls, something Sam found perversely funny earlier, when Dean’s mouth was on his as they made out next to the open window. Now they sound different to his panicked ears: a thousand alien voices that will cry on and on without concern whatever Dad does to them tonight.
The whole way out to the car Dad’s silent except for harsh breaths through his nose, and Sam lets out only a wordless gasp when his ankles lock with each other and send him to his knees with a thump that jars his bones and a wrench that tightens the shirt around his throat hard enough to feel like it's cutting into his skin for real. Wetness from the low ground that surrounds the house sinks into his jeans. Dad just hauls him back to his feet and hurls him toward the driver’s side door. Sam barely catches himself from smacking his head on the metal.
No. He thinks, trembling hands flat on the door. No. Because what comes next? It must be a long silent drive into the middle of nowhere, then the harsh grip of an angry hand on his neck or his arm, or maybe the impersonal deathknell of Dad simply walking around to the passenger side and opening the door: a silent ‘Get the fuck out,’ because he'll refuse to even speak a word to his son again. Sam imagines his body lying in a ditch, shot like a dog, but it would be just as bad to be whole and unharmed and standing by the side of the road watching the tailights fade into the darkness. He can’t imagine what would possibly happen next. Without Dean, without Dad, alone and abandoned... What would he do? The next scene stubbornly refuses to appear, like turning the page of a book and finding you’ve reached the end of the story. His family is his world. Without Dean and Dad, there’d be no world left.
Inside, Sam starts shifting from crawling to sitting when he reaches the passenger side, thinking, looking for something to say to get Dad to let him stay, but Dad hisses “Stop!” and Sam freezes, right leg bent and knee digging into smooth leather, left awkwardly jutting off the seat so his bare foot is braced on the floor. He can’t imagine why he should stop here, why he isn’t already numbly sitting down and waiting to be driven away. Has Dad changed his mind? Please, God- he thinks, before his impromptu prayer is violently interrupted.
He’s shocked into motion by Dad’s fingers, curling rough and strong into the waistband of his jeans, yanking down hard enough to jerk Sam’s body back six inches. He’s trying to- Why’s he trying to- Sam can’t process the rest of it, only knows he should fight. The jeans are still buttoned, Thank God, so Sam’s whole body moves with the fabric, instead of being left behind. Through the fierce panic besetting him he knows that if his jeans stay on he’s still got some vital form of protection and he makes it his goal to keep them. He mindlessly starts to kick back, twist and grunt and struggle. There’s no need to follow his thoughts through in any detail, articulate what he needs protection from, only the need to focus on one thing: his jeans have to stay on.
He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t call for help. Instead he gasps and chokes down on his whimpers. He anchors himself with his fingers wrapping around the door handle and his toes digging into the gritty carpeting. The struggle is quiet enough for him to hear that outside the frogs chorus on, oblivious. He wishes desperately for a miracle, for this to all just stop. For this to be a dream.
He fights for his life for what seems to be a very long time. Dad must be too angry to be thinking, or he wouldn’t let it go so long. Even as Sam prays to get free, he is terrified by the thought that he even has a chance at escaping, slim though it might be. The man who can take down a ghoul with his bare hands is tugging and slipping like an untrained civilian.
Finally, inevitably, Dad ends it. His thick arm wraps itself around Sam’s throat, his other hand brutally clenching the hands Sam's got on the doorhandle so they're trapped under it. Sam can’t do more than writhe and gape in vain for air, wish with all his heart that he’d screamed for Dean when he had the chance, even though he knows Dean probably wouldn’t have answered him. This is Dad, after all. And they deserve this, whatever happens next. Still, now that it’s too late he wishes he’d tried that Hail Mary. Maybe Dean could’ve made this all slow down enough to start making sense again. Maybe Dean would’ve stopped Dad from killing him.
*****
He’s surprised to wake up again, but there’s little time to appreciate it. He’s on his back, and he can see the dark sweaty top of Dad’s head. Dad's got hold of his wrists somehow, is doing something that makes them feel tight and painful. He tries to pull them free and finds that they're stuck together with Dad’s belt. By the time he’s processed that Dad has a grip on his forearms hard enough to mold iron.
“Don’t you fucking move, Sam,” Dad grits, giving him a glance that’s wild with rage. He presses his arms against his chest roughly and it doesn’t even hurt but Sam freezes anyway. Dad is so angry.
Dad releases his arms and goes to work on his fly with both hands. It doesn't take long. The button pops free and Dad unzips him with a jerk, pushes one hand into Sam’s belly and pulls with the other until Sam feels the jeans scrape down his legs, feels that defense he swore he’d keep give way. It can’t be happening, he tells himself, and still he refuses to name that ‘it.’ He only knows that it can’t be happening. It can’t be happening, so though he’s free again to yell for help, he doesn’t. He stays immobile as Dad scoots back out of the car to give himself room to pull Sam’s jeans and underwear all the way free from his legs. With the door open a cool breeze sweeps over Sam’s exposed lower half, makes him tremble. The scent of marshwater from the bog behind their house momentarily clears the sweat and fear from his nostrils. He wills it to strike Dad too, to make him remember where he is. But Dad stares down at the crumpled denim in his hands, and then he drops it and crawls back into the Impala. Sam closes his eyes.
Smack. Dad’s open hand impacts on his cheek, sending a burst of pain through him and startling his eyes open. Smack. Dad’s backhand against his other cheek. He can feel blood trickling from his nose, leeching onto his tongue from a gashed place on his inner lip. The world is spinning, or maybe he’s just dizzy because he still doesn’t feel like he’s breathing enough, can’t catch his breath through his blood-and-snot-clogged nose or aching throat.
“You want this?” Dad growls, and Sam doesn’t say anything. “You want this?” Sam doesn’t think anything. Doesn’t think where this is going, where this could possibly go. Doesn’t think about Dean, or himself, or Dad, or anything.
His eyes rove the roof of the Impala. How many times has he lain in the backseat looking up at it? In the dimness of night it looks more gray than tan, and all the little stains and rips it's collected are erased. Looking at the ceiling of anywhere is like looking at an empty world, a different universe that people can’t inhabit because of gravity.
Vaguely he hears Dad’s zipper going down. A brisk current of air passes over his exposed parts, making it momentarily harder to focus on the smooth other world, on the harmless blankness he longs to escape to. He tells himself that whatever happens to him right now is just a little thing, in the grand scheme of things.
Suddenly Dad’s hands clamp down on his hips. A hot, hard-breathing shadow leans over him, blocking his view of the roof. It trips some last resistance in him and feebly he pushes at Dad’s chest with his bound hands. Instead of reeling back Dad grunts and curves forward, presses his forehead against Sam’s shoulder and tips his head so that he can see down their bodies, and then Sam stops breathing.
There’s something touching Sam down there, between his buttcheeks. It feels different when it’s not Dean doing it, not Dean’s fingers, not Dean’s breath in his ear. Not Dean’s cologne in his nose but something muskier, his father, who sweats a whiskey smell sometimes that makes Sam gag to think of.
Dad pulls up briefly to spit several times into his hand, then curls back down. Sam feels Dad’s penis, nudging at his entrance, bumping blindly as Dad fiddles around with himself and the spit. It breaks Sam out of his stupor a bit and he moans and shakes his head and squirms, though he can’t get any traction and Dad is so big, so solid.
Dad growls and grabs Sam’s bound wrists with one hand, wrenches them over his head and pins them against the door with a thump. His other is still down below and Sam jerks when he feels knuckles brushing clumsily against his inner thigh as Dad manually aligns himself. He feels the wet tip press at his entrance. Dad’s muscles tense and Sam’s every nerve sparks alight with pure panic. There’s a moment of stillness, one last second when it’s not too late, when everything can still be okay. With a growl, Dad drives forward. Sam writhes back to escape, jams his neck into an impossible angle with the back of his head against the door right below his hands, but it’s not enough, there's nowhere to go, and pain rips into him.
Dean had taken his time the few times they’d done this, giving Sam plenty of prep with his fingers, drizzling them both with lube until they were driven to laughter at the obscene squishing noises. Taken his time to make it fun for both of them. Dean has never forced it like this.
He didn't realize it could hurt like this, like a blade. Dad pins his hip with his free hand and drives the rest of the way in, and finally Sam opens his mouth to scream. But he can’t, he can’t even breath enough to scream. He can only gape airlessly, helplessly trapped in a terrible dream.
Dad groans long and deep. Sucks in a full breath while Sam still can’t get his lungs online. “Want this. You want this,” he grunts next to Sam’s face, his face red and twisted and ugly and too close, too close. “You want this. You want this.” The hateful words keep coming and then he begins rocking his hips to the rhythm of them, short little jerks in and out that only get worse each time. Sam doesn’t think he’s imagining the warm wetness of blood, but it doesn’t seem to slick the way any. Instead the pain only gets worse as he bleeds, as skin that's been torn open is rubbed raw, torn more.
"You want this. You want this." There's no time to recover between thrusts and the pain never stops building.
Dad's rhythm is merciless, echoing the rhythm of the swamp outside whether he realizes it or not.
*****
Sam's head slips off the door and flat onto smooth leather. His eyes flutter open at the movement. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. He hadn’t realized Dad wasn’t holding his hands in place anymore, but had grabbed his hips to yank him closer. He’d lost all track of time. Ten minutes could have passed since Dad walked in on he and Dean kissing, Deans hands up his shirt, or it could have been an hour. Dad’s stopped saying anything but he’s still grunting in brutal rhythm.
The rhythm speeds up, spiking the pain to new levels of unbearable, and Sam wonders if it's possible to die from this.
Dad groans and stills. Sam looks past his twisted face to the grey haze beyond and thinks It’s over. It’s over.
*****
After, Dad pulls Sam out of the car with careless ease. Sam sways on his feet and looks dully at the ground, soft and muddy under his bare soles. He feels something disgusting sliding sluglike down his leg. He waits patiently for whatever comes next, whether it's an order to get gone or a killing blow.
It’s neither of those things. Instead, Dad bends over and snags his crumpled jeans, taps him on the ankle to get him to lift his foot and manuevers them on, first one leg, then the other. It’s a process made more difficult because Sam’s balance is off, and because Dad’s fingers seem clumsier than normal. He discovers Sam’s underwear lying on the ground and holds them in his hands, face angled down so that Sam can’t really make out his expression.
“Goddammit,” he mutters. Sam waits for more, only mildly curious through the lassitude that’s enveloped him. There isn’t any more though. Dad just shoves the undies into his own front pocket and takes hold of Sam’s shoulder, turning him and steering him to the house. He isn’t particularly rough about it, but Sam stumbles anyway. Walking hurts. If he weren’t so numb in his head, he’d be crying from the pain.
Inside Dad guides him to the bathroom.
“Piss if you gotta,” he says. Sam fumbles automatically at his fly. With his hands still tied together in front of him it’s a little awkward, but he manages to do his business without taking too long about it. His aim’s a little off, but Dad is running water over at the sink, washing his hands, and doesn’t seem to notice the mishap. The linoleum around the toilet was stained yellow long before they got here anyway.
Once he’s all zipped up Dad holds a glass of warm water to his lips and Sam obediently drinks it, praying constantly in some far corner of his mind that things are over for the night, and that whatever comes next it will maybe at least wait until morning.
Anything seems possible after what just happened, any horrible thing he can imagine has a chance of coming true now, like there isn’t even gravity holding them in place anymore. Nothing holding them down, no rules saying they’re family, and can’t do this or that to each other. He and Dean lifted those rules. He can only pray and silently beg his father to let them drop back into place.
Dad suddenly pulls the half empty glass from his mouth, sets it down on the counter a hair too hard. His hands clamp down on Sam’s upper arms, and he finally meets Sam’s eyes with a dark glare. “I catch you doing anything like that with your brother again and you won’t be the only one I take out to the car next time, you get it?”
“Yes,” Sam whispers.
“You want me to do to your brother what I did to you?” Dad asks fiercely.
“No,” Sam chokes. Drops his eyes and swallows down a sudden surge of stomach acid. He can’t even imagine it: strong cocky Dean, crying and snotting like a little kid while Dad makes him take it. Sam is the weak link, and always has been. What Dad did to him doesn’t much matter really, he tells himself, because he’s always been the weak one, the baby. But if Dad did that to Dean, strong proud Dean, who’s always been Dad’s second in command... Sam can’t think about it without feeling sick. Dean’s too strong to go through something like that. He wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would break something in him.
It doesn’t even matter though, he reassures himself. It doesn’t matter because it won’t ever come to that. Dean and I won’t ever give Dad cause to get so angry again. So it doesn’t matter. It’s over now.
“So that wasn’t what you wanted after all?” Dad interrupts his thoughts, mocking tone making Sam’s stomach twist. “Not what you imagined when you started coming onto your own brother like a little faggot?” Before Sam can breathe enough to answer Dad leans down so his next words husk right past Sam’s ear.
“I ever think you’ve forgotten how you feel right now? I’ll give you a refresher lesson that’ll leave you walking funny for a month,” he says, low and hard and his voice is icy cold, but when Sam can’t help a quick look at him he thinks he sees something hot sparking, way back there in the depths of his eyes. Sam shivers involuntarily and Dad releases his arms with a grunt, provisionally satisfied.
*****
Dean’s moved a grand total of five feet from the floor to the bed. He’s sitting on the edge of it, hands on his knees, and his head shoots up when they enter, eyes bouncing between Dad and Sam for several volleys before, with visible effort, he locks onto Dad’s face.
Dad wastes no time. “You ever do anything like that with Sam again, I ever even see the barest flicker of the thought passing through your twisted brains, and I’ll make sure you never see each other again, you hear me?” Dad growls. Sam bets Dean’s thinking of being thrown out on his ass, judging by the way he opens his mouth to protest. Sam’s money is on a shallow grave and a layer of quicklime, but he doesn’t plan to ever find out either way.
“Yes sir!” Dean says desperately, pale as milk. “Sir I-”
“Save it, Dean. I’m too tired for more of this shit tonight,” Dad cuts him off, disgust curling plainly in his eyes, dripping from his voice. But Sam can't shake the feeling that it's laid on too thick. Whatever Dad was feeling when he spoke to Sam in the bathroom, it was more than just plain disgust. But then, maybe Sam was imagining it. “I hear a peep out of this room and one of you’s spending the night in with me.” He lumbers out, closing the door behind him.
Dean gapes after him, looks to Sam like he’s expecting Sam to explain immediately what just happened, explain about the belt still twisting around his wrists, about the blood and snot caked and itchy on Sam’s upper lip, and most of all about why Dad doesn’t seem to feel the need for roaring and raging some more.
Sam just stares mutely at a spot on the wall over Dean’s left shoulder and carefully tracks Dad’s progress through the house. His heavy tread diminishes down the hallway, stops in the kitchen long enough for cabinet doors to open, ice to clink in a glass, something that Sam would bet money is whiskey to pour. Then he continues on to the livingroom. Their mildewed couch makes it’s usual squeal of protest, the TV clicks on and babbles low. So certain is Dad that his message has been recieved, he’s not even gonna stay nearby and listen for them. He’s not even gonna pass the night sober. It’s astonishing, the confidence he has that he’s got the situation handled.
“Sam,” Dean finally whispers when the TV’s been going for a few seconds. Sam acts like he hasn’t heard and just turns a mildly curious eye around the room until it settles on the single cheap wood desk under the window.
“I gotta finish that,” he says carefully. His math book is still open to the problems he was working before, when Dean first came up behind him and started kissing on his neck, started the make-out session (their second of the night) that set this whole thing in motion. Why didn’t Dad punish him? Sam wonders, ashamed by the thought but unable to leave it alone for a minute. Dean was the older brother. Dean was the one who started it tonight, and most nights, and that very first time, months ago, Dean was the one who walked in on Sam whacking off and then offered a helping hand. If anyone was to blame for all of it really... Sam tries not to think it, but there it is. Why was he the one who Dad... punished? Why is Dad so certain it’s Sam that’s the problem? He doesn’t know. It's not important anyway, because it's over and I'm okay, he reminds himself.
What he really has to worry about is finishing his homework. It’s important because it’s due the next day, and Ms. Meyers always checks. He walks to the desk, slowly because walking hurts, and reaches for the chair, momentarily put off by the fact that his hands are still tied together with the belt. The belt is brown leather, tied into a knot because no holes are placed properly for the buckle to keep it fastened on his wrists. For some reason it’s dark in a few patches. He can’t tell if it’s because it’s wet with something or if it was just stained from before. From a hunt, from a day’s work in a garage... He thinks if he works on it a minute, with his teeth, he should be able to free himself, but he worries that if he puts his mouth on it he might taste whatever strange things have seeped into it. He stares down at his wrists thinking about that for a little while, because every thought seems to float in and out of his brain like an aimless tropical fish and he can’t quite grasp hold of any of them. Dean's footsteps come up close behind him.
“Sam,” Dean murmurs. “Sam, what happened man? Was Dad mad? I mean- how- what did he- are you hurt? You okay?”
Yes, Sam nods to himself, still idly pondering his hands. Yes to all those. Yes, I’m hurt. Yes, I’m okay. Yes, Dad was real mad. His fingers curl swollen and slightly dusky, the belt too tight to let them breathe. He remembers suddenly the feeling of Dad’s arm around his throat and just as suddenly pushes the memory away like a biting animal. He forgets now why he’s nodding, and when Dean puts a warm hand on his shoulder and pulls him around to face him he searches Dean’s face for clues. Somehow he’s lost track of what’s happening here, and that’s bad. He needs to hold tight onto here and now, so that way the images of then can’t push their way through.
“Sammy, man, snap out of it. Tell me what happened, okay? Did he ask you questions? Are there new rules? What, Sam?”
Dean’s trying to sound stern, but Sam thinks he’s too relieved at Dad’s brisk departure to really pull it off. Sam just shakes his head a little and looks back down at his hands, holds them out to Dean after a second.
“Can you?”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean breathes. “Let’s get this off before your fingers drop off for good.”
Dean pulls out the chair and sits facing Sammy. His fingers work gently against the stiff leather. And Sam is surprised, keeps tensing, expecting it to start to hurt, keeps waiting for Dean to get frightened that even this much contact between them will get Dad mad, and start rushing, start jerking and pulling. Instead Dean just patiently works loose the leather, millimeter by millimeter, glancing up from it to Sam’s face every few seconds with anxious curiosity.
“Why’d he tie your wrists?” Dean asks. “You try to run away or something?” Dean has no idea, no earthly clue what happened. If he had even the ghost of a suspicion he wouldn’t be so eager for Sam’s answer. Sam would love to know what exactly Dean is thinking. A spanking, maybe? A thorough examination that Sam wouldn’t hold still for? An embarrassing lesson on birds, bees, and thou-shalt-nots with a hard slap in the face to drive the point home?
He doesn’t feel like answering the question himself, and his gaze drifts back to his mathbook again. Was he up to problem six? Or had he finished and moved on to the next one?
“I gotta finish that,” he says again. “Next. I’ll do that next.” He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job sounding coherent with the way his thoughts are so slippery, so he’s disappointed to find Dean’s eyes looking so quzzically into his.
“Sam... Did you hit your head on something?”
“No. I just... I gotta do that. It’s due tomorrow. She’ll check.” But Dean keeps looking at him like he’s not making sense, and he’s horrified to find frustrated tears rising in his eyes. “She’ll check,” he repeats, and furiously blinks them back.
“Sam, you’re not going to school tomorrow.”
“What? Why?” He’s fine. He’s fine. He will not stay here alone with Dad while Dean’s at school all day tomorrow. Not that Dad will do again what he did tonight, because Sam won’t give him any reason to, so Dad won’t, he basically promised, so it won’t... it won’t happen again. But still Sam can’t stay here. Not alone with him so soon.
“Sam, I can see the outline of his whole hand on your cheek. As far as invitations to CPS go, it doesn’t get much better than that. It’s gonna take a couple days to fade. But man, think of it as vacation, a little chance to lie around, watch some TV. It’ll be awesome.” He sets back in on Sam’s wrists, then adds, faux-casually, “You say something dumb, Sammy? You know-” Dean gestures at his cheek.
“No.”
“If you say so.”
“I wasn’t saying anything. He just...” Sam shrugs angrily.
“Look Sammy,” Dean sighs, ceasing his efforts with the belt temporarily to pin Sam with a look. Somehow, getting off basically scott-free has endowed Dean with an extra dose of mature wisdom and the urge to share. “You don’t need to say anything to be giving him attitude. Those looks you give him, and you know which ones I’m talking about, those are just as bad as a lotta things you could say. He shouldn’t have hit you, okay? But after what he caught us doing... you saw how pissed he was. I mean...” Dean gestures towards his own lip with a swollen grimace. “You just can’t be giving him those looks like you do when he’s already like that, you know? You know that, right?... Say something, Sammy.”
Dean sounds so very reasonable. Like this was just some minor blow up, like it’s all over and things are fine. Dad caught them making out. Dad was angry. Now they’re all over it and it’s time to move on. Easy as pie in Dean’s head, but Sam just spent a significant amount of time wondering seriously if Dad was going to kill them, and then instead Dad did it to him... Sam finds he’s shaking with anger.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t giving him a look,” he says tightly. Dean rolls his eyes and reaches for the belt again, and Sam jerks his hands back towards his chest. “I wasn’t giving him a look Dean, and I didn’t say anything! He was just pissed, okay?”
He keeps himself to a venomous hiss, and somehow needing to be so quiet when he just wants to yell only makes it worse, until he feels like he’s choking on all the things he needs to say.
“He was so pissed seeing us, that he just stayed pissed and he didn’t need any more reason than what he caught us doing to hit me, to... There was nothing else- I didn’t do anything- He just- he just hit me and hit me and I didn’t even shout for you- I didn’t- I didn’t-” Sam’s breath is wheezing and he wonders if this is what asthma feels like. “I didn’t even shout cause I knew-” He chokes back a sob, and he’s pissed at himself for starting to cry because he wants Dean to know, not know what happened, but know that Sam is angry, that Sam is angry at Dean for being so reasonable tonight, when the rules are broken and Dad could do anything. “I didn’t shout, but I thought I was going to die. The way he looked- He was so mad, Dean. He was so mad... He looked like he would kill us. Kill me first and then you. And when- I knew I deserved it, but it hurt, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that he would do that... and it hurt so bad. And I know he caught us doing something dis-disgusting, and I know he h-had the right, I know that, but I- I...”
“Sammy,” Dean whispers, and even through the blur of tears Sam can see all trace of ease has finally vanished. He’s gripping Sam’s hands tightly and his eyes are huge in his face, his shoulders taut. “He hurt you Sammy?” Sam sobs and shrugs, then panics a second later and shakes his head frantically.
“No- No, Dean- I’m fine.” But Dean’s mouth tightens into a line.
“Fuck that, Sammy,” he says shakily, and grasps the hem of Sam’s shirt, pulls it up to his armpits to get a good look. “You’re fucking losing it right now. He did something.”
“See Dean, I’m okay,” Sam pants, “I’m okay. I’m okay. Just let go now. Let go.” Dean ignores him and turns Sam this way and that, examining his skin from every angle. Sam licks his lips and snot and dried blood form a disgusting layer on his tongue. He swallows heavily, tries again. “You can stop now Dean, you can stop. I’m okay.” But the more he says it the grimmer the lines of Dean’s face set.
He’s dizzy from Dean turning him, manuevering him. When Dean’s hands go to his fly the world seems to start spinning even faster. His hands are still tied, and he leans helplessly foreward and presses his dizzy head against Dean’s shoulder mumbles “I’m okay, Dean, I’m okay,” because in a minute Dean will see, Dean will know, and it’s important Sam stops him so he doesn’t freak out, doesn’t panic and think things are worse than they are. Because Sam’s okay really, or he will be once a little time has passed. It’s not that big a deal, really. It’s just a little pain. It'll heal. He presses his forehead hard against Dean’s shoulder and breathes in Dean and Dean’s getting there, he’s getting too close to it and Sam pushes into Dean harder, trying to keep himself from yelling 'Stop!'
“He beat you Sammy?” Dean is growling in his ear. His hands are working Sam’s zipper down but he’s looking down Sam’s back, and that’s where his focus is. It makes his fingers clumsy, his movements rough as he finally hooks his fingers into Sam’s beltloops and prepares to pull them down. “Is that blood on your jeans? What the fuck did he use? What did he hit you with? What the fuck did he beat you with, Sammy? Jesus. Blood. That’s not-”
He gives a firm yank and lets the jeans puddle around Sam’s ankles, still talking, smoothly slides one arm around Sam’s waist and grips his thighs with his free hand, hoists him up, belly down across Dean’s lap. The arm looping around Sam’s stomach tightens abruptly. The hand gripping his thigh pinches tight hard enough to hurt. The words stop. Sam’s head hangs down and he studies the scuffed wood floor, feels the blood thundering to his face and wishes it would make him pass out for a while. Just so he wouldn’t have to think or feel anymore, for a while.
“Jesus, Dad, you didn’t-” Dean whispers in horror. Sam feels thick fingers parting his buttocks, and he knows it’s Dean, he knows. But he still his to bite his lip hard to keep from screaming and struggling. He clutches with his hands at the nearest chair leg, trying to get a good grip on it so he has something to squeeze, but his fingers are still purple and turning darker, and they don’t do more than twitch feebly in response to his commands. He has to get the belt off, he has to get it off now. He tries to keep his lower half still as he pulls the belt against his mouth and gets a firm grip with his teeth. He needs to free his hands, needs to have his own hands under his control. That’s the most important thing right now, not whatever Dean’s doing back there.
Dean does something that hurts and Sam whimpers, starts jerking harder at the leather with his teeth so he won’t scream.
“Sorry, Sammy,” he hears Dean whisper. “I gotta- there’s blood and... stuff... I gotta find out where it's coming from.” Sam does his best to tune him out. Finally, finally the belt slips loose. His mouth doesn’t taste like old blood anymore, nor does it taste like anything weird that might have gotten on the belt. It tastes like leather. Like Dean smells since he got his new jacket last Christmas. Sam unloops it from his wrists with his teeth and then lowers it to the ground to curl lifelessly like a beheaded serpent.
He twitches his fingers as much as he’s able, til they go from numb to being on fire and then he can’t help whimpering aloud.
“Almost done, Sammy,” Dean soothes quickly. “I know it hurts but it’s gotta be done. Almost there.” The worried over-gentle tone of Dean’s voice makes him ashamed. He holds himself as still as he can while Dean touches him and doesn’t let another sound escape.
Dean helps Sam off his lap and onto a bed a few minutes later. He has Sam lie on his stomach so he can clean him off with a handful of cotton waste from the first aid kit. He tucks a handful of cotton into Sam's underwear too as he helps him into his pajamas. He taps out a couple painkillers, the strong ones Sam is never given, and he helps Sam swallow them with half a bottle of flat coke from Dean's duffle. Sam's fingers are still too swollen and clumsy to do it by himself.
Once the pills are down and he’s got him all tucked back in Dean perches quietly on the bed. From the first aid kit he produces an alcohol wipe and swipes at the crust ringing Sam’s nostrils. His motions start out slow and only get slower, so that eventually he stops altogether and just slumps there, soiled wipe drying slowly in his loose fingers. He stares at Sam’s chin and Sam wills him to just meet his eyes, bites down on the urge to make Dean promise not to leave while he’s knocked out. It’s not like Dad’s gonna- not like anything’s gonna happen while he’s sleeping. It’s all over. Things’ll be okay now.
He watches Dean and tries to decide if the drugs are making him see things weird.
With his shoulders slumped and his face so still Dean looks younger than eighteen, funny when he usually seems so much older to Sam. Dean has the body of an adult, a man’s strong fingers and cut jaw. He’s taller than Dad, a new development this year that seems to put an extra swagger in his step whenever they’re out together as a family. So how can he look so much like a boy now?
“I don’t understand why he’d do it,” Dean murmurs to the room. Sam can’t remember the last time Dean was so deep in thought that he literally forgot Sam’s presence. Lost in a TV show, sure, or a movie, or his music, but lost in thought is not Dean’s style. “He must’ve-” Abruptly Dean turns his searching gaze on Sam. “What did he say? He must’ve said something.”
He doesn't want to talk about it. He knows he should tell Dean what happened, but he doesn't want to. Not now or ever. “Said I wanted it,” Sam forces out.
“And what did you say?”
Sam doesn't answer. He doesn't remember saying anything at all.
“Nothing?” Dean presses. Sam feels a muddled tangle of anger and fear intertwined at the the sharp look Dean’s giving him. Sam knows they both did wrong and Dad was within his rights to do whatever he wanted to them, killing them included, for what he caught them doing. Dean must agree or he’d already be hustling them out of here. But does Dean think Sam did something else wrong? Something to deserve being punished more than Dean was?
“He wasn’t asking. He was saying, like," Sam forces it out through clenched teeth, like Dad did, no break in between to wait for an answer, "‘You want this. You want this. You want this.’” He can hear it so clearly, ringing in his ears. His stomach rolls. Dean stares at him, wide-eyed. “He was pissed,” Sam continues in his own voice, suddenly exhausted. “That was why he... did it. He was pissed. What we did...”
“Yeah but...” Dean presses his lips together. Doesn’t look convinced.
“He was just mad Dean. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but why you? Why not me? I’m the oldest, I’m the one he should’ve been mad at if he was looking for someone to blame. Why didn't he-?” Sam just shrugs a little, then yawns. The drugs are working now, making everything so heavy. His hands. His feet. His head. While he still has the strength he looks at Dean, knowing there’s nothing he can do to keep Dean there while he’s out, but wanting to keep his brother in his sight til the last possible second.
“Said he’d do you too, ‘f he caught us again,” Sam slurs.
"He said-" Dean cuts himself off. "What else did he say?" But Sam's too tired to repeat it all back, even if he wanted to.
"Doesn't matter," he mumbles instead. "'F we don' do it anymore, he won' do it again."
He's still waiting for Dean to say something to that when he falls asleep.
*****
When he wakes up things are fuzzy, confused, but Dean’s face is right there and that makes it a lot less frightening.
“Open,” Dean murmurs, and Sam opens his mouth for the thermometer, holds it there and follows Dean’s face with bleary eyes. Dean looks worried in that way he only ever gets when Sam’s really sick, that mom-face. The older they’ve gotten the less Sam’s seen it. The last time it made an appearance must have been years ago now. So he’s really sick, he understands that from the face, and from the difficulty he has tracking any thought, and from how his body feels, cold enough that he's shivering, clammy with sweat, achy, numb.
“Shit, Sammy,” Dean mumbles, rubs his mouth with his hand. “What am I gonna do?”
Sam knows that if he thought hard, he might be able to remember what is making Dean so upset, but he doesn’t really want to. Too tired. Too sick. It takes all his energy just to keep his eyes on Dean and the thermometer under his tongue. The damn thing’s too heavy as it is. He falls asleep with it still in his mouth.
*****
He’s moving when he wakes next. The world tilts crazily and he finds he’s in Dean’s arms, halfway down the hallway and still going. Going where? Are they moving house again so soon? Dean’s not looking down at him, so all Sam can see is his chin, his flared nostrils, a little portion of the side of his face, all from below and obscured through the underwater haze of high fever. Sam trembles with cold and wishes for a blanket. He’s just in skimpy cotton pajamas and they feel damp. Sam hears the rumble of Dean’s voice through the ear he’s got pressed to his chest before he focuses enough to understand the words.
“You get out of our way. Get out of our way.”
Dad answering something, not as loud. Sam can’t make it out.
“He’s burning up, you fucking bastard...” Sam just wants to curl up under a dark heap of blankets, lay down and close his eyes. He moans. Dean’s still yelling and doesn’t hear him. “... fucking sick! He needs a hospital...” Sam tries to pay attention, but for some reason he doesn’t want to look at Dad, and the parts of Dean’s face he can see look flushed and angry. He just wants to sleep. He closes his eyes.
*****
He wakes up again and he’s in the car. He’s lying on his side on the front seat, top of his head pushing against something warm and solid that he instantly knows is Dean’s thigh. He chances a look up at the steering wheel and sees Dean’s hands steady on it. Up to the right is the roof of the Impala, exposed and stained in the daylight. To the front a swathe of blue sky is visible out the windshield and he studies it while he takes stock. He’s really sick and his body’s miserable with it, but he’s not too bad, considering.
Under his ear the road hums, giving a muted thump-thump, thump-thump every little while as they pass over carefully spaced lines in the pavement. There’s no music playing, just he and Dean, breathing in counterpoint in their own private space. Maybe it’s the pain pills finally wearing off, but he begins to feel really awake for the first time since the previous night. Dean taking his temperature and the scene in the hall both feel unreal and distant, like he dreamed them. In the sunlit Impala, on the road, his mind is finally clear and sharp.
He remembers everything.
He examines the leather seat in front of his nose, the scuffed dashboard, the stretch of carpet he can see over the edge of the seat. As far as he can see there’s no damage, nothing to prove anything bad happened here in the dark hours before. In the light the car looks like a different place entirely. Maybe when he’s in it with Dean, it is.
Author's Note: A short sequel can be found here.
Author:
mya_rofkiRating: NC-17
Words: 7,300
Characters: John/Sam, Dean/Sam
Warnings: noncon, underage, incest (Read the summary and you'll have a pretty good idea of whether this is your thing.)
Summary: A story in which John catches Sam and Dean together and loses it, violently.
Written for a (possibly triggery)
spnkink_meme prompt. Highlight to read. "John punishes Sam for having sex with Dean, by raping him, more graphic the better. Comfort from protective Dean is part of the kinkage. Edit: I also want Sam to be around 14 yrs old, and for the rape to happen in the front seat of the Impala."Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I'm making no money off of them.
“This is what you like?” Dad shouts.
No. Sam shakes his head. No. But Dad has a fist twisted in the stretchy cotton of his t-shirt so tight Sam can feel the fabric like cable cutting steely into his throat. He didn’t ever imagine cotton could hurt so much, but Dad’s really good at making seemingly harmless things into weapons. Sam can’t even talk he’s so scared, can’t defend himself as Dad rages in his face.
“This is what you want?” Dad screams. “To do sick things with your brother?”
Dean is still on the floor, on his knees. Blood drips from his mouth where Dad punched him, but it wasn’t really hard enough to keep him down this long. Dean’s taken much worse from monsters and struggled up to fight again. Shock and shame, not pain, keep him silent and immobile. Dean doesn’t protest as Dad drags Sam out of the bedroom.
They stumble down the hall, out into the vibrating spring night. Tiny little frogs sing out mating calls, something Sam found perversely funny earlier, when Dean’s mouth was on his as they made out next to the open window. Now they sound different to his panicked ears: a thousand alien voices that will cry on and on without concern whatever Dad does to them tonight.
The whole way out to the car Dad’s silent except for harsh breaths through his nose, and Sam lets out only a wordless gasp when his ankles lock with each other and send him to his knees with a thump that jars his bones and a wrench that tightens the shirt around his throat hard enough to feel like it's cutting into his skin for real. Wetness from the low ground that surrounds the house sinks into his jeans. Dad just hauls him back to his feet and hurls him toward the driver’s side door. Sam barely catches himself from smacking his head on the metal.
No. He thinks, trembling hands flat on the door. No. Because what comes next? It must be a long silent drive into the middle of nowhere, then the harsh grip of an angry hand on his neck or his arm, or maybe the impersonal deathknell of Dad simply walking around to the passenger side and opening the door: a silent ‘Get the fuck out,’ because he'll refuse to even speak a word to his son again. Sam imagines his body lying in a ditch, shot like a dog, but it would be just as bad to be whole and unharmed and standing by the side of the road watching the tailights fade into the darkness. He can’t imagine what would possibly happen next. Without Dean, without Dad, alone and abandoned... What would he do? The next scene stubbornly refuses to appear, like turning the page of a book and finding you’ve reached the end of the story. His family is his world. Without Dean and Dad, there’d be no world left.
Inside, Sam starts shifting from crawling to sitting when he reaches the passenger side, thinking, looking for something to say to get Dad to let him stay, but Dad hisses “Stop!” and Sam freezes, right leg bent and knee digging into smooth leather, left awkwardly jutting off the seat so his bare foot is braced on the floor. He can’t imagine why he should stop here, why he isn’t already numbly sitting down and waiting to be driven away. Has Dad changed his mind? Please, God- he thinks, before his impromptu prayer is violently interrupted.
He’s shocked into motion by Dad’s fingers, curling rough and strong into the waistband of his jeans, yanking down hard enough to jerk Sam’s body back six inches. He’s trying to- Why’s he trying to- Sam can’t process the rest of it, only knows he should fight. The jeans are still buttoned, Thank God, so Sam’s whole body moves with the fabric, instead of being left behind. Through the fierce panic besetting him he knows that if his jeans stay on he’s still got some vital form of protection and he makes it his goal to keep them. He mindlessly starts to kick back, twist and grunt and struggle. There’s no need to follow his thoughts through in any detail, articulate what he needs protection from, only the need to focus on one thing: his jeans have to stay on.
He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t call for help. Instead he gasps and chokes down on his whimpers. He anchors himself with his fingers wrapping around the door handle and his toes digging into the gritty carpeting. The struggle is quiet enough for him to hear that outside the frogs chorus on, oblivious. He wishes desperately for a miracle, for this to all just stop. For this to be a dream.
He fights for his life for what seems to be a very long time. Dad must be too angry to be thinking, or he wouldn’t let it go so long. Even as Sam prays to get free, he is terrified by the thought that he even has a chance at escaping, slim though it might be. The man who can take down a ghoul with his bare hands is tugging and slipping like an untrained civilian.
Finally, inevitably, Dad ends it. His thick arm wraps itself around Sam’s throat, his other hand brutally clenching the hands Sam's got on the doorhandle so they're trapped under it. Sam can’t do more than writhe and gape in vain for air, wish with all his heart that he’d screamed for Dean when he had the chance, even though he knows Dean probably wouldn’t have answered him. This is Dad, after all. And they deserve this, whatever happens next. Still, now that it’s too late he wishes he’d tried that Hail Mary. Maybe Dean could’ve made this all slow down enough to start making sense again. Maybe Dean would’ve stopped Dad from killing him.
*****
He’s surprised to wake up again, but there’s little time to appreciate it. He’s on his back, and he can see the dark sweaty top of Dad’s head. Dad's got hold of his wrists somehow, is doing something that makes them feel tight and painful. He tries to pull them free and finds that they're stuck together with Dad’s belt. By the time he’s processed that Dad has a grip on his forearms hard enough to mold iron.
“Don’t you fucking move, Sam,” Dad grits, giving him a glance that’s wild with rage. He presses his arms against his chest roughly and it doesn’t even hurt but Sam freezes anyway. Dad is so angry.
Dad releases his arms and goes to work on his fly with both hands. It doesn't take long. The button pops free and Dad unzips him with a jerk, pushes one hand into Sam’s belly and pulls with the other until Sam feels the jeans scrape down his legs, feels that defense he swore he’d keep give way. It can’t be happening, he tells himself, and still he refuses to name that ‘it.’ He only knows that it can’t be happening. It can’t be happening, so though he’s free again to yell for help, he doesn’t. He stays immobile as Dad scoots back out of the car to give himself room to pull Sam’s jeans and underwear all the way free from his legs. With the door open a cool breeze sweeps over Sam’s exposed lower half, makes him tremble. The scent of marshwater from the bog behind their house momentarily clears the sweat and fear from his nostrils. He wills it to strike Dad too, to make him remember where he is. But Dad stares down at the crumpled denim in his hands, and then he drops it and crawls back into the Impala. Sam closes his eyes.
Smack. Dad’s open hand impacts on his cheek, sending a burst of pain through him and startling his eyes open. Smack. Dad’s backhand against his other cheek. He can feel blood trickling from his nose, leeching onto his tongue from a gashed place on his inner lip. The world is spinning, or maybe he’s just dizzy because he still doesn’t feel like he’s breathing enough, can’t catch his breath through his blood-and-snot-clogged nose or aching throat.
“You want this?” Dad growls, and Sam doesn’t say anything. “You want this?” Sam doesn’t think anything. Doesn’t think where this is going, where this could possibly go. Doesn’t think about Dean, or himself, or Dad, or anything.
His eyes rove the roof of the Impala. How many times has he lain in the backseat looking up at it? In the dimness of night it looks more gray than tan, and all the little stains and rips it's collected are erased. Looking at the ceiling of anywhere is like looking at an empty world, a different universe that people can’t inhabit because of gravity.
Vaguely he hears Dad’s zipper going down. A brisk current of air passes over his exposed parts, making it momentarily harder to focus on the smooth other world, on the harmless blankness he longs to escape to. He tells himself that whatever happens to him right now is just a little thing, in the grand scheme of things.
Suddenly Dad’s hands clamp down on his hips. A hot, hard-breathing shadow leans over him, blocking his view of the roof. It trips some last resistance in him and feebly he pushes at Dad’s chest with his bound hands. Instead of reeling back Dad grunts and curves forward, presses his forehead against Sam’s shoulder and tips his head so that he can see down their bodies, and then Sam stops breathing.
There’s something touching Sam down there, between his buttcheeks. It feels different when it’s not Dean doing it, not Dean’s fingers, not Dean’s breath in his ear. Not Dean’s cologne in his nose but something muskier, his father, who sweats a whiskey smell sometimes that makes Sam gag to think of.
Dad pulls up briefly to spit several times into his hand, then curls back down. Sam feels Dad’s penis, nudging at his entrance, bumping blindly as Dad fiddles around with himself and the spit. It breaks Sam out of his stupor a bit and he moans and shakes his head and squirms, though he can’t get any traction and Dad is so big, so solid.
Dad growls and grabs Sam’s bound wrists with one hand, wrenches them over his head and pins them against the door with a thump. His other is still down below and Sam jerks when he feels knuckles brushing clumsily against his inner thigh as Dad manually aligns himself. He feels the wet tip press at his entrance. Dad’s muscles tense and Sam’s every nerve sparks alight with pure panic. There’s a moment of stillness, one last second when it’s not too late, when everything can still be okay. With a growl, Dad drives forward. Sam writhes back to escape, jams his neck into an impossible angle with the back of his head against the door right below his hands, but it’s not enough, there's nowhere to go, and pain rips into him.
Dean had taken his time the few times they’d done this, giving Sam plenty of prep with his fingers, drizzling them both with lube until they were driven to laughter at the obscene squishing noises. Taken his time to make it fun for both of them. Dean has never forced it like this.
He didn't realize it could hurt like this, like a blade. Dad pins his hip with his free hand and drives the rest of the way in, and finally Sam opens his mouth to scream. But he can’t, he can’t even breath enough to scream. He can only gape airlessly, helplessly trapped in a terrible dream.
Dad groans long and deep. Sucks in a full breath while Sam still can’t get his lungs online. “Want this. You want this,” he grunts next to Sam’s face, his face red and twisted and ugly and too close, too close. “You want this. You want this.” The hateful words keep coming and then he begins rocking his hips to the rhythm of them, short little jerks in and out that only get worse each time. Sam doesn’t think he’s imagining the warm wetness of blood, but it doesn’t seem to slick the way any. Instead the pain only gets worse as he bleeds, as skin that's been torn open is rubbed raw, torn more.
"You want this. You want this." There's no time to recover between thrusts and the pain never stops building.
Dad's rhythm is merciless, echoing the rhythm of the swamp outside whether he realizes it or not.
*****
Sam's head slips off the door and flat onto smooth leather. His eyes flutter open at the movement. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. He hadn’t realized Dad wasn’t holding his hands in place anymore, but had grabbed his hips to yank him closer. He’d lost all track of time. Ten minutes could have passed since Dad walked in on he and Dean kissing, Deans hands up his shirt, or it could have been an hour. Dad’s stopped saying anything but he’s still grunting in brutal rhythm.
The rhythm speeds up, spiking the pain to new levels of unbearable, and Sam wonders if it's possible to die from this.
Dad groans and stills. Sam looks past his twisted face to the grey haze beyond and thinks It’s over. It’s over.
*****
After, Dad pulls Sam out of the car with careless ease. Sam sways on his feet and looks dully at the ground, soft and muddy under his bare soles. He feels something disgusting sliding sluglike down his leg. He waits patiently for whatever comes next, whether it's an order to get gone or a killing blow.
It’s neither of those things. Instead, Dad bends over and snags his crumpled jeans, taps him on the ankle to get him to lift his foot and manuevers them on, first one leg, then the other. It’s a process made more difficult because Sam’s balance is off, and because Dad’s fingers seem clumsier than normal. He discovers Sam’s underwear lying on the ground and holds them in his hands, face angled down so that Sam can’t really make out his expression.
“Goddammit,” he mutters. Sam waits for more, only mildly curious through the lassitude that’s enveloped him. There isn’t any more though. Dad just shoves the undies into his own front pocket and takes hold of Sam’s shoulder, turning him and steering him to the house. He isn’t particularly rough about it, but Sam stumbles anyway. Walking hurts. If he weren’t so numb in his head, he’d be crying from the pain.
Inside Dad guides him to the bathroom.
“Piss if you gotta,” he says. Sam fumbles automatically at his fly. With his hands still tied together in front of him it’s a little awkward, but he manages to do his business without taking too long about it. His aim’s a little off, but Dad is running water over at the sink, washing his hands, and doesn’t seem to notice the mishap. The linoleum around the toilet was stained yellow long before they got here anyway.
Once he’s all zipped up Dad holds a glass of warm water to his lips and Sam obediently drinks it, praying constantly in some far corner of his mind that things are over for the night, and that whatever comes next it will maybe at least wait until morning.
Anything seems possible after what just happened, any horrible thing he can imagine has a chance of coming true now, like there isn’t even gravity holding them in place anymore. Nothing holding them down, no rules saying they’re family, and can’t do this or that to each other. He and Dean lifted those rules. He can only pray and silently beg his father to let them drop back into place.
Dad suddenly pulls the half empty glass from his mouth, sets it down on the counter a hair too hard. His hands clamp down on Sam’s upper arms, and he finally meets Sam’s eyes with a dark glare. “I catch you doing anything like that with your brother again and you won’t be the only one I take out to the car next time, you get it?”
“Yes,” Sam whispers.
“You want me to do to your brother what I did to you?” Dad asks fiercely.
“No,” Sam chokes. Drops his eyes and swallows down a sudden surge of stomach acid. He can’t even imagine it: strong cocky Dean, crying and snotting like a little kid while Dad makes him take it. Sam is the weak link, and always has been. What Dad did to him doesn’t much matter really, he tells himself, because he’s always been the weak one, the baby. But if Dad did that to Dean, strong proud Dean, who’s always been Dad’s second in command... Sam can’t think about it without feeling sick. Dean’s too strong to go through something like that. He wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would break something in him.
It doesn’t even matter though, he reassures himself. It doesn’t matter because it won’t ever come to that. Dean and I won’t ever give Dad cause to get so angry again. So it doesn’t matter. It’s over now.
“So that wasn’t what you wanted after all?” Dad interrupts his thoughts, mocking tone making Sam’s stomach twist. “Not what you imagined when you started coming onto your own brother like a little faggot?” Before Sam can breathe enough to answer Dad leans down so his next words husk right past Sam’s ear.
“I ever think you’ve forgotten how you feel right now? I’ll give you a refresher lesson that’ll leave you walking funny for a month,” he says, low and hard and his voice is icy cold, but when Sam can’t help a quick look at him he thinks he sees something hot sparking, way back there in the depths of his eyes. Sam shivers involuntarily and Dad releases his arms with a grunt, provisionally satisfied.
*****
Dean’s moved a grand total of five feet from the floor to the bed. He’s sitting on the edge of it, hands on his knees, and his head shoots up when they enter, eyes bouncing between Dad and Sam for several volleys before, with visible effort, he locks onto Dad’s face.
Dad wastes no time. “You ever do anything like that with Sam again, I ever even see the barest flicker of the thought passing through your twisted brains, and I’ll make sure you never see each other again, you hear me?” Dad growls. Sam bets Dean’s thinking of being thrown out on his ass, judging by the way he opens his mouth to protest. Sam’s money is on a shallow grave and a layer of quicklime, but he doesn’t plan to ever find out either way.
“Yes sir!” Dean says desperately, pale as milk. “Sir I-”
“Save it, Dean. I’m too tired for more of this shit tonight,” Dad cuts him off, disgust curling plainly in his eyes, dripping from his voice. But Sam can't shake the feeling that it's laid on too thick. Whatever Dad was feeling when he spoke to Sam in the bathroom, it was more than just plain disgust. But then, maybe Sam was imagining it. “I hear a peep out of this room and one of you’s spending the night in with me.” He lumbers out, closing the door behind him.
Dean gapes after him, looks to Sam like he’s expecting Sam to explain immediately what just happened, explain about the belt still twisting around his wrists, about the blood and snot caked and itchy on Sam’s upper lip, and most of all about why Dad doesn’t seem to feel the need for roaring and raging some more.
Sam just stares mutely at a spot on the wall over Dean’s left shoulder and carefully tracks Dad’s progress through the house. His heavy tread diminishes down the hallway, stops in the kitchen long enough for cabinet doors to open, ice to clink in a glass, something that Sam would bet money is whiskey to pour. Then he continues on to the livingroom. Their mildewed couch makes it’s usual squeal of protest, the TV clicks on and babbles low. So certain is Dad that his message has been recieved, he’s not even gonna stay nearby and listen for them. He’s not even gonna pass the night sober. It’s astonishing, the confidence he has that he’s got the situation handled.
“Sam,” Dean finally whispers when the TV’s been going for a few seconds. Sam acts like he hasn’t heard and just turns a mildly curious eye around the room until it settles on the single cheap wood desk under the window.
“I gotta finish that,” he says carefully. His math book is still open to the problems he was working before, when Dean first came up behind him and started kissing on his neck, started the make-out session (their second of the night) that set this whole thing in motion. Why didn’t Dad punish him? Sam wonders, ashamed by the thought but unable to leave it alone for a minute. Dean was the older brother. Dean was the one who started it tonight, and most nights, and that very first time, months ago, Dean was the one who walked in on Sam whacking off and then offered a helping hand. If anyone was to blame for all of it really... Sam tries not to think it, but there it is. Why was he the one who Dad... punished? Why is Dad so certain it’s Sam that’s the problem? He doesn’t know. It's not important anyway, because it's over and I'm okay, he reminds himself.
What he really has to worry about is finishing his homework. It’s important because it’s due the next day, and Ms. Meyers always checks. He walks to the desk, slowly because walking hurts, and reaches for the chair, momentarily put off by the fact that his hands are still tied together with the belt. The belt is brown leather, tied into a knot because no holes are placed properly for the buckle to keep it fastened on his wrists. For some reason it’s dark in a few patches. He can’t tell if it’s because it’s wet with something or if it was just stained from before. From a hunt, from a day’s work in a garage... He thinks if he works on it a minute, with his teeth, he should be able to free himself, but he worries that if he puts his mouth on it he might taste whatever strange things have seeped into it. He stares down at his wrists thinking about that for a little while, because every thought seems to float in and out of his brain like an aimless tropical fish and he can’t quite grasp hold of any of them. Dean's footsteps come up close behind him.
“Sam,” Dean murmurs. “Sam, what happened man? Was Dad mad? I mean- how- what did he- are you hurt? You okay?”
Yes, Sam nods to himself, still idly pondering his hands. Yes to all those. Yes, I’m hurt. Yes, I’m okay. Yes, Dad was real mad. His fingers curl swollen and slightly dusky, the belt too tight to let them breathe. He remembers suddenly the feeling of Dad’s arm around his throat and just as suddenly pushes the memory away like a biting animal. He forgets now why he’s nodding, and when Dean puts a warm hand on his shoulder and pulls him around to face him he searches Dean’s face for clues. Somehow he’s lost track of what’s happening here, and that’s bad. He needs to hold tight onto here and now, so that way the images of then can’t push their way through.
“Sammy, man, snap out of it. Tell me what happened, okay? Did he ask you questions? Are there new rules? What, Sam?”
Dean’s trying to sound stern, but Sam thinks he’s too relieved at Dad’s brisk departure to really pull it off. Sam just shakes his head a little and looks back down at his hands, holds them out to Dean after a second.
“Can you?”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean breathes. “Let’s get this off before your fingers drop off for good.”
Dean pulls out the chair and sits facing Sammy. His fingers work gently against the stiff leather. And Sam is surprised, keeps tensing, expecting it to start to hurt, keeps waiting for Dean to get frightened that even this much contact between them will get Dad mad, and start rushing, start jerking and pulling. Instead Dean just patiently works loose the leather, millimeter by millimeter, glancing up from it to Sam’s face every few seconds with anxious curiosity.
“Why’d he tie your wrists?” Dean asks. “You try to run away or something?” Dean has no idea, no earthly clue what happened. If he had even the ghost of a suspicion he wouldn’t be so eager for Sam’s answer. Sam would love to know what exactly Dean is thinking. A spanking, maybe? A thorough examination that Sam wouldn’t hold still for? An embarrassing lesson on birds, bees, and thou-shalt-nots with a hard slap in the face to drive the point home?
He doesn’t feel like answering the question himself, and his gaze drifts back to his mathbook again. Was he up to problem six? Or had he finished and moved on to the next one?
“I gotta finish that,” he says again. “Next. I’ll do that next.” He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job sounding coherent with the way his thoughts are so slippery, so he’s disappointed to find Dean’s eyes looking so quzzically into his.
“Sam... Did you hit your head on something?”
“No. I just... I gotta do that. It’s due tomorrow. She’ll check.” But Dean keeps looking at him like he’s not making sense, and he’s horrified to find frustrated tears rising in his eyes. “She’ll check,” he repeats, and furiously blinks them back.
“Sam, you’re not going to school tomorrow.”
“What? Why?” He’s fine. He’s fine. He will not stay here alone with Dad while Dean’s at school all day tomorrow. Not that Dad will do again what he did tonight, because Sam won’t give him any reason to, so Dad won’t, he basically promised, so it won’t... it won’t happen again. But still Sam can’t stay here. Not alone with him so soon.
“Sam, I can see the outline of his whole hand on your cheek. As far as invitations to CPS go, it doesn’t get much better than that. It’s gonna take a couple days to fade. But man, think of it as vacation, a little chance to lie around, watch some TV. It’ll be awesome.” He sets back in on Sam’s wrists, then adds, faux-casually, “You say something dumb, Sammy? You know-” Dean gestures at his cheek.
“No.”
“If you say so.”
“I wasn’t saying anything. He just...” Sam shrugs angrily.
“Look Sammy,” Dean sighs, ceasing his efforts with the belt temporarily to pin Sam with a look. Somehow, getting off basically scott-free has endowed Dean with an extra dose of mature wisdom and the urge to share. “You don’t need to say anything to be giving him attitude. Those looks you give him, and you know which ones I’m talking about, those are just as bad as a lotta things you could say. He shouldn’t have hit you, okay? But after what he caught us doing... you saw how pissed he was. I mean...” Dean gestures towards his own lip with a swollen grimace. “You just can’t be giving him those looks like you do when he’s already like that, you know? You know that, right?... Say something, Sammy.”
Dean sounds so very reasonable. Like this was just some minor blow up, like it’s all over and things are fine. Dad caught them making out. Dad was angry. Now they’re all over it and it’s time to move on. Easy as pie in Dean’s head, but Sam just spent a significant amount of time wondering seriously if Dad was going to kill them, and then instead Dad did it to him... Sam finds he’s shaking with anger.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t giving him a look,” he says tightly. Dean rolls his eyes and reaches for the belt again, and Sam jerks his hands back towards his chest. “I wasn’t giving him a look Dean, and I didn’t say anything! He was just pissed, okay?”
He keeps himself to a venomous hiss, and somehow needing to be so quiet when he just wants to yell only makes it worse, until he feels like he’s choking on all the things he needs to say.
“He was so pissed seeing us, that he just stayed pissed and he didn’t need any more reason than what he caught us doing to hit me, to... There was nothing else- I didn’t do anything- He just- he just hit me and hit me and I didn’t even shout for you- I didn’t- I didn’t-” Sam’s breath is wheezing and he wonders if this is what asthma feels like. “I didn’t even shout cause I knew-” He chokes back a sob, and he’s pissed at himself for starting to cry because he wants Dean to know, not know what happened, but know that Sam is angry, that Sam is angry at Dean for being so reasonable tonight, when the rules are broken and Dad could do anything. “I didn’t shout, but I thought I was going to die. The way he looked- He was so mad, Dean. He was so mad... He looked like he would kill us. Kill me first and then you. And when- I knew I deserved it, but it hurt, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that he would do that... and it hurt so bad. And I know he caught us doing something dis-disgusting, and I know he h-had the right, I know that, but I- I...”
“Sammy,” Dean whispers, and even through the blur of tears Sam can see all trace of ease has finally vanished. He’s gripping Sam’s hands tightly and his eyes are huge in his face, his shoulders taut. “He hurt you Sammy?” Sam sobs and shrugs, then panics a second later and shakes his head frantically.
“No- No, Dean- I’m fine.” But Dean’s mouth tightens into a line.
“Fuck that, Sammy,” he says shakily, and grasps the hem of Sam’s shirt, pulls it up to his armpits to get a good look. “You’re fucking losing it right now. He did something.”
“See Dean, I’m okay,” Sam pants, “I’m okay. I’m okay. Just let go now. Let go.” Dean ignores him and turns Sam this way and that, examining his skin from every angle. Sam licks his lips and snot and dried blood form a disgusting layer on his tongue. He swallows heavily, tries again. “You can stop now Dean, you can stop. I’m okay.” But the more he says it the grimmer the lines of Dean’s face set.
He’s dizzy from Dean turning him, manuevering him. When Dean’s hands go to his fly the world seems to start spinning even faster. His hands are still tied, and he leans helplessly foreward and presses his dizzy head against Dean’s shoulder mumbles “I’m okay, Dean, I’m okay,” because in a minute Dean will see, Dean will know, and it’s important Sam stops him so he doesn’t freak out, doesn’t panic and think things are worse than they are. Because Sam’s okay really, or he will be once a little time has passed. It’s not that big a deal, really. It’s just a little pain. It'll heal. He presses his forehead hard against Dean’s shoulder and breathes in Dean and Dean’s getting there, he’s getting too close to it and Sam pushes into Dean harder, trying to keep himself from yelling 'Stop!'
“He beat you Sammy?” Dean is growling in his ear. His hands are working Sam’s zipper down but he’s looking down Sam’s back, and that’s where his focus is. It makes his fingers clumsy, his movements rough as he finally hooks his fingers into Sam’s beltloops and prepares to pull them down. “Is that blood on your jeans? What the fuck did he use? What did he hit you with? What the fuck did he beat you with, Sammy? Jesus. Blood. That’s not-”
He gives a firm yank and lets the jeans puddle around Sam’s ankles, still talking, smoothly slides one arm around Sam’s waist and grips his thighs with his free hand, hoists him up, belly down across Dean’s lap. The arm looping around Sam’s stomach tightens abruptly. The hand gripping his thigh pinches tight hard enough to hurt. The words stop. Sam’s head hangs down and he studies the scuffed wood floor, feels the blood thundering to his face and wishes it would make him pass out for a while. Just so he wouldn’t have to think or feel anymore, for a while.
“Jesus, Dad, you didn’t-” Dean whispers in horror. Sam feels thick fingers parting his buttocks, and he knows it’s Dean, he knows. But he still his to bite his lip hard to keep from screaming and struggling. He clutches with his hands at the nearest chair leg, trying to get a good grip on it so he has something to squeeze, but his fingers are still purple and turning darker, and they don’t do more than twitch feebly in response to his commands. He has to get the belt off, he has to get it off now. He tries to keep his lower half still as he pulls the belt against his mouth and gets a firm grip with his teeth. He needs to free his hands, needs to have his own hands under his control. That’s the most important thing right now, not whatever Dean’s doing back there.
Dean does something that hurts and Sam whimpers, starts jerking harder at the leather with his teeth so he won’t scream.
“Sorry, Sammy,” he hears Dean whisper. “I gotta- there’s blood and... stuff... I gotta find out where it's coming from.” Sam does his best to tune him out. Finally, finally the belt slips loose. His mouth doesn’t taste like old blood anymore, nor does it taste like anything weird that might have gotten on the belt. It tastes like leather. Like Dean smells since he got his new jacket last Christmas. Sam unloops it from his wrists with his teeth and then lowers it to the ground to curl lifelessly like a beheaded serpent.
He twitches his fingers as much as he’s able, til they go from numb to being on fire and then he can’t help whimpering aloud.
“Almost done, Sammy,” Dean soothes quickly. “I know it hurts but it’s gotta be done. Almost there.” The worried over-gentle tone of Dean’s voice makes him ashamed. He holds himself as still as he can while Dean touches him and doesn’t let another sound escape.
Dean helps Sam off his lap and onto a bed a few minutes later. He has Sam lie on his stomach so he can clean him off with a handful of cotton waste from the first aid kit. He tucks a handful of cotton into Sam's underwear too as he helps him into his pajamas. He taps out a couple painkillers, the strong ones Sam is never given, and he helps Sam swallow them with half a bottle of flat coke from Dean's duffle. Sam's fingers are still too swollen and clumsy to do it by himself.
Once the pills are down and he’s got him all tucked back in Dean perches quietly on the bed. From the first aid kit he produces an alcohol wipe and swipes at the crust ringing Sam’s nostrils. His motions start out slow and only get slower, so that eventually he stops altogether and just slumps there, soiled wipe drying slowly in his loose fingers. He stares at Sam’s chin and Sam wills him to just meet his eyes, bites down on the urge to make Dean promise not to leave while he’s knocked out. It’s not like Dad’s gonna- not like anything’s gonna happen while he’s sleeping. It’s all over. Things’ll be okay now.
He watches Dean and tries to decide if the drugs are making him see things weird.
With his shoulders slumped and his face so still Dean looks younger than eighteen, funny when he usually seems so much older to Sam. Dean has the body of an adult, a man’s strong fingers and cut jaw. He’s taller than Dad, a new development this year that seems to put an extra swagger in his step whenever they’re out together as a family. So how can he look so much like a boy now?
“I don’t understand why he’d do it,” Dean murmurs to the room. Sam can’t remember the last time Dean was so deep in thought that he literally forgot Sam’s presence. Lost in a TV show, sure, or a movie, or his music, but lost in thought is not Dean’s style. “He must’ve-” Abruptly Dean turns his searching gaze on Sam. “What did he say? He must’ve said something.”
He doesn't want to talk about it. He knows he should tell Dean what happened, but he doesn't want to. Not now or ever. “Said I wanted it,” Sam forces out.
“And what did you say?”
Sam doesn't answer. He doesn't remember saying anything at all.
“Nothing?” Dean presses. Sam feels a muddled tangle of anger and fear intertwined at the the sharp look Dean’s giving him. Sam knows they both did wrong and Dad was within his rights to do whatever he wanted to them, killing them included, for what he caught them doing. Dean must agree or he’d already be hustling them out of here. But does Dean think Sam did something else wrong? Something to deserve being punished more than Dean was?
“He wasn’t asking. He was saying, like," Sam forces it out through clenched teeth, like Dad did, no break in between to wait for an answer, "‘You want this. You want this. You want this.’” He can hear it so clearly, ringing in his ears. His stomach rolls. Dean stares at him, wide-eyed. “He was pissed,” Sam continues in his own voice, suddenly exhausted. “That was why he... did it. He was pissed. What we did...”
“Yeah but...” Dean presses his lips together. Doesn’t look convinced.
“He was just mad Dean. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but why you? Why not me? I’m the oldest, I’m the one he should’ve been mad at if he was looking for someone to blame. Why didn't he-?” Sam just shrugs a little, then yawns. The drugs are working now, making everything so heavy. His hands. His feet. His head. While he still has the strength he looks at Dean, knowing there’s nothing he can do to keep Dean there while he’s out, but wanting to keep his brother in his sight til the last possible second.
“Said he’d do you too, ‘f he caught us again,” Sam slurs.
"He said-" Dean cuts himself off. "What else did he say?" But Sam's too tired to repeat it all back, even if he wanted to.
"Doesn't matter," he mumbles instead. "'F we don' do it anymore, he won' do it again."
He's still waiting for Dean to say something to that when he falls asleep.
*****
When he wakes up things are fuzzy, confused, but Dean’s face is right there and that makes it a lot less frightening.
“Open,” Dean murmurs, and Sam opens his mouth for the thermometer, holds it there and follows Dean’s face with bleary eyes. Dean looks worried in that way he only ever gets when Sam’s really sick, that mom-face. The older they’ve gotten the less Sam’s seen it. The last time it made an appearance must have been years ago now. So he’s really sick, he understands that from the face, and from the difficulty he has tracking any thought, and from how his body feels, cold enough that he's shivering, clammy with sweat, achy, numb.
“Shit, Sammy,” Dean mumbles, rubs his mouth with his hand. “What am I gonna do?”
Sam knows that if he thought hard, he might be able to remember what is making Dean so upset, but he doesn’t really want to. Too tired. Too sick. It takes all his energy just to keep his eyes on Dean and the thermometer under his tongue. The damn thing’s too heavy as it is. He falls asleep with it still in his mouth.
*****
He’s moving when he wakes next. The world tilts crazily and he finds he’s in Dean’s arms, halfway down the hallway and still going. Going where? Are they moving house again so soon? Dean’s not looking down at him, so all Sam can see is his chin, his flared nostrils, a little portion of the side of his face, all from below and obscured through the underwater haze of high fever. Sam trembles with cold and wishes for a blanket. He’s just in skimpy cotton pajamas and they feel damp. Sam hears the rumble of Dean’s voice through the ear he’s got pressed to his chest before he focuses enough to understand the words.
“You get out of our way. Get out of our way.”
Dad answering something, not as loud. Sam can’t make it out.
“He’s burning up, you fucking bastard...” Sam just wants to curl up under a dark heap of blankets, lay down and close his eyes. He moans. Dean’s still yelling and doesn’t hear him. “... fucking sick! He needs a hospital...” Sam tries to pay attention, but for some reason he doesn’t want to look at Dad, and the parts of Dean’s face he can see look flushed and angry. He just wants to sleep. He closes his eyes.
*****
He wakes up again and he’s in the car. He’s lying on his side on the front seat, top of his head pushing against something warm and solid that he instantly knows is Dean’s thigh. He chances a look up at the steering wheel and sees Dean’s hands steady on it. Up to the right is the roof of the Impala, exposed and stained in the daylight. To the front a swathe of blue sky is visible out the windshield and he studies it while he takes stock. He’s really sick and his body’s miserable with it, but he’s not too bad, considering.
Under his ear the road hums, giving a muted thump-thump, thump-thump every little while as they pass over carefully spaced lines in the pavement. There’s no music playing, just he and Dean, breathing in counterpoint in their own private space. Maybe it’s the pain pills finally wearing off, but he begins to feel really awake for the first time since the previous night. Dean taking his temperature and the scene in the hall both feel unreal and distant, like he dreamed them. In the sunlit Impala, on the road, his mind is finally clear and sharp.
He remembers everything.
He examines the leather seat in front of his nose, the scuffed dashboard, the stretch of carpet he can see over the edge of the seat. As far as he can see there’s no damage, nothing to prove anything bad happened here in the dark hours before. In the light the car looks like a different place entirely. Maybe when he’s in it with Dean, it is.
Author's Note: A short sequel can be found here.