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dime_lioraTitle: Hiraeth
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dimeliora
Wordcount: 6,702
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Sam/Dean, Sam/Ghoul
Warning(s): Puppy Play, Non-Con
Beta(s): None this time.
Prompt(s):sammichgirl's birthday came around, and she had several interests that went together nicely. This includes her favorite untranslateable word: hiraeth (it’s Welsh, part of my heritage, loosely translated to mean homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed)
Disclaimer: This is not really my specialty. I did research on puppy play, but I know next to nothing about it beyond what you can find on the internet. On top of that, non-con is not a thing I do often. The scene with that is short, but it is PRESENT. This is your second warning.
Summary: Dean's not willing to lose Sam, even if Sam is still with him.
Dean has lost his brother.
That is all there is to it. Just like when he went soulless Sam is walking and talking, smiling when it was necessary, and dealing with hunts just like always.
But Dean has lost him.
When Sam died in Cold Oak, when he was lying limp and motionless in Dean’s arms he thought that would be the worst pain he’d ever experience. It turned out that it was so much worse to have Sam there and not really have him. To know that there was a barrier there, a line that couldn’t be crossed, and it was Dean’s fault. He let Sam jump into the Cage, and he’d let Sam go into the building alone.
This was his fault.
The way Sam flinches when Dean reaches out to touch him, the slow nothing taking over Sam’s eyes, and the hesitant way his brother speaks as if any move could be the wrong one. Imperceptible to anyone else, and a neon sign screaming Sammy, Sammy, Something’s Wrong With Sammy to Dean.
He’s tried. He’s tried so hard to protect his brother from the worst the universe had to offer. He’d worked his fingers to the bone as kids to keep Sam from going hungry, he’d given Sam up so that his brother could get out of the life and have his dream, and he’s suffered a million pains and indignities so Sam wouldn’t have to. The legacy of broken bones and bloody gashes should have earned his brother a pass.
It hadn’t.
Instead Sam had gone in alone, headfirst, trying to be the hero he thought Dean was and the end result had been…this. Dean didn’t even know what had happened, couldn’t get it out of Sam and couldn’t make himself force Sam to answer. He knew all too well how hard it was to take that first step, to bare the parts of you that hid in the dark and screamed.
So they live in a perpetual state of decay, their relationship falling apart at the seams and Dean the only one that seems to be grieving it as Sam shut down piece by piece. Soon there would be nothing left of his little brother but a fully functioning body, and even that would go eventually.
It was like watching the house in Lawrence burn down all over again.
“Sam, I’m going to get dinner. You want anything special?”
His brother’s eyes never leave the screen, fingers tapping rhythmically along the keyboard, and Dean wonders if he could light himself on fire and get the same lack of response.
“Nope.” Tap, tap, tap, and Dean thinks he’ll go insane.
“Hey Sam, while I’m out, I was thinking that I’d get really drunk and then probably go home with a stranger. And not regular drunk, but like, blind drunk. So drunk I’ll have no idea if she’s dangerous or not, and no way of protecting myself if she is. What do you think?”
Sam stops typing, tilts his head at the screen, and for just a second Dean has hope. The worst of the four letter words he knows.
“Yeah. That sounds good. Whatever you want Dean.” And then Sam is typing again.
----
It’s not that Dean is surprised by much of what’s happened, or what he’s doing now. Sure, it’s a little further than he planned to go, and yeah he’d started to get complacent in the life they’d built, but that doesn’t change the fact that the only rule Dean has really learned is constant is that when it comes to Sam there’s no such thing as a limit.
Dean failed Sam, and of course Sam doesn’t want to talk to Dean. Of course he doesn’t want to be near him. Why would he?
All that being said, Dean still has to fix it.
He is vaguely surprised when a man in his eighties or nineties answers the door and squints at him.
“Well? What the hell do you want boy?”
“I was told to come and see Courtney. To bring a gift. Is she home?”
The old man huffs once and shoves the door open more before making his slow way further inside the dim shack.
“I’m Courtney. It’s a gender neutral name. Bring it into the kitchen the light’s better there.”
Dean follows Courtney’s shuffle, slowing his walk to not further insult the old man, and is surprised at what greets him. The hallway leading to it was dim and dingy, but the kitchen is bright with sunlight and inviting. The fixtures are old but well cared for, and pans hang gleaming from a ceiling rack and threaten to brain Dean as he looks around more than forward. Courtney collapses into a chair at the table and unfolds reading glasses before sliding them on.
“Well, boy, I’m old and near death. Show me what you brought before I can’t pay you back.”
He places the sack carefully on the table, and then takes a seat across from Courtney. Dean’s not sure what he was expecting. He’s seen enough suburban witches to know better than to make assumptions. Still, the ancient little man in front of him rifling through the sack is not what he was hoping for.
Even witches tend to have some sort of moral code, and old people especially don’t have much in the way of open minds in his experience. How this witch will take him fucking his brother is anyone’s guess.
“Do me a favor boy and tone down the thoughts. I’m focusing.”
Withered hands turn the porcelain doll head over and over; a wrinkled thumb smudges the patina of soot and then lifts to the old man’s mouth where his tongue darts out fast to taste. He puts the doll head down and then digs back into the sack, passing over the items Dean thought would be most valuable to remove a plastic lip gloss case that Courtney holds for a long time before gently lowering it and looking up to Dean’s face.
“It’s good. Not the best collection anyone’s ever brought me, but a fine start. Where’s the subject?”
Dean has to blink, has to fight to make the word fit the man.
“He’s in the car, but listen maybe I should-“
“I don’t like back stories. I’m gonna find out same as you whatever it is you came to know, and having your bias ruins my direction sense. Now, go get him and take the second door on the left. Lay him out on the couch you find there.”
There’s nothing else to say apparently, and as Courtney slowly pushes himself up Dean heads back through the little hall and out to the Impala. Sam is sleeping peacefully in the back seat, the result of a cocktail Dean slipped him at breakfast, and Dean lifts his brother carefully and carries him inside the house.
It’s not like Dean doesn’t know that there will be hell to pay later. That Sam will never forgive him for this intrusion. But Dean would rather know what’s tearing his little brother apart and be hated for it than let Sam slip through his fingers. And after all this time dealing with Sam’s apathy rage will be a pleasant change of pace.
Sam’s heavy, despite all the weight he’s lost, his long and lanky form is still awkward to carry, and Dean works hard not to bump Sam’s head on anything as he carries him down the hall and into the room in question. It’s dark, blackout curtains drawn and candles throwing flickering and unreliable light over the old furniture. The couch Courtney indicated is velvet or velour, black as night, and actually large enough for Sam.
His brother’s form sinks into it, the darkness a stark contrast against Sam’s pale skin, and Dean brushes a thumb against one of Sam’s sharp cheekbones before turning around to find the old man watching him with rheumy eyes. The glasses are gone, and the candlelight makes Courtney’s wrinkled face seem less crab-apple old man and more demon.
“You got a strong gag reflux?” Courtney holds a jug out to Dean, and Dean considers it for a long moment before taking it.
“I gotta be honest Courtney, I don’t typically drink anything a witch hands me.”
Courtney’s smile breaks up the threatening demeanor and makes him just an old man again. But Dean knows better.
“I am not a witch. A witch is something common. Deals with devils and creepy old grimoires. I’m a pathfinder. Much different skill set, hell of a lot less sulfur. And that is moonshine because whatever that kid is carrying it’s heavier than you’re ready for.”
Dean bristles at that, takes a shot anyway, but takes offense too at the suggestion that there’s any load that Sam can carry that Dean can’t take from him.
He hands back the jug and then looks to Sam.
“So how do we get started?”
Courtney’s laugh makes Dean turn, and the candles flare brightly and then dim leaving the room more shadowed and dangerous than it was a second before.
“We just did.”
----
Dean follows Courtney out into the hallway, and sees that it has stretched, an endless mirror maze complete with distortions and discolorations in the distance. He takes a breath, and then turns to the Pathfinder.
“This is impossible. I never fell asleep. You never did a spell. How the fuck are we in Sam’s head?”
“How do you get from Cleveland to Parkersburg?”
“77 South is the fastest route, but it’s always-what?” He realizes how stupid and programmed his answer is, but it’s routine and Dean can’t help himself.
“Yeah. You use a map, you learn the roads, and you follow them. This isn’t some dream-walking potion boy we are really in your man’s head. His dreams wouldn’t get to the root of his problem the way his mind will. Dreams are flexible things, symbolic and fluid. What we need is facts. What he fears, what he wants, and ultimately what he needs. The only way to get that is to follow the path. Which takes us here.”
Courtney’s old hand grasps a doorknob, dark metal against pale wrinkled flesh, and the door doesn’t creak so much as scream when it swings open.
And then Dean is back in time. This isn’t the place he dragged a silent and shell-shocked Sam out of. This is the house that once belonged to their brother Adam and his mom. They haven’t been here in years, and Dean’s frozen on the doorstep for a moment, half in Courtney’s hallway and half in the entrance foyer.
“You got your directions wrong. This isn’t where Sam got hurt.”
The old man doesn’t even turn around, he just shuffles his way down the hall in the direction Dean knows leads to the big room he found Sam in all those years ago. Tied down to a table, shaking, and bleeding out into two bowls. They’d sliced him up pretty bad, but it was nothing that Dean couldn’t stitch shut. Nothing that didn’t heal.
He follows because he has to, because maybe another door will take them to the right place, and lands in a nightmare even Dean has never had the misfortune to have. He thought his brain had cooked up every terrible thing he’d ever see.
Sam is on the table, he’s tied up, but he’s lacking anything covering his lower half, and the ghoul Adam is plowing into him and driving his ass along the wood of the table. Dean can see every detail from this angle, the blood lubing the way, the anguish marking every line of Sam’s face, and the gleeful hate in the ghoul’s own expression.
Dean takes a step forward, habit and need, and Courtney grabs him with a surprisingly strong hand.
“I told you we were here for real and this isn’t a dream, boy. Don’t touch. If you mess up his memories you could drive him mad.”
“I could- but, but Sam.”
Courtney’s gaze is understanding, sympathetic even, but there isn’t a trace of pity or give in him.
“That’s his head right there. It’s messed up enough. Observe but don’t touch.”
Sam lets out a despairing cry at the same time the ghoul grunts and stills, and Dean watches as the monster smears himself on Sam’s thigh and then puts Sam’s pants back on.
“Gotta marinate my meat. You understand, right Sam?” The thing chuckles at its own joke, strokes Sam’s cheek, and then leaves the room. Dean holds himself in tight, doesn’t go to Sam when his brother starts to cry, despairing little sobs in the back of his throat that emit little to no noise.
He knows that sound. It’s how Sam cried when they were kids and he didn’t want Dean to know. Dean used to climb into the bed and hold Sam when it happened, stroke his soft hair until his little brother would go limp in his arms. Now he just stands there and let’s Sam cry until his brother gains his composure back.
----
The next door takes them to the right place, or what Dean thought was the right place, and he watches Sam taking his time, gun drawn and hackles up. Courtney moves past Sam, and Dean follows. The room that greets them is the one he found Sam in, and the psychic they’d been hunting is waiting for his little brother and drinking bourbon from the bottle.
“It’s over Mahoney.” Sam’s voice is strong, gun trained on the psychic, and his brother looks alive and well. “You’re not going to hurt anyone else.”
Mahoney, who at this point in time Dean knows has driven four people to suicide with his gifts, looks up at Sam with a sad little smile.
“That’s not entirely true, hunter. I’m going to hurt one more person.”
And then Sam is shaking, big hands going slack and dropping the gun, eyes unfocused and gone as Mahoney works in his head. As he resurrects and amplifies the memories locked inside Dean’s little brother.
Courtney’s hand on his arm is unnecessary. Dean’s done enough damage letting Sam get hurt the way he was, never finding out how bad it was, and letting Sam go into Mahoney’s house alone. The last thing Sam needs now is Dean fucking his head up worse.
Dean’s so heavily into that line of thought that he doesn’t notice Courtney squeezing his arm until fingernails dig in too and the pain flares bright and sharp. He looks up to see Sam staggering forward, steps heavy and slow, eyes still far away in space and time.
Sam’s slack hands come up, fingers fluttering gently as if he was pantomiming playing a piano, and then Sam’s hands settle on Mahoney’s neck. They gain tension, strength, and Sam is choking the life out of Mahoney without ever changing expression or gaining any sign of consciousness.
When it’s over, when Mahoney stops struggling, Sam lets go and sits down. And that’s where Dean found him, but Courtney is already leading him off. Dean heads down a hall, through a series of doors, and the lighting gets progressively worse. He smells sulfur once, heavy and thick, and the scent of burning flesh he will always remember from his time on Alastair’s rack.
At one point Dean hears screaming, Sam’s, but Courtney leads him past that too. They walk for hours, or days Dean’s not really sure, and then they’re standing in front of a door too small for him to enter without ducking. It’s made of metal, there’s no knob, no hinges, and no obvious way to open it. Courtney tilts his head and sucks on his teeth for a second before turning to Dean.
“I love a good chocolate chip cookie. Always have ever since I was a young and spry thing. Used to sit in my momma’s kitchen and eat them for hours upon hours with tall glasses of milk.”
“What the fuck are you rambling on about? How do we open that door?” Dean’s had it with enigmatic. For the last few years that’s all they’ve come up against. Enigmatic bullshit nonsense that has torn them open and apart and taken the only pure thing Dean ever had away from him.
He’s not about to stand here and play nice just so the old man can indulge in riddles.
“I can’t eat those cookies anymore. Diabetes and cholesterol done away with that, and I miss them like no one’s business. Sometimes the things we like just aren’t very good for us. More importantly, sometimes the things that are good for us aren’t necessarily the things we like. Your boy up there, your brother I’m getting, he knows what’s good for him. Knows what’ll fix him up, but he’s hidden it so deep even he can’t see it anymore. Which means you might not like what you see on the other side of that door, and I can’t change that in the least. You getting my point kid?”
Dean swallows once, a myriad of possibilities spinning through his mind, and then he nods once and reaches out for the door.
Sam is not a baby anymore, objectively Dean knows that, but he still responds to Dean the way he did then. Dean’s willpower, his bullish sense of seniority as older brother and protector. Sam balks, he fights, but he always caves when Dean pulls that card. His hunch is right, and the door swings open under his touch.
He’s not as ready for the answer as he thought he would be.
-----
Dean is there, in Sam’s hidden room, sitting at a table in the sunlight. He doesn’t recognize the setting, but his counterpart looks completely comfortable in it. There’s a newspaper in front of him, open to a story Dean can’t read but thick ink underlines several statements and Dean knows what that means. The Sam version of him sips coffee, eyes focused on the page, and then Sam comes in.
On all fours.
His brother is naked, a headband tucked so deep into his hair that Dean almost misses it at first. What is obvious is the soft and velvety looking brown ears the flop with Sam’s movements and almost match his hair.
Sam comes up to Dean’s side, rests back on his haunches with his hands on the floor, and the Dean in Sam’s head reaches out and runs fingers through Sam’s hair before rubbing one of those ears.
“You been a good boy? Come looking for a treat Sammy?”
His brother tilts into his touch, eyes closed and throat working until a small bark escapes his lips.
Dean flees the room.
----
He thinks he’s heading back the way they came, but he ends up dead ending at a bright wood door that he vaguely remembers. When it swings open the Sam on the other side is sitting on a couch, Jess behind him and rubbing his shoulders while he reads a dense textbook. They never talk, never move from that one spot, and Dean watches the rhythmic and soothing motions of Jess’ hands until Courtney finds him.
The old man hunkers down beside him, eyes fixed on the scene ahead, and Dean can’t stop his mouth.
“Anybody ever pay you to see happiness before?”
“Oh yeah. Usually they’re my worst customers.” Courtney rubs his neck for a second before he gestures to Sam. “If the subject is hiding something like this then they got more troubles than anyone should care to see.”
“But you collect misery. Your payment.” He thinks of the burnt down house he had to dig through to get the items in the sack. Of the headline proclaiming death and pain. Of his own house in Lawrence.
“Pain is powerful boy, but it isn’t my particular interest. If I could get away with it I would ask people to collect flowers and puppies, but it isn’t personal enough.”
“What are you talking about? Personal enough for what?”
Courtney’s eyes roam past Sam and Jess and land on Dean, unblinking and intense, and Dean shifts under the gaze.
“What were you told you had to bring me? Be specific.”
“I-I was told to bring sad things. Things associated with misery.”
He nods and then lifts the little soot-covered doll head from nowhere. “And why’d you pick a fire? One where a family was destroyed? Nobody told you to pick that. Would have been a hell of a lot easier to gather grave dirt or some hobo’s hat. You searched for this house, snuck into the crime scene, and dug through rubble and ruin to collect these things. Why?”
“Because I- because it was-“ Because it was a fire. Because the only survivor was a little girl who lost her sister, her mother, and her father in one night because of faulty wiring. Because even now, all these years later, Dean wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night gasping in smoke and believing with every part of himself that the flames took everything. That he failed to save Sam, that Dad never made it out, and that he was left all alone.
“My family is Welsh, and we got this word for that feeling you have right now. Hiraeth. There’s no direct translation, but it’s grief. The loss of a loved one, the loss of home, the sharp memories that cut into you, and the ache in the deepest parts of your soul. There are no good words to express the loss of them. People who seek me out are suffering from Hiraeth, and they don’t quite know it. They got a living, breathing person in front of them, but they know in their souls they already lost them. If you came to me and gave me happy things I’d find rooms like this. Rooms like this won’t bring your brother back to life.”
“But dressing him up like a goddamn dog and treating him that way will?”
Courtney rubbed his chin for a second before leaning fully back against the wall.
“Who knows? I can’t say I’m well-versed in the kinkier stuff, but I’ve seen odder things offer a person a little comfort. Maybe you ought to look it up. See what it’s all about before you turn your nose up at it.”
And, sadly, Dean can’t find fault with that.
----
Sam wakes up in bed at the motel, groggy and disoriented, but unaware of what Dean has done. It’s the one piece of luck Dean’s had all day.
-----
It’s called Puppy Play, and Dean is in so far over his head he can’t find the surface. He’s gotten kinky with other people, Rhonda Hurley and her damn panties, but he’s never done anything like this with Sam. It’s not necessarily a question of Sam being a prude, although in some ways he certainly is, but that so much of their life is pain and bondage Dean never really considered translating that into the bedroom.
The websites are insistent that Dean understand it’s not always sexual, and other than Sam being naked there was nothing sexual about the scene in his brother’s head. They distinguish a line between puppies and dogs, but Dean isn’t sure there was any indication in the brief glimpse he got of which one Sam wants to be. Maybe puppy, because the ears seemed… The line of thought itself is ridiculous.
He’s not turned on by the idea of Sam in a collar and on all fours. There’s nothing there that causes heat, but hours of research suggest that maybe Dean’s looking at this the wrong way. Sam has always responded to Dean’s will, even if it takes a little longer sometimes than others, and there’s an aspect of that here. More importantly, Dean can see how escapist the whole thing is.
Sam, the human, has carried this weight with him for years. It wasn’t just being violated by a monster it was being violated by a monster wearing the face of their own flesh and blood. Considering Sam and Dean’s less than traditional relationship that sort of trauma had to be particularly hard hitting. And yet Sam had never turned Dean away. At the time they’d been so strained that a couple weeks of Sam taking off from sexual activities wouldn’t have even pinged on Dean’s radar.
If Dean were to give him this, let him get in to the headspace of it, Sam could shed all that. The analysis of the incident, the consideration of guilt, the burden of pain and fear would simply melt away and all Sam would do was exist to be happy and please his master. In this case Dean. And while Dean may not get off on the idea of Sam living for that, he’s certainly interested in anything that will get Sam back to him.
Hiraeth. The word haunts him. Lingers on the tip of his tongue and cycles through his brain as Sam continues to drop weight and emotion until even the shell is starting to crack. He has to do something. He can’t just let it go on.
Dean mans up and uses one of the credit cards to order some of the props. He gets express shipping, because there’s no way to play off waiting for it to come and he can’t risk having it sent to someone’s house and them opening the box. He’s done the research, he’s weighed the pros and cons, and he’s come to the decision that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is making sure Sam lives again.
---
Sam comes in the door just as blank as always, walks over to the little table to drop his keys, and stops with his hand in the air and the ring dangling from his fingertips.
Dean watches all of it with a careful eye.
If Sam flinches, if he tries to run or looks more terrified than he did in his own memories Dean will call the whole thing off and drop all of the supplies in a furnace. This has to be Sam’s choice, he knows that, but he can’t let it be misinterpreted either.
“They’re for you. If you want them. If you want this.” Dean stands and crosses the room. Close enough to touch without touching, Sam one long line of tension wrought steel. “If you do you tell me your limits. You tell me what you want. I do it. No judgments and no teasing. If you don’t I get rid of them and we never talk about it again. Swear.”
Sam’s hand is shaking, keys jingling over the ears Dean agonized over.
“But you gotta talk to me. You gotta tell me what you need Sammy, because I can’t do this without your input.”
His brother is falling apart. It’s terrifying and heartening all at once. Because Sam, Sam alive and feeling, but Sam scared and wounded. Dean takes a chance.
“Speak, puppy!”
“Yes.” The voice is small, almost unrecognizable, but it’s Sam. The keys finally hit the table, the clunk louder than it should be, and Sam’s trembling fingers stroke the ears once very carefully.
Sam doesn’t ask how Dean knew. He doesn’t ask if Dean’s done this before.
He starts drafting a list.
----
Dean’s hands are shaking, but Sam’s gonna come out any minute now and Dean has to be ready for this. Has to be able to play the role perfectly, because if he fucks it up Sam will never let him do this again. The smallest mistake will mean his brother’s life.
And it’s working already. Sam’s perked up in the last week as they talk about his list. There’s a real light in his eyes as he agrees that he wants to be fed, that petting is a necessity, and that he’s not entirely sure where he stands on the sexual aspect but he’s willing to let Dean decide that.
The door opens, and Sam comes out on all fours. He’s using most of the props Dean bought. The collar hangs close to his throat, tag on it jingling against the ring as he moves across the floor. The ears, just as floppy and soft as they looked in Sam’s head, move with him. When he gets at the right angle Dean sees that he’s inserted the tail, and just like the website promised it moves with him. Wags softly as Sam’s ass wiggles, and then his brother stops at Dean’s side and rests in perfect position on all fours.
Dean’s hand is steady as a surgeon’s when it finally reaches out to Sam’s head, and Sam leans into his touch eagerly. His fingers card through Sam’s hair, rub Sam’s ears, and then scratch gently against Sam’s scalp. Every sound, every sensation is heightened by Dean’s nervousness.
“That’s my good boy. My good Sammy.”
Sam leans into his touch, eager, hopeful, and that’s the part that kills Dean. To finally see that look resurrected in his brother’s face again, but in such circumstances. He had to pry the truth out of Sammy’s head, and once upon a time Sam would have simply told him. Dean wonders if maybe a part of this fantasy existed before the attack, before the pain and the suffering, but he’ll never ask.
That time has passed.
Instead Dean mentally rolls over the entire list, all of the rules and regulations, before pulling his hand away from Sam’s head and lifting the sandwich from his plate. He takes a deep breath, rips a piece off, and then holds it out flat in his hand under Sam’s nose.
“You want some Sammy? You hungry?”
Sam opens his mouth to take it, and Dean pulls his hand back.
“No. First, a good doggy sits when he eats.”
His brother tilts his head, big eyes blinking, and then awkwardly crouches back on his haunches. A little noise escapes Sam, and for a moment Dean thinks he’s made a huge mistake. That the tail isn’t meant for the position he’s forced Sam into. Then he looks down to see that Sam is hard, that the plug at the base of the tail must be pushing fairly hard into Sam’s prostate, and Dean licks dry lips with an equally arid tongue.
There’s still no sure point in his head about whether or not he can take this scene to that level. But he’s pretty sure Sam wasn’t being entirely honest about his indifference to sex.
Dean extends his hand again and holds it steady.
“Good boy. Now you can eat.”
Sam’s warm tongue brushes against his palm, lips moving carefully and teeth scraping the callused skin to get the piece of sandwich into his mouth at the odd angle. When he finally has it he drags the whole thing back much like a real dog and eats fast to avoid dropping onto the floor. Dean rips up each piece of sandwich, a steady stream of praise coming from his mouth as Sam obeys and eats them all.
It’s not his kindest thought, but Dean wonders if he can abuse this to feed Sam some less healthy things. Put a little meat on his puppy’s bones.
“Have you been a good boy Sammy? Think you earned some couch time?”
Sam wiggles his butt, his fake tail thumping oddly on the floor and smacking the flesh of his legs. Dean sees from this angle that Sam’s erection has still not gone down. It’s both worrying and promising.
“I think you have too. I think you’ve been the best of puppies. Let’s go to the couch and you can watch a little TV with me.”
His puppy follows on all fours, and Dean settles onto the end of the couch before patting the cushion beside him to tell Sam it’s ok to hop up. Sam obeys, awkwardly as he gets used to the positioning, and Dean watches the length of him shift around before a big head flops into his lap.
Dean sinks his fingers back into the silky hair, rubbing the ears and the scalp, stroking the length of Sam’s smooth back, and lightly scraping his nails along the skin. Sam, for his part, appears to be so into it that he is unconsciously wagging his tail now and he settles his face more comfortably into Dean. It takes maybe five or six minutes of this for Dean to realize that he hasn’t even turned the TV on. He gets right on that, because this was supposed to have a point.
Bonding time between puppy and master. Instead it has become one long session of Dean marveling over the open vulnerability in Sam right now. Over how relaxed and simply trusting Sam is. Just like a puppy Sam is submitting to Dean, trusting in Dean to have his best interests at heart. To protect and care for him. Sam won’t speak unless Dean demands it, won’t leave Dean’s side, and won’t question Dean’s decisions.
And really, that’s what makes up Dean’s mind. If Sam is willing to give him that, Dean is willing to push his own limits in the interest of making this work out right for Sam. To give Sam everything he needs.
“Hey Sammy, you want a doggy treat?”
Sam’s eyes tilt up to meet Dean’s, face relaxed and open, and then Sam gives out a small bark as his head moves in a bit of a nod. Dean wonders what Sam thinks is about to come.
If his puppy thinks that he knows what Dean is about to do it is incredibly obvious from the widened eyes he’s wrong when Dean unzips his pants and pulls his dick out.
“There you go puppy. Lick your treat till it’s all gone.”
It’s not the best metaphor, but Dean can’t think the second Sam’s mouth falls open and his tongue lolls a bit between his pretty pink lips, and then Sam, without getting up at all, leans forward and starts lapping at Dean’s dick from his awkward angle on his stomach.
Dean won’t lie and say it’s the best blowjob he’s ever had, not even in the top ten, but it’s the most enthusiastic one he’s ever gotten. Even from Sam.
His puppy laps erratically, tongue trailing and then flattening over the skin of his dick. It’s rough, Sam can’t get a good approach from where he is, and more than once Dean’s dick springs back from a lick and slaps Sam in the face. Sam doesn’t seem to mind though.
It’s hard to remember to follow the parts of the plan that are still intact. Dean shakes himself out of his stupor and starts to pet Sam. The ears, the back, scratching at the base of Sam’s neck.
“That’s it, that’s a good puppy. Lick your treat. Lick it all up puppy.”
Sam goes at it for a long time, hips humping the couch mindlessly and little whimpers at the back of his throat as he works at Dean’s dick. And finally Dean thinks it’s been enough.
Instead of explaining to Sam, Dean pushes at his puppy’s head until Sam gets the message and stops. Soulful eyes peer up at him, and Dean smiles before scratching Sammy’s ears again.
“I know baby, but there’s more to this treat. Get up on all fours, turn around, but stay on the couch.”
Sam obeys without question, and Dean licks his lips before leaning in to spread his puppy’s cheeks. The base of the tail is big, holds his pup open while keeping the tail firmly in place, and Dean laps around it. Sammy cries out and bucks before settling back into the feel of Dean’s tongue.
The lube doesn’t taste excellent, but Dean’s glad it’s there already. He underestimated how impatient he’d be once this started. If it started.
Because he hadn’t set out to do this, but by god he’s doing it now. He laps once more, nips Sam’s right cheek, and then pulls the tail out without warning. His puppy whimpers, and Dean stares at the pretty pink hole open and ready for him.
“They say if you don’t take care of all your puppy’s needs he acts out. We don’t want you to be a bad puppy, do we Sammy?”
Sam barks, sharp and low, and his ass tilts up into Dean’s hands eagerly. And Dean can’t ignore that.
“So let’s keep you from doing something bad like humping the furniture, eh? Poor little horny pup.”
With no warning beyond that Dean sinks into Sam’s hot ass, cock slipping past the stretched rim with no trouble and then gripped tight by Sam’s inner walls. Dean grabs his puppy’s hips and pulls him back so that he’s stabilized and fully sheathed.
His puppy is whimpering, gasping, whole body shaking as Dean lets him adjust to the length and girth of his dick. Once he’s sure Sammy is ready Dean starts up a hard and fast pace. Sam’s ears bounce with each thrust, and Dean reaches out and pets them even as he fucks his puppy into the couch.
The sounds, the whimpers, the little yips, all of it make the whole thing surreal and hot. Hotter than Dean could have ever pictured. They’ve certainly had sex before, but this is all new. This isn’t the way Sam usually is, gasping and begging Dean for more, this is something else. This is Sam giving it all up for Dean.
All of his brother’s pain and doubt, all of the trauma, it’s been shed, and all that’s left is Dean’s submissive little puppy. His bitch.
“That’s a good bitch. My good bitch.”
Damn if that doesn’t seem to be some kind of switch, because without Dean ever touching his puppy’s dick Sam comes all over the couch, a strangled noise escaping him and his body arching. Dean sinks his fingers into Sammy’s soft hair and rides out the clenching of Sam’s ass. When his brother is limp beneath him, ass still up in the air but face down in the couch, Dean rides his bitch to completion.
“Good boy. Good Sammy. Such a good puppy.” Dean pets his pup, and Sam trembles and presses against him.
---
Hours later they’re in bed. The ears are on the nightstand, and Sam is lying on his side with his face against Dean’s chest. Dean can’t see his expression, but he idly runs his fingers through Sam’s long hair as he stares up at the ceiling.
And then he feels it, wetness plopping against the skin of his chest.
“Sammy? Sammy are you alright? Did I do bad? Was it bad?”
They haven’t talked since Sam shed the props, became himself again, but Dean is starting to realize that maybe their first session wasn’t the one to turn into a porno shoot.
Except Sam’s head is shaking, and Dean still can’t see Sam’s face, but god he’s desperate to.
“Sammy you gotta talk to me baby. What did I do? How do I fix it?”
One big hand, shaking as if Sam is a palsied old man, settles on Dean’s chest and Sam shakes his head again.
“Not you. It wasn’t you.”
Deans swallows thickly and then works the words out of his suddenly tight throat.
“What is it Sammy?”
And for a moment he thinks it won’t happen. That this is just the prelude to more of what came before. That all of it was useless and nothing helped.
But he’s always been maybe a shade too pessimistic.
“He hurt me Dean.”
For the next three hours Sam bleeds the poison out onto Dean. He never looks up, never shows Dean his tear-stained face, but he speaks all of the terrible secrets he’s kept locked in his head and all of the hate he’s directed at himself in the aftermath of what happened.
And Dean, unable to do anything else, simply soaks it up. Because that’s who he is, and what he is, and he’s happy to offer that to Sam. To be Sam’s rock, his sponge, his antivenin.
Author:
dimelioraWordcount: 6,702
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Sam/Dean, Sam/Ghoul
Warning(s): Puppy Play, Non-Con
Beta(s): None this time.
Prompt(s):
sammichgirl's birthday came around, and she had several interests that went together nicely. This includes her favorite untranslateable word: hiraeth (it’s Welsh, part of my heritage, loosely translated to mean homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed)Disclaimer: This is not really my specialty. I did research on puppy play, but I know next to nothing about it beyond what you can find on the internet. On top of that, non-con is not a thing I do often. The scene with that is short, but it is PRESENT. This is your second warning.
Summary: Dean's not willing to lose Sam, even if Sam is still with him.
Dean has lost his brother.
That is all there is to it. Just like when he went soulless Sam is walking and talking, smiling when it was necessary, and dealing with hunts just like always.
But Dean has lost him.
When Sam died in Cold Oak, when he was lying limp and motionless in Dean’s arms he thought that would be the worst pain he’d ever experience. It turned out that it was so much worse to have Sam there and not really have him. To know that there was a barrier there, a line that couldn’t be crossed, and it was Dean’s fault. He let Sam jump into the Cage, and he’d let Sam go into the building alone.
This was his fault.
The way Sam flinches when Dean reaches out to touch him, the slow nothing taking over Sam’s eyes, and the hesitant way his brother speaks as if any move could be the wrong one. Imperceptible to anyone else, and a neon sign screaming Sammy, Sammy, Something’s Wrong With Sammy to Dean.
He’s tried. He’s tried so hard to protect his brother from the worst the universe had to offer. He’d worked his fingers to the bone as kids to keep Sam from going hungry, he’d given Sam up so that his brother could get out of the life and have his dream, and he’s suffered a million pains and indignities so Sam wouldn’t have to. The legacy of broken bones and bloody gashes should have earned his brother a pass.
It hadn’t.
Instead Sam had gone in alone, headfirst, trying to be the hero he thought Dean was and the end result had been…this. Dean didn’t even know what had happened, couldn’t get it out of Sam and couldn’t make himself force Sam to answer. He knew all too well how hard it was to take that first step, to bare the parts of you that hid in the dark and screamed.
So they live in a perpetual state of decay, their relationship falling apart at the seams and Dean the only one that seems to be grieving it as Sam shut down piece by piece. Soon there would be nothing left of his little brother but a fully functioning body, and even that would go eventually.
It was like watching the house in Lawrence burn down all over again.
“Sam, I’m going to get dinner. You want anything special?”
His brother’s eyes never leave the screen, fingers tapping rhythmically along the keyboard, and Dean wonders if he could light himself on fire and get the same lack of response.
“Nope.” Tap, tap, tap, and Dean thinks he’ll go insane.
“Hey Sam, while I’m out, I was thinking that I’d get really drunk and then probably go home with a stranger. And not regular drunk, but like, blind drunk. So drunk I’ll have no idea if she’s dangerous or not, and no way of protecting myself if she is. What do you think?”
Sam stops typing, tilts his head at the screen, and for just a second Dean has hope. The worst of the four letter words he knows.
“Yeah. That sounds good. Whatever you want Dean.” And then Sam is typing again.
----
It’s not that Dean is surprised by much of what’s happened, or what he’s doing now. Sure, it’s a little further than he planned to go, and yeah he’d started to get complacent in the life they’d built, but that doesn’t change the fact that the only rule Dean has really learned is constant is that when it comes to Sam there’s no such thing as a limit.
Dean failed Sam, and of course Sam doesn’t want to talk to Dean. Of course he doesn’t want to be near him. Why would he?
All that being said, Dean still has to fix it.
He is vaguely surprised when a man in his eighties or nineties answers the door and squints at him.
“Well? What the hell do you want boy?”
“I was told to come and see Courtney. To bring a gift. Is she home?”
The old man huffs once and shoves the door open more before making his slow way further inside the dim shack.
“I’m Courtney. It’s a gender neutral name. Bring it into the kitchen the light’s better there.”
Dean follows Courtney’s shuffle, slowing his walk to not further insult the old man, and is surprised at what greets him. The hallway leading to it was dim and dingy, but the kitchen is bright with sunlight and inviting. The fixtures are old but well cared for, and pans hang gleaming from a ceiling rack and threaten to brain Dean as he looks around more than forward. Courtney collapses into a chair at the table and unfolds reading glasses before sliding them on.
“Well, boy, I’m old and near death. Show me what you brought before I can’t pay you back.”
He places the sack carefully on the table, and then takes a seat across from Courtney. Dean’s not sure what he was expecting. He’s seen enough suburban witches to know better than to make assumptions. Still, the ancient little man in front of him rifling through the sack is not what he was hoping for.
Even witches tend to have some sort of moral code, and old people especially don’t have much in the way of open minds in his experience. How this witch will take him fucking his brother is anyone’s guess.
“Do me a favor boy and tone down the thoughts. I’m focusing.”
Withered hands turn the porcelain doll head over and over; a wrinkled thumb smudges the patina of soot and then lifts to the old man’s mouth where his tongue darts out fast to taste. He puts the doll head down and then digs back into the sack, passing over the items Dean thought would be most valuable to remove a plastic lip gloss case that Courtney holds for a long time before gently lowering it and looking up to Dean’s face.
“It’s good. Not the best collection anyone’s ever brought me, but a fine start. Where’s the subject?”
Dean has to blink, has to fight to make the word fit the man.
“He’s in the car, but listen maybe I should-“
“I don’t like back stories. I’m gonna find out same as you whatever it is you came to know, and having your bias ruins my direction sense. Now, go get him and take the second door on the left. Lay him out on the couch you find there.”
There’s nothing else to say apparently, and as Courtney slowly pushes himself up Dean heads back through the little hall and out to the Impala. Sam is sleeping peacefully in the back seat, the result of a cocktail Dean slipped him at breakfast, and Dean lifts his brother carefully and carries him inside the house.
It’s not like Dean doesn’t know that there will be hell to pay later. That Sam will never forgive him for this intrusion. But Dean would rather know what’s tearing his little brother apart and be hated for it than let Sam slip through his fingers. And after all this time dealing with Sam’s apathy rage will be a pleasant change of pace.
Sam’s heavy, despite all the weight he’s lost, his long and lanky form is still awkward to carry, and Dean works hard not to bump Sam’s head on anything as he carries him down the hall and into the room in question. It’s dark, blackout curtains drawn and candles throwing flickering and unreliable light over the old furniture. The couch Courtney indicated is velvet or velour, black as night, and actually large enough for Sam.
His brother’s form sinks into it, the darkness a stark contrast against Sam’s pale skin, and Dean brushes a thumb against one of Sam’s sharp cheekbones before turning around to find the old man watching him with rheumy eyes. The glasses are gone, and the candlelight makes Courtney’s wrinkled face seem less crab-apple old man and more demon.
“You got a strong gag reflux?” Courtney holds a jug out to Dean, and Dean considers it for a long moment before taking it.
“I gotta be honest Courtney, I don’t typically drink anything a witch hands me.”
Courtney’s smile breaks up the threatening demeanor and makes him just an old man again. But Dean knows better.
“I am not a witch. A witch is something common. Deals with devils and creepy old grimoires. I’m a pathfinder. Much different skill set, hell of a lot less sulfur. And that is moonshine because whatever that kid is carrying it’s heavier than you’re ready for.”
Dean bristles at that, takes a shot anyway, but takes offense too at the suggestion that there’s any load that Sam can carry that Dean can’t take from him.
He hands back the jug and then looks to Sam.
“So how do we get started?”
Courtney’s laugh makes Dean turn, and the candles flare brightly and then dim leaving the room more shadowed and dangerous than it was a second before.
“We just did.”
----
Dean follows Courtney out into the hallway, and sees that it has stretched, an endless mirror maze complete with distortions and discolorations in the distance. He takes a breath, and then turns to the Pathfinder.
“This is impossible. I never fell asleep. You never did a spell. How the fuck are we in Sam’s head?”
“How do you get from Cleveland to Parkersburg?”
“77 South is the fastest route, but it’s always-what?” He realizes how stupid and programmed his answer is, but it’s routine and Dean can’t help himself.
“Yeah. You use a map, you learn the roads, and you follow them. This isn’t some dream-walking potion boy we are really in your man’s head. His dreams wouldn’t get to the root of his problem the way his mind will. Dreams are flexible things, symbolic and fluid. What we need is facts. What he fears, what he wants, and ultimately what he needs. The only way to get that is to follow the path. Which takes us here.”
Courtney’s old hand grasps a doorknob, dark metal against pale wrinkled flesh, and the door doesn’t creak so much as scream when it swings open.
And then Dean is back in time. This isn’t the place he dragged a silent and shell-shocked Sam out of. This is the house that once belonged to their brother Adam and his mom. They haven’t been here in years, and Dean’s frozen on the doorstep for a moment, half in Courtney’s hallway and half in the entrance foyer.
“You got your directions wrong. This isn’t where Sam got hurt.”
The old man doesn’t even turn around, he just shuffles his way down the hall in the direction Dean knows leads to the big room he found Sam in all those years ago. Tied down to a table, shaking, and bleeding out into two bowls. They’d sliced him up pretty bad, but it was nothing that Dean couldn’t stitch shut. Nothing that didn’t heal.
He follows because he has to, because maybe another door will take them to the right place, and lands in a nightmare even Dean has never had the misfortune to have. He thought his brain had cooked up every terrible thing he’d ever see.
Sam is on the table, he’s tied up, but he’s lacking anything covering his lower half, and the ghoul Adam is plowing into him and driving his ass along the wood of the table. Dean can see every detail from this angle, the blood lubing the way, the anguish marking every line of Sam’s face, and the gleeful hate in the ghoul’s own expression.
Dean takes a step forward, habit and need, and Courtney grabs him with a surprisingly strong hand.
“I told you we were here for real and this isn’t a dream, boy. Don’t touch. If you mess up his memories you could drive him mad.”
“I could- but, but Sam.”
Courtney’s gaze is understanding, sympathetic even, but there isn’t a trace of pity or give in him.
“That’s his head right there. It’s messed up enough. Observe but don’t touch.”
Sam lets out a despairing cry at the same time the ghoul grunts and stills, and Dean watches as the monster smears himself on Sam’s thigh and then puts Sam’s pants back on.
“Gotta marinate my meat. You understand, right Sam?” The thing chuckles at its own joke, strokes Sam’s cheek, and then leaves the room. Dean holds himself in tight, doesn’t go to Sam when his brother starts to cry, despairing little sobs in the back of his throat that emit little to no noise.
He knows that sound. It’s how Sam cried when they were kids and he didn’t want Dean to know. Dean used to climb into the bed and hold Sam when it happened, stroke his soft hair until his little brother would go limp in his arms. Now he just stands there and let’s Sam cry until his brother gains his composure back.
----
The next door takes them to the right place, or what Dean thought was the right place, and he watches Sam taking his time, gun drawn and hackles up. Courtney moves past Sam, and Dean follows. The room that greets them is the one he found Sam in, and the psychic they’d been hunting is waiting for his little brother and drinking bourbon from the bottle.
“It’s over Mahoney.” Sam’s voice is strong, gun trained on the psychic, and his brother looks alive and well. “You’re not going to hurt anyone else.”
Mahoney, who at this point in time Dean knows has driven four people to suicide with his gifts, looks up at Sam with a sad little smile.
“That’s not entirely true, hunter. I’m going to hurt one more person.”
And then Sam is shaking, big hands going slack and dropping the gun, eyes unfocused and gone as Mahoney works in his head. As he resurrects and amplifies the memories locked inside Dean’s little brother.
Courtney’s hand on his arm is unnecessary. Dean’s done enough damage letting Sam get hurt the way he was, never finding out how bad it was, and letting Sam go into Mahoney’s house alone. The last thing Sam needs now is Dean fucking his head up worse.
Dean’s so heavily into that line of thought that he doesn’t notice Courtney squeezing his arm until fingernails dig in too and the pain flares bright and sharp. He looks up to see Sam staggering forward, steps heavy and slow, eyes still far away in space and time.
Sam’s slack hands come up, fingers fluttering gently as if he was pantomiming playing a piano, and then Sam’s hands settle on Mahoney’s neck. They gain tension, strength, and Sam is choking the life out of Mahoney without ever changing expression or gaining any sign of consciousness.
When it’s over, when Mahoney stops struggling, Sam lets go and sits down. And that’s where Dean found him, but Courtney is already leading him off. Dean heads down a hall, through a series of doors, and the lighting gets progressively worse. He smells sulfur once, heavy and thick, and the scent of burning flesh he will always remember from his time on Alastair’s rack.
At one point Dean hears screaming, Sam’s, but Courtney leads him past that too. They walk for hours, or days Dean’s not really sure, and then they’re standing in front of a door too small for him to enter without ducking. It’s made of metal, there’s no knob, no hinges, and no obvious way to open it. Courtney tilts his head and sucks on his teeth for a second before turning to Dean.
“I love a good chocolate chip cookie. Always have ever since I was a young and spry thing. Used to sit in my momma’s kitchen and eat them for hours upon hours with tall glasses of milk.”
“What the fuck are you rambling on about? How do we open that door?” Dean’s had it with enigmatic. For the last few years that’s all they’ve come up against. Enigmatic bullshit nonsense that has torn them open and apart and taken the only pure thing Dean ever had away from him.
He’s not about to stand here and play nice just so the old man can indulge in riddles.
“I can’t eat those cookies anymore. Diabetes and cholesterol done away with that, and I miss them like no one’s business. Sometimes the things we like just aren’t very good for us. More importantly, sometimes the things that are good for us aren’t necessarily the things we like. Your boy up there, your brother I’m getting, he knows what’s good for him. Knows what’ll fix him up, but he’s hidden it so deep even he can’t see it anymore. Which means you might not like what you see on the other side of that door, and I can’t change that in the least. You getting my point kid?”
Dean swallows once, a myriad of possibilities spinning through his mind, and then he nods once and reaches out for the door.
Sam is not a baby anymore, objectively Dean knows that, but he still responds to Dean the way he did then. Dean’s willpower, his bullish sense of seniority as older brother and protector. Sam balks, he fights, but he always caves when Dean pulls that card. His hunch is right, and the door swings open under his touch.
He’s not as ready for the answer as he thought he would be.
-----
Dean is there, in Sam’s hidden room, sitting at a table in the sunlight. He doesn’t recognize the setting, but his counterpart looks completely comfortable in it. There’s a newspaper in front of him, open to a story Dean can’t read but thick ink underlines several statements and Dean knows what that means. The Sam version of him sips coffee, eyes focused on the page, and then Sam comes in.
On all fours.
His brother is naked, a headband tucked so deep into his hair that Dean almost misses it at first. What is obvious is the soft and velvety looking brown ears the flop with Sam’s movements and almost match his hair.
Sam comes up to Dean’s side, rests back on his haunches with his hands on the floor, and the Dean in Sam’s head reaches out and runs fingers through Sam’s hair before rubbing one of those ears.
“You been a good boy? Come looking for a treat Sammy?”
His brother tilts into his touch, eyes closed and throat working until a small bark escapes his lips.
Dean flees the room.
----
He thinks he’s heading back the way they came, but he ends up dead ending at a bright wood door that he vaguely remembers. When it swings open the Sam on the other side is sitting on a couch, Jess behind him and rubbing his shoulders while he reads a dense textbook. They never talk, never move from that one spot, and Dean watches the rhythmic and soothing motions of Jess’ hands until Courtney finds him.
The old man hunkers down beside him, eyes fixed on the scene ahead, and Dean can’t stop his mouth.
“Anybody ever pay you to see happiness before?”
“Oh yeah. Usually they’re my worst customers.” Courtney rubs his neck for a second before he gestures to Sam. “If the subject is hiding something like this then they got more troubles than anyone should care to see.”
“But you collect misery. Your payment.” He thinks of the burnt down house he had to dig through to get the items in the sack. Of the headline proclaiming death and pain. Of his own house in Lawrence.
“Pain is powerful boy, but it isn’t my particular interest. If I could get away with it I would ask people to collect flowers and puppies, but it isn’t personal enough.”
“What are you talking about? Personal enough for what?”
Courtney’s eyes roam past Sam and Jess and land on Dean, unblinking and intense, and Dean shifts under the gaze.
“What were you told you had to bring me? Be specific.”
“I-I was told to bring sad things. Things associated with misery.”
He nods and then lifts the little soot-covered doll head from nowhere. “And why’d you pick a fire? One where a family was destroyed? Nobody told you to pick that. Would have been a hell of a lot easier to gather grave dirt or some hobo’s hat. You searched for this house, snuck into the crime scene, and dug through rubble and ruin to collect these things. Why?”
“Because I- because it was-“ Because it was a fire. Because the only survivor was a little girl who lost her sister, her mother, and her father in one night because of faulty wiring. Because even now, all these years later, Dean wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night gasping in smoke and believing with every part of himself that the flames took everything. That he failed to save Sam, that Dad never made it out, and that he was left all alone.
“My family is Welsh, and we got this word for that feeling you have right now. Hiraeth. There’s no direct translation, but it’s grief. The loss of a loved one, the loss of home, the sharp memories that cut into you, and the ache in the deepest parts of your soul. There are no good words to express the loss of them. People who seek me out are suffering from Hiraeth, and they don’t quite know it. They got a living, breathing person in front of them, but they know in their souls they already lost them. If you came to me and gave me happy things I’d find rooms like this. Rooms like this won’t bring your brother back to life.”
“But dressing him up like a goddamn dog and treating him that way will?”
Courtney rubbed his chin for a second before leaning fully back against the wall.
“Who knows? I can’t say I’m well-versed in the kinkier stuff, but I’ve seen odder things offer a person a little comfort. Maybe you ought to look it up. See what it’s all about before you turn your nose up at it.”
And, sadly, Dean can’t find fault with that.
----
Sam wakes up in bed at the motel, groggy and disoriented, but unaware of what Dean has done. It’s the one piece of luck Dean’s had all day.
-----
It’s called Puppy Play, and Dean is in so far over his head he can’t find the surface. He’s gotten kinky with other people, Rhonda Hurley and her damn panties, but he’s never done anything like this with Sam. It’s not necessarily a question of Sam being a prude, although in some ways he certainly is, but that so much of their life is pain and bondage Dean never really considered translating that into the bedroom.
The websites are insistent that Dean understand it’s not always sexual, and other than Sam being naked there was nothing sexual about the scene in his brother’s head. They distinguish a line between puppies and dogs, but Dean isn’t sure there was any indication in the brief glimpse he got of which one Sam wants to be. Maybe puppy, because the ears seemed… The line of thought itself is ridiculous.
He’s not turned on by the idea of Sam in a collar and on all fours. There’s nothing there that causes heat, but hours of research suggest that maybe Dean’s looking at this the wrong way. Sam has always responded to Dean’s will, even if it takes a little longer sometimes than others, and there’s an aspect of that here. More importantly, Dean can see how escapist the whole thing is.
Sam, the human, has carried this weight with him for years. It wasn’t just being violated by a monster it was being violated by a monster wearing the face of their own flesh and blood. Considering Sam and Dean’s less than traditional relationship that sort of trauma had to be particularly hard hitting. And yet Sam had never turned Dean away. At the time they’d been so strained that a couple weeks of Sam taking off from sexual activities wouldn’t have even pinged on Dean’s radar.
If Dean were to give him this, let him get in to the headspace of it, Sam could shed all that. The analysis of the incident, the consideration of guilt, the burden of pain and fear would simply melt away and all Sam would do was exist to be happy and please his master. In this case Dean. And while Dean may not get off on the idea of Sam living for that, he’s certainly interested in anything that will get Sam back to him.
Hiraeth. The word haunts him. Lingers on the tip of his tongue and cycles through his brain as Sam continues to drop weight and emotion until even the shell is starting to crack. He has to do something. He can’t just let it go on.
Dean mans up and uses one of the credit cards to order some of the props. He gets express shipping, because there’s no way to play off waiting for it to come and he can’t risk having it sent to someone’s house and them opening the box. He’s done the research, he’s weighed the pros and cons, and he’s come to the decision that the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is making sure Sam lives again.
---
Sam comes in the door just as blank as always, walks over to the little table to drop his keys, and stops with his hand in the air and the ring dangling from his fingertips.
Dean watches all of it with a careful eye.
If Sam flinches, if he tries to run or looks more terrified than he did in his own memories Dean will call the whole thing off and drop all of the supplies in a furnace. This has to be Sam’s choice, he knows that, but he can’t let it be misinterpreted either.
“They’re for you. If you want them. If you want this.” Dean stands and crosses the room. Close enough to touch without touching, Sam one long line of tension wrought steel. “If you do you tell me your limits. You tell me what you want. I do it. No judgments and no teasing. If you don’t I get rid of them and we never talk about it again. Swear.”
Sam’s hand is shaking, keys jingling over the ears Dean agonized over.
“But you gotta talk to me. You gotta tell me what you need Sammy, because I can’t do this without your input.”
His brother is falling apart. It’s terrifying and heartening all at once. Because Sam, Sam alive and feeling, but Sam scared and wounded. Dean takes a chance.
“Speak, puppy!”
“Yes.” The voice is small, almost unrecognizable, but it’s Sam. The keys finally hit the table, the clunk louder than it should be, and Sam’s trembling fingers stroke the ears once very carefully.
Sam doesn’t ask how Dean knew. He doesn’t ask if Dean’s done this before.
He starts drafting a list.
----
Dean’s hands are shaking, but Sam’s gonna come out any minute now and Dean has to be ready for this. Has to be able to play the role perfectly, because if he fucks it up Sam will never let him do this again. The smallest mistake will mean his brother’s life.
And it’s working already. Sam’s perked up in the last week as they talk about his list. There’s a real light in his eyes as he agrees that he wants to be fed, that petting is a necessity, and that he’s not entirely sure where he stands on the sexual aspect but he’s willing to let Dean decide that.
The door opens, and Sam comes out on all fours. He’s using most of the props Dean bought. The collar hangs close to his throat, tag on it jingling against the ring as he moves across the floor. The ears, just as floppy and soft as they looked in Sam’s head, move with him. When he gets at the right angle Dean sees that he’s inserted the tail, and just like the website promised it moves with him. Wags softly as Sam’s ass wiggles, and then his brother stops at Dean’s side and rests in perfect position on all fours.
Dean’s hand is steady as a surgeon’s when it finally reaches out to Sam’s head, and Sam leans into his touch eagerly. His fingers card through Sam’s hair, rub Sam’s ears, and then scratch gently against Sam’s scalp. Every sound, every sensation is heightened by Dean’s nervousness.
“That’s my good boy. My good Sammy.”
Sam leans into his touch, eager, hopeful, and that’s the part that kills Dean. To finally see that look resurrected in his brother’s face again, but in such circumstances. He had to pry the truth out of Sammy’s head, and once upon a time Sam would have simply told him. Dean wonders if maybe a part of this fantasy existed before the attack, before the pain and the suffering, but he’ll never ask.
That time has passed.
Instead Dean mentally rolls over the entire list, all of the rules and regulations, before pulling his hand away from Sam’s head and lifting the sandwich from his plate. He takes a deep breath, rips a piece off, and then holds it out flat in his hand under Sam’s nose.
“You want some Sammy? You hungry?”
Sam opens his mouth to take it, and Dean pulls his hand back.
“No. First, a good doggy sits when he eats.”
His brother tilts his head, big eyes blinking, and then awkwardly crouches back on his haunches. A little noise escapes Sam, and for a moment Dean thinks he’s made a huge mistake. That the tail isn’t meant for the position he’s forced Sam into. Then he looks down to see that Sam is hard, that the plug at the base of the tail must be pushing fairly hard into Sam’s prostate, and Dean licks dry lips with an equally arid tongue.
There’s still no sure point in his head about whether or not he can take this scene to that level. But he’s pretty sure Sam wasn’t being entirely honest about his indifference to sex.
Dean extends his hand again and holds it steady.
“Good boy. Now you can eat.”
Sam’s warm tongue brushes against his palm, lips moving carefully and teeth scraping the callused skin to get the piece of sandwich into his mouth at the odd angle. When he finally has it he drags the whole thing back much like a real dog and eats fast to avoid dropping onto the floor. Dean rips up each piece of sandwich, a steady stream of praise coming from his mouth as Sam obeys and eats them all.
It’s not his kindest thought, but Dean wonders if he can abuse this to feed Sam some less healthy things. Put a little meat on his puppy’s bones.
“Have you been a good boy Sammy? Think you earned some couch time?”
Sam wiggles his butt, his fake tail thumping oddly on the floor and smacking the flesh of his legs. Dean sees from this angle that Sam’s erection has still not gone down. It’s both worrying and promising.
“I think you have too. I think you’ve been the best of puppies. Let’s go to the couch and you can watch a little TV with me.”
His puppy follows on all fours, and Dean settles onto the end of the couch before patting the cushion beside him to tell Sam it’s ok to hop up. Sam obeys, awkwardly as he gets used to the positioning, and Dean watches the length of him shift around before a big head flops into his lap.
Dean sinks his fingers back into the silky hair, rubbing the ears and the scalp, stroking the length of Sam’s smooth back, and lightly scraping his nails along the skin. Sam, for his part, appears to be so into it that he is unconsciously wagging his tail now and he settles his face more comfortably into Dean. It takes maybe five or six minutes of this for Dean to realize that he hasn’t even turned the TV on. He gets right on that, because this was supposed to have a point.
Bonding time between puppy and master. Instead it has become one long session of Dean marveling over the open vulnerability in Sam right now. Over how relaxed and simply trusting Sam is. Just like a puppy Sam is submitting to Dean, trusting in Dean to have his best interests at heart. To protect and care for him. Sam won’t speak unless Dean demands it, won’t leave Dean’s side, and won’t question Dean’s decisions.
And really, that’s what makes up Dean’s mind. If Sam is willing to give him that, Dean is willing to push his own limits in the interest of making this work out right for Sam. To give Sam everything he needs.
“Hey Sammy, you want a doggy treat?”
Sam’s eyes tilt up to meet Dean’s, face relaxed and open, and then Sam gives out a small bark as his head moves in a bit of a nod. Dean wonders what Sam thinks is about to come.
If his puppy thinks that he knows what Dean is about to do it is incredibly obvious from the widened eyes he’s wrong when Dean unzips his pants and pulls his dick out.
“There you go puppy. Lick your treat till it’s all gone.”
It’s not the best metaphor, but Dean can’t think the second Sam’s mouth falls open and his tongue lolls a bit between his pretty pink lips, and then Sam, without getting up at all, leans forward and starts lapping at Dean’s dick from his awkward angle on his stomach.
Dean won’t lie and say it’s the best blowjob he’s ever had, not even in the top ten, but it’s the most enthusiastic one he’s ever gotten. Even from Sam.
His puppy laps erratically, tongue trailing and then flattening over the skin of his dick. It’s rough, Sam can’t get a good approach from where he is, and more than once Dean’s dick springs back from a lick and slaps Sam in the face. Sam doesn’t seem to mind though.
It’s hard to remember to follow the parts of the plan that are still intact. Dean shakes himself out of his stupor and starts to pet Sam. The ears, the back, scratching at the base of Sam’s neck.
“That’s it, that’s a good puppy. Lick your treat. Lick it all up puppy.”
Sam goes at it for a long time, hips humping the couch mindlessly and little whimpers at the back of his throat as he works at Dean’s dick. And finally Dean thinks it’s been enough.
Instead of explaining to Sam, Dean pushes at his puppy’s head until Sam gets the message and stops. Soulful eyes peer up at him, and Dean smiles before scratching Sammy’s ears again.
“I know baby, but there’s more to this treat. Get up on all fours, turn around, but stay on the couch.”
Sam obeys without question, and Dean licks his lips before leaning in to spread his puppy’s cheeks. The base of the tail is big, holds his pup open while keeping the tail firmly in place, and Dean laps around it. Sammy cries out and bucks before settling back into the feel of Dean’s tongue.
The lube doesn’t taste excellent, but Dean’s glad it’s there already. He underestimated how impatient he’d be once this started. If it started.
Because he hadn’t set out to do this, but by god he’s doing it now. He laps once more, nips Sam’s right cheek, and then pulls the tail out without warning. His puppy whimpers, and Dean stares at the pretty pink hole open and ready for him.
“They say if you don’t take care of all your puppy’s needs he acts out. We don’t want you to be a bad puppy, do we Sammy?”
Sam barks, sharp and low, and his ass tilts up into Dean’s hands eagerly. And Dean can’t ignore that.
“So let’s keep you from doing something bad like humping the furniture, eh? Poor little horny pup.”
With no warning beyond that Dean sinks into Sam’s hot ass, cock slipping past the stretched rim with no trouble and then gripped tight by Sam’s inner walls. Dean grabs his puppy’s hips and pulls him back so that he’s stabilized and fully sheathed.
His puppy is whimpering, gasping, whole body shaking as Dean lets him adjust to the length and girth of his dick. Once he’s sure Sammy is ready Dean starts up a hard and fast pace. Sam’s ears bounce with each thrust, and Dean reaches out and pets them even as he fucks his puppy into the couch.
The sounds, the whimpers, the little yips, all of it make the whole thing surreal and hot. Hotter than Dean could have ever pictured. They’ve certainly had sex before, but this is all new. This isn’t the way Sam usually is, gasping and begging Dean for more, this is something else. This is Sam giving it all up for Dean.
All of his brother’s pain and doubt, all of the trauma, it’s been shed, and all that’s left is Dean’s submissive little puppy. His bitch.
“That’s a good bitch. My good bitch.”
Damn if that doesn’t seem to be some kind of switch, because without Dean ever touching his puppy’s dick Sam comes all over the couch, a strangled noise escaping him and his body arching. Dean sinks his fingers into Sammy’s soft hair and rides out the clenching of Sam’s ass. When his brother is limp beneath him, ass still up in the air but face down in the couch, Dean rides his bitch to completion.
“Good boy. Good Sammy. Such a good puppy.” Dean pets his pup, and Sam trembles and presses against him.
---
Hours later they’re in bed. The ears are on the nightstand, and Sam is lying on his side with his face against Dean’s chest. Dean can’t see his expression, but he idly runs his fingers through Sam’s long hair as he stares up at the ceiling.
And then he feels it, wetness plopping against the skin of his chest.
“Sammy? Sammy are you alright? Did I do bad? Was it bad?”
They haven’t talked since Sam shed the props, became himself again, but Dean is starting to realize that maybe their first session wasn’t the one to turn into a porno shoot.
Except Sam’s head is shaking, and Dean still can’t see Sam’s face, but god he’s desperate to.
“Sammy you gotta talk to me baby. What did I do? How do I fix it?”
One big hand, shaking as if Sam is a palsied old man, settles on Dean’s chest and Sam shakes his head again.
“Not you. It wasn’t you.”
Deans swallows thickly and then works the words out of his suddenly tight throat.
“What is it Sammy?”
And for a moment he thinks it won’t happen. That this is just the prelude to more of what came before. That all of it was useless and nothing helped.
But he’s always been maybe a shade too pessimistic.
“He hurt me Dean.”
For the next three hours Sam bleeds the poison out onto Dean. He never looks up, never shows Dean his tear-stained face, but he speaks all of the terrible secrets he’s kept locked in his head and all of the hate he’s directed at himself in the aftermath of what happened.
And Dean, unable to do anything else, simply soaks it up. Because that’s who he is, and what he is, and he’s happy to offer that to Sam. To be Sam’s rock, his sponge, his antivenin.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-06-15 12:02 pm (UTC)your final sentence gave me goosebumps...for real
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Date: 2014-07-28 07:53 pm (UTC)No, but seriously, I'm blushing quite a bit.
Thank you so much for this and for enjoying this so much. I'm using so much a lot. I always love to play with people that will work as satellites for Dean and Sam and it's a huge payoff when people like them. Especially in a piece this small.
And puppy play was certainly interesting to work with.
Thanks again!! <3
no subject
Date: 2014-06-15 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 07:56 pm (UTC)Also, yes, therapy of a sort. Without a doubt. I wasn't even sure when I started this if the sex would work, but man I felt like it did. Thank you again for reading and commenting, but mostly for enjoying!
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Date: 2014-06-15 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 07:57 pm (UTC)This one was a lot of learning for me, and it's so wonderful to hear that it worked. Also, thank you for liking my grumpy old man. XD
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Date: 2014-06-15 02:47 pm (UTC)The rest of the story was just as amazing as your stories always are. You write Sam and Dean so beautifully with so much love and understanding of their characters that it just flows across the page. And that IS something I seek out.
As always, thank you for sharing with the rest of us.
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Date: 2014-07-28 08:00 pm (UTC)I learned a whole lot about puppy play in the course of writing this, and I was amazed at how deep and involved the whole thing is. I've worked with a fair number of kinks in my time in the fandom and this is probably the most complicated one of all. I totally feel you on it not being a thing to actively seek out, but I am so flattered that I was capable of portraying it well especially to someone with a very similar mindset to mine going in. Thank you thank you thank you!
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Date: 2014-06-15 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, this one came out so much more complex than I had planned it, and just rode on its own. Thank you!
Oh hai there, subject line!
Date: 2014-06-15 08:01 pm (UTC)Re: Oh hai there, subject line!
Date: 2014-07-28 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-16 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:03 pm (UTC)The research certainly helped, but man I am pleased to hear this and to know that what little I learned came through. Thank you so much for reading despite it not being your thing, and for leaving such a nice comment!! <3
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Date: 2014-06-16 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:05 pm (UTC)Let me tell you, this one made me nervous. I've had very few that have done that, but this one certainly did and I wrote those warnings with the hope that I wouldn't miss anything that might not be good for a reader.
So whenever someone tells me that they were worried by the warnings, or not into the premise, and yet read and enjoyed anyway it is the BIGGEST compliment. Thank you so so much, and I hope I continue to make stuff you enjoy!
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Date: 2014-06-16 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:08 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for this comment, because this was a challenge along with being a learning experience, and I'm so proud to have produced something that didn't cheapen what it turns out is a very emotional and in depth kink.
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Date: 2014-06-17 11:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 08:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 11:28 am (UTC)♡
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Date: 2014-07-28 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-22 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-28 08:19 pm (UTC)Yeah, I went into this expecting to make simple porn, and then instead I learned a ton and did this. Which I'm glad is the end result. So glad you liked it and thank you so much!!
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Date: 2015-04-10 10:08 pm (UTC)ETA: Commenting under my new personal LJ name, as firesign10 is now my fic lj.
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Date: 2016-07-17 08:31 pm (UTC)