Everywhen

[forthedog]

It's not exactly how he saw the evening going. But by now he's learned to roll with surprises.

Not the bed, he's decided. It's not safe, and it doesn't give him enough access, and there are useable attach points in the floor and ceiling - rings, sturdy enough when he pulls on them. So the bed is stripped and for now it's where he's spread out his tools - leather cuffs, flogger, riding crop, rattan cane, a police baton capable of shattering bone, knives and gauze and rubbing alcohol.

He's not nervous. But this is going to take some care. A lot of concentration.

There's a fair amount at stake.

"Just tell me one more time," he says, finally turning, looking at Dean in the low light the lamp near the bed is throwing. "You really want this?"

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[always_enduphere]

Dean twists in shock, but the blows come hard and fast, crack crueler than the crop, and it's a long, heady moment before Dean realizes those short, surprised shouts are coming from him. Every stroke punches another from his lungs, and Dean grits his teeth, red lips stretching in an endless snarl, but it doesn't hurt like before. For every blow that lands, Dean takes it and feels himself pushed a little further, down where it's easy and quiet. Down where it's simple.

His toes flex, but Dean can't keep his feet, and after a moment more, Dean stops trying. He hangs there, feels breathless and skinless and wide, wide open.

[forthedog]

He doesn't pause when he feels Dean's body loosening under the blows, when the cries start in earnest, but only intensifies the rain of strokes, shifting from Dean's arms to the meat at the sides of his hips, around to the back of his thighs and his ass, even to places he would normally hesitate to go - sides and lower back, though with these he's slightly more gentle. Mostly because so much less is required.

And again it would be easy to get lost in how methodical it is, how one blow follows the other in easy succession, but those cries are wonderful. They're signposts, indicators that every step he's taking - every step they're taking together - is in the right direction.

He soaks them in, lets them power his arm, painting Dean's skin a whole new kind of red, darker red, deep and furious purple.

[always_enduphere]

The white noise builds and closes like a wave over his head. Dean doesn't know what sounds he's making, what faces, and he doesn't care. For the first time in long moments, he knows where he is, who he's with, knows that he hurts and that it isn't stopping, and feels a surge of something so basely grateful that he knows the vibrations in his chest are sobs.

The hurt grows, finds new tender places and flays them open, and Dean watches each new agony rise and fall, bursts of light against his eyelids like bright sun on the surface of dark, cool water.

[forthedog]

He's not even sure how long it goes on for. A while. Maybe a long time. Dean is losing himself, he can tell; it's bleeding out of him along with everything else, and yet at the same time Dean feels more there than he has almost since Mike chained him up. His sobs. The cries that edge toward screams. The way his voice is getting rougher and rawer, more broken.

He can't pretend he doesn't love this. Deep down love, something that goes beyond mere sadism. Because even taking someone to pieces in a Republican Guard detention center had never been this kind of close.

He goes until his arm starts to tire again, and then instead of stopping he slows, eases to a halt, ends with his hand once again pressed to the side of Dean's face, the skin damp with sweat and tears.

"Almost done," he murmurs, the cane loose in his hand. "You're doing great, Dean. You're doing really, really great."

[always_enduphere]

Dean flinches but settles beneath that hand, turns slowly into it as his eyes slot open. They're swollen to slits, green peeking out through skin as red and puffy as the rest of him, not quite focused when Dean nods. He remembers praise, had hated it at first, then came to crave it, and now feels no different.

Not hanging in his chains but floating, Dean makes a sound, lips cracking as one corner pulls up into an exhausted smile.

[forthedog]

He returns the smile, though he's almost sure that Dean can't even really see him anymore, and again he feels that stab of fierce protectiveness that he'd felt that first day in the park. Seeing someone in pain. Wanting to help them. Hoping that somehow they'll avoid all the mistakes that almost ruined you.

His hand lingers, almost a caress, and then he hits Dean again, backhanded across the face, feeling his knuckles collide with bone hard enough to hurt him.

He turns back to the bed, drops the cane down, picks up the baton. This is sealing, like before. This is kindness.

[always_enduphere]

He feels strangely alone when the scrape of knuckles fades, the clink of the chains that hold him Dean's only company until his tired eyes find Mike at the bed. He remembers thinking the baton looked cruel, but wrapped in Mike's hand, it looks like something else. Dean's afraid of it, realizes with a dizzy rush that he's allowed to be, that like this he has permission, even from himself.

He tugs at his bonds, puts cramping feet to the floor, but he can't get free, and Dean can't stop the panicked sound he makes when Mike turns back to him. It occurs to him to beg, but he doesn't know what he'd ask for. "Please," he manages, terrified, euphoric. "Please."

[forthedog]

He pauses. This is new.

Except not quite. Not wholly new. Not the begging, not the desperation. But the fear... Before it had been like a fine knife edge. Now it's like a force, pressing out through Dean's wide eyes.

He thinks about forcing more than that please. Because he's remembering crouching in an alley with Neil in his arms, facing down the barrel of Dean's gun, pleading, and he understood and understands and has long since forgiven...

But that doesn't mean he might not like to take some things in trade.

But that also doesn't feel like it belongs here. He waits another moment or two, drawing it out, and then swings the baton sideways into Dean's thigh. It's heavy, monstrously solid, not meant to damage the skin or leave welts but instead to bruise, hard and deep and agonizingly close to the bone. He's careful. He has to be. Too hard and bone will simply shatter. And the thick thud it makes as it impacts Dean's flesh is more than enough.

[always_enduphere]

It takes a moment for the pain to register, to cut through the other stings and aches, and when it does, it comes on slowly, unfolding like some terrible flower beneath Dean's skin. Dean's eyes go wide with shock, but the stupor doesn't last long. Mike hits him again, and Dean screams, knows on instinct that Mike could cripple him, that even if the bones don't break, the bruises might be enough to keep him down for days.

Another horrible thud reverberates between his ears, and Dean thinks he's going to throw up, breaths coming in tiny, wet pants, and beneath all of it, down deep, his thoughts run alongside Mike's own. It might not be what any of this is about, but Dean deserves this. He's thought it for a long, long time, and if he can give back anything he took from Mike that day, Dean's got no resistance left to doing it. "Please," he croaks, eyes squeezed closed for the next blow.

[forthedog]

This is, in many ways, the worst. He knows it. The lashes, the cuts, those all form a fine, keen webwork of agony that laces itself over nerves and slowly tightens. He's done it. Has felt it. He knows. But he's also been beaten, been beaten so badly he can barely move, and he knows this is worse.

And he knows it's right.

He keeps moving, covering ground. The front of Dean's thighs, then around to their backs, to his ass, confining himself to the meat but not sparing it at all. Wanting to draw out the screams. "Say it again," he says, his voice still deeply, bizarrely calm. "Say it."

[always_enduphere]

"Please," says Dean again, no hesitation but for the agonized moment it takes to catch his breath. He feels it in his bones now - he's bled and he's cried, imagined that knife cutting right to the heart of him, but it's only now that Dean feels like Mike's reached it. So few of them understand, that Dean needs this, not because he wants it but because it's what should be. He can't go back to that semblance of normal that they remember from the island, not after everything he's seen, and especially not after everything he's done.

"Please, god. Please."

[forthedog]

He doesn't worry about what it really means. It's not something in place of a forgotten safeword, and he's seen too much now to believe that Dean wants him to stop. Just now, in a moment that seems bounded on all sides by darkness, he doesn't even believe that Dean really cares anymore about scars, internal organs, being put in the hospital. He's not sure Dean would try to stop him regardless of what he did.

It should scare him. But this is why there's trust.

The rhythm of the baton is deeper than any of the others, like a heartbeat, steady and pounding. This time he moves past the point at which his arm starts to tire, moving over and over skin and flesh already abused to a horrifying degree. He'll have to stop very soon, or this really will go too far, and now he understands that he has to be the one to decide to stop it at all. But until that point he's going to wring everything out of it that he can.

[always_enduphere]

Dean screams until he can't draw breath for it, and then he groans, and when he can't do that, he whimpers, hanging limp but for the blows that come hard enough to toss him in his chains. The pain feels etched to his bones, feels like something he'll carry with him even when the marks are gone, but it's beginning to grow distant. There's a buzzing between Dean's ears, the little room dark and growing dimmer. His stomach churns - there's no adrenaline left to carry him, and Dean feels sick with the lack, muddled and weak.

Another blow, another crushing wave of pain, and Dean lets it bowl him over and under, bundle him away to the safe, buzzing place where everything is muted.

[forthedog]

He knows it's time when the sounds dry up, when Dean sags against the chains, and he stops, standing there for a moment, breathing hard. Listening to Dean breathe. For the first time since they started, everything is quiet.

When he moves again the peace is something he tries to preserve, moving back to the bed and laying down the baton, reaching for the gauze and disinfectant. Because his work here isn't done.

"Dean," he murmurs when he's standing in front of him again, lifting a hand to nudge Dean's head upward. Enough to see his swollen eyes. "I need you to stay where you are for a few minutes. Can you do that?"

[always_enduphere]

Dean grunts, twitching fitfully to get away from the hand and voice drawing him back to the surface, but something in him understands that he needs to agree. He sighs and nods, the barest lift of his head, and though the ache in his shoulders is nearly as bad as the rest of him, nothing in him is anxious to be freed.

Cracking a sore eye, Dean murmurs, "S'over?"

[forthedog]

"It's over." And he doesn't hear relief in Dean's voice, and he's not surprised that it's not there.

He bends, setting most of the gauze down on the floor, and spills disinfectant onto what's left in his hand. With that, he starts to clean off the worst of the blood, working as slowly and methodically as he had before. Down over Dean's chest and belly, around to his back, pressing more gauze over where wounds are still open and bleeding sluggishly. It's not really as bad as it looks.

It's still pretty bad.

At last he tosses the bloody gauze in the bin by the door, turns and grabs a pillow from the bed, a sheet from the pile of spare linens, dropping them on the floor by Dean's feet. He bends down to unlock the ankle cuffs, then straightens and reaches up with one hand, the other arm sliding around Dean's waist to bear him up, because Christ, he can't even stand.

"Hang on."

[always_enduphere]

The sting is nearly enough to put Dean back under, even the light touches like licks of fire to already inflamed skin. He barks in pain when Mike's arm slings suddenly around him, but he can't help leaning into it, his vision swimming and head rolled back to watch Mike's fingers at the cuffs.

"Holy shit," he whispers and, despite the ripple of agony, manages a short, incredulous laugh. He thinks he's probably felt worse while topside, felt bones break, been shredded by claws through to his organs, but this hurt, this endless, blanket of pain that covers every inch of him..."You fucking - weren't kidding."

[forthedog]

He echoes the laugh, quieter and softer, unlocking the cuffs and curling his other arm around Dean's body as he lowers him slowly down. "Glad I delivered."

They'll both have to go soon. He doesn't even know what time it is, he realizes with faint surprise. He doesn't know how long they've been here. Neil's waiting at home for him.

But he can't leave just yet.

He reaches down for the sheet, pulls it up over Dean's boneless form. Now that it's over it seems important to not force him to be too exposed. "I'll get you some water."