The door clanged open.
Dean walked in determinedly, almost stomping down the stairs, heading straight for the large table in the middle of the room. The table with their initials carved into the surface.
Sam came down right behind his brother, the set of his shoulders tense and to Cas, following tentatively behind, it was obvious that Sam was upset – both angry and sad, but most of all resolved upon seeing something unpleasant through.
Dean reached the table, and without hesitating for a moment, leaned over far enough to set both his hands flat on the tabletop. Sam stopped slightly behind him. None of them spoke a word as Sam unbuckled his belt and doubled it up in his hand.
Cas took half a step forward and opened his mouth to say something, anything to stop this from happening, but before any words found their way out, Sam had swung the belt, bringing it down hard across his brother's ass in a stroke that had Dean up on his toes.
Sam swung again, and again, Dean rocking with each stroke, but never making a sound.
After what seemed like forever, Sam stopped and took a deep breath.
Cas felt his hands unclench and his shoulders relax, the horrible scene finally over. Except that instead of moving away, Sam just stood there.
Dean looked over his shoulder at his brother and their eyes met, something unspoken passing between them, then Dean straightened up a bit, swiftly undoing his belt and pushing his dirty, ragged jeans to his knees.
Before Cas really understood what was happening Dean had bent back over the table and the belt had fallen again, with the awful explosive sound of leather striking bare skin as it light a red line of fire just below Dean's briefs. This time a small grunt escaped his lips.
Sam kept the belt swinging rhythmically, hard strokes going from the top of Deans ass down his unprotected thighs to right above his knees in a neat pattern of strokes, one almost overlapping the last. Then back up, welts raising on top of welts and Dean's small grunts becoming interspersed with ragged breaths.
When Sam started back down for the second time a broken sound of distress left Dean and he tapped his right foot desperately, letting his head hang down between his shoulders.
The sound had Cas take a stumbling step forward and he felt his back tighten as his wings tried to break free. Sam shot him a quick glance that spoke a clear, although silent, message: "Stay out of this!"
When the belt reached the tender skin at the top of Dean's thighs for the fourth time, he gave a strangled cry and rocked back and forth. Sam stopped, rolled his shoulders and gazed quietly at his brother's bent form.
Cas stepped forward again, ready to give whatever comfort he could, but just at that moment Sam spoke - so quietly that it was almost inaudible from where Cas stood.
He said only one word: "Shirt".
Dean froze, then looked over his shoulder at Sam, his face losing all color.
Sam calmly, but firmly, repeated. "Dean, shirt".
Dean took a ragged breath and stood up straight, half turning towards his brother.
"Sam, please"
His voice pleading, almost childlike.
Sam shook his head once and tapped the belt against his thigh. Dean shuddered, gave a small hopeless sound in his throat, then lifted his hands and started unbuttoning his shirt with shaking hands.
He fumbled so long with the first two buttons that Sam cleared his throat and repeated: "Dean, now".
Dean almost ripped the rest of the buttons off trying to undo them as fast as his shaking hands would allow. He shrugged out of the heavy plaid shirt and threw it over the back of a chair, grabbed his t shirt and boxed his way out of it, letting it fall on top of the shirt. Then he bent back over the table.
Sam stepped closer to the table, lifted the belt, then stepped back.
"You'll have to move your feet back, Dean, and bend over further"
Dean complied obediently, stepping back, and resting his underarms on the edge of the table, body bent and stretched out.
Sam raised the belt and let it thunder down across Dean's shoulder blades, the sound like a gunshot in the large room.
Dean straight out yelped and shot into the air. Almost falling as his legs were still tangled in his jeans. Sam grabbed his arm and steadied him at the same time as they were blinded by the flash of light from Cas' wings springing free.
They both glanced at Cas, then focused back on each other.
Dean shuddered and said quietly "I'm sorry, Sam, I can't, not like this, I, I, just… can't."
Sam looked at him steadily "I'm sorry Dean, but this is going to happen, we both know it has to."
Dean shook his head.
"I know, I know, it's probably the least of what I deserve, and I'm not fighting you, just, please, not like this, not holding myself up, let me have something to put my weight on."
Sam was quiet for a moment, then he sighed and responded with a weary: "Ok, Dean, ok, go to your room, I'll be there in a moment."
Dean struggled out of his boots and jeans, wincing as he bent over to reach them. With his head hanging he moved slowly, carefully, out of the room and disappeared down the corridor towards his bedroom.
Sam straightened his back and moved his shoulders trying to loosen the tenseness. Then he turned to Cas with a solemn expression.
"Cas, please, tuck in your wings. I'm not going to damage him, but if I don't see this through, if he doesn't reach the point where he feels like, he has paid for his actions, he'll never forgive himself, he will rip himself apart with the guilt. I'm helping him, I know it seems backwards, but it's the only thing we have found, that can stop him spinning out of control after something like this happens. Please, let me finish. You can come watch, none of us will mind that. If you can stand it. Come, see for yourself that I'm not doing damage, I know how to do this."
Sam sighed deeply.
"God knows, I know, I've had to do it often enough. He'll be sore, but I'll not leave bruises, nor break the skin, I swear. And when it's done, he'll be able to let go. Please."
Cas stood there staring almost as if he was looking straight into Sam's soul. He asked abruptly: "Why his back?"
Sam shuddered. "Because he hates it. Because it hurts much more there. Because he has a stupidly high tolerance for pain, and because he is feeling so guilty right now that there is no way, I'll get him to where he needs to be without doing damage to his ass and legs if I keep it aimed at them, so instead I'm going to take this to the next level right now."
Cas stood like a statue for a long beat, then he nodded briefly, squaring his shoulders as his wings folded up.
Together they walked to Dean's room.
Dean was just standing there in the middle of the room looking dejected.
Sam clenched his jaws once, then pointed at the bed with the belt: "Kneel down at the end of the bed, and lean over it".
Dean got into position, on his knees, with his upper body supported by the bed, his face hidden in his arms.
Sam brought the belt crashing down across Dean's shoulder blades and Dean gave a strangled cry that had Cas' hands clench in helpless fury.
At the fifth stroke Dean moved just as the belt fell, twisting away and holding up his arm, resulting in the belt hitting his arm, spiraling around the lower arm, the end slapping his face high on his cheek with a sickening sound of leather hitting thin skin stretched over bone. Dean gave a breathless scream of agony and Sam cursed loudly, dropping the belt and springing towards his brother
"Christ, Dean, are you ok? Did I get your eye? Please tell me I didn't hit you in the eye!"
Dean shook his head "No, no you didn't, just, ooww"
Cas stepped forward and set his fingertips against the bruise already forming next to Dean's right eye, there was a moment of heat, then the bruise faded quickly. Sam cast a startled look at Cas, then quickly looked down to Deans legs.
Cas smiled slightly, "I only healed his face and arm, I figured you wouldn't appreciate anything else."
Despite themselves both brothers gave an almost-chuckle of wry amusement before politely thanking Cas, although Dean's thanks had a decidedly sarcastic tone.
Sam turned back to Dean: "I'm sorry, but this is simply too dangerous, where are you keeping your handcuffs?"
Cas broke into the moment asking incredulously "Are you going to cuff him to the bed?"
Sam shrugged. "Seems like I'll have to, or I might end up breaking my promise to you by putting his eye out."
Cas shook his head. "I've got a better idea. Dean, lie down across the end of the bed and give me your hands."
It almost broke his heart to see Dean turned submissively to Sam, seeking permission to have the small comfort of having his hands held by a friend instead of by harsh metallic cuffs that would undoubtedly dig into his wrists as he was whipped.
Sam nodded his approval and Dean moved round to lie stretched out across the bed, holding out his hands to Cas, who kneeled and gripped his wrists firmly. Dean turned his hands and grabbed onto Cas' wrists in return.
Sam stepped closer to the bed, took a deep breath and continued his task with grim determination, methodically whipping the belt over his brother's shoulder blades in even strokes that overlapped just a bit.
Up and down, he went, up and down until Dean stopped struggling and just buried his face in his biceps and sobbed.
Sam hesitated for a moment at this point, then briskly brought the strap down five times more, the loud smacks accompanied by the sounds of deep sobbing in the otherwise deadly quiet room.
Sam suddenly whirled around and hurled the belt full force into the hallway, where it bounced off the wall with a clatter of metal buckle hitting stones. The sound made Dean's tense body go limp and his crying turned into heaving breaths.
Sam flung himself to his knees next to the bed, carefully hugging his brother and rocking them both while he whispered, "It's ok, you are ok." Over and over again.
As Dean slowly regained his composure, he pushed Sam away and unsteadily got to his feet, turning to go into the bathroom.
He didn't make it far, though, as Sam grabbed him and brought him into a hug, despite muffled protests of "No chick flick moments, Sammy."
Cas tried to slip past the brothers, feeling that they should have their privacy, but in one of those moments of complete synchronicity both brothers reached out an arm and grabbed him into the hug.
The three of them stood like that long enough for it to become almost awkward before Dean shrugged the other two off of him:
"All right, all right, let me go, that's enough, dammit!"
Then he staggered into the bathroom, and the sound of a running shower soon came through the closed door. Sam went to retrieve his belt, slipping it through the loops of his jeans, while he asked Cas to go get Dean's clothes from the library.
When Cas returned, Sam efficiently stripped Dean's pockets of weapons and other assorted objects before tossing the hunt-soiled clothes into the hamper.
That little domestic task done, Sam turned back the cover of Dean's bed just as Dean stepped back into the room, clad only in a pair of boxers, that hung loosely on his lean hips.
He gazed at the bed, then over at Sam "Really, little brother, you are going to tuck me into bed in the middle of the afternoon?"
Sam grinned at him "Yep. You, brother, are exhausted. You haven't been sleeping well, and that is part of what went wrong today, so now, you are going to sleep."
Dean took a deep breath, "I'm sorry, I've been an ass lately, and then today, that poor – "
Sam interrupted "Dean, you made a mistake. It happens to us all. You've paid for that, and now you are going to sleep, and you are going to forgive yourself, or are you and I going to have to go for round two?"
Dean winced, moving his shoulders uncomfortably, as if he was wearing a shirt two numbers too small for his solid frame.
"Dean?" Sam said, the warning clear in his voice.
Dean inhaled slowly, then exhaled in a long sigh, an intangible burden leaving his body along with the air leaving his lungs, and for the first time since that morning, Cas felt that being next to Dean was not like being in the presence of a tightly coiled spring, the sense of an imminent explosion receding as Dean finally let his sore shoulders slump.
"You are right Sammy, I better get some sleep, and, and, and, yes, thanks…. Bitch"
"Goodnight, Jerk"
As Dean carefully climbed into bed, settling onto his stomach with a heartfelt groan, Sam clapped a hand on Cas' shoulder and they silently left the room.
