Title: Plaything (The Freak On His Leash) Sam/Dean - NC-17

Spoilers: seasons 3, 4 and 5

Summary: He's the only one who gets to call him that, and when he stops, Sam feel like he's withering inside. Lucifer has risen and Ruby has run away, but rogue angels and a legion of demons are still the least of his worries. He just wants his brother back; because there is nothing in the world like being Dean's "Sammy".

Word count: 35,000

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, First time, Porn, Schmoop

Warnings: light BDSM, corporal punishment, occasional rough sex (consensual), non graphic torture and death of a minor character (not our darlings!), some language.

Kinks: D/s, Dom!Dean/Sub!Sam, Jealous/Possessive!Dean, dirty talk, phone sex, spanking, rimming, use of endearments

Other characters: Bobby; Ruby make one appearance

Author's notes: An exploration of Dean's feelings after Lucifer Rising, of Sam's guilt and motives for going Ruby-side, and of the boys' pain and enduring love for each other through their most trying time. Follow the erotically codependent Winchester brothers on their chaotic way back to each other as they try to work out their issues (that damn phone call too): dysfunctional couples' therapy at its finest ;).

Thanks: to genevieve_1 for the beta work and to loverstar for the banner

Chapter 1: Dying In His Frozen Seas

Chapter 2: Kisses Of Fire On My Skin ("He Hit Me, And It Felt Like A Kiss")

Part I: Bag Of Treats

Part II: The Master's Pet

Part III: Fuck Toy

Chapter 3: Mixed Feelings

Chapter 4: Slave For Your Love

Part I: Sick Puppies

Part II: Wounded Warriors

Chapter 5: Crimes For His Passion

Chapter 6: Love, Don't Let Me Go

Part I: Broken Puppet

Part II: A Master On His Knees

Part III: Sweet Child Of Mine

Part IV: Lovers' Pledge

Part V: Pretty Little Angel

Epilogue: Call Me Sammy

CHAPTER 1: DYING IN HIS FROZEN SEAS

The italics are for internal dialogue

It could all be so simple

But you'd rather make it hard

Loving you is like a battle

And we both end up with scars

Tell me, who I have to be

To get some reciprocity

See no one loves you more than me

And no one ever will

Lauryn Hill – X-Factor

Look at me, please.

Dean never looked at him anymore; really looked. The once-sparkling emerald eyes hadn't met his in what felt like ages. They looked to the side, under, around, and through him, but never at him.

They were in the small town of Sunny Creek. It was their first hunt since the Beast had been freed from its cage. Ruby had escaped certain death by smoking out of the corpse she was possessing, right before the knife Dean was holding pierced clear through her vessel's skin. After branding their ribs with protective sigils to hide them from angels, Castiel had gone on his mission to find God and had not contacted them since. They had spent a couple of weeks in Sioux Falls, buried in books and digging for clues, but still had no lead on how to stop the Devil.

Tired of the tense atmosphere they were spreading to his house, so thick it seemed to ooze from the walls, like mold, and made it impossible to concentrate on research when the both of them happened to be in the room at the same time, Bobby had finally shooed them away and sent them on a job after getting a call for help from an old doctor friend of his.

Sunny Creek's oldest hospital, St. Rita, had been haunted for the past year. Among the dozens of patients who reported seeing the specter, several women had died in mysterious circumstances, unrelated to their condition, some even making a full recovery right before they were found lifeless, with broken bones and dark bruises which no one could explain, just as they were about to be discharged.

It quickly became clear to the skilled hunters that the angry spirit turned violent whenever female patients, fitting a certain type, were admitted to the east wing of the hospital. The job had kept them busy for several days; a welcome distraction that had allowed them to ignore the gap that was widening between them, but as they stood above the burning coffin of William Henley, a mean drunk who had tripped over his shotgun as he was chasing his battered wife with his cane and later succumbed to his injuries at St. Rita, each knew that their brief truce was about to be broken.

However, if Sam was ready for things to change, Dean wanted nothing more than to bury his head in the sand and keep ignoring their problems. Every time Sam had tried to broach the subject of what had happened in the last months: the demon blood, Ruby, their fight in that hotel room, the final seal, the whole catastrophe, Dean had systematically shot him down.

Sam closed his laptop with a demoralized sigh. It had been three days since they had rid St. Rita of its misogynistic, self-appointed reaper and he had failed to make any progress with his brother. His approach was manifestly not working and he was hard-pressed to find new inspiration in the suffocating air of their motel room.

He put his jacket on, deciding a little walk would help clear his head and provide the perfect opportunity to replace his pair of dark blue jeans that was hanging on his hips by a thread.

"I'm going out," he said. "Should be back in an hour or two."

Dean didn't look up from the gun he was polishing. He shrugged, showing how utterly meaningless the announcement was to him. Something stabbed at Sam's heart.

"I'm just going to the mall," he felt the need to disclose.

"You can go wherever you want, Sam," Dean replied, uninterested.

Why don't you call me Sammy anymore? Ever. You haven't, since that day. I wish I could take back all the times I told you not to; and take back everything else too; because then, you'd look up, and smile at me, so bright that your eyes would crinkle at the corners. I miss it Dean, so much; because to you, Sammy meant "good", Sammy meant "loved", and Sammy meant "mine".

Dean barely even talked to him anymore, as if he was negating the fact that Sam was even there. As if that tall, hovering presence that followed him with doleful eyes could have been anybody. As if Sam was gone. And maybe that's what it was. In his heart, Dean felt his Sammy was gone.

But I'm still here, Dean.

Dean looked up. Not high enough that their eyes would meet, but Sam still saw the ice hardening the sea-colored irises, and he felt the chill of rejection in his bones, as if Dean had heard his thoughts and answered, No, you're not. Not my Sam, anyway. And for sure, not the one I walked through Hellfire for.

"You don't need my say so to do anything, Sam."

Sam didn't miss the biting sarcasm dripping from the words. He had used them, one day, under a siren's spell; hurled them at Dean, contempt lacing his voice, when his brother had found out he was plotting with the black-eyed jezebel behind his back.

He remembered how, as he was spitting, "So, I need your say so to make a phone call, Dean?", his face twisted with the condescending superiority he treated his older brother with at the time, especially when his guilty conscience nagged him about all the lies and toxic secrets that were darkening his veins, as surely as the Hell spawn's blood was.

Will you ever forgive me? Or do you think I'm lying to you now, so I can go meet her somewhere? Cause I'm not. I haven't seen her, heard of her, or tried to contact her… You probably don't even care anymore.

Sam hung his head. Gone were the days when Dean would move Hell, Heaven, and Earth for him. If he went out and never came back, he wondered if his brother would even notice. Dean probably wished he would go away, just so he wouldn't have to put so much energy into pretending Sam was not there in the first place.

"Do you want anything?" he asked, in spite of his better judgment.

He knew the answer, but couldn't help himself. Dean didn't want anything he had to give these days. He had bought Dean a slice of pie two mornings ago. Dean had looked around him, as he did now, and nodded a silent thank you. Sam had found the little box intact in the trash the next day and been as hurt by the discovery as a little kid who finds the drawing he made for his favorite teacher, crumpled in the recycle bin.

"No thanks." Dean moved to the opposite side of the room and leaned against the kitchen counter, looking hard at the scratched tiles under his boots.

One other thing he did often these days was move whenever Sam came too close to him. He didn't jump and take off running; he just got up after a minute or two, if he was seated, or remembered he needed something far away, if he was already on his feet. Sam wasn't sure Dean even realized he was doing it.

He nodded to himself and exited the room, then leaned against the door and closed his eyes against the pricking of tears gathering behind his lids. Christ. It hurt. So damn much that in moments like these, his lungs constricted and left him struggling for the next breath.

Was this how his brother felt as he watched, powerless, as Sam slipped away, further and further into the darkness? Dean had just climbed out of the pit then, raw and peeled to the bone, only to watch Sam fill his veins with venom that progressively turned him into that stranger who looked down on the man who had cared for him all his life, and berated a brother recovering from decades of torture for supposedly being weak.

Sam walked at a slow pace, choosing the most isolated road to avoid the midday crowd on the main streets. After a while, he gave up trying to keep his face dry as rivers of shame poured freely from his joyless eyes.

Dean let out a strained sigh. It seemed like he was constantly holding his breath when Sam was around. Sam with the puppy dog eyes, silently demanding answers since he was forbidden from mentioning the herd of pink elephants trampling through their room out loud. Sam's eyes following him everywhere he tried to hide, haunting him.

He fell to his knees, brought down by the pain in his chest. A pain that grated away at his heart at all hours of the day and brought tears to eyes as he struggled to find sleep between the memories of Hell and the betrayal from the one dearest to his heart.

Food didn't taste like much anymore. Every pretty girl who looked his way morphed into the raven haired witch who was taunting him in his nightmares, breastfeeding scarlet poison to his little brother, a smirk on her face as she watched Alastair strip the skin from Dean's bones and patted the head of an oblivious Sam, who thirstily drank her evil in, demon blood dripping down his chin.

Dean grabbed the whiskey bottle on the table and took a swig. When was it going to stop? When was it going to go away? He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a month. Maybe then he'd forget. His phone rang and he dragged himself to his feet to pick it up.

"Hiya, Bobby." he greeted with a raspy voice.

"You don't sound too good kid. How are you doing?"

"Just peachy."

"And I was born yesterday. How's your brother?"

The rusty cheese grater moved in Dean's chest again, scraping a chunk of bleeding flesh away. His fingers shook, calling out for the comforting warmth of the smoky sweet amber elixir.

"Don't know," he answered, pressing the heel of his palm over his brow. He didn't want to talk about this. "He's out."

"Have you two talked since…?"

"Bobby, with all due respect-"

"Mind my own business? Not a chance, not when you boys are hurtin' like this."

"Hurting? Sam's fine!" Dean snarled. "Probably somewhere cavorting with that demonic bitch of his."

"You mind your tone with me, boy."

"I'm sorry."

On the other end of the line Bobby groaned and moved his cap around, trying to cool his head, as it was about to explode. The Winchester boys were going to be the death of him.

"Why would he do that, now that he knows who she works for? And you're blind if you think your brother's fine."

Dean scoffed. The notion that Sam could go back to Poison Ivy should be absurd, but he had seen such a thing happen before, even after Sam had been confronted with ample evidence that the Miss Universe Of Lying Skanks was leading them on from the jump.

Sam had a blind spot, the size of the Gran Canyon, where she was concerned, and all the little temptress had to do was come up with some bogus explanation, swear up and down she could help him undo the damage, sit on his dick, offer him a hit of devil juice, and she would have him eating out of her palm again.

"Maybe you don't know Sam as well as you think," he said, his voice breaking. "Maybe neither of us does."

"Kid…"

"Listen, Bobby, I can't!"

"You don't want to talk about it. You don't want to face it. What do you want to do?"

"Why is it always on me to do something?" Dean snapped. "Okay, so maybe I'm a bossy, overbearing, annoying son of a bitch! Hey, maybe I'm a dick sometimes! Does it mean I deserved this? You don't know how much he…" Dean shook himself. He was so done crying like some chick over this. "Forget it."

"Son…"

"Don't wanna hear it. You ain't in my shoes, so don't tell me how I need to get over it, or be the bigger man. I am through chasing after someone who doesn't give a crap."

"Sam cares a great deal."

"Screw him. He can do what he wants, see if I care. He can run off to live the life he always wanted. I'm sure as Hell not holding him back anymore."

The old hunter heard the boy he loved like a son choke on the other end of the line. Dean was hurt, bitter, and he was holding Sam at arm's length, making any attempt at reconciliation impossible.

"Your brother called me," he shared, hoping Dean's heart might soften if he knew that Sam had reached out to Bobby, terrified that he had burned a bridge with Dean, and desperate to find a way to rebuild it.

"Let me guess. To tell you how difficult I am to get along with these days."

"He just needed someone to talk to. He's trying, you know."

"Well, good for him if he has you to confide in," Dean said, as if he only heard the first part of the sentence.

"I'm on your side, kid. I'm on both your sides!"

"Sure, Bobby," Dean answered quickly. "Thanks for checking up on me, I gotta go." He was in no mood to hear how he was mistreating his poor, misunderstood, little brother.

"Dean!"

"I'll call you later, Bobby."

Dean hung up, missing Bobby's comment about bullheaded Winchesters, tossed his phone, and made his way to the bottle that was singing his name.

When Sam came back to the motel, his brother was nowhere in sight. He put the bag containing his new pair of jeans on the table, picked the empty bottle off the floor, and flopped on his bed with a sigh.

"Where are you now, Dean?" he asked to the empty room.

He was worried, knowing his brother was out there, self-destructive, probably drunk out of his mind, and actively looking for trouble. He wanted to go look for him and bring him home, but he also knew he was the last person Dean wanted any help from. He grabbed his laptop to do a little research and waited, growing more anxious as the day wore on, looking out the window from time to time, hoping to see the Impala rolling into the parking lot.

At nightfall, still without news, he gave in and tried calling his brother once every hour. After getting Dean's voice mail for the fourth time, he went to bed and started praying for a solution, an idea, a miracle, hope; anything whatever benevolent force, that would be listening, had to spare.

When he woke up in the middle of the night to the sight of Dean stumbling into the room with a bruised cheek, a busted lip, and bloody knuckles, Sam knew what he had to do.

Chapter 2: Kisses Of Fire On My Skin (He Hit Me, And It Felt Like A Kiss)