mickeym | [ Where Sweetness and Torment Blend ]

Title: Where Sweetness and Torment Blend
Pairing: Sam/Dean
:Rating: R
Word Count: ~900
Spoilers: Possible vague references to "Faith", if you want to interpret it that way.
Warnings: non-graphic references to BDSM; brothers having sex
Disclaimer: They're not mine, sadly, and I'm not making any money off this.
Notes: Best way to get out of a writing funk is to…write. Right? Yeah. Even if the writing is cannibalizing bits from something else and reworking it, and adding…subtracting…yeah. Anyway. This is non-graphic, but it does deal with BDSM -- more to the point, with sado-masochism, though the D/s is also implied. I don't see Sam or Dean as someone who would want this as a lifestyle, but I think it's something both of them -- Dean, in particular -- would play with on a (semi) regular basis. The title comes from The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco. I've included the entire passage at the end of the story.

Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading :)

It starts slow, small, and very accidentally; a random touch or caress that's just a little rougher than the others. A little harder. A pinch that leaves a brief sting before subsiding into a glowing warmth. A bite that scrapes skin and leaves starlight streaking behind your closed eyelids. A hand that squeezes then kneads, soft words stroking over sensitive, hungry skin while fingers tease then soothe.

In time, you learn to like those small, random things. You like the extra zing, the way you feel it deeper, harder, more intensely.

Eventually, you learn to beg for them, your body damp with sweat; your limbs stretched out and secured.

Sam never makes you beg for long; hardly ever beyond the first gasped 'please'. He says it isn't about making you beg. It's about giving you what you want. What you need.

Sometimes, though, you need to beg; need it in the same way you need those rough, harsh caresses--because they are caresses, no matter what outsiders who don't understand might say (and really, if you think about it, how is Sam hurting you for your pleasure any better or worse than the fact that you're brothers who fuck? Your whole relationship is so tangled and twined and fucked up that getting your jollies from pain is the most normal of all of it.).

Occasionally he'll have you kneel, your head bowed in supplication. He wants you to learn to ask for what you need, wants you to be able to ask for it. Then, you have to clasp your hands behind your back to keep them from trembling, because asking for what you want is hard. So hard. Want rolls through you like a hungry thing, devouring you from the inside out. The sharp teeth you feel biting into you could be your own as much as his.

You prefer his.

His voice flows over you like a thousand soft caresses, thick and low, rich with love and want and need. At times you can feel it shimmer along your skin like electricity; other times you feel it vibrate deep within you, the echo trembling through muscle, bone, tissue, bruising you deeper than eyes could ever see.

You come to want the bruises he sometimes leaves, tender blueblack blushes on pale skin. The ones that blossom crimson in the center, spreading outward are the ones you like the best; when he strokes gently around them then presses on the edges, working inward, you tremble, waiting for the sharphot sting and the tickle of painpleasureheatwant that follows.

Sometimes it hurts badly; so badly that at first you're not sure you can bear it. The long, screaming heat that spikes all through you, tensing muscles, making your heart pound hard and fast. Bit by bit the heat fades to a warm, heavy glow that settles over you and into you, surrounding you. It's a comfortable feeling, one that makes your head fuzzy and thick, and makes the outside world recede for a time. The only thing for you then is his voice, his eyes, the touch of his hands upon you as they bring you more agonies, pushing the ecstasy higher. The only thing for you is him.

Always him.

Once, you joked about 'until death do us part', and that was the only time you actually ever feared him. His eyes flashed, pain and anger darkening them in a way that made the inky-black of possession look pale and washed out. That was the only time he ever touched you with the intent to make you hurt because he hurt; the only time you felt his pain, instead of your own.

Some things are too raw -- and will always be too raw -- to joke about. You're learning that, slowly.

Sometimes you'll go weeks without it -- without needing it. You and Sam make love slowly or fuck like hormone-driven teenagers, and share kisses and touches and looks that speak volumes more than words ever could. But then something will trigger it, and you'll be drowning in a need you still can't explain even to yourself, much less anyone else. Then the balance between the two of you shifts and you learn all over again what it feels like to come apart from the inside out, screaming silently -- or sometimes not -- as Sam breaks you down and puts you back together.

Afterward, when you're wrung out, wet with sweat, with come, and sometimes with blood, he touches you tenderly, eyes showing his concern, his voice low and heavy with love. He kisses you gently at first, then deeper, tongue slick and hot as it tastes you. You wonder sometimes if he can taste the pain he's given you, if your pleasure lingers there on your tongue for him to lick away and take into himself. His hands are gentle on you; his mouth swallows each and every small moan or whimper you give him.

It may have started small and become a huge thing, but it always ends softly, quietly. After touches and caresses to soothe you, and kisses and licks to taste what he's given, Sam brushes a feather-soft kiss over your forehead and curls protectively around you.

Faith, trust and love, given and received. You can sleep, then, safe in Sam's arms, the need within you quiet again.

~fin~

"The pleasures of love are pains that become desirable, where sweetness and torment blend, and so love is voluntary insanity, infernal paradise, and celestial hell -- in short, harmony of opposite yearnings, sorrowful laughter, soft diamond." -- Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before