"Rise and shine, sleepy head! It's a brand, new day!"

Dean groaned into his pillow. S'posed t'be on the rack. Or did I just dream that? Did I dream Hell?

He closed his eyes more tightly, willing that to be true.

"Come on, now, Dean. You made a bargain, remember? One soul. Every morning you start one teeny, weeny little soul. The rest of the day is yours." Alastair clapped his hands. "Time's a wastin', Dean-o!"

Not dreams. Sam, Ruby, Emily: it was all real.

He had his arms buried beneath the pillow, a position he hadn't slept in for a very long time. He curled his fingers into fists.

"Where's Emily?"

Even as the words left his mouth, he wasn't certain that he wanted to hear the answer.

"Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about her , Dean. We're taking real good care of her."

He made no effort to stop the tears from wetting his pillow. I'm so sorry, Emily. So sorry.

"Now, come on, Dean!" Alastair snapped his fingers and the blankets disappeared, leaving his newest protege bare and shivering. The demon's eyes roamed over the hunter's beautifully sculpted body, and his fingers twitched with the memory of what it felt like to caress so much firm flesh. "Or I could just crawl in there with you - "

"I'm up!" He rolled out of bed on the side away from Alastair, lip lifted in a snarl. "Don't fucking touch me."

Alastair chuckled, holding out his favorite blade. "Take my razor, do as you're told, and I promise, I won't lay a hand on you. Not even the tiniest sliver of one little fingernail." His smile turned salacious. "Unless, of course, you ask me to."

Dean's tongue flicked out, wetting his lips before he swallowed audibly. "I need clothes."

The demon waved a hand irritably, and his toy was clothed: jeans, t-shirt, flannel, boots.

Classic hunter garb.

Dean blinked, running his hands over the soft flannel. "Th - " Jesus. Can't believe I damn-near thanked the asshole. "That's better."

Alastair proffered the razor once more.

Dean took it, eyes shifting uneasily.

"Relax, Dean. This guy beat his grandmother to death with a baseball bat because she caught him stealing money from her purse. He deserves whatever you give him. Now go."

Alastair snapped his fingers, and they were in front of the rack.

Dean looked around: damp stone walls, rancid candles, muffled screams from outside the room.

It was the same rack that he had been on.

The dark-haired man strapped to it was thin, pale, with an anemic growth of coarse hair on his chest and at his groin.

Small scabs and circular lesions dotted his arms.

"What are you s'posed to be? Some kinda lumberjack?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What are you supposed to be? Some kind of drug addict?"

The tweaker's eyes widened. "You got any? Meth's my juice, but I'll take just about anything. And this is Hell! There's gotta be a ton of the shit down here, right?"

Dean turned to Alastair. "What did you say he did?"

The scrawny man cackled. "My grandma was a religious ol' bitch. Wouldn't gimme any money, even though she's rich. I took a baseball bat to her. Stupid bitch. It was her fault! If she'd a gimme the combination to her safe like I asked, it never woulda happened!"

Dean looked down at the blade in his hand. He lifted his eyes, looking at Alastair from beneath his brows. "Can I get a -"

The blade had become a baseball bat.

Wrapped with barbed wire.

Dean smiled, eyes feral.

The prick in front of him started begging before Dean even swung the bat.

The first blow shattered the kid's knee, and Dean grimaced.

The second came with a satisfying crunch as ribs gave way, and suddenly every horrific thing that had been done to him came back, memories washing over him in waves, and it was Alastair he saw on that rack, Alastair taunting him, laughing at him, talking about all of the plans he had for Dean. For Sam.

With each swing of the bat, each crunch of bone, each spray of blood, Dean's anger grew.

By the time he dropped the weapon, his screams had grown louder than his victim's.

"Well, now, Dean, I have to say, that was quite masterful! I did not expect that of you. Not this early in the game, at any rate."

"I need a shower." He snarled the words, refusing to look the demon in the eye.

"As you wish."

Alastair snapped his fingers, and Dean found himself in a suite of rooms.

He hung his head, watching the steaming water turn from red to pink to clear as it cascaded over his body. Not my blood. For once, it's not my blood.

The young man's screams came back to him.

The way it felt to crush the kid's bones.

The copper and piss smell of his fear.

The water scalded him, and Dean let it.

He stepped out into the hallway cautiously, having no idea what to expect.

Alastair appeared.

"Are you ready for your first meal in three decades, Dean?"

Haunted green eyes stared back at him.

"Well, Mr. Winchester? What'll it be?"

"The rack." Dean turned, peeling his shirts off, letting them drop to the floor. "Put me back on the rack."

Alastair chuckled. "As much as I would like that - and believe me, I really would - that was not part of the deal, Dean." He scrutinized his new apprentice closely. "A little buyer's remorse there, Mr. Winchester?"

He screamed and bones snapped and he begged

And I liked it

I fucking liked it.

"What do you really want, Dean?"

Anticipation of relief tangled through with dread roughened the young man's voice, but his answer was clear:

"Make me scream."

"Would you like a safe word, Dean?" Alastair's eyes glinted with either anticipation or sadistic humor.

Dean couldn't tell if the demon was really asking, or if he was being sarcastic.

He decided he didn't care.

"Fuck you, Alastair. This isn't some BDSM scene. We aren't having sex here. Just get on with it."

"Oh, we're not?" Alastair snapped his fingers, and Dean was nude. "You asked me to make you scream. You didn't put any limits on how I accomplish that."

Dean trembled.

Don't rape me

don't fucking rape me

You deserve whatever he decides to dish out, you sick fuck

Dean stayed quiet.

"There's a bar above your head. Hold onto it. The minute you let go, your fun is over and mine begins. Got it?"

Keeping his eyes on the floor, Dean reached up. His fingers contacted cool, smooth metal. He found he had to stand on tiptoe to grip it firmly. "Yeah, I got it."

Without warning a wide leather strap snapped across Dean's groin, its sharp burn making him hiss.

"The correct answer is 'Yes, sir'."

With his head hanging, Dean could see the long, crimson rectangle spreading from one ridged hipbone to the next, cutting across the upper half of his penis.

The burn faded to a warm sting.

The ache inside of him eased.

Yeah. Need more.

As if reading his mind, Alastair struck again, aiming slightly lower.

This time the blow caught the more sensitive glans, and Dean jerked his hips away, twisting as he brought one thigh up to cover himself. "Yes, sir!" He spat the words reflexively, but the tone was less than submissive.

Alastair chuckled. "I am going to enjoy this so, so much." He snapped his fingers, adding a blindfold. "I want you to concentrate on what you're feeling, Dean. Nothing else exists for you right now…. in this moment…. except your body….and the things that I do to it."

Dean shuddered.

The initial exquisite pain that had made him feel like the head of his cock was on fire had faded. Now it felt raw, almost sunburned.

The skin higher up tingled.

The flesh over his hip bones glowed.

Dean felt the change in air pressure as Alastair stepped in closer to him, and he tensed, expecting pain.

Sharp nails spread, scraping along the marks left by biting leather, and shocks of pleasure shot through him.

Jesus. I'm getting hard.

What the fuck?

The fingers left him.

He strained into his blindness, needing to know where Alastair was. What he was doing.

"You know, Dean -"

The voice came from behind him, and Dean stiffened, breath too tight in his chest.

"The human body is a strange and wonderful thing."

The crisp 'snap' registered in Dean's brain a fraction of second before a tongue of fire snaked across the center of his bare ass.

"Did you know that there are only three basic sensory receptors in human skin?"

The tingle in his ass somehow intensified what he was feeling in his dick.

"I'm not here for a damned science class, Ally. Just fucking beat me, alright?"

Dean registered the meaning in Alastair's chuckle just before the lash burned him: ass, thighs, shoulders, behind his knees, back to his ass.

Dean held his breath through all of it, muscles straining as he gripped the bar, determined not to cry out.

Jesus christ. Why did I ask for this?

But he wasn't ready for it to end.

"You can feel changes in temperature." Alastair had moved in front of him again, and the application of something scalding to Dean's left nipple elicited a startled yelp from the hunter.

"And there are mechanoreceptors that let you feel things like pressure." He cupped Dean's testicles, squeezing gently.

Dean's heart rate accelerated. Not my balls please don't crush my nuts

"Or pushing and pulling." His hand moved, gripping Dean's semi-erect penis, and began stroking.

Relief amplified pleasure and his dick jumped to attention. "This is not what I asked for, Alastair." Thirty years of torture had not scrubbed the menace from his voice.

"We're getting to that, Dean. Just be patient." That hand continued its ministrations while the other slipped behind Dean, re-awakening the smoldering fire on his ass as the demon's rough palm abraded raw flesh. "And of course there are the pain receptors, which really just pick up on different chemicals."

He squeezed the firm globe of his toy's ass cheek, and Dean's cock surged.

"Those nerve endings all get triggered when certain things happen to your body, Dean."

The lash fell again, this time across the young man's lower abdomen, the inside of one thigh, then both nipples.

"The ratios help your brain decide whether you feel heat - "

Scalding liquid ran down his side, and Dean jerked, trying to get away from it.

"- or cold - "

Something that felt like ice water slapped against his scrotum, and Dean hissed, twisting his hips.

"- an uncomfortable degree of pressure -"

His hand closed over that freshly cooled skin, and he squeezed Dean's testicles hard enough to force bile up the hunter's throat. Dean groaned, trying to curl in on himself without releasing his grip on the bar.

"- or a more pleasant degree." He went back to stroking Dean's now flaccid cock.

"And those chemical receptors? Well, they are never triggered all by themselves." A pinching sensation on Dean's right nipple was added to the sting of his stripes, the ache in his abused testicles, and the growing hum of the erection that Alastair was coaxing back out of him. "Those chemicals are released from tissues and cells when they are heated or cooled or pressed or rubbed."

Feels so good why does this feel so good

Alastair's hand snapped down on the reddened skin of Dean's ass, and a jolt of ecstasy shot through to his groin, making him moan.

Alastair continued his lecture, ignoring the slick of precum on his hand. "The most interesting part of all of this, though, is that your brain has to interpret this complicated mix of signals, and figure out whether it is indeed feeling pain -"

Something sharp closed on the nipple that had been scalded earlier, and Dean cried out.

"Or pleasure."

His mouth closed over Dean's erection - soft wet sucking heat - and the man groaned, feeling a spike of bliss set out from his groin to infect each abused section of skin until he was tingling and flushed, like all of his body was on the brink of orgasm -

Alastair pulled away.

Dean sagged, panting.

"You asked me to make you scream, Dean -"

"I meant 'hurt me', you sick fuck -"

"You meant 'punish me', Dean." Alastair was close again, breath hot and eager on the side of Dean's face. "But I deserve a reward for what you did today. So I'm going to give us both, Dean. I'm going to use your body against you in a way that is both pleasure and pain. You don't want it, but you won't be able to stop it, and the orgasm that comes, that mix of agony and ecstasy that tears the screams you are looking for right out of your lungs, that will be your punishment - and my reward."

Tears soaked the blindfold.

Yes, sir .

He hung from his tenuous grip on the bar, legs too weak to support him.

He was painted with bloody stripes from his neck to his knees - on both sides.

His body had been shuddering continuously for hours.

He had cum so many times he had lost count, each one an exquisite agony that intensified his self-loathing.

But he hadn't screamed.

Alastair knelt, looking up into the man's face. "Is it enough?"

"Yeah," came the toneless rasp, "for now."

The bar slid from his sweat-slick fingers.

Alastair caught him before he could hit the floor.

"My turn." Hot, sulfuric breath in his ear, in his nose, and they were on a bed, sheets soft, mattress just firm enough, and when Alastair was pressed to him, demon's chest tight against hunter's back, Dean tensed, expecting burning-pounding agony -

but it never came.

Instead Alastair positioned him carefully, knees tucked under his body, Alastair's arm across his chest, and he entered Dean with a steady but undemanding press, fingers twisting a hypersensitive nipple before sliding down to fist around the cock that Alastair had learned so well how to control over the past thirty years -

Feels good

Can't feel so good

And the thing that had always horrified Dean in the past, had burned like fire at the same time that it doubled him over like a kick to the balls -

Oh my god what is that

What's he hitting

Shit

Fuck

So good

Feels so good

- it was the opposite of those things, the most intense and mind-numbing pleasure he had ever felt.

Dean cried when he came.