4. Waving at You

He doesn’t remember all of what happens next, only that someone is babbling apologies and nonsense and then someone is touching him in a way that isn’t, bewilderingly, hurting him, and his hands are warm because someone is holding them in their own and he realizes that he’s crying. He’s crying, hot, awful tears running down his face and neck, and he can’t breathe and – 

His master is the one holding his hands.

“Shh. Shh, Dean, it’s alright. It’s alright, I promise. It was an accident, I’m not angry. It’s okay. I am not going to punish you. Breathe with me, Dean, okay? Breathe with me. In and out. Slowly – God. Please. Try, Dean, please try for me. Breathe.”

The words are all nonsense at first and then some of them aren’t and he tries his best to do what his master asks of him, only it’s hard because his lungs want to suck up all the oxygen in the room and he feels like he could sprint all the way back to Kansas right now and his master’s hands on his feel too much like shackles when they slide up a few inches and push on the bruises under his sleeves that have been there so long he’s forgotten what his wrists look like without them and the alpha’s scent is in his nose his mouth his throat he can’t breathe he’s choking he can't breathe can’t breathe can’tBREATHE– 

He shoves his master off of him and wrenches away, scrambling backward across the carpet until he hits a wall, the blanket tangling around his legs for a terrifying moment before he can break free. And, somehow, the alpha lets him go. 

He crowds back against the wall with his knees in front of him and gulps in shallow breaths, waiting to be grabbed, waiting for punishment. But there is only silence. 

Dean has never seen an alpha kneel before, but when he dares to look up and his wild eyes land on him the man is on his knees on the carpet. He’s got to be hallucinating, or maybe dreaming, and he tears his eyes away so he can wake himself the fuck up. His master is still breathing loudly and slowly and he tries to match the movements of his chest to the sound of it because if he doesn’t he’s going to pass out, and nothing good ever happens when he passes out. 

A few more breaths in and he can finally see clearly; a few more out, and his brain catches up with him. 

God he’s so fucking stupid. The carpet is soft on his forehead when he bows, and it brushes his lips when he starts begging. “I’m s-sorry, master – f-fuck – I mean, sir, I – I mean – C-Cas– Mr. Nov– alpha, God, alpha please, I’ll clean it I swear, please don’t punish me, please, please don’t put me outs-side-”

His breath chokes in his throat and he bites his lip until it bleeds to make himself fucking stop speaking. He’s cowering on the ground like a dog, because that’s what he is. Actually, no, scratch that – dogs have laws that protect them from getting hit or starved or left out in the cold with no protection. He suddenly wants to laugh and the feeling is hysterical and sharp in his chest. He’s less than a goddamn dog. He’s certainly stupider than one. A useless, broken omega whore. 

But at least he’s still smart enough to know that he’s starting to dissociate, the familiar, detached feeling slowly settling over him like a layer of icy snow. 

Dean has never done this without getting hurt first. Usually the feeling will take him just before the pain is so much that he thinks he might die, or beg to die just to escape it – but he’s not complaining. Right now, it allows his heart to slow down and his breathing to even out so that the room stops spinning, allows him to recognize the sensation of tacky tears drying on his cheeks in a detached, clinical way.

He’s going to be punished. He knows this. He’ll survive, or he won’t, but it’s not up to him and there’s nothing he can do about it. So he stays where he is, forehead pressed into the stupidly white carpet, and waits. 

And he keeps waiting. 

After a long moment, the silence is broken by shuffling on the floor, and his master’s soft footsteps as they approach him. He feels his shoulders draw together automatically, bracing for a blow that must be coming. 

Instead, his master kneels in front of him again, and puts his hands out and low where Dean can see them when he finally dares to look up. And he doesn’t move again after that. Dean blinks up at him, distantly terrified of the coming pain and bewildered that it has not yet come. 

His master’s lips are chapped. He finds himself staring at them, still curiously far away from himself and his body, and he thinks it’s an odd thing to notice. But they are, and he’s got a sort of unkempt five o’clock shadow to match. His hair is rumpled, and there are dark circles under his eyes that Dean doesn’t understand – what in the hell would a rich alpha male like him have to worry about? But when Dean finally takes in his whole face and puts together his expression in a way that makes sense, he thinks that the alpha looks weirdly… sad. 

“You called me Cas.”

Dean closes his eyes, another arc of fear ripping through him, just strong enough to touch him through the distance. “I’m sorry.”

“You… it’s okay,” he says, and his voice rumbles like gravel. He hesitates for just a moment before he adds, “you may call me whatever you’d like.”

Dean doesn’t understand that and he’s so tired that it’s not possible to try. His master’s voice still isn’t angry when he speaks. “Can you sit up?”

He does what he’s told, because it would be suicide not to, but he can’t make himself look up again. “Can I be frank with you, Dean?”

Dean wants to laugh, he really does. As if he has control over how anyone speaks to him, as if he has control over anything. Instead of his hysteria coming out as a giggle, however, it comes in the form of a burning pressure at the back of his eyes, more shameful tears pushing out that he can’t control. He hardly feels them. He can’t even make himself nod. 

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

That’s obvious. Because if he did, Dean would already be in a puddle of his own blood and drool on the ground. This time, he does laugh, strained and high until he claps his hands over his mouth and takes in a shuddering breath, more wetness pressing out of his eyes. He’s so far gone that the disrespect doesn’t even scare him. Or maybe it does, but the fear doesn’t touch him, doesn’t make contact because he’s so out of it. 

He really must be this guy’s first bitch. Is he going to have to explain to the alpha how to treat him?

But his master doesn’t slap him for his insolence. He doesn’t even look offended. Instead, he scrubs at his face with his hand and sighs. “I’m not going to punish you for spilling the coffee, Dean.”

“You… what?”

Dean could hit himself for speaking. Instead, he curls his fingertips into his palms until he’s nearly breaking skin when the alpha cocks his head to the side, confused. He tries to explain himself in a way that won’t get him punished anymore than he already will be. 

Because, honestly, he knows this game. Alastair had loved this routine, loved to dangle precious forgiveness over his head that he would never be good enough to receive. If he doesn’t admit everything he did wrong now, it’s only gonna be worse for him in the future – or, at least, that’s how it’s always been. “I… I messed up, though. So… I deserve it.”

His master’s voice is impossibly soft when he replies. “No. You don’t.”

It’s not something that Dean understands, that sentiment, so he doesn’t allow himself to feel the relief that’s trying to release the strangle-hold that fear has on his lungs and chest. His master is testing him. Trying to trick him. “What about the water?”

The alpha blinks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Water?”

“The… the hot water. I used hot water. In the shower,” he says, hating himself. Does he like pain? Does he want to be punished? He must, because he digs his grave a little further, his words tumbling out of his mouth like bricks onto the ground, heavy and horrible and far too loud. “And – and I pushed you.”

The alpha stares at him. “You did. I was touching you without your permission, though. And you weren’t exactly in your right mind.”

It’s his turn to blink. Without his permission? Slaves don’t give permission. He hasn’t given anyone permission to do anything to him since he signed his fucking life away, and that had stopped exactly no one. 

The man shakes his head. “I’m not going to punish you for those things either.”

Dean just can’t fucking help himself. “Why?”

His new master frowns, still sitting on his feet on the ground like he’s not above Dean in every possible way. “Well, with the shower – I expected you to use hot water. It never occurred to me that you’d think you were breaking a rule by doing that. How did you normally bathe?”

Dean’s too scared to lie and too exhausted to soften his words, and he still feels too far away from himself. He doesn’t understand anything that’s happening right now – he’s never had a conversation like this with his masters, especially not before punishment. Nothing so tame. Nothing that wasn’t a performance, or begging, or yes master, no master. “I… If I was too… If I was too dirty they would just take me outside and… spray me down.”

The man looks… sick. Which doesn’t make sense, ‘cause in Dean’s experience, he’s lucky he got washed at all, that he ever got a moment free from some sick alpha’s stench. “It’s so cold,” he says softly, and if Dean didn’t know any better he’d say the man’s tone was sympathetic. 

But that can’t really mean anything, not coming from an alpha, so Dean says nothing. His master takes a deep, steadying breath. “As for you pushing me – like I said, it’s understandable under the circumstances. You didn’t hurt me, but you were scared I was going to hurt you.”

“You did-” Dean says without meaning to, and like a whipcrack he’s back in his body again, the soothing distance from before yanked from him like his blanket by his master in Hell. He wraps his arms around himself and finds that he’s shaking. 

His master hurting him is not something he should find novel. It’s the norm. It’s been the norm for so long that he doesn’t understand why he’s bothered to mention it, to contradict the man that literally owns him and can do anything he wants to a slave that’s disrespectful. And suddenly his fear is choking him again, and his heart is racing and he just wants whatever this is to be done, wants his master to get it over with already. 

“I hurt you?” the man asks, and he sounds genuinely distressed by the idea, which makes no fucking sense at all. “When? How?”

He doesn’t understand the question, can’t even begin to formulate an answer. “Can you show me? I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

His hands are shaking when he shoves back his sleeves, nearly getting them up to his elbows in his hurry to do something his master wants, to prove to him that he can obey so the alpha doesn’t feel the need to beat that obedience into him. It’s one of the few orders the man’s given him since he arrived here, and he’s not trying to fuck up again.

The bruises that circle his wrists are dark and bloody in places, freshly so because he’d scrubbed at them in the shower. The alpha’s sharp intake of breath makes him tense, and, worse, when the alpha reaches forward like he wants to touch them again Dean can’t help but flinch and draw his hands back to himself. The sleeves fall back over his arms limply and he could cry, because he knows better. Knows that he can’t say no. 

But when his master talks, it isn’t to threaten or scare him into obedience. Instead, his words are so strange and impossible that Dean would think he was dreaming, if he wasn’t having so much trouble falling asleep in the first place. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never would have – you were hurting yourself. I only grabbed your hands because you were hurting yourself.”

He doesn’t remember, but it would explain the raw feeling under his nails and the carpet burns on his palms. “Sorry,” he whispers again, no idea what to say other than that. No idea what his master wants from him, or why he’s apologizing for hurting Dean when it’s his every right to do so. 

Maybe the alpha wanted someone who isn’t broken yet. Dean thinks, distantly, that he should have looked him over a little more carefully if that was his goal.

His master starts to say something, then doesn’t, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m not going to punish you, Dean.”

The thought of believing that doesn’t even tickle at the edge of his mind, and the alpha can obviously tell. His eyes are tired. “It’s okay that you don’t trust me right now. I hope you will, with time. I’m going to do my best to earn it.”

He shuffles to his feet and Dean flinches back again despite himself, curling down over his stomach to protect it like he’s done a million times in the past. But his master doesn’t kick him, doesn’t reach down and yank on his collar to put him exactly where he wants. He doesn’t even force Dean to calm down, even though he could with nothing but a little pressure on the nape of his neck. Instead, he takes a step back to the couch and sits down on it, far enough away that Dean can finally breathe again without alpha in the back of his throat. 

“You’re very tired,” the alpha says, and Jesus if that isn’t the understatement of the century. If he wasn’t so fucking scared he would be asleep right now. He’s gotten essentially zero rest the last few days, waiting to see what would happen to him, tossing and turning with his empty stomach and praying to anyone who would listen that he was done with Hell for good. That Alastair had gone up in flames with the rest.

His new master’s low, rumbling voice is so different from the echoed hisses and jeering of his old that it startles him right back into the present. “I’m going to keep this brief. The way that your previous masters have treated you has no bearing in his house. I am not those people. It is true that I technically own you, but hurting you is not my intention. I’m…” the alpha makes a frustrated noise, rubbing his hand on his chin. He takes in a breath. “I wish I could explain more than this. But I don’t think you’ll believe me, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

His eyes are searching when he looks down at Dean. “But I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”

Eyes wide, he nods. What else is there to do? Every master he’s had has been different, but in the end, they’d all hurt him. Some worse than others, sure, but they’d all had their fun. Castiel Novak will be no different. Why buy a slave, otherwise? What purpose can he serve, other than to be the whipping boy for someone else’s rage or lust or sadistic glee?

But maybe… maybe this is his way of making Dean behave. Telling him he doesn’t want to hurt him – just that he will if he needs to. 

The very thought makes Dean want to curl up and sob with desperate relief. Because, at least, if that's the case, he’ll get a chance not to fuck it up, a chance not to be in pain. He might even be able to avoid the worst of it all together if he’s good, if he tries his damnedest to do what he’s supposed to. 

His last master had never given him that – it was his literal fucking purpose to be hurt by anyone who would pay for it. He was just punished even more harshly if he didn’t lay there and let it happen like he deserved it. He’d been the stand-in for some other poor son of a bitch, a punching bag that alphas could take out their frustration on and then fuck for good measure. 

He’d been strong, before Hell. Never taken anything lying down. He’d paid dearly for it over and over and over again, but still, he’d fought back. And even in Hell, even after Alastair broke him, even after he’d stopped running, there had been precious moments where he’d bucked against whatever was happening to him, times where his head had broken the surface of the water and he’d remembered who he was. 

Right now, Dean doesn’t remember that version of himself. The thought that he could be strong feels like a joke, like a lie that he’s made himself believe to keep some modicum of self respect. The only thing that’s left alive inside of him is a pathetic omega bitch that will take any chance it has at living without pain, and he knows it, and he doesn’t fucking care. 

They’ve tried to break his spirit for years. Turns out the only thing they’d never done – show mercy – is all it takes for him to bend over completely willingly.

“They have cut you down in ways I can’t even begin to understand,” his master says softly, and Dean swallows, face flushing in shame at how right he is, “and I’m so sorry for that. But the things that got you punished in their households will never get you punished here. If you ever need clarification on what you can and can’t do, just ask me. You will never be punished for asking me questions.”

Dean can’t help himself. “Never?” He’s testing his luck, he knows, but he might as well figure out his boundaries as much as he can. He’s already prepared to get the shit kicked out of him – might as well make this a fact finding journey in the meantime, figure out what the rules are so he can avoid breaking them in the future. He may have fucked up already – his master hasn’t responded to his question. He chances a look up. 

But instead of fury, a thoughtful frown is on his master’s face. “Never. It would be wildly unfair for me to assume that you understand my expectations here, especially because they’re likely very different from anything you’ve experienced. How else are you going to learn, besides asking?”

Dean shudders, drops his eyes. Trial and error, usually. Painful errors.

The alpha doesn’t say anything, but he does look a little sad. Dean doesn’t know what to make of that. 

“Let me show you to the bedroom,” his master finally says, and waits for Dean to lurch to his feet before heading down the long hallway and up the dark wooden stairs. It hurts everywhere to climb them, but Dean does it anyway. His body always hurts, that’s nothing new. But pain has never been an excuse to ignore orders. His master knows it, too – he doesn’t look back to check and see if Dean’s following, clearly confident that he’s well trained enough to know not to run. 

He’s right. 

Dean knows what he’s been purchased for. Maybe if he doesn’t resist, his master will be gentle. He doesn’t even spare a moment to be disgusted with himself, with how the bar has dropped to the point where he’s just hoping that the alpha fucking him won’t make it hurt more than it already has to, just by the nature of the act. 

Things could always be worse. The alpha could have fucked him right there in the parking lot, and no one would have blinked an eye. Hell, he could have demanded a taste-test inside the auction house, and then not bought him all. Instead, he’s waited until Dean is at least coherent, has fed him and cleaned him beforehand. And he’s doing it in a bed, probably, better than the cold hard ground under bruised and bleeding knees, or a cold metal trap around his neck and wrists and waist to hold him down. 

Could be worse, could be worse. He repeats it like a prayer.

The room they stop in front of has the door closed; his brain provides him a million red and black stills of what’s inside, each more terrifying than the last. But when Castiel opens it, he can see that it’s a perfectly normal bedroom. His master’s, he assumes. The walls are a soft gray and the bed has a patterned green quilt on top, tucked under loads of pillows, and there’s a large window off to the side that’s got the curtains thrown open so that he can see the snow falling in the yard. It’s a chilling reminder of where he’d been just days ago, and where he could be again if he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to.

Could be worse. Can always get worse. He steps forward.

He takes a deep breath and tries to push down the fear that has begun to make his legs shake, hoping against all his expectations that the alpha will be kind enough to prep him, at least minimally. He shouldn’t hold his breath, because he knows that it’s his job as the omega to get slick, even if he’s scared out of his mind. But, maybe– 

“The bed, and everything else in the room, for that matter, belong to you.” 

Dean freezes, eyes wide as he looks up into his master’s tired face. 

Wait. 

What?

“There’s a lock on the door, which I want you to use if you feel so inclined,” his master rushes to say, and Dean doesn’t even have the chance to be surprised before the man steps back and away from him. “Please try to get some sleep, Dean. I’ll do my best to clarify things for you tomorrow, but I think we’ve both had more than enough tonight.”

And with that, he retreats, footsteps loud as he descends the stairs. 

Dean stands in front of the door for a while, shell-shocked and dizzy, bewildered to find himself alone and untouched and unhurt. Then he snaps back into himself and stumbles forward to shut the door with a loud click. He isn’t brave enough to lock it. 

Not sure why he’s scared, exactly – just knowing that he is – he turns around and presses his back to the dark wood. It’s solid behind him, probably the only thing keeping him upright as his head spins and he tries to make sense of what just happened. 

Why the fuck would you buy a sex slave if you’re going to give them their own room, a whole goddamn floor away from yours?

But it really is just a normal room. Nothing on the walls. No chest in the corner, full of things that will hurt him in a million different ways. No places on the bed or floor or walls or ceiling for his cuffs or collar to be chained the instant he dares to thrash or protest, most of the time before even that. 

He thinks he might fall on the floor and start bawling when he realizes it, the empty patches of painted drywall and wood more wondrous than anything he’s seen in years. He sways, stumbles forward. Has to put his hands on the bed to catch himself, lightheaded, blood rushing in his ears, something sharper and more painful than relief slicing him to ribbons.

The bed is soft. So soft and clean and it doesn’t smell like sex or blood or tears or misery, and it can’t be for him. Not for something like him. So he looks around for something on the floor, some space that he’s supposed to be in, but there’s nothing. Just a padded armchair and a side table and a dresser, all as expensive looking and clean as the rest of the house.

His master’s words echo in his mind. Had he really said that the bed was for him? He can’t trust his brain, hasn’t been able to for a while, so he dismisses the thought. But there really isn’t anything else in the room that looks like it could be a place for him. He has no idea what to do, no idea how to handle the idea that he’s been given a room instead of a chain at the foot of a bed, a mattress instead of a meager blanket on the floor. 

He bites his lip.

The quilt he pulls from the bed is soft and smells fresh, like it’s just been washed. It doesn’t smell like alpha, even though it belongs to one, and Dean wonders why even though he’s relieved at the extra confirmation that the alpha doesn’t spend any time here. 

Trembling, glancing at the door every so often as if it’s going to bang open at any moment, he drops a pillow to the ground between the bed and the wall, putting the mattress between himself and the door for all the good it will do him if his master changes his mind and wants to use him after all. Then, he curls down on the plush carpet with the quilt over him, his hands circling around his knees automatically as he goes. He hopes the alpha won’t be angry that he’s putting such nice bedding on the floor.

And he waits.

The house is… quiet. For the first time in years, he’s able to listen to nothing at all. There is no crude laughter, no yelling, no crying, no heavy footsteps in the hall on creaking floorboards and ripped linoleum. The room is so well insulated that he can’t even make out the wind that he knows is blowing the dry snow into little whirls and twists outside in the yard. 

The yard that he is not in. The snow that his new master hasn’t even threatened him with yet.

He breathes. And breathes.

And the door never opens.

His master doesn’t want to hurt him. 

He can only enjoy that novel and unbelievable thought for a split second before anxiety overruns him and his heart speeds up, chest tightening until it hurts. He digs his fingers into his sides and presses on old bruises to keep himself from freaking out again, and he’s almost successful – except there’s one little thought that keeps slamming into him, shattering any chance he might have at staying calm. 

He is going to fuck this up. 

He’s going to fuck it up. It’s been so long since he’s actually tried to act like a good little bitch that he doesn’t even think he knows how. He’d conditioned himself early on to disobey, to resist any time he had the energy and willpower to do so, to never become a willing participant in the things that were done to him. He’d had mixed levels of success, less and less over the years, but still. He’d tried. 

Now that he finally wants to do the opposite, he doesn’t know if he remembers how. 

The pure want inside of him is nauseating in its intensity. He’s just so fucking tired of being in pain, of being scared all the time, always waiting while holding his breath. He’ll do anything he can to stay in his master’s good graces, even if it’s a front, even if this new master ends up being cruel. Anything is better than how it was before, than where he was before. 

He knows he’s pathetic, scrambling around for memories on how to be a proper bitch. Castiel has already broken him more than any other master, and Dean doesn’t even care. He hates himself for it, but he’s too grateful for being treated like anything close to a human to want to sabotage this for the sake of the dregs of his pride.

So he has no choice – he has to convince his master that he’s worth it, that he can be good enough not to be punished, good enough to be treated like something that might be human. Only he’s not sure how to overcome the obvious weight of his worthlessness. 

Maybe he’ll get lucky and the alpha will have mercy and just send him off to be re-trained when he realizes that Dean is too far gone to act the way he’s supposed to. 

The thought makes bile rise, but he clasps his hands over his mouth and swallows, refusing to waste the first good food he’s had in far too long by puking it up. He’s been to the training centers more times than he can remember, sent back there after every escape attempt and every time a master returned him when he became more trouble than he was worth. The handlers had always known he’d been a repeat customer, had seen it in his file, and each time he’d gone back they’d been more than eager to remind him of his place. He knows, too, that the duration of his stays there had dwindled to the point where there’d been no real reason to go at all – he’d gone from being able to hold out for a month to barely lasting a few days before caving. Before begging and presenting and acting like the bitch everyone knew he was. 

But if he has to go through that to convince this alpha he knows how to act right, he will. He can. He’s handled that before, and compared to what Alastair had done to him, the training center looks like a fucking vacation. Hell, he’ll volunteer to go if it means his master will like him more afterward; if it means he will keep giving him food and warm water and blankets for no reason, even when he’s done nothing to earn those priceless blessings.

Distantly, he recognizes how fucking sad that is. But he doesn’t care. Doesn’t have the energy to care. Not anymore.

After way too long, he forces his eyes closed. His master has only given him one real order so far, and that’s to sleep. He curls his hands over the back of his neck – the position he’s adopted every night for years, though it’s a little strange without the chain between his fingers – and tries his best.