Hate is no different from love. They are born of the same breath, carved from the same rib. And Sam lived long enough among both until they bled into one another. He can't remember when it happened, only that one day he looked into his brother’s eyes and found no name for what moved there.
Perhaps it was when Dean’s gaze darkened with loath, whenever Sam did something that proved he wasn’t who they thought he was supposed to be. Proved that he wasn't the sacrifice God , or dean, had carved him to be. Or perhaps it was when he lay hurt and lucid, and Dean cradled his face in his hands, trembling with a tenderness so fierce it made Sam ache with shame.
He doesn’t understand the anguish and devotion and worry and hurt, hurt ,hurt swelling in his brother’s eyes as his fist meets his face. Blood fills the hollows beneath his eyes, and Dean pushes his hair back softly, hands dripping with blood like wine spilled at an altar.
Nor how, sometimes, he catches the faint stain of revulsion buried in Dean’s gaze when he hugs him after granting forgiveness. But that must be wrong, because his brother said it was all water under the bridge. Washed clean.
As if absolution was ever that simple.
Dean says he would do anything to save him. Keep him safe. The words brand themselves into Sam’s wrists like holy iron, shackles of silver and rosaries pulled too tight. Devotion turned poison. Love spoken like a vow that can not be escaped without damnation.
And when his brother stands before him holding his gun, hands trembling with anger and empty threats, Sam yearns for the cold touch of the muzzle between his brows, dripping love and salvation.
His brother loves him. He does. He can feel it everywhere, coiling and twisting around his limbs, digging into the soft space between his ribs until it finds a home in his lungs, growing and growing and growing, until there is no room left for breath.
He is drowning in devotion and he can't breathe. Dean’s presence only tightens the hold.
A fight, was it? Or a hug?
Either way, it suffocated.
