Here I thought you were the smart one. And how do you feel, Moose, when you catch him staring a little too long? Or better yet, how do you feel when he brings someone else to bed?
He’s trembling with rage and with something else, something empty and desolate and afraid. The answer assembles itself against his will, ignoring every instinct and attempt to fight it. He’s powerless, and it strips his bones bare.
He does, sometimes -- catch Dean staring just a little too long, eyes lingering sad where they think that Sam won’t catch them, or where they simply can’t bear to look away. He knows why.
It’s been a long time since he was the Sam that Dean remembers, from before he’d run away to Stanford and everything had changed. That’s who he is, now; he’s the one who lets Dean down, who can’t make things the way they were, the way they used to be, when they had been younger and shorter and carried lighter loads across their backs. Dean is staring at him and searching for Sammy, for the round- faced teenager who Dean had taught to shoot and drive and shoot pool, who he’d stuck up for endlessly and without question, and who’d never turned his back or fucked up badly enough to hurt his family.
These things gather on his tongue like poison, but he swallows them down. There’s enough venom of his own lining his throat, his stomach, that a little more can’t hurt him now.
It’s all the answer Crowley will get, because that’s the trick, isn’t it? It’s still the truth, pressed down as small as he can make it. There’s a headache building itself behind his right eye, sharp pain against this small rebellion. He doesn’t care.
When Dean brings someone else to bed -- not bothering to hide it, not bothering to give him warning or time enough to clear out before he has to see Dean’s fingers hooked lazy in some girl’s jeans pocket, curled at her waist or, where impatience wins out, tangled in hair, shoved under shirt -- Sam can’t help the fire that burns itself in his blood, even as he hates himself for it. Dean is his brother, his everything; Dean deserves good things, deserves enjoyment, no matter where he finds it. Deserves to lose himself in touch and gasping kiss. Still, jealousy coils tight around Sam’s throat when he does, this heady contradiction that leaves him a guilty, worked-up mess. Dean deserves what these girls give him, what Sam can’t, but he still envies them the chance.
The two syllables are bitten out, curt despite the urge to elaborate, to pour his words in front of Crowley until there’s none left inside him, until his bones are hollow and brittle and fit to break.
