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Scarlet is a Beautiful Color

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People talked. They spoke in hushed voices, voices verging on whispers. They said words as if they were scared to be saying them. They had conversations behind closed doors, conversations that made them look quickly behind their backs, to make sure he wasn't around. Because if he were to overhear them... They would learn exactly what it meant to say things about Sam Winchester where his brother could hear.

Different people had different stories, but the main idea was always the same. Sam Winchester was a monster, and Dean Winchester loved him more than anything else in the whole damned universe. It was undeniable once they saw how he acted around his little brother. How hyper aware he was of him, how he sent glares at anyone that let their gaze linger on him for too long, how he said "Sammy" as if it were the only thing worth saying at all.

And then there was Sam. Charming and innocent, all long hair and puppy dog eyes. Until he smiled and they could see the blood in his teeth.

The brothers kept up appearances. They killed monsters and came into bars to chat with other hunters. The hunters let them come in, chatted back. The Winchesters saved lives, after all. They were hunters. But people knew better. They knew that those boys were twisted and disgusting. Dean might have been more normal, he might have been able to have been saved at some point, but Sam had made that option impossible. So they stayed on their good side, let the brothers be whatever fucked up thing they were and let them do the stuff that made them monsters. And when someone started shooting their mouth off about how Sam and Dean were dangerous and insane and needed to be put down, one of them dragged the idiot off with a hand over their mouth and gave them the speech that everyone had heard about how "yeah they're sick freaks but they ain't people you want to cross so just let them do their thing and stay out of the way."

Sometimes people didn't listen of course, and went off to do what everyone knew was a bad idea. They always ended up dead or missing, assumed to be dead. So most people learned to stay put and be cordial to the boys if they ever crossed paths. What they said about them behind locked doors was never brought up around Sam, Dean or any of the people that cared about the two boys.

And then there were the rumors about more than just blood and murder that floated around. Some people brought up the idea that Sam and Dean loved each other too much to be brotherly. The idea just made people feel even more sick, but it was impossible not to see how it could be true. Nobody knew two people more codependent than them. More fucked up in how obsessed they were with each other, more wrapped up in one another than any two people they'd ever met.

Sam and Dean knew all of this. They were aware of the fear and disgust that most people harbored for them. And yeah, if one of them were stupid enough to say something where they could hear it then they'd do something, but for the most part the two didn't mind. They were aware of how fucked up the were. They were just okay with it.

They were all each other needed. Mostly. Sam was Dean's entire addiction. While Sam also needed to kill, to taste blood and hear screams, Dean just needed Sam. And he'd give Sam whatever he wanted. So when those big eyes looked at him and asked if they could hunt the fun things tonight, Dean said yes. He always said yes.

When they were younger and Sam began staring at blood that appeared on scrapes or cuts with something like want, Dean had worried. Their family were the good guys that stopped the freaks that liked blood. He thought about it for years, but there wasn't actually much to think about. It was Sammy. What he wanted Dean gave him. So when they were hunting a monster, Dean was sometimes a little bit slow at ganking the bastard before it tore into whatever poor son of a bitch it had dragged away. He didn't do it very often, but it was worth the times he did to see Sam's pupils dark and wide, watch the smile that would fill up his face the rest of the night after seeing scarlet spill on the ground and the fear cloud in a corpse's eyes.

It was only about a year after starting this that Sam brought up the idea of doing the killing themselves. Why wait for the monsters to drag someone away? Why just watch when they could be the ones to spill the blood, to be the reason behind the screaming? He reasoned that they saved so many people all the time, it wouldn't be a big deal. He just wanted to know what it'd be like.

Dean didn't know how to respond at first. It was one thing to just not save somebody in time, but actually going out and doing it themselves? Grabbing someone and killing them? He'd had to think about it hard. But in the end he obliged, for Sam, and that night he realized that he would do it forever if it meant getting to see his little brother like that. It was nearly indescribable. He had only seen Sam that happy a few times in their lives. He sang in the car and smiled so big it was blinding. Dazzling. His lips tasted of blood, from the brilliant red splatters that covered his face. Dean thought he was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Thank you Dean."

"No problem Sammy."

"Can we do it again sometime?"

"Of course. Whenever you want."

And so, whenever Sam asked him, Dean kept true to that statement. Anything for his little brother. Anything at all.