A/N: old thing written for a different fandom, but it fit so well with soulless!sam I just couldn't not re-write it for spn c:

enjoy~

Dean could scream all he wanted, but Sam never listened.

Sam was stretched out lazily on the couch, Dean stood in the center of the room, teeth grit, face red, tears pooling in his eyes. He clutched his rounded stomach, hoping Sam knew he was selfishly doing two people wrong in his endless apathy, not just Dean. Sam didn't see what he didn't want to see, and what he didn't want to see didn't matter to him. Sam saw straight ahead and only straight ahead, not the broken boy, not the tears, not the fact that even on the worst of days that same boy still loved and needed him. Sam saw straight ahead, not even noticing the adoration and dependency in that boy's eyes.

Sam saw it as a fight, and Dean saw it as Sam being unfair, which - in truth - he was. Sam saw it as Dean being a weepy bitch that needed to learn to do something on his own.

"I fucking hate you," Dean growled, low and feral, all the loathing he felt in his gut ripping through his throat and spitting into his words. Simple words backed up with so much venom he could've died if he'd kept them in his mouth any longer.

Sam didn't flinch. He knew it wasn't true. Dean knew he knew it wasn't true. But the thing that ripped and tore at Dean the most was that he didn't know if it even mattered to Sam whether he meant it or not.

He loved Sam.

He loved Sam even as he sat there on the sofa, coldly dismissing every cry and plead Dean's weak tear-stricken voice could manage. It went against every aspect of logic and most of all, self-respect, but Dean loved Sam with all of his heart, even as he ignored him, even as he began to leave him.

"Sam...?" Dean whimpered, a tear sliding begrudgingly down to his chin. The blank, unaffected look on Sam's face absolutely terrified him. Dean began to obsessively wring his hands, silent sobs starting to bounce off his throat, waiting for an answer, his eyes never daring to leave Sam.

As he stood unstably crying in the middle of the room, Dean thought it was strange, the way he loved Sam. As he watched his brother, slumped down and casually stretched out on the couch, he couldn't decide what would be more satisfying; running over in a fury of apology, throwing himself on Sam in a tight, needy embrace, whispering 'sorry' after 'sorry' into his ear and planting kiss after kiss all over his face to let him know that hey, you're right and I'm wrong so you can just stop staring like a fucking zombie and actually look at me, or marching up to Sam and cramming a fucking knife right through his stone cold heart and just standing there watching him scream and bleed to death so he would finally know what it's like to need someone else's help more than anything in the world and they couldn't even bother to lift a god damned finger for you.

He knew it was no contest which he would choose, though, because if he killed Sam that would mean that he had to live without Sam, and he knew from experience that a fate like that was worse than dying.

In Dean's head Sam just wasn't trying, when really the only thing Sam wasn't trying to do at the moment was burst into tears, because Dean was wrong. Wrong about him.

But sometimes, being right felt better than being loved.