"Dean."
Whenever he said it, it was like looking into another world. One of colors and images that you could never completely understand.
His rich dulcet tones would say those four simple letters, and each time he did, it took your breath away.
In anger, it was sharp and quick, smoldering with a heat so strong that it burned you up.
Sometimes, you didn't think you could handle the inferno.
In sin, it was drawn out, long and low, promising.
Happiness had him sounding like a little boy again. He spoke it and conveyed a whirlwind of emotions that you couldn't see the end of, it brought you to near tears when he said it that way, lovingly. Like you were the only thing that could ever be for him.
When you were young, five or so, your world changed.
You had always been the silent protector, offering comfort but never really knowing, feeling, experiencing what you were doing. You were only going through the shocked motions. But then that day you were sitting on the ratty couch, stained with things you never wanted to know about, when he looked up at you with luminous blue eyes, green just beginning to show, and said it just like that.
"Dee!"
You had gasped, gotten up to run and tell your dad who was sitting at the greasy table, to immersed in his work to hear, but then he'd said it again. The voice he had used was one that only a child and your brother could have, the same way he said it today.
Solemn, knowing underneath. He was telling you something with that look in his eyes and the shortened way he said your name, unable to pronounce the last letter.
It was then that you knew, really understood that you would give him anything, die for him.
No one else could ever measure up to how he said it.
Like you were his pillar, his strength.
Fragile and light, he saw that cracks in your mind and said it like those sounds were supporting a porcelain doll.
Each time he said it, you could hear the love. When you felt like things were too much, felt like giving up and letting the ever-present slumber take you away, he would say it, and you would know that he needed you just as much as you needed him. Anything for him.
Whenever he said it, you knew why you did the things you did.