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He knows it isn’t normal.
This hasn’t been normal for a long time. Hasn’t been normal since the first time Sam crawled into the wrong bed and stuck his hand down his brother’s pants. Hasn’t been normal since the first time Dean watched the blood drip off his knife and then casually offered it to Sam for a taste. Hasn’t been normal since Sam realized that whatever Dean was, Sam was completely and utterly devoted to it.
He’s given up his desire for normal long ago. He has something much better now- his desperate gasp as Dean fucks into him, holding him down with a hand on his throat…Or maybe the way Dean shoves him across the room so hard Sam falls into the table, slicing open his hand, dripping that red, red, beautiful scarlet red.
In his nostalgic moments, he occasionally considers what would have been, what little Sammy and Dean could have grown into if Mary had never died, if John hadn’t gone off the deep end, if Sam had never been marked for a life of horror by the time he was only six months old, if Bobby had survived Sam’s grasping hands around his throat, if Dean hadn’t stretched Ellen out on the pool table and dissected her alive.
Maybe there was a moment for Sam and Dean Winchester, a brilliant, shining, glorious moment in time when their futures were bright-when they were meant to grow up into the type of heroes that get statues and sonnets and battle songs.
Sam watches Dean painstakingly cut off the hotel manager’s ear. If that moment ever existed, it’s long past.
Now, Dean is a hero only to psychopaths and Sam, although that distinction might be redundant. Sam doesn’t know. He’s never bothered to diagnose himself-or Dean, for that matter. All that matters is what Sam does know: that Dean is the hero in Sam’s story, even if the rest of the world thinks Dean’s lost his mind.
Dean turns to Sam, grins brightly. He’s so mind-shatteringly beautiful in this moment, standing there, the manager’s ear in one hand, the bloody knife in the other. Sam doesn’t pray, but if he did, this green-eyed man would be his god.
“Want to finish him off, Sammy?” Dean’s clearly feeling magnanimous. Usually, he’s jealous of his prey, guarding them carefully until his rituals are finished. Today, though, his eyes stay perfectly green, no flicker of black. He offers the knife to Sam, blade first.
Sam takes the knife. This is his moment of peace- this is his communion, his confession, his penance. Every cut is a sacrifice, his Isaac lying on the alter, his knife the match that burns his own flesh and blood alive. He takes his time, nobody is around for miles; the manager’s screams are the hymns playing in Sam’s head. He’s the soaring orchestra music that makes Sam want to crumple to his knees and give all he can to his brother, his lover, his everything.
Later, he and Dean will strip each other with their stained hands. They’ll lay down on what’s left of the manager, and Sam will do what he’s always done: give himself to his brother, over and over again-even when the whole world says he should run screaming.
Sam is worshiping at the church of Dean Winchester, and this is his best offering.