#[with the usual handwave involved re: vertical incest]

[zmediaoutlet]

happy wincest wednesday and happy 2023! reverse uno: what are your favorite ways for john to find out dean and sam are fucking in a universe where dean and john are ALSO fucking?

woooooo wincest wednesday uno games and everyone's a winner --

Except John, lol.

You know, all my wincest fic and all my Dean/John fic and all the Full House of Wincest I've done, and somehow I don't think I've ever written that scenario? How tf did that happen?

Part of it may be that I haaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAATE fics where John's even vaguely a shipper on deck -- even where he's like 'ah, Sam and Dean are too obsessed with each other but That's For The Best bc Thin Hunting-Related Justification' just never vibe quite right with me. I have very narrow parentheses in which I find John believable. (What a surprise, a hard canon stance from ol' z.)

But -- a John who's been fucking Dean doesn't have too much of a leg to stand on, does he. Except: he does, of course he does, he's the god-patriarch and his word goes. It depends, of course, on the type of Dean/John that's been going on, but I'll go with my version because it's mine and I like it best, haha: a largely unspoken helpmeet scenario, where it's just part of the overarching need Dean has for his dad's love and attention and calm and happiness, and where John knows that he's using Dean and knows that even if Dean loves it he's still ruining his son and, this is key, John chooses to keep doing it anyway because that's who John is, as a person. Dean the extension of his arm and the step under his boot and something beloved but also something useful and ignorable until it is time to use it. Not size-72 font obviously awful abusive but -- well. Canon levels of abuse, let's go with that.

SO given that: let's call it a wincest scenario where Sam's in his mid-late teens and wants to take up with Dean. Did he know about D/John, or suspect? My favorite version of weecest + dadcest is actually for Sam to be kind of oblivious about it, as he was oblivious to a lot of key things in his teens (as you gestured to a little in your answer) -- he wants Dean and his attention and his love but he's also a very strong-willed teenager and so he also just wants to get his rocks off and knows that Dean's willing, whenever they crack past that barrier. And Dean, already with that door blown open inside himself, can't help it -- because after all he knows he's good at this, and he knows that it does make people closer, and he loves Sam and wants Sam to be calm and happy too, and isn't it just -- easier? He'll leave John on a hunt well-drained and focused and come home to Sam all bitchy and missing him and saying stuff like he shouldn't make you hunt, you should be in school, and Dean sighs and he could argue but he could also thumb Sam's hip, and Sam'd shut up all big-eyed and hopeful and going, oh, can we -- and Dean can say something like, yeah, and missed you, Sammy, which is only true, after all. And it's good, and when Sam's snoring on the fold out couch Dean can shower and carefully thumb two loads out of himself and then call John and say how's the job, Dad? and not really -- think about it. It's just taking care of things, like he always does.

SO, given that: it's easy to have John walk in on them -- a hunt finished early, they're wrapped up in each other; it's easy to have a demon tell him, and he doesn't believe it but then he's been hearing a lot of stuff about his boys from demons, and they lie but also blah blah. I prefer small and undramatic, though, so what if instead it's that one day John's home and he's actually slept well for once and he's not hungover and he's just going through the paper at the table, and Dean's cleaning the guns like he's supposed to and Sam's doing homework like he's supposed to and John, not being an idiot or a monk, just -- picks up on a vibe. A look Sam gives Dean. A smile from Dean to Sam that John's had aimed at himself, in key moments, and he just -- knows, the way that sometimes you know things, and he's sitting there with the paper and his hands turn to fists.

He's NOT a shipper on deck. He's NOT thinking 'oh, The Things I Have Done To My Family, O Woe But Unforch That's The Way It Is.' I think he's not thinking at all, in the way that we can ignore deep horrors if we have to, and he closes the paper, and he says he's going out, and he takes Sam with him because -- he's the dad, he gets to -- and Sam's sullen in the passenger seat as they head to the gun store or to buy salt or whatever errand John's operational-matters mind invents, and they barely talk but John watches Sam as they go through the chores and gears are turning and he --

stops fucking Dean. Stops talking much to them at all, for a while. Takes jobs and sends Dean on jobs and makes Sam help. Work, and work, and work, and when they're alone once Dean's not being subtle about trying not to look at John, because he doesn't know what he did wrong but he must've done something wrong, and John can't say, and he knows it's hurting Dean but then again when has he ever not done something he thought was necessary because it might have hurt Dean? And Dean heals because that's also what Dean always does, but there's a crooked spot where the bone broke, and later when John's dead and Sam holds Dean on a night after and kisses his cheekbone, careful, not sure what's okay now that everything's even more fucked up, Dean keeps his eyes open on the ceiling and sees ghosts of older days.