#2x14 born under a bad sign

[bloodfreak-boyking]

he's like a lamb trying to lead himself to slaughter with a shepherd who would rather fall on his own knife instead

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Damage Control - 2x14 Born Under A Bad Sign

Both boys on the floor, one confused and with a fresh burn, the other bleeding and exhausted, it’s triage and clean-up time in the Singer household, and Bobby congratulates himself for re-stocking his first-aid-kit only a few days ago. 

Sam is rubbing his jaw, staring back and forth between Bobby, the burn mark on his forearm and his semi-conscious brother. “Bobby! What the hell happened?!”

Climbing over Sam’s long legs, Bobby grabs Dean by the jacket collar and pulls him into a sitting position. Half-lidded green eyes sluggishly blink at him. Punching his wayward brother must’ve drained the boy’s last bit of energy. With concern, Bobby sees fresh blood darkening Dean’s jacket.

“I’ll explain later. We need to take care of your brother first. Idjit’s been walking around with a gunshot wound.”

“What?” Sam pushes himself up and scrabbles over to Dean. “Who shot him?”

Patting Dean’s cheek to keep him awake, Bobby shrugs. “You did.” 

“What?!” 

The kid’s puppy eyes go round in shock. Sadly, Bobby can’t spare him from the truth. Better rip the band-aid off and get it over with.

“Beat him up pretty badly, too. Possessed or not, you deserved that punch in the face.”

“I beat him- … WHAT?!” 

It’s clearly too much to process for the youngest Winchester right now, and no wonder. It’ll sink in, and they’ll fill him in on the details later, with a bandage on his burn mark and with a stiff drink in his hand that Bobby has a feeling he’ll need himself. For the time being, Dean’s his more immediate worry.

“Wasn’t your fault,” Bobby clarifies quickly. “You had a demon in you. Now help me get your brother on the couch!”

They haul a weakly protesting Dean across the study and onto the worn-out leather sofa. When Bobby props his feet up, Dean rallies and tries to sit.

“Lay off me,” he mumbles. “I’m f—“

“Say ‘I’m fine’ one more time and I’ll clock you myself,” Bobby warns Dean and pushes him back down. “You stay put until I’ve properly fixed that shoulder of yours! And that’s not a discussion!” 

For once, the stubborn idjit complies - or he’s too exhausted to put up much of a fight. No surprise there, considering what the boy’s been through. In any case, his muscles soften under Bobby’s grip, and the little noise of pain he can’t quite bite back signals that surrender may in fact be a good idea. His indignant scowl is watery with pain.

Hovering, Sam is still staring with wide eyes that blow even wider when Bobby tears Dean’s shirt open to reveal saturated bandages and a blood-smeared chest underneath. 

“Bobby!” Sam gasps. “What the fuck-”

“Get the med kit,” Bobby instructs him. He accompanies the gruff order with a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry. I’ve got ‘im.”

Both boys know their way around Bobby’s house, and even worried and confused as Sam is, he returns quickly, already flipping open the big, battered metal box with the red cross painted on it. All too familiar with its contents, he sets it down on the floor and automatically pulls out gauze and disinfectant, handing them to Bobby with shaking hands. 

Bobby has peeled the old bandages away from Dean’s wound and deftly goes to cleaning it, trying to ignore Dean’s sharp hisses of pain. He needs to see what they’re dealing with, and he needs to stop the bleeding. What he finds is a bloody hole in the meaty part of Dean’s left shoulder that should’ve been closed with stitches hours ago, and Sam pressing his thumb into it certainly didn’t help matters. The wound is bleeding freely, its edges looking raised and angry. 

“Oh shit, Dean…!” Sam has sunken to his knees behind Dean’s head, staying out of the way but as close as possible. Both of his hands are on the armrest of the couch, on either side of Dean’s face, twitching to touch him, but not daring to. “I don’t know how I could let this-... I’m so sorry…!” 

Dean grunts as Bobby packs the wound with more gauze. “Wasn’t… ah… wasn’t your fault, Sammy,” he grits through clenched teeth, still bloody from his split lip. “Good thing, too, that … you’re a lousy shot.” 

His chuckle sounds hoarse and shaky, and, Dean’s slick and too-cold skin under his palms, Bobby feels a bitter-sweet stab in his heart. Dean’s such a hard-ass most of the time. And he can hold a grudge like no one. But when it comes to Sam, his capacity for forgiveness is immeasurable. Even injured like this, at the hands of his own brother who almost killed him, Dean has already moved past all that and is trying to cheer Sam up.

“Jesus, Dean!” Incredulous, Sam shakes his shaggy head. “I can’t believe that I did this! I can’t remember a single…”

And then Bobby, keeping pressure on the wound, sees the change in Sam’s face. Confusion morphs into realization, then into wide-eyed shock. Sam remembers. His mouth falls open. Devastation creeps wetly into his hazel eyes. “Oh my God,” he whispers breathlessly. “I shot you! I… I tried to kill you!”

“Not you,” Dean rasps, briefly shutting his eyes against the pain. “Meg did. At least I hope - ah, shit - I hope it was mainly her idea…”

Another attempt at a joke that falls flat. Sam’s face has gone pale, and Bobby sincerely hopes he won’t have another fainter on his hands any moment now.

“He’s right, kid,” he tells Sam with all the conviction he can muster. “That darn demon was behind the wheel. What Meg did was out of your control. Nothin’ you could’ve done to stop her. Hell, maybe it was you who made her miss Dean’s important parts and had her hit his shoulder instead!”

It’s not even a lie. Contrary to Dean’s remark, Sam is a great shot. They both are. John Winchester trained them to be. If Meg had been in full control of Sam’s skillset, that bullet would have hit Dean’s heart, and not his shoulder. And Sam’s strong. The fact that he remembers at least some of what happened is proof that Meg’s hold on him had an Achilles’ heel. And that Achilles’ heel may have been his brother.

“Still,” Sam says, guilt oozing from his every pore. “I can’t believe I almost-” He swallows. “And Jo. She was there, too.” He frowns, trying to piece fractured memories together. “God, I didn’t hurt her, did I?”

“She’s fine,” Dean hurries to say, and now it’s Bobby’s turn to frown. Dean told him the gist of what happened, but he’s still missing details, and Ellen’s daughter seems to be a crucial one.

Bobby cautiously lifts the wad of gauze to check on Dean’s wound. It’s still oozing, but the bleeding has slowed down, at least enough to put in stitches.

“Sam,” he says firmly. “Needle and thread! And grab that bottle of Jack from the desk, will ya?”

Sam snaps out of his guilt-induced daze and rummages through the med kit to retrieve what Bobby needs. The kid’s hands are too shaky to thread the needle, so Bobby has to do it himself. The crap these two boys have been through just keeps piling up, and not for the first time Bobby feels powerless. He can’t protect them. All he can do is patch them up whenever they wind up on his doorstep, bleeding.

“Here, Dean.” Sam presses the bottle of Jack into Dean’s good hand, and his brother gratefully takes several swigs. 

Bobby is glad to see that Dean is holding up remarkably well in spite of the pain and the blood loss. He’s a tough kid; always has been. And from experience Bobby knows that, if Sam is witness to whatever ordeal his older brother is going through, Dean will put on an extra brace face. John would’ve prided himself on Dean’s bravery, but Bobby isn’t so sure. Sometimes, he thinks he can hear Dean’s twenty-seven-year-old bones creak underneath all that bravado he’s flashing around.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he says and takes the bottle from Dean. “Gotta leave some for your brother.” He puts the whiskey away and takes up the needle and thread instead. “You ready?”

Dean’s thick lashes are clumpy with unshed tears, and the blood from his nose is smeared across half of his face by now. The kid looks like he was dipped in war paint. But of course he nods, Winchester steel back in his eyes. “Go ahead.”

Without anyone saying so, Sam slings one arm across Dean’s good shoulder and chest to help him keep still. It’s Sam’s injured arm, but, woven out of the same fabric as Dean, he barely flinches when his burnt skin rubs against the sturdy cotton of Dean’s shirt. Dean doesn’t protest. It’s unusual, but Bobby takes it for what it is: a moment of badly needed reconnection.

Bobby sighs and digs in. 

XXX

Twenty minutes later, his shoulder freshly bandaged and prescription painkillers down his hatch, Dean is already shrugging back into a clean shirt and jacket that Sam’s retrieved for him from the Impala’s trunk. 

“You sure I can’t talk you into a sling? That arm needs restin’.” 

Once more, Bobby proffers the hospital issue sling he’d kept from the last time Dean had dislocated his shoulder. Sometimes he wonders at which point exactly he turned from ‘uncle Bobby’ into ‘nurse Singer’. 

“Nah, I’m fine.” 

Of course he is. 

At least Dean’s sitting down again and accepting the ice bag Bobby hands him. He’s grown an impressive shiner and sighs audibly when the cold touches his swollen face. Next to him, slumped into Bobby’s creaky old desk chair, Sam is gingerly settling his own cold pack on the burn on his arm. 

While Bobby had patched Dean up, Sam had stayed glued to Dean’s side, nervous but fortifying, holding Dean down as much as … well, just holding him through the pain. (Which, of course, none of them would ever admit to.) Dean’s wound had been a mess, requiring deep stitches. That Jo girl was either a butcher or Dean, as usual, had refused proper care in favor of getting to Sam. Of saving Sam. 

Bobby sighs.

When would Dean ever learn to save himself first?

Now that the drama’s over and nobody’s bleeding anymore, both boys seem to have agreed on sitting in awkward, loaded silence. Sam’s cracking the occasional nervous joke, and Dean’s pretending that everything’s fine between them when it clearly isn’t. They’re both still licking wounds, and not just physical ones.

“You sure you want to get back on the road like this?” Bobby asks, his concern not dulled enough by a glass of whiskey. “You could stay the night. Get some rest before you head back out.”

“No, we gotta get going.” Dean lifts the ice off his cheekbone and shifts his jaw, testing it. 

“We’re good, Bobby,” Sam chimes in, not looking the part. 

Bobby considers arguing with them, but he doesn’t. They’re Winchesters. He may as well try to argue with a block of cement. At least he hopes that, when they’re on the road, stuck in that old car for hours on end, they’ll talk to each other. Clear the air for good. Figure out how to deal with whatever they’re hiding from him, judging by those ominous looks they keep exchanging now and then. 

“You two boys are driving me insane,” he grumbles plaintively. “You know that, right?”

They both look at him, battered and bruised, Sam with those darn puppy dog eyes and Dean with a gaze too old for his age. None of them know what to say.

“Aw shucks, forget it.” Bobby waves them off, whiskey sloshing in the glass he’s still holding. “Just stay there for a couple more minutes! I gotta go get something before you leave.”

He puts his glass down and trudges upstairs, to a cabinet in his bedroom. From a locked box inside it, he retrieves two silver amulets, each engraved with a pentagram in a flaming circle. He may not be able to keep the boys here, or to protect them from most of the dangers they’re facing. But at least he can protect them from getting possessed again. 

The amulets cradled in his fist, he trudges back downstairs, steeling himself for once more saying goodbye to his boys, not knowing if he’ll ever see them in one piece again. 

The Damage Control Series - Masterlist

Read the whole series on AO3 here:

[destielshippingnews]

Edvard's Supernatural Guide: 2x14 Born under a Bad Sign

Born under a Bad Sign is an average episode. It does nothing fantastic but nothing abysmal either, and the only response I can really summon is to shrug my shoulders and wait for the next episode. This far into series two, I want more of an overall plot but the show is not giving it. It did not bother me so much when I watched the episodes normally without taking a week to write an analysis of each one, but it has begun to plot. Characters spinning their wheels is fine by me, and one negative aspect of the trend towards series being shorter the lack of character moments and fun filler episodes. That said, it has been quite a while since any plot has happened, and it will not be until 2x21 All Hell Breaks Loose Part I that more plot happens. Luckily, Tricia Helfer will be visiting us for 2x16 Roadkill, Ben Edlund will be giving us 2x18 Hollywood Blues, and Jensen is once again going to blow my metaphorical socks off in 2x20 What is and What Should Never Be.

This episode is forgettable. An important character makes an appearance, but this has no bearing on the plot whatsoever and she does not turn up again until 5x10 Abandon All Hope. Sam killing people turns out to have nothing at all to do with Azazel’s taint (stop it!), so it was as good as pointless. The plot of the episode also raises a few questions which are (unless I have forgotten something) never answered. Why was Meg trying to push Dean to kill Sam if Sam is supposed to be Meg’s boss’s favourite? Paula R. Stiles mentioned something about Meg feeling betrayed by Azazel and no longer caring about his plans, but if that is the case, I do not know where this comes from. Did Azazel put Meg on the rack in Hell as punishment for failing?

The only good things to come out of this episode are Dean punching Sam at the end and Jo making her exit for the next two and a half years. Sorry Sam stans and Jo fans, but I am still only here for Dean. It will be another twenty four episodes until another character turns up whom I especially care about, so buckle up. At least Bela will keep us entertained in the interim.

The episode starts with Dean phoning Ellen beneath a road bridge. Sam has been missing for a while and nobody has heard from him. Eventually, Dean gets a call from Sam, and Dean rushes to meet him in a motel. The editing in this cold open is effective at creating anxiety, urgency, and distress with its quick jump cuts and pacing, and Jensen does a top-notch job of conveying Dean’s desperation and worry. He finds Sam in a motel room with somebody else’s blood on his clothes and no memory of the last few days.

One thing which the episode never makes explicit is whether or not Sam appears for anything other than the last scene and a bit. Meg is possessing him the entire time, but demons are shown in other episodes of the show to allow the host consciousness control now and again when convenient. Either Meg was in complete control of Sam’s body the whole time, or she took over at certain points when she wanted to. Paula R. Stiles is of the opinion Meg was calling the shots all episode, but I have not decided either way. Demons do not usually seem that good at mimicking their host, but weirder things have happened.

Sam fears he has killed somebody, but Dean is adamant that there must be another explanation. Even when the trail of clues leads them to the scene of a hunter’s murder and the brothers see video footage of Sam slitting a hunter’s throat, Dean tries his hardest to absolve Sam of blame and find another possible answer. A shapeshifter, for example, would be a reasonable explanation if it were not for the fact the Sam in the video footage did not have the eye flare shapeshifters have.

Readers might be wondering why I have not called Dean out for his hesitance to see what is right in front of him when I waste no time in calling Sam out for not pulling the bloody trigger. My answer is that when Dean thinks there is another explanation, there usually is, such as 2x13 Houses of the Holy when Sam rushed to conclude angels were behind everything while Dean’s skepticism is ultimately proven correct. Dean is Velma or Scully in this situation, and once again is proven right in the end: it was not Sam who killed the hunter, but Meg in Sam’s body.

Sam (or Meg pretending to be Sam, whichever you prefer: art is about interpretation after all) concludes without hesitation that he is responsible, and that what is happening to him is what John warned Dean about. If it is indeed Meg pretending to be Sam while he and Dean deal with the immediate shock of seeing the video footage, she does such a good job that she is almost indistinguishable from Sam. She portrays the depressive aspect of his manic depression irreproachably as s/he goes into depressive scum-of-the-Earth mode. He is convinced he is evil and there is no hope for him, entirely absorbed in his own mire whilst Dean wastes no time activating protective parentalised brother mode and destroys all evidence they were they. All evidence, including smashing the desktop computer’s tower and stamping it to smithereens, whereupon they leave.

On the subject of the hunter’s house, why would the electrics for the alarm be on the outside? That is just asking for trouble. It is not even the electrics to the entire house, as the desktop computer works no problem. I do not understand the logic.

Next follows a scene where either Meg or Sam tries to get Dean to kill him. If this is Meg in control, it is cruel, and it is even more so if it is Sam in control. In case you missed it, in 2x11 Playthings Sam got Dean to promise he would kill him if he turned into a monster. My response to that was that if Sam would rather die than become a monster, he should pull the trigger himself rather than offloading the burden onto his already burdened brother. That response is still valid. Dean of course refused to kill Sam (2x09 Croatoan showed Dean will not kill an innocent unless necessary) and earnt getting clocked with a pistol for it.

By this point in the show, Dean should have severe brain damage after the number of times he has been rendered consciousless by head trauma, but amazingly he is completely unscathed upon awakening some hours later. The motel manager is as much a knave as the guy working in the petrol station was, but this time Dean does not get the five-finger discount on some food for his trouble. Instead, he uses the man’s computer and internet to track the GPS on Sam’s phone by way of lying to the police about his diabetic son Sam who absconded to a Justin Timberlake concert without his insulin.

Sam is in Duluth, Minnesota, or rather Meg in Sam’s body is. It is unquestionably Meg in complete control now. She goes to see Jo, gets creepy, tries raping her, then knocks her unconscious, ties her up, and uses her as bait for Dean, to which I ask: why? If Meg wanted Dean dead and tortured, why not take advantage of the fact he was unconscious and transport him to a shack in the middle of nowhere? What does Jo have to do with anything, and why was the journey to Minnesota necessary? So silly.

Further to the subject of Jo, she was completely useless at the beginning of the series, and she was reduced to a helpless damsel in this one (by a female writer, no less). Not only that, but her inner bitch came roaring to the fore when Dean showed discomfort as she dug the bullet out of his arm. It has been twelve years since her last appearance on the show, and there are still people who ‘wanted Dean to end up with Jo’. Why? She was an annoying try-hard whom the writers tried to make look tough by having Dean treat her with cotton gloves (remember: he did not punch back in 2x02 Everybody Loves a Clown -_- ) and acting like the worst stereotype of an ‘empowered women’.

The only real positive thing Jo does in this episode is patch Dean up after Meg!Sam shoots him and he falls into the water. It is lucky that Dean has such a sturdy mobile phone which survived being in Lake Superior for a few minutes. It was also lucky that Dean actually still had a ringtone for Jo to hear, rather than having his phone on silent or vibrate like mine has been since about 2005. Other than that, Dean and Jo work out that Meg!Sam (who has not yet been revealed to be Meg) is hunting local hunters. The nearest hunter Dean knows is in South Dakota, and he decides that is where Sam is going. Strange that South Dakota is the nearest hunter Dean knows, but at this point in the show he and Sam have not met many hunters. Dean takes his leave of Jo, who finally seems to realise Dean is not interested in dancing the vertical tango with her.

The hunter in South Dakota is Bobby. Sam turns up at his door, but Bobby is not fooled (did the episode specify Dean rang him? It must have done) and gives Sam a beer spiked with holy water. The holy water renders Sam impotent long enough for Bobby to knock him out and tie him to a chair in a devil’s trap. Dean roughs Sam up a bit, and tries to exorcise the demon in him, but the exorcism does not work. Meg has a counter spell (later shown to be the mark on Sam’s arm). After the exorcism fails, Meg recites some Latin which breaks the devil’s trap and sets her loose.

Based on what she says, it is likely Meg was tortured in Hell after Dean sent her back there in 1x22 Devil's Trap, but why Azazel’s second-in-command would be tortured is never explained. Whatever the reason, she wants revenge against Dean as she blamed him specifically for her exorcism. She seems to have completely dismissed the fact Bobby and Sam were there, too, which is interesting considering Sam is supposed to be the protagonist and Dean the sidekick, but whatever. Meg proceeds to beat Dean up and ram her fingers into the wound on his shoulder. Bobby, however, does some quick thinking and burns the mark on Sam’s arm, thereby disabling the magic keeping Meg from being exorcised from Sam’s body.

Other than that, there is nothing to say except another female writer made another joke about male victims of sexual violence and assault. People talk about the show having a problem with misogyny because of the ratio of *significant* female characters to significant male characters who die or are written off, but it was female fans who hated Jo, Bela, and Ruby, and Eugenie Ross-Lemming was one of those responsible for killing off Charlie. It seems like the woman-hating is mostly coming from other women.

Now it is female writers making fun of sexual violence against men (metaphorical or otherwise). Raelle Tucker did it in 2x10 Hunted when she gave Dean the line about Gordon and men being raped in prison showers, and Cathryn Humphris did something similar in this episode. Yes, Sam ‘spent a week with a girl inside him’, but demonic possession in the show is presented as violation akin to sexual violence and abuse. Given a character was almost raped in this episode and Loki/Gabriel will repeatedly rape a man by proxy in the next episode, some more awareness would not have gone amiss.

Overall a dull episode this week which I struggled to squeeze much out of at all. This is probably the shortest analysis I have done for this show so far, second only to 2x07 The Usual Suspects (also written by Cathryn Humphris), but I cannot summon the will to care for 2x14. Later in the series, I will be critical of Jared’s acting abilities ( or rather his decision to stop acting in this show altogether in favour of ‘reading the script and going home’), but at least this early in the show he cared at least a little and displayed what he can do when he cares and tries.

[stonenumberone]

SUPERNATURAL 2x14 Born Under a Bad Sign

Sam, when Dad told me... that I might have to kill you, it was only if I couldn't save you. Now, if it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna save you.

[shirtlesssammy]

Dean Winchester every day -- 36/326

Supernatural 2x14//Born Under a Bad Sign

[loversofthegrave]

remember when sam called dean scared and confused and dean immediately went to help him and he had someone elses blood on him and then they tried to retrace his steps and it lead them to a hunter who sam murdered and dean immediately tried to clean up all the evidence all without knowing sam was actually possessed 🤭😌😚

[spn2006]

meg was so fucking funny for possessing sam and immediately chugging a fuckton of beer and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes on the side of the road. like. she did not need to do all that. she just wanted to celebrate being back on earth for a hot minute before getting down to the important business of murdering, scheming, and of course, lying to dean winchester. queen behavior in my opinion

[pagannatural]

2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign

-Meg possesses Sam which forces the brothers’ dynamic to develop. Dean really reclaims a sense of himself this episode after spending all season in various degrees and types of turmoil over what to do about Sam. I don’t think he ever really considered killing Sam, but he agonized over his role and what he should do. He lied to a drunk Sam in Playthings and said he would kill him.

- Dean has called Ellen multiple times about Sam going missing, so much so that Dean doesn’t even refer to him by name on the phone, he just calls asking Where is he. Dean says “I’m losing my mind here.” He’s desperate to find Sam. I wonder if Dean ever lost Sam when he was a baby, like at the store or something.

- Dean also says it’s like when John went missing all over again. Dean sought out Sam for help and comfort when that happened. It’s a little kernel of insight into Dean’s state of mind when he broke into Sam’s house in s1, he was probably a lot more afraid than he let on to Sam because he was trying to keep it together.

-when he gets to the motel room Dean kneels in front of Sam, who’s sitting on the bed. He’s off to the side rather than right in between Sam’s legs but when he zeroes in on the blood on Sam’s shirt, on his lower stomach, he starts moving aside Sam’s jacket and touching the bloody fabric. It looks very intimate. Dean reaches directly into Sam’s personal space and even moves his clothes aside to check for injury.

This quick shot of his fingers feeling Sam’s stomach is particularly intimate. Meg!Sam says that he doesn’t think it’s his blood. Dean certainly thought it was Sam’s blood, he wouldn’t have been considering other options at that moment. So Dean is touching Sam’s wound on his lower belly, as far as he and the viewer know. It’s a sexual and feminine image. Although he’s not actually injured, Sam’s body has been invaded and controlled by a demon. It’s a sexual assault parallel, a first taste of Sam’s fall from grace. Throughout the episode, Dean fights for him and refuses to harm him. As long as Sam is still in there somewhere, Dean will protect him.

-Meg is inside of Sam’s brain and body and she has a pretty good understanding of Sam. She’s acting the way she thinks he would and also in whatever way plays to her advantage with Dean, so she has a primary interest in the nature of their relationship. She knows about Dean’s promise to John and to Sam about killing him, so she must have some access to his memories. She plays up Sam’s pleading eyes more than anything, which means she knows Sam’s memories that this has worked on Dean in the past.

- Dean reacts with deep skepticism to the gas station clerk telling him that Sam was drinking, smoking, and behaving violently.

Dean has also picked up on a couple of other specifics that aren’t like Sam: the name he gave at the motel is the name of a Bon Jovi band member, which Dean doesn’t think Sam likes and isn’t one of the names they would recognize for each other; and if Sam did smoke, Dean seems convinced he wouldn’t smoke menthols. He knows Sam so well.

- Dean says that smoking and throwing bottles at people sounds “more like me than you” which tells us that Dean is sometimes an angry drunk and sometimes a smoker, both of which make perfect sense for his character. There’s a lot we don’t directly see on the show.

-Sam moves differently, seems more feminine, and when Dean continues to insist he might not be a murderer he looks annoyed and almost rolls his eyes. Jared Padalecki is so good at being Sam possessed by Meg.

-Meg is basically begging Dean to feel horror that Sam killed someone- a hunter! with a family! caught on camera!- but Dean is like Ah fuck okay I’ll just run through the crime scene cleanup checklist quick and then we can take a nap together at home before we go okay babe? Babe u okay?

- Meg!Sam asks Dean to kill him, kinda using the puppy dog eyes but not quite selling it because it’s not needy enough, and Dean says “I’ve tried so hard to keep you safe…I can’t. I’d rather die.”

This is Dean admitting outright that his promise was bullshit and that he will either save Sam or die trying, and he’s faced so many trials to be completely sure and ready to say it. It doesn’t matter what Sam does. Dean had to understand more consciously his feelings for Sam before he could commit to this because it’s a fundamental part of who he is and his love for Sam. He feels guilty about his love, but he can’t doubt the strength of it and I think this is where he first accepts his role as Sam’s savior. The way he looks at Sam here is with such open love and desire. He’s like Wesley looking at Buttercup.

-Dean calls the phone company to get Sam’s location by pretending Sam is his son. He says “my son” and calls him Sammy and fuck if it isn’t the cutest. Dean is Sam’s dad now. Succession.

-Meg!Sam is so irritated that Jo is carrying a torch for Dean. She seems to be using Sam’s real memories and feelings to get what she wants, and in this case I think Sam is probably annoyed by Jo’s crush and wishes she understood she doesn’t have a chance with Dean, so Meg is using her weaknesses. She really enjoys using Sam’s characteristics and twisting them. For example, after tying Jo up she uses the puppy dog face again and says “c’mon it’s me, you can tell me anything” which echos Sam’s role as sympathetic ear to the victims and other characters. So when she talks about Jo wanting Dean and Dean not wanting Jo and then attacks her in a very sexually charged way, it feels like she’s playing with both their desire for Dean and Sam’s desire to be more like him. She seems to be telling the truth in these scenes, just truths that Jo wouldn’t want to know. So telling her You want him but he doesn’t want you and aren’t I the next best, when Sam in reality does not want Jo, makes Jo into a proxy to act out unrequited love for (and from) Dean.

-Meg!Sam shoots Dean and he falls into the water from the dock and Jo finds him soaked and bleeding and you have three guesses as to the first words out of his mouth (“where’s Sam?”).

-Bobby asks where Dean is so Meg!Sam tells him Dean’s with a girl somewhere. Bobby asks if she’s pretty and Meg’s eyes go black and she says “if you ask me he’s in way over his head.” The visual cue and emphasis make it clear Meg is talking as herself here, not as Sam, and it seems like she’s talking about Dean’s situation with Sam. It’s also a pun because she thinks he’s underwater, but regardless she’s connecting Dean being with some girl and Dean being in trouble because of Sam.

-she also smirks at Dean pretty wickedly and tells him “you wouldn’t wanna bruise this fine packaging” ie Sam’s body that she knows Dean thinks is mighty fine. What I wouldn’t give for her to taunt him more in this way.

- she tells Dean he’s worthless, he can’t save Sam, and the people he loves would be better off without him. Which means his worst beliefs about himself (as far as Sam knows) are that he isn’t good enough and that he’s actually bad for Sam. Why? Why would Sam know that Dean fears he would be better off without him? He’s protected and cared for Sam his whole life, both Sam and John have explicitly told him that they’re grateful, and even Dean can’t blame himself for the way he and Sam grew up. It’s possible this is about the fact that Sam is in danger hunting with Dean, but he would’ve been in danger in law school too. It fits better with Dean’s guilt over his feelings for Sam and his knowledge that Sam is in love with him. Sam knows that Dean blames himself.

-Dean refuses to hurt Sam when Meg!Sam is punching him, and she punches him four or five times. Then when Sam is back unpossessed, Dean punches him in the face. When it was about saving Sam Dean refused to hurt him, but now that Sam is safe it’s like his anger at Sam comes pouring out. He needed some form of resolution for the fact that his little brother scared the shit out of him for a week straight going missing, murdered someone and didn’t even help clean up the crime scene, pistol whipped him, shot him in the shoulder, punched him, named his worst fears, threatened to bite his own tongue off, and pressed his finger into his wound and laughed. Obviously Sam did none of those things and it was all Meg, but I think it’s completely understandable that Dean reacted this way after not only keeping his shit together for Sam all that time but also actively protecting him. It’s a reasonable trauma response for him to have fought back. I’m not saying it’s ethical or anything just that it’s exactly what Dean would do and it gives his episode arc some catharsis.

-for his part, Sam isn’t upset with Dean for punching him. He never is. As evidenced by Sam’s little smirk when Dean makes joke about Bobby’s charms for keeping the demon from “getting back up in there.”

-Dean checks in with Sam in the sweetest way, gently prompting him to answer if he’s okay. Sam explains that what’s troubling him isn’t the memory of his own hands killing a man, it’s the knowledge that even then Dean wouldn’t kill him. They both know for sure now.

-Dean teases Sam about having a girl inside him and Sam grins. It’s just one of many references to Sam having someone inside him and otherwise sexually being referred to as the girl.

-Dean’s “if it’s the last thing I do I’m gonna save you” hits different when you’re on tumblr and you know the show ends 13 seasons later with Dean dying and Sam living out some kind of a life.

[arcanespillo]

TXF "Demons" s4e23

SPN "Born Under A Bad Sign" s2e14

[mishaesque]

Scenic Supernatural 2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign

[drasticemotions]

🎵 my daddy shot your daddy in the head 🎵

[bloodfreak-boyking]

things I don't think sam fully understands yet: the lengths to which dean will go to make sure he lives

[samepisodebracket]

Round 2; Group 13

[onespncap]

s02e14 -- "Born Under a Bad Sign"

[thebeautyofspn]

2x14 Born Under A Bad Sign

[ilostmyshoe28]

sam winchester season 2 gifs