#so he mentions Sam's at stanford and she's like WOW!!! HE MUST BE SO SMART

[kerryweaverlesbian]

Okay well NOW I'm thinking of like. In the placate Dean hypothesis. Sam left a few weeks ago and John's badmouthing him a LOT and Dean is like. Quietly listening and absorbing, not able to say stop (he'd be ignored anyway) but also not able to nod along.

When John's in one of his better moods over beers, not talking about Sam at all, Dean manages to work up the courage to say "You do love him though, right? Sam?"

And John just looks at him, shocked and hurt. Of course he loves Sam. All the bad stuff he's ever fought off, every grave he's climbed into, that was for his family - for the family that was taken from him. He does it for Mary and for little baby Sam. It should be obvious. His revenge is his love.

John's not stupid. He knows Dean takes after him, but he likes Sam more. John had thought that was a strength of their little family, that his boys look out for each other first, but now it feels like a mistake.

"Like, it shows that he's smart, right?" Dean goes on, fiddling with the lip of his bottle with his thumb. John wishes he'd cut that shit out, but no matter how much he tells him, Dean can never sit still unless it's life or death. "It means we must have done something right with him."

"Getting an empty nest, son?" John jokes, and Dean laughs along and shrugs. "I didn't raise you to ask stupid questions. Sam's good. He's a smart kid, resourceful, independent. I talk a lot of shit, but he's always gonna be family. He's..." the only reason I'm alive, John can't quite get to come out of his mouth, so instead he repeats, "He's good."

Then, feeling good about how he handled things, he proposes a toast, "To Sam!"

"Sam," Dean agrees, all worries wiped off his face.

"The only son I have with half a brain."

Dean laughs again, because he always understands John, he's a good kid, then chugs down his the rest of his beer in one go. "So, can we go see him?"

John's good mood drops. Dean proves a disappointment, again. Sometimes he can convince John he's talking to an equal, and then he goes and says childish, naïve shit like this. Can we stay here another few days? Can we go to disney land? Can we visit mom's grave? It's not even purposely hurtful, is the thing. If it were, at least he could see Dean was thinking. The boy at least knows he's done something wrong, dropping his gaze and straightening his shoulders, hands going flat on the table. He always knows he's wrong, but it never seems to translate to learning anything.

"What did I say about stupid questions?"

"Sorry, sir."

"He left us, you remember that? Do I have to be the bad guy to you, too? I thought you understood what we're doing here. Isn't hunting those killers out there more important than school? More important than Sam's petty little grudge?"

Dean doesn't say anything, and John can see it now. Thinking back across the past few weeks, Dean has never once agreed that Sam's at fault, just stood there gormless and noncommital while John laid it all out. He thinks it's John's fault. He thinks John's a bad father, a bad person, selfish, callous, cruel, stupid, every hurtful word that came out of Sam's smart mouth. He always did take after John. Why shouldn't he think like him, too?

It's not fair. He's doing what he can. It's a harsh world out there, he needed to show them how harsh it can be, to prepare them. He needs backup. He needs loyalty.

His phone rings. He takes it outside, leaving Dean in his seat with a stern look. He doesn't want to see Dean's silent misery.

"This is John Winchester. Speak."

"Hello?" The voice on the other end is trembling, a child. John tenses. It's always bad when there's an innocent kid tangled up in their world.

John deliberately softens his voice, "Hey, it's okay little man. Can you tell me what's wrong? Are you hidden?"

"I, um," the kid says, sounding confused, like he's been asked to go off script, "No? I- my name is Adam Milligan. I think you're my...I think I'm you're son?"

--

John strides back into the diner after getting the kid's address, and grabs his coat. Dean perks up, nervously, like a dog who's just been kicked. Well, let him feel bad. He should feel bad, for what he thinks about his own father.

"I'm going to see Sam," John declares, the first excuse that came to mind, and Dean beams and starts gabbling.

"Awesome! I looked up in the phone book, there's a motel-"

"I'm going to see Sam," John cuts through, stern, gratified to see Dean's smile drop down a few notches, "You're going to find a case. We can't leave the world to fend for itself while we all go take a vacation. I'm just going to check on him. Make sure he's safe. No contact, understand? He made it quite clear that he doesn't want to see either one of us ever again."

Dean looks conflicted, so John sighs and leans paternally over his seat, one hand on the table and the other on the back of Dean's chair, to emphasise to Dean that he's parent, here, and to force Dean to look at him. He knows best, even if Dean can't see it yet.

John soothes his voice, like he did on the phone with Adam. He never thought he'd have to use his victim-voice on a fully grown Dean, but hey, that's parenting. "I get it, Dean. Sam hurt both of us. The kid can be cruel. What he did was selfish, leaving us behind like that. What's pushing ourselves on him gonna do, huh? Except rake up more hate?"

"Right," Dean says, weakly, then he shuts his eyes and opens them again, deliberate and sharp, the confident boy John recognises. "You're right. We should leave him out of it."

"Smart choice, Dean," John praises, and even ruffles his hair to make Dean fuss. "I'll call you after I've seen him. If you call before I do, I'm not picking up. Don't want Sam to hear my ringtone." And, don't want Adam to see Dean's name. He's learned his lesson, here. He let Sam and Dean get too close. This kid, he's going to keep pure, clean, out of the life.

This time, he's going to get a son he can be proud of.

I don't know if I've said it before but another thing that keeps haunting me is the fact that in the doomed plane episode in season 1, the guy who met John and Dean before says he knows who Sam is because John kept going on and on about how proud he was of his kid who got a full ride at Stanford. Like either it was geniune, and he was speaking proudly from the heart about his kid despite everything. Or it was to punish/placate Dean (with the subtext of 'unlike this son' or perhaps Dean had started to stick up for Sam - Dean was smiling throughout so I'm leaning towards the latter). Especially since the episode is one of the first Dean Is So Smart episodes. Or a mix of both perhaps. Or some other motive (to hide that he's got an abnormal family to a normie...?)

Just - how must it have felt for Sam to have spent YEARS thinking his dad hated everything he's ever accomplished to hear that. I don't have anything else to say about it it just keeps travelling across my brain.