#until then dean doesnt need to hear about yet more ppl who didnt care about him. by the time hes like in his 40s hearing that

[ao3gingerswag]

okay so I had a lil plot bunny for wander home I thought id share.

so I know that we don't really know how dean turned up at johns, I think you made a passing comment about him being left there but you said you hadn't really thought about it. I was thinking about wander home (as one is wont to do when ignoring any and all other responsibilities) and i had a little thought. so I'm thinking this is way in the future when sam is like 17/18, he's going through all the teenage angst and hes having thoughts about bio family. obviously, dean and cas are very happy at this point but sam for some reason gets it into his head that since he and dean aren't *actually* biologically related, their relationship means less and he starts obsessing over deans actual family and whether they could give him things sam couldn't (I think this would tie into a lot of guilt im sure sam has about his inaction during their childhood at johns even tho he was a literal child) and it's this whole guilt thing of whether or not dean has a better sam out there and how sam used him and all such guilt. so anyways, 17/18 sam is I imagine still doing his lessons with the pastor, perhaps he's been promoted to apprentice or whatever, and he decides to use his almost adulthood to try and track down deans bio family. I think he does this to get answers, solving the mystery of deans past (bc deans been with him entire life) but also to prove to himself whether he is actually keeping dean from a better life (o the teen angst) and maybe reunite them. so adventure commences, I imagine him searching through any records he can get his hands on (not many) and maybe lying to cas and dean and saying he's been send on an errand by the pastor and he goes back to John's inn to search for information. anyways after that all happens idk if it would be better for him to find out the truth or not, I can picture multiple endings that would work out differently which I can also add on later if you want but the ending point would be sam realising that dean IS his brother and they ARE enough and 'family don't end in blood' and all that jazz and he returns to the inn and maybe he tells them maybe he doesn't but either way he comes back a lot happier and dean and cas are like 🤨🤨 but they're happy he's seemed to come out of his funk and welcome him back with open arms and make a fuss out of him and sams like :]]]]

ohhhh noooooo this is wonderful!!!!!!! poor sammy :( having all the survivors guilt come back and blaming himself for things that were SO totally out of his control (sam: i didn’t lift a finger to help him ;~; ! dean cas bobby eileen pastor murphy literally everyone else they know: you were literally like 7 what the fuck were u supposed to do???) (also he DID lift a finger to help he always tried to help and risked his dad’s wrath for it, from the time he was like 3 years old ;~;)

anyway anyway. Sam goes Searching, maybe he has to confront john again to get the answers he wants (if john is even still alive idk. regardless i dont think he’d have his inn anymore lol not w/o dean and sam to do all the work. hes probably in debtors prison or whatever.) and yeah theres def no record of what happened to get dean into john’s hands. i think i mentioned in the outside that dean has a vague memory of being pulled away from his parents while crying ;~; but yeah they sold him to john. but like its the middle ages it wasnt like formal there was no paperwork. there is no record. but! maybe sam finds out where john is through the records he can access thru pastor murphy. maybe like he sees that john had been arrested and is in some prison, so he knows where to find him. maybe they only let him in because he can be like Look I’m Important I Work With Pastor Murphy or whatever. so they let him in ans he confronts john and gets to cathartically shout at him/punch him in the face/force him to tell him where he got dean and everything he knows about dean’s parents.

so he uses this information and finally tracks down dean’s parents. and! they suck! like theyre not EVIL per say. not like john. but they still sold dean to a creep who didnt make an effort to hide how he was gonna treat dean. and theyre...really not remorseful when sam is like hey i know ur long lost kid. the dude u sold him to turned him into a child prostitute. and theyre like well thats not OUR fault! like theyre really defensive and pissy and dont have any interest in meeting dean or even hearing about him. they just want to be left to their lives.

so for a while sam is super devestated about this. i think he kind of built up this whole thing in his head where he would find dean’s family and they’d be wonderful and better than sam and sam would reunite them, thus finally making dean permanently happy and making up for the imagined guilt he carries around bc of their childhoods.

(maybe this whole thing started bc while dean has generally become very happy with his life hes still fucked up, maybe he got into a depressive funk and had like a panicked breakdown like he hadn’t in years, and sam was like whoa. this is my fault and dean still isnt actually happy i guess. maybe if i can find his Perfect Other Family he’ll be happy)

so sam makes his way home all :( sad and depressed and feeling like he failed. and then! when he gets home! he comes in and he sees :) dean being happy :) (dean and cas weren’t worried about sam being gone bc they knew he was traveling, tho they didnt know the real reason). and dean is like smiling and laughing while baking bread with cas and sam is like.... :o and then dean sees sam! and hes like :DDDDD SAMMY YOU’RE BACK!!!!! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!! and he runs over and gives sam a big hug and lifts him into the air even tho sam is giant at this point. and sam is like. oh. OH. he has a good family already. cas is his family. and i am his family. and we do make him happy. even if his parents were good he wouldnt want to go live with them or whatever bc he already has a happy family and home here <3 ;~; ;~; ;~;

and he doesnt tell dean where he really was or what he was doing or about his biological family bc it literally doesnt matter at all <3 <3 <3 ;~; <3 :)