I keep thinking about a world where the supernatural isn’t in fact real, and John convinced himself of its existence to find a purpose after his wife’s death, his ptsd from being in the military leading him to it, finding meaning in violence. Sam and Dean grow up being taught how to kill people and animals, and being told those are just monsters, they’re not humans, they don’t deserve to live, killing them means protecting everyone, torturing them means finding information to avenge their mother. They’re the only ones who know the truth, only the three of them, everyone else is in danger and is innocent and the winchesters can never relate to anyone, can never talk to anyone, can never get to know anyone. They’re always moving, chasing after something vague. They slowly start to wonder if all they know might be wrong, but what would that say about their father?
They speak their own language that no one can understand, all Latin words and divine names. Love exists only within the family. Nothing matters except family, they can trust no one but each other, anyone else might be a monster. There is nothing outside the family, the world could never understand them, accept them, they only belong with their father, there is no home for them anywhere in America.
Sam figures it out at some point and he does everything to leave but he doesn’t truly accept everything it means until he’s at Stanford. And still he wakes up from nightmares every night and he’s not sure if he’s more scared of being right (all the blood on his hands, the innocents they killed, the pain and the torture they’ve inflicted, his training being meaningless) or of being wrong (having left the life and abandoned his family when they are risking themselves to help humanity, Dean all alone fighting monsters and dying crying out for Sam, he’s betraying the family, nothing matters except family and Sam has betrayed that).
Dean has known for a long time but he’s never truly known, he couldn’t accept it, who can he trust if not his father, who can he follow if not his daddy, who is he if not a weapon and a good soldier, what is he supposed to do? He can’t accept that John might be wrong, after Sam leaves he clings to his father even more than before, follows orders blindly. And then one day John hands him a special gun and tells him Sammy is a monster too, they have to go find him and kill him, and that’s when Dean gets it