-Dean offers to drive to ny so that Sam can see Sarah (the art dealer) again and Sam shuts that shit down right away. Dean only encourages Sam to have Dean-sanctioned relationships and sex. Dean’s Freudian nonsense is that he likes to pressure Sam into being involved with women, be certain that he’s the reason Sam is doing it, and then convince himself it’s good for Sam. I don’t think there’s anything malicious in this pattern, I think Dean is just operating at a high level of cognitive dissonance and avoids question his own motivations and feelings.
-Dean manhandles Sam away from John, de-escalating, then things escalate again and Sam and John grab at each other and it looks like they’re going to fight so Dean changes tactics. He forces them apart and puts himself physically in front of Sam, telling John to back off. First he tries to get Sam away, then he stands in front of him to protect him and waits until John walks away.
And now seems like a good time to talk about the fact that John was probably violent when they were kids. They don’t seem particularly scared of him, and they seem all to genuinely love each other and be able to find moments of ease and humor, so it was probably more a violence born of dysfunction than systematic abuse. There’s enough evidence for this that it’s safe to assume. For example, John says “I stopped being your father and I became your drill sergeant,” and he’s a vet, so he probably means that pretty literally and that in itself is a brutal way to treat children. In season 6, when Dean is explicitly trying not be become his father but falling more and more into re-enacting John’s behaviors, he slaps Ben across the face to try getting him out of shock. In s7 teenage Sam says that his dad has a temper and you wouldn’t want to see him after he’s been drinking. And then of course there’s this scene.
Neither Sam nor John see Dean’s diffusion of the situation as unusual. He’s done it before. Dean’s primary order is to look after Sammy. So I can’t really see him letting John get escalated with Sam, especially with how comfortable Sam is with Dean protecting him.
As codependent as Dean is with John, it seems like Sam is the subject on which he challenges him. He doesn’t have to break from his role as John’s surrogate co-parent and partner or as Sam’s (everything, but first and foremost) protector to do this, so it’s not really even him breaking rank. Dean follows John’s orders because he wants to keep Sam safe in the first place, so it makes perfect sense that this is normal for him. His motivations revolve around Sam.
-Sam, pacing, waiting for Dean to return from the morgue: “it shouldn’t be taking this long, I should go help.” Sam worrying about Dean part 497.
-John uses the vampire’s mate as a hostage because they mate for life. Immediately after this, a vampire uses Sam as a hostage to make Dean back off. It takes one to know one.
-When John kills the vampire Sam stumbles into Dean, who catches him. Dean holds onto Sam until the vampire dies, which takes a moment. Maybe even after that.
-John tells the boys they disobeyed a direct order and Sam says yes sir and Dean says “but we saved your ass.”
Sam can’t believe Dean said that. He looks afraid of what John will do.
Dean showed Sam that he can stand up to their dad too, and not just when it comes to de-escalating situations where Sam is involved- he stands up for himself.
This is important because it’s Dean breaking away from John and coming into his own. Sam has come to understand and even appreciate Dean’s obedience to John, but he still couldn’t choose to be with Dean rather than living a normal life when Dean was following John without question. Now Sam can believe in Dean’s ability to break the pattern Sam couldn’t live with. They’re a team.
