#there's a delightful line in the wedding by ninni where they're about to get down to business and 16/17 y.o. dean says something like

[egipci]

Re: love you: I think John DID end calls with love you/I love you/etc but stopped when Dean started being...weird about it. After that John was paranoid and wouldn't say it to either of them, and Dean feels like shit about it. Sam never really clocked it, but dean knows exactly why John stopped saying it. (From twochildreninamoteldemo)

Oh man. OH MAN. Crushing but ultimately extremely plausible. If there is someone out there who can love someone to (literal) death and somehow fail to communicate it to the very someone it would be our guy John Winchester.

(But also you hit on my favorite thing about John/Dean as a ship, which is: it's so risky! It's truly dangerous and vicious and cruelty abounds in every iteration, and our joy as the audience resides in trying to locate where that love can be found through all the other awful, terrible, no-good stuff and just.... I love them so much!!

Because what is the kind, loving thing to do if you think your son feels extremely inappropriate feelings towards you? What if you have already fucked up so severely and so continuously that there's no walking back that emotionally incestuous relationship because you too have come to rely on it and him so much? Do you just create arbitrary and ineffective boundaries as a last ditch effort? Do you kick him out? Or worse, what if you love him and find him disgusting? How do you fix him if you can't fix anything else about your life? And, on Dean's end, what is the least worst thing your father can do to you that wouldn't leave you permanently damaged? I was speaking recently to a pal about this and I said, really without thinking too much about, that it seems to me that by the time we meet them in S1, but probably significantly earlier than that, Dean is already at a place where nature and nurture and circumstances and the innate human aptitude for fucking up and being fucked up (or sin, if you're me) are such that there is nothing John could do that he wouldn't resent, if not immediately then eventually down the line --- it's cruel if dad fucks him and cruel if he doesn't, it's terrible if dad leads him on but it's worse if he shuts him out and even worse if he doesn't even notice him at all. Dean will hate him if he leaves him to die and he'll hate him if he dies to save him --- it's crazy and wonderful and it hurts my heart always always <3)

#thank you for calling in <3 #and sorry for the digression #john/dean #only for the insane spiral in fine print #asks #there's a delightful line in the wedding by ninni where they're about to get down to business and 16/17 y.o. dean says something like #'i already hate you' and yet they must go through w/it bc inevitably desire wins out #it's a great exchange