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Of everything that John has ever done, the worst thing by far is the fact he’s gone and died. The moment Dean finds out just how his heart just. Stops. He feels that quiet seething rage settle in and make itself at home.
He’d found himself wondering, distantly, in the back of his mind, if his dad every truly did love him, or if Dean was just there, the easiest option, the one person who John could mould into who he needed him to be, the one who wouldn’t step out of turn, wouldn’t fight back, wouldn’t say no.
John hadn’t even answered the phone when Dean was actively dying, his heart failing after that surge of electrocution had burst through and wreaked havoc on his body, leaving him weak and a shadow of his former health.
Dean had been ready to accept his fate. Sammy wouldn’t let him. Dean gets scared, sometimes, over Sammy’s devotion. He doesn’t want Sammy to feel this way, doesn’t want him to worship anybody in the way that Dean has always worshiped John. It’s not the same, of course, it could never be.
Sammy doesn’t know what it’s like to be their father’s special boy, his favorite boy, the one who gets the brunt of everything. He has no idea everything that Dean has endured in their lives, just to keep Sammy safe, to keep him happy, as normal of a boy as he can be.
Now Dean knows the truth. John never lied. He really did love him as much as he said he did. He was probably planning on selling his soul so that Dean could live from the moment Sam left him that first voice mail.
Dean knows he’d do the same thing, in a heartbeat, if he had the chance. But his job is and has always been simple: keep Sammy safe. He can’t back down from that duty, especially not now.
He can still hear those words that John whispered in his ear before he went and died on them. He knows he’ll never be able to stick to that promise. There is no way in hell that he’s ever going to hurt Sammy, much less kill him.
Sure, they get into fights sometimes, but it’s not the same thing. That’s just one of those typical things that brothers do when they’re stuck with each other twenty-four-seven. Dean finds himself snapping at Sam more often than not these days.
He spends days in Bobby’s junkyard, rebuilding Baby, feeling like he could crawl out of his skin. He’s never getting John back. He’s gone. Sam tries his fucking hardest to get him to talk about it, but Dean can’t. He can’t bring himself to even say anything.
How can he say that what makes him the angriest isn’t that Dad sold his soul for him, it isn’t the feeling of abandonment, of not being enough for him to stay, no, it’s the fact that the last time they had sex had been the night John went on his hunt, only to disappear for months, not answering Dean’s messages, or his calls.
It’s the fact he’ll never get to spend a night in bed with him ever again. He’ll never get to feel John’s anger, never feel his knuckles mark his skin, never feel the way he can paint Dean’s skin blue and purple and then turn around to kiss it all better, make Dean come harder than anybody ever has or ever will.
How can he say that he’s heartbroken, not because of the death of a parent, but because John wasn’t just his parent, he was the love of his life? How pathetic does that make him?
Sammy would look at him with disgust. He would hate John. He wouldn’t be able to remember their father in the way he deserves. Dean knows that he couldn’t shield Sammy from all of it, that John hit him sometimes, yelled at him, gave him the cold shoulder…
But Sammy’s never had to deal with the broken bones. The utter fucking horror of realizing that every horror story he’s ever heard about abusive fathers could be objectively true about John, but that Dean can’t ever see him that way.
It’s always been different for Dean. Always.
He’s always craved John’s touch, no matter how it’s given. A fist, a kiss, a tongue, or a cock. It’s all his father’s touch, and he’d give anything, fucking anything, to get even just one of those back. One night with him, of him drunk off his ass and telling Dean to fuck off only to drag him in, to kiss him, and Dean could ride him all dirty and fast until they’re both breathless.
He doesn’t know how to move on from this loss.
The grief is suffocating. It’s like he can’t breathe properly. Doesn’t know what to do or how to make it better. He sneaks out in the middle of the night, finds a bar on the outskirts of town, lets some old trucker fuck his brains out, but it’s not the same, and after it’s done he cries so hard he forgets how to stop, and he finds a gas station and gets drunk in the parking lot.
Finds another trucker willing to fuck him until his mind goes quiet, and then he throws up in a nearby trashcan as soon as the man is gone. None of it helps. He goes back to Bobby’s, and he smashes Baby to pieces, feels the screaming tear from his throat, like a wounded animal, and he doesn’t know how to fucking stop.
Sammy finds him eventually, and he approaches him like he would a victim, and Dean isn’t a fucking victim of any fucking thing, which just makes him angrier, and he screams, smashing Baby’s windows until there’s nothing left but broken glass. He drops down onto the ground, digs his heels into his eyes, and tries to fucking breathe through the sobs wracking his entire body.
“Dean.” Sammy says, that careful tone in his voice, and Dean snaps. He punches Sammy in the face, doesn’t even realise he’s done it until his knuckles smart with pain and he’s staring at Sammy’s bleeding nose, a look of betrayal and anger and something like pity in Sammy’s eyes that he just cannot fucking handle right now, and he walks off, finds an old truck and lays in the bed of it.
A day later Sammy comes to him with a case, and Dean takes the peace offering, and they work it, and Dean tries so hard to bury all of these feelings down. He drinks, he doesn’t flirt with any waitress, which makes Sammy look at him like there’s something deeply wrong with him, and all Dean can do is shrug it off.
It’s gonna take him some time to get through this, and in the meantime, Sammy won’t know a damn thing.