If you asked Sam it was always Dean and Dad growing up.
Dad trusted Dean with everything- with the lead on every hunt as soon as they were old enough, with the sawed off shot gun when they were left to fend for themselves, with the keys to the car, with his journal, with his life.
Dean trusted Dad.
That was the end of it from that side. There was no caveat, no need to specify the way he had to on Dad's end. It was a given that there were things that Dad didn't trust Dean with, but Dean- Dean trusted Dad with everything he had and everything he was.
Maybe that was because he never had anything else. There's nothing to hold back when the only person you trust is the only person you have.
That was if you asked Sam though.
If you asked Dean it wasn't the partnership Sam had imagined it to be.
They weren't partners- certainly not equals- and Dad didn't have any special faith in him.
Every time Dad gave him a job, gave him the lead, let him take the reins, told him to guard the door, ordered him to pick up the gun- it wasn't trust.
It was just another test.
He had been tested his whole life.
Every day started and ended with an appraising gaze, a quality check, a step by step list of 'have to's' and 'failed to's' and he was so terrified to fail because 'all it takes is one mistake Dean' and he had to 'look out for Sam, Dean, that's your job' and it was his only job and all it took was one mistake and he'd have failed his only goddamn job and he'd be all alone in that cold and dark and there would only be him and his shotgun and the things that were always waiting for him in the dark if he didn't latch every door, lock every window, draw every curtain, salt every entrance, check, check, check-
Anyway, Dean was never Dad's relief. He was never his favorite. He was just what John had to work with in lieu of anything that was worth a damn. He needed a unit of trained soldiers and all he got was a scared four-year-old.
He made do.
Dean forced himself to keep up.
Because it wasn't about Dean. It wasn't about protecting Dean, or teaching Dean, or god forbid trusting Dean.
It was about Sam.
If you asked Dean it was always about Sam.
Every test, every fight, every crushing failure, every time Dad put the fear of a God that he never believed in into him-
It was all about Sam.
It was never about making Dean the perfect hunter. It was about making him Sam's perfect bodyguard. The Hunter aptitude was just a prerequisite for the job.
Every shadow, every stumble, every kind meaning lady that smiled at a chubby cheeked toddler could be a Thing in disguise and Dean was taught to be ready, to be on guard, to smile back as he gripped his knife- too big for his hands that gripped tight to Sam's even smaller ones- under his jacket until the danger passed.
But the danger never passed.
Dean was eight when he started sleeping with a knife under his pillow.
Sam wasn't allowed to touch knives until he was nine.
Dean was the one to teach him to throw them correctly. He'd already been a qualified expert for years.
It was all for Sam.
So when Sam left... he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.
Sam left to find the world- and he burned Dean's to the ground on his way out.
Sam left and Dad looked at Dean like he didn't know him anymore.
What are you supposed to do with a guard dog that suddenly has nothing to guard?
So he gave him more jobs. More tests. To see what he could be good for now that the only thing he'd ever been useful for wasn't practical anymore.
And the Hunting thing was passable.
He was clumsy at first- kept looking around for a big floppy haired shadow, kept accidentally trying to book one more bed than they needed, kept cracking a joke that he knew Dad wouldn't laugh at, kept leaving room for a partner that wasn't there when he searched a room.
But he was passable.
So when they were all back together Dean wasn't sure how to feel.
Because he loved them all together. He had missed knowing where he stood, what he was supposed to do, what he was for-
But the thing was that Sam didn't get it.
He didn't see that everything Dad did was for him. To protect him.
So maybe he was cryptic and overbearing and never- not once no matter how much Dean begged and pleaded silently for anything, just a word- explained what it was that was going to happen to them more than one step ahead. So maybe he didn't trust them.
But he did it for Sam.
It was all for Sam.
He always smiled at Sam like that.
Like he was proud of him, and sorry for him, and scared for him.
He only smiled at Dean as if he was going to shake his hand and congratulate him on doing his job right.
Sam was all mushy feelings and girl-talks because he could afford to be.
Because Dad let him be.
And now Dad looked at him in a way that spoke of shared suffering and a part of Dean was bitter because no amount of suffering was greater than another, but he never once got to cry for his.
Sam railed against Dad's overbearing control.
Dean craved it. It was as close as he got to approval.
Sam had Dean's unwavering affection- Dean has done his damndest to make sure he knew it- so he could deal with losing some of Dad's.
Dean couldn't afford to lose anything. He'd had to scrounge and grovel and crawl his way through blood and dirt to get what he had.
Dad loved both of his boys.
It was just that sometimes he got so deep in his hurt that all he saw was a baby crying in a house on fire and the only other person in the world who could carry him.
In Dad's mind Sam had never changed from that infant into a man.
Dean has never stopped carrying him.
And now as Sam and Dad got in each other's faces Dean could see that Sam was right.
Dad's eyes were clouded by the smoke of a fire that had burned out decades ago.
It was time that Dean stopped running through it just because Dad said to.
