3. Jess
(Pilot/Wendigo)
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From the minute Sam turns away from him and walks to stand at Jess's side, Dean knows he's no longer the most important person in Sam's life. He's not sure why it's a shock, because you'd think that someone 'staying gone' for so long would've already delivered that message loud and clear.
In a split second moment of clarity, Dean wonders if perhaps he always knew that Sam had moved on in more ways than just location, but just chose not to think about it. Of course, it's much too late to think about it now and he has to take the emotional hit head on and in full view of his brother.
The hurt of it kind of winds him, but he manages to get a hard mask in place as he turns to face the challenge in his kid brother's eyes. And all the time a cold, nauseous feeling in his stomach is telling him that all those months when he was missing Sam, his brother was setting himself up with a new life, without Dean in it, and maybe he wasn't missing Dean at all.
Dean squares his jaw and puts it aside because he really needs to talk to Sam alone. It's about then that he realizes he hasn't come to Stanford to just check on Sam; what he wants is for his brother to go with him, just drop everything and go with him to look for Dad.
Sam's put a lot of time and effort into creating a new persona with a non-existent back history and he's laid the foundations of a solid, safe future. He's therefore edgy and resentful of the unexpected intrusion and Dean's expectation that he can walk away at a moment's notice to find their Dad. He's quick to shoot down his brother's statement that he can't do it alone, but even as the words trip off his lips, he suddenly picks up on the desperation in Dean's "I don't want to". And the way Dean drops his head and breaks eye contact as he makes his admission is so weary and uncharacteristically lacking in confidence that it stops Sam in his tracks.
Dean holds his breath, daren't move a muscle for what seems like an age, 'cause this is the moment when he will either have lost Sam forever or maybe, just maybe, he might still have a brother, even if not all of him.
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In the end, Sam relents and goes with him and they find themselves in Jericho, finishing a job that John started.
Gradually they fall back into the rhythm of being brothers. It's not all plain sailing. Dean knows he's been reluctantly granted a weekend, a last minute, unscheduled appointment that's been slotted into his brother's busy calendar. Sam has changed; he's older now, more independent and he's invested in the hunt for John Winchester on a temporary basis only.
The feeling of insecurity eats at Dean like acid on metal and so he hides behind the emotional equivalent of chaff and ups the smart-mouthed, laid-back image. This amuses and irritates Sam in equal measures, because he's out of practice at dealing with Dean when he's running at full revs.
They tiptoe around the missing months but it causes an underlying friction that eventually burns through Dean's defensive measures when Sam's mouth oversteps the Winchester boundaries with regards to their mother. When Dean takes him by the collar and shoves him up against the railings on Sylvania Bridge, they're both forced to acknowledge that Sam's customary 'little brother get out of jail free' card has expired.
There isn't time for any undue awkwardness, because within minutes the woman in white has them running for their lives. At about the same moment as Dean takes a header off the bridge, Sam remembers just how much Dean means to him after all, how much he hates it when he thinks his big brother might be hurt and that this is one of the main reasons he left the hunting life in the first place.
Whatever else they've forgotten over the years, they haven't forgotten how to work together and suddenly all those years of training, Sam's added maturity and Dean's months of hunting alone sort of click and they're working as a team. They finish the hunt and Constance goes screaming to the ever-after and Dean dares to hope that maybe, just maybe, Sam will forget to go back to his interview at Stanford and will just stay on the road with him to look for Dad.
Sam is understandably incredulous and a little affronted at the suggestion and wonders why Dean can't understand how important the interview is to his future.
Dean may or may not understand, but either way he backs off without a fight and drives Sam 'home'. If Dean is uncharacteristically quiet, Sam can put it down to him being tired and in Sam's opinion, in the wrong. The only trouble is, Sam has remembered how to see past at least some of Dean's smoke and mirrors, so he knows his big brother is hurting and there's nothing he can do, or will do, to ease the pain.
It's an awkward ride and an even more awkward parting. Sam offers the only things he feels he can offer, the olive branch of "Call me if you find him?" and an offer to meet up again.
Dean very nearly blows him off because the rejection is so painful it's making him feel physically sick, but he's Dean Winchester and Sammy and Sammy's happiness have been the main reasons he's kept going since he was four years' old. So he reins it in and gets a good last look at his brother standing outside the dark apartment and offers an awkward olive branch of his own.
He doesn't expect to see Sam again any time soon, maybe never, but some gut instinct makes him turn back around the block. Minutes later Dean is re-visiting the most horrifying moment of his life and pulling his traumatized little brother out of a burning building, although he's not entirely sure Sam wants to be saved. But there's no way, just no way, Sam is dying on Dean's watch.
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Days later, on the way to Blackwater Ridge, Dean tells Sam that he'd have taken Jess's place if he could. He means it too, because however important it is to him to have Sam there riding shotgun, he's never, ever wanted it on these terms. And Sam, still shocked and wrapped in the horror of pain and smoke and flame, knows that Dean means it.
It's not until much later, when Sam is muttering in a nightmare-ridden sleep, that Dean allows himself to acknowledge the truth, that Sam would have let him swap places with Jess.
That fact hurts. A lot. He understands how Sam feels. He does. But it still really hurts. Dean knows, deep down, that he'll never choose a girl over Sam.
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