Dean + Smirks (requested By Daniela)

DEAN WINCHESTER in one random episode per day ‣ 325/327 1.01 PILOT

in my mind a huge part of sam and dean’s dynamic at the beginning of season one is like.

dean is so terrified that sam doesn’t need him anymore. yes, he came back, but he’s grown up and he’s seen so much more of the world and he’s smart and self-sufficient, and so even though he’s with dean, dean feels basically useless as a protector/caretaker, the role he played his entire life, the only one he knows, and it’s now no longer really needed. so he handles that (poorly) by overcompensating to an EXTREME degree. like being even more of a helicopter parent, not letting sam go anywhere alone, checking on him all the time, etc etc.

then finally sam explodes on him, because he’s not a kid and dean doesn’t need to worry about him anymore.

and dean is soooo offended by that because like. how do you not KNOW, sam. if you think there’s a single universe where i don’t worry about you every waking moment of my life then you don’t know me at all.

and sam metabolizes that as, i’m a burden, i’m sorry for being such a fucking burden, i’m sorry you feel so stifled by having to take care of me.

and they never talk about any of this by the way. so it just becomes a never ending cycle of he doesn’t need me anymore // i’m such a burden to him on and on and on

we don’t talk enough about sam’s devotion to dean btw

color palette meme | @queenabvddon asked for contained anger + Dean Winchester

Sam + Human Sacrifice | 3.12, 3.15, 4.22, 7.03, 9.03, 10.19, 10.23, 11.01

Another day, another school, where the kids all have different names but are all the same. The teacher, also different and also the same, asks her class if anyone collects things. Sam frowns. If he was old enough to know better, he’d say he collects sorrows.

Kids raise their hands and talk excitedly about stamps, flowers drying between book pages, dead butterflies pinned like trophies in transparent showcases, Yo-Yos. Sam raises tentatively his hand, because he wants to melt in this classroom, wants to be just a name, to have a bedroom, a favorite crosswalk, and the luxury to collect things. So he says the one and only thing he can think of: “motel rooms”. Because this is true, somehow. An eclectic collection of dusk in nowhere towns and first days everywhere.

She tries to explain to him that it isn’t the same, because Sam can’t carry motel rooms with him, doesn’t even own them. She sees the light dim in his eyes, as kids start to giggle around him, glancing at him like he just said something hilarious. There’s nothing funny about this. She asks him if there is anything else that he keeps somewhere safe, anything that makes him happy and that he carries with him everywhere, that he can’t get enough of, and Sam thinks about it long and hard, makes a list of everything that fits the description. 

In the end there is just one thing, but the moment he thinks it, Sam’s heart swells in his chest and the kids’ mocking gazes fade in the classroom’s background, because his collection is the coolest in the entire goddamn universe. And none of the kids here can claim to have something as great as him. They can keep their lifeless butterfly wings.

“Sammys, I collect Sammys”, he says with a big grin, and she ask “What are Sammys?” but Sam just laughs. No one in this school deserves to know. No one in the entire town deserves to see his collection. So Sam just laughs and when the bell rings, he leaves with his bag on his shoulders and his teacher’s eyes on his back. 

She’s walking to her car, thinking about dinner and going for a jog maybe, when she hears a loud and boisterous “Sammy!” behind her. There’s so much unfiltered joy and love in those five letters that she feels a half second of jealousy before she can stop herself. She looks around and sees a boy, sun bleached hair and vibrant green eyes, who must be 8 at most, waving at little Sam who is running toward him at full speed, a private smile she’s almost ashamed to be a witness of spreading on his cheeks. 

That’s when she gets it, and as she watches Sam throw himself at the other boy, who just laughs and hugs Sam just as hard, she hopes Sam’s collection will never end collecting dust on the shelves of his memories.

The way they look at each other 😍