I was thinking about real-life cops and firefighters, and being sort of blithe about it, because the divorce rate is insanely high for both, I'm pretty sure. It can't be easy to be a good spouse when half of what you see every day is horror, or when every day you're sitting home hoping a uniform's not going to show up at your door with bad news.

I love the fact that my grandfather was a career firefighter, but I also didn't live through those years worrying.

Anyway. My ultimate fantasies of happy endings for Sam and Dean only play off canon in the barest way, really. One of them is them settling down somewhere, even Bobby's, and training young hunters, hopefully each with a spouse or SO of their own, and the occasional case to keep them in the game.

What gets in the way is my *own* need for a home, I think, and it's easy to grab onto John talking about how much he wanted a home for Dean (and Dean's sheer joy with it in WIaWSNB). I don't really think canon Dean wants a home so much as family -- that sense of people who have your back no matter what, people you love and who love you.

That line of Dean's about just that in And Then There Were None killed me for that reason. Actually, all the times he and Bobby both have referred to each other as family.

If it had a more natural genesis - hunting still, but pulling back enough maybe by starting with an actual home base, then non-Sam, non-hunting relationships with actual people and the hunting became less a mission and more an avocation as other priorities were allowed to take hold?

Yes. This. I see it as a transition rather than a firm departure. I would also see Dean trying to leave the hunting life more than once before settling into a sort of coexistence with it. I could see him ending up in a similar situation to Bobby's--running a legitimate business of some sort while still hunting as occasion demanded. Heck, I could even see him finding his own version of a Sheriff Mills, in terms of an authority figure who would drag him in if something got a bit weirder than normal protocol could handle.

OMG I WANT DEAN ON THE ROAD FOREVER SHUT UP YOU GUYS.

THERE WILL BE NO REST.

THEY WILL NEVER BE DONE.

WAYWARD 4 LYFE!!!!

YES, to both brenda and Anne.

Also, Dean's relationship with Lisa was so tangled. It was lust and fond memories of bendiness, not love, until he saw Ben. And from there it became sort of symbolic, I think, no matter how much he genuinely cared for both of them.

Falling in love with someone *now* and starting a life together would be a whole other thing.

THERE WILL BE NO REST.

What about rest between occasional long and exceedingly dangerous road trips? Kinda like those Alaska crab boat fishermen.

(Edit: Amy, something you said in passing gave me exactly what I needed to fix a small but significant plot hole in my BB, so thanks!)

I'm glad they never said Dean was in love with Lisa and I hope they never do. It was too random for me to accept love on top of those expectations. In love with Cassie I always bought. Just...Lisa? Why? I was probably taking it too personally, but no.

What about rest between occasional long and exceedingly dangerous road trips?

They can't be too occasional.

Glad to help, Anne. Whatever it was I said!

I think Dean came to love Lisa, but wasn't *in love* with her. And wow, that sounds totally high school, but I do think there's a difference.

I think Dean came to love Lisa, but wasn't *in love* with her. And wow, that sounds totally high school, but I do think there's a difference.

As do I. If Dean could have been *in* love to any degree in that relationship, it would have been with the ideal that Ben and Lisa represented. It would have been something abstract, too tied up in his own daydreams and trying to live the life Sam wanted him to have.

I think Dean loved Lisa in general at the start of things, because that's who I think of him as. A guy who loves people who haven't done anything wrong to him yet, because he is a nice guy. I mean, she hit only positive criteria when you're going down the checkboxes.

Not in a soul-sharing bondy sort of way, or anything. And the fact that he didn't interact with her on an extended basis made it easy. Then she just kept being cool, and then he actually got to know the Lisaness of her, and he could grow to love that. But the bing bang boom love stuff I read stories of? Nah, just don't buy that, and I'm glad they never tried to sell it.

Watch them do it in the three remaining episodes!

You know what? It was like an arranged marriage and they kind of grew to love each other. . . but with reservations.