I can't stop watching the video. I just want to smish Jensen.

I'm right there with you, Amy. He is just so... Yes. That. Please.

My sister wants to know what Dean had to do in order to convince Sam John was possessed--i.e., did he just tell him and then not look back at him to check, because he took for granted the message had been sent? We had been looking at a gifset where JP knocked it out of the park with the "if Dean says so, then this is what I do" look of a five year old who's learnt that hot burns and Dean can make it better.

eta: Ha!--that's a majorly weak argument you could make about shipping them, if you had to manip them into the same image.

I'd have to rewatch, but I think it was Dean's tone of absolute certainty, and also the way he was talking *to* John at the time. He never would have done that if he wasn't completely sure it wasn't John.

If I'm remembering the scene right, my impression is that Dean didn't look back at Sam because he was so stunned to realize John had been possessed, he couldn't look away.

My sister wants to know what Dean had to do in order to convince Sam John was possessed

I haven't seen the episode recently enough to tell you the play by play. Emotionally, what I remember is that the two of them were so tight by that point after travelling and re-bonding (Dean had just killed someone with the Colt to save Sam and had stood up to John taking Sam's side in an argument, for example) that Sam implicitly trusted Dean far more than he trusted John. I do remember after Sam shot John he just stepped over him on the floor to get to Dean to check on his injuries.

I haven't actually checked yet, and in a way I'm kind of protective of my (and our) memories of the scene--Dean had to tell Sam to check on John after he shot him with the Colt, for instance, right?

I know we sometimes amp things up, but that was so much in a prism right there, the whole family spinning around Dean--I told my sister mid S1 that Dean was a mother figure to Sam, and she was disbelieving--but I forgot she had to get to S3 to see all that--and she had to get at least to the end of S1 to see how tight they were, how unconscious their relationship was--of course Sam doesn't want to believe that his father's a meatsuit, but if Dean said it....

And now I'm trying to think of times Dean let Sam down. Making the deal is letting him down, in a way, but it's letting him down with a clarity of his OTT dedication to him. The spiel in Skin is moved past--what's the next time?

At the end of S4, when Dean doesn't trust Sam about Ruby and the demon blood and his powers. I mean, he was right not to in the end, but that hurt Sam, that Dean had no faith in his judgment.

Then at the end of S5, but when Dean winks at him in the green room and kills Zachariah, all is forgiven and forgotten, I think, but in the moment that mattered, he did the right thing.

I gotta give season 4 to Dean, though. He doubted Sam, but believing in him wasn't the right thing to do--and for all that Dean is there for Sam, I don't feel it's in any indulgent or delusional way--clearly Dean's going to lie about himself, but once Sam got read into the life, that was the truth he needed to live up to. In season 5 he didn't have right on his side, though--and it was great that Sam got to win him over--first to make him not punk out and take the best of a bad choice (Dean's view of the options) but remaking their strategy to minimise the price to fewer lives (one) but the most important one (Sam).

I have faith they won't walk the same path this season, with Sam thinking he's sacrificing himself to save everything--I know they're adding an air of jeopardy, but in S5 he was never fighting to live, just to beat Lucifer. I hope they are distinct.

And note to AU writers: that idea you had for handwaving why Castiel has a brother called Lucifer? Probably didn't work.

He doubted Sam, but believing in him wasn't the right thing to do

That was my point -- that Sam was doing the wrong thing, but on the surface it was understandable why he thought he was doing the right thing. Unless we're drawing a clear line at ever working with demons, which certainly isn't the case down the road.

It also depends on how you're defining "let down," I think. If you mean Dean letting Sam down about something that he wanted, that can be different than letting Sam down because he didn't do what was right.

I think that doing the right thing for Sam is to oppose the people who want to use him to bring Hell on earth, so arguing against that isn't letting him down in my books. It's not the same as disagreeing with someone--he had Sam's best interests at heart (as well as the planet's) and he was right to boot.