And I've always believed it was John who called Joshua with the lead on Roy LeGrange, so that Joshua would pass the information on to Sam.
Beverly, that's a pleasant thought. But as far as I can remember there's absolutely no basis for that at all in canon. There's no indication of any response at all from John to the news that Dean was dying.
But he couldn't leave them unprotected.
Every time I see the argument that John drug his boys all across the country in a peripatetic lifestyle and therefore left them alone in motel rooms and incorporated them into the dangerous hunting lifestyle that it was 'to protect them' part of me accepts that he sincerely thought he would only believe they were in one piece if he could see them with his own eyes. Another part of me absolutely cringes at the thought of all the additonal danger he placed them in. And yet a third part of me says that it makes John's infamous "if you leave here don't ever come back" mandate totally incomprehensible. (That is, supposedly the boys had to be with him instead of being anywhere else, but when Sam declared his intent to leave John ensured that Sam couldn't return "home." Or looking at it the other way, if John needed distance from them to keep them safe, then why all the family dramatics and ultimatums and insisting that Sam stay in the hunting unit? It's a catch-22.)
My devotion to the brotherly bond will need a lot of convincing of why Dean doesn't notice someone else is playing Sam, but the snarky part of me says that if the kid that swaps with him is emo enough, it might be hard to tell. Or if Dean is being prickish enough, would he even be paying enough attention?
ita, I find myself cringing in advance too, and I hope I'm wrong. I'm fearing a lot of "oh Sam, you're so emo I couldn't tell you apart from a a 14-year-old, ha ha ha" jokes and accompanying bitchfaces. (Also, Sam gets the rap for being emo, but dammit Dean broods. He pouts, he stares out windows, he holds meaningful silences, and he cries single crystalline tears of manpain. Why doesn't he ever get called on his emo shit?)