"okay, mom"
or: in which I take one tiny little throwaway line in 11x04 and overinterpret the hell out of it
Dean has now affectionately called Sam “mom” in two back-to-back episodes, and I can’t help but hope that it becomes A Thing. obviously it’s a term that they will never toss around lightly, but I am convinced that Dean calling Sam “mom” whenever Sam fusses over his wellbeing is actually a Very Good Thing. bittersweet, for sure. but in the best possible way.
the concept of Mary Winchester, Mother and Wife is something that Sam has never been fully privy to. what fleeting moments he spent with her ghost and in 1978 can’t begin to make up for that; although he grew up in the shadow of her death he will never be able to grieve for her in the same way that John and Dean do, because she died before he was able to form any memories with her. and if Heaven is still structured as a best-of reel with your happiest memories, then Sam will never, ever be able to meet her, even in his own Heaven. but Dean calling him “mom” now - likening Sam to the woman whose photograph sits at Dean’s bedside in the bunker (after surviving a lifetime of hunting and living on the road and every single big bad they’ve ever faced), the woman Sam has always literally dreamed of meeting - it’s a way to fill that motherless hole that Sam’s been carrying in him his entire life. to bring Sam closer to his mother, and allow him to honor her memory in his own way. to remind them both that the parts of her that Dean loves and misses most aren’t gone at all, because she lives on through Sam. through both of her boys.
and this is something that we’ve all known for years now, but it’s not something that was ever made clear to Sam. I’m not sure he’s even aware of it or has given it much thought (to him, it might feel a bit too much like wishful thinking). but Dean recognizes his mother when he sees Sam caring for him. and for Dean to verbalize that connection to Sam is huge, for the both of them. Dean is in a place where he can finally come to terms with his mother’s death by recognizing that Mary Winchester will never truly be gone, so long as he and Sam are still around. saving people, hunting things. fighting the good fight. Sam, for his part, feels validated as his mother’s son for possibly the first time in his life, independent of Mary’s deal with YED and subsequent death, or the Campell hunter legacy, or the Campell-Winchester Bloodline of Apocalyptic Doom. those things never defined Sam as a person, and they sure as hell don’t define his relationship with his mother.
the darkest parts of Mary’s life have always managed to bleed over into her boys’. but the brightest parts of her being are there, too: her tenacity, her kindness, the fierceness of her love. even her favorite songs. they’ve always been there, even before the darkness set in - and they’ll continue to be there, until the very end.