5.22 Swan Song, Part 12
MAIN | PART 11
99 PROBLEMS
And a bitch ain't one.
Chuck tells Dean that he saw enough to know where Sam is and when he's going to be there.
Dear Kripke,
High Noon? ... wait. Are you giving us our western? Are you really?! Giving me a western with legendary guns and horsepower? Could you check my pulse, please? I think I just hyperventilated.
-Lid, who just hyperventilated
Dean: Who's Mistress Magda?
Chuck: *shifty eyes*
Lid: I know I'm long-winded, but I don't want a ball gag! *falls off the couch*
So it's going to be High Noon. *revels* I know this is supposed to be dark and O.K. Corral level depressing, but I'm now bouncing in my seat because I know how High Noon ends!
*bounces*
... oh, uh, okay, so, High Noon is this great old western starring Grace Kelly as this sheriff's Quaker pacifist wife and Gary Cooper as the sheriff who wants nothing more than to retire and find a nice little place to live quietly and run a little business and not have to shoot bad men and send them to jail anymore. One day, this dude whom the sheriff put away comes back on the noon train to kill him and everyone high-tails it for parts unknown and they all tell the sheriff to leave town before he gets killed. Even his own wife tries to get him to leave by getting on another train herself, but he leaves her and goes back, so she goes back, too, just in time. No one will face this guy with him, so he guns down some of the guy's posse and right when he's about to get killed, his pacifist wife puts her beliefs aside in favor of love and picks up a gun and shoots a guy cold dead in the street, and the sheriff is able to kill the big bad guy, and afterwards, the sheriff turns and looks at the people who wouldn't back his play and he throws his star in the dirt and leaves -- with his wife -- the end.
SEE? I HAVE HOPE.
But Dean has to live through High Noon in Winchester time, which is real time, and he has to listen to his best friends, his only friends that he has left, tell him that they're skedaddlin' for parts unknown and he best get the hell out, too, if he wants to live, to which Dean responds in a Job-like fashion with I'D RATHER DIE, THANKS, and where I respond by turning into a sobbing mess.
LEAVING...
Sam: I don't understand the blind faith you have in the man [John].
Dean: You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Hey, I'm taking off ! I will leave your ass! You hear me?
Sam: That's what I want you to do!
--Scarecrow
And then we had our first encounter with a demon: Meg. HUH.
Meg: These are the days of miracle and wonder, Dean. Our father's among us. You know, we're all dreamy again for the first time since we were human! It's like heaven on earth... or, hell. We really owe your brother a fruit basket. ... But you, on the other hand, you're the only bump in the road. So every demon, every single one, is just dying for a piece of you.
--Sympathy for the Devil
This is why Dean suffers. Sure, it would be easier to kill Dean, but that's not the point. The point is -- he's been told this since the first time he ever ran into a demon -- is that it's more fun to make him bleed, to watch him crumble, than it is to kill him. Just ending his life is no entertainment at all. That means that killing Dean isn't their real purpose at all. Their real mission is to torture him to the point where he breaks, where he stops loving, stops forgiving, and becomes one of them... because that is the only thing that would break Sam.
Dean thinks he already broke, back in Hell, when he was coerced into torturing other people. He felt incredible guilt because of it, even in Hell, which was another kind of torture. What he thought he was enjoying was really just elation at not being under the knife himself. He wasn't turning, he'd only gone from physical torture to emotional... they went after Dean's heart in a way that they couldn't with a weapon.
When Alastair and Castiel told him that he had to be the one to finish it because he began it, they didn't know that they were giving Dean the one piece of knowledge that would stiffen his resolve to not let his love for his family get trampled by circumstance. ... Where was I? Oh yes. Dean suffers because Sam is family and he's supposed to make him miserable. /Bobby-ism
And why would you give demons what they want? It's hard to love and forgive someone when you can't control them anymore and when you disagree with everything they want to do... and that's when you take a step back and remind yourself to let go and just love them the best you can in spite of everything. Where did Dean learn that?
...IS NOT THE SAME AS LETTING GO
Sam: Dad, no. *grabs his shoulder* After everything...
John: *puts his hand over Sam's hand*
Sam: After all the time we spent lookin' for you. Please, I gotta be a part of this fight.
John: This fight is just starting and we are all gonna have a part to play. For now, you've gotta trust me, son, okay? You've gotta let me go. *John gives Sam a minute and then removes his hand*
Sam: *slaps his shoulder and wills his hand to move away*
John: *walks to the truck* Be careful boys. *drives off*
Dean: *drives the car in the opposite direction*
--Shadow
In case it needs to be said, because being straightforward is good... I'm trying to do that better... I'd like to address why John left his boys so often. As much as he trained them -- they could take care of themselves from the time their legs were long enough to reach the accelerator -- he often tried to leave them with a family that he knew, so that they could be with a family, just in case he never came back. He knew from the very beginning how important family and love was going to be. He didn't want to take them anywhere that they would be in the line of fire, and he always seemed to know - usually - when that was. Here's why:
1998 January 24:
Dean's nineteenth. I was coming home from Vietnam right after my nineteenth. Dean's war isn't going to end like that. Had a dream last night that I found Mary's murderer, and knew that I would have to die to take him out. That's all right if it protects the boys.
--John's Journal
Sam had dreams. Dean had dreams. And so did John.
PART 13: The Song Remains The Same
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