SPN: Brotherly Manlove by Winchesters (22)
This is a belated birthday present for innie_darling, who told me when I met her at the con that Devil's Trap is her favorite episode, and she couldn't wait to see what I did with it. I couldn't get it finished by yesterday, but I finally got it finished today. Sorry! And happy birthday, honey!
And major thanks to my favorite SPN fangirl in the world, dotfic, for the quick beta and for the unending encouragement. *HUG* If y'all have enjoyed this catalogue at all, you need to thank her, not me, because she is the one who gave me the idea in the first place.
Chapter "Devil's Trap" in the Catalogue of Touches between the Brothers Winchester. And in case you missed the previous installments:
Pilot. Wendigo. Dead In The Water. Phantom Traveler.
Bloody Mary. Skin. Hook Man. Bugs. Home. Asylum.
Scarecrow. Faith. Route 666. Nightmare. The Benders.
Shadow. Hell House. Something Wicked. Provenance.
Dead Man's Blood. Salvation.
Warning: ...Well, er, I don't need to warn you that this is full of fanwank, right? Okay, then. Moving on.
~ ~ ~
They only touch three times that we witness in the course of the episode:
1- When Sam grabs Dean's arm in the exorcism scene (touch unseen but implied).
2- When Dean pats Sam on the back after they do the fireman strip (touch unseen but implied).
3- When Dean lifts Sam to his feet after killing Tom.
There is a fourth touch, implied but not shown, during the last commercial break. Whether Sam was the one who helped Dean into the car, or whether it was John, it hardly matters. There was something more significant happening than can be counted in the number of touches.
Salvation left us at a moment of grace. It was the eye of the storm, where they met naked and unashamed, and found the answer to a question they'd forgotten to ask. What happens in Devil's Trap is that a promise is built on that grace. It's made in front of a witness, their father, in a language he can hear but not understand. Not because he is blind or cruel, but simply because he is other. Not them. That matters deeply now, between them and the world. Nothing can erase the time spent building this language or lessen their awareness of it found in the eye of the storm.
We begin with the news of John's capture and possible death. It almost entirely damages Dean's grasp of their beautifully realized unity in the previous episode. I say "almost" because, while he thrusts off into his own panic mode with little attention for Sam, there is a very thin thread of nakedness still shadowing his actions and his words. Before the final phone call of Salvation, he had shown a weary sort of submission to the threat of their shared moment. Not unlike how anyone might feel, when they've said something of great impact that they know they can never put back into place inside them. Only skin and a few inches of air separated Sam from Dean's heart. Those are fragile walls, and for Dean, they'd ceased to be even that. All things physical had ceased to shelter him. Yet even though he now lived in a world where that pain and those hopes had been revealed, he didn't take it on the chin, as he had in Something Wicked or Home. It didn't snap him back tightly, for there was nowhere left to retreat.
And in his expression against the wall, as Sam walked away, I read an acceptance of something more than just this moment shared. He'd offered up his deepest fear. By revealing that, he'd lost what had been restored to him in Nightmare. Guardianship. It is something that he'd guarded religiously for the greater portion of his life, something unwillingly stripped from him in the Asylum/ Scarecrow/ Faith arc, something that had empowered him once he regained it in Nightmare. This was not Shadow, where he leaped and crashed and curled back up tight, or Something Wicked, where he bled and then breathed deep and firmed his jaw. This was a complete surrender to being undone. A realization and acceptance of the fact that Sam would never look at him through idealized eyes again. That had been one of the last thin threads of their old balance holding them in their childhood roles. No more. It was a moment of despair as much as it was a moment of trust, but see what holds him steady. It is his quiet acceptance of what the Demon would twist and taunt him with later.
"They don't need you. Not like you need them."
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
But the Demon is taunting too late. Dean has learned to trust. And Sam is listening.
Watch Sam throughout Devil's Trap; his awareness of Dean has never been before been so sharp and so full. From the opening scene to the very last, Sam's attention is focused primarily on his brother. I once would consider this a return of the same for all the hours Dean spent attuned to Sam's feelings throughout S1. But it goes far deeper than a mere kindness in the narrative.
As mentioned above, the news about John has stirred Dean up into a panicked whirlwind, and his focus is so completely on getting his father back that he drops out of touch with his brother. Throughout their scenes in the hotel room, Bobby's place and the walk along the riverside, he is tightly aware of himself and his goal. It is Sam who keeps their connection alive, in little ways from the way he walks and leans and looks, to the larger ways that later on will forever change the course of their story. Until they arrive inside the apartment which holds John, it is Sam who constantly sidles close and keeps himself in step with Dean.
He stands close against Dean's back as the interrogation of Meg begins. He steps in close to ask how Dean is after he slaps Meg. (WTF, male chivalry? Would that qualify as "archaic"?) He keeps as much of an eye on Dean as he does on Meg herself throughout the exorcism (for many reasons, but concern is surely one of them). He gently nudges Dean by the train tracks (until that conversation goes south). He keeps his pace in step with Dean's (see: below) as they walk. He steps up to keep near Dean as they survey the apartment building.
That is when Dean starts to reciprocate. When his goal is in reach, and panic subsides. But he does not trust himself to return fully to where they were in Salvation. Not in Devil's Trap. Not even during In My Time Of Dying. And what comes after... well, that's for another day.
And I'm getting ahead of myself.
Enough rambling. On with the catalogue...
~ ~ ~
22.0
Type of Contact: Referee
Deliberate?: Yes
Chick Flick?: No
Note: We can't see it (damn the lighting) but given how purposefully Dean was striding past Sam and how he turned around as Sam did, I'm almost positive that Sam grabs him by the arm or elbow or wrist or hand or *somewhere* to catch his attention.
I found it interesting at the time, although I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, that Sam is using an argument that he thinks will get through to Dean. There's the chance he is being strictly pragmatic about the possibility of her lying, but it's doubtful to me. It might be stretching things a little too much to say he's trying to get through to Dean in any way he can right now, to nudge Dean back from the brink of apparent madness. On the other hand, maybe that's another layer to it.
I find both of their arguments interesting and rather ironic. On some level, they're both trying to get their point across to the other through a hot button of sorts: Daddy love and morality. Sam reminds Dean that Meg might have lied about John. Dean reminds Sam that there is an innocent victim here.
"We could still use her. Find out where the Demon is."
"She doesn't know."
"She lies."
"Sam, there's an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there, and we've gotta help her."
But not to leave it there, they're also standing on similar sides of this moral argument as they took in Scarecrow. Sam argues for their overall goal; Dean argues for the random innocent.
Whatever their most honest motivations for advocating what and how they do here, in the end, Dean's argument wins. Ponder that from all sides. It says a lot about a lot of things.
(And I won't touch on the morality issue itself in this post. For once, I'll leave it be. Shocker!)
Honorary Mention
Type of Contact: *NSYNC
Deliberate?: I'm saying "Yes."
Chick Flick?: No
starry_ice and kernezelda pointed this out way back when I did The Benders. It's really a thing of beauty, in and of itself, but taking into account what is (possibly) motivating Sam to stay in step with Dean deepens it to a whole different level. Watch how Sam watches Dean, keeping himself in step and held back so he neither outdistances nor falls behind his brother.
Warning: This is a long sequence of steps. But I thought y'all would enjoy scrolling down. ...Er, I hope so!
Here, Sam takes a bigger step than Dean, pulling ahead. Watch how he catches himself and falls back to walking in sync. Dean barely seems to notice. If he notices at all.
The pattern breaks when Dean begins to trudge on past Sam.
Sam glances away, as well, and the moment is gone.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into simple steps, but all of these little things read to me so clearly as part of the bigger pattern. An acting choice of JP's? Second nature? Pure luck? Fanwanking out the wazoo? I'm stuck between Doors No.1 and 2. For sure, it's more than dumb luck.
What the heck, here's a poll.
Poll
22.1
Type of Contact: Aborted Herding
Deliberate?: Instinctive
Chick Flick?: No
Note: I might be seeing things here. That's not unheard of. But it also seems like something Dean would do, an instinctive sort of steadying gesture that supports and guides Sam while reminding himself that he's getting things under control. I don't find it coincidental at all that his first touch of Sam (if that be the case) happens when things start to fall into place with their plan. John is near. The Colt is loaded and ready. Sam is safe. Dean is in charge. They're getting this thing done. As in Nightmare, the rush of having a clear and immediate purpose is enough to nudge him free of his taut restraint. It's a small gesture by itself, but it's a leak in the dam.
22.2
Type of Contact: Cradle
Deliberate?: Yes
Chick Flick?: No
Note: There is nothing here that we haven't seen a dozen times over, in some form or another. Dean picks up and steadies Sam. Of itself, it's not entirely essay-worthy, just pretty to look at and satisfying to watch.
Following the train of thought from before, this is a clear and present challenge to Dean's growing sense of strength and control. I'm not suggesting that his fear of weakness prompted him to shoot Tom. That was a straight-forward display of Dean's patented "you hurt my family, and I'll kill you" mentality, the moral ramifications of which I'll save for another post, another time. In any case, this immediate threat to Sam unlatches whatever restraint Dean had left over, and from this point on through to the end of IMToD, he comes as close as he is able to being the unchecked guardian he once was. That acceptance and submission mentioned above is a strong instinct on a certain level within the family dynamic, but as an individual, the basic instinct to act is much stronger. Protecting Sam restores the world for a moment back to its familiar shape, even though his expression shows us he's not blind to what this has cost him on a moral level.
The flip side of this familiarity finds Dean falling all the way back past their moment of grace to their old balance. We'll see it in the following scene, as he questions himself in front of Sam.
Notice here how Dean tries to shoulder both burdens, father and brother.
He can't support both, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
That is the Dean of Something Wicked more so than Salvation, not so much in the content of his confession but in the attitude with which it is delivered. Saving Sam's life may have restored Dean's sense of equilibrium about himself to some degree, but it rewinds the tape a little, as well. He's still open, SW/Home-open. But no longer naked. He sees no strength in nakedness, and he's reached a place now where solid strength is welcome in whatever manner it offers itself. And if it will save his family, then that strength will overrule everything else. Guardianship.
And now the catalogue is over.
But the manlove continues...
~ ~ ~
"The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom." -A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
A lot happens in the final fifteen minutes, and a hell of a lot has come before it. This is the moment by which the brothers as a whole and Sam as one will be measured against the insight gained over the course of the season. With the event of Salvation forever changing the nature of their relationship, Devil's Trap is a baptism of fire, in a sense. It demands an answer from each of the brothers to the question they'd asked in Salvation.
"What will sever it?" This "glue" of theirs? This love. "What will it sever?"
Nothing comes free of price. And as Salvation showed us how they respect this love and are salvaged by it, Devil's Trap shows us they know the price. And they're willing to pay it in full.
Dean pays with Tom's life, and with Meg's. He pays with the line he crosses, and the unflinching determination with which he crosses it. And he pays in no small part with how he is willing to recognize this new world for what it is, and show his brother the exit wounds from his personal baptism of fire. Recognition is not submission, and he is still with one hand trying to lift the walls back around him. But recognition is also some shade of respect. Salvation's nakedness hasn't been forgotten. It's not what will hold his family together now. Dean soldiers on. And yet the trust, the grace of Salvation, is here in the confession. The ugliest of exit wounds laid bare before his baby brother. Would the Dean of pre- Salvation have done that? I find it hard to picture. It's a guarded nakedness, but it's a leap he knows Sam will catch. As Sam does.
And Sam? What does this cost him? Revenge? His future? His free will? I'd hazard a guess that the price he pays is in retrospect, which has the effect of influencing how he will handle the future. For he pays with Jessica's life, and with their mother's, by refusing to kill their father. He is saying, "I'll accept that price. If that's what it takes." And while the death of John jacks up the price of that decision after In My Time Of Dying, and we see him struggling with it in Everybody Loves A Clown, it's the bullet he's chosen to take. It's the shitty way the world works saying "Are you sure about this?" and him whispering a strained "Yes." His baptism of fire wasn't over with the chance to kill the Demon, and his choice not to. The payment continues with every single day he lives with the cost of that choice on his heart. Just as Dean does, with his exit wound.
There are moments of grace here, just as there were in Salvation. Trust played a vibrant role in the opening scenes of the cabin. Sam catching Dean's leap, of course. And Dean leaping at all. Also Sam's trust in his brother being so absolute as to prompt him to take Dean's side against their father. The layers of understanding in that gesture alone clarifies so much about their relationship. It's tempting to say there is no clear reason for Sam to choose Dean, that it is a pure trust in his brother. If Dean says this, it must be so, because he's bonded with Dean. Well, yes, but more. It's in the fact that Dean is pointing the Colt at their father. It's in the fact that their father is who he is to Dean. It's in the word Dean chooses ("different") and the way in which he says it. It's harking back to the conversations they had in Asylum, Scarecrow and Something Wicked. It's in the conversation they just had about the line Dean will cross unflinchingly and the weight that gives to his aiming of the Colt at John. It's in the fact that Dean is flinching.
This is their new world, and Sam's eyes are wide open. Seeing. Marking. Remembering. However much of a tight line it was between despair and acceptance for Dean to be as naked as he was in Salvation, this is the payoff for his trust. And although he desperately wants those walls of his back up, he relies on their fall to tell Sam things he cannot fully or clearly vocalize. It's in this moment of perfect understanding, and it's in Dean's whispered "Sam, no" near the end.
It's the most memorable thing about the manlove in this episode, that it's all in the gestures they make, and the fact that they're so clearly and solidly grounded on the experiences that have come before. This all comes to a head when the Demon is killing Dean, and Sam's love for his brother once again sparks a burst of psychic adrenaline. (Where's my spoon?) The Devil's Trap script indicates that Sam "wrenched himself" free from the wall. I think John's brief re-emergence was a catalyst, but just how much of one it was remains unclear. Now, perhaps these two surges of supernatural adrenaline from Sam are entirely as a result of his proximity to another chosen child and/or the Demon. It's a (disappointing) possibility. But while I don't believe that Sam's powers are mystically tied to Dean (although they might very well be, who knows?), but I do absolutely and unequivocally believe that Dean is the most significant love of his life.
We have just the bare bones on their childhood, so we really have no clear idea how close they were or what emotions like Sam's reaction to Dean saying "well, I don't want to" in the pilot are based on. Whatever the foundation for this love of theirs, and whatever supernatural power it may or may not control, this love was enough to pull Sam away from his "safe" world. It pulled him away from Jessica at the time when he was dreaming about her dying as his mother died, and it pulled him into the very same world with which he associates that death and from which he'd run as far away as he could. That's a greater love than what he felt and feels for Jessica. It's part of why I think the loss of Jessica may haunt him, but the potential loss of Dean stops him dead. It's partly "I lost her; I can't lose you" but that's not everything. There was that deeper layer from the very beginning, and I think it's the strongest thread in the end. It's what drew him away in the pilot, brought him back in Scarecrow, gave him pause in Salvation, and has driven him thus far for most of what we've seen of S2.
So he chooses not to kill in Devil's Trap. Jessica for Dean. And in the same gesture, he is on some level asking John: Mom for us. If that's what it takes. It's a trade he's willing to live with.
Each brother is saved in Devil's Trap by the other's absolute love for him. That should be beautiful, and nothing else. But it's never that easy, is it? Kudos to the show for not leaving it pretty. And I'll say it again: the marrow is where it's at. Devil's Trap wouldn't be half the episode it is, if we didn't see the follow-through of them dealing with consequences in S2.
~ ~ ~
"I'm surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn't you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this 'killing this Demon comes first'. Before me, before everything."
There's a moment of silence as Sam glances in the rear view mirror at his brother. The Impala is reverberating with something more than their father's words. For he has been within these walls before, and though they may have faded against the immediate rush of anger and panic, here in the silence before the world turns white, it might be that he is hearing two other voices. Echoes preserved within the solid walls and kept warm in the fatigued seats.
"What you said about Mom... you never told me that before."
"Oh, god. We're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?"
"Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?"
"I'm the one who dragged you away from her in the first place."
"I don't blame you."
"I want you to tell me what that secret was."
"You're my brother, and I'd die for you. But there are some things I need to keep to myself."
"Well, that's 'cause you're a freak."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Well, I'm a freak, too. I'm right there with you all the way."
"How the hell would you know how I feel?"
"It's called being a good son."
"Tell the truth. You can't tell me this doesn't freak you out."
"...This doesn't freak me out."
"Yeah? What makes you so sure?"
"Because I'm the oldest, which means I'm always right."
"Are you telling me you're cool with just following the line and letting him run the whole show?"
"If that's what it takes."
"Yeah, but this isn't like always."
"Nobody's dying tonight."
"Dean, if that were true... why didn't Meg mention a trade?"
"Everything stops until we get him back, you understand me? Everything."
So he answers their father, and his answer is a clear and steady promise to himself on behalf of the only other person in the world by whom those echoes can be heard.
"No, sir," he says. "Not before everything."
S1: THE END
God, I love this show. I hope that comes across, despite my criticism of it at times. 'Cause this? Right here? It all adds up and it all makes sense, and they don't forget to tally the results. I fucking LOVE this show.
And major thanks to my favorite SPN fangirl in the world, dotfic, for the quick beta and for the unending encouragement. *HUG* If y'all have enjoyed this catalogue at all, you need to thank her, not me, because she is the one who gave me the idea in the first place.
Chapter "Devil's Trap" in the Catalogue of Touches between the Brothers Winchester. And in case you missed the previous installments:
Pilot. Wendigo. Dead In The Water. Phantom Traveler.
Bloody Mary. Skin. Hook Man. Bugs. Home. Asylum.
Scarecrow. Faith. Route 666. Nightmare. The Benders.
Shadow. Hell House. Something Wicked. Provenance.
Dead Man's Blood. Salvation.
Warning: ...Well, er, I don't need to warn you that this is full of fanwank, right? Okay, then. Moving on.
~ ~ ~
They only touch three times that we witness in the course of the episode:
1- When Sam grabs Dean's arm in the exorcism scene (touch unseen but implied).
2- When Dean pats Sam on the back after they do the fireman strip (touch unseen but implied).
3- When Dean lifts Sam to his feet after killing Tom.
There is a fourth touch, implied but not shown, during the last commercial break. Whether Sam was the one who helped Dean into the car, or whether it was John, it hardly matters. There was something more significant happening than can be counted in the number of touches.
Salvation left us at a moment of grace. It was the eye of the storm, where they met naked and unashamed, and found the answer to a question they'd forgotten to ask. What happens in Devil's Trap is that a promise is built on that grace. It's made in front of a witness, their father, in a language he can hear but not understand. Not because he is blind or cruel, but simply because he is other. Not them. That matters deeply now, between them and the world. Nothing can erase the time spent building this language or lessen their awareness of it found in the eye of the storm.
We begin with the news of John's capture and possible death. It almost entirely damages Dean's grasp of their beautifully realized unity in the previous episode. I say "almost" because, while he thrusts off into his own panic mode with little attention for Sam, there is a very thin thread of nakedness still shadowing his actions and his words. Before the final phone call of Salvation, he had shown a weary sort of submission to the threat of their shared moment. Not unlike how anyone might feel, when they've said something of great impact that they know they can never put back into place inside them. Only skin and a few inches of air separated Sam from Dean's heart. Those are fragile walls, and for Dean, they'd ceased to be even that. All things physical had ceased to shelter him. Yet even though he now lived in a world where that pain and those hopes had been revealed, he didn't take it on the chin, as he had in Something Wicked or Home. It didn't snap him back tightly, for there was nowhere left to retreat.
And in his expression against the wall, as Sam walked away, I read an acceptance of something more than just this moment shared. He'd offered up his deepest fear. By revealing that, he'd lost what had been restored to him in Nightmare. Guardianship. It is something that he'd guarded religiously for the greater portion of his life, something unwillingly stripped from him in the Asylum/ Scarecrow/ Faith arc, something that had empowered him once he regained it in Nightmare. This was not Shadow, where he leaped and crashed and curled back up tight, or Something Wicked, where he bled and then breathed deep and firmed his jaw. This was a complete surrender to being undone. A realization and acceptance of the fact that Sam would never look at him through idealized eyes again. That had been one of the last thin threads of their old balance holding them in their childhood roles. No more. It was a moment of despair as much as it was a moment of trust, but see what holds him steady. It is his quiet acceptance of what the Demon would twist and taunt him with later.
"They don't need you. Not like you need them."
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
But the Demon is taunting too late. Dean has learned to trust. And Sam is listening.
Watch Sam throughout Devil's Trap; his awareness of Dean has never been before been so sharp and so full. From the opening scene to the very last, Sam's attention is focused primarily on his brother. I once would consider this a return of the same for all the hours Dean spent attuned to Sam's feelings throughout S1. But it goes far deeper than a mere kindness in the narrative.
As mentioned above, the news about John has stirred Dean up into a panicked whirlwind, and his focus is so completely on getting his father back that he drops out of touch with his brother. Throughout their scenes in the hotel room, Bobby's place and the walk along the riverside, he is tightly aware of himself and his goal. It is Sam who keeps their connection alive, in little ways from the way he walks and leans and looks, to the larger ways that later on will forever change the course of their story. Until they arrive inside the apartment which holds John, it is Sam who constantly sidles close and keeps himself in step with Dean.
He stands close against Dean's back as the interrogation of Meg begins. He steps in close to ask how Dean is after he slaps Meg. (WTF, male chivalry? Would that qualify as "archaic"?) He keeps as much of an eye on Dean as he does on Meg herself throughout the exorcism (for many reasons, but concern is surely one of them). He gently nudges Dean by the train tracks (until that conversation goes south). He keeps his pace in step with Dean's (see: below) as they walk. He steps up to keep near Dean as they survey the apartment building.
That is when Dean starts to reciprocate. When his goal is in reach, and panic subsides. But he does not trust himself to return fully to where they were in Salvation. Not in Devil's Trap. Not even during In My Time Of Dying. And what comes after... well, that's for another day.
And I'm getting ahead of myself.
Enough rambling. On with the catalogue...
~ ~ ~
22.0
Type of Contact: Referee
Deliberate?: Yes
Chick Flick?: No
Note: We can't see it (damn the lighting) but given how purposefully Dean was striding past Sam and how he turned around as Sam did, I'm almost positive that Sam grabs him by the arm or elbow or wrist or hand or *somewhere* to catch his attention.
I found it interesting at the time, although I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, that Sam is using an argument that he thinks will get through to Dean. There's the chance he is being strictly pragmatic about the possibility of her lying, but it's doubtful to me. It might be stretching things a little too much to say he's trying to get through to Dean in any way he can right now, to nudge Dean back from the brink of apparent madness. On the other hand, maybe that's another layer to it.
I find both of their arguments interesting and rather ironic. On some level, they're both trying to get their point across to the other through a hot button of sorts: Daddy love and morality. Sam reminds Dean that Meg might have lied about John. Dean reminds Sam that there is an innocent victim here.
"We could still use her. Find out where the Demon is."
"She doesn't know."
"She lies."
"Sam, there's an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there, and we've gotta help her."
But not to leave it there, they're also standing on similar sides of this moral argument as they took in Scarecrow. Sam argues for their overall goal; Dean argues for the random innocent.
Whatever their most honest motivations for advocating what and how they do here, in the end, Dean's argument wins. Ponder that from all sides. It says a lot about a lot of things.
(And I won't touch on the morality issue itself in this post. For once, I'll leave it be. Shocker!)
Honorary Mention
Type of Contact: *NSYNC
Deliberate?: I'm saying "Yes."
Chick Flick?: No
starry_ice and kernezelda pointed this out way back when I did The Benders. It's really a thing of beauty, in and of itself, but taking into account what is (possibly) motivating Sam to stay in step with Dean deepens it to a whole different level. Watch how Sam watches Dean, keeping himself in step and held back so he neither outdistances nor falls behind his brother.
Warning: This is a long sequence of steps. But I thought y'all would enjoy scrolling down. ...Er, I hope so!
Here, Sam takes a bigger step than Dean, pulling ahead. Watch how he catches himself and falls back to walking in sync. Dean barely seems to notice. If he notices at all.
The pattern breaks when Dean begins to trudge on past Sam.
Sam glances away, as well, and the moment is gone.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into simple steps, but all of these little things read to me so clearly as part of the bigger pattern. An acting choice of JP's? Second nature? Pure luck? Fanwanking out the wazoo? I'm stuck between Doors No.1 and 2. For sure, it's more than dumb luck.
What the heck, here's a poll.
Poll
22.1
Type of Contact: Aborted Herding
Deliberate?: Instinctive
Chick Flick?: No
Note: I might be seeing things here. That's not unheard of. But it also seems like something Dean would do, an instinctive sort of steadying gesture that supports and guides Sam while reminding himself that he's getting things under control. I don't find it coincidental at all that his first touch of Sam (if that be the case) happens when things start to fall into place with their plan. John is near. The Colt is loaded and ready. Sam is safe. Dean is in charge. They're getting this thing done. As in Nightmare, the rush of having a clear and immediate purpose is enough to nudge him free of his taut restraint. It's a small gesture by itself, but it's a leak in the dam.
22.2
Type of Contact: Cradle
Deliberate?: Yes
Chick Flick?: No
Note: There is nothing here that we haven't seen a dozen times over, in some form or another. Dean picks up and steadies Sam. Of itself, it's not entirely essay-worthy, just pretty to look at and satisfying to watch.
Following the train of thought from before, this is a clear and present challenge to Dean's growing sense of strength and control. I'm not suggesting that his fear of weakness prompted him to shoot Tom. That was a straight-forward display of Dean's patented "you hurt my family, and I'll kill you" mentality, the moral ramifications of which I'll save for another post, another time. In any case, this immediate threat to Sam unlatches whatever restraint Dean had left over, and from this point on through to the end of IMToD, he comes as close as he is able to being the unchecked guardian he once was. That acceptance and submission mentioned above is a strong instinct on a certain level within the family dynamic, but as an individual, the basic instinct to act is much stronger. Protecting Sam restores the world for a moment back to its familiar shape, even though his expression shows us he's not blind to what this has cost him on a moral level.
The flip side of this familiarity finds Dean falling all the way back past their moment of grace to their old balance. We'll see it in the following scene, as he questions himself in front of Sam.
Notice here how Dean tries to shoulder both burdens, father and brother.
He can't support both, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
That is the Dean of Something Wicked more so than Salvation, not so much in the content of his confession but in the attitude with which it is delivered. Saving Sam's life may have restored Dean's sense of equilibrium about himself to some degree, but it rewinds the tape a little, as well. He's still open, SW/Home-open. But no longer naked. He sees no strength in nakedness, and he's reached a place now where solid strength is welcome in whatever manner it offers itself. And if it will save his family, then that strength will overrule everything else. Guardianship.
And now the catalogue is over.
But the manlove continues...
~ ~ ~
"The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom." -A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
A lot happens in the final fifteen minutes, and a hell of a lot has come before it. This is the moment by which the brothers as a whole and Sam as one will be measured against the insight gained over the course of the season. With the event of Salvation forever changing the nature of their relationship, Devil's Trap is a baptism of fire, in a sense. It demands an answer from each of the brothers to the question they'd asked in Salvation.
"What will sever it?" This "glue" of theirs? This love. "What will it sever?"
Nothing comes free of price. And as Salvation showed us how they respect this love and are salvaged by it, Devil's Trap shows us they know the price. And they're willing to pay it in full.
Dean pays with Tom's life, and with Meg's. He pays with the line he crosses, and the unflinching determination with which he crosses it. And he pays in no small part with how he is willing to recognize this new world for what it is, and show his brother the exit wounds from his personal baptism of fire. Recognition is not submission, and he is still with one hand trying to lift the walls back around him. But recognition is also some shade of respect. Salvation's nakedness hasn't been forgotten. It's not what will hold his family together now. Dean soldiers on. And yet the trust, the grace of Salvation, is here in the confession. The ugliest of exit wounds laid bare before his baby brother. Would the Dean of pre- Salvation have done that? I find it hard to picture. It's a guarded nakedness, but it's a leap he knows Sam will catch. As Sam does.
And Sam? What does this cost him? Revenge? His future? His free will? I'd hazard a guess that the price he pays is in retrospect, which has the effect of influencing how he will handle the future. For he pays with Jessica's life, and with their mother's, by refusing to kill their father. He is saying, "I'll accept that price. If that's what it takes." And while the death of John jacks up the price of that decision after In My Time Of Dying, and we see him struggling with it in Everybody Loves A Clown, it's the bullet he's chosen to take. It's the shitty way the world works saying "Are you sure about this?" and him whispering a strained "Yes." His baptism of fire wasn't over with the chance to kill the Demon, and his choice not to. The payment continues with every single day he lives with the cost of that choice on his heart. Just as Dean does, with his exit wound.
There are moments of grace here, just as there were in Salvation. Trust played a vibrant role in the opening scenes of the cabin. Sam catching Dean's leap, of course. And Dean leaping at all. Also Sam's trust in his brother being so absolute as to prompt him to take Dean's side against their father. The layers of understanding in that gesture alone clarifies so much about their relationship. It's tempting to say there is no clear reason for Sam to choose Dean, that it is a pure trust in his brother. If Dean says this, it must be so, because he's bonded with Dean. Well, yes, but more. It's in the fact that Dean is pointing the Colt at their father. It's in the fact that their father is who he is to Dean. It's in the word Dean chooses ("different") and the way in which he says it. It's harking back to the conversations they had in Asylum, Scarecrow and Something Wicked. It's in the conversation they just had about the line Dean will cross unflinchingly and the weight that gives to his aiming of the Colt at John. It's in the fact that Dean is flinching.
This is their new world, and Sam's eyes are wide open. Seeing. Marking. Remembering. However much of a tight line it was between despair and acceptance for Dean to be as naked as he was in Salvation, this is the payoff for his trust. And although he desperately wants those walls of his back up, he relies on their fall to tell Sam things he cannot fully or clearly vocalize. It's in this moment of perfect understanding, and it's in Dean's whispered "Sam, no" near the end.
It's the most memorable thing about the manlove in this episode, that it's all in the gestures they make, and the fact that they're so clearly and solidly grounded on the experiences that have come before. This all comes to a head when the Demon is killing Dean, and Sam's love for his brother once again sparks a burst of psychic adrenaline. (Where's my spoon?) The Devil's Trap script indicates that Sam "wrenched himself" free from the wall. I think John's brief re-emergence was a catalyst, but just how much of one it was remains unclear. Now, perhaps these two surges of supernatural adrenaline from Sam are entirely as a result of his proximity to another chosen child and/or the Demon. It's a (disappointing) possibility. But while I don't believe that Sam's powers are mystically tied to Dean (although they might very well be, who knows?), but I do absolutely and unequivocally believe that Dean is the most significant love of his life.
We have just the bare bones on their childhood, so we really have no clear idea how close they were or what emotions like Sam's reaction to Dean saying "well, I don't want to" in the pilot are based on. Whatever the foundation for this love of theirs, and whatever supernatural power it may or may not control, this love was enough to pull Sam away from his "safe" world. It pulled him away from Jessica at the time when he was dreaming about her dying as his mother died, and it pulled him into the very same world with which he associates that death and from which he'd run as far away as he could. That's a greater love than what he felt and feels for Jessica. It's part of why I think the loss of Jessica may haunt him, but the potential loss of Dean stops him dead. It's partly "I lost her; I can't lose you" but that's not everything. There was that deeper layer from the very beginning, and I think it's the strongest thread in the end. It's what drew him away in the pilot, brought him back in Scarecrow, gave him pause in Salvation, and has driven him thus far for most of what we've seen of S2.
So he chooses not to kill in Devil's Trap. Jessica for Dean. And in the same gesture, he is on some level asking John: Mom for us. If that's what it takes. It's a trade he's willing to live with.
Each brother is saved in Devil's Trap by the other's absolute love for him. That should be beautiful, and nothing else. But it's never that easy, is it? Kudos to the show for not leaving it pretty. And I'll say it again: the marrow is where it's at. Devil's Trap wouldn't be half the episode it is, if we didn't see the follow-through of them dealing with consequences in S2.
~ ~ ~
"I'm surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn't you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this 'killing this Demon comes first'. Before me, before everything."
There's a moment of silence as Sam glances in the rear view mirror at his brother. The Impala is reverberating with something more than their father's words. For he has been within these walls before, and though they may have faded against the immediate rush of anger and panic, here in the silence before the world turns white, it might be that he is hearing two other voices. Echoes preserved within the solid walls and kept warm in the fatigued seats.
"What you said about Mom... you never told me that before."
"Oh, god. We're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?"
"Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?"
"I'm the one who dragged you away from her in the first place."
"I don't blame you."
"I want you to tell me what that secret was."
"You're my brother, and I'd die for you. But there are some things I need to keep to myself."
"Well, that's 'cause you're a freak."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Well, I'm a freak, too. I'm right there with you all the way."
"How the hell would you know how I feel?"
"It's called being a good son."
"Tell the truth. You can't tell me this doesn't freak you out."
"...This doesn't freak me out."
"Yeah? What makes you so sure?"
"Because I'm the oldest, which means I'm always right."
"Are you telling me you're cool with just following the line and letting him run the whole show?"
"If that's what it takes."
"Yeah, but this isn't like always."
"Nobody's dying tonight."
"Dean, if that were true... why didn't Meg mention a trade?"
"Everything stops until we get him back, you understand me? Everything."
So he answers their father, and his answer is a clear and steady promise to himself on behalf of the only other person in the world by whom those echoes can be heard.
"No, sir," he says. "Not before everything."
S1: THE END
God, I love this show. I hope that comes across, despite my criticism of it at times. 'Cause this? Right here? It all adds up and it all makes sense, and they don't forget to tally the results. I fucking LOVE this show.