Then Sam found him.

John: You know, when, uh, when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be - I'd be wrecked. And you - you'd come up to me, and you'd put your hand on my shoulder, and you'd look me in the eye, and you'd...you'd say "It's okay, Dad."

John: Dean. I'm sorry.

Dean: Why?

John: You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should've been saying that to you. You know, I put...I put too much on your shoulders. I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy. You took care of me. You did that. And you didn't complain, not once.

John: I just want you to know...that I am so proud of you.

Dean: This really you talking

John: Yeah, it's really me.

Dean: Why are you saying this stuff?

John: I want you to watch out for Sammy, okay?

Dean: Yeah, Dad, you know I will. You're scaring me.

John: Don't be scared Dean.

So, he takes the fucking time to apologize for laying too much on Dean's shoulders, to tell him how proud of him he is.

Then he lays the biggest burden he's ever placed on his shoulders (killing Sam) and walks out and dies so that Dean can live.

John Winchester is a rat bastard!

Even in saving Dean, he does it in the manner that causes the most harm possible.

And yes, I know Dean does it to Sam in a year's time.

It's fucked up then too.

I love Dean Winchester, but there are definitely times I want smack him upside the head or shake some sense into him, there's even one, no two, stretches where I can't even stand to look at him because of how he's behaving, mostly towards Cas.

Tessa: Stage 3: Bargaining

Dean: I'm serious. My family is in danger. See, we're kind of in the middle of this, uh...war. And they need me,

Tessa: The fight's over.

Dean: No, it isn't.

Tessa: It is for you. Dean...you're not the first soldier I've plucked from the field. They all feel the same. They can't leave. Victory hangs in the balance. But they're wrong. The battle goes on without them.

Dean: My brother, he could die without me.

Tessa: Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. Nothing you can do about it.

Tessa: It's an honorable death. A warrior's death.

The battle goes on without them: they do eventually replace him with Adam. But, if he hadn't saved Sam, there would be no one for Lucifer to possess. So, no the battle doesn't go on without him.

It's an honorable death. A warrior's death: no, it's not. it's a death that occurs after the battle is over, in a hands off, no fighting back situation. Not at all dissimilar to the shitty death he gets in the finale. I could have lived with it if the three of them went down together in the battle against Chuck, is it what I wanted? no, but I could have lived with it, it would have meant something. But no, its a pointless fight - after the war is over - and he's not even killed by the bad guys, he's killed in a hands off, no way to fight back manner.