#daddyweird

because i read them as engaged in covert incest, or symbolic incest, in this sort of self-immolating mobius coil, which dean doesn't really acknowledge or realize that john is also in (until it's too late) and which john refuses to look right at because he needs dean and hates himself for needing dean and hates dean for needing him too while also wanting to give dean everything. it's very messy. i'm a fan.

in terms of articulate headcanons, it's hard to give you too many concrete things here. most of what i have is nebulous vibes lol. but okay.

dean's canon anger and jealousy over john's various hookups i think would manifest in interesting ways, both during the years sam is there (more covertly) and when he is gone (more overtly). dean understands that a wife -- the role he symbolically fills, not that he acknowledges it as such and instead buries deep into elemental understanding alone -- is entitled to certain things, including fidelity. as a teen and young adult, blocking john's attempts to go out, biting his lip and reminding him of the budget, of the fact that they have booze here, going to the bar to bring him home if he stays out too late, especially hanging around if there's a woman on his arm. and rationalizing it to himself as making sure his father doesn't spend too much of their very limited money, that he won't be tired and surly the next morning and snap at an already cantankerous sam, that any hunter needs someone to watch his back and make sure a succubus doesn't take him home.

and in the stanford years, that sort of entitlement over john's sex life becoming more overt, insisting (in a toothy grin sort of way, never demanding directly, of course) on sharing a room when they're on the same job even though john's become a bit more accustomed to privacy as he's worked more and more jobs away as the boys aged.

and that entitlement over his father's things, like cologne and aftershave and clothing omg. the jacket in the pilot episode, dean doesn't even think twice, grabbing it is as natural as breathing. (don't we see the same jacket in After School Special? the clothing entitlement started young). dean borrowing his father's razor, his father's skin mags, his father's toothbrush. running it over his teeth and tongue and making himself gag, just a little, with it at the back of his throat before the sensation shocks him out of it, spits the frothy toothpaste in the sink, tries not to think about the fact that he's hard or why.

john has a huge degree of entitlement over dean and dean's body as well. different, though. not jealousy but a too-close sense of pride in his hookups. didn't think too much about it and kept a distance when dean was younger but when he's of an age to sit comfortably with his fake id in the bar, to be of an actual age to be in that bar, and watching all the attention float around him, the heady desire that coalesces in the eyes of people who want to devour a young and beautiful thing like dean. protective, john would tell himself, that's all it is when he's observing. protective and amused, sure, when dean's kissing that beautiful blonde right at the bar itself, kiss drunk red lips. and pride, normal pride, when dean makes sure to find john in the crowd, over his pool game or across the bar, locks eyes and dean's face relaxes into an easy smile, reassured. dean's being smart, knowing his surroundings, and the flare in john's chest is just love for his boy, joy at his joy, and if there's a sense of affirmation that dean belongs to him, it's fatherly. it's fatherly.

it's not attraction between them, not really. it's triangulated and complex. they don't want to fuck each other but are disturbingly entitled to each other. john doesn't respect dean, not properly, but he loves him fiercely. dean admires his father and resents him but can't let himself acknowledge the second part of that, and the one thing he doesn't feel entitled to (not yet) is that resentment and anger. it comes out as a desire to be close beyond reason, to force his father to see him, to look at him, to acknowledge him and to give him what he is due.

they have no boundaries. sometimes the motel has only a room with one bed and they fall asleep to each other's snores and wake up with scents that are mingled and similar, bodies that are too similar, faces that look the same in sleepy waking and they recognize themselves in the other. sometimes dean jerks off to john's skin mags while john's in the shower and the door isn't closed the whole way. sometimes john goes to check on dean and finds him getting a blowjob in the impala or behind the bar and sometimes john keeps his distance and watches and tells himself it's just his job to have his kid's back and make sure he didn't take home a succubus.