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Dean had a complicated relationship with his dad. As the years passed after his death and Dean learned to let go, he also learned that he had a lot of hate for the man. No doubt he loved him as well, he would have died a million times for his father. It almost seemed like he had.
But the weight of resentment was there too. John Winchester loomed large in his mind, in the world-ending missions of Dean’s life, and in the small moments of his every day. He swore sometimes when he opened the trunk of the Impala, or flipped through his journal, he could still smell him. That particular mix of leather, motor oil, gun powder, and whisky. He wanted to wade in it, curl up in it and feel safe again.
After the fire Dean watched him transform. It was a slow transformation, but it was complete. He became drill sergeant and captain and boss rather than father. Now that Dean was an adult he could see all the fear that drove him. He couldn’t imagine knowing all the dangers of this world and having two small boys in his charge. He didn’t think he would do the same as his father, but he could understand him. The terror and hurt that drove him to ship them all over the country in search of some never-ending closure. Dean didn’t like to think about it much. When he did the same image of the fire burned his retinas and threatened tears, even after all these years.
He just knew that the love and the hate he had for his dad was never ending, that it seeped into every decision he made. John Winchester had been dead for years but Dean would never stop being his blunt little instrument. He was shaped and formed under those rough hands like a lump of clay. He was beholden, forever, to his father’s whims. His life was never and could never be his own. Dean wasn’t upset about it, he packed up all those feelings a long time ago. It didn’t matter that he knew he would carry out his dad’s orders for the rest of his life. “Protect Sammy” became who he was and he didn’t know how to remove that part of himself anymore more than he could remove his own heart. Frankly, he didn't want to. Even if he knew it was all bred from his dad’s issues, it was all mixed up in him now.
Sometimes, he would be too exhausted after a hunt and let Sam drive. And if he fell asleep in the passenger seat there was this split second before he fully awoke, that he was still a kid, and his dad was the one driving. Sammy tucked away, the backseat looming large around his tiny frame, like the car somehow knew how much room he would one day need.
And the rumbling rhythm of the tires on some country road, and the low rock music would transport him back. It was only for a second, but it could feel like a lifetime. It was a lifetime. He could still hear the sharp crack of his dad’s voice in his head.
And then he would be back. His adult body shuffling against the leather seats of his home. The pain of loss would hit him hard in those moments. A movie reel of the dead would flash in front of him and he would want to go back. Back to when he was small, and his dad was driving and Sam was safe. Before dad died, and before Sam’s strange powers and the demon blood, before Sam’s cold body on that mattress in South Dakota, before the hellhounds, before Hell--his own and Sam’s, before Sam lost his soul, before he came back so broken.
Somehow one, man, John Winchester was the cause of it all. Like the center of some rotten onion that made up the boy’s universe. Peel back all the layers and he was there. One man who refused to lay down, who defied everyone to push himself into a part of the world he didn’t belong.
And Dean looked up to him for that. Still thought of his dad as the superhero sometimes, the greatest hunter the world had ever known. He was a bulldozer and a brute and he never gave an inch, no matter the cost. The only thing that ever slowed him down was his love for his sons. He gave his life for Dean.
And as much as it still hurt every day to think about, he also hated John for doing that. It was a selfish act that trapped his sons in this life, trapped Dean in this life until his last breath. And these days Dean was hoping that breath was sooner rather than later. Because he was so tired.
Every year, every new big bad, every new world-imploding mistake they had to fix, he thought he was done, he was so exhausted. He thought he had been out of energy for years. But when push came to shove there was a portion of John Winchester that would relay his orders somewhere in Dean’s head and he would get up again. Do the work again, fight the evil thing again. He had to. Though he was so broken he didn’t know how it was possible. But in the end he didn’t have a choice. His father gave his life so Dean could keep going, so he kept going.
Every day he pushed on. Tried not to think of his dad’s hands. The hands that punished and praised and fought and clawed until there was nothing left. Exactly like his own hands.