whatever you do don’t think about stanford sam up at 3 am laying awake in his dorm bed wondering where dean is. if dean is safe or if he’s hurt or he needs help or he’s dead, and, oh god, he has to sleep because he has an exam tomorrow but oh my GOD what if dean’s dead and he doesn’t even know?—
Possessed by the way S01 initiates with Sam wanting nothing to do with either John or Dean. He's already been looking at rings and he has his mind set on a future with Jessica. A future that goes up in smoke and leaves him bereft and a black hole of a man with nothing but an inferno of rage swirling inside of him. All he wants to do is hunt this demon, get vengeance, and then get back to school. Fill the void. And that's what Sam thought Dean wanted, too. Isn't that what he and Dad were always fighting for? But it's not. All Dean wants— has ever wanted— was to have his family back together again.
The most important thing to Dean, even more than his wish for all of them to be together again, is keeping each of them safe. Nothing is more important than everyone's livelihoods. While Sam and John are driven by fear, anger, and grief, Dean is driven by love. As much as he wants to be with Sam and John again, that desire is not worth risking their lives, and nothing comes before that. Nothing. That's why when Meg uses them as bait for John and sics the Zoroastrian shadow demons on them, Dean insists on letting John go his own way. And Sam is furious. He's been on edge this whole time, wanting to locate John, wanting to get this hole in his chest filled already. He doesn't want to be sidelined in this quest for revenge because all that's all that drives him. The only thing fueling Sam is anger and rage. He's so much like John in that "obsessive" way, and mirrors him like that. Nothing in Sam's or John's mind comes before their mission.
icpe
