John and Sam

The relationship between father and son, John Winchester and Sam has been a rocky one for many years, but they do care about and love each other very much.

Early Years

Sam was John's youngest son with his wife, Mary, born four years after the birth of his eldest son, Dean. Sam was born May 2, 1983. On the night of November 2, 1983, exactly six months after his birth, Sam is visited by Azazel and fed demon-blood by him, as part of a deal that he had made ten years earlier with Mary when he saved John's life. Mary goes to check on Sam when she hears him crying through the baby monitor, when she goes into the nursery, she sees a dark figure leaning over the crib and assumes that it is John. When she notices that the lights are flickering downstairs, she goes down to investigate only to find John asleep in the recliner watching television. She runs back upstairs, only to be killed by the demon for interrupting him. John awakens to her blood-curdling scream as he runs up the stairs, he bursts into Sam's room and for a minute, assumes everything is fine until drops of blood drip onto his hand, he looks up in time to see Mary, pinned to the ceiling, right above Sam's crib. He rescues Sam from the crib and gives him to Dean to take outside. He tries to rescue Mary but is unsuccessful and runs outside after his boys.

Shortly after that, he begins his career of hunting supernatural creatures after he learns from Lawrence based psychic, Missour Mosely that the supernatural does exist and that that killed his wife. This truth sets him on the path of revenge against the demon. Though he tried to find the demon, for many years he was unsuccessful. Instead, he drives Sam and Dean all over the world looking for whatever he can find and kill it. For many years he managed to keep Sam out of the life, he managed to keep Sam mostly in the dark about what he did, telling Sam that he was a salesman and that he had to travel because of that.

John is shown to be overprotective of Sam. This can be attributed to the fact that Sam was his youngest for many years or because of the fact that he was the last child that Mary gave him. For whatever reason, he made the choice to keep Sam out of the life for as long as he could. He made Dean watch over Sam when he went on a hunt, and at times left both Sam and Dean with friends that he trusted.

During one hunt in Wisconsin, when he was hunting a Shtriga who was hurting children and creating illness serious enough that they had to be hospitalized, John left ten-year-old Dean in charge of Sam. According to Dean, he had been bored and was anxious to get out. When he left to play arcade games, he returned to find the shtriga about to hurt Sam. He reached for the gun that John had left for them to protect themselves with. Sam was unaware of what had happened since he had been asleep, but when Dean went to shoot the creature, John came in at the last minute and shot the creature out the window, even though it survived the assault.

John is overcome with anger and fear when Dean tells him that he left Sam unprotected. According to Dean, John never looked at him the same way again. After that, John packed the boys up and took them to Jim Murphy's while he tried to go back and find the creature. He was unsuccessful. A few years later in 1991, during the Christmas season, he is on another hunt and Dean is once again, in charge of Sam's welfare. John fails to show up for Christmas and Sam is severely disappointed by this, even though Dean tries to make him feel better by stealing presents from the neighbors and trying to make him believe that John had given them to him but Sam knows the truth.

Unknown to John, Sam had gotten him a present: An amulet that Bobby had given him to give to John. According to Bobby, the amulet was "real special" and that Sam had to take care of it. When John failed to show, Sam decided to give the present to Dean. John doesn't learn the truth about this until a few years after the fact when Dean, in a moment of anger against Sam, spilled the beans.

Around the time that Sam turned eighteen, his relationship with John greatly diminished. Sam was annoyed at the fact that John insisted on treating them like children, not realizing that John did that to protect them, not to be a jerk. Sam, around this time, got a full-ride to Stanford university; majoring in law with the goal to eventually go to law school to become a lawyer. When Sam tells John that he is going to school, this triggers one of their worst fights to date with John telling Sam that if he left, he could never come back.

Sam still left; shortly after that, Dean follows in the footsteps of his father and cut off contact with Sam. For nearly three years after that, Sam and John did not communicate with each other. During that time, Sam had no idea of the existence of his half-brother, Adam Milligan. In early 2006, John goes mysteriously missing and Dean enlists his help to find him; during that time, Dean and Sam take in Adam when his mother is murdered by the demon, Meg for revenge against John. The boys teach Adam to hunt and they resume their search for John.

Finally, on a hunt in Chicago, the Winchesters reunite with John after they fall victim to a trap set up by Meg that was actually intended for John. After watching her fall out a seventh story window, the brothers race back to their rented apartment where they find that John had broken in and was waiting for them. The brothers share an emotional reunion with him. This finally gives Sam and John a momentt to reunite and make up--which they do. John and Sam hug each other before the shadow demons attack them, nearly killing them.