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Sam couldn't tell.
He searched his father's face for something of what Dean could see, strained his ears for a wrong note or misplaced syncopation in his urgent, impatient words, but there was nothing. Nothing that wasn't Dad.
"Dean.…"
Dean shook his head infinitesimally. His jaw was clenched and his face sick.
"Jesus Christ," Sam muttered, half-epithet, half-prayer.
He couldn't tell.
His father didn't flinch at the name, didn't even blink. "It's okay, Sammy, just trust me," he said in the barely-remembered voice that had soothed Sam's nightmares when he was very small. It was his father's voice, and Sam looked to his brother in desperation.
"It's not him." Dean sent him a quick, anguished look before fixing his gaze on their father once more, bringing his free hand up to brace the weapon as his arm trembled with fatigue and adrenaline. "Sammy, I can't...," he whispered, and Sam didn't have a word of reassurance, because Dean was pointing a gun at the man Sam would swear was their father, and nothing could make that okay.
Sam moved to his brother's side and slipped behind him, slow and careful, until he could reach for the Colt. He covered Dean's hand with his own, wrapping his thumb around the weapon's stock, laying his palm over the back of Dean's hand, curling his fingers over his brother's. Dean's skin was corpse-cold, icy as the shards slicing irreparable gashes through Sam's gut.
His father nodded approval. "Give Sam the gun, Dean," he said in the gentle, implacable tone he'd used when one of them balked at a lesson when they were children.
Sam gripped his brother's shoulder. A violent shudder wracked Dean's body but he nodded, and his hands kept their aim true as Sam squeezed their fingers tight on the trigger.
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Content warning: Sam and Dean make it through this story, but John doesn't.