Just A Normal Life

[gwaevalarin]

I'm extremely baffled by people being angry with Sam and calling his behaviour OOC.

From season 1 (and even before that) everything Sam ever wanted was a normal life away from hunting. Then Dean asked him to help find their Dad, then the demon blood happened, and slowly but surely Sam gave up on that dream. That doesn't mean he didn't want it anymore. It just means that he lost hope that it could ever happen. He believed that he didn't fit into a "normal" life anymore.

But then suddenly Dean was gone. And so was Bobby and Cas, and anyone Sam had ever cared about. And I believe that initially, Sam just couldn't face that and ran from the life he knew because everything in this life reminded him of the people he had lost - mostly Dean - and he simply couldn't bear it.

So, with some luck, he ended up in the sort of life he had always wanted. And by the time he realised that, he also realised that it was actually working. He figured out that all the demon blood and Lucifer and the Apocalypse hadn't in fact put an end to his dreams. He had by not believing anymore. So for one year, Sam lived the life he always wanted.

And now he doesn't want to give it up again.
That doesn't mean that he loves Dean any less. That doesn't mean that he won't be there in a heartbeat whenever Dean needs him. He got up in the middle of the night the moment he learned Dean was alive and back, didn't he?

He even came back to his old life, because he realised that not making sure Kevin was okay was a pretty shitty move, so he tries to fix that the best he can. Because he is still the same kind and amazing guy he always was, who will make mistakes, but who will admit to these mistakes and make up for them.

But he doesn't want the hunter's life back. And Dean has no right to demand that of him just because he can't give it up. I'm entirely convinced that Sam would be thrilled if Dean decided to give up hunting himself and moved in next door, but he knows that will never happen, and he'd never asked that of Dean. He will accept that Dean will continue hunting, and he won't love his brother any less for it.

And that, I believe is the most healthy approach on life in general and their relationship in particular I've ever seen on this show.

Dean, on the other hand, finally has to learn that holding people too close means that they are unable to breathe. And that's when you risk losing them. Not by letting them follow their own path, and certainly not if the person we are talking about is your own brother who loves you as much as Sam loves Dean

Comments

[katwoman76.livejournal.com]

You mean "if you walk out that door, don't you ever come back"...AGAIN!!!
Like it didn't hurt Sammy so bad the last two times he had to hear that. *le sigh*

[gwaevalarin.livejournal.com]

Maybe Dean won't actually say it like that again, but he already made it pretty clear this episode that, in his mind, Sam leaving hunting behind is pretty much the same thing as Sam leaving him.