#lawboy!sam

oh ugh, yes. Loads of meta was written back after 13.11 about Sam falling into a low point emotionally. It pings back to a lot of Sam’s darker moments in the series (including his “you can never go back to your family” speech to Jimmy in 4.20, the speech he gave (ghoul)Adam about being in hunting for life in 4.19, and like... the entire second half of s8 where he went from undertaking the trials because he wanted to live to literally actively wanting to die by 9.01). I mean, this is what drives Sam to some of the horrifically destructive things he’s undertaken out of extreme desperation to save Dean (believing Dean was “not strong enough” to kill Lilith in s4 and running away to undertake that himself, talking with Death in 9.01, and everything he did to save Dean from the Mark despite knowing the entire world was at risk because of it, etc.) Like he told Charlie in 10.18:

Sam: You know, when Dean came to get me at school, I-I told myself... One last job, you know? One more job. And then when -- when I, um... When I lost Jess, I, again, told myself, one more job. There's always one more job, you know? And one more job and one more job, and then I was gonna go back to law and -- and to my life.

He’s accepted that this is his life now, and he’s okay with that, as long as Dean is there with him:

Sam: I guess I really understand now that... This is my life. I love it. But I can't do it without my brother. I don't want to do it without my brother. And if he's gone, then I don't...

But that was now almost FOUR YEARS ago, and Sam’s been through some additional stuff since then. When Dean was first taken by Michael, he had all the AU Hunters, Cas, Jack, Mary... he had both support and people who relied on him to hold their entire group together. He stepped up and didn’t fall into that pit of despair like he has so many times in the past.