This is just some crazy rambling thing and maybe too biased (I mean like towards wincest slash) for you. You can just ignore it if you want to!
You know, my country's banned our access to websites like Youtube and twitter, and I gotta set a proxy server to get to those websites. Something's wrong with my laptop and the proxy server couldn't work on it, so I turned to my dad's computer and finally got to watch vids of Comic con 2012 Spn panel. All I'm saying is I just found out how the story's gonna start out in S8. So it's like, Dean's been missing more than a summer and Sam just stops looking because he doesn't know where to and decides to quit hunting, picking up where he'd left years ago. He builds a relationship with some girl (must be sweet. Hope she won't die this time,) runs into a dog that he decides to keep, and gets himself a car. Why does he think this kind of apple pie life that didn't work for his brother would work fine for him?
Looking back, Sam said in Defending Your Life that he actually felt good because he'd left his past behind and decided to move on with his life (a line that's a little OOC to me,) and in Time for a wedding Dean said to Sam, "it's stupid to think that you need me around all the time. You're a grown-up," and then got this forlorn look on his face. These two episodes upset me in their own ways, but Sam's bold plan of moving on ALONE seems to build on them. Well of course it' not just two episodes. As the writers point out S7 is kinda about isolation. And at the end it's not just that the boys are isolated from all the things and people they know, but from each other as well. But what about things that have been built in the former seasons? What about the point Zachariah made in It's A Terrible Life? They may hide from each other, lie to each other, or even betray, but they never stop trying to forgive and understand and they know sticking together is their only chance to survive in times of turmoil. Sam might have dumped a lot of his guilty crap in Hell (which I seriously doubt) but this interdependence with Dean that had become one of his instincts he HAD to bring out with him, because it's his lifeline, what's holding him together through all kinds of torture waiting ahead. Sam may proceed on his own, since at this point Dean is not in the same world and there's nothing he can do about it, but he'll never walk away from Dean's influence. Dean' gone, and he's taken a part of Sam with him, which will just keep dragging Sam back just like a magnet.
S8 talks about "what Sam and Dean WANT." One reason I'm always upset by the boys' separation is that once they decide to go separate ways they know there SHOULD be no getting back together. I mean, the we-fight-we-break-up-we-kiss-we-make-up thing is not going separate ways. If one continues to hunt and the other settles down then they should never meet for each other's sake cause if they do, chances are they'll be back on the road again leaving behind them one little beautiful dream shattered. If Sam WANTS to move on and Dean KNOWS (even SENSES) that then Dean should never reappear in Sam's life, or there's selfishness involved. Then back to the question, is this apple pie life what Sam WANTS? He surely wanted in his childhood, through his adolescence, during the years in Stanford. But when Dean was dying in the hospital and he didn't know how to find and kill the thing that's hunting Dean's soul, Sam stood beside Dean's bed and said, "You can't give up, not now. We're just starting to be brothers again." instead of walking off, away, back "on the right track." On the Christmas that was supposed be the last one with Dean around, Sam got them eggnog and bought Dean presents, despite how much he didn't want to because this was supposed to be the LAST ONE. Then in After School Special when Sam's former teacher asked him, "Are you happy, Sam?" there wasn't an answer. Maybe he hesitated. Sometimes between what Sam HAS TO DO and what he WANTS TO DO, the line's blurred. Dean died God knows how many times in the mystery spot, and he died again under the teeth and claws of hellhounds. Sam could've respected natural order, could've mourned and let go. But months he spent hunting down trickster, clinging to the remote hope that this would bring Dean back. And in the summer when Dean's dead and tortured in hell, Sam trod a treacherous road because if he was not gonna have Dean back, he wanted revenge. These are far from what he describes as have-to-dos. These are the points where he should quit, but he didn't. He chooses his brother over apple pie life, because this is what he wants after everything, Dean being ALIVE AND HAPPY. Sam describes hunting as a responsibility, a have-to-do. But it's also the thing directly associated with Dean. Maybe Sam chooses to quit after Dean's drawn into purgatory because everything about hunting arouses pain and emptiness in him, reminds him of the fact that Dean's gone and this time even though he wants to bring him back he doesn't know where to start. Maybe Sam chooses to quit because he can't have what he wants and it hurts so much that he has to stop looking. He may move on, but he never stops thinking about whether Dean's alive, what's it like in Purgatory and what's Dean doing down there. These thoughts will dig a big black hole in the foundation on which Sam builds his house. And Sam may be waiting for a wind to bring it down.
And here Dean comes. He may or may not say a word but Sam will follow him either way.
Yeah, this show is called supernatural, not the art of domestic life. No doubt Sam and Dean will be back on the road again. Sam may still think he's got to do this or bad things will happen or the world will end or he just can't let Dean go alone, but he can't deny it just feels RIGHT.
At the end of S7 I said no matter what the writers had to offer in S8 I wouldn't be interested, but I guess I was wrong. I do want to see how the boys try to live the way they WANT with the influences of past events. I do want to see how they find out who they are. And I do want to see Sam having a girlfriend, a car and a DOG.