The candles lit in the room only pushed back the darkness and gloom within it. Nothing however could reach the heart of the man sitting within its confines. His own darkness and despondency was threating to drag him down into a pit far deeper than that to which his brother had been sent.
A pit from which there would be no return.
His brother lay beside him, freshly dressed and cleaned, the rituals of death taken care of by his own hand, but even still the stench of death was beginning to make itself known and Sam knew that if he let that smell invade him he would never be free of it. For him it was the stench of failure and defeat.
He had completed his final act of love for his brother, had tended and cared for him in death as Dean had for him in life but now was the time to finish it. Now was the time to say farewell and end with the final act of mourning.
He reached forward and for the first time since his brother had placed it round his neck that long ago Christmas night Sam removed the amulet that Dean wore, the amulet that was his brother's most cherished of possessions. Sam slowly lowered his head pausing for a moment, a silent prayer escaping from his lips, this final act confirming that his brother was truly lost to him and a single tear rolled from his eye.
He reached across his fingers brushing his brother's hair and then leaning over, with a single word of regret for having failed him, he gently kissed Dean's head, his heart freezing with the coldness of his brother's skin under his touch.
He wrapped Dean in the blanket from the bed and then lifted him, hugging him close, struggling to carry the weight, but refusing to give in and ask for help. This was his job, his right, and his burden alone to bear.
Outside, the car sat waiting, a shining example to the care and devotion of his brother to all things that he held dear to him in his life. The last of the sunlight danced on her ebony paint like flickering flames waiting to consume them both as he placed his brother inside her warm embrace for the final time.
Bobby was waiting for them at the graveside. A small clearing in a circle of tall trees, hidden from view, safe and sheltered. The coffin, a small, plain box lay already in the freshly dug grave, it's simplicity reflecting how Dean had lived his life, simply and without fuss.
Sam laid his brother down and dropped into the grave, then gently and tenderly he pulled his brother's body to him, hugging him briefly before lowering him past him, cupping his head to cushion it as it touched the rough wood beneath. He placed his brother's lighter in his hand, a little light for him in the darkness and, he hoped, a light for him to find his way back home.
Sam rested his hand on his brother's heart and for one moment almost gave into to the urge to simply give up and lie down too, his heart as ripped to pieces as the chest that lay under his touch. Somehow he managed to pull himself up and finish his task, to bury his dead.
He placed a little cross at the head of the grave and turned as Bobby gripped his arm his own grief and sadness evident in his face.
His brother's voice came to him then, his heartfelt plea for him to keep fighting and Sam realised that he would never give up, because for him to do that meant that his brother had failed too and Sam would never let that happen.
Not while there was still work to do.