What is Living Without Him?
Sam
Sam felt like he had been soldered in place, frozen, all he could feel was cold. His brother's body still felt warm in his arms, his blood coating Sam's hands, his own clothes. He shivered, but was only vaguely aware of it. Dean was gone. The life in his eyes emptied, drained. Sam couldn't stop staring into them, couldn't help looking for signs of his brother, signs of hope that Dean was only feigning death, but he only found a vacuous vessel that once held Dean's soul. Then with a sudden rush of emotion that hit him like a wave, he grabbed his brother and pressed him against his body, letting Dean's arms flail loosely as Sam rocked him. He screamed "NO!" and wept. He wept for what seemed like forever, not even registering Bobby running into the room. He didn't even hear Bobby's gasp of horror. It was only until Bobby grabbed his shoulder that Sam knew he was no longer alone and he turned, startled. At first, he was wordless, unable to utter a single syllable then he saw the tears in Bobby's own eyes and could only turn back to rocking his dead brother.
It took Bobby a few minutes to bring him back to sanity, as frail as Sam knew his thread to it was, to tell him that they had to get out of there. Sam resisted, denied that anything had happened, but as he pulled back from holding Dean, the surreal, painful reality of what had happened jolted him from his stupor of grief and everything that he had been taught, that Dean had taught him rushed back. Bobby was right and as if he was on autopilot, he carried Dean's body out of the house and placed him gently, almost reverently into the backseat of the Impala. When he stepped back, he couldn't help imagining Dean scolding him for staining it with his blood, the longing he felt to hear Dean do that stung Sam. Taking the driver's seat seemed wrong and he hesitated for a moment. He had to shake himself to open the door and climb in. He grasped the steering and could swear that he felt the warmth of Dean's hands on it, as if Dean had only just left it minutes ago. He started the engine and followed Bobby, almost mindlessly, with just enough concentration to keep his eyes fixed on Bobby's car in front of him.
Bobby told Sam that Dean would want his body salted and burned, but Sam refused. Intellectually Sam knew Bobby was right, but emotionally, he couldn't give up on Dean. He still had to find a way to bring Dean back and told Bobby that Dean would need a body to come back into. Bobby, gripped by his own grief, barely had any strength to argue and just gave in. They found a spot in Pontiac, Illinois, fashioned a homemade, crudely built pine box and placed Dean's bloodied and shredded body into it. Sam took Dean's necklace off and placed it around his own neck. He needed to feel Dean near him, to keep him focused, to remind him that he had a job to do. He had failed to save Dean while Dean was alive, but he'd be damned if he would let Dean rot in Hell. He would bring him back even if it meant going to Hell and wrestling him back with his own bare hands. It was not the life that Dean had wanted for him, but something in Sam had changed, maybe even had broken, baring a darkness that he had hoped would never reveal itself, as he had watched helplessly while his brother had been torn apart. The life that Dean had wanted for him had died with his brother.
The darkness hadn't.
Sam didn't fight it. He felt it and let it nurture with his grief. He let the anger he felt towards Lillith, the payback he relished in exacting against her feed the blackness that was there. In moments, while immersed in the horrific images of Bobby's tomes, he would find himself smiling as he designed specific tortures he would inflict upon her when he found her. When those feelings would pass, Sam would shudder at the brutality of his own thoughts. Sometimes he wondered if his father had imagined the same things about the Yellow-eyed demon. Was he becoming like him after all? With all of his rebellion to resist becoming his revenge-driven father, had he just delayed the inevitable? Was he the proverbial fruit that hadn't fallen too far from the tree? Sam had reserved that title for Dean, but now he wondered. Now, he was beginning to understand his father's obsession because now he had one of his own and the frightening part was that Sam didn't fight it. When Jess had been killed, a spark of that obsession had been ignited, but Dean's presence and common sense thinking had helped keep the flame low, but never completely extinguished. With Dean's death, there was no one there to control the burning rage that stoked the flame this time. And Sam just let it burn bright and high.
He had stayed with Bobby for a few days, but only to read his books, to return to what he did best, research. Most days, Bobby had been drowning himself into oblivion and there was a part of Sam that couldn't blame him and wished that he could numb himself with Bobby, but he knew that the only thing that would rescue him from Bobby's fate, maybe a fate even darker was Dean.
He had to get him back, no matter what the cost to him or to anyone who got in his way.
FIN. Hope you enjoyed Sam's take. Thanks for reading.