headcanon;

[freedominapathy]

identity

Sometimes, Sam tries unreasonably hard to be Sam Winchester based on memory. Usually, he’s shot down, generally by Dean. Other days, he deliberately does things Sam Winchester would never do.

faith & castiel

Faith is a foreign (and childish) concept to a man without a soul.

This affects Sam’s treatment of angels and deeply alters his relationship with Castiel. Afterall, that awe is gone. And with it, the frequent justifications he would make for the creatures that represented something greater and beautiful. No, there was no justification for Castiel’s self righteous actions that splintered his soul and even less forgiveness could be granted when his heaven-sent hero left him alone. Even when he prayed, looking for an answer, guidance, something other than complete loss of everything that seemed familiar.

Castiel abandoned him, and Sam… Well, Sam just doesn’t like him. With the recent events, he’s especially, uh, anti-Cas, and he owns an angel blade, so thank your lucky stars for Dean’s protection.

"feeling"

Sam may not inherently understand social convention, morality, and emotion, but that doesn’t mean he’s a hollow bundle of reactions. There are things we mistake for “emotion” which can be experienced by even a man without a soul. For instance, impatience, emptiness, isolation, ambition, humor, ego/self-importance/humiliation, preferences, pleasure, and the avoidance of pain (which expresses itself similarly to fear). Many of these can be explained purely as a function of a living organism, which could be why they exist independent of so-called emotions and the soul.

While Sam may not feel anger or fear or sorrow, he does dislike things that cause pain and damage of the ego. While he may not feel happiness or love, things that create pleasure are protected and encouraged. While he does not feel, period, he remembers many things that used to make him feel some particular way, and he likes those memories that caused pleasure and dislikes those that caused pain.

In many ways, these memories explain his attachment to Dean who, for all intents and purposes, should be someone he dislikes. This can be confusing to him, but he still likes this normally unlikable thing.