A/N: So this is based off a headcanon I saw on Tumblr where someone said that the scene in "Lazarus Rising" where Dean is walking down the road is so touching because it shows that Sam bothered to change his brother's ripped and bloody clothes. So I used that as a starting point and this is what came out. Enjoy, and please R&R!
They say that time flies when you're having fun; what they don't mention is that it also flies when your brother only has one year to live before being dragged downstairs for an eternity of torment. It had been a tough year for the both of them, with Dean trying to forget about his eminent expiration date in order to continue with the hunts. But it was always there, thick in the air like human ash after a nuclear detonation. It could be pushed to the back of the mind, but between the wild one night stands and the nonstop hunting, the quiet moments were anything but a relief, as it gave them both time to contemplate the dwindling time that remained to the two brothers. That in and of itself was torment enough and more often than not lead to arguments as both tried, in their own dysfunctional way, to dissuade the other from attempting to protect the one person in the world with whom they couldn't live without.
Cradling the stiffening body of his dead brother in his arms, Sam wished he could go back to those heated quarrels and change their outcomes; to say some magic word that would have halted this nightmarish chain of events that culminated in Dean's death.
Muted sobs wracked Sam as he brokenly repeated Dean's name, foolishly willing life back into a body that had been thoroughly mutilated, the soul ripped from flesh and presumably dragged into the fiery belly of Hell. Green eyes stared unseeingly ahead until Sam gently closed them, taking a moment to cup Dean's still face in one giant palm, feeling the tackiness of drying blood that had been splattered when the hellhounds came to collect.
Gathering his older brother carefully in his arms, Sam stood and proceeded to make his way out of the house, barely noticing in his grief the body of the poor girl whom Ruby had possessed and Lilith had subsequently stolen in order to get past the wards. Taking care not to bump Dean's head on anything (Mustn't hurt Dean, have to fix Dean, have to save Dean, Deandeandeandean, the primal part of his brain chanted, as if his brother was simply sleeping instead of dead), Sam made his way to the Impala. There, he gently laid Dean across the backseat before climbing through the driver's door to stare blankly, as if he had never seen a steering wheel before. Dean had only let him drive a handful of times, which gave the whole situation a dream-like feel (Take care of my baby or I'll haunt your ass, Dean had said, only half-jokingly). Sam had the sudden urge to key the car, to take a sledgehammer to it and destroy it until Dean came back to demand what the hell Sam thought he was doing and to tear him a new one for daring to defile his baby. But the impulse was gone as quickly as it had manifested, and Sam slowly turned the key and drove off in a haze, the world soft and blurry around the edges and everything feeling not-quite-real.
Somehow he made it to Bobby's, where he stumbled from the car and met the older man's frantic questioning with silence, uttering only a single sentence, "Dean, he's uh, he's dead." Bobby grieved as a father would, and when he hugged the younger Winchester, Sam stood, stiff and unresponsive, as a man dead.
They prepared Dean for burial. Bobby had seemed confused at first, wanting to give Dean a proper hunter's funeral; but Sam simply shook his head and quietly insisted on burying his brother. Bobby's lips thinned and after a moment, he silently nodded his agreement.
Sam cleaned his brother's wounds, wiping the ragged gashes with a soft cloth and dipping it back into a bowl of water that was quickly becoming rust-colored, small waves rippling from the center in an almost biblical red sea. Tears silently streamed down Sam's face, and as he spoke softly to the cold body before him his tongue tasted of saline and sorrow. Dean's shirt wasn't much more than rags at this point, and Sam cut it off and discarded it in favor of a soft black shirt, clean and smelling of Dean.
Sam had dug many graves in his life (all part of the job description), but in that moment, nothing felt heavier than that first shovelful of dirt that marked his brother's final resting place. He kept at it, shovelful after shovelful until he was deep in a dank, cold tomb in earth's crust. Bobby helped him lower the coffin into the ground, carefully, until there was the soft thump of wood meeting dirt. He stood gazing down into the darkness for a few moments, lost in thought, before grabbing the splintering handle in calloused hands and painstakingly refilling the grave, trying to control his hitched breathing and see through the film of grief in his eyes.
Sam didn't ask for help and Bobby didn't offer, knowing that this was something that he had to do himself. Sam patted down the tight packed earth and adjusted the wooden cross that served as the only marker for the memory of his brother. Dean had never been religious, seemingly not being able to believe that some ultimate good could exist when he had seen so much evil, and he would've hated Sam's small religious gesture, scoffing at his prayers for Dean's doomed soul. Sam clenched his fists at the thought, anger suddenly overcoming him and tinting his vision red as he made one last promise to his brother: I will bring you back, no matter what.