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It's to be expected that people don't do well with death, evolution had made sure of that. Why approach something cold and dead when it could make you ill. It didn't contain the soul of the person you loved, so why remain attached.
It worked most of the time. The body was treated with respect, buried, cremated, whatever. Respectful sure, but with the hindbrain screaming at you to get away from the body, simple and neat. Dean had seen so many bodies that he didn't care anymore, been the one to kill them too often
Death didn't scare him in the way it should've. He had no revulsion, no fear of his cold, waxy flesh, no want to gag at the smell of putrid insides or squirm at his cold, glassy gaze.
What scared him was the loss. He needed Sam more than he needed oxygen most days, now he was just... gone. Stabbed through the back in a place where he should've been there to protect him, to tie him down and stop him from following the shadows in his head.
Sam would've hated him if he did. Snarled and hissed and spat about keeping him on a leash like dad had, keeping him like a pet more than a son or a brother – a person. But then Sam would be alive right? If he'd just done his job as an older brother and protected him he'd be alive.
This was his fault, put too much weight onto Sam's feelings, his feelings, even; he now knew he didn't care how much Sam hated him, just that he was alive and breathing, straining against rope and shouting till his voice went hoarse.
That sweet voice will never go hoarse now.
Dad would've bashed his skull in for doing what he'd just done, he'd completely ignored the protocols of a hunters burial – to torch the body and pay your last respects so nothing slimy and dead could wear the face of the person you loved more than anything.
Dean had dragged Sam's still-warm corpse to the car, laid him out beautifully in the backseat after cleaning the clotting blood off him, stuffing the hole with whatever he could find, shhhh, sleep Sammy. Sleep.
Knowing death like the back of your hand didn't make it better and he didn't know why. He'd seen dad die, given his life for Dean's own, he'd killed and burnd friends, strangers, family, monsters. Why couldn't he burn Sam?
He should be able to. Sam left him for college, Sam wanted a normal life. Sam had always wanted to get away from the family, from him. Dragged back out of necessity, and temporarily to be that.
Shouldn't he at least honour his wishes in death – to be left alone, allowed to rest and be free of the constant cycle of violence that were their lives.
He didn't though. He'd never respected Sam's wishes alive and he wasn't going to start when he was dead, not like he could do anything about it, he felt ill he felt ill he felt ill he understood dad more than ever now and hated it.
Sam stayed with him for as long as he could keep the corpse in one piece. He got used to the smell, the flies, the sickness. He needed Sam more than anything else, dad was gone now too, who else did he have. He powdered Sam's face and filled his eye sockets when the eyeballs decayed, tried to keep his skin from getting too blue, then too green.
He'd barely eaten in weeks, what was there to eat for, he couldn't go on alone and he couldn't kill himself either, it would be cowardice if he tried and there was a certain level of fortitude required to starve yourself for so long.
Once necrosis set in on Sam's body there wasn't much he could do other than rip the flesh away from the bone (bare handed, he did it barehanded, it was the last touch he'd ever want if he did it right) burned the flesh, it reeked. He could barely lift handfuls of it now, tired and weak beyond belief. He was going to save the bones for... something, he could barely remember now. Tired
A mouthful of it. It should kill him soon. Dad always said that they'd be the death of each other and he was set on making sure it was the case – even a dead man could kill you if you wanted them to.
Fever set in not a day later. Whatever had been festering inside Sam for so long was finally getting to him, good, it was his fault Sam was dead, and it would be Sam's fault Dean was, as it was always going to be. First came frost, then flame, then sharp convulsions that felt like they'd tear through paper-thin skin before it all just. Stopped.
It hurt so much and he knew he deserved every second of it