AUTHOR'S NOTES: A horrible but also much more positive sequel to The Long Calendar. PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS BELOW. this one ended up much longer than expected, haha. It's also more detailed and less experimentally short-winded. Definitely got a different sort of style than The Long Calendar, but I think it works better for the topics inside. IDK. ENJOY?

Warnings: This story has mental illness, trauma, a much less interpretive subject of rape/non-con, self-deprecation, animal death, self-inflicted injuries. I will add more if I can remember other ones, but that should be the bulk of it!

1.

Dean is fourty-five — eighty-five?

Sam is two-thousand. Give or take.

The first week feels endless.

Dean has no stupid assumption that it would be easy altogether, but he had some sort of denial brewing in his fucked-up head where he envisioned Sam actually being okay with what's happening. Because why in the world would you hate being out of that godforsaken cage? Dean may have had his issues after getting out of Hell, but it felt so unbelievably good to be free of it, even if it plagued his nightmares, his thoughts. Getting out of the fire, even to drown in the aftermath, it was good. This was good.

Now hindsight is kind of a bitch, because life has essentially picked up the five-billion hell-made pieces of his brother and poured them all here, into the real world, into the living world. And Sam has no idea how to function around that. Life is very involved. Life is very complex. For a very, very, very fucking long time, Sam didn't really have to do anything but exist for someone else's pleasures; just a rag doll with a name, and a name that Sam keeps forgetting, so maybe not even that anymore. For the two millenia he had in Hell, he's only had half ayearaccumulated up top in short visits, and that… that's not enough to do jack shit. When he's plucked up and out into society again, he's directionless. Sometimes literally. Sometimes Dean needs to redirect him, because if he doesn't, Sam just stands there looking at everything like it's all written in another language.

Sam doesn't sleep, for one thing. He just paces, back hunched and eyes wide. For another thing, he's got a real thing for chewing his hands raw. By the time Dean usually catches him at night, he's got blood trickling in a heavy stream down his big-ass mitts.

Dean has to bandage the eighth of ten fingers that have been totalled this week. He sits him down on the toilet and puts brightly colored bandages on each of them. Sam will tear off the red and orange and blue ones. The other colors can sometimes keep Sam occupied for hours at a time, just like everything else. Usually, Sam's always got something unsettling to say about each hue. Pink burns, green infection, yellow bile, black like cold fingers.

Got something to say about it. Like now, as Dean wraps up Sam's middle knuckle. Sam's gnashed a pretty ugly split spot there with his teeth, and it's raw and open and Sam just sighs at it like he hadn't even been the one to fucking do it (and it drives Dean crazy, because the idea of Sam willingly hurting himself and being so casual about it scares the shit out of him). "Don't you sigh like this is an inconvenience, you dickhead," he says, and Sam ducks his head and smiles a tiny smile, like he's being a dickhead on purpose. Dean thinks the guy, for everything he's been stripped of, still enjoys busting his brother's balls.

Fortunately, Sam is docile in Dean's care so far, too. It's the best he can hope for all things considered, because the Sam that had slowly lost his mind month after month here in this apartment, he was always very docile, too (probably Lucifer preening him that way, Dean thinks bitterly). Of course, that Sam from before the rescue had only dealt with the living world one day a decade. It's almost Monday again and, while Dean is happier than he's been in almost two decades (longer, if he's honest), he still worries that maybe, just maybe, none of this will work out. Cas had said that hell trauma isn't completely fixable, but it's different for everyone. He said that there's a slim chance maybe Sam'll be sort-of-normal. That it would be a 'natural rebuilding effort' from Sam's brain to cope with reality vs. hell. Which in angel talk, Dean surmises, is something along the lines of 'hopefully he won't keep chewing his fingers raw'. He'll take what he can get. He can't give up on Sam again, not like he has before. He has to be worth something.

"Sorry, Dean," Sam replies finally. "It was… getting dark everywhere — except in my brain. And I - I haven't left yet, and I panicked because it's all just one big elevator, but it's out of order; I'm too high up. His bright hazel eyes glance down, taking in the purple and pink star-spangled bandaid Dean's placing over his damaged skin. Dollar-store shit. Dean has to actually afford things now. Sam's eyes widen just a bit. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"My bandaid's bruised all over. You took it out of the box way too harsh. Beat its face purple. You always do things too rough," he replies, petting the damn strip of plastic with a finger like its a small creature. Dean's chest tightens. It's good when he remembers anything at all; he seems to remember weird, small gaps of memory here and there, mostly about Dean. It's secretly one of Dean's great reliefs. Though, Dean also has to try to get over the fact that Sam's been without normal contact long enough that his warped brain can't distinguish living things from material things very well. Maybe because, somewhere down the line, Sam was so isolated in his torment that he desperately wanted to love anything, even if it couldn't love him back. Dean had seen these issues in Sam's previous stays, but they're so much more prevalent now that he's never leaving again.

Tapping the bandaid, Sam asks earnestly, "Can you trap devils on this?"

"What…? No — no," Dean says, and then looks down, getting his meaning. Of all the things he says, leave it to Dean to miss the more obvious and direct part of Sam's usual conversations. "No, Sammy, these are just normal stars. No sigils."

"Mm. Normal stars. They could cut down deep, right through the skin. I should be careful with this. I can't pet the dog if the stars can snip at her. I'm not the one who holds any scissors." That, Dean can agree with. He got rid of the knives and guns and scissors in the house. Pretty much had to child proof it, literally, because that's what it's come down to. It's waking up at three in the morning because he hears Sam talking to the cupboard, pulling weakly at the lock there and asking why it hated him after everything that has happened. After he tried to make everything right. Tears in his fucking eyes, like the door personally spit in Sam's face, like it threw back all of Sam's mistakes like trash at his feet.

Dean kind of had to explain that it was a physical lock, not an attack on Sam's person.

He's not sure Sam got it, anyway.

Finished with cleaning up Sam's hand, Dean tells him he's gonna pat his face, and he does. Sam blinks and startles a bit, as if the question never came to be and Dean's too handsy. "It's fine, Sam. It's not sharp at all. You trust me if I say something's sharp, right? Like your damn teeth; don't bite yourself."

Sam nods. "Sam sounds like a sharp name. Sounds like you could bleed out on it. You said it was mine?"

"… Yeah. It's yours."

Sam hums, looking down at the bandages, at Dean and then his battered fingertips, individually wrapped and cared for. "Sounds like a bad word."

Sam never forgot Dean's name. It's the one thing that never seemed to change.

2.

One step at a time, they say. There was some crappy pop song a long time ago that sang this. Dean actually didn't hate it all that much, but he was too busy pining over his old life to really get any flavor out of that present life he had been shuffling through. Now, though… Now he's guilty in how at ease he is. Granted he still knocks back way too many beers and his nerves are shot and he feels like sleeping, but mostly because he's always physically exhausted with how much he paces around his brother, like he's in Sam's orbit.

Weeks go by. There's an easiness to it, but there's plenty of bad days. There's Sam shrinking out of the kitchen with his hands over his head at the spinning fan above them, or the flames under a pot, or Pepper barking at the back door. When Dean tries to ask Sam about Hell… well — it's bad, sort of. He had never bothered trying to get anymore information out of Sammy since all those years ago when Sam first evaded his questions, but now it's important. Sam needs to heal from this, right? And sure, Dean never spoke to Sam much about his own Hell trip, but Dean's also a relatively functioning human being who is technically eighty in memory. Eighty is still way more habitable than two thousand.

(Is he really older than his hell memories now? Jesus, he never thought he'd see the day.)

"Sam?"

"Hm?"

His brother is sitting at the table with his bundles of paper; Dean had suggested it, mostly. Write down what you remember. Write down what you can comprehend about this place, about this world. Write down every little thing that comes back to you. Sam's playing with his marker, drawing crooked little faces on the back of his hand, which usually means his well is pretty dry on things he recollects for that morning. Usually — discouragingly — the pages don't get anything coherent written down. Dean isn't sure what he's expecting in just two months.

"I just…" He swallows, slides down to sit beside Sam. "I know it's… hard to talk about, but, uhm… If you ever want to talk about — y'know. Hell. You know I'm always available for talking to, right? If it feels like a lot. I guess."

Sam looks up at Dean, smiling as if he and Dean were in their twenties, before Lilith, before Azazel, just them two on the road rekindling something old.

"F'course, Dean," he says, calm and pleasant as though they were discussing old American folklore (back then, back when Sam didn't need to be told what his mother and father's names were), and looks at his paper, then scribbles on it, some of the usual ugly Sam drawings. "Sure, yeah, of course, Dean, yeah. I didn't like it very much, I guess. I mean, it hurt, and it was… horrible? Lucifer likes putting his hands under my skin, so he can feel the muscles there, because then he can help pull the weeds there where the tar black pumps through the tubes; he can clean me out after I dip in the fire and turn black—"

Dean's chair clatters loudly, and Sam startles, wide eyes turning to lock onto his brother. Dean stands there, rigid, fists clenched, brow furrowed.

He ultimately leaves the room quietly.

"… Dean?"

Sam stares at the door he left through for a long time, confused, lost.

Dean thinks maybe he should never, ever ask about Hell again.

Selfishly, for his own benefit this time, rather than Sam's.

3.

Four months.

Sam's fingers are swamped with bandaids and scabs.

"I could be your dad, y'know," Dean says one day. "I'm getting gray hair and you still look twenty-six."

"Age is just a number," Sam replies, the end of his marker in his mouth. Spoken specifically to tease.

It's very Sam-like. None of the black squiggles on the paper are helpful, but that was definitely Sam.

4.

Almost a year, and there's some sort of schedule to run. A chaotic one, but still something they can both build on day by day. Dean works from home in the hunting community, and Sam exists in his own little world, and they make it work. It's not perfect, but it's better.

There, of course, lays another obstacle to face. Dean always knew his brother was sharp as hell, even when they were really little. Like, really, really little. Their relationship has sort of devolved back into those old ways again — except it's 100% more fucked up, but they're dealing with a pretty big bomb dropped, so he likes to think they are mastering the craft. Anyway, Sam's sitting at the kitchen table staring at the fair wall, petting Pepper in his lap, same as usual, when he suddenly clears his throat. Makes Dean jump a little, as he whirls around from the sink; they've got all plastic cups and plates. And spoons. And bowls. And containers.

"What?" Dean asks, because Sam is still just staring at the wall.

When he looks back over to Dean, his brow is pinched, and he's focusing really hard on something.

"… Nothing. I'm just thinking. Sorry."

Well, thinkin's better than not thinking. Dean turns back to clean the piled dishes, listens to the sound of Sam's chair scoot backward. Instead of the expected sound of footfalls into the living room, though, Sam's moving toward him; those big bare feet always give him away. Sam's shoulder touches Dean's, and he starts to collect some of the dirty plates from his older brother's hands to clean them with wide, awkward strokes. It's an unsurprisingly amazing feeling, watching Sam partake in anything normal, so Dean just lets him do it. If there are little flecks that Sam misses, well. It's not like Dean's ever been super strict on germs.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Sam?" Dean asks, smiling a little.

Sam shrugs, looking pleased as hell with himself. "You're my big brother. I can try to be like you again… so I can learn how to be a person."

Dean frowns and says, after a pregnant pause, "Sam, you are a person. You're 100% certified human being."

His younger brother hums. "I think used to believe that, too."

"You gotta stop — saying stuff like that, Sammy," Dean says. "I know what they… told you down there. But none of that is true, alright? It's all them trying to get to you."

Sam turns the water off, very carefully wiping the water off his hands.

"No, I figured it out before I went to Hell."

5.

Over a year.

It feels like a lot of progress. Maybe because Sam has made it a habit of parrotting almost everything Dean does. Washes dishes, folds clothes, follows his schedule, copies a word here and there. He learned 'dude' and 'son-of-a-bitch' and 'seriously' are commonplace, 'awesome' is a staple word, and eventually Dean had started getting sick of the deanisms and started working on the samisms, because that was the shit that actually mattered in the end. He even started helping Sam rekindle his shitty fashion sense, only to realize Sam never exactly lost that trait. He made notes about who Sam was, who Sam can remember to be, and Sam fell into his own old patterns a little bit at a time with complete fluidity.

Over a year, and Sam's kind of sounding like Sam.

Still can't even so much as look at meat. Still talks to the coffee maker or the plant on the kitchen table. Whatever.

At one point, though, Sam mimicks Dean's excessive drinking problem by getting completely wasted, and, uh.

Well.

Dean's not drinking as much anymore.

6.

Three years.

There's something not suitable for kids on the television (to be put lightly): some HBO sultry scene where the hero and his soon-to-be-fridged love interest are doing the deed, all romantic and stuff. Dean really doesn't think much of it — is mostly just glad to get more than a few channels finally — but the idea of Sam watching dirty shit while Dean's still in earshot is kind of weird. His discomfort, however, turns into fervent worry when he finds Sam staring at the screen with wide, terrified eyes, one hand clamped over his mouth and the other gripping his knees tight together. As if watching a car crash in motion. The obscene noises would've been awkwardly funny in another life, but Sam looks completely stricken by it.

"Sammy? You okay?"

"Why would they show this?" he says, voice low and tight, muffled by his hand. The woman arches, and Sam jerks backward a fraction, disturbed and frantic on her behalf. There may be anger in there somewhere, down deep, a sort of indignation. "He's hurting her and they're just letting it happen. This isn't supposed to be Hell. Why would they show this to everyone? It's not her fault."

Dean's mouth sours as Sam turns his glassy stare over to him. Something dawns in Sam's watery look and he rushes out of the room.

Dean can hear him retching into the toilet.

He goes swiftly after him.

"Why me?" Sam slurs, clinging desperately to the toilet with his legs sprawled under him. "Why, why?"

Dean isn't sure how to answer that.

Sometimes, Dean isn't sure there's anything he could ever say to help Sam, in the long run.

7.

Sam finally remembers how to tie his shoes, and Dean swears to god, he's never seen Sam's chin held so high in their lives.

"Alright, alright, cool it, Rambo, you're the master of shoes."

"My shoes are happy with my brain, I'm thinking."

"God, you're weird."

"Yep."

8.

Year four. Pepper the old-ass dog is a sleeping sausage in the front yard, soaking in sunshine.

"Dude, Sam. Do you even know how to water a lawn? You're drowning our plants!"

"I thought it's all a — a… a learning experience. Since when do you care about the plants?"

"Since everyone else has an awesome lawn and mine decided to be the Mojave Desert. Sue me."

Sam keeps drowning the bush. "It's probably thirsty like you are for attention."

"Oh my god, man. Just. Wow."

9.

Winter's got the place on lock-down, today. Not a lot of sun, not a lot of fun. Dean friggin' hates the winter. It's Sam's element, though; he's handled extreme cold and horrifically miserable heat so much and for so long that he doesn't even seem to care when his body is pleading for him to put a sweater on, or to roll down a car window. Winter is also depressing as hell just by virtue of being winter, and Dean prefers to hibernate through it when he's not helping Sam around the house or doing easy-money gigs for new hunters or Bobby (who Sam talks to pretty much weekly now, and Dean's grateful that Sam has someone else other than him. Crazy, right? He's come so fucking far; pats on the head for Dean).

Point is, maybe someday Sam will actually not be one step away from a hoarders episode

This morning, while he's drifting peacefully in the haze of 6:00 a.m., Dean's woken up by a horrible wailing sound. He realizes a split-second later that it's his brother, struck with grief that Dean hasn't heard since they'd viewed the stars again, all those years ago. He nearly breaks his neck just trying to disentangle himself from his sheets, coming to a screeching halt in the living room where Sam's kneeling in the middle of the floor; he's still in his own pajamas, rocking and cradling something beneath his chin, and when Dean steps closer, he can see the tears dripping freely into a head of white and black hair.

Aww, fuck. Pepper.

She's—she was an old dog. Old and half-blind and fat and a pain in Dean's ass…

"It's my fault," Sam gasps, wails really, eyes squeezed shut. "It's my fault, I'm sorry; I didn't love her enough to make her stay — I didn't love her enough, Dean. I didn't love her enough to make her realize she needed to stay. It's my f-fault—"

"It's not, Sam," Dean says quietly, crouching down. He carefully reaches out, pulling Sam close to him. The dog's cold between them, but they've had their fair share of corpses in their lives. He smooths back Sam's hair, putting his hands on each side of his brother's face and sighing. "It's not you, Sam. Everyone's gotta go sometime, right? She was old and tired, and she needed a kind of rest that sleeping just doesn't give you. Right? That isn't your fault, man. You don't ever have to think everything's on you, 'cus it's not. This was just… nature."

The gears in Sam's head turns, and his red-rimmed eyes look away.

"… I understand that. I… you — She'll be in Heaven? You think? Do dogs go to Heaven?"

Dean's pretty sure a much, much younger Sam had asked him that before, but…

"Why not? They're better than people sometimes, huh?"

Sam wipes his face, only barely lowering Pepper's body. It's a delicate process, Sam's standard of care. "She was better than me. She was always better than me."

And it's not like Dean can't see the horribleness in that statement. He sits there in the quiet with Sam for a long moment, letting his brother digest how it feels to be alive while something else is dead. It's not new, not really, but it is. Sam runs a hand through his hair, breathing in and out with the heavy rumble of his chest. Still a broad bastard.

"You're gonna die before me," Sam whispers. "You're… You'll be gone someday."

He pats Sam's shoulder. "Dude, I'll be in Heaven, which is where you're going. Don't go making me stress on my mortality."

"I shouldn't go with you," Sam replies, hesitant. "Are you gonna be okay… I mean. Are you gonna be mad again, when we go? I shouldn't…"

Dean's stomach drops into his feet, and he has to give himself a moment.

"No. No, never. I'm sorry I ever was, Sammy. I didn't get you like I should have… and I took a lot for granted when I was there." He hooks a hand behind Sam's neck, and Sam closes his eyes tiredly. "I had you right next to me, man. And I didn't even see it. I should have seen that. Next time… this next time, I'll make it up to you, okay? I'll make it up to you."

He promises.

Because since Sam's come back, Dean's learned how to be a better person.

He owes his brother a lot for that.

Sam nods, and is calm.

10.

"I, um. I met the neighbor."

"Finally! Only took you ten years," Dean say gruffly, glancing at him from the morning paper (he's not old, he's not, the glasses are completely for looks, totally). Sam ducks his head, that little smile pulling at his lips, and Dean is kind of thinking he's seeing a little blush in Sam's face as he sits down with Dean, arms folded over the table, eyes never quiet staying glued to one spot. Sam's only got some chewed down fingernails and a single pink bandaid, in the middle of a cluster of fading but constant scars. One of those scarred, anxious fingers taps the counter.

"She's really… really nice. I like her a lot. I'm sure she thinks I'm weird, but I was… Thinking, um. I could — go out and get coffee. Or something. I think. If she wants to go…" Sam's rambling, and this is sort of sounding way too much like a father-son conversation where he's asking permission to go out on Spring Break for a week with the boys. Dean folds the paper, letting it all catch up with him. Sam sits down at the table with haste, leaning in. "I know you probably think it's not a good idea, but I… I like her hair. It's really… blond." He pauses, suddenly aware his thoughts are a bit mixed, so he keeps on going. "And she's got a good smile. And she's a good person, and her garden is, like, way more alive than yours—"

"Hey—!"

"—and I feel like… I just need to say something. I want to say something. Could I? Her name is Bonnie. That's a pretty cute name, right? I'll try not to say weird hell stuff. I'll be cool."

Dean looks Sam over, the silence trickling in, save for the pitter-patter of some mungy rescue pup running rampant in the hallway. It's summertime and the shops are bustling, and the air feels good and clean, and a coffee would be a great way to break some ice. And his brother has a fucking crush on someone; his brother, two thousand plus some, looked at someone outside of their home and got all flustered and actually wants to reach out to them, and he has to wipe at his eyes because he's feeling like crying a little, honestly. Ten years in the making, and Dean suddenly just fucking realizes that Sam's actually functioning again. He hasn't pulled Sam out of a hotel bathroom in a fucking long time.

"Are you alright?" Sam says, that concerned little furrow in his brow. Dean gets up and shoves at Sam's shoulder gently.

"We need to get you in a clean outfit, man. First impressions are important. Girls like a clean guy. Well, anyone likes a clean person, but you get what I mean."

Dean, of course, will have to observe this coffee date from a covert booth in the back of the cafe, but…

"You think she'll like me, though?" Sam asks. "My name's all — sharp, and, uh. I'm different. From what I was. I know that."

"And you also pick your nose when you think I'm not looking and say 'um' too much. You're still you, and you're still good to have coffee with. Live a little, Sammy — let's go talk."

Dean puts his hands on Sam's shoulders and leads him back toward a vibrant blue afternoon.

11.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah… Yeah, what's up?"

"Can I — talk to you about Hell?"

"… I'm here, Sam. Tell me anything you need to. Won't leave you behind on this one again."

And so Sam talks.

END.