Dean wasn't sure what he had expected when Sam got his soul back. An explosion? A shaking of the earth? Who the hell knew? It wasn't like this was something he had a whole lot of experience with.

He'd probably expected something, though. Not this…silence.

Sam had been asleep for two and a half days now, and Dean paced in and out of Bobby's house, grinding his teeth, snapping at Bobby and Cas and the cars in the lot. "Give it time," Cas had said, in that irritating soothing voice he'd adopted somewhere. "There is – it is not an easy thing to reabsorb a soul that's been detached that long. It's never happened before, that I know of. There should be no ill effects."

And that was the point where Dean freaked out a little and went "Should? We're fucking around with my brother's soul and you're going on about how there should be no ill effects?"

Cas hadn't really approached him since, back to being standoffish and awkward when he was around at all, which was rarely.

Two and a half days, and Sam hadn't moved even a little. Not a twitch. Dean got in the habit of checking his pulse, just to make sure he was still alive.

And then he woke up.

It was a little anticlimactic, really, after all that waiting. Dean was downstairs having a staring contest with a bottle of Jack, and he heard someone on the stairs and turned around. There was Sam, rubbing a hand against his forehead and looking…dazed. He looked up, taking a moment too long to focus on Dean, and blinked a few times.

Dean waited, not quite patiently. Sam licked his lips and then in a raspy, hoarse voice, said, "Dean?" His voice was quiet and a little shaky, and Dean felt a veritable thrill of relief, not realizing until that moment that he'd been privately scared that this wouldn't fix things, that Sam with his soul would be the same über hunter as Sam without his soul.

"Sam," he said, and hunted down a smile. "You're back."

Sam blinked a few more times. He looked almost concussed, and Dean almost reached for a flashlight to check, just in case, remembering Castiel's hopefully no ill effects. "Yeah," his little brother (the real one, not the weird fake Sam-that-wasn't) said. "Yeah, I guess I am."

And just like that, went right down to the floor again.

Dean lunged too slowly and Sam's head cracked against the table with a nasty noise that made Dean wince involuntarily. "Jesus! Sam," he started to say, but then he realized that Sam's hands were wrapped like vices around his own upper arms and he was…shaking. Hard.

Shit.

"Sam?" No answer, and Sam was taking too short, ragged little breaths like his lungs wouldn't fill up all the way, and Dean could feel his worry kick up into overdrive. "Hey, what's-"

"Dean," said Sam, his voice barely audible, and something about it scared Dean, but at least it wasn't calm and rational and feelingless.

"What?"

And Sam looked up at him and his eyes were big blank black holes of absolute awful. "Dean," he said, "Don't." He was still shaking, even harder, if possible, and Dean didn't understand. "Don't," Sam repeated, and Dean could hear the desperation there. "Don't. Touch me."

His stomach dropped about a mile in a minute. For a second, nothing made sense and he just blinked in bewilderment, and then it registered. I need help, Sam had said. And then fourteen straight punches to the face. Robo-Sam had done okay with that. Normal-Sam? Probably not so much.

He pulled away and Sam curled up like an aardvark, still breathing in that funny, too quick way. "Sam," he said, voice slightly strangled, but Sam made a thin noise like a whine and his head thunked against the ground with the way his body just kept shaking.

This was not how it was supposed to work.

And then just like that, it eased, and Sam uncurled, slowly, his eyes still squeezed shut. Dean reached out to steady his shoulder, almost automatically, and Sam twitched away, pulling back. Dean dropped his hand, hating this, hating all of this, and not at all sure what to do about it. Getting a soul back, fine, easy peasy. But now what?

"Do you need anything?" he managed to ask, and Sam shook his head.

"No…I'm tired. Think I'll just go sleep."

Jesus, Dean wanted to say. You've been sleeping for days. But all he did say was "Okay. Just let me know if you're hungry or something."

"Yeah," Sam said, his voice dull and suspiciously neutral. It made Dean's skin crawl all over again. "Thanks."

Dean let him make his way back upstairs without interruption and then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. It took him several moments to work out that Sam hadn't looked at him once during that last half of conversation.

His mouth tasted sour.

~.~

Bobby came back from running errands for food and found him sitting staring at the bottle of Jack like it might tell him secrets if he looked hard enough. Dean told him that Sam was awake and Bobby yelled at him for five minutes for not calling him right away. Dean sat there silent, trying to listen for a sound from upstairs.

"It's not really okay," Dean said, finally, which was an understatement. Bobby glowered at him.

"Of course it ain't. You think this was going to be easy?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I was kind of hoping it would be."

Sam started screaming a half an hour later.

Dean didn't even realize that he'd fallen asleep in one of the armchairs until he woke up flailing with a crick in his neck to that particular awful noise. It took him five seconds to remember where he was and what was going on, and in that time he was up the stairs and into the room where Sam had shut himself.

And God but Sam was screaming like someone was ripping all the skin off of him or tearing his heart out through his stomach and Dean momentarily took the time to think how much he hated that he knew exactly how that sounded.

Bobby had already gotten there and was struggling to hold Sam down because he was thrashing like a fish on a hook, or, fuck it, a man on a hook. "Don't just stand there!" The older hunter bellowed. "Help me wake him up!"

Dean moved, but before he could do anything Sam's mouth snapped closed and his eyes snapped open, just like that. And Dean was left standing feeling useless as his little brother's eyes focused on Bobby, his breathing making that weird hitching noise again.

"I'm sorry," said Sam, his voice fervent and hoarse and awful in the grating, aching tone of it that said more than simple apology. "I didn't – couldn't – sorry."

Shit. They were not going through this again. "Sam," he started, and Sam's eyes flicked past Bobby and widened, staring at him in an expression Dean recognized as abject horror.

"Don't," breathed Sam, and that covered everything that Dean had even been thinking about saying. Anger and sick unhappiness twisted together in his gut and Dean jerked, then wheeled around and stalked downstairs. And okay, he could get Sam being upset with him, really – it wasn't like they'd exactly had the best last few months, but Sam was supposed to get it.

"Castiel!" He yelled, once he made it safely outside. "Cas, you'd better make the time to show up and help-"

"You don't need to speak so loudly."

Dean turned, and glared. "Don't get like that. I'm not in a very good mood and I'd really like to know why Sam's acting even more screwed up than he was."

The angel blinked, exactly once. "You are surprised?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Dean really hated it when people pulled that 'isn't it obvious?' shit. He was asking. Obviously it wasn't obvious.

Castiel looked around the porch and sat down on one of the stairs. "Your…brother has spent over a year apart from his soul. Your soul is the part of you that allows emotion. Would you not agree that a large amount of emotion can be…overwhelming? Doing what we have done is…roughly equivalent to dousing a naked man in acid. I would guess. I do not really have any frame of reference."

Dean considered that. Considered the past year. In the past year, Sam had taken a dive with Lucifer into the deepest pits of Hell, come back and done who knew what for a year before turning up and grabbing Dean. And then there was all of…that.

Sam had always been a fan of guilt. Dean tried to imagine getting a whole year of it at once. And winced.

Yeah. He'd definitely been reading the lowered eyes and don't touch me's wrong.

Dean looked at Castiel, slowly. "So…you knew what it was going to be like."

Castiel shifted uncomfortably. "I…had an idea, yes."

Dean decided yelling at him after the fact probably wouldn't help. "He'll be okay, right?" He said, finally. "Just has to work through this?" Castiel said nothing, and Dean went over it again. Bobby. Why would Sam feel the need to apologize to Bobby?

Bobby had shot Lucifer twice while he was riding around in Sam's body. Lucifer had broken Bobby's neck. "Shit," Dean said, softly. "It's just going to get worse, isn't it?"

"I believe so," said Castiel, not quite gingerly. "There is, however, probably no reason to think he won't survive."

Dean's throat closed up and he wanted to choke. "—what?"

"Be careful," said Castiel. "I should go. Farewell, Dean."

He could hear screaming coming from the house and wondered if that was why Castiel had left so quickly. For a moment, he wanted to stay out here and pretend he heard nothing. A year. A year to relive and suffer. God. It just wasn't fair.

Dean went back inside.

~.~

At least now he got it.

It made things easier. Back to basics: Sam was suffering. Dean would look out for him. Easy. He pulled up a chair next to the bed where Sam was curled up trying to shake himself apart and settled down.

Sam realized he was there right away, of course, even if he looked like he was ages and miles away. He recoiled like he was going to try to press right through the wall, and Dean reminded himself again not to take it personally. It wasn't even really about him. Just Sam and his stupid guilt. "Dean," he said, but Dean was ready this time and just leveled the stare he'd always used when Sam was suggesting something that he knew Dean wouldn't do. Don't even bother, he thought, and it sort of worked.

At any rate, Sam shut his mouth and just looked away instead of actively telling him to leave. Dean would take what he could get.

"I'm sorry," Dean said, on a whim, almost. Sam turned his head barely, like he didn't really want to look at his brother.

"You're – okay."

Dean could have let it go at that, but it wasn't good enough. There was a lot to fix, and while Sam had to work on fixing himself, sure, Dean could do a little bit. "No, really. Sorry it took me so long to figure out what was going on. Seriously."

"Not your-"

"I could have asked Cas ages ago, made him check out all the options. I mean, I should have. I just took his stupid 'I don't know' and didn't ask anything else."

"I didn't want you to know," Sam said abruptly. "I thought maybe it was better. God." He made a hoarse, raspy sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. It made Dean's skin crawl.

"You over that idea?" Dean asked, carefully. Sam looked at him, and his eyes still looked freakishly empty.

"What do you think?"

Dean felt himself twitch unhappily. He didn't want to hear that. "Where are you now?" Dean asked, casually. Sam's eyes dropped.

"What?"

"I guess it's kind of a process. So says Cas. Your soul has to catch up with what your body's been up to or something. So…where are you?"

"Oh," Sam said, and nothing else. Dean waited. And a little more.

"Sam?" He said, finally, wondering where his brother had gone.

"That's not how it is," Sam said, after a moment, like the words were dragged out of his chest. His eyes went shadowy and dark, and he hunched his shoulders and shuddered again, one of those wracking ones through his whole body that looked like it should have wrenched more than a few muscles. "It's all there. I just can't look at all of it at once."

He pictured Sam scrolling through the memories one by one and scrutinizing them with new guilt-glasses. "Couldn't you just leave it alone?"

"Yeah," Sam said, "Because repression works so well."

Dean supposed he had a point there, and just sat there as they both lapsed into silence, Dean wondering if Sam would ever run out of memories to beat himself up with and Sam seeking out those very memories, turning them over, forging them into knives.

~.~

He didn't mean to fall asleep. But he did, even in the uncomfortable chair he'd chosen on purpose, and this time it wasn't the sound of screaming that woke him up, but the quieter noise of muffled sobs. He lifted his head, rubbing his eyes.

"Sam?" He said, his eyes slow to adjust to the dark. Quiet, immediately. "Dammit, Sam," he said, "I heard-"

"I don't think," said Sam's voice, quavery and weird, "I can do this."

Dean groped for the lamp and turned it on, and jerked a little. Sam's hands were clenched tight, and his back was against the wall. His lip was bleeding a little. "Hey," said Dean, feeling stupidly inadequate as soon as it was out. "Hey."

"Not – I can't. I can't. It's too much. It's too goddamn much- I didn't – Dean," he said, and Dean gave up.

He climbed out of the chair and onto the bed, and held out his arms. "C'mere," he said, and was almost bowled over as Sam launched himself from the wall and his limbs were too long and awkward but his little brother's face was pressed against Dean's shoulder and his shirt was getting wet but Dean really, really didn't care.

"It's okay," Dean said, voice rough. "It's okay. You'll get through this. Come on, Sammy, breathe," because he was making those funny little hitching noises again and Dean decided if he never heard that again it would be too soon.

"Dean," said Sam. "I'm sorry."

As if that could encompass everything. The vampires and the lies and the year when Sam hadn't said anything about being alive. As if it somehow made everything okay.

Except Dean know that Sam didn't expect it to, and also that he really was going to let it be just that.

"It's okay, Sam," he said, "It was all just a fluke. I call do-over."

And Sam made a funny kind of noise into Dean's shoulder that probably meant he was going to have snot there, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. "We'll get through this," he said, with determination. "You and me."

"…yeah?" Said Sam, and it hurt a little that he sounded so dubious. Not for the first time, Dean wished his little brother still believed every word he said because he said it. It would make things a lot easier.

Oh well. He could put up with a little bit of work. It was too much of a relief to see an expression on his brother's face again, even if it was an unhappy crumpled one. They could work back to dimpled smiles. "Yeah," he said, firmly. "I said so. That's the way it's gonna be."

Sam was quiet, but Dean felt him go limp, and wasn't sure if that was surrender or relief. "Oof," he said, "You're heavy." More silence. Then, "Tough," said Sam, muffled and maybe a little bit shaky, but he still said it, and Dean was flooded with relief.

"You're back," he said, "You're back."