Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

Warnings: As the sequel to Leave Normal Alone, this story will likely involve drugs, sexual content/situations (non-explicit), violence, and alcohol (they're Winchesters) at varying points throughout.

Author's Note Part One: This is the sequel to Leave Normal Alone, a story written from a prompt from M.J. Ellsworth. If you haven't read it, this story might not make much sense.

"Dean, try to get some sleep."

Dean didn't need to glance at the door to know it was his father standing there, waiting for him to follow the request. But Dean couldn't do it. Hell, he couldn't even take his eyes off of Sam, sprawled out in the same bed he slept in as a child when they would visit Pastor Jim and securely bundled in all of the spare blankets Dean found.

The trembling only ceased when Sam fell asleep, and Dean was sure that it wasn't due to the near-winter chill in the Minnesotan air.

He knew some of what Sam had been through in the past month, but he didn't know which part of it, exactly, left him shaking. Maybe it was a combination of things. He just wished Sam would give him a hint. Give him anything to work with.

But Sam had yet to say a word. Dean came up with a list of possible explanations for it, shock and the electrical burns on his neck at the top of it.

"No point," Dean said. He kept his voice quiet, hoping that Sam could have a peaceful night of rest. Knowing that he would regardless because of the amount of sleeping pills he took. While he refused pills offered to him, Sam would take them if left in his grasp. If left where he could control how many and when he took them.

The sleeping pills that Dean would be taking and keeping hidden, only giving out the proper dosage to Sam at night, if he would actually accept them from him, so he wouldn't have to worry about Sam not waking up one morning.

"Dean—"

"No, Dad," he said. "You don't understand. You didn't see him."

Dean knew the second he burst into Sam's room at the nightclub that the image of a strange man on him would never leave Dean's brain. His mind latched onto it and brought it up over and over to remind him of the cost of his failure.

"I'm sorry you saw him like that," John said.

"Not as sorry as I am that Sam had to experience it," Dean said.

Dean felt his father's hand fall onto his shoulder, not having heard him move closer. He would have been ashamed at that fact because his hunter training was supposed to have helped him realize when someone was sneaking up on him, but there was no more room for shame in him. No more room for guilt. He had more of both than he could carry.

He could blame the jet lag creeping up on him for his lack of awareness, but he knew that it came from having to face Sam. Having to face how badly he screwed up a month ago.

It would have been simpler to blame the jet lag. To absolve himself of responsibility.

"At least go lay in the other bed," John said. "You can still see Sam from there, and I'll take the chair. If you don't fall asleep, you don't fall asleep. If you do fall asleep, well, you need it."

Dean wanted to rebel against his father's suggestion, the way Sam used to, but the memories of what happened last time he disobeyed were relentless and he moved to the other bed. It was unusual for his dad to be so, well, fatherly. He was so used to John the hardened hunter that he forgot about John the father.

"What about you?" he asked. "The jet lag must be hitting you, too?"

John shook his head and said, "You've been lost in your own world while sitting here. I already slept during the day, after we got Sam settled and filled in Jim."

The only light in the room came through the window from streetlights and the waning moon, but it was enough for Dean to still be able to see Sam in the other bed with their dad hunched in the chair beside him.

Why was it tragedy that brought them together like this?

Dean tried to stay awake and keep an eye on Sam, not that he didn't trust John to do it. It was just his responsibility. It had always been his responsibility to be there when Sam needed him. To be there when Sam was hurting or upset and make it right.

Only he didn't know if he could this time. Sometimes, when Sam looked at him with his empty eyes, it was like the kid he knew was a stranger now. He wondered if he ever really knew Sam the way he believed he used to.

His eyelids drooped lower and lower, his body pushed past its limits and in need of the rest. He fell asleep wondering if this would be their new normal. A silent and broken Sam. A fatherly John without a hunt driving him.

He didn't know where he fit in that picture.

When he woke up, the sun was low in the evening sky, which meant that jet lag once again stole nearly an entire day from him. He faced the wall and rolled over, expecting to see Sam on the opposite bed. He didn't seem willing to leave the room since they arrived at Jim's, and Dean didn't expect that to stop anytime soon.

But Sam wasn't there, and his bed was made neatly.

Dean got up and checked the bathroom first (empty) before making his way to the kitchen.

Sam sat at one of the chairs with a plate of plain toast in front of him, untouched. He stared at the plate, but Dean was certain that he wasn't really seeing it. The fluorescent lights of the kitchen illuminated how sickly pale he'd become and brought to Dean's attention the dark circles under Sam's eyes along with how thin he looked even buried in layers of clothes.

Dean slipped into the chair closest to Sam's, and looked over at his dad leaning against the counter with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand.

"I thought that if I just left it in front of him, he would eat some of it. Like how he took the sleeping pills when they were in his possession. On his terms," John explained.

"Except he didn't," Dean said.

"Except he didn't," John echoed.

"He's gone way too long without eating," Dean said.

John nodded. "I'm going to head to the store later and see if I can't find something that he might be willing to at least try eating."

"Hear that, Sammy?" Dean asked. "Dad's making a grocery run just for you. Better put in your requests now."

Sam still had yet to make a sound, and Dean didn't expect any reaction at all. But he saw Sam's eyes flick towards him for a second. He almost missed the minuscule shake of his head.

Purposeful responses were good, better than he could have asked for, but he wished that Sam's answer had been different. He didn't have to talk if he didn't want to. Dean could've grabbed him a pen and paper to write down anything he wanted, just as long as there was something he wanted to eat.

Instead, Dean had to plaster on a smile and accept Sam's refusal. Trying to force Sam into doing something didn't go over well these days, though Dean recalled that Sam never did well with being forced to do anything.

So he just let it go, because he didn't want to risk ruining the small bits of progress Sam made. He didn't want Sam to stop giving more and more responses to direct questions. He didn't want Sam to stop giving them little signs that he was still in there and more-or-less aware. He didn't want Sam to refuse to leave the safety of the bedroom again.

But he couldn't help feeling that letting Sam waste away wasn't the better option.

"How did you convince him to come down here?" Dean asked. The most he'd gotten Sam to do was go to the bathroom across the hall and back to the bedroom.

"I had to drag him down here. I thought the change of scenery might help, but there's not much difference."

Dean nodded. He hoped for his dad to have figured out a way to get through to Sam, but he also knew that was a bit much to hope for.

"Where's Caleb?"

John grinned a bit. Not as full as it used to be, but a grin nonetheless. "Asleep on Jim's couch. Looks like the jet lag hit him even harder than it did you."

Dean got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, then looked over at Sam's untouched meal. He opened the fridge for anything that Sam might be willing to at least drink if he wouldn't eat the toast. Something sugary, maybe.

Orange juice. He grabbed the carton and poured a cup before he paused. Did Sam even like orange juice? He couldn't remember the last time he saw Sam drink it.

It scared him to not know basic pieces of information about Sam like what he liked or disliked anymore. He used to know Sam better than anyone. He used to be able to answer any question asked about Sam without hesitation. When had they become so disconnected?

He placed the cup in front of Sam and pushed his plate away before taking the seat beside him again.

"Think you could drink a bit of juice, Sam?" Dean asked.

He expected no answer or for Sam to shake his head, so it was a pleasant surprise when Sam shrugged. It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no either.

Sam stared at the wall in his bedroom again. He knew Dean was behind him, watching and aware that he was awake. Before everything happened, he would have called his brother a creep and shared a laugh with him, but not anymore. Having Dean near gave him reassurance that he was safe now, but his mind was still having trouble understanding that he was safe. How did they manage to find him? The odds had to have been against it, he was sure there wasn't much to go on for his location.

The most logical answer his brain provided was that he was still in the nightclub, high on a cocktail of drugs. If he was hallucinating something this vividly, then it must be bad.

Not much made sense anymore, but the wall in front of him was steady so he focused on that. He let it ground him amidst the questions he needed to ask Dean, but just couldn't. Anytime he tried, his throat closed so tightly it hurt and the words got trapped inside. All the trapped questions were starting to hurt.

He wondered if Dean noticed it. If he could see his throat constrict to the point that breathing became difficult. With the way Dean watched him with hawk eyes lately, he'd have to guess that he did indeed notice. He just never brought it up. He never asked.

Not that Sam could have answered.

He still felt the fire inside of him. Each day he didn't use it, it grew stronger. More insistent. He started taking the sleeping pills left in the nightstand just to shut it up. Just to keep it suffocated within him so that his family wouldn't know that he wasn't the same person they wanted to save. He couldn't even be called a human anymore. Humans couldn't start fires with their mind.

The pills were no longer an option. They were missing from the nightstand, swapped for candy bars. Dean's doing, he knew. Probably afraid of how many he took the night before, but he shouldn't be. Sam was ninety percent sure he was still in the club anyway. The amount of sleeping pills he took here wouldn't hurt him in the least.

The problem is that he isn't one hundred percent sure if the nightmares are taking him back to the reality his mind is trying desperately to escape, or if being at Pastor Jim's with his family is reality. That they managed to find and get him out against the odds.

The thought that they did scared him almost as much as the thought that they didn't.

Dean offered Sam some of the sleeping pills (the proper dosage, not the frightening amount Sam took when left to his own devices), but he refused them. Dean knew he had to figure out a way to get Sam out of this new habit of his. He couldn't refuse everything offered to him. And if he didn't start eating soon, they would have no choice but to take him to the hospital again.

And the hospital would probably want to put him in the psych ward or shove him off to a loony bin.

Like Dean was about to let that happen. When their dad got back from his supplies run, he hoped to have a little more success in getting Sam to get something of nutritional value in his stomach.

Until then, he watched Sam pretend to sleep with his back facing him and clenched and unclenched his fists. Seeing Sam in such a bad state made him wish he could resurrect Davies just to kill him again. He wished that he could bring back Jerry just to burn him alive again. He wanted Rich back in his grasp so that he could flay the skin from more than one leg.

He wanted to hunt down Liu. He didn't know the specifics of what he'd do to Liu once he had him, but he figured that between John and himself they could get pretty creative.

Sam must have fallen asleep, because he wouldn't have rolled over to face Dean otherwise. He saw the signs of a nightmare settling in Sam, and leaned forward to run his hand through Sam's hair out of habit. But he froze when he remembered that Sam's hair wasn't long enough for that anymore.

Sam hated having short hair. That was why Dean made a bet with him where the loser had to shave their head (and he knew that he was right). That had been traumatizing enough for the kid, so Dean couldn't imagine how it was when his hair had been forcibly shaved as part of his slavery.

He couldn't imagine how Sam dealt with any aspect of having his independence and free will stripped from him, two of the main components of his personality.

Dean sat and wondered what was left in Sam. What did the traffickers leave behind? He knew bits of what they instilled. But even if he didn't know the specifics, he knew that none were good things.

"How is he?"

Dean looked over at Jim in the doorway and shook his head. "He's not getting better, and I don't know how I can help him," Dean said, keeping his voice as soft as Jim's to avoid waking Sam.

Dean moved to stand in the door beside Jim, easier to talk without worrying about Sam hearing or Jim not being able to hear him.

"I don't think he was awake that long before I went down to the kitchen—and I slept a long time, even went to bed after him. So I know he had to have slept for more than a day. Then, he came right back up here the first chance he got to lay there again," Dean continued. "I can't tell if he even realizes that he isn't back there anymore. He's just so shut off from the world."

Dean didn't add how much that last part scared him. The doctor in Chengdu mentioned that Sam had been closing in on overdose territory, what if that meant Sam would never be entirely there anymore? What if it damaged the know-it-all brain that Dean loved to hate?

"He went through more in a single month than some people go through in their entire life," Jim said. "None of it is easy to recover from."

"I know," Dean said. "I just… this is all my fault. I have to be able to fix it."

"Patience and love, Dean," Jim said. "Sometimes, that's all we can offer."

"It doesn't feel like enough," Dean said. He wanted a plan. Something concrete. He needed a course of action laid out so that he knew what to do next. Right now, he felt more like he was trying to find purchase to avoid being swept away in the current of icy rapids. "Some of the fuckers responsible are still alive, and I can't even go hunt them down."

"Does Sam know?"

Dean shrugged and said, "Like I said, I don't know if he even knows that he isn't there anymore."

Jim clapped Dean on the shoulder and didn't add anything more to the conversation.

Dean only left Sam's side when John returned about an hour later, and only because he wanted to see what he had to work with for helping Sam.

Caleb was helping him carry in bags from the truck and cover Jim's counter space with them.

"What did you get?" Dean asked. He expected them to come back with a bag or two, not twenty.

"Anything I thought we might need," John said. He glanced at all of the bags. "And probably some extra."

Dean browsed through the bags, expecting some of what he found, but still surprised by some of the items.

"Fruits and vegetables?" Dean asked. "I don't think his body is up to solids, not with how long it's been since he's eaten."

"Jim has a blender. Add some juice and maybe some protein powder and… well, it's better than him eating nothing."

Dean sighed and helped pull out and put away groceries. "Still won't get any meat back on his bones," he said.

"It'd be a start," Caleb said. "And we wouldn't have to worry as much about him starving himself to death."

Jim's kitchen ended up filled with bottles, packages, and cans of anything John imagined could help Sam in the slightest, and Dean appreciated being able to see John step up to the role of father that he sometimes pushed to the side for the sake of hunting.

He just hoped that Sam would be aware enough soon to appreciate it himself. To see how much John cared for him and that he was more than a man bent on revenge. Maybe that would be enough to repair their relationship that was beginning to crumble under the tension so easily built between them.

He took one of the bottles of protein shakes and reclaimed his spot at Sam's bedside. He glanced at the nightstand, where he replaced sleeping pills with the candy bars he swiped so long ago at a gas station. When he thought that they so close to Sam, only to find out they were half a world away. They stayed untouched, no matter how much Dean hoped that he would come back from a bathroom break or a forced nap to find that Sam ate one while left alone.

But it never happened, so they'd have to try another way to get him to eat. Anything to avoid taking him to the hospital again.

Sam woke up facing Dean, despite knowing that he went to sleep facing away from him. It was a habit that stemmed from a combination of not wanting Dean to see how broken he was now and not wanting to get his hopes up that his family did the improbable and rescued him from the club. That way when he woke up (really woke up), the disappointment wouldn't hurt quite as much.

Dean grinned and leaned closer the second he saw Sam's eyes open. He helped Sam sit up, but Sam didn't have plans to do that. If anything, he just wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted his sleeping pills back.

He hated when the others looked at him with faces full of pity, yet it seemed that all he could do was lay in bed and pity himself.

He understood the other boy now, the one who'd been with him under Jerry and Rich's care right before the auctions. He understood how someone could be so broken, so checked-out from the world around him.

"Think you feel up to a drink?" Dean asked. He reached over and grabbed something from the nightstand, and Sam tracked his movements until he saw what exactly Dean had.

Sam turned his head as far away as he could with it grasped in Rich's hand, so Rich gripped tighter and forced him to face Jerry.

"Sammy?"

Then there were fingers prying open his jaw and warm, vanilla protein shake being poured into his mouth. He gagged at first and tried spitting it out, but his head was tilted and a stranger's hands were in more control of his mouth than his own muscles.

Sour bile rose up his throat, and he was hunched over coughing and gagging, just waiting for it to make its appearance. Dean shoved a small wastebasket into his lap and guided his head to hover above it.

Rich held his jaw back shut when his mouth was full. Try as he might, Sam could not twist away or spit it out.

"Sam?"

"Dean, what's going on?"

It became a process of gagging and choking down mouthfuls of the shake against his will. By the end, he felt nauseated and his jaw hurt like it had been the victim of Dean's left and right hook. With the gag back on, he prayed that he wouldn't throw up.

He didn't even know he threw up until he felt the warmth of the tears of physical exhaustion that accompanied it spill down his cheeks. This world, dream or reality, with Dean was supposed to be a reprieve from the nightmares, not a new rendition of them.

"Sam?" John asked. Both him and Dean were nearby, close enough to offer comfort, but far enough away so as to not startle him. "You okay now?"

They treated him more like a scared, injured animal than a human these days. Not that Sam blamed them, he didn't feel very human at all.

He shook his head.

"Are you done with the wastebasket for now?" Dean asked instead.

Sam nodded at that, and Dean passed it off to John. Sam didn't envy John ending up with the task of cleaning it.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean said. His voice shook and the confusion of the questions he wanted to ask, but couldn't, filled his eyes. As much as he tried to put on a mask, Sam could always see through it and Dean thought that this was far from okay.

"We'll just have to try something else. No big deal."

Sam didn't need to look at Dean to know he was lying.

Two weeks, and Sam still had yet to make a sound that wasn't due to him gagging. Dean slowly learned what threw Sam back into his memories, but the list was long enough to make his head spin just thinking about it.

Pills being offered, but not being left for him.

Protein shakes (that reaction still haunted him, but Sam couldn't even explain it to him).

Tea (despite the claim on the box that it was supposed to be calming).

And too much more.

Dean found his best bet was with his dad's idea. Smoothies loaded with protein powder and anything else he could shove in them without it being too noticeable. If he helped Sam sit up and set the smoothie on the nightstand, Sam would drink it at his own rate. Usually not in its entirety, but sometimes more than half. That was a small victory, but Dean would take it.

Even though he was getting some nutrition, Sam didn't seem to be doing much better in any other aspect. Dean couldn't help him as much as he wanted, not unless Sam decided to talk to him. He didn't know what was wrong otherwise.

He saw how it was wearing down on his dad, too. Sam never had a problem that Dean couldn't fix before, and John was just as lost as to what Sam needed from him. He tried to be there for Sam, and sat with him when Dean was reluctantly sent to bed. He tried to coax Sam into talking. Into doing anything other than act like a puppet with its strings cut.

Dean still took over most of caring for Sam, but he knew that John was there to back him up when needed (and that ended up being more often than Dean would like).

Caleb left days ago, taking the bus all the way to Massachusetts to get the Impala and bring it back to Jim's. John didn't say that Dean earned it back, but he felt that was the last thing he deserved. If John kept the keys from him for awhile longer, Dean understood why.

Jim offered what help he could, but he had a parish to run and other hunters to help. Besides, he was doing them a huge favor just by letting them hole up at his place for the time being.

When Dean switched places with John in the morning, he didn't expect the day to be any different than the past fourteen. He never thought that a constant in his life could be freshly depressing each morning.

So it was a pleasant surprise when Sam sat up in the bed of his own will for the first time since they arrived at Pastor Jim's, and Dean waited in the chair beside him with bated breath. After so long of Sam being checked-out from the world, he was finally showing some awareness of everything around him. Some days, Dean thought that would never happen. That Sam would be suspended in whatever awake, but unaware, state he'd been trapped in.

But he was finally looking at Dean with eyes that said they comprehended his presence. That said they knew that he was there. They didn't look through him this time.

Sam brought one of his hands up to brush his fingers against his throat (right above the burns, Dean noted) and swallowed hard a few times, a series of actions that Dean had never witnessed him doing before and wondered what they meant about Sam's slavery. What happened to cause them? They had to be related to his burns, right?

He wanted to call out Sam's name. He wanted to give him every reassurance that he could, but he was afraid to be the one to break the silence. He was afraid that it would cause Sam to sink back into himself.

In retrospect, that might have been better than having to hear what Sam had to say after so long not speaking. What Sam had to say in his raspy whisper of a voice that made each word sound that much more painful. Better than the way that Sam had to force out each word like they physically hurt him. Like he was afraid of them.

"Dean," he said.

Dean hovered close to him, trying not to grin at the fact that Sam spoke. And not only did Sam speak, he'd addressed Dean.

"Yeah, Sammy?" he whispered. He kept his voice soft and calm, unwilling to scare Sam away from speaking again.

"Am I dead?"

Author's Note Part Two: Well, here's the start and the long beginning of a story author's note! It was very difficult to find a balance to start this off. I wanted it to be more of an overview of where Sam and Dean are at and how the recovery is barely starting to begin, but I also wanted to include John, Jim, and Caleb at least a little bit. I'm sure John especially will be a bigger character as we get more into the story. And I somehow wanted to balance it all without the chapter being boring, so here's hoping that worked.

You might be wondering why Sam is talking again after only two weeks. Well, it's not something he wants to do, but he needed an answer.

Bad news/good news. It's finals season, so updates likely won't be as frequent as they were for Leave Normal Alone yet. I will still do my best. Good news: plenty of time to write once finals are finished.

Please take a minute to review and let me know how I did with the start!