Sam ended up working with five clients that night and he earned four hundred dollars, which would be put towards fixing the hole in Paige and Jasmine's room. The next morning, he left the house to take a walk.

Little did he know that his day was about to take a turn for the the worse.

Sam was passing an alley in the bad part of town when a pained groan caught his attention. He slowed to a stop, peering out from under his hood at a figure slumped against the wall with someone leaning over them predatorily.

He swallowed and took a step forward. When the sole of his sneaker scraped against the pavement, the second figure looked up in alarm and Sam's heart stopped.

Their eyes were pure obsidian.

They took off, running down the alleyway and vanishing into the shadows within a matter of seconds. Sam was ready to run after them but he paused, glancing at the creature's victim.

It turned out to be a woman, and he quickly knelt by her side. "Are you okay?" he asked in concern. Looking closer, he realized he knew her. It was Sasha, a redhead from the house, with pretty blue eyes and a snarky attitude who hadn't been seen in days.

"Sasha? Hey-Sasha, talk to me. Are you alright?"

She raised her head and she looked up at him. For a moment, Sam was sure she recognized him before she broke down into sobs and passing out from exhaustion several seconds later.

Three Days Later:

Dean was itching to leave. He'd been waiting for almost an hour, and no one had even come to talk to him yet. John had sent Dean over on a case that wasn't even a case, only to have another one pop up when he was about to leave.

A woman had been attacked in the backstreets and the only reason he was here was because when she'd woken up she'd started babbling about a black-eyed man who was trying to kill her before dropping again and this time, she hadn't woken up. That, and the ordeal supposedly had a witness.

His thoughts were disrupted by the dull thud of boots. Dean looked up to see a stocky man with blonde hair and blue eyes standing in front of him, garbed in a worn out police uniform.

"Mr. Thomas?" Dean nodded and stood up as the officer introduced himself. "My name is Bryce Walling. You're hear about the alley attack?" Dean nodded again.

"Yeah. You know, I noticed there was very little information on file. What's up there?"

Bryce shrugged and they started walking towards the holdings cells at the back of the building. "I'm not surprised. There are a lot of attacks around here, in all shape and form, so this isn't uncommon. Especially for someone in her line of work."

Dean frowned in confusion, narrowing his eyes at the policeman. "Her line of work?"

Bryce cleared his throat, eyes flickering away to look at something else. "She's a prostitute, sir."

Dean blinked in surprise. "A prostitute? Isn't that illegal?" Bryce unlocked the door to the back and nodded, stepping to the side to allow Dean to enter first before going in and closing the door behind them.

"Yes, but many kids that come here don't have enough money to support themselves, so they do whatever it takes to survive."

Dean scowled at that, but he could see it. "So, the witness, is she...?" he asked, trailing off.

"He," Bryce corrected, "And yeah, apparently he's one of her coworkers and knew her pretty well before she went missing a few days ago." He gestured to a closed grey door. "He's in there. Knock when you need me."

Dean muttered a quick thanks and stepped inside when Bryce unlocked the cell. He stopped cold when he saw the witness in question. Sam sat in the brown plastic chair on the opposite side of the table, feet propped up on the table's surface.

He must've looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

Sam's face, passive at first, morphed into one of irritation and barely masked anger. "Of course," he sighed, once again becoming calm. Dean gaped like a fish out of water and a sly smirk blossomed on Sam's face.

"Better shut that mouth before someone pays to use it."

Dean was taken aback. Who was this guy? It wasn't Sam, because same wouldn't say anything so goddamn crude and he certainly wouldn't be the prostitute Bryce has been talking about.

"Y-You're the hooker?" he croaked.

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. And? Didn't you have some questions to ask me?"

Anger bubbled up from deep within Dean's chest. "What the hell, Sam?! I haven't seen you in two years and I come up here to find that you're a prostitute?!"

He took a breath and looked down at the floor, gaze anywhere but his brother's face. "If...If it was about money, you could have come to me, you could have called-"

Sam cut him off, bringing his feet down and leaning forward in his seat to rest his forearms on the table. "Who, Dean? Who could I have called about this? You? You changed your number as soon as I was gone and went off to god knows where, doing hunts halfway across the country. There was no way to reach you!"

He scoffed. "And you think I was gonna call Dad? Yeah, right."

Dean swallowed as guilt washed over him. Sam was right, less than three days after he'd walked out the front door his number was changed and him and John were on their way to Louisiana to hunt a werewolf.

He licked his lips nervously. "You can stay with me until we get this all figured out," Dean offered, only to be confused when Sam gave him a look that clearly said no.

"You're not going back?" he asked incredulously.

Sam raised his head to look Dean in the eye, stubborn and unwavering. "Yeah, I am."

Dean gritted his teeth, hands clenching into fists. "Damn it, Sam, I won't let you whore yourself." Sam leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest, so calm and composed Dean wanted to punch him in the face.

"You can't stop me, Dean. This is my life." He looked at the door briefly. "Now, you had questions for the case. Ask them now, or I'm walking out." Dean pursed his lips and pulled the chair out and sat down, with more force than necessary.

He took a breath to calm himself, trying to keep from freaking out about how his little brother was a freakin' hooker. "What happened?"

Sam blinked. "I was walking in town," he began, tone teetering on the edge of boredom, "I saw someone in the alley with someone leaning over them. When I moved towards them for a better look, the other guy took off. He had black eyes."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Black? As in...?"

"Supernatural kind of black, Dean. Anyway, after he...or she, I don't know. After they left I checked up on Sasha and brought her to the nearest hospital."

His brother frowned. "Huh. I can't think of anything that would have black eyes, at least, nothing I've come across in a while." Sam shrugged and again glanced at the door, and Dean got the impression that Sam really wanted to leave.

"I think we're done," he said gruffly. Sam nodded and stood, and for a second Dean realized Sam had gotten taller, if that was possible, in their time apart. Sam rapped on the door and Bryce opened it up, stepping aside to let the two pass.

Outside, Sam turned to leave when Dean called his name. "What?" he asked. Dean shifted from one foot to the other, eyes not staying in one place too long.

"Do you have a number I can call? Just in case."

Sam bit the corner of his lip. "Uh, well, the apartment only has one phone, so if you don't mind that..."

"That's fine," Dean said quickly, maybe a bit too quickly, but he didn't care. This Sam was new, and most certainly not improved, and Dean would take what he could get at the moment.

Sam dug around in his pockets and pulled out a wrinkled post-it note and used Dean's pen to scribble down a number before handing it back to him. "See you," Dean said lamely.

Sam merely grunted as he turned away, and Dean watched him go.

"Sam! Where were you? I was worried," Victoria cried, standing up from where she'd been sitting when Sam went upstairs to his room. Sam gave her a fake smile, a bit disappointed when she noticed.

"Are you okay?" she asked, quieter than before.

Sam nodded and waved it away. "Yeah, I'm fine. The police just wanted a statement." Victoria pursed her lips, which were painted a plum color to match her hair and her purple top.

Their discussion ended when Kitty came in, grinning and shaking a small plastic bag containing a snow white powder.

She had caramel colored hair and big brown eyes. She favored pink over basically everything, and people liked her for her little-girl was mostly likely bipolar, for half the time she was cute and simple, the next she was sly as a fox.

Or maybe it was to suit her name, but who knows.

"Look at what just came in," she squealed happily. That's another thing. Kitty was never one to be ashamed or worried about being addicted to anything. She was perfectly fine with snorting cocaine, and that kind of optimism eventually seeped into other people.

Sometimes it helped them, so they wouldn't have another thing to be guilty about.

The house had many occupants, some of them former criminals. But then again, since prostitution was illegal, they were all criminals.

Sam swallowed hard. "You shouldn't be wasting what little money we have on drugs," Victoria scolded. It was a futile argument, and everyone knew it, even her.

Over twenty of the hookers living in the apartment complex were highly addicted to Kitty's purchases, and used a chunk of their money (what little they had) to fund her. A few, like Sam, tried to only take hits and give up money when things got rough, which happened a bit too often for their liking.

So all in all, Kitty would keep spending.

"Oh, hush, Vicky," Kitty said playfully, tiptoeing over to place the cocaine gently on Sam's knee. "I just wanted to drop this off. See you two," she said cheerfully, blowing a kiss their way before skittering out of the room.

Victoria scowled at the bag, and Sam had the decency to glance away, guilt gnawing at him, piece by piece.

"I'm not going to lecture you, Sam," she said softly with a tired smile, which only made him feel worse, "If you ever want to talk, come to my room, okay?"

She climbed to her feet and padded from the room, and Sam sighed and ran his hand through his hair, fingertips skimming along the surface of his scalp.

Then he remembered the look on Dean's face earlier, and he reached for the bag.