Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Warnings: Hurt Sam and Sad Dean.
Author's Note Part One: Happy Halloween, dear readers! My treat for you is an extra speedy update. A little shorter than other chapters, but still over 4k words. I hope you enjoy it!
The waiting game would never be Dean's favorite, but he wasn't the only one fraying at the edges. John went out to the bars at night, and Dean sat staring at cell phones lined up on the motel room's table. He wasn't a praying man, but he asked every deity he knew that one of them would ring with news about the sick auction they needed to attend to see Sam.
He didn't know what Caleb was up to lately. Sometimes they'd all go to a diner together for a meal, but outside of that, he never saw Caleb.
He kept the TV on for background noise, the best company he was going to be getting any time soon it seemed.
As it got later, he lined up the phones on the nightstand between the two beds and lounged with his back against the headrest. He didn't expect sleep to come, but if it did he wouldn't be waking up with kinks in his back and neck from sleeping in a chair.
The late night news came on the TV and he watched. The story about missing children came on after the weather again. Another child went missing two days ago, their picture added to the line up. Just like Sam's had been.
Dean stared at the photo of his little brother with 'Sam Winchester' written underneath, hating that they had to relinquish his picture and name to the police like they would be better able to find him. He remembered the polite smile of the officer. The pat on his shoulder and an empty promise that they would do their best to bring Sam safely back to his family.
But Dean wanted to ask him about the other children. How could he make that promise when the police had yet to find any of the other missing children from when it all started six months ago?
Then the story was gone and Sam's face disappeared from the screen as well. Dean ran a hand down his face and ignored the burn behind his eyes because he would not cry. He didn't deserve to cry. This situation was the result of his actions, and Sam was still gone and paying for it. If anyone deserved to shed a few tears, it was Sam.
He didn't know what Sam would be like when they found him. He didn't know what he went through or how he would handle it all. Sam was strong, Dean would never deny that, but people could only handle so much before they broke.
Dean never wanted to be the reason Sam broke, but he'd still be there for him no matter what shape they found him in. That was the least of what he owed Sam.
Dean expected nightmares, how could he not when he experienced them himself every time he closed his eyes and he wasn't even the one going through the worst of it? If Sam needed comfort, Dean would be there for him. Wouldn't even call him a girl for it. He promised himself and absent Sam that he would be the big brother Sam needed him to be before.
He would've promised almost anything if it made a difference.
John stumbled into the room halfway through the night and brought the stench of alcohol and cigarettes with him, probably from the same bar Dean went to the night Sam was taken. The place was practically in a fog with all the smokers.
John took one look at the nightstand and asked, "No calls?"
Dean shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "It's been almost a week. Shouldn't we hear something soon?"
John sat down on the other bed, slouching and one hand pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. Dean noticed how shadowed his face had become, the lines drawn on it from exhaustion and worry.
"I don't know, Dean," he said. "I just… I don't know."
Dean looked away from his father. He laid down fully on the bed and stared at the water-stained ceiling. This broken man wasn't the John Winchester he knew, but he couldn't blame him. John was put in an impossible situation and his only option was to wait and hope that the same strangers involved in taking his son would contact him with the only way they had that he would be able to see that same son again.
"Maybe they'll call tomorrow," Dean said.
He heard his father shuffle around the room as he prepared for bed and turned out the lights. "Maybe," he agreed, but Dean heard the doubt in his tone. He didn't believe that, but he wasn't about to crush Dean's hopes. And maybe he was trying to hold onto a sliver of hope himself.
Because what else did they have to hold onto?
Sam tried to rinse out his mouth with tepid water as much as he could in the bathroom sink, but days passed and he still tasted blood from biting the man's fingers. Jerry and his pals became more brutal in their treatment towards him, but he had yet to regret any of his actions.
He could see some of the bruises formed on his abdomen—they liked to kick people when they were down. Literally. He couldn't see his neck without a mirror, but he figured there had to be electrical burns forming from how tender his throat always felt. From how talking became more and more of a chore with his abused neck.
Each day he wondered if it would be the one where he would finally be shipped away. He never expected that he wouldn't realize he was being shipped until he was already in the back of a van with another kid, a boy around his age.
He couldn't remember a clear line of events leading him to the back of a windowless van (and wasn't every stranger danger PSA playing in his head now?), but he remember eating and feeling suspiciously drowsy afterwards. Drugged his food or water, most likely.
The other boy was still unconscious, and Sam wasn't sure if he should be grateful or concerned. They both had to have been drugged, but maybe they gave the other boy too much? Maybe they didn't drug the other boy and knocked him out in a little more physical manner? There were no signs of head injury, and Sam though maybe he shouldn't question this.
Each moment the boy stayed unaware was another moment of trauma spared.
The van didn't soften any jostling from uneven roads—which seemed to be the only roads it was traveling. Every bump sent more pain through Sam's battered body, but there was no way to maneuver into a position to fix that. With his head by the back of the seats up front, he couldn't even shift to see who was driving.
He thought he felt helpless before, but the universe had to prove him wrong and show that he could, in fact, feel even more helpless.
If the universe wanted to show him kindness for once, it would have the driver turn on the heat for the van. It wasn't well-insulated and he could feel the bite of the near-autumn air, a bite intensified by the fact that he wore just shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Wind whistled across the front doors, and some seeped into the van through the cracks as drafts.
The other boy shivered in his sleep, and Sam knew he wasn't the only one the chill was getting to.
But the universe was not kind and the heat was not turned on. The air only grew colder as they drove into the night before they finally came to a stop at a dumpy motel—the kind that John dropped him and Dean off at often.
Jerry and another man hauled them into the room, one after the other, while Sam thought about how long they drove to arrive there, how every minute took him farther away from Dean.
The two men took the beds in the room, and Sam sat on the floor with the other boy. As much as he wanted to try comforting the boy, Sam wasn't sure that his attempts would be recognized with the kid's semi-awake state. Besides, either of them talking would likely end in punishment for both of them. Sam was fine risking receiving punishment himself, but he didn't want to bring it onto someone else.
He really didn't.
But if there were a chance for both of them to find freedom, then Sam couldn't pass that up, regardless of the risk of punishment.
He waited for the men to fall asleep, and didn't mind when the other boy drifted off shortly after them. One man was meant to keep watch—the one who he had never seen before today—but he fell asleep almost immediately after Jerry did, apparently not seeing either boy as much of a threat or flight risk. Intimidation and fear might have been enough to keep their other victims in line, but Sam was never one to willingly follow orders. John Winchester could attest to that.
He crept through the room and slipped out of the door, almost tasting his freedom thanks to the carelessness of his captors.
"You can't live off of coffee, Dean," John said.
They both sat at the table in the motel room's kitchenette. Dean sipped his coffee, his third or forth cup. He didn't count anymore since the number would continue to grow throughout the day.
Dean shrugged. "I just need it to keep me going for now," he said. He didn't mention that John couldn't live off of Jack, but seemed to be trying to anyway.
John sighed. "Try getting some decent sleep," he said. "You don't have anything else to do until they call, and then you'll be rested for when they do."
Dean knew that I'm-not-in-the-mood-for-arguments tone and didn't want to push his father over the precarious edge of his emotional stability, it was only a matter of time before he lost his grip on the situation and went after the criminals to force information from them (and Dean would be right there with him). He didn't want to be on the receiving end of his father's anger again. Didn't want to go back to the cold silences and biting remarks.
The fact that John still looked at him with disappointment rather than pride tore him apart with every glance.
So he abandoned his coffee mug and went to lay down on his bed. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Caleb dropped off some recent newspapers. More kids are missing, so it might not hurt to see if I can find any useful articles," John said.
Dean wanted to offer his help, but he knew that he was still on hunter probation for the time being. Only help when asked. No difficult tasks. No tasks that required real responsibility. Quietly sit in the car and wait.
It was the middle of the day, and bright in the room even with the curtains drawn shut. Dean wasn't expecting to fall asleep, and wondered if John actually expected him to or just wanted to go through the newspapers without having to keep an eye on Dean like he was some sort of child in need of constant supervision.
John didn't argue when Dean turned the TV on, volume low, and let the news play over and over. It repeated the same hour's worth of content every hour, and every hour Dean watched Sam's name and picture show up on the screen for a minute or two before it was gone again. John kept quiet, but he glanced over at the TV every time the story of the missing children came on.
Dean listened to their theories about devil worship being the cause, but that would make it easy for them. Human trafficking was proving to be much trickier. Unpredictable. They needed to deal with humans who knew very well that what they did was wrong, but did it anyway by choice. Worse, they were good at it. Good enough to make it difficult for three experienced hunters of the supernatural to follow the trail of one child taken by them. Dean still felt dirty just from sitting across the table from the man apparently in charge of the local affairs for trafficking. Stronger, however, was his desire to hunt that man down and make him beg for mercy like he was certain so many of the children he sold begged for.
Dean spent the day like that, and stayed awake long after John shut the TV off and went to bed himself. Each day that passed made Sam's memory fade a little more, and he was afraid that they wouldn't find Sam and that his memory would fade to nothing more than a blur.
He tried to hold on to the memories from years ago, when they still had to share a motel bed. He held onto the memory of Sam's restless nightmares and his steady breathing when there were no nightmares to be found. He held onto the memory of Sam kicking him in the middle of the night with a mumbled 'sorry' afterwards.
He held onto any memory willing to surface and prayed that there would be chances for him to make more memories with Sam. To try and understand him through his teenage angst. To actually listen to him like he should have been doing all along.
He almost managed to lull himself to sleep in that manner, until his phone on the nightstand flared into life with its obnoxious ringtone.
Sam made his way to the motel's front office, always checking over his shoulder to see if his captors heard him or woke up to notice his absence. He wasn't a great sight to behold, and the worker didn't know what to make of him judging by the odd mixture of confusion, concern, and hesitance on his face. But he was an older gentleman with a kind face and concern won out.
"I need help," Sam said. "I need to make a phone call."
"Rules say that I can't let you use the office phone, but there's a payphone down the street. What's wrong, boy?"
"The men who checked in earlier are human traffickers," Sam said. "They're trying to sell me."
The horror on the worker's face told Sam that he was not in on the trafficking ring, that he finally found an ally in this mess. He dug in his pocket and dropped a few coins into Sam's hand. When Sam went to withdraw his hands, the worker stopped him long enough to cut the zip tie off and free his wrists.
"Go to the payphone down the street," he said. "I'll call the cops and tell them they need to get over here. Don't come back until you hear the sirens and see the police, alright son?"
Sam nodded. He didn't want to return, but he might be able to at least find a place to stay until Dean could come get him.
The worker picked up the phone and shooed Sam out of the door.
Sam jogged down the street, the gravelly roadside rough on his feet. It took only a minute to find the payphone and he dropped his coins into it before punching in the numbers he knew by heart.
"C'mon. C'mon. Pick up already," he mumbled as the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Dean!" So he woke him up in the middle of the night, hearing Dean's voice was a relief he wasn't sure he'd ever get again.
"Sammy?" The sleepiness was wiped away from his voice and Sam didn't bother correcting the use of his nickname this time.
"Dean, they're traffickers. I got out of the room and the motel worker is calling the cops on them," Sam rushed to say. "I need you to come pick me up."
"Yeah, yeah. Of course, I'm coming to pick you up. Where are you?"
Sam looked around and found a large green sign, the motel must have been right off of the highway, albeit not a very large or well-kept one. "A couple of miles outside of Pittsburgh," he said. "There's a motel right next to the highway. They wanted to sell me, Dean."
"I know, Sammy. But they aren't going to because the cops are on their way, right? And you're going to be fine because I'm on my way and bringing Dad and maybe Caleb along," Dean said.
Sam looked up when he heard a car coming down the road, and froze when that car happened to be the windowless van he was so acquainted with.
"Dean, they noticed I'm gone," he said. "They're coming to take me again, Dean. I don't know where."
He heard Dean talking on the other line, which turned into Dean yelling on the other line when Sam didn't reply.
The van stopped and the men got out. Sam dropped the phone, letting it hang down from its cradle with Dean's voice still coming through the speaker. He tried to make a run for it, but Jerry turned on his shock collar and he fell to the ground in spasms.
He was pulled up by his arms and dragged, half-stumbling, to the back of the van before he was tossed in next to the other boy.
Jerry leaned into the back and stuck a syringe's needle into Sam's neck, depressing the plunger. As the world faded around him, Sam heard sirens in the distance.
"Sam?" Dean asked. He gripped his cell phone like it was the only lifeline to his little brother, and in a way it was for the moment.
John woke up, and once he realized what Dean was talking about over the phone, he was preparing to leave without question and alerting Caleb.
"Sam!" Dean demanded. "C'mon, Sammy. Answer me."
He heard the yells in the background, the cry of pain, but refused to believe that it came from Sam.
The line went dead and Dean was forced to hang up on his end. He followed his dad and Caleb into the truck.
"He's just outside of Pittsburgh," Dean said. The truck was in motion before he finished the words. "They're moving him again though, sounds like."
John nodded. "We'll find them. Sammy gave us a lead we can work with."
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "He did."
As proud as he was of Sam's resourcefulness in circumstances against him, the pure panic in his voice had Dean worried. What had he experienced? What would he still experience by the time they reached him? Pittsburgh was over nine hours away, and that meant they were getting a nine hour headstart farther away with Sam in tow.
"He say anything else?" Caleb asked.
Dean glanced at John, a little surprised that the question hadn't come from his father, but he understood. John's eyes were set on the road and his jaw clenched with dangerous promises to dismember anyone involved in his son's abduction.
"He got the motel worker to call the police, but it sounded like his kidnappers figured out he was gone and what was happening. He said they were coming to take him again," Dean said. He left out the part about Sam's voice sounding petrified when he said that and how it broke Dean's heart that his brother was so afraid while he wasn't there to make it better.
"Think they used their real names at the motel?" Caleb asked.
"Doubtful," John said. "They've shown us that they're too smart to make a mistake like that. They've been doing this for so long and haven't been caught yet."
"Sam's definitely testing that," Dean added. "About a week and a half, and he's already almost gotten them busted."
John nodded.
Caleb said, "I guess they didn't count on dealing with a stubborn Winchester. That might be his best advantage."
"I just hope that it's enough," Dean said before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth. He didn't want to voice the uncertainties they all knew, but being a Winchester was more of a curse than it was a blessing. That stubbornness would only get Sam so far until their bad luck reared its head again and made whatever Sam had to go through that much worse.
All they could do was find and rescue Sam before it came to that.
Dean stared out of the window and watched the landscape rush by. "We're coming, Sammy," He whispered to himself. "Just gotta hold on a little longer."
Sam came to in a new motel room, which he guessed was hours away from the first one. His head felt detached and foggy, but not painful for once.
"Finally comin' around, kid?" someone asked. Jerry.
Sam looked over at him. He was on the floor while Jerry sat comfortably on one of the beds.
"That was Rich's mistake falling asleep," he said. "But you won't be getting another chance to sell us out, I'm making sure of that."
Sam tried to respond, but the shock collar went off the second he attempted to say a word. Once he reoriented himself, he found himself looking up at Jerry's amused smirk.
"Had to give you a little upgrade. Anytime you try to talk, you get shocked."
Sam tasted fabric in his mouth, tied too tightly around his head.
"The gag is just an extra measure," he added. "We've been doing this for over ten years, and you're the first kid to almost bust us. You can bet that we really aren't going to be taking anymore chances with you."
Sam saw the other boy sitting against the adjacent wall, but he didn't have a gag. It was a small relief that Sam was the only one punished for his escape attempt, but the failed attempt made his feeling of helplessness return stronger. Strong enough to become despair.
What if that was his only chance and he ruined it?
He tried to move his hands, but they were bound again. This time with rope instead of zip ties. Sam couldn't ask why, but he suspected that they might not just carry zip ties with them. Or that they hadn't expected resistance and didn't think they needed anything for binding. Rope could be bought at a lot of places, no questions asked, and Sam wasn't sure how long he was out from whatever Jerry injected into him.
"Better get used to obedience," Jerry said. "It's the foundation of your new role in life. Buyers don't give a damn about the things they buy. It does its job, great. If not, well, you won't be in for a good time. Or a long life. Best learn now and save everyone the trouble."
All Sam could do was glare at Jerry. He tried to kick at him, only to find his ankles bound like his wrists. He could squirm all he wanted, but he wouldn't be accomplishing much of anything in this state.
The man Jerry called Rich came into the room with bags of fast food. Him and Jerry took the majority and gave a little bit to the other boy, but Sam was given nothing.
"Deprived yourself of a meal," Jerry said. "Could've just played along and earned yourself some food, but you go making things difficult for us and you make things difficult for yourself."
"Don't you get it, kid?" Rich asked. "The only damn we give about you is the price we can sell you at. We sell you half dead, and that's not our problem. Whatever life you had before this is over. You're just another thing."
Sam once again spent the night wishing the floor would just swallow him. They were able to turn him into an object so easily. They didn't see him as human, he was just another thing to them.
What if this was all his future held?
No one saw his tears fall in the dark of the room, the others were sleeping. He wished that he could reach out to Dean somewhere, give him a trail to follow. But the most he could do was pray that his family could save him from this because he wasn't going to have anymore chances to save himself bound like this.
That was the first night where he truly felt less than human.
Author's Note Part Two: Sam almost tasted freedom, but Winchester luck did win out again. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, leave me a review and let me know!
Thank you to everyone who reviews, follows, favorites, and simply reads. Knowing that you guys are enjoying my work keeps me grinning like an idiot!