Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

Warnings: Language. Mild violence. People get a little hands-y, but mostly implied.

Dean was going to tear his hair out. He was going to rip every, single strand out and throw it to the ground.

They spent a day and a half going to every place of lodging in a two hour radius of Pittsburgh, but not a single one remembered having any customers like the men who had Sam. Which meant they really didn't remember, they didn't have them as customers, or they were in on the whole human trafficking thing.

All were terrible options.

And none of them wanted to admit it, but Sam's trail was growing cold quicker than they could track it. It was only a matter of time before they lost it completely again. John hadn't spoken in hours outside of questioning motel workers. His desperation was rising, and his anger along with it.

Even Caleb became more subdued as the trail died. As the reality that this might be it started to sink in for all of them.

Dean passed his time alone in the truck by watching passers-by on the sidewalk and cars drive past him, wondering how their worlds could still be spinning even after his stopped.

When John and Caleb came back to the truck after questioning the final motel in the area with dark expressions, Dean wondered if he somehow managed to take the phrase 'eat your heart out' literally because it certainly felt like his heart was in his stomach and missing from his chest.

They slumped back into the seats of the truck, and John ran a hand down his face. Dean noticed how new lines etched themselves on his father's skin everyday and how grey strands were becoming more common in his hair. This was wearing on his father, maybe even more than it wore on Dean. He might not have been the perfect dad, but he did his best and loved both of them. How could he deal with his son being sold like an object?

If John figured out the answer to that, Dean wanted to know it, too. But he was pretty sure that there was no way to cope with losing Sam besides alcohol, violence, and women. Even those vices would never be able to dull his absence.

"What do we do now?" Dean asked. He tried to keep his voice from cracking, but he still remembered the terror of Sam's voice from the single phone call he received and it leaked into his own words.

John sighed, turned on the truck, and made a U-turn. "We're going back to Massachusetts," he said.

"What? Why?"

That was over nine hours away, and Dean would bet anything that the traffickers wouldn't take Sam back to the very place they took him from.

"Because playing nice is clearly getting us nowhere," John said. "These bastards took my son, and we tried playing the games by their rules."

Dean met his father's eyes in the rear view mirror, but they were the eyes of a hardened marine on a mission. "They're going to be playing by our rules now," he said.

Dean wasn't allowed caffeine for the duration of the trip back in hopes that he would get some sleep, but Dean couldn't sleep. Not with the adrenaline pumping through his veins at the thought that they were taking control of the situation. He hated having to play by a stranger's rules just as much as John did.

He knew his father meant business, and he looked forward to seeing the men selling Sam writhe in pain until they screamed where he was taken.

That? That was a plan he could roll with. That was a plan that got answers and, more importantly, got Sam back.

Sam didn't know how long he spent tucked away in another health-hazard motel. He hated how drafty rooms felt without the insulation of his hair. Just another discomfort added to his list. Another piece of his new, miserable existence.

There wasn't much use in trying to keep track of time, so the time spent in the motel was divided differently in his mind. It started with the period spent laying on the stained carpet and watching the door, waiting for Dean to kick it in and save him. Then, when he rolled onto his back, it was the period of staring at the ceiling and wishing that it would just fall and crush him already. The period of vanilla shake forced down his throat marked the passing of a meal, but he wouldn't have been able to say which one. Then it turned into the period of him curling up on his side and keeping his back to the world. That way he could almost pretend that it was all just another nightmare. That he would wake up any minute.

Jerry and Rich hadn't bothered to retie the ropes around his ankles, but he wasn't showing much fight lately. His wrists, however, were kept tightly tied behind his back. His shoulders were becoming sore from the strain and he really needed to stretch his arms out.

The other boy laid so quietly sometimes that it left Sam wondering if he was still alive, but the soft breathing always confirmed that he was. He used to think a lot about how he ended up in this situation. About how the other boy might have ended up in this situation. He had too much time to think when his only task was to be on the floor and quiet. When the only job expected of him was to keep breathing.

At some point, he just stopped thinking. Everything became a blur and he couldn't remember much of what happened or what was said. But most of the conversations between Jerry and Rich were about him, not inclusive of him.

He didn't know at which point he stopped caring.

Or at which point he gave up waiting on Dean to kick down the door and pump Jerry and Rich full of bullets. He managed to get a call through to Dean, but nothing happened afterwards. Sam tried to hold onto Dean's words telling him that he was on his way, but they were starting to slip through his fingers.

Would he forget Dean completely if this kept up, if this was all the future held for him? Would Dean forget him given enough time?

Sam wished that he had thought to tell Dean that he didn't blame him on the phone. Knowing Dean, he was beating himself up over all of it with the idea that it was all his fault (and maybe a decent portion of it was his fault, but Sam understood why he tried to take on the case). He just wanted to save some kids, and Sam knew now that he wanted to save them, too. He knew now that none of them deserved what they went through and were still going through.

He hated that it took something like being taken by human traffickers to make him understand his brother. To help ease the disconnect growing between them as they grew up. As Sam grew up.

But no matter how grown up he was becoming, he felt that it wasn't unreasonable for him to curl up on the floor wishing for his big brother to be there with him. Given the circumstances, he felt it was a perfectly reasonable course of action.

John's phone rang about halfway to Massachusetts. Dean couldn't hear what was being said on the other line, but his father didn't like it judging by the way he spat out responses or gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.

Or when he almost swerved into other cars during a particularly heated section of the conversation.

When he hung up, he gripped the phone so hard that Dean thought he would either snap it or throw it out of the window.

He did neither, and another half hour passed before he said what the call was about, but no way Dean or Caleb were going to risk asking beforehand if it brought out that much anger.

"It was the man we talked to in Massachusetts," John finally said. "He gave me the location of the auction there."

"Sam's not even going to be there. Not if they went through the effort of moving him somewhere else," Dean said.

"Probably not," John agreed. "But there will be people there who know where he was taken. This operation of theirs is more like a business. Someone had to order his move, and we're going to find out who did it."

John paused for a long minute, and Dean figured out where Sam inherited the look that said he was thinking over whether or not to tell Dean something. When John stayed silent, Dean knew that the decision came down under the 'Don't tell Dean' category. He hated it, but he wasn't about to question it. He still needed to tread carefully around his father.

He settled back into his seat and left well enough alone between him and John. He watched the ground roll by and wished that it would move faster.

Strange how, with this plan of theirs, he spent the rest of the car ride feeling both closer to and farther from Sam.

The back of the windowless van was becoming far too familiar to Sam, but the difference this time was that he was alone there. Jerry and Rich left the other boy behind in the motel room, as docile as ever. That left Sam concerned over what he should expect if he was the only kid involved. He hadn't even been a pain in the ass since they shaved his head.

They brought him back to the processing warehouse and dragged him inside once again. Unlike the day before, there was no line of children waiting to have their heads shaved. Instead, the inside was divided with cloth curtains that had numbered signs above them and Sam couldn't see what went on behind them, but he knew it couldn't be anything good.

Jerry and Rich led him into one of the little makeshift booths ('18166' was written on its sign) and sat him in the single chair occupying it. He wasn't surprised that it had restraints and that they were immediately fastened to keep him in place. He knew to expect it now.

None of them talked, though Sam couldn't have if he wanted to. The silence made it so that Sam could catch faint sounds of sobs muffled through the layers of curtains separating everyone. He felt like part of a show he didn't know he was participating in, waiting for the red curtain to split open and reveal his audience.

A man peeked his head in, nodded to himself, and stepped fully into the area, letting the curtain close shut again behind him. He was short and a little too well fed with round wire-rimmed glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose. He licked his chubby lips, looking back and forth between Jerry and Rich. "Gentlemen," he said, "good to see you again. I was running a little late, but I hope you weren't waiting too long."

"You're a loyal customer, Williams," Jerry said. "We never mind waiting a bit for you. Glad you could make it at all. First one, actually."

"When you told me about him, I knew I had to make the trip earlier for the silent auction. You know they never sell the good ones at a regular auction. Just the run-of-the-mill kids."

Is that why the other boy was left at the motel?

Sam wasn't sure if he liked that he was being sold at a silent auction (well, not completely silent, but it wasn't like he could correct them on that). He almost had privacy being separated from the other kids there, but when a buyer stepped in, it felt much more invasive. They could get too close.

Williams stepped closer and bent over to look at Sam. He brought a hand to Sam's chin and turned his head from side to side. His meaty thumbs moved up to pull at Sam's eyelids until they hurt from lost moisture. "Those eyes," he said. "Every parent wants their child to have pretty eyes. You know what they say about windows to the soul."

"You should've seen his hair before it was shaved," Jerry added.

And whose fault was it that my hair was shaved off?

"Thick. Curly. Kind of a chocolate brown color," Jerry continued.

"Every young couple wants a kid with kaleidoscope eyes and thick, curly hair. They all want their perfect little angel, and this kid can give that to them. Well, as long as they offer me the right price."

Sam didn't understand Williams' logic. Buy him just to sell him to some random couple? How was that a feasible business plan?

"He is fertile, isn't he?" Williams asked.

He finally took his eyes off of Sam, which allowed him to breathe a little easier not being under such intense scrutiny. Or at least he was able to breathe easier for a fraction of a second before the weight of Williams' words hit him.

Fertile?

He knew what the word meant. He was fifteen, and may have looked a few years younger, but he wasn't an idiot by any stretch of the word (except for maybe ending up this deep in human trafficking, but that wasn't his fault, was it?).

"If you want to know, you can pay to have him tested," Jerry said. "But he's young and healthy. Shouldn't be any problems."

"If I'm paying an arm and a leg for the kid, I don't want to take chances."

"You know a doctor who'll perform the test with no questions asked?" Jerry asked.

Williams pursed his chubby lips together, but stayed silent.

"That's what I thought," Jerry said. "I can't get the police on my back anymore than you can. Imagine the shit storm you'd have to deal with if the public found out where those 'orphans' you sell for outrageous adoption fees come from. Suddenly, every couple questions if they have a specially bred baby and you're a man with a lot of people after your head on a silver platter. The kid is probably nice and normal, so is it worth the risk?"

"I could sell kids with his features for a high price, but I've had some bad luck lately," Williams said. "What about a trial run?"

"It'll cost you extra," Jerry said.

Williams took a long look at Sam, who wanted nothing more than to be spared the appraising stares like he was just meat.

"I'll think about it."

Williams left the little booth, and Sam prayed that someone else would buy him. Anyone else, because a future as some sort of breeder was one of the last things he wanted. He wished that he could help the kids forced into that fate, but he wouldn't even know where to start mending the pain caused by these human traffickers and their customers.

Sam still felt the phantom touch of Williams' hand on his jaw as it turned his head. He wanted to throw up, but his stomach held nothing to expel.

Something told him that his day was only beginning.

They were at a motel in Massachusetts by the time the sun set. Dean sat on one bed sharpening knives. John sat on the other cleaning the guns. It was the first night in a long time that John didn't spend drinking his mind away in the cheapest, strongest alcohol he could find.

In the morning, they'd head over to the auction. Not with the intent to buy anything (anyone), or even with a hope that Sam would be there. They all knew that every odd said Sam was far away from there.

But the people who knew where Sam went would be there, and when Winchesters wanted answers, they got answers.

"Dean," John said.

Dean paused in sharpening one of his favorite silver knives and looked at his father. "Yes sir?"

John sighed. Dean wasn't sure if it was hidden behind anger and determination, but he couldn't find disappointment in his father's eyes this time.

"Things tomorrow might end in violence," he said. "I don't know if you should be there."

"What do you mean? Why shouldn't I be there?" Dean asked. "I know I fucked up big time, Dad. I really, really did. But I'm going to do whatever it takes to help get Sam back. If that means roughing up a few of the bastards who took him, well, I can't say that I haven't been dreaming of that."

"I'm not talking about just roughing them up, Dean. I know that you've taken down some of the strongest things out there, but these are humans. This isn't the kind of thing you're used to."

"You're wrong, Dad," Dean said. "The things that took Sammy aren't human."

Sam curled and uncurled his toes, then his fingers. It felt like hours passed since Williams left, but for all Sam knew, they might've. He wanted more than anything to stand up and stretch after days of being confined to small positions.

But the restraints of the chair held fast and limited his mobility to his hands, feet, and head.

He was given a few sips of water here and there, but never enough to sate his thirst.

Jerry and Rich talked sometimes, but it was mostly Jerry explaining things to Rich. He must have been new to this, and it made Sam wonder how anyone fell into becoming a human trafficker.

Since Williams left, other potential buyers had come and gone. Sam still felt the paths their hands traced across his skin, looking for features that suited the needs of their business. His price tag slowly rose and sat at thirty thousand, courtesy of the man who put his hands…

Sam refused to think about it. How it all felt clinical and dirty at the same time. How his face burned red in shame under the inspection of each new set of hands.

Then, two new men stepped within the red velvet bounds of Sam's little world, one after the other. They both wore suits, looking much more professional than the buyers who came before them.

Sam smelled their cologne immediately, each of them drowned in a different scent that choked Sam. Overpowering and artificial.

"This is him?" one asked. He had an accent, but managed to almost hide it completely.

The other man snorted. "You see any other boy here? I don't think Jerry is up to selling Rich just yet."

All four men laughed, Rich a bit nervously.

Sam couldn't remember what his own laugh sounded like anymore.

Jerry set a hand on Sam's shoulder, and it made Sam's skin crawl. Too many hands had been laid on him without his consent lately.

"This is him," Jerry confirmed. "Strong kid. Good fit for labor at one of your sites, Davies. On the other hand, he's got a lot of fight in him under the right circumstances. That might fit some of your clientele, wouldn't it, Liu?"

Davies and Liu shared a look of silent challenge, and Sam feared that this was it. None of the bidders before this have had the same spark in their eyes that Davies and Liu had. He was about to be sold and vanish just like every other kid missing from Massachusetts. There wouldn't even be a trail left for Dean to follow.

"His hair?" the man with the accent asked. Sam guessed he was Liu, since he looked nothing like a 'Davies'.

"Nice and thick. It'll regrow quick enough, if you want it long," Jerry said.

"Shaved heads sell poorly," Liu said. He shrugged. "Not a popular taste with my clients."

"Hair regrows," Rich added in, speaking for the first time to a potential buyer that day. "Mine takes only a couple of weeks before I have to take a razor to it. He'll have enough to satisfy by the time you get him there. A little longer, and it'll be right back to hanging in his face."

Davies stepped closer and ran his hand over Sam's arm, squeezing. "Some muscle on him," he commented.

"More muscle can be built," Jerry said.

"Pretty eyes," Liu commented, leaning closer to Sam's face. Close enough that Sam felt his breath. "A little pout."

"Williams has also taken an interest in the boy," Jerry said. "You know how overpriced adoptions of infants are. He could pay eighty thousand for the boy and make his money back with two kids from him."

"And waste him by keeping him hidden for breeding?" Liu asked. "Williams is a fool. Plenty of desperate people are willing to pay top dollar for a few hours with a kid like this."

"Rare to get one this young with some strength. He could do the work of two or three of my regular kids, and it would be nice to have one sturdy enough to last more than five years. Save me a lot of headaches and a lot of money," Davies said. He glanced back at Liu, then to Jerry. "How old is he?"

"Looks about thirteen or so."

Fifteen.

"And Williams is interested?"

"Sure is."

Davies asked, "You said that he has fight in him?"

"Not as much as he used to, I'm sure that the rest of it could be beaten out of him."

"I want him to have some fight," Liu said. "What's the current price?"

"Thirty thousand," Jerry said. "But that's without any bid from Williams, and you both know that Williams could pay top dollar for the kid if he really wanted him."

Liu and Davies started into a bidding war between each other. Sam didn't know how much humans sold for, so he wasn't sure if the amounts being thrown around were significant. They were certainly higher amounts of money than his family had ever had, considering there were days when he had been left with Dean where they weren't sure if they could afford another meal.

"You know, Liu," Davies said. "Maybe we could meet in the middle."

"Why would we?"

"I want the kid. You obviously want the kid. I have a site in Hong Kong that could use a little bit of muscle," Davies said. "We split the price. I get him during the week. You get the weekends."

"Branding?" Liu asked. "Yours or mine?"

Davies shrugged and looked at Sam. He pushed up the sleeves to reveal Sam's shoulders. "One on each shoulder," he said. "We've done it before."

"Not for a long time," Liu said.

"So, we're rekindling our old friendship."

Liu had a short laugh at that. "If you're serious, then you pay seventy percent, and I will take care of transportation."

"Seventy percent? No way, I'll do sixty-forty."

Liu shook his head. "If you get him for the week, and I only get him for weekends, then you pay seventy percent of his cost."

Jerry cleared his throat. "If you pay a hundred thousand, I won't even give Williams or anyone else a chance to counter bet. I'll close his auction right away," he said. "Remember the last time he screwed you, Davies?"

"Bastard can't stand letting me buy the kids we both take interest in. Thinks I'm wasting my purchases," Davies said. "I'll shell out seventy thousand to screw him over for once."

"Are you sure you could make your money back for it?" Liu asked. "I would be more than happy to pay and take full ownership of him. Having him in the back rooms every night would fetch me a lot more than just the weekends."

Sam hated the sound of that. If someone could just kill him before the deal goes through… He never wanted to feel a stranger's hands invading him again.

"I can make the money back off him," Davies said. "If not with labor, then there are a few organs that he doesn't need for survival."

Hands were shaken, and Sam given one last look from Liu and Davies ("Finish your section of processing by morning and have him ready to go."), before he was hauled away again. They didn't return to the motel at first, instead dragging him into a tattoo parlor through the back.

His feet on the tiled ground of the parlor felt like they were being cut by glass with how much debris littered the floor. He was shoved into another chair, a new chair, and restrained much tighter than at the silent auction. Even when he wasn't moving, the straps bit into his skin.

Once the tattoo artist starting filling the sensitive skin of his forearm—palm up—with ink, he understood why he was bound so tightly. He would be moving so much trying to escape the needles, that the tattoo would be completely ruined. He couldn't even make a sound in protest because of his collar.

The tattoo artist didn't even look at him, and he realized that he wasn't a person anymore. His humanity had been slowly drained from him since the second they grabbed him from his bed in the middle of the night until he was just an object sold for some quick cash.

By the time they returned to the motel, '18166' was tattooed on his forearm perpendicular to his wrist in neat print at the center of red, tender skin. His fate sealed.

Every fiber composing Dean wanted to storm into the auction guns blazing, but he knew enough to restrain himself. He also knew that he would just get in the way of John's plan. So until Caleb called him, he paced the sidewalk outside of the alley leading to the auction.

It was held on the outskirts of the town in some old, abandoned mental hospital. A place that no one would go to, or even pay attention to.

The sun burned down on him and he wanted to rip it out of the sky. Ask it how it could be so freaking bright when the world should be dark.

When his phone went off, he answered before the second ring. Caleb directed him through the building and told him to meet them in one of the storage rooms in the basement.

He weaved through the basement halls with practiced stealth. Some of them were in surprising condition for how worn-down the building appeared from the outside, but he assumed that was part of the idea to keep their operations hidden.

He peeked into the rooms with open doors, but never found anything in them. He heard distant cries and screams, but couldn't pinpoint where exactly each one came from when there were so many.

He paused when he heard loud voices yelling out numbers and peered into the room they came from.

He saw a man holding a girl still by her arms on a raised platform. She couldn't have been more than Sam's age, dressed only in underwear with her hair a limp mess over her face and her skin covered in a thin layer of dirt. Her hands were tied in front of her, but she wasn't resisting.

Dean swore that he could pick out some fresh bruises forming on her pale skin, and he wanted to charge in and kill (slowly eviscerate) every single pervert looking at her like that. He wanted to get her back to her family. To a place where she would be safe.

But Dean also knew that he couldn't draw attention to himself and ruin his family's chance at finding out where Sam was. As much as Sam would have wanted him to help the girl at the risk of staying lost, Dean wasn't making that trade. There was nothing that he would put in front of Sam.

Not even an innocent girl, dirty and afraid on a stage.

Before he tore his eyes away from the scene, he saw Sam up on that stage. Exposed and alone. Did he have to go through that? Did he think that they abandoned him? Did he still know that Dean was ready to tear apart the world to bring him back home?

Did he know how sorry Dean was that any of this happened at all?

It was a hard thing to do, but Dean tore himself away from the room and weaved the rest of the way to the secluded storage closet Caleb told him about. He heard sobs from the other side of the door and worried that John started without him.

He entered and shut the door behind him. John and Caleb had a man tied to a chair by his wrists and ankles. His knee was in a brace, crutches tossed into the corner.

"You went for the gimp?" Dean asked.

"Please help me," the man begged. He looked up at Dean. "They—"

He froze and turned so pale that his skin was almost translucent. "It's you."

"Do I know you?" Dean asked. He sifted through the assortment of faces from his past, but none matched that of the man in front of him.

"You were with that kid. At the arcade."

Dean couldn't stop his fist before it landed a heavy hit on the man's jaw. "You were the one watching us?" Dean demanded. "You took my brother!"

"I didn't!" he yelled. "I swear, I wasn't one of the ones who took him. I saw you at the arcade and then I didn't see him again until he was already here. Oh god, please don't hurt me."

John leaned close to the man and splayed the fingers of one of his restrained hands across the wooden armrest of the chair. He pulled out a knife and hovered it over the base of the man's index finger, kept still by Caleb.

"You see," he said. "That boy you helped take is my son. I don't care if you didn't directly do it, you were still involved. But it's great that you recognize who we're talking about because you took a piece of me. Now I'm going to take pieces of you until you tell me where he is."

"No. No, please. I don't know. I don't know!"

John brought down his knife.

Author's Note: So, Sam was finally sold at a silent auction. I know a lot of you were looking forward to his selling, so I hope I didn't disappoint. I imagined that high quality/attitude problem kids that would fit specific needs would be separated and sold at higher prices. With the silent auction set-up, it would let people be a little more able to inspect before they buy. I don't know how accurate prices would be, so I just kinda threw numbers out there.

Fun fact: Sam's number was chosen by an RNG that I programmed just for giving him a number. I didn't like the RNGs I found online.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who reviews, reads, follows, and favorites!

If you wouldn't mind, take a minute and leave a review before you go! I'd really appreciate it.