A/N: To reassure anyone who was wondering, there will be no gender swapping in this fic. Sam will remain male throughout. And Dean too. Sorry I took so long with this chapter. Hopefully I'll have the next one sorted out a bit quicker.

A/N: Dean is driven to do something rash for the sake of someone he loves.

Bought And Sold (Chapter 4: Hit The Ground Running) by frostygossamer

Almost three years down the line, Dean had resigned himself to a lifetime of domestic drudgery at the Harvelle estate. At her mother's insistence, Missus Harvelle Sr being a belt-and-braces woman, Jo had produced a second child. Though, this time, she had insisted on artificial insemination rather than engaging her spurned spouse's actual physical assistance.

Dean had been subjected to a pretty unpleasant medical procedure to obtain that sample, even though he had sworn he could now perform the necessary act, if required. Jo had chosen, however, NOT to require it. Time had not caused her to feel any more kindly toward him. That girl could hold a grudge with the best.

Unfortunately, and much to both the Harvelles' deep disgust, this second baby had turned out to be, not another heir, but a useless BOY. To them, the infant was nothing more than another burdensome mouth to feed until he was old enough to be married off.

The non-girl child had been a huge disappointment to Jo. A few years earlier the Harvelles would probably have 'deselected' him before he came to full term. However, the laws of Appalachia had recently been changed to discourage this practice, the state government having discovered that the male birth rate had dropped ridiculously below an acceptable minimum.

Dean was well aware that his boy child wouldn't be treated like his privileged big sister, Missy Emma. The Harvelles and the world knew boy children were inferior and not really worth their keep. This was especially true in the Selective States, where gender discrimination was particularly harsh. The poor child's mother had rejected him and Dean could see he was already being neglected, left in the sole care of uncaring nursery-boys.

Dean felt for him and he longed so much to show the tiny infant his love, but he was forbidden. He feared for his baby boy. For the first time in so very long, he began to think about running.

This time with his son!

~o~

After a hard day's toil, Dean flopped down on the hard bed in his tiny quarters and pulled out the muddy flyer he had picked up in the street.

He had been walking back to the Harvelles' car from the store with the family chef, lugging their groceries the way he used to lug groceries for his dad and brother all those years ago, when he spotted it fluttering across the sidewalk. He had quickly stuffed it in his pocket, before anyone could see.

He read it through carefully, hardly able to believe what it said.

It was a flyer for a men's refuge, a safe house where they took in battered and mistreated men and helped them to get away from their abusive missuses. This was exactly what Dean needed. When he had tried to run before he had never gotten far without money or transport, and he had always wound up taking a beating when they dragged him 'home'.

Escape would be especially hard with a little child in tow this time. He would need someplace to go where there were people sympathetic to his desperate situation. The men's refuge sounded like the place.

Dean committed the details on the flyer to memory and then hid it under a loose floorboard, mindful that he could trust no one in the Harvelle house.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face. He had a plan.

~o~

A couple weeks later, Dean saw his chance.

Jo and her mother had gone to visit with Ellen's elderly mother, taking along their spoiled little darling Emma, all dolled up in lace and pigtails. The new baby boy was left in his bassinet out in the sunny yard, with only a bored nursery-boy to watch him.

Dean was returning from the laundry room with a basket of newly laundered towels when he spotted them. He noticed that the nursery-boy was wafting himself with a makeshift paper fan, overheating in the summer sunshine.

"Hot day, huh?" he remarked to the boy, casually.

"That's for sure," the boy agreed, nodding.

"Bet you could use a cold one right now," Dean observed, making a drinking gesture with his free hand.

"Couldn't I?" agreed the boy, sullenly. "But I gotta watch the freakin' kid."

He gave the bassinet a peevish little kick. Dean tried not to wince.

"Why don't I watch the brat while you go get yourself a brewski?" Dean suggested, helpfully.

He knew that this boy hadn't been around long enough to pick up on the fact that the guy talking to him was actually the baby's father, not merely some random servant. Very few of the staff at the Harvelle house were aware of that fact anymore. Dean was never EVER treated like family.

"Awesome idea," the boy exclaimed, jumping up. "Be back in ten, tops," and he disappeared indoors.

Dean had ten minutes. He grabbed the baby from the bassinet, wrapping him in a thick, soft towel. He stuffed the rest of his towels in the bassinet, simulating a baby-sized lump under the blanket, and gently placed his child in the empty laundry basket. Then he ran to his room in the servants' quarters, seizing his little stash of found coins and his jacket.

And then they were gone for good.

~o~

Dean had collected together barely enough lost coinage to pay for a bus ticket into town. Jumping on the first bus he saw, he sat down quickly on a seat in the back, with the laundry basket on his lap, and prayed the kid would stay quiet. He didn't need to get noticed. They really couldn't risk the attention. At the first stop in town, he got off of the bus. His heart was racing.

It felt really weird walking around town on his own. He had never been to town by himself in all the time he had been living in Appalachia, and he felt like everyone's eyes were on him. Too afraid to ask anyone for directions, it took him quite some while before he found the street he was looking for. The one that had been printed on the flyer he picked up.

The refuge was in a dilapidated old building at the end of its street, with metal shutters over the front windows and a reinforced metal door. The walls and door of the building were covered with graffiti and splashes of red paint proclaiming that this was a place for 'MAN-WHORES' and 'THIEVES' and 'LIARS'. Yes, this had to be the place.

Dean approached the door nervously, his grip tightening on the handle of his baby's basket as he knocked. After a moment, the door opened a crack and a middle-aged, tawny-bearded guy peeked out.

"Hi, son, whaddaya want here?" the guy asked suspiciously.

"Is, uh, is this the men's refuge?" Dean asked, inwardly cursing the uncertain quaver in his voice.

The older guy glanced quickly up and down the street and then grabbed Dean's shoulder, yanking him inside and slamming the door shut behind him.

"You followed?" the guy asked gruffly.

"Uh, no. Don't think so," answered Dean. "Came here alone. Except for, um, 'cept for the baby."

The older guy inhaled through his teeth. "You brung a baby?" he observed. "That's trouble."

The last thing he needed was more unnecessary trouble at the refuge. The foul-mouthed spray-painters the week before had been bad enough.

Dean scowled at him. "Wasn't gonna leave him. They woulda beat on him same as they beat on me."

The guy raised an eyebrow. "He your mistress's kid? You his nursery-boy?"

He knew he would have to hand any kidnapped kid back to the authorities. He couldn't risk condoning actual felony. That would be the fast way to get his place closed down.

"Nuh-uh," Dean insisted. "He's mine. I'm his daddy. And I'm not gonna abandon him with a momma who don't love him. Hell no."

The older guy nodded in understanding. It wasn't the first case like that he had met up with. Mistreated spouses would grin and bear it until a child became involved. That was often the breaking point.

"Name's Bobby," he said. "Bobby Singer. I'm the man-matron around here."

"I'm Dean," responded the young guy, with a polite smile. "Dean Harvelle, uh, I mean Dean Campbell."

It had been so long since Dean had used his mother's name it sounded strange to his ears.

Bobby took him into a big, warm kitchen, where several men and boys were eating soup at a long trestle table. He poured Dean a bowl of soup from a big pot and motioned for him to sit at the table, holding out his hand to take the laundry basket from him. Dean clung on to it stubbornly.

"Hey, it's OK, son," Bobby assured him, in a gentler voice. "Gonna take care of the youngster. Let you eat."

After a moment's hesitation, Dean let the older guy take his baby and sat down at the end of the bench to eat his soup. He was hungry. He was always hungry. And so was his baby.

Bobby noticed that the infant was grizzling the moment he took the basket from Dean's hands. He set it down in a warm spot and busied himself fixing some baby formula from a huge tub of the stuff. Within a few seconds Dean was at his elbow watching his every move.

"Fixing some formula for the little shaver, son," Bobby told the worried father. "We get this wholesale, with the help of a little charity set up by a sympathetic women's organization. Believe it or not, SOME women AREN'T female chauvinists, even here in Appalachia," he chuckled.

When he had prepared a bottle, he handed it to Dean. "Here," he said. "You can feed the little scamp yourself."

Dean took the bottle and got himself settled on the floor beside his basket. He scooped the squealing bundle out and carefully unwrapped his little head, before tempting him with the teat of the bottle. The infant was soon sucking away happily.

"You've done that before," Bobby joshed.

Dean shook his head. "They never let me touch him," he told Bobby. "But I had me a little brother. All but raised him myself, while Dad was working in that sweatshop. Mom passed away when he was tiny, see. Haven't laid eyes on him or Dad in years."

Bobby smiled sadly. "Sorry to hear that, son," he sympathized. "So... What's this little tyke's name, huh?"

Dean looked up at him and laughed. The baby's momma had referred to him only as 'that dratted non-girl'.

"They never named him," he admitted. "Only a boy. Not worth a good name."

Bobby shook his head. "That's damn harsh," he commented. "But it happens."

He kneeled down beside the younger guy and stroked the baby's head with one finger. The infant gurgled happily at the affectionate contact, something he wasn't used to.

"So whadda YOU wanna call him?" Bobby asked softly.

Dean considered for a moment. It was an idea that had never occurred to him before. In their culture, it was always the women who named their children. Dean's mom had named him after HER mom, Deanna. That was something of an honour. His brother's name came from her father. It gave Dean an idea.

"Samuel," he said. "Like my kid brother. That's a good name right there."

Bobby nodded. "Samuel it is then," he agreed, with a grin. "Hi there, Samuel."

The baby grinned up at the only people who had ever shown him kindness.

"Boo!" he burped, and wriggled happily.

TBC

A/N: So far so good, but happiness seldom lasts for Winchesters, er, Campbells. More soon.