Okay, first off, unlike my other fics that I've posted here, this one is nowhere near completion. So daily updates won't be a thing, at least for a long while. I intend for this story to be decently long.

This is something that I wrote up the other day. I'm definitely going to continue and I've got a lot of ideas for it, but I just don't have the time to write it all now. I'm just publishing it so I can gauge the response to it (and because I haven't written anything in a while) - so please review.

Obviously, this is very AU, but it still maintains some canon elements. This is also not a sexual slavery situation. The only sort of intercourse between slaves and masters would be akin to the sort that happened with slavery in America - aka not something that the slaves are purchased for.

Wesley Montgomery's father is not a bad man. The whole rest of the world might view him as such, but Wes knows that it's just not true.

He knows the details of the crime his father committed, the crime which earned him a lifetime in jail. He's seen the pictures and heard the stories with every gory detail included.

But he still knows his father is a good man. Oh, and he's certainly guilty.

Because the crime that Wes' father committed was no worse than the crimes the men he murdered in cold blood committed on a daily basis. But those men were hurting people who didn't count.

Wes' father was one of the few who believed in slave rights. He was one of the few that believed in equal treatment and paying wages. He was vehemently against punishment of any sort, especially physical punishment. So when he overheard two men talking - no, bragging - about how they had beaten a "useless slave until it wasn't even moving," he'd gotten understandably angry. And he'd killed those men because there was no other way for justice to come to that poor human who had died for no reason at all.

The crime made national - and probably international - news. Wes, his mother, and their slave, Abigail, had to move to escape the reporters that camped out in their front lawn every day. And a few years later, she met Steven Jacobs.

Wes had disliked the man from the start, but he saw how he changed his mother. She had been so sad and lost ever since his father had been arrested. But Steven turned her back into her old self.

Not six months later, Steve and his slave, Barry, moved in.

Wes and Steve held each other in mutual dislike. So Wes asked to board at Dalton, a local private school that was one of the best in the country. Not only that, but it was also close to the prison where his father now lived.

Wes was now only home for a few weeks total out of the whole year, spending the rest of the time at school or friend's houses. He preferred it that way. Because even though his mom was happy again with Steve, she wasn't the same.

Blaine Anderson was not born a slave. But as a young child, only four years old, he'd been strapped into the backseat of his parents' car next to his 14-year-old brother, Cooper, for a weekend vacation.

The trip had ended all too soon when a drunk driver came tearing down the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with their car. Blaine's parents were declared dead at the scene. After being patched up at the hospital, Blaine and Cooper both entered the slavery system. He hadn't seen his brother since.

The first time Wes came home from school, he was shocked to find that a small shack had been erected in the backyard - a slave house for Abigail and Barry.

He was even more shocked to find his mother coldly ordering kind old Ab around the house. Ab had been with the family since before Wes was born and had become almost like a member of the family.

The biggest shock was when he discovered the whips and chains in the slave house when he went out to talk to Ab one night. Apparently, Steve was the type who liked to leave physical reminders for his slaves.

How his mother could allow all this to happen after everything his father had fought for baffled Wes. But then again, perhaps she felt so betrayed that slaves had caused her husband to give up his freedom that she now felt no sympathy for him.

That one act had frozen her heart.

In the twelve years since the car accident, Blaine had been with seven different masters. The families he'd served had covered all areas of the spectrum - from the kind ones who just needed an extra hand around the house to the brutal masters who believed that a slave was worth less than a squashed bug beneath their shoes. He had the layers of scars, both physical and emotional, to show for his years in captivity. He had felt pain and most certainly fear of his masters before, but he'd never feared for his life.

Well, not until now.

Blaine most recent masters hadn't been awful. Sure, they would punish him for wrongdoings, but they generally treated him fairly. One of Blaine's main tasks had been helping with the care of their young daughter. Well, she had managed to catch the flu at school, and she had passed it on to Blaine. When the boy became so sick that he couldn't perform his duties, he was returned to the market - because no one wasted their money on healing slaves.

So now he sat crouched and dirty on the cold ground behind the auction stage. He was wearing a thin pair of shorts and a threadbare undershirt - and, of course, the frozen chains around his ankles and wrists. Above him, two dealers were talking worriedly.

"The kid's not going to get any buyers, I mean, look at him!"

They both looked down. Blaine's complexion was pallid despite his olive skin tone. He's lost any excess weight he might have been carrying when he was sick, and convulsions still overtook his body.

"He's a good worker, though. Strong. Someone might want to take a chance on him."

"With that many previous owners and disease? No way."

"I say we throw him up there and if no one bites, we'll get rid of him at our next stop, okay?"

"Whatever. I guess money is money."

Steve didn't actually need a new slave, but his friends trusted his judgement on finding an adequate slave the most, so he went to the slave auctions every time they rolled into town.

He'd already helped two of his friends find new slaves and was about to leave when he heard something unusual.

"Now this slave is a 16 year old male who has been with seven previous owners. He is fit for both indoor and outdoor labor. However, he is also ill, so we will set no minimum bid."

It might be interesting to get the kid. It'd be cheap, there'd be a little extra help for a while, and then the kid would die. Easy.

When no other voices rose from the crowd, Steve shouted, "Twenty dollars!"

Blaine was shocked and relieved when he heard the man's voice call out. Sure, it was a pathetic sum - he's gone for more than ten times that amount before - but it saved him learning what "disposal" consisted of.

He was led into the processing room where all the other slaves kept a wide berth around him. His body still shivered and was hot with fever, and he was coughing with almost every breath. None of them wanted to catch whatever he had.

Of course, the flu was easily treatable, but no one ever bothered treating slaves.

Blaine allowed a minute of hope that the man who had purchased him might take the money he had saved to buy medicine for him. And then he saw his new owner walk into the room. His eyes were cold and lifeless. Blaine gulped, knowing that nothing was going to come easily for him.

The man walked away from the station briskly and Blaine had to fight to keep up. Not only did he have to pause frequently to catch his breath or cough, but the chains at his ankles, which hadn't been released, allowed him very little freedom in movement.

He was loaded into the floor of the backseat of the man's car, and they set off.

The man didn't utter one word to Blaine the whole time.

When the car finally stopped moving, Blaine thought nervously about what he might find on the other side of the door. It finally opened to reveal a modest house with a well-maintained yard and garden. But that wasn't where Blaine was being dragged.

Instead, he was taken to a small shed in the back yard. He knew places like this well. They were poorly built and had little to no insulation or any basic necessities. Moments later, the door was unlocked and Blaine was unceremoniously shoved in.

The inside of the slave house was as Blaine expected it. There were two thin mattress pads on either side of the room and a door at the back, which presumably led to the punishment area. Both mattress pads looked like they were already taken, so Blaine curled up against the far wall and tried to relax.

"You bought another one?" Wes' mother, Marcia, asked her new husband when he walked back into the house. She was currently sitting in the living room and watching TV. Ab was cleaning the kitchen while Barry was upstairs, painting the hallway.

"Ah, it's not going to last. I just got it for some extra work around here for a while."

"What's wrong with him?" she asked, still not able to drop her last shred of respect for slaves and refer to one as "it."

"Got sick. It can barely hold itself up. I got it for $20 because the dealers were going to dispose of it otherwise. The way I see it, I bought the slave an extra few weeks of life. It'll work here for a while, and probably die pretty soon."

Marcia nodded her head. "Alright dear. I guess he will be helpful with all the work we're doing."

It was true; Barry was almost single-handedly renovating the entire house. He'd already fixed up the kitchen and living room, and was now working on a few rooms upstairs. Ab was too old to do much of the physical labor, so she was used for cleaning the messes created by construction. With the new slave, they'd be able to start the landscaping earlier than expected.