Disclaimer: I do not own or lay claim to anything related to Supernatural. But my birthday's in a couple weeks… who knows?

A/N: Somewhere along the way, this got dark. Like, DARK. Possibly one of the darkest things I've written, and you have my English teacher to thank for that because somewhere along the way thematic ideas from Heart of Darkness, as well as some lines from T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men," hijacked the story. I give up. Here it is, and be warned, because, you know, DARK!

THE HOSTAGE

By Spectral Scribe

The bar was clean, unlike most bars Dean frequented, which stank with smoke, vomit, and booze, and had the slightly crumbling façade of a rundown outhouse that hadn't been scrubbed clean since sometime in the 1800's. It was dark, too, being about two o'clock in the morning and the sky a cold shade of navy; a single dim light shone over the bar where a lone barmaid was busy shelving spotless glasses and nearly-full bottles of Jack Daniels.

Dean slunk silently through the shadows, the collar of his beaten leather jacket pulled up to the back of his spiky brown hair, his ripped jeans wearing yesterday's bloodstains like boy scout patches. Stepping into the light, he grinned and murmured softly, "Hey, Jo."

Nearly dropping a glass in her hand, the blonde glanced up hastily from her work, her eyes wide and shocked. When she regained her composure, she set the glass down on the surface and rubbed her eyes. "Dean?"

"How's it going?" he asked casually, stepping closer to Jo with his hands deep in his pockets.

"Um," Jo replied, "fine, I guess. What are you doing here?"

A trickle of silver moonlight slanted in through the window, cascading over the floor and giving Dean's skin a metallic, ethereal glow. "I, uh…" he glanced around, bringing one hand up to the back of his head to scratch nervously. "Have you seen Sam?"

Pursing her lips and drawing her eyebrows together, Jo shook her head. "No. Why? What happened?"

Dean heaved a sigh, pulling up a chair and seating himself at the bar. "He's gone. I can't find him." Blank eyes stared hard into the distance, and Jo pulled out a beer and slid it over to him across the smooth surface of the bar. He caught it deftly, not even looking up to watch it coming towards him, and took a long swig. "I was hoping you'd seen him. I don't know where else to look."

Jo pulled out a beer for herself. "I'm sorry, Dean," she replied at last. "I haven't heard from him. Do you think he's okay?"

Dark eyes turned down, bore a fiery hole in the bottle of beer. "I don't know," he whispered at last. "I think maybe…" he wet his lips, a soft tongue poking out from behind his glistening teeth as a sort of precursor to the coming revelation. "I think he might have been kidnapped." Dean took another swallow of beer.

"What? Kidnapped?" Jo cried out, running a hand through her tangled locks of wavy blonde hair. "That's insane. Who'd want to kidnap Sam?"

Dean's broad shoulders hunched, shrugged, and fell again as he ran his thumb in slow, lazy circles over the rim of his bottle. "We both know others have found out about him. Him and the other psychic kids." The moonlight shivered as clouds passed over the sky, twinkling on Dean's skin and revealing a mottled painting of purple and yellow on his neck, running down into the collar of his shirt and almost to his chin. "Gordon's already tried hunting him. Who knows who else has gotten the same bright idea?"

"Hunters," Jo clarified. "You think hunters kidnapped Sam."

Dean grinned suddenly, a twisted contortion of his face that was full of irony and loathing and spite, no humor to be found in the expression. "Yeah. Ain't that a kicker?" He licked his lips again, took one last swallow of beer, and slammed it back on the countertop. "So if you hear anything…"

Jo nodded, the color having drained from her face. "All right. Yeah. Maybe I'll try asking around, see if I can dig anything up."

Leaning back, Dean's silhouette fell out of the circle of light, and all that could be seen was a broad-shouldered shadow and the glint of saliva on teeth as he grinned, or sneered, or simply bared his teeth in rage—it was difficult to tell which. "You do that. But be careful, all right? These hunters… they're twisted. They turn against Sam like that, there's no telling what kind of deluded rationalization they've come up with for themselves. Hell, they might turn on me next. Who knows? Just don't buy into it, whatever they tell you, if you do get in contact with anybody. They may lie, make shit up that makes sense to them because they think they're doing the world a favor."

"Don't worry." Jo's back straightened as she stood resolutely behind the bar. "Despite our past differences, you and Sam… you're my friends. I wouldn't turn my back on either of you. And if it's hunters," she continued, her eyes lighting up. "Well, if it's hunters, then you might want to check the Roadhouse."

There was that glint of teeth again in the darkness, and then Dean was leaning forward, elbows on the bar and fully under the dim yellow light. "Thanks, Jo. You're a doll."

Jo nodded. "Anytime. You can come to me anytime, Dean."

Standing up, he towered over her, a long shadow stretching out from his feet to the corner where the floor met the wall. "Call me if you hear anything." And then he was leaning over the bar, grabbing the back of Jo's head with rough, calloused hands and shoving his mouth against hers, hot and hungry, lips on fire and crackling like mint lifesavers between teeth, fire sparking and flaring and spitting in a dark forest, all tongue and teeth and lips. When he pulled away, his hard grip brought a few strands of blonde hair with him.

Jo slowly opened her eyes, looking especially dazed in the dim lighting of the bar. Dean stared at her from shadowed eyes. He held up his cell phone and tapped it with his fingers as a reminder before turning and sweeping out of the room, away from the lines of moonlight that settled peacefully over the floor.

She stood there long after he was gone, gazing off into the shadows as her half-drunk beer grew warm on the countertop, touching her lips every so often and frowning before covering her whole face in her hands and sitting like that until dawn.

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It's all dark, sweat and bile and fear burning every inch of him, but he can do nothing. Blind, captive, trapped. The terrible need to escape tears at him so deeply he wants to struggle, wants to claw at the darkness swimming around him. Terror. Alone. Helpless. He wants to break free, wants to escape, knows he can't. He wants to scream, but he knows nobody will hear him.

The distant sound of approaching voices invades his senses, but he doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to hear the horrible things they're saying, doesn't want to hear what's going on, can't take it. It makes him sick to his stomach. And he can do nothing. He is trapped. He is a hostage, and he wishes madly for his brother to arrive, gun in one hand, knife in the other, determination in his eyes, and save him, and it's really not every day that he wishes so desperately to be saved that it physically hurts, that it aches so deep inside him he can focus on nothing but the need. The need to see his brother's face. The need to not hear what they're saying out there, what terrible plan is unfolding.

The voices stop, and he has once again managed to successfully tune them out, worried and sickened and satisfied that he doesn't know quite what's going on, what's being planned. All he knows is that he's alone.

He's alone.

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Morning sun beamed down, hot and garish, against the brilliantly lustrous exterior of the 1967 Chevy Impala's black, metallic surface. Crisp onyx chrome gleamed like dark fire as the car careened down the barren stretch of dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust as its engine growled hungrily and ate up the earth. Inside the savage, animalistic beast of burning metal, rock music crunched angrily from the speakers, drowning out all other sound and sensible thought.

Dean Winchester sat in the driver's seat, one hand on the wheel and the other curled around the neck of a brown bottle. The beer was cheap and watered down, not nearly enough to dent Dean's high tolerance—boozin' and bruisin' was his style, albeit most often without the driving attached, but that was irrelevant. Cruising down the highway as the speedometer crept up and up, fields of fresh green grass and cornstalks blurring past the windows, the beer hardly mattered at all.

He took a quick swig of the nearly tasteless beer before lowering his right hand back to his side, sharp eyes devouring the scenery (or lack thereof) stretching for miles upon empty miles around the Impala.

At least, it seemed empty.

But as it were, somewhere along the way he'd picked up a little friend, and sirens sung faintly over the scream of heavy metal as red lights flashed against the liquid silver of the rearview mirror.

"Shit," Dean muttered fiercely. The cop wouldn't easily be shaken off on this barren, endless stretch of road. Easing off the gas, he lowered his foot onto the brake and let the whirr of tires die down as the car slowed to a breezy glide, then a crawl, and finally to a complete stop.

The cop car followed suit behind him, the blinking and flashing and deafening sirens shutting off as well. A smartly dressed officer stepped onto the brown earth, sunglasses and a graying mustache adorning his tanned face, fairly muscled arms swinging along as he strode over to the Impala with a face like carved stone.

When he got to the driver's side, he tapped one long finger against the window, and Dean obligingly rolled it down and let a rush of Ozzy Osbourne flood the fresh, warm outside air. "Mornin', officer," he shouted amiably above the din.

The cop shouted something back that sounded like an order to turn the racket down, so Dean reached up and dumped the volume until it was a mere whisper of "Now the time is here for Iron Man to spread fear…"

Harrumphing, the cop leaned over to the open window and peered inside, eyes hidden behind the thick, reflective sunglasses. "Are you aware that you were going twenty miles over the speed limit?"

"Was I?" Dean drawled, glancing down at his wristwatch. "Listen pal, I'd love to stay and chat about my legal offenses, but I really don't have time for this."

"Well, make time," the cop snapped, looking about ready to throw a hissy fit as a vein protruded from his neck. "As it turns out, I don't really have time to deal with punks like you wrapping your car around a tree because you couldn't control a vehicle going way too fast for your own good. Now, I'm going to need some license and registration."

Dean grinned, a dark, feral smile that glinted coldly in his eyes and twisted his lips into a sneer. "And you're doing a great job, but like I said, I don't have time for—"

"Is that a beer?" the cop cut him off, his vein popping even more. "Are you drinking and driving at the same time?" Shaking his head, he wiped one hand over his brow. "That's it. Out of the car."

Lifting his bottle, Dean observed it for a moment as an inquisitive biology student might observe the pinned-back intestines of a pig. Lifting it to his lips, he chugged down the rest of the lukewarm, diluted concoction as the cop grunted in shock and fury. "I've already told you," Dean growled. "I. Don't. Have. Time. For this." With a swift motion, he swung his right arm around to his left side, bringing the bottle through the window and against the side of the stunned cop's face.

Glass shattered in a tinkle of brown shards raining to the ground, crystals mixing with the dirt. The cop shouted in agony and clutched his face as he went down, the thunk of the bottle hitting and cracking his cheekbone reverberating through the quiet air as long streaks of scarlet welled up on his face as though his skin were vomiting marinara sauce. The blood dripped over his fingers and down to the ground, which now became a heterogeneous painting of grimy dirt, twinkling glass, and spots of bright red blood that shined under the blazing glow of the golden sun.

Dean stepped out of the car and crouched down by the cop, inspecting his motionless form. He lay prostrate on the dirt road, left side of his face a mangled mess of torn flesh, one lens of his sunglasses having popped out as they fell askew on his face, slipping down to his nose. Blood dribbled down into his mouth, staining his pearly teeth black. After a moment, the cop let out a groan, grasping at the loose dirt of the road as he tried to turn himself vertical.

"Oh no, you don't," Dean scolded as he grabbed the man around the shoulders to hinder his further ascent. The cop merely groaned again, blinking disoriented eyes as his shattered jaw fell slack. Reaching to his pants, the man shakily grabbed a gun, but Dean merely smirked at him. He snatched the weapon from the man's unsteady grip, scrutinized the shiny metal for a moment, and then tucked it into his own belt and hid it beneath the beaten leather jacket. "Next time when a guy says he doesn't have time to deal with your shit," Dean reprimanded like a schoolteacher, "you'd do well to listen." He patted the cop on the cheek—the left, of course—earning another choked wail of protest. "Good talking to you."

Pushing to his feet, Dean wiped his right hand on his jeans, leaving a small brownish stain there from the blood that had smeared onto his palm from the cop's face. Boots crunching on broken glass, he slid back into the car and pulled the door shut behind him, cranking the music once again to full blast.

"Running as fast as they can, Iron Man lives again!"

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A part of him wonders how things got so messed up. How he got himself into such a sticky mess, how things got so bad, how they ended up this way. Because this is the way things will end, he knows. He's almost positive, sitting here in the dark, limbs going numb, cut off from the world surely still going on outside—he knows this is the way the world will end.

He can't even bring himself to give a hollow, ironic laugh. Because it's true. If he never gets out of here, if he's trapped here forever—and the thought is ridiculous and unsound and absurd, because of course he will get out, get out or die, whichever—but if he never gets out, then he doesn't know what will happen to his brother. What it will do to him. He worries about that all the time—what his brother is willing to do for him, willing to sacrifice. It scares the shit out of him. But he guesses it comes with the territory of what they do, what their lives have become.

This? This shouldn't come with the territory. This makes him sick to his stomach, and he's losing all track of time and all track of himself. He feels as though he's been here for years, alone in the darkness, captive, a victim of his own foolishness. He feels as though he's become one with the darkness, slipping into the shadows until he's nothing, an ephemeral, ethereal wisp of smoke that curls into the air and disperses until it's nothing but the faint, residual scent of death.

Oh god, please. He doesn't know what he believes anymore, but he prays to whatever might be out there, prays that he might be saved. Just this once. Because his brother needs him, and he needs to get out of here or he'll die of madness before anything else happens.

He hears more voices, just beyond the darkness, keeping just out of his reach, even though he knows, because he's seen. But he's alone.

He knows this is the way he will die, a hostage in the darkness, bone-weary exhaustion tugging at every inch of him he didn't know he could still feel. It's agony. But he knows that this is the way he will die, the way his brother—can't leave him alone—will die. He knows.

This is the way the world ends.