A/N: Yay, next chapter of Prisoner of War! So, my Mom is doing good and they are finally moving her out of ICU. My laptop is once again being stupid, but I will do my best to update anyway. At the very least, I can write on my tablet and then email my bestie and perhaps upload from her computer Saturday night.

So, this chapter is much darker, sort of a throwback to the original feeling of this story, which makes me happy, as this story has a tendency to wander. One of my personal favorite episodes, Scarecrow, is next on the hit list, and I am looking forward to it.

So, if you are following my AU, All The Pretty Monsters, I have created a forum for it, as there are a few ideas I want to Beta test against some readers who don't mind spoilers, if you check out the most recent chapter of that story, the link is at the top of the chapter. Also, if you are following or interested in following my newest baby, Tuesday's Child, the second chapter went up yesterday, and I am loving it so far.

Reviews are love, dear ones!

As Always,

EverReader

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine...

Prisoner of War – Chapter Twenty One

"Tainted Love"

Emmett Kowiski lived in a small one bedroom bungalow only a few blocks from the Chinese restaurant. The brother's rang the bell and almost immediately it was opened by Hope, with a slightly manic smile on her face.

"Can I help you?" She asked, looking from one boy to the other.

"Emmett called us." Sam began haltingly, glancing over at Dean.

Dean, still a little miffed over the whole 'Teddy Bear Doctors' thing, waved him on, obviously not planning on jumping in any time soon.

Sam smiled tightly at him, then he turned a blinding smile on Hope. "We're wedding planners."

Two things happened simultaneously. Hope's eyes lit up like a little kid on Christmas morning, and Dean's jaw dropped so far it nearly hit the floor.

"Emmett called wedding planners? That is so considerate of him, but he really is the sweetest, most considerate man on the whole planet!" She squealed as Sam studiously ignored Dean's death glare.

"Come in! Emmett, you naughty boy, you should have told me!" She cried as she led them into a tiny living room.

Emmett had obviously been sleeping in the easy chair, and he blinked at them in confusion.

"Wedding Planners?" He asked tentatively, looking at the Winchesters doubtfully.

"Hope, do you have any ideas to share? Any magazines or anything?" Sam said, trying to remember what he'd seen on the cheesy wedding movies.

She clapped her hands again. "I've been meaning to, I just haven't had the time."

"That's okay, we have plenty of time, if you want to just run out and get a few, we'll start by getting to know Emmett." Dean offered, and Hope squealed again, as both Winchesters winced.

"I'll be right back!" She cried, dashing out of the room. In record time, Sam heard her car's engine start.

They looked back at Emmett, who was looking at them apprehensively.

"You guys aren't wedding planners." He said accusingly.

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Dean studied the nerdy looking man in front of him with distaste. In his opinion, love spells were about the lowest thing you could do to someone. If you had a beef with them, you killed them outright.

Love spells, or anything that took away another person's free will was just another form of rape, in his view.

"Damn Skippy we're not." He snarled. "We're here to clean up the mess you made with that stupid magic coin."

Emmett swallowed, going pale, but he shook his head resolutely. "I don't know what you're talking about." He claimed.

Dean cracked his knuckles. "Well, buddy, I gotta say, for your sake, I hope you remember fast."

If possible, Emmett went even paler, but he simply pressed his lips together and shook his head.

"You're destroying her, you know that, right?" Sam said suddenly, in a matter of fact voice that somehow managed to cut through the room like a knife.

Sam continued on. "You did all this, I'm guessing because you're in love with her. Pretty girl, nerdy guy like you, I bet she didn't even know your name. So you made a wish, and now you have what you always wanted. Except you don't, not really, and I bet you realize it a little more everyday."

"You're crazy!" Emmett sputtered indignantly, as Dean watched his little brother, who was apparently on a roll.

"Every day, you see her acting a little less like herself, a little more like what she thinks you want her to be. And at first, it's awesome, it's everything you thought you wanted. But then you find yourself missing the little things that made her the person you fell in love with in the first place. So you try to encourage her to be that person again, but the problem with love spells is that everything the victim does, they do for the other person. It's not love, it's slavery. She's a prisoner and she doesn't even know it, but you do, and if you really care about her at all, it's killing you. Because what you've done is killing her." Sam finished in the same conversational voice he'd began in, as if he were reading the weather, and Dean and Emmett were left simply staring at him.

Sam shrugged. "Love's not suppose to destroy, Emmett. It's supposed to protect."

Emmett was shaking his head. "You don't get it, you're what, seventeen? What the hell do you know about love?"

Sam raised a brow. "I know you don't buy it at a Chinese restaurant. I know love is supposed to mean putting the other person first. And I know that whatever that coin did, it didn't make her actually love you, it just made her think she did."

"Christ, Sammy." Dean muttered uncomfortably. Dean actually agreed with everything Sam was saying, but the way Sam delivered it, like he didn't care if he destroyed the guy, sent chills down Dean's spine.

Sam looked over at him. "It's the truth. Soon, people will start dying, the wishes always go bad. How's he gonna feel when they get into a disagreement over napkin colors and she kills herself in remorse."

"You're not crazy, you're insane!" Emmett cried, standing up and moving towards Sam. Sam didn't so much as blink, but Dean was instantly a flurry of motion. Emmett found himself shoved up against the wall so fast his glasses fell askew on his face.

"Big mistake." Dean spoke with a low, menacing voice. "Did you miss the part about protecting what you care about?" He hissed.

"Who the hell are you guys?" Emmett said in a choked voice.

Dean felt Sam's hand on his arm. "Don't kill him, Dean. It's not like I couldn't put him into the hospital with one hand in a sling."

Dean looked over at him. "Not. The. Point."

Sam looked at him steadily. "Let him go."

Dean scowled and looked down as his phone started ringing.

He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. "It's Bobby." He said to his brother.

Sam jerked his head to the front door. "Better take it outside."

Dean hesitated, but the glare Sam sent his way had him pressing his lips together even as he headed outside.

"What do you got, Bobby?" He asked, moving to stand in front of the front window so as to keep a line of sight on Sam and Emmett.

"Well, as far as I can tell, Sam's right. It's Mayan, and it's old, really old. He's also right about the bloody history. These things were created as an offering to the Mayan God of Chaos, and that's exactly what they do. The wishes start off innocuously enough, but soon, crops are failing and brothers are killing brothers, the whole nine yards. Scholars think a coin like that might have been responsible for the Trojan War, Dean. We have to pull the plug on that thing now." Bobby said worriedly.

Dean scowled. "And just how the hell are we supposed to do that if we can't even touch the damn thing?" He growled, remembering the way Sam's body had jerked unresponsively in his arms only a few hours earlier.

"You and Sam can't touch it, but whoever made the first wish, they can." Bobby supplied.

Dean grinned ferally. "Well, that is something Sam and I have been working on at our end. We found the moron, what exactly does he have to do?"

"He was to pick up the coin while wishing to undo everything, including his own wish." Bobby stated and Dean blew out a breath.

He was glad he had his gun.

He never saw the woman peeking around the corner as he hung up with Bobby.

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Sam glanced into the review as his brother drove, making sure Emmett wasn't planning anything drastic, like throwing himself out of the speeding car.

They'd dragged a still protesting Emmett out at gun point, and even now, the man was wringing his hands and bemoaning his fate.

"You don't understand. I've loved Hope since I was in second grade. Ten years we went to school together, and she didn't even know my name. How else was I supposed to get her to love me?" Emmett said miserably.

"Try growing a personality." Dean muttered.

As they turned the last corner between them and Wong Foo's, a red bicycle suddenly flew across the street, nearly clipping the front of the Impala.

"Shit." Dean cursed, slamming on his brakes as he reached out instinctively to lay his hand across Sam's chest.

Sam took no note, however, as he was watching wide eyed as a little kid, about Annabelle's age, tossed another bicycle, this time over the Impala, thankfully.

A group of frightened, older looking boys were backed against the wall of the drugstore, and Sam guessed they had picked the wrong day to gang up on the little kid.

"Holy crap." Emmett breathed in surprise, and Sam looked at him wryly.

"Starting to get it?" He asked.

Emmett looked at him guiltily. "I just wanted her to love me." He whispered.

Sam looked back at him steadily. "Love hurts sometimes."

Emmett nodded, closing his eyes. "Okay. Okay, let's go."

Sam opened his door.

"Where the hell you going, Sammy?" Dean cried.

"To save those kids from being broke in half." Sam replied.

"Dude, what if he breaks you in half?" Dean said in alarm.

"Get Emmett to the coin, and we won't have to worry." Sam called, already out of the Impala.

Dean cursed again but put the car into drive, pulling away.

Sam took a deep breath, walking forward with his hands up.

"Hey, kiddo." He said, doing his best to channel the voice Dean had used on him when he was younger.

"What do you want?" The boy snarled, eyes feral and Sam swallowed. He didn't think he could shoot a little kid, but he wasn't sure how else to stop him.

The kid threw the bicycle at him and he ducked.

The group of boys took advantage of the younger kid's distraction to take off in all directions, and in fury, the youngest boy ripped up a stop sign and threw it after one of them. Taking off after the tallest of his victims, he sped away with surprising speed.

Sam moved to follow, but a searing pain shot through his head, and once again, he felt warmth trickle down his face.

His eyelids fluttered as he slumped to the sidewalk, good arm twitching a little at his side.

He came to less than a moment later, sitting upright with a shocked, surprised breath. Pushing aside his panic over the vision (another vision, two in just a few hours, what kind of monster was he?) he tried to sort through what he'd seen as he wiped blood from his chin.

Dean. It had been Dean.

And someone had shot him

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Dean parked in front of Wong Foo's and looked over at Emmett.

"You ready to do this?" He asked, surprised at the compassion he suddenly felt for the man.

"You mean, am I ready for the love of my life to suddenly forget that I even exist? No, of course I'm not ready." Emmett snapped.

Dean gritted his teeth, compassion quickly fleeing.

"Tough cookies." He snapped back, getting out of the car and coming around to Emmett's side.

He dragged Emmett out by his arm, pulling him towards the restaurant.

Suddenly, Hope walked out the front door.

"I can't let you do it." She said, tears streaming down her face.

"Hope, what are you doing here?" Emmett asked in alarm.

"I heard him talking on the phone. Is everything I feel fake? Are you just going to undo us, like we're some kind of mistake?" She started crying.

"Oh, Hope, honey. They're right, I shouldn't have done it." Emmett said, reaching for her.

She stepped back. "No. No, I won't let you just erase us."

Reaching behind her, she pulled out a gun. Immediately, both men froze.

"Hope!" Emmett cried in horror.

"Okay, Hope, it's okay. Let's just talk about this..." Dean said, trying to keep his tone soothing.

She sniffed and shook her head. "No, no talking. I won't let you break us up. Things were fine until you came."

She squared her shoulders, and as the sound of a shot being fired echoed of the brick buildings, Dean braced himself for a pain that never came.

Instead, it was Hope who crumpled slowly to the ground, a crimson stain spreading across her white blouse.

Emmett was already running towards her, as Dean looked around wildly.

Sam stood behind him, weapon in his hand and a frighteningly blank look on his face.

"Sam? Sammy?" Dean said, moving carefully towards his brother and taking the gun from his unresisting fingers. Sam blinked then, animation returning to his eyes. He looked at his brother.

"You okay?" He asked Dean, and Dean wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, because Sam had probably just saved his life.

Sam had just shot someone, and he was checking on Dean.

"Yeah, kiddo, what about you?" He said gently, but Sam didn't answer, instead pushing past Dean to stand next to Emmett and Hope.

Hope was bleeding badly and Dean could tell she only had a few moments left, if that. Sam had aimed true, hitting her near her heart and it was a wonder she was awake at all.

It was a testament to how screwed up the town had become that they weren't already surrounded by a crowd of bystanders and police officers, but the streets remained empty.

Emmett had knelt down beside Hope, cradling her head on his lap, and his lifted tearful, accusing eyes to Sam.

"You shot her." He sobbed, as her eyes fluttered closed.

"Yeah." Sam replied. "Like I said. The wishes always go bad." His voice sounded...empty and Dean shivered again.

"It's okay, Hope." Emmett was whispering, pushing dark hair out of her pale face. "I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix all of it."

He looked up at Dean. "If I do what you said, Everything goes back to normal?"

Dean swallowed. "That's the theory." He said.

Emmett laid Hope's head gently down on the sidewalk and stood, seemingly oblivious to the blood.

"Let's do this." He said dully, turning to the restaurant's door.

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The Winchesters stood on the dock overlooking Lake Auburn. They'd stuck around the last few hours to double check that everything really had reverted back the way it was supposed to.

Mostly, everything had.

"What happened to your sling? Dean asked his brother.

Sam looked up, startled. "Hope shot it." He replied, staring back out over the water.

"Come again?" Dean asked, straightening from where he'd been leaning on the railing.

Sam didn't look at him again as he answered. "When I shot her, she was already pulling the trigger. I just shot first, is all. Her shot went wide, it missed you, grazed right over the top of my shoulder. Cut the top of the sling cleaner than a knife." he said noncommittally.

"Jesus, Sam, she could have hit you in the neck." Dean swore.

"Yup." Sam replied.

An awkward moment passed between them. "You know, she's okay, Sam. She didn't really die." Dean said.

"Yeah, Dean. She really did. Emmett brought her back, but I really killed her. Just cause it didn't stick didn't mean I didn't do it." Sam replied in a hard voice.

"Yeah, well, you did it to save me." Dean reasoned, heart pounding as he studied his younger brother, who suddenly seemed miles away even though Dean could reach out and touch him if he wanted to.

"Love destroys." Sam said quietly.

"That's not what you told Emmett." Dean said, taken aback at Sam's words.

"I lied." Sam said simply. "Love destroys. It's just the truth. People think love means building something, but love is just admitting your weakness. It's naming the things that can be used against you."

Dean shook his head, upset beyond measure at Sam's words. "You don't mean that. You've always believed in love."

Sam raised a brow. "I still do. I believe it exists, I'm just not foolish enough to see it for what it is. Love destroys, Dean. In the end, it always does. Look at what loving Mom did to Dad, to all of us. Bobby loved his wife, now look at him. Look at what Emmett did, and what Hope did in return. Love destroys, that's just the way it is."

"No, Sam. That's not what love is." Dean said, as cold fingers fisted in his stomach.

What the hell was Sam saying all this for?

Sam looked Dean square in the face. "It's not personal Dean, you don't have to take offense. It's just how things are. Gravity's not personal either. Love destroys."

Dean shook his head, unsure of how to respond to this new development of Sam's.

And in his head, he heard Constance's whispered words "We destroy what we love..."