"Now once I give you the signal what do you do?" John leaned on a dirty shovel and looked down at his fourteen year-old son.

"We've gone over it," Dean replied, crossing his arms. He tried to avoid looking at the six-foot deep hole his dad had dug, afraid he might slip and fall to the bottom and get stuck. A wooden box was situated at the bottom of the hole, an empty coffin waiting for a corpse. Dean gulped and looked up at his dad. He seemed grave, no pun intended.

"Well you better hope we've gone over it enough," his dad snapped, sticking the shovel into the ground. He stepped up next to the grave and gave it a once-over, then beckoned his son to his side. "I'll help you in," he offered.

Dean made his way to the edge of the grave, feeling his heart speed up. His palms were wet and his stomach clenched painfully, but he tried his best not to let it show. If his dad thought he was going to freak out, he'd never let this continue. But Dean needed to do this. He needed this practice, so he had to pretend he was okay with it. He swallowed his fear and grabbed his dad's hand, letting himself be lowered into a bed meant for a dead man. When he settled himself into the wood, he couldn't help but feel like he was about to earn the title that came with the coffin.

"You have the walkie-talkie?" John asked, too far away from where he stood above the grave. Dean nodded timidly, fingering the device in his pocket. He took in a wet breath that tasted like dirt before he maneuvered the lid on top of himself. The box felt hollow and cold. It felt like death. "You ready?" John yelled down to him. Dean nodded before he realized he couldn't be seen, then he cleared his throat and tried to yell back, sounding much quieter than he wished.

"Ready," he called, closing his eyes. He counted to three before he heard the first shovel full of dirt collapse down onto the lid, hitting with a loud, heavy thump. He counted each time his dad sent another clump of dirt until there was such a large layer above him, he couldn't hear anything else. Dean felt like he could physically feel the dirt pressing down on him, forcing air out of his lungs and suffocating him.

Dean fought the urge to panic, knowing it would only bring him pain and anger from his dad. He forced his breathing to slow down, trying to calm his thrumming heart. He wanted desperately to escape, but he knew he had to wait for the signal. His hand grasped for the talkie in his pocket, thinking it was taking too long. Certainly something had gone wrong? His dad would never take this long to fill a grave. What if something had happened? What if he was yelling for Dean to help, but Dean couldn't hear him? What if—

"Go," John's voice piped up from his pocket, and Dean's eyes flew open. He wriggled a little, panic rising in his chest again, before he took a deep breath to focus.

Kick out the lid. Dean experimentally poke at the ceiling of the coffin with his toes, thinking the weight above him was certainly too much for him to kick in. With a rush of adrenaline that was more bred from fear than anything else, he kicked up at the lid with both feet a few times. He let out a sigh of relief— a mistake on his part, because he wasn't supposed to waste air— when the wood gave in, crashing down on his legs with the overwhelming weight of all the dirt.

Get into a vertical position. Dean, at this point almost hyperventilating, reached toward his feet, yelping when he hit his head on the broken lid. His throat felt tight, and he was afraid he would break down sobbing and either die, or embarrass himself by having to be saved by his dad. Bent on trying to at least survive, Dean maneuvered his body uncomfortably until his was in a sitting position, and at that point he definitely felt like he was going to die.

Dirt piled down around him, constricting him like a python. It was coming from everywhere, clogging up his nose and ears, getting into his eyes and making them water, and tumbling into his mouth, choking him and making his panic rise.

Don't stop moving. Dean shook his head in a futile attempt at clearing all his passageways before starting to move. He made every muscle on his body twist and shake, afraid if he didn't keep something in motion, it'd get caught in the dirt and mean death. His foot momentarily became encased beneath him, and he opened his mouth in fright, letting in a mouthful of dirt. With nowhere left to spit it out, he pulled his foot free and continued on, his eyes stinging and his mouth aching.

Climb to the top. Dean reached above him and grabbed anything he could get ahold of, trying to pull himself up. Instead, the dirt he grabbed fell down on top of his head, trapping him further. His heart pounded loudly in his chest, and Dean could feel himself running out of time. He needed air, and his lungs screamed at him for it. Purely out of desperation, he reached both his arms upward and pushed off with his feet, almost in a swimming motion. The dirt was thick and heavy, but he kept moving, feeling like he was going nowhere.

Suddenly one of his hands felt a cool breeze run over it, and Dean foolishly opened his eyes in surprise. With excruciating pain all over his body, he pressed on, his heart swelling as each inch of his body was exposed to the same cool wind. When his head and shoulders breached the surface, Dean was lifted by two strong hands, pulled from the grave and set beside it.

He rolled over, coughing out as much dirt as he could. His eyes still stung with the stuff, and he could barely hear with what was crammed into his ears. Dean curled into a tight ball, his skin crawling and his limbs shaking.

"Well done, Dean," John commented, grabbing the shovel and tossing it into the trunk of the Impala. "Let's get home so you can wash up."

Dean rolled onto all fours, trying to push himself up but failing. His arms were weak, and his joints felt overstrained. He wanted to ask for help, but he knew he couldn't. One, because that would show his dad how hard this had been on him. And two, because he wasn't positive his throat was in good enough shape to even form the words.

Slobbering mud down his chin and onto his shirt, Dean shakily stood, still feeling as if he was covered in six feet of dirt. He limped along behind his dad, wondering what lessons other kids learned with their fathers. They were probably learning how to shave, or how to drive a car. But his family was damn weird. He already knew how to drive a car, and now he knew how to get out of being buried alive. He had been taught how to kill monsters, and how to protect himself being killed.

Yeah. His family was damn weird.

Notes: So I just keep imagining that John was a fairly terrible dad, and he kept doing things like this to his boys, thinking he was helping them. I'm thinking this is just going to be a collection of one-shots showing different times where he was a bad dad to Sam and Dean. If anybody has any ideas about a chapter, lemme know. It'd be appreciated, and I'll give you credit, of course. :)