For all notes, warnings, etc. please refer to chapter one. Thank you for the reviews. Hopefully, this is a little more solid than the first two chapters. The next chapter will explain things a bit. Promise.


He wakes up in a box that fits his person almost exactly and knows what happened instantly.

He's been buried alive.

It's been one of his worst nightmares since the first time he helped his dad dig up a half-decayed corpse and stared into the coffin at the rotting clothes and dried out hair. He dreams about being on the other side, trapped in that tiny little space, waiting to be liberated; sometimes, he still wakes up gasping and paces the hotel room just to make sure that the walls aren't two inches from him on either side. If that doesn't work, he slinks out the door to the Impala and sits against her hood, engine on, just to counteract the cold panic seeping into his system.

No such comfort right now.

His fingers splay against the ceiling which hovers inches from his face and when he stretches his legs, his toes—shoeless—tap the end of the coffin. His squirming informs him that the sides of the box are just short of his shoulders while his head tilts back and forth on a lumpy, moldy pillow. It smells like death in here, clingy and stomach churning; his innards clench against it but he doesn't dare gag. Vomit would only increase the stench and make the experience worse than it already is. It's difficult to keep himself even remotely together in the pitch black of his own death house where the air's slowly leaching from his body as oxygen converts to carbon dioxide. His brain's running through a million different questions to keep him from handling the situation logically.

He tears at the wood. Pain erupts as he pulls off nails and shatters skin but this doesn't stop him, only increases his need to be out of here, away from whatever is putrefying with him. He pictures those crime dramas, which he has always hated, where the victim lies trapped for days, sometimes dying, sometimes not. Whenever those episodes came on, Sam watched with keen interest, while he fled to a different part of the room or out of it. He couldn't—can't—stand to see it, to think about it. Even now, his hearing is enveloped by his own haggard breathing and the throbbing of his pulse, so that when something thumps loudly against the roof of the coffin, he lets out a scream that would do little girls proud. All of his motions stop, except for his heart, as he stares blindly at the roof, waiting for it to happen again. It does, several seconds later, followed by a faster, louder one. Suddenly, light pours in from the cracks around the edge of his prison as someone drags off the lid of the coffin.

"Bobby, he smells pretty—holy shit," this voice is not familiar. "Holy fucking shit."

And the next one is. "I'll be damned. Is he?"

The lid's all the way off and the light blinds him but he drags himself to his feet immediately. It doesn't matter that his legs melt or that he can't get his equilibrium. He needs out of this hole, into the safety of open air. His body flops against someone who catches him haphazardly and pins him.

"Holy shit," and then, to him. "Calm down, you bastard. I said, calm down!" His struggles cease, like a terrified rabbit waiting for the moment to escape the snare. Tears stream down his face from the dim light of the moon.

"Hey, Dean," the familiar voice calls from somewhere up above. "It's all right. It's Bobby Singer. Remember me?"

How could he forget? He spent a lot of his childhood at Bobby's dirty old house, scratching his Rottweilers behind the ears and fiddling with broken down cars. Not to mention the recent incident with a demon possessed girl whose body Bobby conveniently took care of; Bobby's a hard guy to forget. Squinting, he tries to look beyond the hole so he can confirm it's Bobby but the world's dissolved into light and shadow. There's definitely something lurking up there but he's not a dumb enough to assume it's friendly.

"He's shocky, Bobby," the person holding him rumbles. "Don't think he knows where he is."

"Probably better that he doesn't." One of the shadows moves closer. "Boost him up to me."

He strikes.

His fist catches whoever's holding him in under the jaw and his knee hits a groin with a satisfying oomph. The person holding him jerks away while he trips and staggers like a drunken ballerina towards the black walls of his grave. His hands hit mud—cold and wet—and slip as he tries to drag himself out. Whatever's over him reaches down and snags the back of his shirt which tears away like tissue paper. He takes a handful of the mud and flings it at this person who's imitating Bobby and tries to scale the six feet to freedom once more only to have the other creature grab him again.

"Sorry to do this to you," it says with a touch of strain in its voice. Something hits his temple hard enough to put him into a paralytic daze but light enough to keep him conscious. His crappy vision swirls as he's lifted and shoved and twisted out of his prison. Soft, sweet smelling grass touches his face in the end while a hand presses on his back, against his spine. He's flipped over by that same hand, searched all over as though he's about to be cuffed, and then the hand withdraws.

"Goddamn, kid," Bobby—or not Bobby—says softly above him. "And here I thought it was all a lie."

The unfamiliar person speaks, "I can't believe it myself. I mean—all this time. I fucking pronounced him—"

"I know. Here, get him on the left."

He lets them drag his ass all the way to the car, putting his energy on getting his vision to focus properly. Time does wonders; with each passing second, he's gaining color to go with his shapes. Then lines follow, keeping the different shades from seeping into each other. He recognizes the tires of a car, the shiny silver rims surrounded by black rubber. When he's leaned up against it, he raises his head and can take in Bobby who's moving around the back to pop the trunk and nameless helper number one who's standing in front of him. His vision still leaves something to be desired but he cannot pinpoint what's wrong.

"You gonna hit me again?" the man asks, eyebrows up.

He chokes out a sob as an answer.

The man winces. "I'll take that as a no."

Bobby reappears faster than a speeding bullet, stepping between them like Superman. He can picture a little red cape floating out, despite the lack of wind, behind Bobby's back, his hands on his hips. He tries to avoid the spandex but it's the next thing in the equation. Then Bobby's hand's on his shoulder. "It's gonna be all right, boy. Don't mind that idjit. He's a dick but he's a good dick."

There are questions to ask, things to wonder, items to take care of. He should be trying to say 'Christo' to make sure this is Bobby or getting the heck out of dodge until he has holy water and rock salt. Part of him is screaming to know where Sam and Dad have gotten to while the other doesn't give half a shit still. But he's too frightened and strung out; all he manages to do is let his head drop onto Bobby's shoulder as the tears stream down his face. The worst part is he doesn't know why he's crying, he just is.

"Aw, Christ, kid," Bobby says, maneuvering him away from the door. "You're gonna be okay, ya hear me?" And then, not to him. "Let's get out of here." And then, to him again, "Come on, kid. In the car."

He listens to Bobby because no one's ever been better to him than Bobby has. Unlike his family, Bobby's never promised anything he hasn't done, never pretended to be anything that he wasn't. Sure, he's not all cuddles and folk songs, but he's dependable a person gets. Everything about him stays about the same; even the way he smells as Dean's face presses against his shoulder is as Dean always remembered—bit of booze, oil, sweat. Not precisely pleasant but it's Bobby and, when he gets down to it, Bobby sometimes was a better Dad to him than his Dad ever was.

They help him into the car where he falls down onto the seat and tries to not think at all. It's not his baby he's in, but something else, something that smells new and fresh. He has to curl his legs in order to fit properly across the backseat and even so, his feet press wood paneling on the doors. Somewhere in the front, a lolling robotic voice drones at him to turn left in three point six miles and then take first right. Air conditioning rushes against his arm and left side, causing him to shiver. All of this acts as a distraction but somehow, he's still got the feeling of claustrophobia. Bobby and unknown guy feel barely six inches away as they speak softly in the front.

And, somewhere along the line, he falls asleep.

"So, you're back," Michael says to him. They sit at a card table again.

"What didn't you understand about get the fuck out?" he asks, but it doesn't have much venom behind it.

Michael's playing solitaire, moving a three of diamonds onto four of spades. "I am persistent and hopeful that you'll learn to tolerate me." He looks up. "And I wanted to see what sort of work Castiel did."

"What?"

"Castiel," Michael repeated. "He who brought you back to fight the war. Your new," he pauses, "guardian of sorts. Though," a slight crease on his forehead, "he cannot heal all scars."

He wants to ask what the hell Michael's talking about but follows the man's gaze instead to his arms. Long, puckered lines decorate them, dotted by rough looking circles. His heart starts to speed up again as he drags up the t-shirt to look at his belly and chest. It's a cats-cradle of stripes and circles, criss-cross violence of pink, purple and gray. His hands go to his face but feel nothing except the roughness of stubble and the softness of his bottom eyelids. Then his fingers reach his scalp to find bumpy skin with patches of hair.

Michael's face softens as his distress grows. "Some things even we cannot fix, Dean."

He wakes up screaming, the sounds muffled by Bobby's hand over his mouth. But Bobby looks strange, dressed like a soldier, much older than he remembers him being. He's cut up bad, especially around his chest where the wounds still weep blood. There's a sword at his waist, an actual fucking broadsword, and it's dotted with dark fluids. It shuts him up just long enough for him to look at Bobby's companion, the guy who dragged him out. Then he's shouting once more, struggling against the hands holding him down.

The man next to body is not a man. The closest approximation that he can make through rising panic amounts out to dragon and he knows those are merely a myth. He's human in shape but scaly blue with sharp claws at the end of four fingered hands. His eyes, deep gold have slitted pupils which fill up most of the eyeball, leaving only tiny strands of white. Sharp teeth are visible beneath the lips as he grimaces and smoke comes out in curls from his nose. Chains wrap about his neck, arms and legs, manacles covered in human bones and carnage. Some of the links have been replaced by curled fingers. He's, in a word, terrifying.

And him without a gun. "Fuck, fuck," he whimpers through the fingers. "Bobby. Fuck. He's not human."

"It's all good, Dean," Bobby tells him, not listening. "It's okay."

"But, Bobby," he insists as the thing sticks a syringe in his arm. His words are garbled. "No, no." He can't escape. "No!"

The world tilts to one side, then the other, graying out. The screaming stops, the will escape flees with it. Bobby pulls away his hand, moving it up to rest on his forehead.

"Just a sedative. We'll see how lucid he is when he awakens," the thing says, probably lying.

"Yeah," Bobby murmurs, and then, to him, "You'll feel better with some rest."

Darkness rushes across his vision but his lips still move. "Bobby..."

"What is it?"

He forgets what he wants to say.