A/N: I was having severe writer's block with this chapter, so if it's not up to par… well, that's why. Constructive crit is always welcomed; I'd especially like to know if I captured a little bit of why Dean is the way he is through this chapter's rule. Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read this so far. Also, I'd like to just make a note that I have 10 chapters/rules planned for this (and possibly some sort of epilogue/summation), so in case anyone was wondering how long this randomness would continue… that's how long. Enough with my rambling.

Rule Four: Fifty push-ups a day keeps the digging cramps at bay.

White, hot, searing pain sliced through his chest, setting it on fire. But that was nothing compared to the burning sensation spreading throughout his arms with every shovelful of dirt he heaved up over his shoulder. Sucking another breath into his thirsty lungs, he jammed the metal spade back into the dirt, pulled his aching arms back up, and swung it out of the hole.

"Found it yet, Sammy?" he called breathlessly over his shoulder as another large clump of dirt was heaved from the deepening hole. A quick glance at his twelve-year-old baby brother, sitting beneath a leafy tree with a book propped up in his lap, assured him that Sam was still looking.

"Not yet," was the reply before Sam turned those wide puppy-dog eyes onto Dean and asked, "Do you want any help?"

Despite the ache in his arms, Dean laughed heartily. "You wouldn't last ten minutes. Besides, I need you to find that spell so we can get that bitch back here, burn the knife, burn the bones, and be done with this." With that, he went back to digging, pausing briefly to wipe his sweaty, grimy forehead on the sleeve of his filthy, ragged shirt; he wasn't sure the action did much of anything to either his shirt or his face except spread the dirt around.

There was a moment of silence; the desolate cemetery, lit only by the light of the crescent moon, echoed faintly with the sound of Dean's huffing and the quiet swish of dirt particles landing atop one another. Then, as if the quietude were too much, Sam whispered, "I wish Dad was here."

Swish, plop. More dirt. "Me too, Sammy. I could use another pair of arms."

But, as it were, the great and all-powerful John Winchester was nowhere in sight. He was, in fact, lying unconscious in the car, which was parked at the edge of the cemetery behind a clump of trees. As the three of them had been arriving at the cemetery to burn Marietta's bones—once and for all—the bitch herself had shown up. Luckily, Dean had managed to catch her off guard with some well-placed rock salt, but not before she'd slammed John against the ground. The result was a father who was out cold, two worried sons, and a temporarily vanished spirit. Having no other ideas, they'd dragged their dad into the car and hurried into the cemetery to find her grave. Dean obligingly took over his father's digging duties while Sam searched for a spell that would summon her up—seeing as their dad had told them they would need to burn her knife, too.

"It'll be nice when this is all over," Dean muttered into the hole, not caring of Sam heard him or not. But he saw his little brother look up at his rambling—the first sign of exhaustion in Dean Winchester. "It's taken, what? Almost a year to find this bitch's grave? I mean granted, we did a couple other jobs here and there, but this hunt has taken way too long. She attacked you in that alley, what? Ten months ago? Bitch needs to burn in hell."

The strain in his arms intensified as he felt the muscles cramping up, unable to take any more exertion. Dean heaved another load of dirt onto the pile behind him, on the verge of letting his arms drop in utter exhaustion and call it quits. "I'm sick of seeing people die because of that damn knife of hers. Three in the last month…" He let gravity pull the shovel downward… "And that's not even counting all those—" …and the tip collided with something hard and smooth.

Relief washed over him like a cool waterfall, reinvigorating his protesting muscles with enough strength to toss the shovel onto the ground and kneel down on the coffin. "I got it!" After several minutes of pulling and pushing with the metal tip of the shovel, Dean managed to pry open the lid to the coffin. As the stench of death was released from the airtight space, Dean swiveled his head around to gag against the side of his dirt hole.

Marietta's skeleton was unevenly clad in a mixture of rotting flesh and tattered clothing, her stiffened form a morbidly fascinating patchwork quilt right out of something similar to The Silence of the Lambs. Though he wanted to look away, Dean's pupils had fixed themselves unflinchingly upon the decomposing, mangled body in the coffin.

"Dean, I think I found the spell." Sam's voice—still full of infectious innocence—broke Dean from his trance. His arm muscles screamed as he hauled himself out of the hole, panting and dirty and sweating. Sam was still sitting serenely with his back pressed against the tree, his eyes trained down on the book in his hands. Snatching up the salt, Dean made sure to cover every inch of Ol' Smelly before dampening the salty remains with copious amounts of gasoline.

Dean took in a breath and released it slowly as he picked up the matchbook. "You ready to do this?"

His little brother glanced up and nodded resolutely. "We'll summon her back, get the knife, and burn it… and that'll be it, right?"

"Yeah. That'll be it." Swiping the match head swiftly against the side of the box, Dean watched, with the same morbid fascination that had held his gaze on Marietta, as the match exploded in a small burst of brilliant fire. Dropping it over the side of the hole, a grim satisfaction overcame him as the bones lit up and smoldered. "See ya, Bitch."

Tearing his eyes from the flaming body, he looked back to see Sam standing up now, the book held up so that the words showed more clearly in the light of the macabre bonfire they had created. Dean smirked and wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans.

"All right, Sammy. Work your magic."

Every inch of his arms and chest ached with every movement, as if knives were pressing into his muscles, tearing slowly through the fleshy material. It was difficult work, stopping himself from cringing as he pushed open the front door and stepped into the crappy little apartment that the Winchesters called home. His backpack slipped from his shoulder, eliciting a small groan, and Dean collapsed into the squashy sofa with a sigh.

"Teachers on your case again?" came the welcome voice of John Winchester, who had a nasty bump on the back of his head from the previous night, but appeared otherwise unharmed.

Dean grimaced. "Nah, teachers were all right."

"Good. Then I need you in Sam's room in ten. The kid needs a sparring lesson, and you've got to be his opponent," John mandated.

"What? Why me?" Dean burst out, not moving from his spot on the couch.

"Because you're closer to his size than I am. And next time I give you an order, I don't want you questioning me. Understood?" It wasn't said with more force than needed, but John's steely, firm voice conveyed closure on the matter. Still, Dean knew that he wouldn't be able to spar with arms that felt like lead.

"But—"

"Understood?"

Dean leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, knowing he could do nothing but comply. How did Sam do it? Sam always seemed able to argue with their father without bringing serious harm to himself. How did he manage that?

After a breath, Dean opened his eyes. "Don't you think we should—I mean, we just finished a major hunt last night. Can't we just take it easy for a while?"

The look on John's face gave Dean his answer immediately. His eyes were narrowed slightly and his mouth was set in a line, giving him the calculating look of someone scrutinizing another's work. "You look tired, Dean. You know what'll wake you right up? A little sparring. Why don't you warm yourself up… make it, say, twenty."

Anger fueled his outburst. "Twenty? Twenty push-ups? Are you kidding me?" John's face remained impassive, and Dean couldn't help himself: he scoffed loudly, raising his hands slightly and dropping them with a slap onto his legs. "I dug up an entire grave by myself last night—and today, during gym, my teacher made us do twenty push-ups. I can barely lift my arms."

The side of John's face quirked up in a classic Winchester smirk, and Dean instantly wished he could take back what he said. "Twenty, you said? Forget what I said, then, and make it thirty. Fifty's a nice, solid number." After a beat, he nodded towards the floor. "Get to it."

Dean continued to sit there, indignant and stupefied. "Dad, my arms are cramped up so bad I can barely lift a pencil off the floor, let alone my own body."

"Well, you know what they say," John replied, rubbing a hand over the stubble lining his chin. "Fifty push-ups a day keeps the digging cramps at bay."

"Who says that? The Ghostbusters manual?" Dean grumbled as he grudgingly dropped to the floor with the knowledge that he was fighting a losing battle. Lifting himself onto his arms, he felt them shaking to an embarrassing degree as fire shot up and down his muscles. The first few push-ups were excruciating; the next had him breathing heavily. By the time he reached thirty—he wasn't sure how he'd gotten there, himself—he felt ready to take a chainsaw to his arms simply to rid himself of the sore, useless limbs.

"You see, Dean," John began as soon as his eldest had pushed himself into a sitting position, breathing hard as perspiration beaded on his forehead. "If you do fifty push-ups every day, next time you dig up a grave, your arms won't hurt so bad."

It didn't make much sense to Dean. "Easy for you to say."

John shook his head, a frown forming on his face. "No, not easy. I've dug up more graves than a necrophiliac. Endurance is key. If you push yourself to your farthest limits on a daily basis, you'll become something more. That's exactly what's needed in a hunter. I'll see you in Sam's room in five."

And with that, John turned and left the room. Arms and upper chest aching fit to burst, Dean sat as still as he could to assuage the pain, turning over his father's words in his head. Endurance… that's what it was all about. The life they led, the things they killed… the only way to survive it was by building up endurance. Endurance to the pain of digging up graves, of moving around before getting the chance to make real friends, of remaining on the fringes of society, of the physical beating given by supernatural monsters… Dean had always thought that the name of the game was speed and skill, but it was really all about endurance.

As Dean caught his breath and stretched his arms, he vowed that from then on, he would do fifty push-ups a day… his dad, who seemed to know everything and do everything without breaking a sweat, had never steered him wrong before, not once since he shoved the infant Sam into Dean's arms and told him to run outside, to escape the fire… and he was quite sure that John wasn't pointing him in the wrong direction now. It was survival of the fittest, and Dean intended to live.

Endurance, Dean thought, and he stood up to go have a sparring lesson with his brother.