Before November 2nd, 1983, Dean Winchester wanted to fight fires. He played with a fire truck in the nursery, watching over Sammy while fiddling with it, marveling at the metallic cherry-red of the paint and the sparkling gleam of its silver trappings. The toy was well-worn but well-loved, and he dreamed of saving people, protecting things.
After November 2nd, 1983, Dean Winchester hated fire. When they went back through the wreckage after, they found the remnants of a bright red fire truck in the doorway, discarded as a small, mewling bundle was shoved into four-year-old arms. It was melted, somehow, charred and smashed and broken beyond repair.
Fire was familiar, though. The roaring heat, the smell of smoke, the crackle and pop of something succumbing to the blaze… they were all too well-known, too constant in Dean's memories for what was, at root, inconstancy incarnate. November 2nd, 1983 was only the first of many, the leader of a long series of salt-and-burns, flicked-open lighters, and homemade flamethrowers, all of which, themselves, were precursors to forty years of burning, blistering heat in Hell, to thick, clogging smoke and screams and licking tongues of heat.
When the fires of Hell disappeared, when bright and burning heat was replaced by the cool stagnation of all-encompassing darkness, it was a relief. For those first few seconds, at least, when the screams - of strangers, of him, of his victims, he couldn't ever really tell for sure - faded, when the heat died back so much that he actually shivered at the coolness. (He hadn't shivered in years - not from cold, at any rate - hadn't felt anything less than searing calefaction in a lifetime. He'd forgotten the sensation of being chilly.) The motion dislodged something from above him, a clod of something grainy falling from somewhere above him and scattering the grit across his face, and he reached up to wipe it off.
His relief faded as his arm slammed against something solid and unyielding above him, uncaring as more of the particles fell with what the hell running on repeat in his head. He tried moving again, running his hands along the surfaces surrounding them, feeling his way around each closed seam of what was, he realized, a box.
Dirt. The sound of a shovel moving through the ground, of soil dancing across the surface of rough-hewn wood. Ever-increasing darkness, slowly crescendoing until the light was completely gone .
Not a normal box, he realized. No simple box was precisely the right height, width, and depth to encase him so narrowly, to afford such little room for movement.
The feeling of wood encasing him, trapping him with how close it felt. Jagged spikes standing out from the walls, small but painful in the darkness as they pierced skin. Muffled counting, little more than a whisper before fading away entirely.
It was a coffin. Homemade, judging by the familiar sensation of prickling splinters indenting his skin, and made out of some kind of cheap wood. Instinctively, a part of him identified it as pine.
The smell of freshly-hewn pinewood, barely sanded. The thin smell of glue mixing with it, small tendrils of chemical fumes permeating the air and making him lightheaded. The overwhelming odor of soil, of petrichor and growth mounting, building, and then fading as he became used to it.
The memories of Hell faded, flashes of heat and brightness supplanted by cool, suffocating darkness. He fumbled for his lighter, digging through pockets without expecting it to actually be there, sighing in relief as shaky fingers found the familiar metal shape. Then came the hurried wrestle with the cap, the numb attempts to rotate the striker and actually ignite the flame.
Eventually, it did, the satisfying rasp of flint against steel sending out a flare of light and driving the shadows into the corners. It was definitely a coffin, and even as he shouted for help - voice dreadfully hoarse, grating to both his ears and his vocal chords as he tried to project anything at all - he knew it wouldn't come. The solid that had fallen, that familiar pattering sound of falling dirt, could only mean that he was surrounded in the stuff. Buried alive.
Slowly, he looked around at the coffin… or, at least, the box that had been intended to serve as a coffin; it lacked the seam of the usual bifurcated lid and the comfortable plush at the base of most commercially designed caskets. Wryly, he almost chuckled at how well he knew the structure of a normal coffin, but he didn't let the sound escape. He didn't have enough air for that.
Nor did he really have enough air - or maneuverability - to leave the lighter lit, so he flicked the lid over, capping it until the fire extinguished and the coffin fell back into darkness. At least that was familiar, and, as he forced his breathing to something vaguely in the bounds of normal, fighting to keep it somewhat regulated without losing himself to the familiar panic of confinement and solitude, he ran his fingers around the box, checking for weaknesses, focusing on his training.
"Training?" Dean was tired, eyes prickling with exhaustion as he forced himself out of bed and into a standing position, bare feet curling in discomfort as they hit the freezing floor. He raised a hand, passing it over his eyes and rubbing them in an attempt to keep them open. He kept his voice quiet, hushed so as not to wake up Sammy as he slept on the bed, slurring slightly under the numbness of sleep. "Now? 'S after midnight." A glare from his dad shocked him awake and he straightened, exhaustion fading slightly as he obeyed, forcing himself to enunciate. "Yes, sir."
He couldn't see what his dad was carrying, but it was something large, bundled up in a tarp and tucked under one arm, barely visible in the darkness. The man was standing near the door, just enough light filtering in through the motel room blinds for Dean to see his eyes glittering in the darkness, bloodshot and bleary.
He didn't speak, so Dean stepped over to his duffel bag, reaching for the zipper. Before his fingers even brushed the metal, a voice stopped him, loud - too loud, Sammy's sleeping! - and brusque in the silent room. "Leave it."
Dean looked down, trying to puzzle through the order. He was dressed for sleeping, not for training; one of his father's old band T-shirts, worn-thin and torn in places, and a pair of ratty boxers were hardly appropriate attire for their usual sparring. "Sir?" He paused, trying to read the man's body language from across the room. "Not even shoes, sir?"
"No." Dean didn't move, looking over at the bag again, uncertain until his father barked out a gruff, "Get over here, now." Training overrode the confusion and he was over at the door in seconds. "Out the door. Get moving." And then the door was open and Dean was shuffling across the threshold.
The air outside was balmy enough, cool but not chilly as he stepped out into it. It wasn't especially dark, either, thanks to the moonlight floating down from the sky. The real problem was the asphalt; as though it weren't rough and abrasive enough, he could see the rubble littered across it, a fine spray of gravel and broken glass shining in the limited light.
He stepped out anyway, stepping as solidly as he dared while ignoring the bite of debris cutting into his feet. He could hear his father stepping out after him, felt a rough hand latch onto where his neck met his shoulder and started steering him, none too gently, towards the Impala parked outside. It was a blessing and a curse when they finally reached the vehicle; grateful as he was for the relief on his feet, it still led to the question of what was happening.
The car was silent as they drove, without even their usual music playing from the speakers to break the quiet. There was plenty of time to think, at least, to consider what was going on. Had he done something wrong? They hadn't had any especially problematic hunts lately - the last monster they'd ganked was a simple run-in with a ghost in that very Tennessee town, a simple salt-and-burn without complications - and even Sam's contrary fight-picking hadn't been as loud.
He still hadn't figured out what he'd done wrong by the time the car rumbled to a stop, but his dad didn't ask, or even speak beyond a simple "Get out" as the engine shut off.
Dean scrambled to obey, hand slippery against the door handle as he finally worked it open, shoving open the door and easing it closed as he slid out. Wherever they were, it was darker than at the motel, and it took him a few moments for his eyes to acclimate to the darkness. Only then could he make out the moonlit pearly-white of headstones stretching out on the hills or the sign hanging on the derelict wooden fence in front of them: "St. Mary's Cemetery."
The chill of uncertainty at what was going on worsened at the words. They never went on hunts without doing research, much less after midnight without Dean being armed and properly dressed. This was something different, not a simple salt-and-burn, and every instinct he had was certain it was a bad different.
The Impala's driver seat door opened and slammed closed, sparking an additional flare of worry - Dad never treated their car that roughly, certainly not so hard that the glass windows rattled in their metal frames - even as it successfully jolted him from his thoughts. It was almost certainly the only thing that had him ready to take hold of the heavy, misshapen bundle his father thrust into his arms. As it was, he almost dropped it, barely managing to keep it from touching the ground as he tried to balance it and follow at the same time.
The soil was moist as they walked, each step leaving behind a perfect imprint of his foot. The ground hadn't been well cleared, and rocks and sticks littered the grass, but they were moving too quickly for Dean to carefully pick his way across; instead, he just kept moving, focused on his dad's back in front of him as a way of tuning out the pain in his already stinging feet.
When they finally came to a stop, it was in a clearing. There were trees surrounding the place, but it was otherwise empty, the nearest gravestone several feet away. The grass was gone, replaced by the brown of soil made almost black by the darkness. Dean stayed back, feet perched directly on the threshold between grass and dirt, waiting for orders.
And then they came. "Put that down." He did, hearing the clank of metal as the bundle settled on the ground, not daring to run the risk of disobeying orders by trying to peer inside. "Spread out the tarp."
"Yes, sir." Dean crouched, wincing at the sharp crinkle of plastic in the silence, wondering if he had to be quiet, if that was the test, if he'd already failed… But a glance at his dad simply showed a stony, dispassionate face with no reaction to the noise, so he continued to work, unwrapping the bright blue sheet. As he pulled it aside, he got a better glimpse at the contents of the sheet: a shovel, a rake, and a flashlight. Then, the tarp was free and the implements - and their mysterious purpose - were forgotten in favor of bending over and spreading out the tarp at his feet.
"Not there." He looked up, watching as his father finally reacted, gesturing at a different patch of ground. "Here."
"Yes, sir." And then he was dragging over the tarp, blue plastic spread out in a flat sheet on the soil, back at attention before too long. At least he was moving quickly; that, at least, he could do.
His dad walked over to the tools still clumped together on the ground, picking up the shovel and handing it to him. "Start digging. Right here. One rectangular hole. Six feet deep. No questions. Get moving."
The shovel was awkward in his hands, but he got it to the ground, ignoring the bite of the kickplate into his bare foot as he put his weight behind driving the tool into the dirt. Pulling it back out was harder, the wet ground providing too much suction for the blade to slip free easily, but he got it free and the splat of wet dirt striking plastic marked the first deposition of soil on the tarp. He shifted the shovel back to the hole. Pushed on the kickplate. Pulled it out. Dropped the dirt. Shifted. Pushed. Pulled. Dropped. Shifted. Pushed. Pulled. Dropped.
It was monotonous, but at least it was a familiar monotony, not horribly different from digging up bones to deal with an errant ghost. He let himself get lost in it, to focus on the hard work of shifting shovelful after shovelful of sediment, to forget the mystery of the late hour and his undress in the fantasy that it was just another job. The hole grew deeper and deeper, and eventually he couldn't even see the tarp as he stood in the bottom of the hole, merely guesstimating where the excess dirt was landing.
He had just finished digging when the next order came. "Get out." Well, that, too, he could do; the sides of the hole were uneven, secure hand- and foot-holds visible on the sides. He'd had practice, too, had climbed in and out of more graves than he could count, frequently one handed with salt or gasoline in the other hand. Still, something was wrong. It wasn't a normal hunt, no matter how much it felt like one, and his father lurking at the top made that very clear. Dean stayed silent, back straight as he waited for his father to speak, to explain. All he heard was a simple, "Wait here," and then the man was gone.
He wasn't gone long, at least; less than ten minutes elapsed before the light sound of someone moving, of the unnatural cracking of brush, started to approach. His dad was no longer empty-handed, but held something large and geometric on one shoulder. Slowly, he headed over to the hole, gently lowering the object - whatever it was - into the hole and easing it to the ground with a light thump.
Only then did Dean realize what it was, what a six-foot-deep hole and a rectangular box had in the common. The worry, the barely-bridled panic from their mysterious late night excursion, the sense of something is wrong overtook him again, but worse, sending him stepping back from the edge with a sickening sense of dread in his stomach.
He barely made it a step before his father heard and turned around, impassive mask finally dropping as anger appeared. "I didn't say you could move, Dean. You stand there. You stand there and you listen to me, you got that?"
For a second, Dean hesitated. For a second, the sight of that suddenly gaping hole made him pause, colliding with the memory of a box on his father's shoulder and telling him to leave, to run, to not look back and get away from whatever was going on. For a second, he almost did.
But he didn't. He didn't because he couldn't, because he simply had to protect Sammy, to make it back to their motel room as soon as possible before Sam woke up to find them both gone, leaving him alone, abandoned, unprotected in a strange state with no transportation. He didn't because the sun was already rising, the first rays of light flickering as the sky began to lighten again, and Sam was bound to wake up soon.
So he stayed, nodded, and said, as usual, "Yes, sir."
The memory faded as his fingers slammed into something sharp, the immediate pulse of heat telling him that the skin had broken. Warm liquid welled up at once and the sharp, iron tang of blood joined the complicated mix of wood, glue, and dirt, but he ignored it; the wound was minor, little more than a pinprick, but whatever had caused it? That might be a way out.
He flicked the lighter again, angling it slightly. The light was dim, but he could see enough to make out the piece of wood on which he'd snagged his finger, enough to see that it was little more than a splinter and not a weakness in the wood that he could exploit. Closing his eyes in frustration, he shut the lighter, plunging back into darkness and readying himself for what he knew had to come next.
He'd gotten instructions. They were disguised as orders, a blow-by-blow list of what he had to do to get out. The implicit "to live" was too frightening to address, but it lurked in the back of Dean's mind as the coffin lid swung shut, the darkness absolute save for the occasional flashes of his dad's flashlight that he could see through cracks in the box.
The first scattering of dirt on the wooden surface was paralyzing. He knew it was a warning - his dad had told him that he'd wait a few minutes before adding more, would give him that handicap since it was his first time - but he couldn't help the terror that suddenly gripped him, that made it feel like the walls were closing in around him as a band on his chest, that left him breathing too quickly. The feeling wasn't helped by the temperature, the cold-as-ice loss of heat that left him half-expecting to see his own breath even as he didn't, that almost made him wonder if there was a ghost in the casket with him.
The second splatter eventually followed, loud in the silence of the coffin, as final as any death knell. The first had been practice, a reminder of what was to come; the second was real. The second was followed by a third, then a fourth, then a fifth in close succession, the rhythmic sound of dirt dropping onto wood - and, eventually, other dirt - picking up in speed until it was a measured beat every few seconds.
By the time Dean lost count of how many shovelfuls of dirt was separating him from the surface, he was crying. It was quiet - he wasn't one to sob loudly, not ever, not even before he had to keep quiet so Sammy wouldn't know what was happening - but he could feel the slide of cool tears down his cheek, skin stiffening under drying saline. He felt like he couldn't breathe, the band around his chest tightening, working in combination with the lump in his throat until he was breathing through his mouth to try and take in enough, the pattern much too fast and far too loud. The final glimmer of light through misshapen wood disappeared, darkness reigned, and he finally let out a single sound as he gasped for air, the corners of his vision turning a darker black even than the impermeable darkness of the coffin. For a second, he almost welcomed the relief of passing out, of maybe - maybe - waking up to realize it had simply been a nightmare, that his dad hadn't just buried him alive, that his dad wasn't in the process of dropping six feet of wet soil on top of him.
He almost welcomed it, but there was always Sammy to think about. Sammy, who was only ten years old and far too young to go hunting. Sammy, who didn't even know that monsters existed. Sammy, who hadn't been trained to fight, hadn't been trained to use a gun, who couldn't yet do what Dean could. Sammy, who needed his big brother to protect him - always had, always would - and who couldn't wake up to find his brother missing or dead. So, no, passing out wasn't an option. Dying wasn't an option. He was going to get out, and that was that.
And so he focused on his dad's words, closing his eyes and letting the roughly uttered warning roll through his memory. "You're gonna want to freak out in there, Dean, but you can't. Stay calm. Breathe as calmly and rhythmically as you can or you're gonna suffocate." He had to calm down, had to breathe slowly, had to conserve air. The sound of thumping dirt was still audible, muffled by distance but steady as a metronome. A thump. Breathe in. A thump. Breathe out. A thump. Breathe in. A thump.
Step one was accomplished, at least. There was no sound with which to align his breaths, no metric to ensure that he was calm, but he had enough practice with sticky situations that keeping himself even-keeled and conscious was not a problem. He took one deep breath, then started to move.
"You should be able to hear when I'm done. Wait a few minutes after the sounds stop, then start to get out." He paused, opening the coffin and showing Dean the interior. It was rough wood, jagged with sharp edges and uneven gluing lines, but it was sturdy. "You'll need to kick here." A gesture to the center of the lid. "It's weakest here. It'll break easier. Give it what you've got, boy, or you're not gonna get out."
He managed to lift his foot, fighting the resurgence of panic as he felt for the center. His fingers slid across the wood in fits and starts, the skin stinging by the time he got past the splinters and found the center. Slowly, he shifted, holding his breath as he pulled back his foot and slammed it upwards. It hurt - oh, shit, did it hurt - as his bare foot slammed against the wood, finally aching from something other than cold as it slammed against a ceiling held immobile by pounds of dirt, stinging as part of the skin sliced open on the jagged spikes sticking out.
And yet it had worked, to some degree. The lid shook, the thump sounding too deep to merely be the impact of his foot against the wood. He winced, breathed out, breathed in, and did it again. Another shake, dirt dislodging and falling into the coffin, another crack of wood. Inhale. Exhale. Kick. More dirt, more sound.
He was a little more prepared this time around. No ratty T-shirt, boxers, and bare feet; he'd been buried in normal clothing, complete with a pair of thick-soled shoes for which he'd almost thank Heaven if he believed in it. It was easier to shift, easier to find the position his fourteen-year-old self had figured out was best for striking the ceiling. His foot still ached with each kick, but it was less noticeable, especially without the combination of cold and sharpened splinters worsening it. It only took two kicks for the lid to break this time around, well-placed and with enough force that the wood practically shattered, soil already starting to collapse around him.
"Once the lid breaks, you won't have much time. Pack as much of it as you can around you, dense as you can. You need to make space for yourself or you're not getting out."
As promised, the dirt fell as soon as his final kick destroyed the wood. Immediately, the soil pressed down, gravity pulling it into the new space. It was a quick movement, water-drenched soil nearly suffocating in its collapse, but Dean shifted as rapidly as he could, pushing himself on top of the mud and caking it into place. He ignored the slimy ooze spreading over him, worming down beneath his clothing and squelching between his toes, too intent on his task to care about comfort. He nearly slipped a few times, nearly lost control completely as he applied pressure at too awkward an angle… but he mostly managed to stay on his feet.
This time the soil was dry, loose and much easier to shift thanks to the lack of moisture trapped within it. The cascade of loose particles was less all-encompassing, free-flowing as it sank to the coffin floor. Packing it down was harder, a repetitive stomping motion barely managing to get it a little more level without water to pack it together, but he still managed to displace enough of the sediment for him to climb.
"After that, it's easy. You'll be fine. Just keep climbing upwards. Drop the dirt down below you, use it to climb." A clap on the back, loud in the silence, barely visible in the greying light of the sunrise. "You'll be fine. Let's go; get in."
Climbing out was not easy. His arm was aching after only a few seconds, the repetitive motion of grabbing soil and shoving it down, packing it into place, and dragging himself upwards, only to rinse - as if - and repeat, the monotony no longer dulling but amplifying the discomfort as he slowly ascended. There was a bubble of air around him, enough to breathe a little, to keep him going as the seconds turned into minutes, but it wasn't easy, especially not with the mud threatening to suffocate him at every movement.
The motion of climbing was just as uncomfortable, just as tiring. The lighter sediment made things easier in some ways - he was extraordinarily grateful for the looser solid's lesser weight - but it was harder to breathe as the particles dispersed in the air, grit threatening to choke him each time he breathed in. Packing was harder, too, no water to serve as glue keeping it all together, nothing to keep it from rising back up each time he lifted his foot to rise another inch.
"I'll be waiting. Don't be too long. Sammy's waiting."
The words rang in his head as he climbed, the soil feeling lighter as he clawed his way closer to the surface. Sammy's waiting, Sammy's waiting, Sammy's waiting, a motto to remind him why he was even bothering, why he didn't just wait in the coffin. He was already buried, it would be so easy… And yet, no, Sammy's waiting and Dean wouldn't just leave him, so he kept moving, kept climbing, ignored the pain in his arms and his legs, the scratch of rocks and soil on his feet, the sting of his fingers that he was sure were rubbed raw before he was halfway through.
Those were the words ringing in his head when he finally reached the surface, when his hand finally broke the crust of dirt above him and reached into the warm nothingness of air. He scrambled faster then, chest aching with the desire for fresh, non-stagnant air, for the ability to actually breathe instead of holding his breath, to inhale deeply instead of in the short, measured inhales through his shirt to keep out the dirt.
He wormed his second hand through the opening alongside the first, widening the hole heedless of the dirt it sent spilling down into his eyes. It definitely wasn't easy - hell, it felt like it was the hardest thing he'd had to do - and it felt agonizingly slow, but he somehow managed to lever his way out, to pull his head, then his torso, then the rest of him out of the earth. It still pulled at him, even as only his feet remained trapped in the suffocating confines of earth and stone, hungry and demanding as wet mud tried to drag him back in… But it was pointless. He was free and he could breathe and there was nothing some mud could do to change that, not anymore, not after he dragged himself out, hand over hand.
When he finally came back to himself, pulling himself from his head, from the crazed euphoria of breathing in fresh air, of coughing out the mud and dirt from his airways, of giving his stinging hands and feet a break, he sat up, looking around for his father.
He found the man, in the end, leaning against a tree at the edge of the clearing, the same inscrutable mask dropped into place. Whatever he was expecting to see - and the possibilities were endless… the oft-coveted pride at Dean for having completed the task and survived, relief at his son being safe, impatience at Dean taking too long to catch his breath, or even anger, frustration that Dean made it back at all - none of it was visible. Instead, he merely nodded once, his jaw tightening with the motion. Then he straightened, pushing himself off of the tree with a, "Not bad. A little slow, but you'll get better at it." And then he was gone, a gesture for Dean to pick up the tools tossed over his shoulder as he walked off.
This time, no one was watching as he pulled himself from the ground. No one waited - impatiently or otherwise - as he rolled over on his back, the scratching sensation of grasses abrading his skin as he fought to breathe again. He took his time in catching his breath, aware of his surroundings, but uncaring of how much time elapsed.
Slowly, he pushed the mud he'd displaced in his exit back into the grave, using the rake to smooth it out until there was practically no sign they'd been there. Bundling everything together within the tarp was mind-numbingly easy after what he'd just done, albeit hindered by the shaking of his limbs, the sting of his fingers and toes as he crouched down and wrapped everything up, and the rush of adrenaline leaving his system. When he was done, he took one deep, leisurely breath. Then he stood, walking after his father.
The sun had risen while he was buried, the sky turned brightly colored by the orb's presence, and he was squinting into the orange-gold of a four o'clock sky when he reached the Impala and stashed his burden in the trunk. Then he slid inside, settling against the leather, her familiar rumble purring in a comforting hum beneath him as she faithfully carried them away from the dreadful clearing and back to the motel, back to Sam.
Dean looked around, taking in the clearing around him, so much like the one they'd visited so many years before. This time, there were no tools, no footprints, no signs that anyone had been there. Nothing whatsoever to give him a sense of time, of location, of any important information beyond that somehow he was back on Earth. This time, looking around the clearing brought more worry than relief, the sight of felled trees in a perfect circle around the crude, clearly handmade cross reigniting the familiar burn of where's Sammy in his chest.
This time, though, as he walked off into the sun, he didn't know where Sammy was. And so, like any big brother, that was exactly what he was going to find out.