Chapter Sixteen

Two Years Later - Seattle, Washington

"Did you really think you could trump me?"

Dean stepped back, watching Cas get back up where Dick Roman had tossed him like a ragdoll. The broken bone Dean had just shoved into his chest, that Dick had pulled out with a cocky laugh and snapped in half, fell from his fingers. The smile on his face told Dean that he was winning and that he liked it. A lot.

Dean stopped, smirking at Dick.

"Honestly?" Dean asked, pulling out another bone from his jacket. The real one. "No."

Castiel grabbed Dick's head from behind him and yanked it back as Dean plunged the bone through Dick's neck. Dean jerked his hand back as a violent yell ripped from his throat just as Sam and Kevin ran into the room, but Dean didn't see them or Cas standing behind the dick bag. He kept his eyes on Dick as he continued yelling and gurgling.

"Figured we'd have to catch you off-guard," Dean said with a satisfying smirk on his face. Finally. Goddamn finally. They got him.

Dean watched Dick's face revert back into his natural form, his giant nasty-ass Leviathan maw opening, the jagged teeth jutting out as his head rolled, the tongue lolling. He roared again before transforming back into the human façade. Dick grunted, his body jerking as waves of energy pulsated away from him, and Dean made a face when the dark black goo started leaking from Dick's nose. The energy waves echoing out of his body got heavier and bigger, filling Dean's ears with a pulsating heartbeat that felt like it was rattling his entire body.

And then suddenly the energy switched course, concentrating back on Dick's body before he exploded into a spatter of black goo. Dean opened his mouth to yell, 'Watch out!' when a white light flashed over Dean's eyes and then blackness descended.

The next thing Dean was aware of was that he was laying on a bed of brittle leaves and sticks on the ground.

Someone shook his shoulder urgently and he heard heavy footsteps next to his head as Cas said, "Wake up."

Dean's eyes flew open. He blinked a few times, trying to adjust, but it was nearly pitch black around him, not even moonlight seeping through anything to light the ground. Where the hell were they? Where was Dick? Where was Sam? Kevin?

Dean sat up and Cas stood up. "Good. We need to get out of here."

Dean stood up, looking around but he couldn't see a damn thing. And then his eyes started adjusting and he saw trees. Lots of trees like he was in a forest.

He frowned. "Where are we?"

"You don't know?" Castiel replied and Dean gave him an exasperated look.

"Last I remember, we ganked Dick."

"And where would he go in death?" Cas prodded, looking around again, like he was waiting for something. And then it clicked.

No. Fucking. Way.

"Wait. Are you telling me…"

Castiel nodded. "Every soul here is a monster." The hair on the back of Dean's neck stood up when he heard a rustling in the trees. "This is where they come to prey upon each other for all eternity."

His words sent a nasty, debilitating shiver down Dean's spine. "We're in Purgatory?" he asked incredulously, looking around again. "How do we get out?"

"I'm afraid we're much more likely to be ripped to shreds," Cas said matter-of-factly, any ounce of crazy he had been carrying around with him before the field trip to kill Dick completely gone. And Dean didn't like it.

Worry, fear and anxiety suddenly clawed to life in Dean's gut when he heard another rustle and he turned to catch it when he saw two sets of red eyes watching him. Dean's stomach plummeted and he reached back to grab Cas' arm. For a split second, he felt the nauseatingly wonderful feeling of being goddamn glad he wasn't alone there.

He wasn't alone.

In goddamn Purgatory.

"Cas, I think we better-"

But Cas was gone.

Dean whipped his head to where he had been standing, but he wasn't there any longer. Dean looked around slowly, seeing more sets of eyes appear around him out of the darkness, but the angel was gone.

"Cas?"

Dean's heart stopped when he heard more rustling of the monsters watching him from the shadows. Hell, the entire place was a fucking shadow, and it was everywhere, including them. Never in his life had he felt this entirely helpless. He had no weapons. He was in a place that wasn't even supposed to be a real place, but it was.

It was where monsters went to die.

Where the monsters went to spend eternity doing what they did best: killing over and over again.

Dean froze for a microsecond, fear flooding his system so completely he was ready to just stand there and let whatever happen happen, but he instinctively forced it down as one pair of the red eyes inched forward. Dean's breathing increased sporadically as he wondered just what that was when he heard a violently loud crash in the trees from right next to where it was standing.

And then something howled in awful pain.

Dean stared at the eyes as they turned to look at something behind it before another howl came out and then a dark shadow darted towards him, tackling him to the ground.

Dean's instincts kicked in immediately and he tried to shove the thing off before it took his damn head too but they were wicked strong, shoving him to the ground and straddling him before pouring something hot and heavy all over his face. Dean sputtered, the foul liquid seeping into his mouth and he brushed it off, moving to shove the thing off him again when the thing sat up and shot something that smelled like it had been dead for years into the dark.

And just like that, a rush of wet fur flew past them as the monsters that had been watching streamed by, chasing whatever the thing had thrown. Dean stopped, staring up at it…

Before his eyes adjusted again.

Everything inside Dean slammed to a standstill as he stared up at her. He forgot to breathe, forgot that he was in Purgatory, forgot that he had almost gotten eaten by something that probably should never have existed.

Everything in his world suddenly pinpointed on this one tiny moment.

She grabbed a nearby pile of sticks, snapping one against the other with precision and expertise and like magic, the stick caught on fire and then he saw her.

"Buffy?" he gasped, blinking rapidly like it was a mirage.

But she wasn't a mirage.

Buffy was here, straddling him to the ground, having just saved his life, in fucking Purgatory. She sprinkled a powder over the fire, making it burn bright blue.

Buffy.

She was alive.

Her face was scraped all over the place with cuts and bruises and she was covered in dirt, but Dean could see underneath all of it that she was still very lean and very, very muscular, like a taut arrow waiting to be released. And the scar…

It was her.

But she was dead.

He had burned her body, salted and burned her goddamned body.

But she was more real than anything he had felt in the last few years, since that morning at Bobby's house.

Dean stared at her, his mouth gaped and she cocked an eyebrow.

"Hey, Dean," she said, her voice that same raspy quality it had been when he first hit her with his car all those years ago, before the two souls thing, before everything with Lucifer went down, before she came back and then before she died…

She stared at him and Dean felt the ground drop from underneath him.

"It's been a while," she said.

The End (To be continued…)

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