We know Sam's first hunt took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But what we don't know is what ACTUALLY happened there. How bad of a first impression did hunting have on Sam to turn him from a trigger-happy, confident Winchester kid, to the soft hearted, hunting hating teenager that left John and Dean in order to escape it? WEE!CHESTERS
This is for lenail125 who requested as follows;
When I read the memory about Dean cleaning Sam's hands (in my story Comfort In The Little Things) it made me want to read more about it. I love wee/teen Winchester boys and how Dean takes care and protects Sam even more when they were kids.
This is for you, lenail125, hope you enjoy!
YOUR BLOOD ON MY HANDS
Prologue
Present day.
A cool night breeze dances around the boys as they stand over a shallow hole in the ground. The oldest brother ignites a packet of matches and tosses them into the indention in the earth, the salt and lighter fluid already poured over the dark corpse flaming up in a 'whoosh'. Soon the smell of burning fur and flesh is filling the air, the slight wind mercifully blowing it away from the Winchester boys.
Sam sits with a sigh on their green cooler, and gazes into the flickering flames that are mesmerizing his tired eyes. It's about four o'clock in the morning and they'd been tracking and chasing this black dog in these god forsaken woods since dusk. It had already been an exasperating hunt, with two leads that had turned up dry. Sam thought Dean had cursed more on this hunt than ALL their other hunts combined.
He looks to his brother who stands over the fire, chilled hands reached out to the flames that are consuming the creature's body. He smiles a little at the screwed up nature of that vision, but he's always finds it comforting how Dean can see the good things in hunting...like having a fire on a cold night.
He watches as he fancies he can see the tension and frustration rise and fly from his brother's tight shoulders. Dean turns and a soft smile bends his lips up as he meets Sam's gaze, tired lines in his face giving way to his laugh lines. He looks up into the night sky, and around at the rustling leaves in the branches of the trees. Somewhere an owl hoots in the depth of night, a coyote howls from a distant hill. Sam and Dean listen with unworried ears. After all, this has been their lullaby more often then not.
"Nice night," Dean states softly, like he's afraid to break the peaceful aura they're in right now.
Sam is always surprised at how fast Dean's moods will change. He blinks up at his brother with the sound of his soft tones. After all the yelling and the cursing Sam supposes it would only be healthy to take a little while to cool down. Unlike Dean, who falls from fully enraged to reflecting on the scenic night, in about sixty seconds.
He huffs a laugh, and glances up at his big brother with a fond, but tired smile on his face.
"What?" Dean asks, turning back to the fire to warm his hands, put keeping his eyes on Sam's smiling countenance.
"Nothing." Sam laughs again, "Just my ears are bleeding over here, and as soon as the thing's dead your like a sleepy kitten or something."
Dean looks affronted at the description. "Would you like me to cuss some more?"
Sam holds his hands up in surrender, actually kind of impressed...that's how much swearing Dean had done...but very glad, that apparently, his older brother's foul spree has run its course.
Dean chuckles, "I feel pretty good now that the son of a bitch IS DEAD!" He says the last words loudly giving the burning corpse double middle fingers and a cold, self-satisfied smile.
Sam shakes his head at his brother's antics and looks back to the fire, "It DOES feel good to have finally got him."
They wait in companionable silence for the corpse to burn so they can shovel the dirt over the ashes. Dean shifts where he stands and Sam thinks maybe he should give his brother a turn sitting, when he notices a black thread running down Dean's palm and dripping from the tips of his fingers where it sizzles and evaporates in the crackling flames.
"Dean?" He asks, rising.
Dean looks up quickly at his brother's change of tone, but relaxes as he follows Sam's gaze to his hand. "Oh yeah," he lifts his arm up, and looks at it as Sam approaches. "The little fu..." He catches himself, "IT got me a little before I pumped it fulla' silver."
(What had actually happened was the black dog barreled into Dean sending both him and it to the forest floor in a heap of limbs and claws and teeth and fur. Sam to the rescue, had shoved the dark beast off his brother with a savage kick to its belly. Dean had been emptying his gun into it from his spot on the forest floor before Sam even had his gun raised.)
Sam is by his side and peeling his jacket away from his arm in a moment, already feeling the slick wetness on the cloth. He hisses as he takes in the shredded sleeve, knowing the black dog's teeth had imbedded in his brother's skin and then ripped out with enough strength to rip the material.
"Why didn't you say anything?" He reprimands Dean.
He shrugs, "It doesn't hurt all that much," he says, watching as Sam is peeling away his clothes to get a glimpse at the actual wound.
"And you're always so truthful," Sam drawls sarcastically, fingering over the torn flesh, knowing from experience Dean is lying AND hurting. He'll never forget the first time he realized Dean lied about his wounds, never forget the guilt and nausea that had risen up in him at the thought of his big brother dealing with his wounds alone in some hotel bathroom while he and their dad slumbered in JUST the other room.
Dean seems to catch the gist of his brother's thoughts. He glances up from Sam's fingers and the bloody bite to look into Sam's frowning face. "Kinda brings up some memories."
"Mhm," Sam nods, intent on the fact that blood is still running down Dean's arm.
"You remember your first hunt?" Dean wonders out loud, still carefully watching his brother's face for his betraying expressions. The quick look up from his wound, and millisecond long bitch face is not lost on Dean. He's surprised when Sam, unexpectedly, looks him dead in the eyes. There's that burning light behind his eyes that always shows when Sam's passionate about something, ignited and reflecting the very much still raw feelings surrounding this memory.
"Like it was yesterday..."
...
November, 1992.
Dean bites his lip until it bleeds fighting back the groan of pain bubbling up in his throat. Don't wake up John. But most importantly don't wake up Sammy. Sam. He'd think this was all his fault, he'd blame himself, and that was the last thing Sam needs on his first hunt.
His little brother needs to sleep off the effects of a hunt gone wrong, needs to dream away the guilt. Dean knows the feeling himself. The way it weighs on you heart when you see the light fade from something's eyes. Even if it is an evil, wicked thing, it is life taken. It is blood split by your hands.
Dean grits his teeth through the bloody squelch that is the curved needle sliding through the mutilated skin that is hanging loose from his bicep. The black dog hadn't had any scruples about taking a taste tester out of one of the three hunters that had ambushed him. Dean lets his head thunk back against the bathroom wall, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing through the pain before he starts the next stitch.
He's already washed out the wound with painful precision, the water has run down his bare torso and soaked into the waistband of his jeans. He's already shaking with the agony he's experiencing, and as the chill of the motel bathroom mixes with damp skin and clothes it leaves him violently shivering. He doesn't think he's ever sewed such jagged, ugly stitches.
Oh well, good thing chicks dig scars. (Dean's never really understood that, but he is the one who knows what scars mean...hellish pain, and even more nightmarish the actual experiences they are proof of.) He knows women are supposed to be the more gentle and compassionate race but really, ladies, scars just reflect the ugliest and meanest parts of life.
"HOLY SHIT..." He hisses through clenched teeth, THAT HURTS, as he runs the needle through his skin again, watching the blood run down the transparent thread and drip to the floor after a moment's pause. His jaw flexes and Dean puts another sloppy stitch into his skin, he steels himself because he's not going to stop again until it's over.
Besides, he deserves this. It's all his fault after all. His heart wasn't in the hunt, his mind was wandering...of all the times. He should have been using the last few months to prepare him and Sam for his little brother's first hunt, rather than feeling sorry for himself, and being stuck in denial.
Sam was a brave kid, strong. After all, he could shoot, knew silver killed werewolves, (and now black dogs) and could run two miles. Two miles was a pretty long way, especially for a nerdy, lanky boy like Sam.
Dean should have guessed there was no stopping the inevitable, should have known with both John and Sam Winchester on his case there was no way he was winning. Should have engrained in Sam all the important lessons he'd learn while hunting as John's main source of back up.
Instead he'd nearly gotten himself killed, AND Sam.
Oh god, his little brother. He can see him now as it could have ended. His little brother still and pale, stretched out in the dead leaves on the cold, forest floor. His life's blood, running precious like a liquid gold mine out into the dirt, from the vicious bite the black dog had jerked from his soft throat with his long, dried-blood coated teeth.
The guilt and fear washing over Dean brings up his supper. He is on his knees, shaking in front of the toilet in a heart beat. He vomits silently for a minute, spitting the last acidy taste from his mouth, and wiping his lips with a shaking hand.
He throws out his good arm's hand to the sink vanity to help pull himself up. He must still be a little off his game, because his hand lands in their first aide kit sending it plummeting to the bathroom floor.
Busted.
Dean's other hand shoots out on instinct and catches the box before it hits the floor. Dean swears he hears the rip. He KNOWS he feels it. The rest of the contents of his stomach are in his mouth and pouring over his lap before he can even register what has happened and why black spots are edging his vision.
"Sonuvabitch," he whispers, looking through blurring eyes to discover his stitch job entirely ripped out, blood bubbling up from the now worsened wound. It runs down his arm, and to his elbow where it dribbles off and hits the floor.
He tries to breathe deep, pressing his forehead into the cool wood of the sink vanity. Tries to set aside the pain, separate it from his psyche, make it just a something, make it a thing he must deal with and nothing else.
He's fisting his hands so tight against the pain, that he actually realizes his finger nails are digging into the soft flesh of his palm so deep it hurts. Dean disciplines himself to breath and release his clenched fingers. He grabs his dirty tee-shirt from where he threw it to the floor earlier, and gasps a pained breath as he presses it unerringly to the wound, soaking the blood into the soft cotton and staunching its flow.
A hand runs through his sweat slick hair, only to freeze raised as a faint knock reaches his ears.
It's echoed by a soft, hesitant voice calling through the thin bathroom door.
"Dean?"
tbc...
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thank you