A/N: Right, so I'm currently on early-to-mid season 4, so don't spoil anything. I don't know if the show has shown the Winchester boys' first kills, but these are my headcanons. I wanted to put their middle names in the titles, but I don't think anyone knows Dean's middle name. Funny how we know John's and not Dean's or Sam's.
John Winchester
John dug quickly, efficiently. It was a shallow grave, a murder hastily covered up years ago that had resulted in a ghost. As John dug, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he quickly grabbed his handgun with iron bullets, whirling around in time to shoot the ghost of the teenage heir of a fortune who had been killed by his uncle over forty years ago. The ghost had been killing off the children of his dead uncle, and John had taken the hunt, his very first.
With the ghost banished, John got back to digging the grave, uncovering the bones (no casket) easily, salting and burning quickly and easily, the ghost reforming just in time to be burned.
With a sigh of relief and coming down off his adrenaline high, John pulled himself out of the shallow grave and gathered his equipment, making his way to the Impala. John felt rather proud of himself as he drove back to his five-and-one-year-old sons.
Little did he know that the seemingly difficult hunt was incredibly easy.
This was only the beginning.
Dean Winchester
Nine-year-old Dean swallowed hard as he peeked around the corner of the large pine to see the monster stalking through the trees. He quickly ducked back behind the tree to avoid being spotted by the Brunnmigi.
He was not letting Sammy be killed by a monster whose name literally meant "well-pisser."
The monster killed people by poisoning wells. In a very creative way. Hey, Dean didn't judge the monster of the week.
Okay, he totally did.
The thing looked vaguely like a giant blue fox with antlers (how the Brunnmigi managed to poison wells without being seen was beyond Dean) but for how cute that may sound, the thing's antlers were sharp, along with its teeth and claws. And just about everything on this creature was poisonous, with its urine being the most deadly.
Sam and Dean had been in the Impala while Dad hunted it, but the thing had found the boys while wandering the woods. Realizing that the monster could pretty easily smash the Impala with Sam and Dean inside, Dean had grabbed his rock salt (only thing that worked on the SOB) shotgun and Sammy and they had started running.
Unfortunately, the five-year-old had tripped and was pinned by the Brunnmigi's right front paw.
Dean had managed to shoot the rock salt gun and get the monster off Sammy, but the Brunnmigi's claw nicked Sammy's arm.
Fortunately, the poison on the monster's claw was nonlethal.
Sammy was worryingly out of it though, his responses slurred and fighting to stay awake.
Dean snapped out of his worried musings to see the Brunnmigi had found them and charged. A glance behind him showed Sammy was unconscious.
He wouldn't be going anywhere fast.
Knowing there was no time to run, Dean stepped between the beast and Sammy, aimed the shotgun, and pumped round after round of rock salt into the monster, reloading as quickly as he could. Absolute determination ran through him.
The Brunnmigi would never hurt Sammy again.
Dean heaved a sigh of relief when the beast died only feet away from him.
Cradling Sammy and trying to rouse him, Dean realized with a smirk that the Brunnmigi was his first real kill.
Then Dean cursed as he realized that his first kill was a "well-pisser."
Looking at his baby brother, Dean decided he was okay with that.
He protected Sammy.
Samuel Winchester
There was a monster under his bed. She was a Mara.
And she was evil.
They had been staying in this horrible motel for two days, and six-year-old Sammy hated it.
The floors were dirty and sticky, the tv was broken, the beds were lumpy, and mold was everywhere.
Sammy slept on the tiny blow-up mattress Daddy had bought a while ago (cause Sammy was a big boy and too old to sleep with Dean, according to Daddy. When Daddy went hunting for monsters, Dean let Sammy sleep with him). Under his mattress, the intangible Mara hid until nighttime.
The Mara came out at night to feed off of Sammy.
More specifically, his fear.
Because a Mara was a Nightmare.
The two nights the Winchesters had stayed at the motel, the Mara slid out of the shadows, a tall, pallid woman with lank hair, sunken red eyes, and a tattered gray dress.
The first night the Mara had told Sammy what she was, then brushed her sharp nails over the boy's eyes and threatening to take them if he misbehaved.
Sammy stayed still and trembling with fear through the terrible visions and the pain of her feeding on his terror.
The day after Sammy's first night, he spent terrified and exhausted, too scared of the Mara taking his eyes to try to tell Dean or John what had happened. Dean had asked Sammy several times what was wrong, but Sammy just shook his head and told Dean he didn't want to talk about it.
The next night the same thing happened again, the Mara crooning threats of mutilation and torture in the little boy's ear.
The next day, feeling as though he would die of exhaustion and adrenaline that couldn't go anywhere, Sammy approached his Dad.
"Daddy?"
Sammy tugged on John's coat hem to get his attention. John grunted.
"Daddy, there's a monster in the dark. I'm scared."
John sighed and turned to Sammy. "Sammy, you're too old for this nonsense. There's nothing there."
Sammy's eyes widened. Why didn't Daddy believe him? Daddy and Dean hunted monsters all the time, why couldn't he believe that one had been in the motel room before they had laid down salt lines? "But Daddy, it's real and I'm scared!"
Sammy longed for his Dad to at least humor him instead of brushing him off, if only because he was scared. Sammy regretted going to Daddy. He should've gone to Dean. Dean would've listened, because he loved Sammy and it was Dean's job to keep him safe.
Did Daddy not love Sammy?
Sammy's thoughts were interrupted by John shoving the .44 he had been cleaning into his youngest's hands.
"Sammy, if you're scared, here."
Sammy's eyes widened in fear. Daddy was abandoning him to fight Mara all on his own? Sammy clutched the handgun as he fought to keep tears from falling. Sammy retreated to his bed, thinking that he'd tell Dean when he got back from the bathroom.
As if he'd read Sammy's mind, John said, "and don't tell Dean, you don't need to bother his with your stupid fear of the dark."
All Sammy's hopes came crashing down. Daddy didn't believe him, and now Sammy was cut off from his only source of true protection in his ever-changing world.
"Okay, Daddy." Sammy whispered. He tucked the loaded gun under his pillow and began mentally preparing himself for the fight that would take place in a few hours.
Four hours later, it was 10:00 and Mara melted out of her shadows, silently stepping over Dean's discarded clothes to reach her target.
Sammy was wide-awake, one hand slipped under his pillow to grab the gun. Sammy whimpered and waited… waited… waited until Mara was looming over him, and then in one fast motion, just like Dean had taught him, Sammy whipped out the handgun and shot the Nightmare woman square between the eyes.
She collapsed backwards as Dean and John startled awake.
Sammy kept a white knuckled grip on the gun as Dean and John erupted in frantic questions and Dean grabbed his arms and the cradled the frozen six-year-old in his arms, rocking him back and forth.
Sammy was jolted out of his thoughts by his father, who was inspecting Mara's corpse (and some part of Sammy asked that shouldn't a father be comforting his son right now, rocking him like Dean was, instead of disregarding Sammy's trauma and examining the monster's dead body?) asking, "what happened, Sammy?"
"I-I killed the monster like you told me to Daddy."
Dean went rigid next to Sammy. "What?!"
Sammy turned to Dean. "I told Daddy that there was a monster in the dark and he gave me the gun and told me to kill it."
Dean hugged Sammy tighter. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"Daddy said not to."
Dean squeezed Sammy one more time, then gently took the gun and laid it on the nearby table, and disengaged before wrapping Sammy in a blanket. "Sammy, I need you to stay right here. I'm going to help Dad salt and burn the body, and then I'll be right back. Got it Sammy? Stay right here."
Sammy nodded and Dean went to help John pull the Mara's dead corpse out back of the motel to salt and burn. Sammy knew that they would burn the body behind the house, so Sammy crept around to the window to listen to Daddy and Dean.
It was silent at first, then, "What the HELL, Dad?!" Sammy almost startled. Dean NEVER spoke to Daddy like that.
"Watch it, Dean."
"No. No. You told Sammy to kill that thing himself?!"
"He said there was a monster and he was scared of the dark, I thought it was the usual little kid stuff."
"And how many times has the monster in the closet turned out to be real?!"
"We put down salt lines, I thought we were safe. The thing must've already been inside."
"Yeah, but you handed him a gun?! And told him not to come to me when he was scared?!"
"He should learn that a gun means safety and he needs to be more independent."
"He's six!"
The bickering continued, but Sammy had retreated back to his cot.
All he wanted was Dean.
A/N: The end. John's first salt 'n burn, Dean's first monster kill while protecting Sammy, and Sammy's 'I told Dad I was scared of the dark and he handed me a .44' incident. I'm disregarding the flashbacks in A Very Supernatural Christmas cause I love the idea of Sammy being raised as a hunter nearly since birth and I think he's too smart to have taken so long to figure everything out.