A/N: This one contains a wee bit of blood. Just a fair warning.

End of June 2010, roughly one month after Swan Song

"Dean! DEAN!"

Ben's frantic calls rang throughout the house as the front door slammed open.

Dean ran from the kitchen where he making sandwiches to find Ben in the front foyer, his right arm clutched tightly to his chest and wrapped in what looked like a plaid shirt. Ben was pale, worry and pain written all over his sweat slicked face. Another boy with sandy blond hair and freckles stood next to him in what seemed to be his undershirt. Dean recognized him as one of Ben's good friends, Nick.

"Hey hey hey. What's going on?" Dean asked as he rushed forward to clasp Ben's shoulder, "What happened?"

"I cut my arm. There was blood like everywhere," Ben said, his eyes wide.

"Alright, calm down. Take a deep breath for me." Dean said evenly. He turned to Nick, who seemed more controlled and asked, "What happened?"

"We were playing over on Elm and he slipped and he cut his arm and there was all this blood everywhere and I wrapped it in my t-shirt 'cause there was blood everywhere and we didn't know what to do so we came here," Nick said in one breath.

Dean chuckled softly, "Alright. Just breath, dude. You're fine. I'll take care of this. Thanks for bringing him home, Nick."

When Nick didn't move, Dean asked, "What is it?"

"Are we in trouble, Mr. Winchester?" Nick asked nervously.

Dean grimaced slightly when the kid called him Mr. Winchester. In his mind, "Mr. Winchester" would always be his father. "Why would you be in trouble, Nick? Accidents happen."

"Yeah. Ok." Nick said quietly. He spared Ben a quick a glance and small smile before turning around and shutting the door behind him.

"C'mon. Let's take a look at that." Dean said softly, gently nudging Ben towards the downstairs bathroom.

Ben had calmed down considerably, and was just looking a little pale now. Dean had Ben sit on the closed toilet seat, his injured arm resting on the bathroom counter. Ben grimaced as Dean slowly peeled back the t-shirt to find a deep gash running the length of Ben's forearm. It was still sluggishly bleeding, the liquid running down Ben's arm and onto the now ruined t-shirt beneath it.

Ben winched as he looked down at it.

"Does it hurt?"

Ben debated for a second before replying, "A little. Not really."

Dean grabbed a washcloth from the small stack next to the sink, running it under cool water. "Mom's gonna kill you if you get blood on that," Ben said.

Dean shrugged. "I think she'll make an exception."

Ben's snickers turned to a hiss of pain as Dean started cleaning away the dirt and dried blood. "I think Nick may have been exaggerating just a bit. This really doesn't look too bad," Dean said, "But it is going to need a couple stitches."

Ben gulped. "Ok."

"Alright, Ben. Moment of truth. We can go to the hospital, sit in the ER for a few hours, and have someone there stitch this up for you. Or I can do it right now in a couple minutes. Your choice."

Ben's eyes went wide. "You can do stitches?"

"Sure can. I can even show you my resume if you want."

"Your resume?" Ben asked, puzzled.

In answer, Dean pulled up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal several silvery scars on his left arm "I did most of these. It's kind of hard to do on yourself, but not impossible." When Sam was at Stanford, a poltergeist had decided Dean needed to go through a window; it was one of the few times Dean had needed to do first aid on himself.

"Woah," Ben said under his breath. Dean was a bit of mystery to Ben. All he knew for sure is that Dean and his brother had saved him from a monster when he was little. Ben figured he must be some kind of spy or undercover police officer. He always seemed a little sad too. Ben thought maybe it had something to do with his brother, but somehow he knew better than to ask.

"So what'll it be?"

Ben debated, glancing down at the gash on his arm that had finally stopped bleeding. He wished he hadn't been so clumsy, and he wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place. But, like Dean said, accidents happened. And if anyone knew how to clean up accidents, it would be Dean. Plus, Ben definitely did not feel like sitting in a hospital waiting room for hours on end.

"You can do it," he said firmly.

Dean nodded, and then proceeded to gather everything he needed from the well-stocked first aid kit under the sink. Old habits die hard.

As Dean prepped a needle, he caught the look on Ben's face. He looked scared. Normally, Dean would give his patient a good swig of whiskey to calm the nerves and dull the pain. But Ben was 11. Even Dean hadn't started drinking that young. Plus, Lisa really would kill him for that one.

Dean dug around in the kit, finally finding what he was looking for: lidocaine cream. When Dean had insisted on keeping a first aid kit, Lisa had insisted it at least be a civilized one. Dean had balked at her request, figuring he would be the only one to ever need use of the kit, but now he was glad for it.

After spreading a liberal amount of the cream and waiting for the numbing to take effect, Dean started in on his stiches.

Ben was quite, the slight pull of the needle through skin uncomfortable, but not painful. He was mesmerized by Dean's quick and professional hands as they stitched the wound closed.

"So you want to tell me what really happened?" Dean said quietly, glancing up from his work, "Nick seemed pretty scared that you guys would get in trouble."

Ben sighed. He fidgeted with a hole in his jeans. "We were just messing around in the old Wickham house. Robby says it's haunted, and that nobody goes in there because the ghosts will get you. We told him we weren't scared so he dared us to go in."

Dean chuckled lightly. "And you did?"

"Duh," Ben replied, rolling his eyes, "I mean, I guess it was kinda creepy. But I wasn't scared," Ben insisted.

"I believe you."

"We went into the kitchen – that's where they say Wickham killed his daughter – and I tripped and fell onto this old metal table that had all these jagged edges. I didn't really realize I was bleeding till Nick started freaking out. He kinda freaked me out. And then we came back here."

Dean made a mental note about the old Wickham house being "haunted"; he'd have to check that out later. Even if he was technically retired, a little ghost hunt sounded pretty appealing right about now. He could always call another hunter to take care of it.

Dean finished up his ministrations, applying a liberal amount of antibiotic cream and covering the whole thing in gauze.

"Keep that on there until it heals a bit. You don't want to get an infection." Dean instructed.

Ben nodded as he watched Dean clean up the first aid kit, throwing the blood stained washcloth in the trash.

"Are you gonna tell Mom?"

Dean looked at Ben. Lisa was out running errands, leaving Dean to keep tabs on Ben. "I think we have to, Ben. It's going to be hard to hide 8 stitches from your Mom."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Hey don't worry about it, ok? It really was an accident."

"Yeah." Ben still looked nervous.

"Just…maybe leave out the part about the haunted house, ok?"

"You won't tell?!" Ben exclaimed, shocked that Dean was on his side.

Dean crouched down so he was eye level with Ben. "I'll make you a deal. You have to promise me never to go in that house again, and I won't tell your Mom you were in there. Deal?" Dean offered his hand.

"Deal!" Ben said with a grin, shaking Dean's hand.

Dean grinned himself, pushing himself up with a groan. He was really getting out of shape, living in suburbia like this. "Alright. Let's say you and me get some lunch, huh?"

"Definitely!" Ben said enthusiastically.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I've gotten a few requests, and I'll be working on those.