Coming of Age
Dean's first hunt was a salt and burn. An easy hunt, a cinch by John Winchester terms, the man having surpassed salt and burns for larger prey early on in his career. Dean is eleven, tall for his age and thin in a deceptive way, already he is being conditioned for the hunt, the wiry nature of his body hiding the muscles he's already developing.
The hunt was not a sudden choice, Dean was not being thrust suddenly into it by his father, eager to please the eldest Winchester and prove himself a man. He had been training for this for some time. John's decision to let Dean do a hunt at this early age spanning back a full year, when he had first handed his son a shovel and told him to dig a hole in the garden of which ever dump they were currently staying in six by three by six. But it wasn't a sudden decision then either, Dean had been handling guns since he was six, when John had decided he could trust none but a select few and most of the time Dean was all that was there to watch Sammy whilst their father was hunting monsters in the night; he'd been handling knives just as long, had been learning Latin side-by-side with English and his numbers, learning it at the same pace as his old man, if not faster, and learning about all the things that were out there that nobody ever wanted to know of.
At six, Dean was already becoming a hunter, by eleven he had had more theory practise than most, the practical should have come easily, just turning what he'd learnt out onto the field, and the hunt John Winchester had chosen was easy, a salt and burn on a ghost that wasn't even that malicious, had only been picked up by them because they had been in town on a larger, nastier hunt and John had just happened to catch wind of this one whilst neck deep in research. An easy hunt to follow up the difficult one, one that Dean could do with minimum intervention from his father, just go in, dig up the corpse, burn it, cover up their tracks and be done with the whole matter. Simple. Textbook.
Which is why Dean is sprawled in the bottom of a ditch, freezing water soaking the front of his sweater and jeans, twisting awkwardly to try and see up and over the top.
He is searching for the ghost; the arc of light that would signify John's torch; the beam of light that would be his flashlight seeing as that has gone missing; the shovel; his pistol; anything really, any sign of something that could help would have been nice at that point, but it is dark, pitch black almost at the bottom of the ditch with the clouds rolling overhead and blocking out any moonlight, and even more worryingly its quiet. Deathly silent really. He can hear the wind and the occasional creak of a tree, but he can't hear his father, and he's sure his old man would have noticed him missing, would have started looking for him by now, and John Winchester is pretty damn vocal when his sons are out of sight. Dean can still remember when Sammy managed to slip away in a supermarket one time and John had hollered so loud that the bottles of beer on the shelf next to him had rattled. And Sam had come back shivering and crying because he had lagged behind them and gotten mixed up when a woman had cut in front of him with her trolley and his family had disappeared into an aisle by the time she'd moved on.
Dean shivers now, a full body shiver that makes his teeth clatter together and brings him from his daydreams and back to the here and now. He's still in the bottom of the ditch, soaked through at the front, icy all over, and sore from where hands; cold ghostly inhuman hands, had grabbed him roughly as he'd uncovered the body and bodily thrown him into the ditch. He gulps in a breath as another shiver shakes him, and starts to pull himself together. There is no point in waiting, it's too quiet in the world above the ditch, John would have been heard by now if it had been at all possible, and Dean's choices are narrowed down to getting himself out of the ditch, finishing the hunt and finding his father.
Besides, Sammy had been left sleeping in the crappy little motel room they were currently staying in, and in Dean's experience nothing good ever came about when he left Sammy on his own, no matter how many wards were around the place, Sammy was nothing if not a walking disaster.
He pushes his brother to the back of his mind. It's a difficult thing, because for as long as he has been conditioned towards the hunt, he has had the idea to look after Sammy ingrained in his head much longer, but he does it anyway; Sammy is safe, or at least he can only hope that Sammy is safe, there is no other alternative right now that he can consider, and he needs to focus all his attention on this badly soured hunt.
His focus away from his brother, Dean turns his focus onto himself. He is cold and wet, his clothes soaked through at the front and the water saturating his skin now, his upper arms ache where the ghost grabbed him, his left hand side is one fierce ache where he had landed, his shoulder almost blindingly painful – he's pretty sure it was dislocated when he landed, and he's shivering constantly now, the aches beginning to give away to the numbing cold.
Having triaged his parts and come up reasonably hale he pulls himself to his feet. The movement jars his left arm, leaves him gasping from the pain, and quick fingers find the out of place joint, cement his idea that it is dislocated, though he doesn't attempt to fix it, he can triage parts, and has been stitching up John after hunts for years, but he has never fixed an injury like this, won't do it this night either, it'll be John's job after Dean finds him, after the ghost is finally finished.
He curls his arm in against his body, cradles it with his right hand as he takes stock of his surroundings. Now that he is standing he can see over the ditch. Just barely, but enough that he can see the beam of light coming from his flashlight, its perhaps seven feet away at the most, the light pointed away from him, lighting on his shovel, and onto the mound of grave dirt he had dug up, ten feet away, perhaps twelve at the most. His gaze flickers around, piercing the dark, but there is no arc of light that promises John is there.
A nervous look around again, no obvious sign of the ghost, but then there hadn't been before either, not until a pair of hands had grabbed him and tossed him. He shifts, testing his weight, testing his body, because whilst he as sure he has triaged himself correctly he can't be sure, but when the only flash of pain is that from his arm, he allows himself to move, scrambling awkwardly out of the ditch, hissing and freezing each time he jars his arm, keeping watch for John and the ghost.
The second his feet hit level ground he is moving, dodging and sprinting the seven feet to his flashlight, catching it up and ducking behind the nearest gravestone, breathing heavily, his aches flaring to life, his body still shaking heavily from cold. Waiting in the silence, waiting for some noise that would show his movements had been noticed, tracked. Though when nothing changes, nothing comes rushing at him he turns, looking around the edge of the gravestone, the flashlight catching on the silent grave, the mound of grave dirt, gleaming on the surface of his pistol, discarded at the edge of the grave.
Again he stands frozen, looking around nervously, listening, calculating the distance, five feet at the most, he could be across it in seconds.
His hand travels to his jeans pockets almost without thinking. His lighter, one of those plastic refillable deals, is in his front pocket. His slides it out and checks it over, slightly cracked from his meeting with the ditch floor, but not broken through, the fluid inside staying inside, and that's what is important. He's glad that the salt is in a bigger bag that he can see beside the grave dirt, a mere hand span from his pistol, lying beside it is the bottle that had once contained water but was now full of accelerant. If the salt had gone into the ditch water with him would it still be useable? He'd have to ask John that after the hunt was over.
His body tenses again, his eyes trained on the grave side, on the gun, the accelerant and the salt, and he pulls in a long breath, holds it, and on the exhale darts out from behind the gravestone, takes the five feet in two seconds, skids onto his knees as he grabs up the salt, his left arm is screaming as the shoulder joint argues all movement and so he makes his choices. As the salt is thrown onto the corpse he feels the air around him plummet further; as the lighter fluid joins it the wind whips up around him, the trees unaffected by this gale focused around Dean; as the lighter comes out of his pocket again there is a breath of sound, perhaps the wind through the trees, perhaps the cry of a ghost; as the flame bursts into life, powered by his thumb he feels those very same hands grasp at his upper arms again, a bruising grip on both arms, his body being lifted, and as he is thrown he tosses the lighter, prays that it goes where it is supposed to, and a small cry escapes his throat when, at the top of his trajectory, he sees the grave go up in flames. Victory.
He slams heavily into the ground and the world goes white for a moment, but when he comes to again he is staring upwards, the sky is still ominously black, moon and stars obscured by clouds, and something else looms over him, hulks there scant inches from his skull. His eyes adjust to the dark enough that he can make out the headstone, the name Jack Middler, and he wonders for a moment on the man, as hysteria takes over from adrenaline he thinks maybe they could be friends. Maybe, if the man isn't a crazy ghost. He'd have to check that out.
The thought makes him dissolve into laughter, but he sobers quickly, his aches are coming back to life, his arm is still there, which is a shock to Dean, because the pain he's experiencing now makes him think his entire arm has been ripped off, and as he clambers to his feet he is forced to clutch onto Jack's headstone for support, the latest toss has injured his foot, sprained or broken he can't tell right now, doesn't really care. The hunt is over, he can see the fire still going from where he is stood, wants to move to the edge of the fire pit in an attempt to get warm, though that means letting go of his support, and his thoughts stray, first to John, where is he? but also, more importantly, to Sammy. He hoped the kid hadn't got into trouble, or worse woken up. The kid was plagued by nightmares at the best of times, being on his own in their crappy motel, probably with their neighbours screaming for each other's blood through the wall, would probably fuel them further.
Something thuds to the ground beside him and he startles from his thoughts, attempts to move away from this new threat in the direction he remembers the grave side and his pistol to be, but forgets about his injured foot and almost staggers as his whole weight drops onto it. Hands grasp at his arms and he struggles, almost blacking out when he jars his shoulder. His hearing comes back after that move, he can hear his harsh gasps as he tries to control the pain, and then a voice, rough and familiar and worried, and he turns his head, comes face to face with John.
"Dad?" his voice is shaky, his eyes roam across his father's face and fix onto the stream of blood running down the one side of John's face, but the eldest Winchester smiles at his eldest son, more a man than a boy now that his first hunt is over, and his eyes take stock of his child.
"Hey Dean," he says, draws the shivering, mud covered boy to him, fingers running over the dislocated and swollen shoulder joint "You did good."
Dean merely nods, his reserves fast running out, he wants to get home and check on Sammy, doesn't hold much care for his father's words right now. He will hold them in his head until morning, and when he wakes will reflect on the night's victory.