A/N: The show throws us, now and then, tantalizing tastes of what childhood was like for Sam and Dean. It was clearly challenging, fraught with danger and difficulty, but also has provided us with some wonderful bonding moments. These glimpses show what made them the men we watch, read, and write about. I'm a firm believer in that what's happened in our past informs what we are in the present, and who we become in moving forward. Whether we use those experiences to become better people is entirely up to us. (Thanks to Nova42, Blueriversteel, and Candy for their comments before I went "live" with this.)

Sins Remembered

He remembered.

"Okay, kiddo. First time for everything. Listen, don't expect to be perfect. I wasn't. Let's just see what you got, okay? See what we got to work with."

He remembered the weight of the weapon. How it filled both hands, how it made him tense his arms, how his fingers clung.

How his father slipped a hand under his, eased the gun slightly upward. Dad didn't hold the gun for him; he just provided a smidgen of support so that Dean could stop clenching his entire body with the attempt to hold the gun still. Dad steadied him, just a little.

"Okay, Ace. You got this."

"All six bottles, Dad?"

His father's breath ran from his chest in a quiet blurt of amusement. "If you think you can, sure thing. But one would be good, Dean. One would be real good. And if you don't get it right the first time, next time is okay. Baby steps, kiddo."

He was six years old, and he'd gained an inch over what he'd been at five. "I can do this, Dad."

Dad's hand briefly touched his shoulder. "Then show me what you got."

Dean felt his father remove the support from beneath his hands, the gun. It was a measly little .22 pistol, nothing like the hardware his father used. But it felt big. It felt heavy.

And then it didn't. It felt right.

The world narrowed. The world lost definition. All he saw were six glass beer bottles standing along the fence rail, six dead little soldiers emptied by his father. That was all that mattered. Six bottles. Six targets. Six opportunities.

What he wanted to do was what he'd seen in the movies: one-two-three-four-five-six, one after another, a seamless string of reports as the gun fired, the popping sound of exploding bottles and the cascade of shattered glass. But what his dad wanted was efficiency, was precision. Results.

One at a time. Aim. Squeeze. Take the recoil. Steady his hands. Loosen his elbows, shoulders, then do it all again.

Efficiency. Precision. Results.

He fired six times. The gun was empty. Dean let his arm drop to his side, felt the weight dragging. He was suddenly six years old again, and even a measly .22 felt heavy in the wake of his first experience shooting the thing.

"Holy crap," Dad murmured, clearly startled. Then his hand came down on Dean's shoulder, squeezed. Firmly, man-to-man. "Kiddo—I think you're what's called 'a natural.'"

Dean looked up at his father. "If you don't get it right the first time, next time may be too late."

If you don't get right it the first time, next time may be too late.

He didn't get it right the first time. Next time was . . . too late.

In the tree-fractured glow of a three-quarter moon, Sam went down beneath the black dog because Dean's first shot missed, and then it was a tangle of human limbs and the supernatural and if he shot again he risked hitting his brother.

He'd missed. Dad would be so pissed. Hell, he was pissed.

Dean shoved himself upward from the ground. As Sam's gun cracked in the darkness, he'd landed hard, had twisted to duck beneath the black dog's leap, felt the crumble of soil beneath his right foot, the roll of a downed tree branch; felt the weight, the mass of the big beast as it crashed into him, snapping and growling. He twisted against the ground as he was pressed down into the earth, the leaves, the deadfall.

A second shot from a handful of yards ahead. The beast atop his body cried out in pain and rage. Then the weight, the pressure was gone, and the black dog left him. Left him and charged at Sam.

Dean came up hard and fast, on one knee, twisting, scrabbling, raising his gun. He heard Sam's blurted outcry, the scrambling of limbs for purchase in a hiss and crackle of decaying leaves; saw his brother sprawled beneath the beast.

Fortunately, unlike hellhounds, black dogs were visible.

Shooting was too dangerous. He discarded the gun, yanked the silver knife from his inside jacket pocket. Propelled himself across the ground and leaped. Landed.

Somewhere on the bottom lay his brother, still somehow fighting. Between his own body and that of Sam's was sandwiched a dog no animal control officer had ever seen.

Praying Sam could protect his vulnerable throat, Dean thrust his left arm beneath the beast's neck, caught it in the crook of his elbow, used every amount of leverage he could wield with elbow and shoulder, with back and abdomen, with the cords along his neck as his lips peeled back from hard-bared teeth. The black dog's sheer physical power was immense. But this was Sammy caught beneath the thing.

Adrenaline surged, hard and abrupt, and with it came his own brand of power. He cranked the head upward, twisted it aside, knew he could never choke out the dog but he didn't need to. Gripping the knife hilt firmly, he slid the blade beneath the animal's throat . . .

. . . stabbed and sliced and sawed . . .

. . . felt the stuttering shudders in the beast, the scrabbling of furred legs that prompted a rising moan from Sam.

Frickin' die already, you sonuvabitch!

Then came the give, the fade, the sudden cessation of brutal supernatural strength. He felt the collapse beneath him. Smelled the stench of the blood. Knew himself soaked in it.

"Sam! Sammy!"

"—yeah . . ."

"Sammy!"

"—I'm okay . . . get off . . . Dean—"

Oh. Sam was buried under two bodies. His own, and the black dog's.

He sucked in air, shifted, rolled off the beast. Tremors ran over his body, shivered down his limbs. Adrenaline was spilling away, purging itself. He rose up onto his knees, locked fists into the tangled, wiry black hair, yanked the sucker off his brother. In the doing of it he fell over sideways, collapsed against the ground. Lay there panting, because it was all he had in him to do.

"Sammy?"

"—yeah—"

"You okay?"

"—Uh. I think."

Dean tried to move. Could not. It felt like his body was encased in carbonite. "Did it get you?"

A long pause while Sam lay there and breathed. "Uh. Dunno."

"Do you feel like it got you?"

"It feels like I got smashed beneath a meteorite. With teeth. And claws."

Dean sucked in and released air in gulps. "—a meteorite?"

"Have you ever seen that big-ass crater in Arizona? Yeah. A meteorite."

"Did it get you, Sam?"

Sam stirred, crackling leaves. "Why don't . . . why don't we go back to the motel and find out? 'kay? 'Cuz right now . . . hell, I dunno. Maybe. Probably. Statistically speaking there's a likelihood, yes. "

"You're keeping statistics on black dog bites?—no, don't answer that. You would, nerd brain."

"You?"

"Me, what? I have no nerd brain, Sam. I have no statistics, speaking or otherwise."

"You are a statistic, Dean. A walking, talking, breathing statistic of the unbelievable."

"Of awesomeness, too."

"You okay?"

"Nothing a hot shower, two days of sleep, a dozen cheeseburgers, and a few beers and whiskeys won't cure."

"Then let's get the hell out of Dodge."

"Shit," Dean said abruptly, wincing. "Gotta cut off the head, burn it and the body separately. And that means we gotta dig."

"But not a big-ass crater like in Arizona."

"Maybe when we go to the Grand Canyon we'll visit the meteor hole, too." Dean rolled onto his side, hooked an elbow beneath his ribs, levered himself up. Managed to gather and bend his knees, maneuvered onto a hip. Wiped the back of his hand across his sticky face. "God, I reek. I call first dibs on the shower."

Sam sat up. "Then you get to dig the holes."

Dean spat out a mouthful of saliva and—something he didn't want to think about. "Why the hell does the supernatural have to stink so bad?"

"Right about now? You're pretty supernatural yourself."

"Backatcha, chew toy."

Sam unerringly found just the right insult to put away big brother. "Wouldn't have been a chew toy if you hadn't missed that shot."

He didn't mean it like that, Dean knew. Sam's digs were not ever intended to be mean-spirited, hurtful. Just typical skewed Winchester humor and sarcasm in the wake of a completed hunt. In the wake of extreme risk. In the wake of sheer relief that they had again survived. But sometimes, depending on where the needle of Dean's guilt-meter registered, Sam's jokes stung.

"Yeah."

And equally as unerringly, his brother realized how it could be taken, what he'd said. In typical emo Sam fashion, he backtracked instantly to mitigate, to soften. To make it right. "I shot before you did. I missed first."

And there it was: apology. Dean's mouth twitched crookedly. "Yeah. You did. We gotta work on that, Annie Oakley."

"Annie Oakley was a damn good shot."

"But she was a girl, Samantha."

If you don't get it right the first time, next time may be too late.

Had he ever told Sam that? He must've. He'd told Dad that. He remembered, because Dad had stared down at him with dark eyebrows jumping toward his hairline, and smiled slowly, broadly, as if in a wonderful, frightening discovery.

He was born to be a hunter. That day, Dad knew it.

Sam cut off the black dog's head, hauled it away, dug a depression, salted and burned the thing. Dean tended the body, dug a deeper hole. Dumped accelerant and salt, dropped a match.

It was always a frustration that they could not simply walk away from a hunt and tend their hurts. No, first they had to complete the job, as John Winchester had taught them. And so they did what needed doing to destroy the body, poured water over the charred remains to keep fire from threatening the forest—like freakin' Smokey the Bear, Dean had muttered once—threw dirt and brush on top of the two burial sites, then limped back to the Impala as the first hint of dawn began to extinguish the moon.

Dean did not enforce his first dibs claim on the shower when they reached the motel, because by then he knew Sam had gotten nailed by the black dog. On the drive back, Sam shrugged out of his blood-soaked jacket, unbuttoned and peeled back the left sleeve of his equally soaked overshirt, turned on the domelight and inspected the bite wound on his forearm.

"Damn," he muttered, and hissed in discomfort.

Dean switched his eyes back and forth between the road and his brother's arm. "How bad is it?"

"I don't think it's bad." Sam licked a thumb, rubbed at a slick of blood. "Oh. Ow. Well, maybe worse than I thought."

"Leave it alone, Sam! Let me treat it when we get back. "Jesus, it's like you're five all over again." Dean scowled at him. "Anything else hurt?"

"All of me hurts, Dean. What do you expect? I got hit—"

"—by a meteorite; yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay, we'll triage you when we get in, see what we're dealing with."

And when they got in, when they dropped duffels beside their beds, Dean made his brother strip out of everything from the waist up. In addition to the nasty forearm bite wound, though half-hidden by gouts of tacky blood, Sam displayed a wicked assemblage of raised, red claw slashes on his chest from clavicle to short ribs, but none had broken the skin deeper than one abused layer. By morning he would bear a spectacularly gruesome array of stripes and bruises, but he wouldn't bleed from any of them.

"Freddy Krueger," Dean muttered, inspecting.

"Wolverine."

"Nah, Wolverine's a good guy."

"Wolverine's an antisocial asshole."

"Wolverine's one tough bad-ass mo-fo, Sam. Don't you go talkin' smack about my man. I'd let him have my back any day."

"Maybe better him than me," his brother muttered.

Which informed Dean where the needle on Sam's guilt-meter registered.

Yeah, he probably had told a very young brother that if they didn't get it right the first time, next time would be too late. And now Sam remembered.

"Nah," Dean said, "he's just a fictional character. I'll take real-life Sammy Winchester at my back." He tapped his brother's welted chest. "Now let's see yours. Turn around."

Sam turned. He was helpful about obeying orders pertaining to injuries. Sam was the good brother, the cooperative brother. Sam-as-patient was a doctor's dream.

Dean was . . . an antisocial asshole. "And one bad-ass mo-fo," he muttered, inspecting Sam's back.

His attitude never had endeared him to doctors; and only to nurses when he decided to flirt, to be charming, to overwhelm them with the force of the Dean Winchester brand of bravado—because then they'd never see beneath his mask, beyond the act. He hated pain, hated weakness, detested what it made him into, if he allowed it. It was easier to hide such things, to open the box, stuff the pain inside, lock it up again and forget about it.

He remembered.

"Dad, Dean's hurt!"

Dean sat on the ground holding his left arm crooked against his ribs, startled speechless by the magnitude of pain.

"He was trying to be Superman, Dad!"

And Dad was there, kneeling down. "Dean, let me see."

"He said he could fly, jumped off the garage roof—"

Despite the pain, he yelled it. "Did not!"

"Did so, Dean! But the cape didn't work."

Dad said, "Let me see your arm, Dean. Stop guarding it."

It hurt. It hurt bad, when Dad held his arm, when he pressed fingers up and down the bones. Against his will, a tear slipped free.

"Dean's crying, Dad!"

"Yeah, Sammy. He's busted up his arm." Dad signed deeply, rubbed his brow briefly. "Okay. Well, no choice. I can't set bone. Not if it's to knit properly, not when it's like this. So, kiddo, it's off to the hospital. I've got that new card—we'll use it for this."

Dean protested at once. "But Sammy's shoes, dad! And—the soccer ball, for his birthday. You said the card was for that."

"Well, now it's for a busted arm, Dean. Think about that the next time you decide to jump off a roof. Because Superman isn't real, and if you do something stupid in real life there are bound to be repercussions. We pay for our sins. So you get to wear a cast, and Sammy gets to wear his old shoes."

Dean blinked away additional tears. "They're too small, Dad. He already gets blisters."

"I put Band-aids on 'em," Sam said matter-of-factly.

"No," Dean said. "No, Sammy—you can wear my shoes."

Sam's voice squeaked in shock. "Dean, I can't wear your shoes! What'll you wear?"

Dean sighed. "Red leather boots. Like Superman."

Dad muttered something. "Come on, kiddo. Let's get you up. Sam, go into the house and get my wallet, okay? It's on the kitchen table."

Dean watched his growing, gangly brother trot away in his too-small shoes. Then he felt the weight of his father's gaze. He wanted to look away, but John Winchester did not tolerate any display of submission. Obedience was required, yes; never submission.

You're not a puppy licking at my mouth, Dad had said, and you sure as hell won't be peeing yourself. Stand up straight and tall. If you've done wrong—and we all do, kiddo; nobody's perfect, not even your old man—admit it, learn from it, move on. Be a man about it.

"Did you get that?" Dad asked. "Did you get it, Dean? If you do something stupid in real life, there are bound to be repercussions."

From that day forward, from the day they set and casted his arm, he was a terrible patient. Because injury and illness meant that in real life he'd done something stupid, just as Dad had said. And if he did something stupid, he deserved to bear the pain.

Dad didn't say that. Dean just thought it.

We pay for our sins.

Never again did an always-growing Sammy rub blisters on his feet because his shoes were too small. Dean wouldn't allow it. Dean found him, or stole for him, shoes. Shoes that fit. Even that one summer when, while no one was paying attention, Little Sammy Winchester shot up to overtop brother and father.

That memory made Dean smile. Oh, but he'd been pissed! He could still play the big brother card in seniority, but never again in size.

Superman. Nah. Superman was weakened by kryptonite. Wolverine, now . . . Wolverine was impervious. Wolverine always healed.

Wolverine didn't wear wussy red leather boots. Wolverine wore workboots.

So did Dean Winchester.

"Just bruises," Dean observed. "No bites back here, no clawmarks. Guess you took all the damage on your front side, like a damn hee-ro. Okay, let me get the holy water, first aid kit for that arm, then you get to drop your drawers. Full Monty on the exam, kid."

Sam was incredulous. "Seriously, Dean? Look, I'll check myself out in the shower."

Dean pulled up the supply duffel, dumped it on the bed, unzipped, dug into it. "I'll let you keep your boxers on."

"So, what, is that a half Monty? Or a quarter?" Sam toed off his slip-on boots. "Look, I'm showering first. The water'll wash everything clean. Then we treat. I'm covered in blood and goo and I stink, Dean. Ten minutes, then you can have your way with me." He paused. "Um, let me rephrase that."

Dean turned sharply, reached to grab his brother, but Sam slipped the hand, took two strides into the bathroom, closed and locked the door.

"Sammy!" He moved in, heard Sam shucking jeans, turning on the shower. "I'll pick this lock!"

"I'll dunk your head in the toilet—before I flush it!"

"I'll put Nair in your boxers!"

After a pause, Sam called, "Oh, man, that is just too ugly to contemplate!"

"Then get your ass back out here!"

"My ass is in the shower, Dean! Ten minutes!"

He paced, because that's what he did when Sam wasn't where Dean wanted him to be. Upon the table he spread a clean towel, then lined up the flask of holy water, antiseptic ointment, gauze, tape, spongy Vetrap in place of old-style Ace bandage—a blinding fuschia color, since it had been on sale—plus bottles of oral antibiotics, ibuprophen, and Tylenol. Experience had taught them that for inflammation, for pain short of the need for opioids, downing both analgesics simultaneously was most effective.

Sam was out in nine minutes on the dot, wet hair slicked back, towel snugged around his hips. He raised one delaying index finger in the air, dug fresh boxers out of his duffel, inspected them for any foreign substances akin to Nair, then pulled them on and hooked the damp towel over the doorknob.

Freaky-long, those legs, protruding prodigiously from the boxers. "Scrapes," Sam said firmly. "I looked. The arm's the worst of it." He plopped down in the chair tucked under the table, stretched out his forearm and settled it on the towel. "Okay, do your worst. Well, so to speak. Don't take it literally, dude."

Dean pulled the other chair close, perched on it, took a good, close look at the bite wound. It was nasty, but he'd seen worse. With a glance of apology at his brother's tense face, he uncapped and poured holy water into the punctures and torn flesh.

Sam sucked in a hissing breath, screwed up his face, expelled air on a strangled, breathy blurt of pain. Dean blotted the arm dry, swabbed it thoroughly with antiseptic, bandaged it, ran a few passes of gauze around the arm, used the roll of stretchy, tacky Vetrap as armor against the world. Then he placed a glass of water close, pushed the pill bottles forward.

"Dude, you know the drill."

Sam tossed him a brief disgruntled scowl, but obligingly swallowed analgesics and antibiotics.

"And when's the last time you had a tetanus shot?"

"Last year, when that spirit shoved a broken hatchet handle into my side."

Dean grunted. "Yeah. I remember that. Sucked." He recapped the holy water, pushed up from the chair. "Okay, my turn in the shower. Then we go out for breakfast."

Sam flexed his wrist, winced. "I was thinking I might go to bed, Dean. You know, like, catch some actual sleep."

Dean unlaced his boots, loosened them, shook them off, then grabbed tee, jeans, boxers out of his duffel. "You'll sleep better on a full belly."

"If I'm asleep, I won't know if my belly's full or empty."

"If that mother's growling because it's empty, I won't be able to sleep."

"God," Sam sighed, "somehow it always comes back to Dean Winchester."

"Because I'm oldest," Dean said. "And because I'm, well, me." He paused at the threshold of the bathroom, turned briefly toward his brother and flashed him a wide grin. "'Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.'"

"Jesus," Sam muttered.

Dean, cackling, closed the door.

TBC