The Year of Redemption

Chapter 15: Mean To Me

One of the convenient things about living in the middle of nowhere is that you don't have to drive somewhere to go camping. You basically just leave your house and stomp out into the forest.

Which is exactly what Dean did. He and Cas started hiking out into the woods behind the cabin, carrying their packs into the great unknown of one of Minnesota's huge forests. The dense pine trees shielded most of the sun, and the canopy floor was cool and shady, save for a couple rays of light that shone through.

Dean had a surprising amount of energy, especially for all the sleep he hadn't gotten and all the alcohol he'd already consumed that morning. He forged his way through the wilderness like a man on a mission. Cas kept up, but remained behind Dean, sensing that, right now, the hunter probably just wanted to be alone in his element.

Castiel didn't know much about therapeutic techniques, but he knew Dean, and Dean couldn't stand to not be actively doing something. It was no wonder – besides the fact that he hadn't been able to sleep – that Dean had felt so confined and miserable in the cabin. He had nothing to do, and his mind was driving itself to madness. Cas hoped that this trip would perhaps provide Dean with an outlet for his bottled-up energy and give him some sort of small retreat from the all the crap that he'd been going through. If nothing else, Dean deserved that much.

"Come on, slow poke!" Dean yelled back at Cas, who had begun to trail behind.

Castiel caught up to Dean and fell in step beside him. "I cannot fathom how you humans derive enjoyment from this kind of physical exertion," the angel said, already breathing hard from Dean's quick pace.

Dean slowed down just a tad for Cas's sake. "Think of it like a challenge. Like you're testing your body to see how hard and how far it can go," Dean replied eagerly. "You're never satisfied with how much you can do at the time, so you keep pushing yourself to go farther and harder and so all the time you're able to do more than you could before." Dean was really into this, so Castiel just nodded absently and let him continue. "That's the thing about humans. We're never satisfied. We always want to be more than we are, to grow and improve and conquer new challenges. We dream of being Spiderman or space agents or the incredible Hulk. Someone with some sort of superhuman ability so we can do all kinds of cool new shit."

Castiel was glad for Dean's obvious enjoyment, but he was still sufficiently lost. "And that all begins with hiking?" he asked, trying to make some sort of connection.

"It all begins with the first step," Dean replied reverently. "After that, anything is possible."

"Hmm," Cas said, unsure if Dean was going to continue his philosophical tirade or ascend into the sky in a shining beacon of enlightenment. Not surprisingly, Dean did neither.

"At least that's what the Dalai Llama would have you believe. Who knows how much of that bullshit motivational crap is true," he said, successfully ruining the moment.

Castiel didn't have the faintest idea how llamas factored into the conversation, but he didn't pry. Plus, he was still trying to catch his breath. They hiked for several hours through a seemingly never-ending forest of pines, stopping only occasionally, mostly for Cas to rest and for Dean to have a snack – or a beer.

The hunter would frequently pull out a compass to keep track of the direction they were going. Dean sure was immersing himself in the experience, Cas thought to himself. The hunter even bent down one time to examine a pile of scat from a wild animal. "Timberwolf. Not 12 hours old," he observed out loud. Cas grinned ever-so-slightly. Dean caught the angel's eye, noticing his amused expression. "Hey, when you're practically raised in the woods tracking monsters and god-knows-what-else, you come to learn these things," he explained. The hunter had a point. Still, Castiel felt a strange sense of enjoyment from Dean's enthusiasm.