The Year of Redemption

Chapter 17: How Much Does The World Weigh?

As soon as the sun came out, the tent warmed up quickly. Rays of early morning light cut through the dense canopy, travelling between the tree trunks and illuminating the forest floor. When Dean opened his eyes, it seemed as bright as day. He rolled over and unzipped his sleeping bag. Castiel was gone.

Dean quickly changed his clothes and rolled up his sleeping bag, strapping it to one of the backpacks again. He stepped outside the tent and looked around. Still no sign of the angel. Sighing, he started to disassemble the tent and pack it away. He was stuffing the last pole into the backpack when Castiel appeared and walked over.

"Good morning, Dean," the angel greeted.

"Hey," Dean replied, looking up and nodding at the angel, then finishing his work. "Thanks for the help," he added sarcastically.

Cas looked around. "Oh. I apologize," he said sincerely. "What is the plan for today?"

Dean refrained from asking where Castiel had been. It was none of his business anyways. Instead, he pulled out a map and a compass. He pointed to his left. "There's a mountain that way. You up to peak it?"

"Peak it?" Cas asked, confused.

"Yeah, climb to the top," Dean said enthusiastically.

He sure was in a good mood today, Cas thought. He shrugged. "Sure. As long as you quit falling on top of me and almost dying."

"No promises there," Dean replied with a wink, then shouldered two of the packs and started marching off towards the summit.

Castiel rolled his eyes and grabbed the other two packs. He followed the hunter off into the woods again, taking long strides to keep up with Dean.

"It sure is a nice day," Cas commented as he fell in step beside the hunter.

"Yeah," Dean agreed absentmindedly. He wasn't really in the mood for small talk. He had a lot on his mind, though, and as long as they were talking, he figured he might as well say it all out loud.

"The woods have always felt kind of like a home to me," Dean started. "I guess I never really had a home growing up, so this is as close as it gets." Cas could tell Dean had been reminiscing about his childhood. He let him continue as they kept strolling through the forest.

"Me and Sammy, we used to beg our dad to bring us on hunts. We didn't want anything to do with school, couldn't stand having to make new friends all the time and then leave them and find some other people to hang out with somewhere else. We'd rather just be out here with Dad, hunting."

"I mean, even if we'd settled in one place and had a chance to grow up normal, I don't know if I'd have been able to stay there, make friends, lead a regular life, all that stuff. It just wasn't ever something I was... good at. I'd have screwed up something, had to start over somewhere else, probably at least a dozen times..."

"Sammy could've done it, he was always better at that sort of thing..." Cas just let him ramble, not really minding at all. There was probably at least a whole truckload that Dean needed to get off his chest. The angel looked over, and Dean's eyes were far away, consumed by memories.

"For me, at least, it was so much simpler back then. We'd go on a hunt, track down the monster, kill it, bury it, then move on. Start it all over again somewhere else, never crossing our own tracks. Never in the same place twice. Sammy and I just picked up where Dad left off. We'd find a job and do it. Sure, we had a bigger target in mind. But even after the yellow-eyed demon, we just kept on with the jobs and the hunting. Cause that's all we knew how to do: work a job, kill the son-of-a-bitch, and get the hell out. It was clean, it was efficient, it was predictable." He paused for a minute, as if he was torn between wanting to hold on to these memories and wanting to forget them.