A Long Hunt

The Damn Hunt

The next morning Dean woke up to Sam throwing a pillow violently at his head.

"You fucker." Dean growled sleepily as he sat up and chucked the pillow back into his brother’s face. Sam just snickered and walked away.

Looking at the clock Dean was annoyed to see that it was 7:30 in the morning. WHY THE HELL DID SAM GET HIM UP THIS EARLY!!! His brother sure could be douchebag sometimes. Freaking morning people.

Dean glanced at the empty space next to him.  His angel was gone from the bed. He must have left sometime in the middle of the night before Sam woke up. The hunter felt a pang of sadness and emptiness that always showed its ugly face when his angel was gone. Dean knew Cas would be back soon though. He never left Dean's side for long.

Dean threw back the blankets and got up slowly. His brain was foggy from sleep so he didn't realize that the sheets were wrapped around his legs. As he tried to move he tripped and fell face first, his head smacking into the side of Sam's bed.

"God damn it!" Dean shouted clutching his face. In anger he kicked his leg to knock the sheet loose only to smash his ankle into the side table. "Mother Fucker!" He hissed.

"Having some trouble Dean?" Sam asked taking a bite out of an apple and walking over to him.

Dean struggled to stand and flipped his brother off. "Why'd you get me up so early Sam?"

"The job Dean. We need to figure out what the hell we're up against. People are dying Dean!" Sam said giving him an exasperated look.

Dean was still pissed but Sam was right so he didn't say anything. They had a job to do and Dean had gotten distracted. Because of that people in this shitty town were still dying.  He was supposed to be saving them. Hunting the fuckers responsible for their deaths.  Continuing their father's legacy.

The family business. The whole reason Dean's life was so difficult and why nights like last night were so precious to him. The reason why his life has been one nightmare after another. Sacrificing his time and happiness so others could live. Live their own full happy lives with friends and family while the Winchesters suffered, constantly facing pain and death. However, hunting was also the reason Dean met Cas. That was the one thing that continued to make the hunter believe he was doing the right thing. That made him believe he was on the right path. The angel was the one good thing that had come out of his fucked up life.

Before going to hell Dean's motivation for hunting had been his family. Watching out for Sammy and his father. Together as the broken, torn apart, family they were and it definitely was no picnic in the park. However when Dean went to hell for that year, forty years for him, something inside him broke. The thing that made Dean Winchester the hunter he always had been. The thing that had always kept him human.

They had taken away his spirit. His reason for hope. The demons stripped it from him through years of torture and forcing him to torturing others. 

After he was back on earth he had to fight every day to find a reason to get up in the morning. To find a reason that life was worth facing all those tortured memories. He had to find a reason not to just take his pistol, place it to his head, cock it, and fire.

Dean had always told himself the only reason he had held on was became of Sammy. To stay alive for his little brother. Keep him safe like his father had always instructed him to do. Now however, Dean suspected that there was always something more that had kept him alive during that time. Something to do with his angel. Maybe he had sensed there was some missing memory of happiness from when he was raised from his eternal damnation. Maybe there was just a supernatural bond between the two.