Hunting had never been easy. Even after having started at such an early age, there has never been a simple way to go about it. No two cases were ever the same, meaning that it was impossible to been entirely prepared for what lay in store. For example, simply knowing how to kill a goblin was only one step in actually finding and killing a goblin. The many diverse scenarios that come up while on a case is what makes being a hunter so difficult.

This being said, there are a number of things that make hunting significantly easier. Knowing where to find the monster in question, what it is capable of, and how to approach dealing with the creature are just a few things that make the hunt more manageable. However, none of these can be determined if one does not know what they are hunting.

Sam Winchester has no idea what he is hunting.

The months following Jessica's death had been some of the hardest in Sam's life. Coming home to find the woman he loved burning on the ceiling of their apartment had only been the one in a series of terrible events in Sam's life. The demon Azazel ending up killing so many important people to Sam; his dad, Ellen, Jo, Ash, and Bobby. All that he had left was Dean, who was living in Bobby's old house in South Dakota and doing who knows what. Sam had gone back to school for a while until recently, due to his encounter with the strange creature.

There were no eye witness accounts of similar sightings or books written on the monster that he was searching for; the one that he had barely caught a glimpse of almost two months ago and had been chasing after blindly since.

It did not help that anytime Sam would find the trail of a monster and began investigating, he would have to finish the job in that town whether it was the creature he was looking for or not. This considered, it is not a surprise that Sam has not found his mystery being yet, as he has been getting rid of these other monsters along the way.

Today's case was a Djinn, a powerful humanoid creature that causes realistic and captivating hallucinations to immobilize their prey as they feed off the human's blood. Sam arrived in a small town in Colorado early yesterday morning with only the lead that there had been a series of mysterious, unsolved deaths. Since then, he has managed to put the pieces together using several leads from the townspeople. He realized fairly quickly that the monster was a Djinn rather than the unknown winged creature that he had seen before. Even so, he needed to kill the Djinn before it fed from another innocent person.

The brunette pulls his tennis shoes on quickly, tying them before standing up and walking across the creaking wooden floor of the cheap hotel room. He pulls his green jacket on over his long sleeve plaid shirt, straightening the sleeves before moving toward the table in the corner of the room. He quickly picks up his silver knife, along with the lambs blood that he had acquired yesterday evening. There were not many ways to kill a Djinn, but a silver blade covered in lamb's blood was a fairly fast option.

He spares a brief glance at the DVD on the table labeled "CCTV 4." The disc was his only other lead to the creature that saved his life a couple of months ago. Despite the panic that had ensued after the incident, he had managed to get the gas station manager to give him a copy of the surveillance footage before the police arrived, not that it had done him any good so far in his search.

Returning back to the task at hand, he puts his supplies into his duffle bag, pulling it over his shoulder as he heads toward the door. He checks his phone as he walks outside to find two missed calls. One phone call from one of his classmates from Stanford, likely wondering why Sam had dropped off of the face of the Earth without explanation. This was the fifth time that this person had called him, but Sam had decided a couple of weeks ago that he will stop calling eventually and there is no need to even listen to the messages. The second call is from an unknown number. If it is important, whoever it is will call again.

He opens the door to his car and slides into the front seat, tossing his duffel bag into the passenger side. Sam has more important things to worry about.

So much for being an easy case, Sam thinks as he walks back into the hotel room and tosses his duffel bag to the floor and closing the door quickly behind him. He makes straight for the bed and flops onto his back, groaning at the soreness and exhaust in his body.

It was dangerous for hunters to take on monsters alone, especially ones as powerful as a Djinn. He had taken a risk going after even one monster in the first place, so needless to say he was more than a bit overwhelmed when he found himself ambushed by a second Djinn. It took some time, but he was eventually able to get the two Djinn separated so that he could take them out one at a time.

Sam shuts his eyes tightly in pain. He had sustained much worse injuries than this in the past, from bullet and knife wounds, bites, scratches, and broken bones. Sore muscles and a headache should not be this big of an issue. Perhaps it is the lack of sleep enhancing the pain further. He can sleep it off.

Moments later he hears his phone ringing from the duffel bag, and groans as he sits up. While it would be easy to ignore the phone call, it could easily be someone in town with further information on the two Djinn that he killed, and so he feels inclined to answer.

By the time his phone is in his hand, it is already on its last ring. He checks the caller ID, recognizing the unknown number from earlier that day and frowns to himself as he clicks the accept call button.

"Sam Winchester," he says carefully into the phone, frowning at the far wall of the hotel room as he leans against the chest of drawers across from the bed. The other end of the phone line is silent for a moment until he hears an oddly familiar voice on the other end of the line.

"Hey Sam, It's um- It's Garth."

The young man on the phone sounds as though he was a bit nervous to call.

"Garth?" Sam asks dumbly, obviously not familiar enough with the name to recognize it.

"You know, Fitzgerald," the voice laughs nervously for a second before continuing, "The fourth. We met after Bobby- ya know-" He trails off after that.

Sam frowns as the memory returns. Garth had shown up at Bobby's house about a week after he was killed by Azazel. The two Winchester brothers had been very confused as they watched the young, gangly man step out of his Ford Ranchero and approach them as they stood in Singer's Salvage Yard. Garth had explained that he had been trying to get in contact with Bobby about a case and had become worried after days of no response.

The young man had seemed incredibly upset upon hearing of Bobby's death, and had explained that he really looked up to the older hunter. They had not talked for long, but Sam had given Garth his number in case he ever needed anything.

"Oh, right, Garth," Sam says in a hurry, as if he had known all along, "What's up man? I haven't heard from you in a while." It was a bit of an understatement. Garth had not ever called Sam before now.

"Hey, so I heard you were hunting again," the older man says into the speaker, "I was wondering if you could help me out with a case."

Another detour from his main hunt. It was frustrating to say the least, especially knowing that Garth had not spoken to him since Bobby's death until now. "I'm kind of in the middle of another hunt, Garth," Sam lied, feeling a bit guilty, "There isn't anyone else you could call?"

The phone line goes quiet for a minute before he speaks up once again, "I mean, I'm kind of low on connections right now, you know what I mean?" he asks, "I took some time off of hunting after Bobby- And now I'm at it again and it's not like I can call him or- or- Ellen, or Jo, or Ash up and ask-"

Sam grimaces at the waver in Garth's voice that makes it seem as though he is about to break down. "Garth, man just-" Sam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It is not as if one more hunt could take him any further off course than he is. "Where do you want to meet up?"

Thanks for reading the first chapter of this fic! I'd love to know what you think!

I'm excited to keep writing this oh gosh I have big plans.

Updates will be pretty much every Sunday! :3

For anyone who does not know, this is a spin off of my fic "Both Have Fallen From Grace," which is a Destiel story that parallels this one. I'd very much appreciate it if you gave it a read, though this story is perfectly capable of standing on its own. Thanks!

Leave a review please!