Hi guys ^^

I launched yesterday my new Supernatural art project called THE LIFE OF DEAN WINCHESTER. You’ll follow the life of the Winchesters through Dean’s Instagram pics. ^o^

You can follow this account on Tumblr here: http://the-life-of-dean-winchester.tumblr.com/

And on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/the_life_of_dean_winchester/

You can find the F.A.Q HERE. Art and captions: Petite-Madame. English beta: Beccj, Maichan808 and Quickreaver. ♥

I hope you will enjoy this new project :)

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I’m sorry but I’m putting an end to Journal of a Man of Letters

Hi Guys ♥

I hope you are doing fine and preparing to celebrate a happy Halloween. I’m really sorry, but I’m writing you to let you know that I'm planning to stop Journal of a Man of Letters. I thought I could carry on this project I started during S8 by reducing the length of the fics but I'm far too tired to draw something every week inspired by the aired episode. Trying to be on time makes me anxious, so I'm preferring to stop.

It used not to be a problem but since the beginning of my health problems last year, it really has become difficult for me to carry on.

However, I’m not leaving the fandom or anything, I’m even planning to start a new Spn project but that would require FAR less pressure and time than Journal of a Man of Letters. Something cool, where I could post at my own rhythm without having to produce something once a week.

I really, REALLY would like to thank all my followers for being there, being so enthusiastic about this project. You guys have been amazing from Day 1!! THANK YOU!

And also, I REALLY would like to thank my three betas, Quickreaver, BeccJ and Maichan who also have been there from the start and who betaed about 100 short fics week after week. Believe me, this Journal wouldn’t have been the same without them. They spent a lot of time and energy on it, sometimes even rewrote whole paragraphs and helped me when I was lost with canon. I think that Sam would have sounded like a French student in vacation in the US without them so THANK YOU!

I'm really sorry I'm having to stop but I'm far too tired. I used to stay awake until 3:00am to work on my art but since last year and the moment I became sick, I've been spending far more time in bed resting xD Anyway, thank you so much!!! See you soon. I will let you know about my new project if I start it.

Petite-Madame

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #109

“God made a world where people have to suffer and then they die. But frankly, why would they want to live in such a world?”

- The Darkness

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #108

I guess that Dean finally got what he wanted.

When we were kids and we were coming back from a hunt with Dad, my brother often looked disappointed that we didn’t meet any zombies because “Yeah, yeah, ghosts and monsters are…fine but zombies! Imagine that Sammy! A zombie apocalypse would be SO much fun, you know, like in Dawn of the Dead?!”. Dad would roll his eyes, exasperated by his son’s obsession with the living dead but Dean kept bringing back the zombies on a regular basis and even managed to get me interested as well.

And here we are. The fucking Zombie Apocalypse. The real one this time, nothing compared to what we had to face in the past with the Leviathans taking possession of human bodies or even when Bobby’s wife and a couple of friends came back from the grave. We’re talking about a disaster of biblical proportions controlled by a force so powerful that the universe itself judged it necessary to contain it since the dawn of time.

The Darkness is still on the loose and spreading a trail of zombies in its wake but at least, I found a way to reverse this “virus” thanks to Holy Oil. Fantastic. But how many gallons of Holy Oil will be necessary to cure the whole country, the whole world if the epidemic is spiraling out of control? If millions of people are infected, the Angelic cure won’t mean squat.

And let’s not count on God’s help either to make us see the light at the end of the tunnel. In a moment of despair, I got the bad idea to pray in the hope that this son of a bitch would still be around but the only sign I got where headaches and visions from Hell like in the good old days.

So much for descending from Heaven in a halo of light and saving Humanity. Thank you, A+ customer service, really.

Anyway, the Zombie Apocalypse is way less fun than expected. Forget about running after stupid zombies with a shot gun while quoting Simon Pegg or Bruce Campbell. Picture instead dead people bathing in black goo all over the place, traditionalist Reapers with no humor carrying on their job and threatening Dean and I of the darkest future you can imagine, Crowley enjoying himself as if he were in Disneyland, and let’s not forget a soul eating little girl that would make Damien from The Omen pass as the most adorable kid in the world. I’m almost missing Rowena’s shenanigans.

You finally got your Zombie Apocalypse, Dean. Next time, be careful what you wish for.

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #107

With time, I’ve come to realize there’s some simple concepts Dean and I have trouble comprehending. Trust, communication, the “Greater Good”. Irony, too. Yes, in the light of recent events, I would definitely put “irony” at the top of the list.

After giving my brother a heartbreaking speech on how we should stop lying and keeping  secrets from each other for our own good and for the sake of Humanity, guess what I did after being infected by the “zombie virus” (or whatever the hell that new Biblical disaster is)? Call Dean for help and ask him to come right away to try to rescue my ass? Tell him the truth about me being slowly turned into a zombie before keeling over dead? Take the time to say a last and proper goodbye to the most important person in my life?

No, of course, not. In the purest Winchesters tradition, I just joked that I got everything covered, that everything was fine before casually hanging up the phone.

I think I’ll never learn. The last time I did something behind my brother’s back, it ended with unlocking The Darkness from the depths of the Universe, loosing track of both Rowena and The Book of The Damned, the death of Death (I’m fully aware of how incredibly stupid this sounds, no need to point it out) and the start of something that can be decently described as a Zombie Apocalypse.

So much for breaking the circle. Saving people, hiding things, the family business.

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #106

All my life, I lived in fear.

The fear of seeing my father and my brother never coming back when they were working on a job longer than expected. The fear of witnessing the world end in a disaster of Biblical dimensions because an archangel had a tantrum. The fear of seeing Dean becoming a monster so powerful that even the King of Hell himself had failed to defy him.

It became a part of me somehow, and I learned with time to brush it off in order not to let it paralyze me when I was on a hunt or facing difficult situations, but there are occasions, rare occasions, like when you are trapped in your car with your brother, surrounded by the darkest and most powerful forces of the Universe, that fear reminds you of its true nature and makes you do things you would never have thought you would do again. Like starting praying. And it doesn’t matter that you promised yourself years ago that God didn't deserve your prayers anymore, not because you didn’t believe in him but because the asshole didn’t deserve to have you devote one more minute of your time to him.

So here it is. The Darkness. Black, thick and impenetrable.

This isn’t the wrath of an archangel with Daddy issues, this isn’t some stupid plan for world domination by creatures that could be eradicated with bathroom detergent, or even Crowley trying to play a trick on us for the 200th time, this goes beyond everything we've  had to face in our lives. Beyond human imagination and comprehension even.

I never thought I would say this in my life again, but Lord, if you can hear me, please, have mercy on our souls.

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #105

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.”

― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #104

Ten seconds.

That was all the time it took Dean to convince Cain to make him the new bearer of the Mark, and all the time it took this abomination to leave his arm for good. It was also the amount of time that I had hope that our troubles were maybe over, and that we would finally catch a break somehow.

Ten seconds. Ten little seconds. Not one second more.

I shouldn’t be surprised, you know. Our joys and hopes never had a life span greater than this short lapse of time. As a Winchester, I guess you are cursed to experience happiness only by slices of ten seconds and apparently, for Destiny, God, or Whatever-Asshole-Is-In-Charge now, it’s already too much.

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #103

When we worked on a case a few months ago, a woman we met (and who would later die by our own hands), told us we were nothing but selfish and hypocritical bastards who didn’t give a damn about the consequences of their actions as long as they could save each other.

She wasn’t completely wrong.

Truth is, in the end, and in spite of our speeches full of good will to save the world and do what is best for Humanity with a capital H, we always choose each other, we always choose family even if it means making incredibly stupid and reckless choices such as dealing with demons, following Lucifer in the depths of Hell or stabbing Death himself with a scythe.

I wish I could say that the couple of photos of our childhood I showed Dean when he was about to kill me helped my brother overcome the Mark and take the right decision, but there is no right decision in this case.

And now? Don’t look at me, I have no idea how things are gonna play out. God left the ship a long time ago and a war in Heaven later, the world survived. Somehow. Will it survive without Death is another story. I guess it won’t take us long to find

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #102

“Maybe you could fight the Mark for years, maybe centuries like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever, and when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I'm the one who'll have to watch you murder the world.”

― Castiel

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #101

When I returned to the bunker, all I found were the dead bodies of the Stynes, riddled with bullets and bathed in their own blood. Well, even a word like “bathed” was an understatement, given that there was blood absolutely everywhere. On the floor. On the tables. On a huge pile of old books that had been dragged out from the shelves. Even on the big columns in the middle of the library.

You didn’t need to be a genius in the art of deduction to guess that my brother was there and that the Mark had taken this opportunity to express its rage at full capacity.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not gonna go all sentimental on the Stynes; those sons of bitches deserved every bullet they got for what they did to Charlie and for the murders of all the innocent people they considered “human spare parts dispensers”. I can even say that I wished I had killed those monsters myself and believe me, I would have done it without the batting of an eye. Better yet, I would have done it with utter pleasure.

No, I was much more concerned by the angel blade covered in blood I found stuck in a book near the entry of the living room.

Dean was gone, Castiel was gone or even dead, for all I knew, and all I had were unanswered questions, a headache, a pile of dead bodies I had to go through the trouble of burning, and a living room that need serious cleaning.

Let’s start by getting an aspirin, a sponge and bucket. I’ll try to deal with the rest somehow when my guilt will  give my mind a break.

Sam Winchester’s Journal - Entry #100

The sight of blood has never really scared me. When I was a kid maybe, or when I saw Dad get seriously wounded for the first time after a particularly rough hunt but otherwise, and as far as I can remember, I got used to it surprisingly quickly. Case after case, corpse after corpse. It was just a part of the job. Even cleaning a crime scene, with my hands and knees in human remains, wasn’t a problem anymore after only a couple of times in the field. I guess I found enough strength to detach the 14-year-old me from this terrifying aspect of the life.

Call it a survival mechanism to avoid becoming completely insane.

But the night we found Charlie in that bathtub…it was different: it was the first time in years I had to look away. I couldn’t. It wasn’t “Murder Case Victim #526”, it was Charlie, it was our friend. And unlike “Murder Case Victim #526” (for which I have the utmost respect in spite of all my sarcasm), this one was on me. I could try to find all the excuses in the world to make me feel better, the usual crap about The Greater Good or a bad alignment of the planets, but I was the one and only person responsible for her death. And no, it didn’t matter that it was one of the Stynes holding the blade that killed her.

This one was one me.

I’ll never forget my brother’s words when we were burning her body the following morning, how he told me I should be in Charlie’s place. I couldn’t care less if it was the Mark talking or what was left of Dean. He couldn’t be more right.

Journal of a Man of Letters comes back on October 1st

Hi guys

I know, It’s been long ^^;;

Journal of a Man of Letters comes back on October 1st with seven new chapters that will be posted every night (Paris-France Time) until the Supernatural Season Premiere on October 7th.

Then, the posting will come back to normal with one post a week (certainly on Tuesday), during the whole Season 11 (I hope ^^;;).

However, there will be slight changes this season. I can’t carry on posting long fics AND 1-2 illustrations every week so from now on, the fics won’t exceed one-two paragraphs, like the very first chapters I posted here. Because of my health problems that started last November I have far less energy than I used to and let’s face it, it’s far too time consuming. I really have to do this or else I’ll have to stop this project, something I really don’t want to do.

So, from October 1st: shorter fics but still tons of artworks inspired by the aired episodes.

Kudos to  Beccj, Maichan808 and Quickreaver , my three amazing betas who are still part of the adventure. \o/

See you next Thursday with a post devoted to Episode 21 - Season 10. And Happy Autumn!

Journal of a Man of Letters is going on a (short) break

Hi guys ^^

Yup, I’m taking a short break again (about 3 weeks - a month).

Don’t worry, it’s not gonna last 5 months like last time and it’s not due to health problems. Like last year, I just want to know where the Spn writers are going regarding the Mark of Cain story arc. The last episodes of the season are always a bit confusing, there are so many things happening! I prefer waiting a bit before starting to write anything again and see how they are going to handle the character of Sam.

Before leaving you, I’d like to thank Beccj, Maichan808 and Quickreaver , my three amazing betas who patiently fix all my English mistakes week after week. Journal of a Man of Letters wouldn’t exist without them!

See you in 3 weeks - a month!  :)

Petite-Madame

Sam Winchester’s Journal – Entry #99

My friends—well, the few who are still alive—see me as the right person to call when they have to translate a 250 page volume from Enochian, want to find a quick and efficient method to kill creatures as diverse as Wendigos, White Ladies or Werewolves, or in need of some professional advice for summoning demons with minimal risk. That’s who I am, a Man of Letters, the intellectual of the batch, the brains (god, I hate this embarrassing nickname). I had no idea however, I was also perceived as some kind of authority when it came to reasoning with troubled teenagers because of everything I had lived through in my younger years. And, as surprising as it may seem, same goes for Dean, apparently.

Dean and I, “troubled teens against authority”���I’m not really sure about that one! I know, I know, from the outside, we may flash an exaggerated bad boy image sometimes—playing pool in smoky bars, never backing down from a fight, even breaking the law on an everyday basis—but appearances can be tricky: I rebelled to have an education and go to Stanford, and Dean…well, Dean backed down every time Dad raised his voice, and it took him years after his death to see how much our father was fucked up and call him out on his bullshit. If you really think about it, the #1 rebel of the gang is, by far, Castiel who revolted against Heaven, his archangel brothers, and even God. If he’s not the most “rebel teen” of the three of us I don’t know what he is! 

And yet, when Claire Novak showed up in his life again a couple days ago, he was the one who required our expertise in the “teen in trouble” department.

Claire Novak. When I met Claire for the first time, she was just a terrified little girl, caught in a war between Heaven and Hell.  She had to helplessly witness her dad being taken away from her by an entity she thought only existed in her Sunday school books, but now…look at her now. She lies about her age, checks into cheap motels under an alias, turns her room into a missing persons center with maps, phone and hotel bills, even gathers intel like a pro by greasing the palms of bar tenders…her life doesn’t look any different than mine at the same age. But when you take a closer look, she’s definitely got it far tougher than I did. Dean and I had each other. We had Dad too. John Winchester was some crazy son of a bitch, obsessed with a never-ending crusade for revenge, but in the end he was there to teach us the job and was ready to raise hell if anybody dared to touch a hair on our heads. Claire, on the other hand, not only had to face the loss of her family, but also had no choice but to learn to survive on the road without anybody at her side. You really don’t need to be a genius to see that this life has already taken the best of her. I mean, she’s only eighteen. She should be more worried about her next science project at school or her paper about Wordsworth’s freaking daffodils, what college she’s going to. Hell, she should be spending hours on the Internet, looking for the perfect dress for her prom, not searching for some mysterious faith healer who kidnapped her mother.

A few years ago, I would have done everything in my power to convince Claire to forget about this quest that would lead her nowhere, to let us do the work. You know, the usual We got this, please stay here. It’s better this way, we’ll let you know if we find something or even the patronizing monologue about this life isn’t for you, but the man I have become, the one who can say things like “I lost my Mom when I was a baby but got to know her later in life, and we got along okay” without even flinching or finding it strange in the slightest, this man just asked her quietly to sit down next to him, and showed her the ropes. I’m well aware that teaching a lost teen how to hack into credit card records and faking an ID may seem irresponsible, but I felt I had no right to tell Claire to forget about what happened to the only member of her family still alive. If Dean had disappeared when I was 15 and I didn’t have my parents anymore, I would have done everything possible to find my brother . I certainly wouldn't wait patiently in a foster home somewhere, or even at Bobby’s, for him to show up miraculously one day, or for a police officer to come to my door and tell me sheepishly, while staring at his feet, that he’s so sorry for my loss. Nobody could have done anything to stop me, not Bobby, not even Pastor Jim, nobody. So I felt I didn’t have any lessons to teach Claire Novak or the right  to tell her to sit down and quit. It was the least I could do, even if it seemed crazy from the outside.

We finally found Claire’s mom, Amelia, in the hands of a grigori, an angel who gets his kicks by feeding from human souls. History taught me that the vast majority of angels were nothing but emotionless dicks, as Dean loves to call them, but this monster took the word “horror” to a brand new level. I wouldn’t know how to describe otherwise a creature that captures people and keeps them in a semi-coma in order to drain their life,  one slice of soul at the time. Unfortunately, and in spite of all our efforts, we were unable to rescue Amelia in time and Claire is now on her own again.

Well, not completely.

I put her in a cab and sent her to  Sheriff Mills’ house in Sioux Falls. I hope Jody will be able to do something for her, as she already was such a great help to someone like Alex, the vampire girl, but most of all, I wish for Claire Novak to be able to see today’s events as some kind of closure now that she finally knows the truth about her mother’s disappearance. I’m well aware it’s far from being an easy thing to do, but I think it’s the right moment to close this chapter of her life. She deserves to find peace,  like Amelia deserves to find peace, too. Heaven owes her that; Heaven owes that and so much more to this damn family. They've been shredded to pieces because a couple of archangels had daddy issues and instead of talking around a table like normal people do, they decided to enter a big dick contest to see who could burn the earth to the ground first. 

Dean had a talk with Claire before she left. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying  from where I was standing, just pieces of conversation here and there, but it was enough to catch my brother joke he’ll keep swinging until he’s got nothing left. I should be reassured to know how strong Dean is—fighting and looking for redemption—but unfortunately all his good will isn’t making me lose sight of the fact that the situation is getting worse with every passing day . Earlier at the bar, the way my brother snapped  in front of Cas, is just more proof that the Mark is slowly taking control of his true personality. If I had any doubts remaining about dealing with Rowena and trapping her in a basement to translate The Book of the Damned, they were all gone away in the wake of today’s events. I’m convinced more than ever that what I’m doing is for the best. My only wish is for Dean to be alright because…isn’t it what we all want in the end? Our loved ones to be alright and safe? 

Cas feels the same way towards Claire and I can’t blame him. Things have changed so much since the girl showed up in his life again a few months ago: he’s not helping her because he thinks he’s in constant debt to her regarding  what happened to Jimmy, or because he feels an intense guilt about destroying the Novaks, no, he’s here because he now sees himself as…I don’t know…maybe Claire’s “strange uncle in a trench coat”, a kind of distant relative floating in and out in her life, someone who will always be there for her if she needs it. But family is still a concept that is a bit hard to comprehend fully for Cas. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring him all the solutions he needed and show him “how to family” properly ; a one hour conversion stuck in an old car with the radio blasting will never be enough to answer the existential questions of a thousand year old Angel of the Lord. Not to mention, I’m certainly not the right person to ask when it comes to advice concerning the right way to have a healthy relationship with the members of your family, whether they are blood or not. 

But I wouldn’t be too worried for Cas, if you want my opinion: the genuine hug Claire gave him before leaving shows he hasn’t been doing that bad so far. I can even say he’s been doing great.

But what about now? 

In spite of the reassuring words I told Cas, I have no guarantee Claire is gonna be fine, that she’ll listen to Jody and go back to school or on the contrary, decide to hit the road again, now that she knows how to max-out credit cards and hack bank records. Of course, all I hope for her is the happy life of any average young girl her age: careless parties with friends, even those stupid LARPing conventions like the ones Charlie enjoys so much. But unfortunately, once you know what’s out there, it’s hard just being normal around people and not constantly looking over your shoulder. How could she, after everything she's been through? I know this feeling. I tried. You can do everything you want to shake it off but it never goes away. I mean, this life…this life make you see a simple flickering light as possible supernatural activity, a faith healer a bit too gifted as either a demon making deals or an angel in disguise. And don’t get me started on the dozens of other signs that put you in a constant state of paranoia. Not to mention the most important thing, the fact that this job makes you lose everything. Your family, your friends, your innocence. 

But I’m way past this. I decided that this job wasn’t gonna cost me anything anymore, particularly not my family. I don’t care anymore about consequences, about making deals with hundred-year-old witches or even hiding the truth from my brother if it means getting rid of the Mark and fixing the problem for good. Because I will fix it.

One lie at a time.

Sam Winchester’s Journal – Entry #98

When I left for Stanford in 2003, Dad told me that going to college was definitely the “biggest fucking mistake” I’ve ever done and that I’ll ever do in my whole life. If for my father forgetting about hunting and getting an education was by far the biggest act of stupidity his son could ever come up with, I really wonder how he would have ranked glorious decisions such as choosing Ruby over my own brother, fighting Lucifer practically on my own full of demon blood, not looking for Dean when he was in Purgatory, and more recently making a deal with the King of Hell’s mother, one of the most powerful, if not, the most powerful witch in the business.

My confrontation with Rowena was surreal. Don’t picture a face to face in a mysterious XIXth century mansion and the Witch of Witches making a theatrical appearance, bathed in candle light like Morticia Addams. We were in a coffee shop only an hours drive from the bunker and it could have been the setting of any informal business transaction, if you could forget about the fact that I had a book made out of human skin displayed on the table next to a hot latte, and that we were discussing hundred year old demonic curses and black magic like others would talk about the weather.

Rowena’s offer was simple, too simple, a trap certainly but as I already said in this journal, I didn’t have the luxury of another option: Rowena translates the book, removes the Mark of Cain from Dean and I kill Crowley in return, a request that says a lot about the mother and son relationship and the atmosphere at family reunions. The deal seemed fair nevertheless, and in addition, slicing the throat of this son of a bitch won’t exactly be a chore for me anyway: don’t think that because we are currently in a kind of implicit truce and that he keeps his distance because of the Mark, I forgot about taking my revenge against Crowley. The bastard has been at the top of my hit list for years. I just wished the circumstances were different and that this revenge wouldn’t take place in the middle of a 300 year old family feud. But the unsolved oedipal problems of the MacLeod dynasty that would make any shrink pull out his hair, wasn’t the most bothersome thing about this transaction: with Crowley gone, Mommy takes over the Pandemonium and it would only be a matter of hours for the expression “All Hell Breaks Loose” to take its full meaning. I don’t know Rowena as well as I know her favorite offspring but it’s not hard to guess that she’s undoubtedly the poster girl for “With great power comes great irresponsibility”. Luckily, nothing in our contract stipulated that I couldn’t get rid of Rowena once the Mark was gone and it was a task I would gladly accomplish in time. Mother and Little Fergus will then have eternity to organize a family diner in Purgatory and blame each other for their respective failure.

But I wasn’t there yet.

Before Rowena could translate the book, she needed a codex trapped in some sort of magic vault protected by a curse. It couldn’t be simple for once, right? There has got to be something. Searching always searching. Searching for The Book of the Damned, searching for Rowena, now searching for the Codex to decipher the said Book of the Damned. And what’s next? A code to decipher another code that itself is in a box in an Egyptian pyramid that only opens if you find the key that is in a secret basement in France?

The quest for the Codex went far quicker than I expected, though: after only one night of intense research in the bunker’s library, I finally located the vault in a house in Saint Louis, a vault locked by none other than Magnus himself, the Man of Letters expelled from the order for his dreams of grandeur and who tried to add Dean to his private cabinet of curiosities about a year ago. I was going for this mission alone, of course, but my brother managed to follow me and insisted we work together believing the case was officially nothing more than a mysterious series of suicides that could be vaguely linked to one of the Men of Letters’ numerous dirty little secrets. This lie by omission was the only plausible scenario I was able to improvise on short notice and I considered myself pretty lucky that Dean bought the whole story and was totally oblivious to the fact that he’d just signed up to his own rescue mission. 

I tried to take care of the curse on my own while Dean was keeping the owner of the house, Suzie, busy with the usual rambling but all I managed to do was wake up an evil force that had been asleep for the past 30 years and put everybody in harm’s way. My inexperience in the Dark Arts cost the life of Suzie and would have certainly cost mine and Dean’s in the process if Rowena didn’t unexpectedly show up to the rescue. She couldn’t help calling Magnus’ spell a thing of beauty, the most baroooooque thing she has ever seen. I have nothing against mutual appreciation between professionals of the same branch but when “Queen Witch” is in awe of a curse, you know you’re dealing with some magical shit that should never have left the pages of an old grimoire.

And Rowena was right, what a hell of a curse it was. The Blood of the Legacy. You must be joking. I had to slash my wrists open and spill at least half a gallon of blood for this damn vault to open and would certainly have died trying if Dean hadn’t made a contribution. And it worked. Demon or not, he is blood too after all. The Men of Letters must have been flipping in their graves as I’m pretty sure that a hunter who makes dubious deals with the King of Hell’s mother and a demon looking for redemption were not exactly the idea they had of a legacy. 

But screw them: we were worthy enough to open the vault and reach the Codex.

At the end of the day, however, cutting my veins or even being close to a coma because I lost half of my blood was far from being the most painful part of this case: lying straight to my brother’s face once again was, particularly after he patted me so genuinely on the shoulder and confessed that going through this as a family was what really mattered. We are stronger together than we are apart. Sure Dean. When I see how hard he’s trying to fight against what he has become while doing everything in his power for us to be brothers again, a family, it makes every new lie I’m pulling a betrayal in itself even if I remain deeply convinced that I’m doing this for his own good. It pains me even more to see him consider that our bond of trust is stronger than it’s been for years but not being aware that I’m tearing it apart with each new step I take to remove the Mark: the secret escape mission in Heaven with Cas, Metatron on the loose, the deal with Rowena and now the Codex…And let’s add to the list using the Men of Letters’ legacy as an excuse. 

Seriously, how much lower can I get?

But what is truly important is that I managed to put my hand on the Codex without raising too many suspicions from my brother. For him, this smelly old book is nothing more than another artifact that’s gonna end up on a dusty shelf or inside an anti-curse box somewhere in the bunker’s archives, lost a bit like the Ark of Alliance in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and certainly filed under “Document #598756244628777489” or something. Of course, Dean wondered briefly why this thing was protected with such a powerful and destructive spell but “you know, Sammy, with the Men of Letters and their secret crap, go figure. We saw weirder stuff in their library, true?” 

The only truth here is that I’ll never really learn and that I’ll repeat the same mistakes over and over again and always in the name of the greater good. Poor Suzy was so damn right, you know. I’m fully aware it was the curse talking and making me hallucinate all kinds of guilt tripping nonsense but seriously, where’s the lie in “Anything's worth it, as long as you two make it out alive”? I pretend to help people, to be concerned about the ones I love, I’m doing everything I can but in the end, family, well Dean, always comes first and a lot of people through the years had to pay with their lives for our reckless decisions to keep each other safe.

This is us as a family that saved the day today, but helping my brother get rid of the Mark is something I’ve got to do alone. Dean wouldn’t understand anyway. He has already given up and even if I told him I maybe found a way to remove the curse, he’d certainly refuse the deal with Rowena and leave the bunker at once. I must admit that I’d never thought I’d come to this kind of radical solution and hide something this big from my brother again but as we say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

We all have our dirty little secrets anyway. A love child somewhere. A guilty pleasure. A chocolate tab hidden under the bed while being on a low-carb diet. A $2 Busty Asian Beauty magazine stolen at a gas station in Minnesota when the cashier was looking away. 

Mine is a 300 year old witch locked in a basement and currently very busy with translation work.

I dare you to do better than that.

Sam Winchester’s Journal – Entry #97

If you had asked me about The Book of the Damned a couple of months ago, the first thing that would’ve come to mind would’ve been the mythic Necronomicon Ex Mortis from the Evil Dead Series. And more particularly, the memorable scene from The Army of Darkness where the hero can’t remember the magic words Klaatu verata nikto and raises thousands of Deadites by mistake (it’s not as if Dean didn’t drive me nuts with shitty Bruce Campbell impersonations for the past 20 years). I would also have told you about a book by Charles Fort, maybe unknown to the majority of you, but apparently a reference tome for some supernatural enthusiasts out there. I’m not gonna boast about that last one as I’d never really heard about it either before my quest to remove the Mark made me consider the possibility that this volume could contain the answer to getting rid of Dean’s fucking curse.

Oh, yes. The Mark of Cain is a curse, by the way. An actual curse, I mean. I’m sure you’ve seen me use this term a lot in this journal over the past year. It was rather a figure of speech, a way to express how much this thing weighed on us, but it turned out I was right from the start without even knowing it. But there’s a silver lining as a curse, any curse, can be removed if you happen to know the right spell.

Charlie volunteered to look for Fort’s works somewhere in Tuscany (it didn’t seem like a very dangerous mission at first, more like a research job) but instead of bringing back a simple library book, she found the real deal– a true Book of the Damned, something closer to the Necronomicon than a paranormal encyclopedia for early XXth century folks who thought they had Grandma’s ghost wandering through the kitchen. Don’t picture an elegant grimoire with illuminations and gold corners on the cover, though. It’s a monstrosity made out of the skin of a Spanish nun with each page written in her blood and encoded using an obscure Sumerian dialect. 

If only that was the only problem with the cursed object. The book was like a magnet to Dean, calling to him, trying to connect to the Mark and control its demonic power. Dean wanted this abomination burned, but it was out of question. Destroying the book was NOT an option. I had to think quick, so I didn’t have the luxury of another option. I had already tried everything I could, even breaking into Heaven and torturing the Scribe of God, putting Cas unnecessarily in harm’s way in the process. What more could I do? I was done with the placating “We’ll find something” or stoic “We’ll carry on”. If this book contains the key to erase the Mark, then I’m damn-well going to use its magic without a second thought, screw the consequences and screw what Dean wants.

I know, I know, I must sound like a selfish, hypocritical bastard right now, especially after whining for months in these pages how Dean should learn the meaning of consent and respected my choice to die after the Last Trial. But try to understand. We are not talking about a guy who’s asking to rest in peace because he’s tired of fighting. We’re talking about something bigger, a demonic curse, the demonic curse that the King of Hell himself wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. It goes far beyond one man’s decision. That’s why I’m doing all this.

And also, let’s face it. It’s about Dean. 

Dean has always been the exception to every rule in my life. What is dead should stay dead, except for my brother. You have to act like a goddamn adult and think about the consequences, except when Dean is involved. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I’m fully aware that what I’m about to do regarding The Book of the Damned is stupid and reckless, but I want my brother back. My real brother, not a ticking bomb that could raise Hell on earth if the planets are not properly aligned. 

I can’t blame Dean, though. He puts on a good show, doing everything he can to act “normal”– working out to release the tension (that’s a new one!), singing along to the car radio, even talking about vacationing together when all this over. The beach, the sand between our toes, taking a sabbatical from the family business. You know…vacation! 

Vacation. Now there’s a word that has never really been in our family’s vocabulary. I mean, there were some summer days here and there that we used to spend at Bobby’s house as kids, Dean and me playing hide and seek between the old cars in the scrap yard, and later, our annual trip to Vegas. And there was the rare rock concert and baseball game between cases, but it was never something normal people could actually call vacation.

Oh, my bad.

Dean and I tried to take some time off once and go fishing in Montana. Our very first and official family vacation. Dean saw a commercial on TV and convinced me to go for it with his usual enthusiasm (“C’mon, Sammy! It’s gonna be FUCKING epic! We deserve it!”). Everything was planned:  a great resort (and not some seedy motel with cardboard for towels), an amazing all-you-can-eat buffet, even nerdy museum visits, but guess what? We found a case. Well, no, a case found us. A Wendigo. A fucking Wendigo. Instead of enjoying the lakes and the Montana landscapes, we spent two nights out in the cold chasing this thing before burning it alive. We left more tired than we arrived. Add a missing molar for me and a twisted ankle for Dean. A complete success. A five-star expedition.

So a vacation with sun and swimsuits, and a cooler full of beers isn’t gonna happen for a while, even if I miraculously managed to cure Dean. But, I wouldn’t say no, for once. Leaving the job to other hunters, forgoing the morning ritual of scouring the local papers for cases, stopping with this “One more job” bullshit. One more job and we take a break. One more job and we leave. One more job and we’ll visit the Grand Canyon. 

One more job. 

Those three little words could be the story of my life. It’s always been sort of an unofficial credo, but my opinion of it has soured over the years.

There was a time when I was really convinced there would be an end to all this. The life I lead. The hunting, the shitty motels, the greasy diner food, and no place I to call home. I believed it. Truly. Candidly. That I would finally find Dad after his mysterious disappearance, deal with the son of a bitch responsible for Jess’ death and then just resume college, leaving behind John Winchester and his consuming quest for vengeance. One more job, it just meant…helping people as best I could. One more case, one more monster, until I could head back to Palo Alto again. Nothing more.

Then came the time where one more job meant literally that – just another occupation to fill the days until I got my life back, I hadn’t accepted yet there was no end to this hunting life. I was just kidding myself, and I knew it. I wished so hard for it to come true, you know. One more job and I’m done. Just one more job. Promise. I mean it this time. But seriously, who can have a normal life after stopping the Apocalypse and spending six months being tortured in Hell?  I tried, I genuinely tried, and it worked out so fucking well, huh? Well, it did for a few months. It felt great going back to a place called home after doing something as mundane as grocery shopping (“Sam, don’t forget the dog food!”), or simply the novelty of having to file taxes (that was a new one for me as I’ve never really been a part of the system). Until I realized the apple pie life wasn’t for me anymore, and then (as if on cue) Dean came back from Purgatory…

I just wished Amelia hadn’t been collateral damage in all this.

And then, there’s my life now where one more job just means…one more job. What’s coming next. The next monster, the next case, the next pile of supernatural crap we’ll have to deal with. Demons, Angels, Leviathans, Witches. Bring it on. I’m just trying to be ensure that the next job won’t be my last. I’ve accepted who I am: a hunter, a Man of Letters, someone who will never have 2.5 kids, a dog and a mortgage. Just his job (whatever the hell you can call what I do for a living), his family and friends (while they manage to stay alive). Currently, a tough redhead and an angel both going through existential crises. It’s already a lot for a man like me. But don’t get me wrong, I have moments, brief moments, when I am alone in my room, when I let my mind wander, when I want to drop everything and can’t help wondering what our lives would be like if Mom didn’t die. I would be married, certainly. And Dean? Dad used to tell him he could’ve been a mechanic like his father if we had stayed in Lawrence, but I wouldn’t trust John Winchester on that one. He had good judgment regarding monsters and hunting, but rarely when it came to his own sons. Dean was doing more than well at school for a kid who had to deal with a crazy father who taught him to use a 45 as soon as he was able to carry it, so imagine what his future would’ve been like with parents mentoring him in academics instead of firearms. He would have rocked it. I mean Stanford Law rocked it. Or rather M.I.T rocked it, that’s more like him. I can completely picture him coming up with some incredible robotic engine or working for Google.

But anyway, whatever the meaning of one more job, I’ve always been sure of one thing: I could never go on without my brother. God knows I’ve tried, but every attempt ended in complete and utter disaster.

So yes, I can’t carry on without Dean– that son of a bitch has always been my Achilles’ heel. He’s the reason why I’m now sitting in front of Rowena, The Book of the Damned displayed on the table, discussing the terms of an agreement my brother doesn’t know anything about. Fuck the consequences of negotiating with the King of Hell’s mother or for using black magic. Fuck the Stynes Family and their ancestral claim to the book. Fuck Dean and his resignation. I don’t care if it’s my last job, that’s not how I see it anyway. It’s just one more job.

One more job.