My Name Is Sam Winchester.
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Books have been a huge part of my life since ever I can remember. I was always curious to know what was hidden behind their enticing covers and before I could read myself, I used to pester my big brother incessantly to get him to read to me. Of course Dean always did. He never denied me anything although we had pretty much nothing except the clothes on our backs.
One of the few exceptions to my reading choices, however, were autobiographies.
I've always thought those who wrote about themselves were arrogant, believing that their lives were so special that others would want to read about them but as I sit here doing the same thing myself I can better understand; putting down all one's memories is…liberating.
It's somehow easier to judge things when they're laid out in front of you in black and white.
So I'm going to give it a go.
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My name is Sam Winchester, a name that means nothing to ninety-nine point nine percent of the population but I'm well known in certain "elite' circles.
I was born in on a Monday.
It's said in the kids' rhyme that 'Monday's child is fair of face' but I think they got it wrong because if there's anyone who should get that title it would have to be my brother Dean who is no slouch in the pretty face department!
Anyway, my birthday is the second of May 1983 so that would make me twenty-nine but I really can't keep count any more. Stuff has happened and well, let's just say I'm a pretty mixed–up guy.
Yeah I suppose it runs in the family, we're not exactly the Bradys.
I remember saying that a long time ago; in another life-time now, when I was at Stanford, blissfully unaware of what was about to explode for us all.
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I found out about the hunting life when I was nine.
I had suspected something beforehand but one Christmas Dad forgot to take his journal and I waited impatiently for Dean to fall asleep to read it. I recall shivering with fear under the bed covers as I tried to get my mind around what was written there.
When Dean unwillingly confirmed it, I cried bitter tears even although Dean had tried to make it all sound exciting by throwing in stuff about Dad being a superhero.
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It all went downhill from then on. Once Dad realised that I was aware of what was happening, he started me on the same regime of training that Dean was already going through. I had thought Dad was just a fitness maniac, a throwback to his time in the Marines but I soon found out different.
I just couldn't get used to the horror of it all, seeing Dad and above all Dean hurt or wounded after a hunt; never knowing if they would be killed. I swore to myself during those years that I would get away from that life and I studied like a mad-man, despite the continual moving around from school to school, to be able to go to College and make a new life for myself.
X
I remember the heated discussions I had with Dean when I was a moody teenager.
I pleaded with him to come away with me when we were older; the both of us going off to College together. I loved my brother, he was everything to me, mother father, brother, confidante, best friend. I wanted him to come because I couldn't bear to see his blood staining his clothes and the pain on his face when Dad stitched him up or the times I had to do it myself under Dad's supervision.
I understand now my father's need for revenge but I don't understand why in avenging his wife he had to sacrifice his sons.
When the time came and I earned a scholarship to Stanford I again begged Dean to come with me. We could find part-time jobs, share an apartment, get away from the dangers of hunting but Dean said no. He wasn't going to leave Dad on his own.
I realise now that I had put him in a terrible position, forcing him to choose between the two people he loved most but I was eighteen then, still a kid and although on the outside I was now a bona-fide hunter, inside I was still the same scared child I had been that long-ago Christmas.
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When Dad came to hear of me wanting to leave, he gave me an ultimatum. If I went, never to come back and of course as all my decisions seem to have been crappy, I made the wrong one.
I went to Stanford and because of me an innocent girl died; Jessica, the love of my life. She was a victim just because of me. The demons were all around me from the first moment, as Lucifer would gleefully show me.
When Dean came for me at Stanford, I knew it was over because when I saw him again in the flesh, the bond which had always linked us and which had been numbed down while we were apart, flared up again in all its intensity and I realised that I couldn't let Dean be absent from my life ever again.
Of course I never got the chance to make that choice willingly for Jessica's death set everything in motion and forced us back together anyway.
If I could go back and change things, I would never have gone to Stanford; Jess would have met someone else and had a long and happy life and I would have been at Dean's side through thick and thin,
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There must be something in my DNA that forces me to make the wrong choices. I chose to be merciful with Jake and in so doing I died and Dean in his great love for me sold his soul to bring me back to life.
Not satisfied I let myself be manipulated by Ruby. My intentions were sincere. I wanted to get Dean out of Hell and kill Lilith but you know what they say about good intentions; they lead straight to Hell and that's where I ended up, in the penthouse suite; the Cage!
Yeah, when I first found out I was destined to be Lucifer's vessel; I was on my own in a motel room. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; that I could have had the terrible misfortune of being chosen for such a fate.
It seems that Dean and I have been picked out as Destiny's whipping boys. Anything bad has to happen; we'll just put it onto the Winchesters! Somebody up there must really hate us!
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"Sam! You've had your head in that computer for hours now; you found some interesting porn or what?" Dean smirked as he pushed open the door, arms laden down with supplies.
I quickly shut down what I was writing and gave Dean my best innocent face.
"No, I was just looking for a case. No big!"
"Well, here's some food, man. Can't have my little brother fading away to nothing."
I huffed. "Does it seem to you that I'm fading away, Dean?"
Dean tilted his head and answered seriously. "Come to think of it, you do look a little peaky. Are you coming down with something?"
I don't know how he does it; in fact I was feeling a little bit miserable; I could feel a fever creeping up on me. Dean had always possessed the uncanny ability to predict my aches and pains.
I shook my head and smiled.
"Maybe! How do you always manage to read me?" I asked.
"Dude," Dean replied calmly as if it was the most normal thing in the world. " I raised you. I nursed you through the whole range of kid's illnesses so I'm tuned into you, that's all."
"Yeah, okay." I agreed.
X
But I knew that it was more than that. I heard Ash too when he said we shared a heaven and that only soul-mates did. Dean and I had never talked about it but we both remember and we both know that it was the truth.
I closed the lap-top with a click.
Maybe writing down one's thoughts was therapeutic but having a big brother who cared enough about you to sell his soul was a much better therapy.
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