Sorry in advance for the long A/N:
This was written for Otorisosa-kan's June Prompt Challenge. The prompt this time was song lyrics and these were mine:
"Days that pass too quickly/And nights that don't offer enough sleep/My body doesn't fit me/My dreams are like great ships lost at sea/And this heart grows tired/So far from where I started/And so far from where I want to be/The towers I watched when I was young/Are not as tall as I once believed"
Song: "Is There Anyone Out There" by Delta Rae (Thank you to BrokenSilence137 for the submission and the new song to add to my playlist!)
Usually I take a lyric prompt and try to intersperse the quotes separately from the actual story as a way to add to its message, but this time I did something a little different and inserted them right into the 'dialogue.' Hopefully it flows/works because it's something new! Set in season 10, a kind of monologue of Dean's thoughts just to switch things up (haha not).
Out There
Once, when we were kids, Dad took us to Chicago for a week. It was a case of course, but it still felt like vacation to us. We stayed in a nice hotel for once, a place right in the middle of that sprawling city. Sammy and I spent most of our time looking out our six-story window, staring down at the cars that whizzed below us; countless people with a schedule to follow and time not to waste. So many people, all with a place to go.
It was the first time I thought about a different future.
Sam and I watched the buildings too. They didn't move like the cars, but they held a kind of majesty I'd never experienced up close before. So tall and sturdy, though the glass panes made it seem as if they would shatter beneath our touch. I remember holding my hand up to our hotel window, leaving an imprint of my palm behind as I stared at those commanding towers. There is strength in glass that will not shatter. There is brilliance in a frame that will not bend, that just keeps stretching up to that infinite sky.
From our sixth floor window, Sammy and I still couldn't see the top.
I remember times and places like these, but they were long ago. Now, my life is filled with days that pass too quickly, a clock tick-tocking down the seconds until darkness falls across the sky and I am left with only the thoughts inside my head, the ones I'd rather not confront. I see my path, the one laid out for me in startling detail, and I do not want to walk it. Only tragedy lies at the end. Blood and death and a loss I cannot contemplate, could never even begin to overcome. Still, these thoughts scratch steadily at the back of my head each day, each night- a rustling that sounds like the monsters we hunt, though it's probably just the sheets of my bed as I struggle to find comfort in the mattress beneath me and the four walls that should feel like home but instead seem as if they are about to collapse. This pounding rush in my ears and nights that don't offer enough sleep mean that I cannot close my eyes for very long. Behind them lies more darkness, so I suppose it's better if I don't sleep anyway. I walk through these halls and through the rest of the world and after a while, nothing seems real, as if I am unattached. A drifter with a body that doesn't fit me, a body I don't remembering wanting in the first place.
"No returns" says the voice inside my head.
It sounds like the Devil, and he doesn't hand me a receipt.
Sometimes I dream, but my dreams are like great ships lost at sea. There is no direction or purpose, just a gnawing fear that I am lost, that I will never find my way home. It took Odysseus ten years. I don't have that kind of time and I don't have that kind of faith. Other nights, my dreams are nightmares. I see skin flipped inside out, bodies ruined beneath the Blade I hold in my grisly, crimson hands. Faces I still recognize beneath all the bruises and gore.
Sometimes when these dreams come, I taste the fragments of a filthy smile on my face when I awaken. I wonder if it is possible to burn away such dreams. It seems everything else ignites just fine.
The road stretches on, but it is the same one I refuse to take so I'm stranded here and this heart grows tired despite the fact that all I do is walk in circles, searching for an outlet that doesn't exist. I am pushing my palms up against the glass again, but this time there is no awe in the gesture, only fear as I discover the confines that surround me, the cage I imprisoned myself within the moment I allowed that Mark to be burned into my skin. It shudders and hums against my arm, a streetlight about to burn out. When it does, I imagine I will be blind, left to feel around in the blackness until I stumble and fall and drown in all the blood I've spilt.
I was never supposed to spill so much, never from the innocent. I'm so far from where I started and so far from where I want to be. Once upon a time I saw my father staring back at me in the mirror, all tough lines and sturdy edges. Now I am a jagged deconstruction, a scorched remainder that once held something more than a Blade in my hand. I can't remember what that something was, but somehow I still remember Chicago. I remember my fingers smudging the glass, neck craning up to the sky and still not finding an ending to those infinite buildings. But now I realize that the towers I watched when I was young are not as tall as I once believed. There is a roof to every structure, an end to every beginning. I didn't think my end would come so soon, but somehow that path I never wanted to take just dragged me along anyway, slow and grating and painful. I stand at the edge, bruised shins and bloody knuckles, and I can finally see how far up I am.
The height is not an achievement, as I once believed it to be. It just means the fall will kill me. I wonder if that is best.
I wonder who is waiting at the bottom.
I wonder if the voices I hear in my head whisper from the past, or if their words are meant for a future that won't belong to me. I wonder what it is to be dead, to never reawaken with black eyes or a twisted soul. I wonder if I will like the feeling, or if nothing will change. Most of all, I wonder if I will still be alone.
Is there anyone out there?
Too late to ask aloud.
Here comes the ground.
Oy, and a long-ish ending note too. First, thanks for reading as always, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! I wanted to get this story out there kind of early because I've finally finished one of my longer stories and I'd like to start posting it, so that'll be showing up sometime next week probably. It's a slightly AU version of season 3. Have a good day/night!