A hundred-million stories and a hundred-million songs…

Disclaimer (and this is the only one you're getting): I do not own Supernatural, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or any other related recognizable characters and/or properties contained within. All rights go to Warner Brothers, Marvel Comics, Marvel Entertainment, ABC Studios, and any other interested third party (I don't think I could name them all.) This work contains lines from Supernatural Season 4, Episode 6 "Yellow Fever", Season 15, Episode 18 "Despair", and Season 15, Episode 20 "Carry On" along with concepts and characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. All credit for those lines and concepts go to Andrew Dabb, Daniel Loflin, Robert Berens, Eric Kripke, Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jeffrey Bell respectively.

This fic is rated M and contains depictions of self-harm, suicide, drug usage, vulgar language, and gun violence. If you are easily distressed by such topics, please do not read this fic. The word "queer" is also used at one point, but it's in a scene that's from the perspective of a bisexual character who is enjoying watching another character seemingly having a flirtatious interaction with someone of the same gender. I know some people still see that word as a slur, so I wanted to give a head's up about it. Otherwise, it contains nothing worse than average fare for Supernatural, including depictions of violence and strong language.

Finally, I do not consent to my works being hosted on any unofficial app, particularly ones with ad revenue and subscription services. You should only be able to read this on FFN and AO3. Nowhere else. If you see my stories being hosted on a third-party application, report it to iTunes or the Google Play Store immediately.

The Road So Far…

Dean Winchester was supposed to be dead. However, he wasn't. He dug himself out of his own grave and returned to the world of the living. This wasn't even the strangest thing that would happen. No, that would come after he encountered the first person after waking up, a young woman named Skye.

Skye was working at a gas station near where Dean had dug himself up. The gas station had been boarded up and all its electronics disconnected, but Skye was acting like everything was perfectly normal. The scene was very strange, and Dean was only starting to question Skye about it when all hell broke loose.

A high-pitched, deafening whine filled the room, and the ground began to shake. What more, Dean started to have a vision. It was of a man in a brown trench coat standing before him, confessing his love. Dean didn't know what to make of it. The only conclusion he could come to was that Skye had made that whole scene happen. As soon as it came to an end, Dean fled the gas station, not once looking back.

It would turn out later that Skye had nothing to do with what happened in the gas station at all. She had only set up the scene in a way that would prevent Dean from getting hurt. The real culprit was an angel by the name of Castiel.

Castiel was the one who had resurrected Dean – on God's orders, apparently. Dean was brought back to stop Lucifer from escaping his cage and starting the Apocalypse. That was all well and good for Dean. He could accept that if it wasn't for one problem. Castiel was the man from his vision.

None of it made sense and it only served to overwhelm Dean on top of all the other problems and mysteries he'd encountered since being resurrected. After his first in-person meeting with Castiel, Dean suffered a severe panic attack that caused him to lose consciousness. Eventually, Dean's brother, Sam, and their family friend, Bobby, found him and took him to a hospital.

This was where Skye came back into the story. She encountered Sam and Bobby at the hospital and helped them vanquish the Witnesses – a series of vengeful spirits whose rise was one of the first signs of the coming Apocalypse. Afterwards, she explained to them exactly how and why she became involved.

Four months previously, Skye had woken up in a field in Ohio with a mysterious manuscript in her backpack and a note scribbled on the front ordering her to "fix this." At first, she took the contents of the manuscript to be nothing more than a badly written fantasy novel. Then, she had an encounter with a demon that changed her perspective on everything.

She did her research and found out that the "Sam and Dean Winchester" from the book were actual people. Not only that, but the events of the manuscript seemed to foretell the future. Knowing that Dean would be showing up at an abandoned gas station in Pontiac, Illinois on Thursday, September 18, 2008, Skye showed up there as well. She also showed up at the hotel Sam was staying at and at the hospital, eventually confronting them with everything she knew and what she thought she was supposed to do.

Although they weren't entirely sure they bought the story she told, Sam, Dean, and Bobby agreed that she was too far into the world of the supernatural to be allowed to continue with her life completely defenseless. Thus, they decided to train her as a hunter. It had been working out so far, with Skye helping them to outwit mercenaries and grave robbers, but still Dean didn't have a good feeling about her. He didn't have a good feeling about any of this.

There were still so many mysteries and unanswered questions. Where did that manuscript come from? Was the vision Dean had of Castiel a dream or a memory? What was Skye hiding, because she clearly was holding back something.

All these questions rang around in Dean's head, mixing with an overwhelming sense of anxiety, fear, dread, and – for some reason – déjà vu. It created this horrible feeling inside of Dean that continued to grow by the day. It was worsening and worsening to the point where it felt like it all might come to a dramatic head, and Dean honestly feared what would happen when it finally did…

THEN

Thursday, November 19th, 2020

The Goldmund Institute of Biological and Psychological Research

Skye squeezed her eyes shut and tried to relax into her pillow. It had been a long day. They had taken so much blood from her. She didn't know exactly what they needed with all that blood, but once a week the doctors would come to take more from her. Every single time, they would take as much as they possibly could without killing her. It left her feeling completely drained, but it was still difficult to relax.

It had been years since she had been taken to this hospital. The details remained fuzzy – as did almost all the details of her life – but she knew she was initially arrested for something and instead of bringing her to prison, they had sent her to this hospital instead. She hoped that whatever it was, no one got killed because of it. Honestly, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if someone was dead because of her.

She didn't know where she was or what the true purpose of this hospital was. She just had the name "Goldmund" because it was written all over the nametags and laminate cards that the doctors wore. For the longest time, she wasn't allowed computer or phone access. However, in recent days, weeks, months, years, they'd begun to allow her some privileges regarding electronics. They said it was because she was "behaving well" and that they "appreciated her cooperation." Skye didn't know exactly what they meant by that, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Although she had access to the internet, Skye didn't use it to try to reach out for help. She already knew it to be futile. She got the feeling that at one point, the internet would be a dangerous tool in her hands, but that was clearly no longer the case. In fact, the most she ever really did with the internet was listen to music.

"Music can reach parts of the brain that words can't." Skye had heard one of the doctors say that once, and she had no doubts that it was true. Even right then, lying in a hospital bed she could feel the melody's effect on her. The air vibrated in a way that just clicked with her emotions and resonated with her soul and body. She felt comforted; less alone. It was an escape. It brought her peace and understanding. It was everything.

When the music stopped, Skye just hit the replay button and started the song over. It was a live performance by an artist she had never heard of before. Skye only needed to hear it once to fall in love. The emotion in the singer's voice was just so raw, so powerful, and the words had spoken to Skye in a way that made her feel like someone knew exactly how she was feeling. It was so impossibly magical, keeping Skye captivated and in awe every single time it played.

The lights flickered above her head, but Skye chose to ignore it. She hated florescent lights for that specific reason. They were one step away from being strobes.

The sudden sound of electronic distortion caused Skye to cringe. She sat up and grabbed the iPad. She thought maybe YouTube had glitched out, but when she looked at the screen, she saw that the whole tablet had seized up. She tried tapping the screen, but that did nothing. Suddenly, a loud crack was heard, and a flash of light emitted from the iPad. Startled, Skye tossed the device away from her. The screen shattered as it landed on the ground. It wasn't like it mattered, though. It was already broken anyway.

Skye crawled backwards on the bed until her back hit the wall, her breathing heavy. She didn't know what had just happened. She didn't think she did anything to overheat the iPad or cause it to short-circuit, but after all this time what did she even really know about electronics?

Lights continued to flash and slowly, Skye both heard and felt a high-pitched whine building up. She couldn't tell where it came from and that honestly scared her. Normally, she could tell the source of any vibration or sound just by instinct, but she couldn't make sense of this. The iPad was broken, there was no other machinery in the room, and it didn't feel like it was coming from the lights, so where was it coming from? Before she could find an answer, she was taken off-guard.

She heard a voice.

Given that she was in a mental hospital, that was distressing. Skye didn't recognize the voice, and much like the whining sound, she couldn't find the source for it. The first few times it spoke, it said something that made no sense to her. She tried to cover her ears to block out the sound, but it was useless. She could still hear the voice loud and clear.

Finally, it said something she did recognize.

"Skye…"

Her name. The voice was saying her name.

"Skye…"

She squeezed her eyes shut hard. She opened her mouth, and she could feel her vocal cords vibrating, but she couldn't hear if any sound came out. Even if it did, she doubted that it was anything more than a primordial scream.

Eventually, the fluorescent lights began to spark and burst as well. One by one, they went out. Skye curled up in a ball to protect herself from the falling shards of glass, but she still felt a few get caught in her hair.

Distantly, she could feel the world around her shaking. She knew she wasn't doing that. She could feel vibrations leaving her body, but she didn't think she was the one breaking the lights and electronics. Normally when she broke things with her powers, she could feel the object resonating with her vibrations before shattering and splintering off into multiple different frequencies. That wasn't what she was feeling.

Not knowing what else to do, Skye tried reigning herself in and reaching out with her powers. If the thing that was causing this chaos was in this room, she'd be able to feel it. At least, that was her line of thinking. Which was why she was shocked when she tuned in on the vibrations in the room and she couldn't pinpoint what was causing the disruption. All she could feel were the vibrations of the objects in the room, and all that she could tell was an outside force was throwing them off. Then, the thought struck her:

Am I causing this?

No, that wasn't right. Generally, she could feel the vibrations leaving her body. Sometimes when they were doing tests, she couldn't feel anything, but right then that wasn't the case. At least, she didn't think so. No one was testing her, and she could feel the vibrations outside her body. There was no reason why she wouldn't be able to feel the ones leaving her body, if there were any. This evidence could only lead her to one conclusion.

Is this all in my head?

No, it couldn't be, she thought. I can see and feel everything that's happening. It has to be real.

However, as much as she tried to reason with herself, there was still room for doubt. She was in a mental hospital, after all. She didn't know why she was in a mental hospital – the reason for that having been lost along with a slurry of other memories – but she couldn't discount that she was there. If she was in a mental hospital, then it stood to reason that there was something mentally wrong with her. That was how logic should follow.

As this realization began to dawn on Skye, she became scared. If all of this was in her mind, then what was happening in reality? Was she hurting herself? Someone else? Tears began to prick at her eyes again. Returning her hands to the sides of her head, Skye buried her face in her lap. It did nothing to stop the voice that kept calling her name.

Please just stop, she desperately begged. Stop!

POW!

Skye dove for the floor as soon as she heard the explosion. Her first instinct was to get under the bed, but it's support, and mechanics wouldn't allow for that. She cursed internally while she looked for a suitable place to take cover. However, that wouldn't be necessary. It took her a minute to realize it, but eventually Skye noticed that everything had stopped.

It stopped.

It had all stopped.

Slowly, Skye pulled her hands away from her ears and lifted her head. There was nothing. Dead silence. There was no shaking, no lights flashing, and no one calling her name. Pulling herself upright, she looked around the darkened room.

Glass littered the floor. Already, Skye's feet had been cut up. She hadn't been wearing socks when the shaking started, and she certainly wasn't going to go look for some. All the machines she could see were broken. Anything that had been made out of glass or plastic was either shattered or cracked. Skye tried to be careful where she stepped but found even attempting to do so was useless.

Looking up from the floor, Skye's eyes were naturally drawn to the door. They widened when she saw that it was open, swinging freely from its hinges. Her heart skipped a beat. She couldn't believe it.

That door was impossible to open. Skye had tried so many times for so long to open it with her powers and had never succeeded. She always seemed to get caught, but now here it was, wide open and waiting for her to take the opportunity.

Skye stepped forward. Her pace was slow, her mind nearly uncomprehending. She could see out into the hallway. It was dark, too. Distantly, she could hear voices speaking out. Were they hospital staff? Were they other patients? Skye couldn't tell. They were too far away, but she knew they sounded aggrieved.

Reaching the door, Skye pulled it the rest of the way open and stopped under the frame. It was heavy, but nothing she couldn't manage. She looked down at the hall to her left, then to her right. No one was in the hallway. Not staff, not patients, just her. Skye held her breath, waiting for a person to suddenly appear out of thin air. They never did.

This is my chance. I could run.

Skye found herself perplexed by this thought. Why would she want to run? Sure, she was in a mental hospital, and sure, she didn't always like the tests they ran on her, but it wasn't a bad place, was it? Skye frowned and her brow furrowed. She tried to remember why she might have that thought but like so many other things, it was lost to the static.

"Skye."

A jolt of shock sent her stumbling forward. She looked up and down the hall again but still didn't see anyone. Not that she was expecting to. It was still the same disembodied voice calling her name.

"Skye."

She stumbled further, arms colliding with the opposite wall.

"What do you want?" To be frank, Skye wasn't expecting an answer. Nevertheless, she got one.

"I need to borrow your body. Let me borrow your body."

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Before she could even comprehend what, she was doing, Skye was running. She didn't know where she was going. This place was like a maze and every time she was taken out of her room, her head was too groggy to keep track of the turns she took. That didn't matter, though. She just needed to get as far away from that voice as she could.

At first, Skye didn't give her surroundings any regard. She just picked a direction and ran in it. Eventually, she realized that she should probably take a turn at some point and started to try to open every single door she came across. Every time, she found that they were locked. Skye quickly grew frustrated but didn't give up. She knew that one of them would have to come open.

Sure enough, one did. It was the last door she tried at the dead-end of the hallway. Skye saw that it was labeled as an emergency exit and knew instantly that it wouldn't be locked. The door was easily pushed open, and she was met with a stairwell with a set of stairs leading up and a set of stairs leading down. Without a second of hesitation, she chose to go up. Her only reasoning for doing so was that she just felt safer being in a higher position.

Climbing up two flights of stairs, Skye met with an external door that had been left propped open. She didn't know why it was like that (though the many cigarette butts that littered the ground outside would give a hint) but took advantage of it. She went straight out the door and onto the roof, only coming to a stop when she reached the edge of the building.

Bending over and placing her hands on her knees, Skye struggled to catch her breath. The air was very dry and chilly, making her lungs burn every time she inhaled. After a few moments, she forced herself to straighten up. She needed to figure out what she was going to do next.

Moving her hands to her hips, Skye turned in a slow circle as she surveyed the roof. No one else was out there. She could hear shouting voices drifting out through the still-open access door, but they were nowhere near her. …Yet. Continuing to turn, Skye looked out past the roof's ledge. On one side, she could see nothing but a long expanse of darkness. On the other side, she could see a handful of lights twinkling off in the distance. She took that to mean there was some sort of civilization – maybe a small town or a village – but from this distance she couldn't be certain. In fact, she couldn't be certain about a lot of things.

What am I doing?

As more air filled her lungs, rational sense started coming back to her. She was standing on the roof of a mental hospital, running from a voice inside her head. What was she going to do? Jump? Make a break for it? Hope she reached the lights before the authorities caught up with her? That all seemed like too much! Never mind that when she stepped closer to the ledge and looked down, she saw that the distance to the ground was unlikely to be survivable. Horrified, she sank to her knees and started pulling at her hair. Hard, heavy sobs emerged from her throat.

What do I do?

"Say 'yes.'"

Skye yelped and scrambled until her back hit the ledge. It took her a moment to find her voice, but when she did, she screamed "leave me alone!"

"Skye, I don't want to hurt you. I'm trying to help you."

Skye didn't believe that for one second.

"It's the truth. I just need to borrow your body. When I'm done, I'll make this all go away."

"Yeah, you'll kill me!" Skye didn't know why she was even bothering to reply to the voice. All that was probably doing was making her look more insane.

"No, I won't," the voice tried to assure. "I promise I won't. When I'm done with you, you'll have an entirely new life, and you won't remember any of this."

Nope, that's not happening. Skye knew there was no way a voice in her head could provide any of that. Grabbing onto the ledge, she pulled herself up. Frantically, she looked around. She tried to see a way out, any way out.

"Skye?"

She could only see one.

Skye jumped up onto the ledge and looked up defiantly.

"You can't have my body!" she shouted. "I'll jump off the roof! What'll you do then?"

To her surprise, the voice sounded taken aback.

"No," it said. "Skye, you don't want to do that. You'll regret it."

Already Skye was regretting it. She didn't want to die, but threatening to jump was the only thing she could think of doing. After all, the voice said it needed her body. If that was the case, then she wouldn't allow them to have it intact.

At that point, the idea that it was just a voice inside her head had completely left her mind.

Once again, Skye looked over the ledge. It looked like it was a long way down. She could only imagine what it would feel like to hit the ground. Fear crept into her heart. She didn't want to do this. She really didn't.

"Skye," the voice said. "You don't want to do this. I can feel it. Climb back down to the roof. We can work something out. I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to help."

Skye sucked in a breath between her teeth. She didn't believe that voice for a second, but she didn't want to follow through with her threat either. So, she hesitated, looking between the roof and the ground. She couldn't come to a decision.

A shout in a language she didn't understand startled her. It wasn't the voice, but rather someone inside the building. They sounded much closer than she would've expected, and the proximity sent a flare of panic running through her body. She took a step backwards and didn't realize her mistake until it was too late.

Skye's heel met open air. Her stomach plummeted before the rest of her body did. An ear-piercing noise shattered the silence. Skye didn't know whether it was coming from inside her head or outside of it. It didn't matter anyway. She wouldn't be hearing it for long.

All at once air came rushing up past Skye and the ledge disappeared from her view. Her heart raced inside her chest. If there was any time for last words, this would be the time to say them. Skye opened her mouth and screamed.

"Yes! Yes! Take my body! I'll say 'yes!' Yes!"

NOW

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

Higgensville, Missouri

BANG!

Skye's eyes shot open. She couldn't breathe. At once, she shot up into a sitting position. Waves of pain spiked throughout her back. She looked around for the car that hit her. That was the only explanation that made sense as to why she was in this state.

Looking around, Skye discovered that she wasn't lying in the street. She had fallen backwards off the uncomfortable motel couch she'd been sleeping on and landed on the floor. There had to be nothing but solid concrete under that carpet. Otherwise, it wouldn't have hurt so much.

Skye pressed a hand to her heart. It was racing like she couldn't believe. She took a deep breath to try to slow it down, but she didn't think it helped that much. Tears pricked at her eyes a bit and her shoulders began to shake, but she refused to let out an open sob. She didn't want to wake up Sam and Dean.

Eventually, Skye was able to calm herself down enough to think. She tried to recall the dream she had before she woke up, but it was useless. She could never recall any of the details of that nightmare once she was awake. In fact, she only knew it was a nightmare because she always woke up from it in a panic. It also didn't escape her notice that the nightmares had started around the same time that she had gotten her powers.

Pulling herself up to sit on the couch, Skye heaved a deep breath in and out. She brushed her hair off her face and couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. Normally, her nightmares didn't result in such dramatics as falling out of bed. Years of living in the orphanage and foster homes taught her not to be so reactive to these things. Adults didn't like kids who screamed in their sleep. Even in her last foster home she didn't cry out, though she knew it was perfectly safe to do so.

Skye sighed. At least Sam and Dean were asleep and didn't see what a fool she had made of herself. …Or at least that's what she thought.

A clicking noise had Skye whipping her head around. She could see a figure sitting hunched over at the small dining table. Momentarily she felt her panic renewed, but it faded once her eyes adjusted to the light and realized that it was Dean. That relief was quickly replaced by confusion.

"Dean," she found herself calling out. "What are you doing?"

For a long moment, he remained silent. Skye was about to ask again when he finally said, "cleaning the guns." She frowned.

"It's the middle of the night." Dean just hummed. Skye switched tactics. "What are you doing up?"

"Couldn't sleep," he said. "You?"

"Nightmare." Dean nodded.

"Same."

A long silence stretched out between them. Skye didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth but initially, nothing came out. A few moments later, she was taken by surprise when a question slipped out. "Do you remember your nightmare?"

Dean's answer came a little too quickly.

"Nope."

Nonetheless, Skye nodded.

"Neither do I."

Not long after writing this chapter, I woke up from a nightmare a lot like Skye did. It wasn't the same nightmare – in mine I was electrocuted – but I almost immediately jumped out of bed and had a panic attack. It felt so real that I thought maybe the sleep headphones I wear shorted out and I had been hurt. However, I didn't have any burn marks on my body so maybe it was all in my head?

BTW, please check out Demi Lovato's performance of "Anyone" from the 2020 Grammys. It's such a powerful moment and I just love it.

Remember kids, why the fuck am I praying anyway, if nobody's listening?

Originally uploaded on 4/14/25.