SILENT LUCIDITY ✶ Supernatural

iii.

   

    Dean wakes up at some odd hour in the morning on his stomach.

    He raises his head just enough so that his ears are off the memory foam pillow and looks with squinted eyes through the sheer white and blue curtained double windows.

    He's used to bumps in the night, noisy neighbors, the occasional riff-raff that'll go on in motel chains and police calls. Casual disturbances of peace that one day dissipate and fit into the cogwheels of annoyances like any other.

    But it's different here. Everything seems purposeful and nothing out of place, save for himself.

    It's murky outside, grey clouds hang low and the sun seems to be hesitant to make its presence known. There's a faint hum of traffic below. Rumbling motors and the beat of a bar down the block that Dean had easily tuned out in the night.

    The music never sleeps. But at least his head is quieter.

    But that's not what woke him up. There's something else. Something. . .He pulls himself into a sitting position, the tips of his boots touching the creaky floorboards, as he scans the dimly lit room.

    He'd messed with some of the boxes in the 'office room' as he's elected to call it, last night. Pulled out some oldies, but goodies. Rifled through albums and played some feel good throwbacks.

    The scratch of the needle reverberates through the hall. A neverending sho sho sho that's just unsettling enough for him to get up and turn it off.

    He fell asleep in his boots last night. Plum tuckered out from the long drive and having to weave his way through Broadway and daisy-duked, ditzy Bachelorette parties looking for an excuse to cheat on their 'one true loves'.

    Dean doesn't get the hype.

    Of Bachelorette parties anyway.

    He shuffles into the office and picks up the needle off of the record. It's silent for a moment. Dean pauses, listening intently for any off noise or rustle in the wall—there's nothing. Of course there's nothing. He's practically living in Middle Class luxury and he's worried how the little things people here brush off their coats.

    Rats? Call an exterminator. Cold water? Complain to management. Ghosts? No one here is unimportant enough to not die in a hospital somewhere.

    If someone goes missing, someone's bound to know. Good people don't just dissappear and never given a second thought as to why.

    Dean wonders if that'll be his fate too. Or if he'll succumb to a hunter's death, a short mouring. Dead, gone, burned, and never mentioned again.

    At least that's the case for most in his line of work. Maybe his will be different. Who knows.

    Dean sets the vinyl back on the pin of the record player and gently sets the needle back down.

    Just a small town girl—living in a lonely world—

    There's a knock at the main door. Quiet but purposeful. He whips his head towards the sound, eyes wide as he listens for a second sound of confirmation.

    He heard it. He knows he heard it. Over the sound of Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' and the bustle of traffic below.

    His first thought is room service. It's gotta be. No one else is going to take their time to check up on the new tenant who just arrived yesterday evening. People don't do that.