There are words, fragments of syllables that float through his mind at the edge of subconsciousness. Strange, elusive memories that drift in and out of focus. He can see the vague shapes of sentences, of formless masses of darkness collecting in the corners of his eyelids. But when he attempts to push forward through the muddled haze of forgetfulness they disappear as quickly as they come, and he is left wondering whether they had been there at all.
Eyelids heavy with the threat of sleep, he curls into himself, drawing the frayed, scratchy sheets around his body. Light seeps through the cracks beneath his eyelashes; it seems Sam is still hard at work. The nights always end like this as they blur with the mornings.
Sometimes there pass whispers in the air that resound like familiar dreams in Dean's ears. An echoed laugh, the sound of lips forming a smile, the brush of skin against skin. He doesn't quite know what to make of it but he knows it draws the smallest beads of happiness from his otherwise numb disposition. Sometimes, if he's lucky, he will hear the whispers sweep past him in the air at night. And when he does he may feel the slightest memory of a heart beating fast against him and recall the feeling of holding something – no, someone in his arms.
Sam's been flaunting a new app on his phone that shows the weather for the next seven days. Dean rolls his eyes and tells him if he needs to rely on the Internet to tell him what clothes to wear, he needs a medical examination. Even in the relative coolness of early morning Dean can tell the air conditioner is straining to reason with the rising temperature inside the motel room. He can hear it screaming in frustration as it keeps pumping cool air through the building.
Sam pulls up the sleeves of his coat. Dean glances down at his own and ponders grabbing a nicer, thicker one, but decides against it when Sam opens the door and a blast of humid heat tumbles in. The air conditioner whimpers in protest. The brothers share a look. Hair hanging limp with sweat and shoulders rolled in toward his chest, Sam already appears defeated. Black, wrinkled bags sag beneath his eyes; Dean guesses he stayed up most of the night researching. The heat is stifling, unforgiving. The day will be long, and the sun is young yet. With a sigh he pushes his younger brother out the door and closes it, double checking the lock behind them.
The florist shop sits at the corner of Acorn Street and Forthrock. It's a quaint little building, nestled in with a few other equally eccentric-looking venues. Old oaks tower above the sidewalks. Their branches hug the crumbling brick chimneys jutting out of the shops' rooftops. Sam pauses to squint and marvel at their splendor. Dean walks straight ahead with purpose, muttering under his breath at the scratchy, sticky warmth blossoming beneath the long black sleeves of his jacket. He has half a mind to ditch it right then and there and toss it into a nearby dumpster. But something tells him it would appear unprofessional. Perhaps he has never played a part in a movie or TV show, but he's been acting from the moment he was born.
Adjusting his tie, he pushes open the door to the shop. Bells jingle overhead to signal his entrance. Sam walks in close behind him and shuts the door carefully.
The scents hit them all at once, mixing in not unpleasant ways. All the colors and vibrant, abstract shapes seem exotic and fantastical. Through the vague, misty haze of greenhouse warmth descending quickly upon them, Dean can see a young woman sitting at the counter. Long, manicured nails dig into the cover of a supermarket romance novel. They're painted as red as the lipstick smoothed on her lips. A cascade of shiny black hair is swept back into a hairtie on the top of her head.
She flips a page and a smile sneaks onto her face. She has a secretive, playful allure; Dean glances at Sam and waggles his eyebrows. Sam pointedly ignores him and pushes through the leaves and petals crowding the floor.
They approach the counter, but the woman takes no notice. Upon looking closer, Dean notices small earbuds protruding from her ears. He smiles and clears his throat.
"Excuse me, I'm Agent Bud and this is, uh, Agent Holly; we're with the FBI. If we could just ask you a few questions…" His speech trails off when he realizes she still has taken no heed of their presence. He works up to clear his throat again, but Sam cuts him off.
Sam taps her lightly on the shoulder and she shrieks, throwing the book to the floor. Frantically she tries to collect herself. She pulls the headphones violently from her ears and jumps to her feet. "I'm so sorry!" she gasps. "I am so, so sorry. How can I help you gentlemen today?" She gives them both a once-over, then continues, "Ah, I take it you're here to pick up the wedding bouquet! It's in the back, just give me two seconds and I'll—"
"Actually," Sam interrupts, "we're with the FBI." He flashes his fake badge.
"We're also not…together; I don't swing that way," Dean chimes in, stepping forward.
The woman winks at him knowingly, then turns back to Sam. "Oh, my mistake. The FBI? This isn't about Miranda Halley, is it? Let me just say, I knew her from high school and she was one of the kindest people I've ever met."
"So she wasn't the kind to have enemies?" asks Sam.
The woman furrows her eyebrows. "I…I'm sorry, I thought she came down with salmonella? From eating some bad alfalfa sprouts or something?"
"Right." Sam beckons for her to come out from behind the counter. "If you wouldn't mind, we have a few more questions to ask. Is there any place we might be able to sit down?"
The woman nods and shows them through a door marked "Employees Only". Comfortable-looking couches sit on either side of the room, and a small kitchenette is set up in the corner. In the dead center, on a rather large coffee table, sits an enormous and grotesque-looking specimen of presumably exotic fauna. Dean eyes it warily and swears he sees it eyeing him back. With a small shiver he sinks into one of the couches next to Sam. The woman sits opposite them, worry lining her face.
"So your name is?" Sam prompts.
"Sally."
"Right. So, Sally, you said you knew Miranda from high school?"
"Yes, that's right. I remember we were partners in tennis and we lived a few blocks away from each other. I knew her family fairly well, too, and…"
Dean's mind is wandering, wandering back to the hallucinations of last night. How unusually free he felt, how at ease. It was a feeling he seldom felt, a feeling of being appreciated. The job comes with many condescending glares and few thanks. Appreciation isn't something he commonly has the privilege to experience. But in those dreams he'd felt something far deeper than all his one-night stands, deeper even than what he'd felt with Lisa. It was something like a profound bond of deepest trust and…was it…love?
He shakes the notion from his mind. This shell of a body is incapable of loving or being loved. Even with Sam beside him he is alone, lost within the mazes in his mind. Those dreams were nothing more than vacant fantasies. Illusions of emotion. He knows more than anyone that some people simply cannot be loved. And he has, too, learned to accept that in himself.
The interview passes without incident. They leave the shop with little to go on. Sam keeps flipping through the pages of his notebook, trying to piece something together, force the pieces to fit somehow. But there is no sudden moment of inspiration, no well-timed coincidence to spark even the ghost of an idea.
The sun perches high in the sky, heating the humid air to near boiling. The brothers both end up ditching their coats and button-up shirts and walking down the street in just their slacks and white tees. The world around them moves sluggishly; even hardcore spandex runners stop to walk and catch their breath.
Sam's blabbing about some case he read about in Dad's journal detailing an unusual autumn heatwave that corresponded with some random deaths. Dean's just thinking about that bar he saw when they were driving in, the one advertising ice cold beer. He's just about to suggest a visit when out of the corner of his eye he catches something strange.
"Sam!" he hisses, tugging at his brother. He nods toward a bench across the street. Sam looks over and rolls his eyes.
"What, Dean."
"How many guys do you know who would wear a damn trenchcoat on a hundred-degree day? I don't know 'bout you, but that smells a little fishy to me."
Sam throws his brother a look. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snorts. "I don't know anyone like that. And anyway, how exactly is that relevant right this second?"
Dean grabs him and points toward the bench. "You take a good look at that, and then you look me in the eyes and you tell me that doesn't seem just a little bit off to you."
"Um, okay, that doesn't seem off to me. At all. Dean, it's a bench. I don't see any guy or any other…beings."
"Yeah, okay, ha-ha, funny. Actually, no; Jesus, Sam, that's not even funny."
"I'm serious, Dean." Sam looks at him quizzically, then shakes his head. "I don't know what you're going on about. There's no one there, okay?"
Dean glances back toward the bench. The man in the trenchcoat takes another large bite of a fast-food burger and slurps his milkshake. His eyes are downcast; Dean would almost venture to say they look sad. Stubble dots his chin; there are bags beneath his eyes. For a man, Dean catches himself thinking, he's relatively handsome.
His eyes flare. What the hell? Does the guy seem a little bit…familiar? Perhaps he's seen him in a dream or something, or passed him on the street before. But if he's a stranger, why does Dean's chest tighten when the man looks up and their eyes lock for just a second?
"Yeah, sorry," Dean mumbles, glancing away. "I guess the heat's really gettting to me, huh?" He forces a laugh. Sam shakes his head and keeps walking.
"Yeah, well. Let's get back to the room and see if we can't find anything else on this Miranda girl."
Reluctantly Dean trudges on a few steps behind his brother. His mind wanders far from the case now, back to the man on the bench. What was Sam playing at? Had he simply been pulling Dean's leg, or had Sam really not seen the man? He'd been kind of hard to miss, as such a heavy trenchcoat was rather conspicuous especially on a day like this. And Dean still can't shake the feeling he's seen the man before.