It was still pretty far off from closing time when Dean emerged back into the Moose's now dark parking lot. Things had gone well, a little too well. The wad of cash, now thick in his pocket, surpassed not just his expectations, but his hopes. On the downside, increasing grumblings had sent a pretty clear message that while the regulars didn't much mind shuffling the cash around amongst themselves in a never ending series of games and bets, none of them was too happy with unknown drifters who came in and crashed the local economy by emptying the kitty and leaving with the proceeds.
Gambling debts may be debts of honor, but even so, tempers had been running a little too high for Dean's taste, and he had decided that he'd rather walk out while he still only lightly buzzed than to risk being really drunk by the time his marks worked themselves up into the "jump him in the parking lot" stage.
He felt too good right now to have to give anybody a beat down, and besides, something had come up. Still, he was reluctant to leave, especially before he could accomplish phase two of his two part plan. He'd really enjoyed the evening, not just the drinking, the flirting, winning bets, the usual enjoyments that had made his life bearable since his first fake ID, but the reveling in the wonderful feeling of just how right it all was, how much himself he was in the familiar environment.
He knew once he walked out, back into the real world, he would likely revert to the out of sync, not quite right version that he had been struggling to hold together with will power and wishful thinking between all too frequent emotional break downs. He hoped the buzz would help, because his new rule was, one chick flick meltdown a day. After that, zero tolerance for any further crippling waterworks, and he had already blown today's allotment first thing this morning. No matter what, he was going to make it through the night with out channeling the spirit of Marsha Brady, and that was just the way it was.
"Seriously, Dean? Marsha Brady?" flitted through his mind, and he had actually glanced to the side and said, "Shut up, Sam." before he remembered. He squeezed his eyes shut against the burn while a tightening feeling took hold of his chest. "No," he growled, low and guttural, "ain't gonna happen," not in a parking lot of a dive bar full of drunk sore losers that were probably arguing over who was going to hold and who was going to hit right now. "You are Dean Freakin' Winchester, so man up and act like it!" he ordered.
He felt something trickle down his right hand and opened his eyes to investigate, discovering that he had dug his nails into his palm hard enough to draw blood. That's OK, that's fine, better blood than tears.
Rattled and buzzed seemed like a bad combination behind the wheel, so as much as he craved a drive for the sense of self it would likely provide, he instead set out on foot, hoping to find a room for the night within walking distance. He'd decide in the morning whether to come back for the car or to just opt for alternative transportation.
XXXXX
Another night, another crappy motel room, but this one was admittedly better than the last. The Moonlight was classy enough for the desk clerk to have looked oddly at a guy checking in with only a plastic shopping bag and no vehicle. The attitude had disappeared with the promise of a cash payment.
Settling in Dean remembered that all he had eaten all day was an undetermined amount of jelly donuts and bar pretzels. He considered calling the same pizza delivery as last night in hopes of getting lucky enough to bring the same pretty delivery girl back into his life, but no, he had a higher priority to address. He opted for Chinese, mainly because it was the first thing to catch his eye, and he really didn't want to waste too much time on it. He just needed something to put in his stomach, before the booze got lonely and started kicking up a fuss.
After the call, and a three second period of mourning for his hopes of some soft, bumpy companionship for the night, he turned his attention to his new lead. This evening hadn't been all about fun and profit. He was learning that certain situations solidified him, brought him into himself. He didn't know if it was the extended time he had spent in that state, or if time was just healing whatever it was that was wrong with him, but in that bar, drinking and hustling, just being Dean, things had begun to shake loose. Mostly it was just a name here, a face there, but there had been one big one.
He'd already known the name, came across it a bunch of times while trying to make whatever sense he could of his exhaustion induced auto-biography, but he couldn't connect it to anything. Sure, a flash of a face, some short phrases had teased his memory, but nothing more really than replays of what he'd already written down, things that he clearly already knew, on some level, even if he couldn't draw them out at will yet, but nothing he could use, nothing that helped. Nothing that is until, while lining up a shot, something had skittered across his brain and he'd had to stand up and blink a few times to sort out his actual surroundings from the vivid image forcing its way into his awareness.
Now, in the quiet calm of his room for the night, he drew a deep bracing breath. "OK Dean," he told himself firmly, "Somewhere in that scrambled brain you've got a phone number for Bobby Singer, and so help me, before this night is over, you're going to cough it up. Let's get started."