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it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
they’d pulled over hours ago, and it was like the old days. Just the two of them, sleeping in the impala, dean in the front seat and sam in the back, as though the car was meant to fit two grown men.
there’s no motel around here, not in miles, so here they are, sleeping on the side of the road.
nights like this weren’t uncommon, not for people like them, and somehow, dean finds comfort in the familiarity of it. there’s nothing to do but relax in his brother’s company, to listen to the sound of his breathing and the soft hum of the radio, to close his eyes and wait for sleep.
“the desert seems vast, even endless, and yet scientists tell us that somewhere even now, there is snow. welcome to nightvale,” the radio says, and dean smiles.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
the station is one dean has heard hundreds of times, the voice comforting and familiar and welcoming in a way he doesn’t know how to explain. he’s never managed to find it before, and he’s looked. god, he’s looked so many times.
it only plays on nights like these.
nights spent in the middle of nowhere, under the stars and moon and clouds. only on nights when it’s just the two of them, sleeping in the impala, and dean wonders how it always seems to know when they’re alone.
still, that hardly seems to matter.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
“sammy,” he says, his voice quiet. “the station’s playin’ again, you know the one.”
sam hums. “what’s happening now?” he asks, because you can tell what the radio host might say.
sometimes, dean wonders if the host, cecil, he thinks his name is, is a creature of some kind. a godling, maybe, or something that can see into different worlds. he could ask cas, or maybe even missouri, but he never does.
nightvale is their little secret, his and sam’s, and it always will be.
“it just started,” dean answers, after a moment, and then they both turn quiet.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
the two of them listen, as enraptured as the first time they’d heard the station, all those years ago. tonight, cecil talks of a cloud that glows, and the animals that fall from it, and dean tries not to let his mind wander.
he learned long ago that, while the station is playing, it’s best to pay attention, so you don’t get blindsided by the oddness of it when you tune back in.
there’s a scientist in town, now, and it seems like they aren’t the only ones confused by nightvale’s impossibilities. of course, the so-called impossible is their job, given that they kill monsters on a regular basis, but there’s a difference between monsters and a glowing frikin’ cloud.
“if we had to shut down the town for every mysterious event that at least one death could be attributed to, we’d never have time to do anything, right?”
and that’s certainly one way to look at life.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
dean wonders if the town is even real, or if the station is just some podcast that somehow managed to get a spot on the radio. he doubts it, since they’ve heard it all over the damn country, so it can’t be a local thing, but it makes him think.
he thinks about what kind of place the town would be and what kind of people live there. they’d either be the one town that doesn’t call us crazy, or we’d be arrested before we even knew what was happening, dean thinks, laughing to himself.
“here’s something odd,” the radio says, as though anything it says could be called normal, “there is a cat hovering in the men’s bathroom at the radio station here.”
dean can’t hold back the snort of laughter that comes from him, and so it seems, neither can sam. Their laughter is soft, as it often is in the dead of night, but it’s not unwelcome, not out of place.
the radio continues, and dean knows they’re both listening eagerly. “seems perfectly happy and healthy, but it’s floating about four feet off the ground next to the sink.” dean blinks. thinks for a moment, and then, “wish it wasn’t trapped in a hovering prison in the men’s bathroom, but listen, no pet is perfect.”
this time, there’s no preventing the laughter, loud and clear and hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.
because what else is there to say about a floating cat?
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
the host is talking about the glowing cloud again, after a message that’s supposedly from coca-cola, but sounds more like something from a psychological thriller. dean grins, it’s fun to try and guess which every day company ‘sponsors’ each little ad, though, he’s only heard them once or twice.
“mcdaniels is described as a five-headed dragon, approximately eighteen feet tall, with mostly green eyes, and weighing about 36-hundred pounds.” dean has to stop for a moment, and this is precisely why you shouldn’t get lost in thought while listening to the station.
then, “he is suspected of insurance fraud.”
which is, far more mundane than you’d expect for someone who’s supposedly a five headed dragon, but dean hardly cares. he’s too busy laughing at the idea of an eighteen foot tall dragon claiming to be five foot eight.
sam’s grinning, too, dean knows he is.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
“wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error.”
and it’s utterly ridiculous, a day of the week cancelled because of a scheduling error, but it’s far from the weirdest thing the host has said on the station. no, it’s barely in the top ten.
“i wish wednesdays could be cancelled,” dean says. “don’t know what good it’d do, but hey, it could be fun.”
sam laughs, and he knows his brother is rolling his eyes. “what about tuesdays? shit seems to go wrong on tuesdays.”
they both laugh at that.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
apparently, the glow cloud has come to cover the entire town of nightvale, according to john peters, you know, the farmer. it’s still flashing colors and glowing, because what else would it be doing, and it’s humming, too.
for a minute, dean pictures a giant cloud singing some kind of song, rather than an ominous humming, and the thought makes him smile.
“the sheriff’s secret police have apparently taken to shouting questions at the glow cloud, trying to ascertain what exactly it wants. so far the glow cloud has not answered.”
dean wonders what a cloud could say. then, he decides that really, he doesn’t think he wants to know.
“the glow cloud does not need to converse with us. it does not feel as we tiny humans feel. it has no need for thoughts or feelings or love. the glow cloud simply is. all hail the mighty glow cloud. all hail,” and the host’s voice sounds wrong, and there is an ominous sort of humming.
and then, as though nothing happened at all, the ‘weather’ starts playing.
“sammy?” he says, propping himself up. “did the radio host, cecil or whatever his name is, just get possessed by a frikin’ cloud.”
there’s a moment of silence as sam thinks. “i don’t think i want to know.”
and yeah, sam has the right idea.
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
the night is coming to an end, dean knows, and show is the station. a few more minutes and the station will disappear, as though it never was there in the first place, and they’ll fall asleep, still thinking about a glowing cloud and five-headed dragon and floating cat.
they’ll think about it later, questioning how a cloud could possess someone, because by now, dean has decided to believe it’s real, because no one could come up with all of this shit on their own, and it’ll fade into the background. fade behind the lore and the research and the hunts, because that’s what always happens, until the next time they have a night like this.
but for now? for now, dean is content to close his eyes and listen, to let the host’s voice lure him back to calm.
“finally, dear listeners,” the radio says, “here is a list of things.”
and it’s a long list, filled with both things dean understands and things he doesn’t. all of them flash before his eyes, here for one moment and then gone in the next, and each one is something special.
he recites his favorites to himself, his own list of things inside his mind, a list he won’t let go of.
lost pets, found.
a void that thinks.
silence when there should be noise.
noise when there should be silence.
rain coming down in sheets.
night.
he repeats it once, and then a second time, until he knows the list will always have a place in the back of his mind, tucked away with the other memories of the station. always memories of two a.m. talks and not-so-lonely nights in the impala, his brother by his side.
“night, bitch,” dean says.
“night, jerk.”
it’s two a.m., and the radio is the only sound in the almost silent night.
dean finds his eyes slipping close, sleep rushing around him like a gentle embrace. just like the old days, he thinks with a smile.
and just as he falls asleep, the radio speaks, and dean already knows what it will say.
“goodnight, listeners,” it says, “good night.”