He didn't know how long he had been walking. He'd been more in his own head than the physical world around him, passing the time letting the scraps and shards of returning memories drift in the void, occasionally colliding with one another and merging into larger chunks.
He was Dean Winchester, that much he knew. His parents were dead, killed by...by something evil, something with soulless eyes and a nasty smile. He hunted things, evil things, him and his family, him, Sam, and Dad. No, not Dad. Dad was dead. Killed by the same yellow eyed son of a bitch that had killed Mom. Killed because Dad had made a deal...a deal to...
His mind veered away from that line of thought so sharply that it snapped him out of his meandering recollections and back into reality, and he took quick stock of his current surroundings. As he crossed the dusty parking lot to the lone small building he hoped that he hadn't passed any earlier opportunity while his mind and body had been on separate vacations. Wouldn't that just be like Dean Winchester? Come back from the dead only to drop dead again from starvation and dehydration a few hours later.
His thoughts, his identity, and story were coming together in his head, but thank god, or you know, whatever stood in for god, for the survival instinct that lead him naturally to water, food, less, um, strictly essential basic necessities on autopilot, as his higher mind continued the attempt to weave the loose ends and tangled threads in his head into some kind of recognizable pattern.
Fed and hydrated, inside out of the increasing heat of the risen sun baring down on him, he felt better, not just less likely to keel over from exhaustion, but more focused. He sat wearily on a stack of soda cases and took stock. He knew the date now, thanks to the newspaper he'd found, September 18, 2010. He knew his name. He knew he was back from the dead and was reasonably certain that this was not a normal thing to have happened, not even for, he groped around his mind, hunters. Yes, that was the word, hunters. He was Dean Winchester, and he was a hunter. The realization washed over him and filled him, and it felt a whole lot like the same satisfying relief that had come from draining that first sweet, cold bottle of water.
He was a hunter. He wasn't entirely sure he fully understood what that meant. He had a vague idea, flashes, feelings, but the full meaning of the core concept slipped from his grasp whenever he tried to get a solid hold on it, like trying to hold on to a wet bar of soap. He couldn't quite keep it from escaping whenever he nearly had it. He knew one thing for certain, it was a good thing, a thing to take pride in. Dad would be proud, had been proud, and that, that somehow filled him just like the water had as well. His mouth twitched, just for a second, into what might have been the start of a smile.
He liked thinking about Dad, John. John Winchester, badass hunter, hero. John had fought the good fight. John had saved people. John had taught him to drive, to shoot, to fight, and too much else to even begin to think about. John had...had written things down.
The realization hit him with such shock that he had jumped up, patting frantically around himself, looking for the journal. His disappointment in not finding it was less than his disappointment in himself for thinking that he would. Of course, he wouldn't have been buried with it. Sam would need it.
Why had he been buried?
Hunter's were burned.
Dad had been burned.
With a pained groan, he buried his face in his hands. After all morning scratching for fragments, begging his brain like a dog for precious scraps, the dam was beginning to spring leaks. Too much was coming too fast, too fast to process, to put in any coherent order, to understand. He made a pained, desperate sound, driving the heels of his hands into his temples, as if that could force the flow to slow down, force the thoughts to come one at a time, or at least settle into their proper place rather than crashing into each other, setting off crashing cascades in his brain.
"Damnit!" he exploded, smashing his fist into the wall. The rush of pain from his abraded knuckles helped ground him, allowed him to, if not get the montage of flashing images and whispering voice to be less noisy, at least to make his logical, thinking part, the part he could control, loud enough to be heard over them.
"OK Winchester, Dean, what now? What comes next? What would Dad say?" He thought about that. Somehow, mentally consulting the ghost in his mind of the still largely unknown entity of John Winchester calmed him. He grasped onto that calm, wrapped it around himself and relaxed into it as he had into strong arms that kept him safe so many years before, the night of the fire, the night that Mom had...
Again his mind took a sharp right turn away from the line of thought. He turned bloodshot eyes towards the ceiling, not seeing it. They brimmed with tears, enough to blur his vision, but not to actually spill. He heard his cracked, broken voice not quite sob, "What do I do, Dad? I don't know what to do. I'm all alone and I don't know anything. I barely know my name."
Winchester, you're Dean Winchester.
"Dad," a single tear escaped one eye and made its way down his cheek. "What am I supposed to do?" he implored. The silence didn't answer. In that silence Dean Winchester, badass hunter, scared little boy broke, crumpled like a house of cards and sobbed, letting all the confusion and frustration run its course, wash over him and drain out of him along with the tears.