Starting over from scratch was turning out to be a raging pain in the ass. Dean had never realized just how spoiled he had been by the stockpile of tools of the trade that had always just been there. Oh sure, once in a while he had to make a new ID, or jury rig a piece of equipment, like his walkman turned EMF, but for the most part, the basics had been available his whole career as a hunter. He'd been picking it up in pieces since before he hit puberty, most of the earliest stuff inherited from John.
By the time his father had handed him Baby's keys and told him that there was no need to return them, her trunk was already well stocked. In the years that followed, he'd filled in any gaps when needed, which wasn't often, so that whether he needed a silver bullet or a badge to flash, all he had to do was pop the trunk and retrieve it. He only now fully appreciated just how easy that part had been.
He'd been reviewing the morning's events over breakfast, consoling himself with a double side of extra bacon when a new idea had occurred to him, a vanity search Sam would have called it.
While most of his life had been lived off the radar, there were places that he had left fingerprints on the system. There was his birth record for starters. Beyond that, there was more than one arrest. He'd died in both St. Louis and Monument. He'd made the FBI database after the Milwaukee case had splashed him all over the evening news. Sam had been jealous about that, even if he wouldn't admit it. Dean Winchester had left a mark.
A simple internet search would bring up all kinds of information, evidence, no, proof, proof of existence and he'd be able to lay the nagging fears about it to rest. He'd still have the problem of sorting out the false memories form the real ones, and clearly, if he was "remembering" two different versions of the same events, at least one of them had to be false, At least he could stop freaking out that maybe they were all false, rendering him...what, a product of his own imagination? He closed his eyes and shook the idea from his head. He didn't want to think about that. It gave him a headache.
And, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, very soon he would never have to again.
He got directions to the nearest library from the waitress, left her with a winning smile and a generous tip, and set off the answer the question that had plagued mankind for centuries, that of one's own exsistance, not a bad days work.
And that's where it all fell apart.
While the library computers were available for public use, it turned out that access required a library card. The librarian had assured him that acquiring one was a simple and painless procedure, requiring only a photo ID and proof of a local address. She informed him his driver's license would fill both requirements. He responded by asking directions to the nearest copy shop.
He was halfway there when it hit him, that a photo ID was going to require a photo. Frustrated he jerked the wheel, swerving into the first parking lot he saw, coming to rest with a screech of rubber on pavement in the empty part of the lot, furthest from the storefronts, where no one ever parked unless it was Christmas season. "Damn it!" he yelled, slamming the wheel with both fists. How did normal people do this?
He'd been sixteen when he'd killed his first werewolf, the same age most kids got their first driver's license. Now, here he was, stuck like a rat in a maze, trying to navigate the correct route to a driver's license, and he'd much rather be tracking a werewolf.
Although, he'd better hope that he didn't have to any time soon, because silver bullets and a gun were still on the list of things he didn't have, right along with a photo ID, a library card, and a bottle of 80 proof. That last one he was going to be correcting at the first liquor store he could find.
Unless they carded him...crap.
They carded him and he was shooting somebody...crap!
He hit the steering wheel again.