Broken

"Dean... Dean... DEAN!"

Dean bolted up, his eyes flying open with surprise. It took his vision for a minute to clear and another minute for him to understand what was going on. Dean saw that he was in bed in a crappy motel room and his brother, Sam, was standing over him. He felt something in his hand and when he looked down, he noticed he was holding an empty whiskey bottle. It was then that Dean was aware of the dull throbbing headache deep in his skull. He opened his mouth to talk, but it was too dry. He swallowed and tried again.

"Sammy... what are you doing? I was sleeping." Dean rolled over to go back to sleep, but Sam shook him to keep him awake.

"Dean, you're gonna be late for work again if you don't get up." Sam said, still shaking Dean.

Dean opened his eyes slightly. "What are you talking about? My alarm hasn't even gone off yet."

"That's the problem," Sam sighed, "you never set the alarm last night."

Dean thought that was ridiculous, he always set the alarm, but, sure enough, the clock said 8:50 a.m. Dean's eyes flew open and he jumped out of bed, almost knocking Sam over in the process.

"Shit!" Dean exclaimed. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"I didn't notice the time-" Sam said.

"Dammit Sam, you know I can't lose this job! Great now I'll probably get fired." Dean interrupted.

"Dean I'm sorry-"

"Sorry isn't gonna help me keep this job!" Dean interrupted once more. Sam went quiet and Dean looked over at him. Dean saw the look of hurt on his face and felt the guilt creep in again.

"Shit, Sammy, I'm sorry. I just- you know I need this job, for us." Dean said, fumbling for an explanation.

Sam didn't say anything, he just nodded, looking down. Dean walked over to his little brother and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sammy, I'm sorry. We'll talk more when I get home, I promise, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said quietly, his eyes still looking down.

Dean wanted to say more, to make his brother understand that he wasn't really mad at him, but he was already late as it is.

"I'll see you at 5, Sam," Dean said grabbing his leather jacket and leaving the motel room.

Dean walked down two flights of stairs to get to the lobby and then exited, walking toward his 1967 Chevy Impala parked across the street. Dean smiled as he saw the car; he loved that thing more than anything, except Sam, of course. Dean got in and grinned more as he heard the roar of the engine. He pulled onto the road and watched for cops as he sped to try to make it to work on time.

Well, Dean made it to work, but he was late. Like always, the manager was waiting for him and chewed him out for being late again. Dean really didn't care, the manager was a hardass anyway. To be honest, the manager kind of reminded Dean of his Father, John.

It hadn't been too long ago that he and Sam had lost their father. John had gotten into a bad fight over some money and it didn't end too well. Sam was only fourteen and Dean had been eighteen. Their mother had died when Sam was a baby so he hadn't known her, but Dean had been four and he missed her. After their dad had died, Dean had to get a job to make sure Sam had everything he needed. There was no one else to take care of them, so they had to take care of themselves. Dean knew Sam missed their dad, but Dean didn't. He didn't miss him one bit. Sam never really knew the real John, the one who got rough when something went wrong. Dean had made sure Sam never had to see John when he was like that.

"Dean, are you even listening to me?" Dean's manager said, pulling Dean out of his reverie.

"Yeah, sure," Dean replied.

The manager just rolled his eyes and told Dean to get to work. He warned Dean that if he was late one more time this week, he would have no choice but to fire him. Dean moved to his register, preparing himself for yet another boring day. As Dean was setting up his register, he began to feel nauseous. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. This was gonna be a long day. God, Dean thought, I really need a drink.