A/N: Thanks for all of the reviews guys, got a bit of action and a bit of plot in this one for you.

Chapter Eleven

When Dean woke up it took him a moment to register that there was a small but extremely persistent marching band keeping a beat inside his head.

He had spent the previous evening in a fairly unscrupulous bar and had managed to win a considerable sum before abandoning the pool table in favour of getting absolutely paraletic. He could taste the remnants of vomit in the back of his throat still and he groaned as he rolled out of bed to satisfy his urgent need for hydration.

Although the water he had chugged had stopped his mouth feeling like a desert, he couldn't say it was doing much else for him. What he needed was a hair of the dog.

He struggled into the first clothes that had the misfortune of coming under his hands, cursing his seizing shoulder and headed out the door in search of vodka and possibly some form of breakfast that consisted of large quantities of grease and a host of other unhealthy elements.

His shoulder had been feeling a lot better - emphasis on the past tense - but he guessed that playing pool for hours was probably fairly detrimental to the healing process... And he guessed that quickie with the redhead in the bathroom hadn't helped either.

In fact he kinda remembered Sam warning him off straining himself on the table, but once the booze was flowing Dean was like a juggernaut: after he had decided to do something there was not a lot anyone could do to stop him.

As he sat at the counter in the diner, bloody mary in front of him, he couldn't help but stare at his phone. He should call his dad, his dad ought to know. But how could he tell his dad the news when he couldn't break it to the sad sack who didn't even have the balls to get it on with a girl who was clearly head over heels for him. A really hot girl who was head over heels for him. Lucky bastard.

Dean finished his breakfast and ambled back to the motel. He dialed his dad as he walked, maybe he had mellowed somewhat over the last few years? If he even answered this time. Dean doubted it but thought it was worth a try anyway. The ringing was eventually replaced by an emotionless voice tell him to leave a message after the beep and Dean hung up disappointed. He started walking again and eventually made it back to the motel where he pushed himself through the door and collapsed back onto his bed.

He lazily kicked off his boots while trying to conserve the inertia of as many body parts as possible, and felt himself falling back to sleep. Hopefully he would feel less like roadkill when he woke up again.

He didn't know how long he had been asleep for when he was rudely disturbed by someone knocking on his door. "Piss off!" He growled unknowing who he was speaking to but not caring, he couldn't think of anyone or any circumstances that would change his answer.

The knocking paused momentarily but resumed again the same regular beat which was steadily boring it's way through Dean's skull. He groaned and rolled out of bed, marched over to the door and yanked it open.

"You bastard, I told you to piss off." Dean snarled.

Sam stood there his expression turning amused for a moment as he took in the state of Dean, before reverting back to serious, "It's quite late, we need to make a move."

"I'm sure we'll survive one day here, we've done it before," Dean countered tiredly, although he was feeling a little better than before, he still felt tired and achy.

Sam cringed in response, "I really don't think that's a good idea. We should get going as soon as we can."

"And what would you know geek boy? I worked my ass off last night getting us extra money so we can carry on living in the standard you've become accustomed to and now I'm hanging out of my ass. We're staying put." Dean's already vile mood was rapidly declining even further and he hoped that would be an end to the unwanted conversation.

"Dean we really need to keep moving. I get you're suffering but we can't stay here."

"Dude chill the hell out! You're acting like we've got the FBI on our tails. My life is hard enough without dealing with a neurotic geek boy who's only hardships in life have been not being able to talk to girls! Now leave me to my hangover."

Dean saw Jess exit their room looking concerned but he didn't want to talk to her either and made to slam the door in Sam's face but Sam threw out a hand, "Dude, are you always such a jerk when you're hungover?"

"Only when you're being a little bitch. Stop freaking out, the Flaming Arrows won't catch up with us... And even if they do, I'm the one who got shot last time, if anyone has the right to freak out its me."

Sam frowned disapprovingly but Dean didn't care, like he had any right to judge. Dean was the one who had lived with the gang for six years, Dean was the one who would know better than anyone the risks of staying put.

"Can you please stop being a such stubborn jackass about this? We have to go, the gang will find us - and soon." Sam replied, the barest hint of desperation creeping into his voice. And suddenly Dean was struck with the image of Sam as a whiney toddler, he could imagine a young Sam complaining to Dean about some vague childhood issue or to his mom that he was afraid of the dark...

And suddenly Dean couldn't take it any more. It wasn't fair. "Yeah? Well you can take your bad feeling and shove it up your ass."

Dean succeeded in slamming the door this time, turning away from the world and towards the bed. He didn't hear the screeching of tyres over his grumbling and Sam shouting through the door at him. He did, however, hear the gunshots.

Stiffening, Dean listened to three bangs before he stumbled hurriedly over to the bedside table, snatched his gun off the surface and ran to fling open the door. He barely noticed Sam picking himself up off the floor and kneeling behind Dean's baby, gun in hand and firing. He barely noticed Jess who, once she had been relieved of Sam's not insignificant weight, was taking cover right beside him. Dean only focused on shooting his bastard ex-allies before they shot him.

Again.

He managed to hit just a couple - he didn't hit them anywhere serious - before they drove off. Not that they could have easily approached through the fire from two guns, but Dean still felt the rush of adrenalin surge through him.

Once they had disappeared from view, Dean rounded on Sam, "What the hell dude? What was all that fancy shooting back at Sid's place for if you can't hit the mark when it counts!? You're freaking useless when the pressure's on! All you did was hit one of their tyres and put out the windows of their car! You didn't even get anyone in the foot at least!"

Sam looked at him blankly. Absolutely useless in a crisis.

Dean sighed and ran a hand roughly through his hair. He huffed and took two heavy steps towards the door before spinning on his heel to face Sam again, "Fine, you can have your way. I'll grab my stuff then we can go."

Dean tried to massage his headache away as he shovelled the few belongings he had unpacked and strewn across the room back into his bag. It was just his luck to be tracked down on the day he had a raging hangover. He really did not need this shit today.

Once he had finished he threw his bag into his baby before throwing himself inside and waiting for the other two. He sat stewing in his own grumpiness for just a few minutes before he became impatient.

He gave up waiting in the car and stalked over to the door, banging his ire into the wood. When he saw Jess appear in the door he was surprised, and even more so to see Sam sat on the bed in the corner, turning to face the door and just pulling his t-shirt back on.

"Really? You were begging me to leave earlier and now you're sat here getting your rocks off? Screw you! Just because they've driven off doesn't mean they won't come back with back up, so get your heads in the real world and down from that little college kid cloud you seem to be living on and get the hell in the car!" Dean ranted.

As he had been talking Jess had been looking more and more outraged and Sam had silently risen and gathered their bags, his expression stony and getting worse as he walked to the door.

Just as Jess opened her mouth to make what Dean was sure would have been some devastatingly acerbic retort, Sam reached her shoulder and said with a forced calm, "Doesn't matter. We're ready to go now."

Jess looked up at Sam and gasped his name in protest but Sam quelled her with a short "It's fine," and pushed past her out to the car.

Dean rolled his eyes as he climbed back into his impala, seriously who the hell thinks being shot at is romantic?

Dean remained bad tempered and foul mouthed all day, in the back of his mind he knew he was making a mountain out of a molehill, but it had been a long life and it was all clearly catching up with him.

Sam kept intermittently shifting in his seat which would have only been mildly irritating in itself even if Jess hadn't leant forward in her seat and worried over him like a new parent every time he so much as twitched. After a few hours of this Dean had abandoned his former pastime of secretly ogling Jess and inserting her into his erotic fantasies in favour of wanting to strangle her every time she opened her mouth.

Sam had steadfastly answered every concerned enquiry into his health and comfort with some variation of I'm fine but that apparently did little to dampen Jess' enthusiasm for her self appointed role as nurse. It was sickening. Dean's mood had taken an even more dramatic decline in the face of it all and he couldn't bring himself to care if he sounded bitchy.

It was weird how the pair had gone from barely interacting the day before to... this. Dean was a little curious about it but didn't want to encourage Jess to open her mouth any more than necessary.

It wasn't fair, in what world did the nerd ever get the hot girl? It was totally against the natural order.

Sam called it a day fairly early and Dean skipped the standard diner meal in favour of another bar. He knew that he would probably end up in the same position the next day - feeling like hell had swallowed him up and then thought better of it and had consequently spat him back out, only to be forced to watch the nauseating displays of thinly veiled affection from Sam and Jess - but right now he needed to take the edge off the suffering he'd already endured so he escaped to the bar as soon as he was able.

He downed two measures of whiskey right off the bat and shivered as the delicious burn slithered down his throat, and sipped his third as he waited for his burger with all the trimmings. He felt himself relax as he felt the whiskey settle nicely into his veins and his burger in his stomach. He was a man of simple pleasures, he knew that; he suspected it was probably because he had learned sometime in his childhood that simple pleasures were the only pleasures he was likely to enjoy, so he did. As frequently as he could.

With that maudlin thought echoing around his head Dean ordered another whiskey from the waitress passing his table with a smile and a wink. When she returned with his glass, leaning over the table more than was necessary and trailing her fingers over his after she had set the glass down while murmuring to just let her know if he needed anything else, Dean saw another simple pleasure on the horizon.

Waking up the next day Dean felt the pressure of his indulgences the night before thrumming behind his eyeballs, but at least it wasn't as bad as the day before. Unfortunately none of this improved his mood much when he caught sight of Sam and Jess, the only thing that did lift him a little was getting in the driver's seat for the first time in far too long.

He realised he might be revelling in the moment a little too much when Sam looked at him with raised eyebrows and said, flicking a finger between Dean and the steering wheel, "Do you two need to be alone for a little while?"

Feeling his short-lived good mood flee, Dean snarked, "You're the last person who should be telling me to get a room."

He gunned the engine and roared onto the open road, trying to ignore his irksome yet necessary travelling companions.

They had stopped for lunch and Jess had just climbed into the backseat when Sam pulled him aside and said quietly, "You ok? You're um... You seem a bit tense."

"Oh you think I'm tense? If it wasn't bad enough that I'm being hunted by people who I spent the last six years living and working with, I've got to sit and watch you two love birds dance around each other - and if I somehow manage to get out of this giant mess alive without being permanently maimed I will have nowhere to go. What are you gonna do when this is all over, huh? You and Jess will go back to your cosy little college lives and you're gonna get together and I really don't need you shoving your perfect little lives down my throat!" Dean retorted.

"I know Jess is probably getting a little over enthusiastic but I think it's her way of coping with the stress of the situation. What do you want me to do? I'm not going to tell her to piss off." Sam replied letting his irritation show through.

"Well I would find that extremely satisfying."

"Why are you being such a jerk?" Sam asked, honest curiosity working its way in besides his irritation.

"Well why are you being such a little bitch? What is your problem? Do you just like the attention? Is running for your life not giving you enough of an adrenalin rush?"

"Yeah, you know what Dean? You're right, I set this whole thing up as a way to get attention!" Sam replied with enough sarcasm to sink a battleship.

"Oh do me a favour! I can't wait until all this is over and I don't have to look at you two ever again! At least I won't be gagging every five minutes once you two to go back to your perfect little lives!" Dean said bitterly.

"Believe me Dean, my life is far from perfect."

"Yeah let's see about that shall we? You get to go to college, you have a girl mooning after you - who is way out of your league, by the way - your dad didn't kick you out the moment you turned eighteen and your mom didn't abandon you when you were a toddler." Dean was heaving by the end of his rant, more from the weight of repressed emotion rather than as a result of any physical exertion.

"...Dean?" Sam asked cautiously.

"All my life I've wondered why my own mother would leave me, I've spent years trying to convince myself that it wasn't me she was running away from, just being a mother." Dean gave a humourless laugh, "but now I know that's not true."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well as it turns out my mom's maiden name was Campbell. She was Mary Campbell and she was a few months pregnant when she ran out on us!" Dean spat, "After all these years of wondering, I finally find out that she was off living her best life with you."

Sam blinked as he put the pieces together, "Are you saying..."

"There was a reason Kaiser gave me your address. He wanted me to hunt you down because you're my brother." Dean said tiredly as he ran out of emotional energy.

Sam stood stock still as he continued to process, when suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Wait, when did you find this out?"

"You know that first day when we taught Jess how to shoot?" Dean said, feeling a trace of guilt as he did so.

"What? That was ages ago! You've known all this time and you didn't tell me?"

"What difference does it make? Once this is over you and Jess will go back to your lives and I... I guess I'll have to find somewhere to start over."

"Oh grow up." Sam snapped, jolting Dean out of his self pitying reverie... And back into anger.

"Grow up? I had to grow up way too early, dad wasn't exactly an outstanding single parent after mom broke his heart. How do you think I ended up joining a gang in the first place?"

Sam dragged a hand down his face, "I can't believe I had a brother all this time."

Dean jumped at the thunk of the door of his beloved impala opening and he was reminded that he and Sam had had an audience. Jess half stepped out of the car and leaned on the top of the door to ask, "What are you guys talking about?"

Both boys turned to look at her. Sam hesitated a beat before clearing his throat and saying , "Dean, ah... Dean's just told me some rather big news."

"Ok..." Jess trailed off suspiciously, "And what is the big news?"

"We're brothers, ok?" Dean snapped, "The whole stinking reason you guys got dragged into this is because we're brothers."

"What? But how?" Jess gaped, staring disbelievingly between the two.

"Well when two people love each other very much-" Dean's sarcastic remark was cut off by Jess snapping out in an equally biting tone.

"Bite me, Dean. I'm being serious, how the hell are you two brothers? "

"Well apparently Kaiser wanted to get creative while teaching me a lesson - he must have thought going after my dad was a bit obvious - so he had someone look for my mom, but they found Sam instead!" Dean raged.

Dean paced a few steps away from the car, needing the space. Sam had slipped into his own little world somewhere in the middle of Dean's diatribe, sitting on the bonnet with his hands clasped between his knees while Jess hovered just on the edge of arm's reach.

"It's not fair!" Dean burst out.

"What's not fair?" Sam asked dully.

"I always wanted a little brother and when I finally get one it turns out to be some holier than thou geek boy who likes to eat salads and goes for runs."

"Well it's not like I was over here hoping for a big brother with anger issues and a penchant for committing felonies." Sam retorted.

"Shut up. Sometimes people don't have a choice."

"You always have a choice," Jess countered. "Like right now you could choose to stop acting like finding out you have a brother is the worst thing in the world."

"It's not the fact that I have a brother that's getting to me, it's the fact that mom abandoned me and dad and chose him instead! What would've happened if she had chosen me? Would I be the one in college right now? ...did you ever even wonder where your dad was or were you happy with whatever replacement mom picked?" Dean directed his last question to Sam.

"Dude, now you're not being fair."

It seemed the three had reached a stalemate, Dean could have raged for hours about the cruel hand of fate mistreating him for all these years, but what good would it do? And it wasn't exactly like Sam and Jess would understand... He felt the heat of his anger gradually cool and said instead, "We should get going. We need to get some miles under our belts or the Flaming Arrows will catch up to us for sure."

He climbed in behind the wheel and once his passengers were in, started off down the road. He heard Sam draw in a breath to speak but Dean quickly turned the music up before Sam could start another argument.

After a few hours on the road, Dean realised he was straying dangerously close to where his father lived. He hadn't even realised how far east they had gone. Before he could react to his conflicting feelings the faint sound of a ringtone echoed barely audible over the rambunctious music.

Sam dug his phone out of his pocket and answered it turning the music in the car down to a level that would allow him to hear the person on the other end of the line.

"Hello? ...Bobby, what's up?" Sam sat up straighter in his seat as if that would help him hear better, "Oh. No that's ok. Is it just Rufus joining you? ...Ha ha, well try not to kill each other... Yeah, yeah I'm ok... No, really I'm fine... Yeah, stay safe."

"Who was that?" Dean asked.

"Bobby."

"And who the hell is Bobby? He the guy mom left dad for?"

"Hey Dean, I get that you're angry, believe me, so am I. But there's no need to be such a jerk about it."

"I'll stop being a jerk when you quit being a little bitch."

"Now you're just proving my point."

"Guys!" Jess shouted from the backseat, causing both boys to turn to look at her, "You're arguing like children!"

Dean quickly turned back to face the road, followed by Sam who was looking fairly contrite as he turned to sit forward.

"Fine." Dean huffed, "Is he though?"

"No." Sam replied softly, fondness colouring his tone, "Bobby is just an old friend who would look after me sometimes; I called him uncle when I was young."

There was a lull in the conversation but Dean hadn't had his curiosity satisfied yet, "So what about mom? What's she like now?"

"Dean," Sam sighed, "I don't think this is a conversation we should be having while you're driving. Can we wait until we stop for the night?"

"Why?" Dean demanded suspiciously. "What is it? Why can't you just tell me now?"

"Because you seem like the kinda guy that doesn't take bad news very well, and you're probably gonna want a drink or two." Sam gave Dean a look that dared him to protest otherwise.

"Well that just fills me with confidence," Dean muttered instead.

He looked for the signs pointing out the next town and grimaced when he was the name of his hometown. Well, he thought, they would have to meet each other eventually, why not in the middle of a crisis?