Chapter title is from song by Chris Cornell.
62
Like A Stone – Chris Cornell
He'd been looking after Sam since before Sam could walk. A lot of it he didn't so much remember as he just knew; like that time when Sam scraped his knees raw learning how to ride a bike but tried to cover it up. Or that first time Sam broke his arm, how badly it had hurt when Sam said it was no big deal. And after all these years Sam still kept trying to hide shit from him, as if he wouldn't notice the pained twinge that went across Sam's face when the shovel in Sam's hands bounced off the frozen ground, trying to dig up the grave of one Margaret McGuire, angry ghost and ex-chef of the Little Red B&B, who liked her unfaithful fiancées filleted.
He shucked out of his jacket impatiently and took the shovel away from Sam, ignoring Sam's automatic protests, and shoved the shotgun he was holding into his little brother's hands.
"Just keep Julia Child off my back."
Sam straightened, a little too stiffly, moving the way Sam had moved the two or three days right after he'd gotten whacked across the ribs during that run-in with the Banshees.
Only there hadn't been any Banshees, this time.
His lips bent down hard. The wooden handle of the shovel creaked in protest when he rammed the blade into the ground with unnecessary force. From where she stood guard at the grave's headstone Zee threw him a look—cool it. His mouth turned down harder. With a booted foot he stomped the shovel blade into the unyielding soil, trying to work out the thing churning hot and agitated in his chest. It was six feet down to Ms. Margaret's bones, through cold ground as hard as rock, and any other day he'd have rock-paper-scissored Sam for the dubious honors. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at where Sam was standing by a headstone one over, Sammy's back too ramrod straight in the starlit darkness, overcompensating for his injury; his eyes scanning left and right and seeing nothing, his mind a thousand miles away.
He didn't bother asking, because he knew what Sam would say.
Everything's fine, Dean. See? It's nothing.
Sammy had always been a rotten liar.