"That's something, at least," Sam said, shooting Cas a small but genuine and slightly teasing smile. "Glad to know you're not taking any more risks with fire than are strictly necessary."
He started in on examining the stove, a little grateful for the distraction of something to do while they talked. Not that he minded spending time with Cas, but he was finding it harder to compartmentalize their current situation than he normally might have-- although it was hard to know, really, how he would have handled it differently under other circumstances. He only had the evidence of the show to work from, but Sam-on-TV had years of different experiences under his belt and seemed far older and more broken than just the years themselves would suggest. On the other hand, he'd also managed to keep his temper throughout the whole last season, while simply watching it had made Sam in his current state lose his cool more than once.
He knew what the difference was. Here, he'd spent the last twenty months being open, vulnerable, and honest. To put it another way, he'd finally kicked the nasty habit of lying-- to Dean, to himself, to everyone else around him. Pretending to be something he wasn't, even if it was only that he wasn't upset or worried about the situation, felt like a backslide.
But he didn't have a choice. So he went back to doing what he'd gotten so good at doing before coming here, lying to himself so that he could lie to his brother and his friend, telling himself that as soon as he figured out how to fix Dean, he'd stop. And maybe that was a lie, too, the kind of lie every addict told themselves when they put off quitting until some future point. But somehow it was the truth that seemed harder to quit.
"She probably will, then," he said, from behind the stove. "She doesn't tend to say things she doesn't mean."