„You can put the orange down," Dean tells him, shaken. Like it's very important that Sam does this. "Don't stare at me like this," he says and it is necessary to make note that it is Dean who stares or at least stares more, Sam hopes. "I can still handle a sandwich for you. Come on," he nudges. Sound some kind of stepford-perfect too much verve in this. Somehow sounds like he's empty inside, a thin crackable shell. It's terrifying and he wants to run. He looks down for a second and Dean's red mark taunts him. Dean's eyes follow the movement and he frowns, disappointed. For a moment Sam expects him to lash out at him with a hammer again and sing-song should've just taken the damned sandwich, Sammy. But he blinks and he blinks and nothing like that happens. Still, it's eerie and afterwards the world seems a little bit more godless. Everything speaks godless and lost in Dean's eyes, even though he tries to hide it. Dean abandons his arm. Shrugs. For a second it all is normal.
"Well then," Dean concludes and proceeds to smear butter roughly over the slice of bread. Sam watches his brother's hands half mesmerized, half wary and he knows, just knows it takes Dean too long. He's a hair away from making a hole in the bread, but Dean is probably too far away from here, from him, to be aware of this. Or to care. After what appears to be forever and a half, Dean absentmindedly takes another slice and repeats his task. He puts the two pieces on a plate, content with the result. He shifts to leave.
"That's it?" Sam asks suggestively. "That's not exactly a sandwich."
His eyes not leaving Dean's face, he easily reads the sudden rasp in his mind from his eyes, from how wild and afraid they are because he discovered something he shouldn't have. In this panic Sam reads a quiet, violent I fucked up.
"Not exactly sandwich hungry," Dean replies without missing a bit but the tremor in the corner of his lips tell Sam that Dean knows just as well that he messed up the entire song, every single note, with plain butter, he just screwed it. "So this will have to do."
"Instead of what?" he knows. But he just wants to find out what Dean will tell him now. Or in two days. Or in a week, if they even make it that long (something in Sam's guts tells him no and laughs ruthlessly in Dean's voice). Dean's silence makes him feel weak and powerless. He watches an answer, probably one syllable, decompose under Dean's tongue. His gaze is tired. He doesn't want to play anymore. So he grabs the un-sandwich like it's salvation on wheels and he bites into it, chewing slowly. Slowly enough for Sam to drop it.
"We'll get you through this," he assures instead and finds himself thinking of Cas. How different and selfishly calming it is to be hopeless together. He knows Dean isn't listening to him anyway, so he lets the idea root into him. Maybe it would be better if Cas were here. Maybe he's found something, he thinks, except that he knows that Cas didn't – cause if he did, there already would've been three phone calls about this and news Dean probably wouldn't care about anymore. Dean doesn't even play appearances right these days and they both know there is one thing on his mind only ever since he fucking touched it again. In all honesty, if it were Sam's call to make, he'd probably let Cain continue with his spree. Later he'd tell himself at nights that his reasons weren't all that pathetically selfish; that a Dean tainted like this is a beast worse than the walking plague that intended to cleanse the world.
Dean leaves the kitchen, not gracing Sam's statement with a word. Walks like a mannequin.
It's Sam who ends up calling Cas.