Chapter 4: Swamp. Continuation 3
He turns on his side, apparently still feeling no pain, and sticks his nose into Sam's collarbone, draws in his scent, and then seems to go mad. Dean is tightly attached to his brother by his feverish body and begins to greedily kiss his neck, chin and chest - everything he can get.
- I was so scared for you, - he whispered at breaks, keeping his lips on Sam's skin. - When the leader found us in the den and chased you, I just didn't know what to do. I ran out of ammo. I was afraid I wouldn't have time to distract him. - Dean hugs his brother with all his might and takes it as if he didn't believe it was him.
Sam gently releases his hand, rewetting his towel, and gently wiping his back, where the sweat is flowing down:
- You saved my life, Dean, - he says.
- Will you stay with me? - the older man takes his nose over sensitive skin behind his ear and then bites it. - Stay, don't go. Please, Sammy, I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore. Please... - His whispering and pleading look at Sam makes me jump and shoot out of the room into the hallway. I slam the door tightly behind me and realize my cheeks are burning. I feel like I accidentally saw something so intimate that I couldn't look any of the Winchesters in the eye.
For a while I was standing in the half-black of the hallway listening, ashamed of it, but I can't do anything about it. They keep talking, Sam's voice is calm, Dean's feverish, his intonation scares me, I've never seen him like this before.
I'm crawling down a log wall on the floor and trying to settle down there with minimal comfort. The conversation gradually subsides, and the light of the lamp in the gaps between the logs at the entrance begins to shine in the company of the light of the approaching dawn. It's coming from there, but I don't give a damn. I'm not going back to the room anyway. Let me still hear most of what they say, I can't see them like this. Why - I can't even explain to myself.
As I fell asleep, I hear Dean asking Sam once again not to leave, to be with him. Sam promises him that again. It's weird, can't Dean think his brother would leave him at a time like this? Or is he asking for something else?
I don't understand...
***
We spend the next 24 hours waiting and constantly fearing. Dean starts to delirium again and then stops breathing so much that his breathing becomes completely superficial. Sam looks at Joseph with hope every time he approaches the elder Winchester to feel the pulse, but the old man is not in a hurry to please us with good predictions, he only carries more and more ointments and tinctures and sighs heavily, as if he feels guilty.
But another night later, Dena's temperature drops a little bit, and for the first time he really falls asleep, not just lies in a fainting delirium, and then Joseph tells us everything will be fine.
Sam doesn't step away from Dean, he's either lying on the bed with his brother, whispering quietly, or sitting next to him in a chair. I'd definitely suggest to Sam that he should be on duty in shifts so that he could get some sleep if he didn't know for sure that I would be sent away for a long time. Sam wouldn't let me near my brother. He looks like a wolf himself, guarding a wounded member of his pack, and even Joseph's medicine is wary. Sometimes I think that if it weren't for my presence, Sam would have ripped off Dean's shoulder bandage with his teeth and started licking his wound with his tongue. To my deepest surprise, Joseph tells me that it's better not to touch the brothers now than Dean will recover faster. I don't think he knows I've come to the same conclusion myself.
I spend the next few days outdoors in the open air, appearing in the room only towards nightfall. Dean is on the mend, and my help is no longer needed, so I let myself relax a little. The corpse of the monster mysteriously disappears, but I don't even think to ask where and with whose help it went.
I spend a lot of time with Mary, helping her with her household and even going to the woods to get mushrooms with her a couple of times, overcoming my fear. Forgotten, I sometimes call her Mathilde. She notices it, is embarrassed, but does not correct me. It's funny.
***
The hottie's dropping on day five. Dean is still too weak for us to think about the road, but exactly a week after the attack of the creature that I still prefer to call the wolf, so as not to hurt his own psyche, he is already recovering enough and even comes with us in the morning deep into the village - where the forest is thinning, and the old meadow begins. It wrinkles every time it moves, and Sam doesn't move away from it, fearing it all the time. I don't think it's necessary, Dean doesn't look like a man who's about to fall apart. But Sam doesn't seem to be afraid for him, and his brother, which surprises me especially, doesn't bother him at all. Even this morning, when Dean looked cheerful, Sam personally lubricated the edges of his wounds with herbal ointment and blew on it like a baby on a torn knee, even though Dean with his left hand reached for it himself.