"Sam?"
"Dean!"
In one stride, Sam was inside, hugging his brother. While they embraced, Ruthie put her hand to her mouth and tried to swallow the hard lump in her throat.
She'd known it was Sam, of course. She would never have told some random person about Dean. She wasn't an idiot, even though he seemed to assume she was. Sam had come into the pharmacy while she was talking with the pharmacist. He looked exhausted, shaggy and stiff, baggy eyes and scruffy whiskers. Like someone who'd been up all night, worrying. He'd set off all her Spidey senses. She'd gone right up to him and asked if his name was Sam. The sudden rush of color that had flushed his drawn face when she'd told him Dean was okay, the spark that lit his eyes from inside…she wouldn't forget it any time soon.
She probably should have put Dean out of his misery immediately, but she just couldn't help teasing him. He made it so easy.
Besides, it felt like so long since she'd had anyone to tease. Or talk to at all, for that matter.
Sam released Dean and shut the door. "So where were you? What happened?"
Ruthie grabbed the bag of supplies she'd bought at the pharmacy. "You can interrogate him while I patch him up, okay? Dean, sit down." She punctuated the order with a jab of her finger toward the nearest bed.
Sam's eyebrows arched high on his forehead, and he watched for Dean's response.
"Bossy, isn't she?" Dean said. But he obeyed.
Ruthie helped Dean out of the flannel and then, more carefully, the black t-shirt. He winced as the fabric grazed his chest. Ruthie stripped off his clumsy tape and pulled away the bloodied gauze.
Sam stepped forward, his forehead creased now. "Oh my God, Dean." His eyes snapped from the five red furrows to his brother's face. "Did it—?"
"Bite me? No."
Ruthie used a cotton pad to soak up the blood oozing from four ripped stitches, trying to keep her fascination from showing on her face. These guys were werewolf hunters. Oh, and vampire and zombie hunters. A shiver shook through her, and Dean looked up questioningly. "Chilly," she lied.
"Tell me you got it," Sam said.
"I got it. About an hour ago."
Sam frowned.
Dean started at the beginning, and for the first time, Ruthie heard how he'd ended up unconscious in her back yard. While he spoke, she cleaned the dried blood off of him again. Stitched his lacerations again—this time with unwaxed dental floss. She couldn't recall any other patient with such a high tolerance for pain. He seemed barely to notice the in and out of her needle, the floss drawing his torn skin tight over the deep slashes. The constellation of scars scattered across his arms and torso suggested that pain was a regular part of his life. He'd have impressive new ones added to the collection now.
"By the time I woke up in her cabin, the storm was over. I was stuck there."
Ruthie glanced up from positioning fresh gauze over Dean's chest. Sam was looking at her.
"Yeah," he told Dean. "I bet you were miserable."
"Hey, all I wanted the whole time was to find you." Dean jerked his head at Ruthie. "Tell him."
"It's true," she said, and Dean gave his brother a smug look. She smoothed on the last of the tape, took a seat on the edge of the bed, and gave Sam a smirk of her own. "Although it didn't seem to affect his appetite."
Sam's eyes widened, and his head swiveled to Dean.
"She means food, Sam! Food. She's a good cook, okay? Starving myself wasn't going to help you." Dean stood, marched across the room to his bag, and started pulling out clothes. "So where were you anyway? You look like hell."
Sam crossed his arms. "I looked for you for hours. When you didn't show at the end of the ravine, I went up the south side. The snow hid all your tracks. So I went back to the car, but you weren't there. By then it was too deep to go look for you anymore. I had to stay in the car for the rest of the day. And night. I had to shovel around the exhaust pipe every twenty minutes while it snowed so I could run the engine once in a while." He paused, as though giving Dean a chance to say something, but Dean gingerly pulled a white tee over his head and said nothing. "This morning a plow came by—well, a tractor. The guy cleared a path for me to get back on the road."
Ruthie's throat squeezed tight. Her eyes met Dean's for a moment, then his gaze dropped to the floor.
Dean pulled on a red flannel, and addressed Sam again. "Well, I'm just glad you weren't out in the woods all night."
"Oh, yeah. It was great. I just froze in the car for nineteen hours, worried the whole time that you were stuck out in the woods." He gave Dean a tight-lipped smile. "I'm so relieved you were in a nice warm cabin. Eating delicious food."
Dean waved a hand over his chest and side. "Yeah, Sam, I got off real easy this time."
"You still didn't tell me how you caught it."
Dean buttoned his shirt, looking down at his hands as he spoke. "It found us. They found us."
Sam unfolded his arms. "They?"
"We missed one. There were two left—that we know of. I got the first one after Ruthie gave it a hot chocolate shower. You should've seen her." He glanced over at her from his buttoning, one corner of his mouth tugging upward.
Warm tingles skittered through her belly. She pressed a hand to her stomach, then pulled a prescription bottle from her bag of supplies and shook out a pill. She held it out to Dean. "Here, take this. Antibiotic. I called in some favors with the pharmacist." She dropped it into his open hand, and he swallowed it without water.
"And the second?" Sam prompted.
"I'll tell you the rest on our way," Dean said. "We've got cleanup. Let's gear up."
Both men headed for the door. Ruthie stood to follow.
"We got this," Dean told her. "You stay here."
"What? No."
He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "You don't need to see that again. Any of it."
He was giving her the chance to be alone, and wasn't that what she'd been longing for? Wasn't that what she'd decided she needed, after everything that had happened last month? She really didn't want to see the red-splashed snow again, or the creature on her kitchen floor.
And yet, what she wanted now, more than anything, was not to be alone. More specifically, she wanted to stay with this fascinating, infuriating character right out of a YA fantasy novel, and his giant little brother. She wanted to learn everything about their impossible lives and watch them bicker like an old married couple. She wanted to help them, so she could see that impressed tug of Dean's mouth again, that spark brighten Sam's eyes.
She started to protest, but he cut her off.
"The second one could still be close to the cabin."
"Or it might be in town already. It could have spotted my truck."
His lips parted and his green eyes darted at the open door Sam had already exited.
"It could be watching the room right now, Dean."
He frowned and shifted, putting himself between her and the door. She was sure he didn't even realize he'd done it. He was so easy to read sometimes.
"Alright. Come on."
She followed the brothers across the parking lot toward the pharmacy. They led her to an old black Chevy with snow still piled on the hood and roof. Dean started sweeping snow off the trunk with his arm.
"Impala," she said. "'67?"
Dean straightened up, looking a little surprised. "Yeah, that's right."
"She's beautiful."
He beamed as though she'd just complimented his newborn baby. "She is, isn't she?" He popped the trunk, and her jaw dropped.
"What is all this stuff?"
He grabbed a box of ammo, and Sam took a scary-looking knife. "Tools of the trade."
"What's that?" She pointed at the weird white symbol painted over the inside of the trunk door.
He glanced at Sam. "That's probably a story for another time."
"Come on, Chrissy. I can handle it."
Dean slammed the trunk closed. Sam raised an eyebrow, and his lips curved. "Chrissy?"
"Story for another time," Dean repeated. "Let's go."
