"The Road Goes Ever On" (26/30) (Sam/Dean)
The Road Goes Ever On (26/30)
(2500 words)
Warnings: Teenchesters (Sam is 16, Dean is 20)
Alternate reality/pre-series.
Rated: Adult (Mild Wincest, natural/supernatural violence, disturbing themes)
Links to previous installments under the cut.
(1) * (2) * (3) * (4) * (5) * (6) * (7) * (8) * (9) * (10) * (11) * (12) * (13) * (14) * (15) * (16) * (17) * (18) * (19) * (20) * (21) * (22) * (23) * (24) * (25) *
Twenty-Six
"I know how to end this. If you help me."
***
Sam blinks at Dean, so obviously taken aback that Dean would laugh if he wasn't too worn out to do more than grin. "What, you didn't think I could do it?" He pokes Sam in the chest. "I'm offended." God damn, but it feels good to see someone smile, even if Sam winces and smacks him. It's only half-hearted, and his hand lays itself to rest over Dean's heart afterwards, warm in the freezing cold of the deep gray sky and sullen early morning.
"You scared me out of my mind," Sam says, looking at his hand, not at Dean's face. Hiding his eyes.
"Yeah. I know." Something breaks inside Dean's chest, some kind of wall coming down. "God. Sam." Dean pulls Sam down, clenching his arms tight around his brother. He needs this, and he lets himself have it, a minute to breathe, and if that means he's breathing in the dense smells Sam carries with him heavy as a cloak, so frigging much the better.
Sam lets Dean take it. Doesn't fight. Presses his nose to Dean's collarbone; Dean figures Sam's giving himself what he needs, too. Good for both of them. He lets it go on until his hands have -- almost -- stopped shaking, until he smells more of Sam than of burning meat and ash -- almost -- until Sam's ragged breathing has drowned out the sounds of screaming and hoofbeats.
When Dean lets Sam go, he tugs Sam's T-shirt back into place. Sam's a mess, all drying snot and tears in the dimness of the light, old man's eyes in a kid's face. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand, makes a face, and seems to breathe easier again. "Dean…" he starts, hesitant. "What happened? What did you dream about?"
Dean looks away, bitter ash in his nose and throat. A hell of a lot is what I saw. Things I don't want you to know about. Things I can't -- won't -- tell you, is what he thinks.
What he says is, "I saw how she died. She showed me."
Sam's face wrinkles with concern. "Jesus. How bad?"
"Wasn't good." Dean wipes his hand over his nose and mouth, almost unconsciously, too late to stop himself when he notices. The earth beneath him is freezing, sharp with chips of rock, and he can't wait any longer. "Help me up."
"Are you crazy? No! You can't get up yet."
"Have to. If you don't help, I'll do it on my own."
"Dean --" Sam's lips clamp shut. He sits back on his heels. Dean gets how to interpret him now. He's not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. He's worried sick. About Dean.
Dean wonders, briefly, just how bad he must look right now. Hell. Doesn't matter. "You gonna give me a hand now?"
Sam's chin juts out as he shakes his head, but he stands with only a small wince at the pull on his wounded leg, and holds his hand out for Dean to take.
Dean grasps his brother by the hand and lets Sam pull him to his feet. He doesn't overbalance so that he falls slightly against Sam, but leans into him and does this on purpose: he shoves his fingers through Sam's hair, the sweat-crusted curls tangled and fighting him, and pulls Sam down to him. Sam's surprised by what Dean wants and their teeth clack together, a jarring that draws a hiss from both.
You're my brother, Dean thinks, pressing his mouth to Sam's. More than, but that's enough, and I don't care. You're not like what I saw, and whatever you've got in you, you're not ending up like Benjamin. I'm not gonna go out like Joey. I'm swearing that on my own life. I'll take care of you, Sam. Always.
"Yeah, you too," Sam says, rush of warm air in Dean's mouth, on his lips, Sam's hands hovering around Dean's waist before settling on his hips, fingers splayed wide and grasping him firmly.
"I said that out loud?"
Sam half-laughs; Dean's face tingles from the change in temperature from Sam's close body heat. "Yep."
Dean thinks, for maybe a second, about being embarrassed before discarding any shame with a screw that. He licks Sam's lips, cleaning off traces of salt and the faint coppery tang of blood. Washes him clean.
God, he'd love to stay here forever, but he can't. They have work to do. And later… later's later; they'll take care of the rest then.
"I told you I knew how to take care of this. We need to do it now." Dean studies Sam and he's fierce about what he sees there. Sam's his. Now more than ever, because history won't repeat itself. He won't let it. And it starts with laying this ghost -- Hannah -- to rest.
"You with me?"
The right side of Sam's mouth lifts. "Try and get rid of me."
"No way in hell."
Sam's grin widens. "Okay." Then, it fades and he bites the inside of his cheek. "It's worse than what you're telling me, isn't it?"
Dean falters. He licks his lips, rough on the dry skin. "Sam, please don't ask me that. Okay?"
"No." Sam shakes his head. "Don't worry. I don't want to know."
So Sam can learn. But he's not done yet.
"I trust you," Sam says, simply, and Dean's floored.
As if he knows Dean's going to be speechless, Sam leaves it there and shifts from brother to hunter, a change maybe only visible to Dean's eyes, but still there. He draws himself upright, shoulders squaring, if rounded a little from the smaller weight he carries.
One dime slips, unnoticed by Sam but noticed by Dean, from Sam's pocket, clinking to earth and ice with a harmless chime. "Tell me what to do."
Dean stares at the coin at Sam's feet. Oh.
Okay, that makes it different.
"Follow me. And don't ask questions. I'm thinking." Dean moves carefully past Sam, a flash of eye contact passing between them as they bump shoulders and kick aside hailstones, a moment in which Sam frowns and Dean beckons.
Dean knows that Sam can't see Hannah. He's never been able to feel her, or to hear her. Only what she sends, like the snake, or the coins she uses to lay a trail in a silver plea for help.
Sam has no idea she's there, but Dean does. She's a cold whisper of wind at his back, hovering almost silently with tendrils wrapped around his ribs.
"Please," she croons in Dean's ear. "Let me save you."
Dean sets his jaw. "I'll take you to him."
***
With Sam walking behind him, quiet as the dawn, and the chill of Hannah between them, Dean lets himself remember and figure out where to go. What he saw in his dream. All his dreams.
Traveling in the real world is different in a hundred different ways, everything from the crumbling remains of the shanty falling down around them -- Dean's careful not to look up, now that he knows why it's so warped and twisted from heat -- to the slickly rolling, dangerous hailstones to pick through, obscuring the landscape -- but Dean knows where he's going -- and through the door, its frame charred and tilted at a crazy angle. Dean stretches his legs wide to step over the rotted lintel where Benjamin fell; Sam doesn't ask why.
Dean's seen this path twice now, although he didn't get it until Sam stood up and that last coin fell. He saw it as Saul walked it, and he saw it before, with a line of burning silver coins, thirteen of them, pointing to Sam.
Sam, who Hannah thinks is Benjamin, same as she thinks Dean is her Joey.
Dean presses his lips firmly together and although he would give a fortune not to see it all again in his mind, he uses what he's seen to guide his steps. In the gloomy gray dawn, it's a short walk over ice and earth and tangled weeds, and no one who didn't know where Dean's heading would ever be able to see it as a path at all. But Dean knows, and that'll be all they need.
It's not far, and then they're there, the makeshift grave Dean remembers too damn well, the place where Saul -- the demon -- scratched up some earth with breaking fingernails and kicked the dirt over Benjamin's body. The sweetgrass has long since died, choked on itself. Nothing left but a heavy, impenetrable tangle that no longer smells of faint vanilla in the sun, but of decaying weeds.
Dean goes to his knees on the packed earth. He slips his silver knife out of its place in his belt and grasps the handle; it's at home in his hand. Feels right. "Sam? Be careful of yourself. Keep a watch out."
"You think she might --?" Sam asks, maybe a little unsteady, forehead furrowed with worry. Dean can't blame him.
"Maybe."
"Is what's under there what's keeping her here?" Sam nudges the snarled old sweetgrass with the toe of his boot. He shivers, turning his face to the dark gray sky. "I think I smell snow."
"Yeah. It's colder." Hannah's worried. Dean senses the difference now he knows how to read her. She claws at his shoulders, wanting him to come away. Doesn't break the skin, but the sting is no less for all that.
She might not know what this is -- she didn't see, she was already dead by then -- but it's what she's been looking for.
The sharp silver blade of Dean's knife cuts through the sweetgrass while Sam hovers at Dean's back, watching and waiting. Dean focuses on cutting, tearing the grass in double handfuls when he's slices holes open. The nauseating stink of mold and rot clings thickly to Dean's hands, getting up his nose.
He doesn't stop. His knees ache and his hands are scored with a dozen or more grass cuts by the time he peels back the final matted layer over the dirt.
"It's over, Hannah," Dean mutters. "I'll show you. You can rest. It's okay." He tucks the knife back in his belt and starts to dig, the cold ground fighting him.
"Let me help," Sam offers, starting to go to one knee. "I'm going to help," he revises, scratching up deeper furrows of dirt than Dean's managed so far. "Dean?"
Dean wipes his forehead on the back of his arm, a slick of dirt smearing over his skin. He wants to say no. He doesn't.
Together, they dig.
At the first sight of bones, Sam rocks back on his heels fast. "Her son?" he asks. Dean would shout a warning, damn it, should have thought of that before, but too late. Hannah's heard him as well as Dean did.
The rush of her presence flickers, dwindling to a candle. Dean can see her in his mind's eye, her bitten wrist pressed to her mouth, huge scared eyes with the whites around the brown fixed on the shallow grave and the scraps of skull that are all that's left.
She quiets even more, the candle dying to a pinpoint.
Dean shivers in the sudden absence of cold. He rubs his arms, chafing up the flannel, and twists to look behind him, around him. "Hannah?"
A hush, a pause of nothing, a breath --
All hell breaks loose.
Hannah's scream rocks the world, tilting it on its axis; Dean doesn't know he's fallen until he's on his back in the dirt.
No, no, no!
"This is what you wanted! Benjamin's gone," Dean shouts, trying to struggle up. "I showed you, he's gone! That's what happened to him!" The wind pins Dean's arm down when he tries to point at the shallow-dug hole in the dirt under the sweetgrass. "He can't hurt you anymore!"
Hannah draws a deep breath, sucking the air away from them with the force of her emotion -- there's a horrible silence and stillness -- Dean hopes, he hopes --
Hannah screams, and all around Dean and Sam, the hailstones explode. Shards of ice shriek past them, around them, drawing lines of blood over the backs of Dean's hands when he protects his eyes only just in time.
"Sam?" he bellows, blinded. The arrows of ice give way to harder, colder air, stealing his volume. "Sam, you hurt?"
"No," Sam returns right away, thank God, or not, because when Dean looks from under his hand he can see Hannah standing over Benjamin's bones, her mouth open in the keening that has all the pain she lacked when she burned. He sees her from head to toe, from her snarled brown hair to her dress sodden with old blood and her bare, curled feet.
"What is it?" Sam shouts to be heard over the shrieking wind blasting around them. Dean wrenches over on his stomach in time to see the wind attack Sam, sending him staggering on his awkward lanky legs, falling. His hair whips over his eyes and plasters itself there, a dense curtain there's no way he can see through. "Dean! What did we do wrong?"
"I don't know!" And he doesn't. This should have been it, this should have put her to rest, why isn't she --"Tell me what's wrong!"
The wind picks up in answer, angry shrieking. The clouds above them shake and quiver, threatening to burst with the heaviness of hail and ice and snow and rain, giving birth in pain to sons of death.
"What do you want? Tell me!" Dean tries to shield his face with his arms, tries to get to Sam, fails at both. The wind's too strong, keeping them apart. Hannah's grip is tight and unforgiving and frostbitten at his waist.
"My son," she cries in Dean's ear, pitiful, mother's mourning that won't be quenched. "Stay with me. I want my son!"
Dean opens his mouth, cracked lips parting on an argument, the corners stinging sharp as the skin breaks. He inhales, needing the air to argue with her -- inhales, and can't stop. Ice funnels down his throat, into his lungs, expanding them taut. His ribs flare with pain and his heart twists, wrenches, stuttering with fear and shock.
"Stay with me," Hannah hisses, wrenching Dean's hair back with her frozen fingers. "I won't let you go."
Dean's lips are frozen; he knows they've gone blue, that his skin's gray with no oxygen. He fights not to fall, forehead in the dirt, shocked and howling inside along with the wind and with Hannah.
Hannah could go on. But she won't. She still hasn't found who's really keeping her here. She didn't, can't see it. Can't, won't accept it. If there's light she's put it out because she'd rather live in the dark where she doesn't have to face the truth.
They've found one son. Not two.
She wants Joey, not Benjamin, and she'll kill Dean if that's what it takes now to keep him.
***
Continues here.
(2500 words)
Warnings: Teenchesters (Sam is 16, Dean is 20)
Alternate reality/pre-series.
Rated: Adult (Mild Wincest, natural/supernatural violence, disturbing themes)
Links to previous installments under the cut.
(1) * (2) * (3) * (4) * (5) * (6) * (7) * (8) * (9) * (10) * (11) * (12) * (13) * (14) * (15) * (16) * (17) * (18) * (19) * (20) * (21) * (22) * (23) * (24) * (25) *
Twenty-Six
"I know how to end this. If you help me."
***
Sam blinks at Dean, so obviously taken aback that Dean would laugh if he wasn't too worn out to do more than grin. "What, you didn't think I could do it?" He pokes Sam in the chest. "I'm offended." God damn, but it feels good to see someone smile, even if Sam winces and smacks him. It's only half-hearted, and his hand lays itself to rest over Dean's heart afterwards, warm in the freezing cold of the deep gray sky and sullen early morning.
"You scared me out of my mind," Sam says, looking at his hand, not at Dean's face. Hiding his eyes.
"Yeah. I know." Something breaks inside Dean's chest, some kind of wall coming down. "God. Sam." Dean pulls Sam down, clenching his arms tight around his brother. He needs this, and he lets himself have it, a minute to breathe, and if that means he's breathing in the dense smells Sam carries with him heavy as a cloak, so frigging much the better.
Sam lets Dean take it. Doesn't fight. Presses his nose to Dean's collarbone; Dean figures Sam's giving himself what he needs, too. Good for both of them. He lets it go on until his hands have -- almost -- stopped shaking, until he smells more of Sam than of burning meat and ash -- almost -- until Sam's ragged breathing has drowned out the sounds of screaming and hoofbeats.
When Dean lets Sam go, he tugs Sam's T-shirt back into place. Sam's a mess, all drying snot and tears in the dimness of the light, old man's eyes in a kid's face. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand, makes a face, and seems to breathe easier again. "Dean…" he starts, hesitant. "What happened? What did you dream about?"
Dean looks away, bitter ash in his nose and throat. A hell of a lot is what I saw. Things I don't want you to know about. Things I can't -- won't -- tell you, is what he thinks.
What he says is, "I saw how she died. She showed me."
Sam's face wrinkles with concern. "Jesus. How bad?"
"Wasn't good." Dean wipes his hand over his nose and mouth, almost unconsciously, too late to stop himself when he notices. The earth beneath him is freezing, sharp with chips of rock, and he can't wait any longer. "Help me up."
"Are you crazy? No! You can't get up yet."
"Have to. If you don't help, I'll do it on my own."
"Dean --" Sam's lips clamp shut. He sits back on his heels. Dean gets how to interpret him now. He's not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. He's worried sick. About Dean.
Dean wonders, briefly, just how bad he must look right now. Hell. Doesn't matter. "You gonna give me a hand now?"
Sam's chin juts out as he shakes his head, but he stands with only a small wince at the pull on his wounded leg, and holds his hand out for Dean to take.
Dean grasps his brother by the hand and lets Sam pull him to his feet. He doesn't overbalance so that he falls slightly against Sam, but leans into him and does this on purpose: he shoves his fingers through Sam's hair, the sweat-crusted curls tangled and fighting him, and pulls Sam down to him. Sam's surprised by what Dean wants and their teeth clack together, a jarring that draws a hiss from both.
You're my brother, Dean thinks, pressing his mouth to Sam's. More than, but that's enough, and I don't care. You're not like what I saw, and whatever you've got in you, you're not ending up like Benjamin. I'm not gonna go out like Joey. I'm swearing that on my own life. I'll take care of you, Sam. Always.
"Yeah, you too," Sam says, rush of warm air in Dean's mouth, on his lips, Sam's hands hovering around Dean's waist before settling on his hips, fingers splayed wide and grasping him firmly.
"I said that out loud?"
Sam half-laughs; Dean's face tingles from the change in temperature from Sam's close body heat. "Yep."
Dean thinks, for maybe a second, about being embarrassed before discarding any shame with a screw that. He licks Sam's lips, cleaning off traces of salt and the faint coppery tang of blood. Washes him clean.
God, he'd love to stay here forever, but he can't. They have work to do. And later… later's later; they'll take care of the rest then.
"I told you I knew how to take care of this. We need to do it now." Dean studies Sam and he's fierce about what he sees there. Sam's his. Now more than ever, because history won't repeat itself. He won't let it. And it starts with laying this ghost -- Hannah -- to rest.
"You with me?"
The right side of Sam's mouth lifts. "Try and get rid of me."
"No way in hell."
Sam's grin widens. "Okay." Then, it fades and he bites the inside of his cheek. "It's worse than what you're telling me, isn't it?"
Dean falters. He licks his lips, rough on the dry skin. "Sam, please don't ask me that. Okay?"
"No." Sam shakes his head. "Don't worry. I don't want to know."
So Sam can learn. But he's not done yet.
"I trust you," Sam says, simply, and Dean's floored.
As if he knows Dean's going to be speechless, Sam leaves it there and shifts from brother to hunter, a change maybe only visible to Dean's eyes, but still there. He draws himself upright, shoulders squaring, if rounded a little from the smaller weight he carries.
One dime slips, unnoticed by Sam but noticed by Dean, from Sam's pocket, clinking to earth and ice with a harmless chime. "Tell me what to do."
Dean stares at the coin at Sam's feet. Oh.
Okay, that makes it different.
"Follow me. And don't ask questions. I'm thinking." Dean moves carefully past Sam, a flash of eye contact passing between them as they bump shoulders and kick aside hailstones, a moment in which Sam frowns and Dean beckons.
Dean knows that Sam can't see Hannah. He's never been able to feel her, or to hear her. Only what she sends, like the snake, or the coins she uses to lay a trail in a silver plea for help.
Sam has no idea she's there, but Dean does. She's a cold whisper of wind at his back, hovering almost silently with tendrils wrapped around his ribs.
"Please," she croons in Dean's ear. "Let me save you."
Dean sets his jaw. "I'll take you to him."
***
With Sam walking behind him, quiet as the dawn, and the chill of Hannah between them, Dean lets himself remember and figure out where to go. What he saw in his dream. All his dreams.
Traveling in the real world is different in a hundred different ways, everything from the crumbling remains of the shanty falling down around them -- Dean's careful not to look up, now that he knows why it's so warped and twisted from heat -- to the slickly rolling, dangerous hailstones to pick through, obscuring the landscape -- but Dean knows where he's going -- and through the door, its frame charred and tilted at a crazy angle. Dean stretches his legs wide to step over the rotted lintel where Benjamin fell; Sam doesn't ask why.
Dean's seen this path twice now, although he didn't get it until Sam stood up and that last coin fell. He saw it as Saul walked it, and he saw it before, with a line of burning silver coins, thirteen of them, pointing to Sam.
Sam, who Hannah thinks is Benjamin, same as she thinks Dean is her Joey.
Dean presses his lips firmly together and although he would give a fortune not to see it all again in his mind, he uses what he's seen to guide his steps. In the gloomy gray dawn, it's a short walk over ice and earth and tangled weeds, and no one who didn't know where Dean's heading would ever be able to see it as a path at all. But Dean knows, and that'll be all they need.
It's not far, and then they're there, the makeshift grave Dean remembers too damn well, the place where Saul -- the demon -- scratched up some earth with breaking fingernails and kicked the dirt over Benjamin's body. The sweetgrass has long since died, choked on itself. Nothing left but a heavy, impenetrable tangle that no longer smells of faint vanilla in the sun, but of decaying weeds.
Dean goes to his knees on the packed earth. He slips his silver knife out of its place in his belt and grasps the handle; it's at home in his hand. Feels right. "Sam? Be careful of yourself. Keep a watch out."
"You think she might --?" Sam asks, maybe a little unsteady, forehead furrowed with worry. Dean can't blame him.
"Maybe."
"Is what's under there what's keeping her here?" Sam nudges the snarled old sweetgrass with the toe of his boot. He shivers, turning his face to the dark gray sky. "I think I smell snow."
"Yeah. It's colder." Hannah's worried. Dean senses the difference now he knows how to read her. She claws at his shoulders, wanting him to come away. Doesn't break the skin, but the sting is no less for all that.
She might not know what this is -- she didn't see, she was already dead by then -- but it's what she's been looking for.
The sharp silver blade of Dean's knife cuts through the sweetgrass while Sam hovers at Dean's back, watching and waiting. Dean focuses on cutting, tearing the grass in double handfuls when he's slices holes open. The nauseating stink of mold and rot clings thickly to Dean's hands, getting up his nose.
He doesn't stop. His knees ache and his hands are scored with a dozen or more grass cuts by the time he peels back the final matted layer over the dirt.
"It's over, Hannah," Dean mutters. "I'll show you. You can rest. It's okay." He tucks the knife back in his belt and starts to dig, the cold ground fighting him.
"Let me help," Sam offers, starting to go to one knee. "I'm going to help," he revises, scratching up deeper furrows of dirt than Dean's managed so far. "Dean?"
Dean wipes his forehead on the back of his arm, a slick of dirt smearing over his skin. He wants to say no. He doesn't.
Together, they dig.
At the first sight of bones, Sam rocks back on his heels fast. "Her son?" he asks. Dean would shout a warning, damn it, should have thought of that before, but too late. Hannah's heard him as well as Dean did.
The rush of her presence flickers, dwindling to a candle. Dean can see her in his mind's eye, her bitten wrist pressed to her mouth, huge scared eyes with the whites around the brown fixed on the shallow grave and the scraps of skull that are all that's left.
She quiets even more, the candle dying to a pinpoint.
Dean shivers in the sudden absence of cold. He rubs his arms, chafing up the flannel, and twists to look behind him, around him. "Hannah?"
A hush, a pause of nothing, a breath --
All hell breaks loose.
Hannah's scream rocks the world, tilting it on its axis; Dean doesn't know he's fallen until he's on his back in the dirt.
No, no, no!
"This is what you wanted! Benjamin's gone," Dean shouts, trying to struggle up. "I showed you, he's gone! That's what happened to him!" The wind pins Dean's arm down when he tries to point at the shallow-dug hole in the dirt under the sweetgrass. "He can't hurt you anymore!"
Hannah draws a deep breath, sucking the air away from them with the force of her emotion -- there's a horrible silence and stillness -- Dean hopes, he hopes --
Hannah screams, and all around Dean and Sam, the hailstones explode. Shards of ice shriek past them, around them, drawing lines of blood over the backs of Dean's hands when he protects his eyes only just in time.
"Sam?" he bellows, blinded. The arrows of ice give way to harder, colder air, stealing his volume. "Sam, you hurt?"
"No," Sam returns right away, thank God, or not, because when Dean looks from under his hand he can see Hannah standing over Benjamin's bones, her mouth open in the keening that has all the pain she lacked when she burned. He sees her from head to toe, from her snarled brown hair to her dress sodden with old blood and her bare, curled feet.
"What is it?" Sam shouts to be heard over the shrieking wind blasting around them. Dean wrenches over on his stomach in time to see the wind attack Sam, sending him staggering on his awkward lanky legs, falling. His hair whips over his eyes and plasters itself there, a dense curtain there's no way he can see through. "Dean! What did we do wrong?"
"I don't know!" And he doesn't. This should have been it, this should have put her to rest, why isn't she --"Tell me what's wrong!"
The wind picks up in answer, angry shrieking. The clouds above them shake and quiver, threatening to burst with the heaviness of hail and ice and snow and rain, giving birth in pain to sons of death.
"What do you want? Tell me!" Dean tries to shield his face with his arms, tries to get to Sam, fails at both. The wind's too strong, keeping them apart. Hannah's grip is tight and unforgiving and frostbitten at his waist.
"My son," she cries in Dean's ear, pitiful, mother's mourning that won't be quenched. "Stay with me. I want my son!"
Dean opens his mouth, cracked lips parting on an argument, the corners stinging sharp as the skin breaks. He inhales, needing the air to argue with her -- inhales, and can't stop. Ice funnels down his throat, into his lungs, expanding them taut. His ribs flare with pain and his heart twists, wrenches, stuttering with fear and shock.
"Stay with me," Hannah hisses, wrenching Dean's hair back with her frozen fingers. "I won't let you go."
Dean's lips are frozen; he knows they've gone blue, that his skin's gray with no oxygen. He fights not to fall, forehead in the dirt, shocked and howling inside along with the wind and with Hannah.
Hannah could go on. But she won't. She still hasn't found who's really keeping her here. She didn't, can't see it. Can't, won't accept it. If there's light she's put it out because she'd rather live in the dark where she doesn't have to face the truth.
They've found one son. Not two.
She wants Joey, not Benjamin, and she'll kill Dean if that's what it takes now to keep him.
***
Continues here.