Love's Pure Light
K Hanna Korossy

Sam was at the library. Which meant Dean didn't have to make the effort to keep up appearances with him, which was as good as it got sometimes those days.

It was two days to Christmas and the TV was in full-on holiday-special mode. They were a childish comfort, but no one was there to care anyway. Dean put on Rudolph and made bullets to the strains of the Island of Misfits song. It was all good, something to occupy his hands, something else to occupy his brain. No room to think, just the way he liked it.

Until kiddie escapism gave way to news, and Dean's head snapped up at a familiar name.

He moved around to the end of the bed nearest the TV—Sam's neatly straightened covers, the freak—and perched there, leaning in toward the TV, listening hard.

"…and then sped from the scene. The man who was struck by the car, identified by the hospital as Samuel Hagar, is in critical condition at St. Mary's—"

Sammy Hagar. One of the IDs he'd snidely made Sam after he found out his brother had burned his collection of badges and cards while they'd gone their separate ways. His smirking Sammy had only elicited scowls from his brother, even as Dean wished he could say the nickname with affection again instead of sarcasm, and know it would be accepted with the same.

That was all that was running through his head now, a panicked chant of Sammy, be all right, Sammy, don't you die on me again, Sammy…

Dean snatched up his phone and dialed, muttering "come on, come on, pick up" under his breath. He knew Sam would've turned his phone off in the library, but when the call went to voicemail, dread still dropped like a lead weight into his gut. Dean tossed his phone onto the bed with a curse. That was it. He was out the door.

The hospital wasn't far, and small-town enough that they didn't question his identity of brother even though he didn't have an ID with Hagar on it. They usually had something with the other's alias just for cases like these, but anger and hurt had overcome common sense and long-held habits, and Dean had churlishly let their SOP slide. Never again, Dean swore now as he paced the small waiting room. Never again. If Sammy was all right, he'd…he'd try harder. Tell the kid he was forgiven, apocalypse or not. Tell Sam the guilt was nowhere near one-sided. Stop making Sam pay for a mistake they'd both had a part in. Never. Always. He swore.

"Mr. Hagar?"

Dean stopped, facing the short guy in scrubs waiting to talk to him.

His mind sorta froze at "I'm sorry."

The wave of heat followed by chill was the only warning he got that he was going to lose his footing or his lunch. Dean stumbled back into the chair he'd vacated, not hearing anything but the buzz in his ears. A hand settled consolingly on his shoulder, and he shrugged it away. Just as he had every touch of Sam's recently, every attempt to return to the closeness of before.

"Can I…" Dean licked his lips. "Can I see him?" Touch him. Apologize to him. Hold him. Forgive him. Keep him safe and make him smile and help him and—

"Sure."

Sam hadn't even made it out of the ER. They led Dean back to a little cubicle, and the covered body in there, then left him alone for the sake of privacy. It was quiet. Still. Silent night, just what he kept demanding of Sam: shut up, quit apologizing, just stop talking. Ignoring the way misery had settled into Sam's eyes to stay.

Eyes prickling and hands shaking, Dean pulled the sheet back.

It took him a moment to realize it wasn't Sam.

The face was swollen and cut enough that he wouldn't have known immediately from that. But the hair was all wrong, shorter and a few shades lighter, and the nose was a doughy lump rather than Sam's sharp features. There was a gold ring on the guy's right hand, and while he was tall and dark just like the woman at the front desk had confirmed, he wasn't gigantor-tall.

Dean stumbled back. Then for the second time in as many hours, turned and ran out the door.

Sam was sitting on the far motel bed, chewing on his knuckle just as he had when he was a kid. His face went from worried to thunderous at the sight of Dean bursting in, and he rose. "Man, where've you been? You didn't take your phone and housekeeping almost came—"

He didn't listen to any of it, didn't say a word, just strode forward and grabbed Sam and hugged him, hard.

There was a pause, then Sam's bewildered, muffled "Dean?" from somewhere in the vicinity of Dean's collar.

He closed his eyes and held Sam tighter.

Another pause, then Sam's arms crept around him, too, first hesitantly, then more surely. Then, with a soft choking sound, fiercely. Calm and bright.

Dean's own part in the apocalypse was a reason to forgive. Twenty-six years was a reason to move on. Family was a reason to care. But none of it mattered more than the wash of love he'd felt as he'd walked through the door, just because it was Sam and he was safe and there. Someone else had lost their Sam today, but Dean hadn't. He hadn't.

"Merry Christmas, Sammy," Dean whispered, his throat still thick and tight.

"Yeah…Merry Christmas, Dean," his brother murmured back, bewildered but earnest, voice cracked, every single finger tangled in a piece of Dean's shirt like he was afraid his brother might be yanked away. Heavenly peace.

Huh. Maybe Dean believed in a God, after all.

The End