Sam woke up because his head was cold.

His muddled, sleepy thoughts registered this as unusual. Now that he was vaguely conscious, it seemed like it was a good idea to actually sit up, start the day. He sat up, ran his hands through his hair...

His hair.

It wasn't there.

Or, well, it was there, but significantly shorter. Significantly. Like, buzz-cut short. He felt around the top of his head with increasingly frantic hands. Short. Everywhere. He sprang out of bed, dashed to the bathroom, took one look in the mirror and howled in fury.

"I'm gonna kill you!" he roared as he sprinted back into the main room, over to Dean's bed, knotted his fists in his older brother's flannel shirt, and yanked him upright. Dean automatically reached under his pillow for his gun, but Sam held him up further, shaking him, choking out, "Damn you! Not funny, Dean! Not funny at all!"

Dean's confused, sleep-fuzzed eyes finally focused on Sam, and he batted ineffectually at the hands holding him up.

"Wha-what the fuck, dude!"

Then his eyes really focused. His jaw went slack with surprise as his eyes traveled over Sam's shaven head. His lips twitched. Then he started to laugh. Sam growled inarticulately and shook him some more. It didn't help: Dean was abruptly laughing so hard he began to gasp for air, and was clutching his stomach with one hand and slapping the bed with the other.

"Dean!" Sam yelled at his highest volume. "I said, NOT FUNNY!" He shook Dean a last time and flung him back down on the bed, where his brother just twisted weakly over, thumping the bed with a fist, tears streaming from his eyes.

He was barely able to gasp out, "Hair-", and then collapsed further onto the bed, rolling over onto his back and laughing even louder. Sam glared at him, jaw and fists clenched, huffing small snorts of rage. He threw his hands up in the air with another wordless growl and stalked back to the bathroom to stare with horror at his reflection again. The sight pulled a bellow of outrage from him. He could hear Dean in the other room; his gales of laughter had been calming down, but Sam's outburst yanked another sputtering horde of giggles from him.

He moved to push his hair away from his face, a gesture that was so ingrained and automatic that it was like breathing, and usually accompanied a thoughtful frown. The hand encountered nothing, and his thoughtful frown in the mirror was...huge. His forehead was huge. His ears stuck out. His dammed neck looked like a giraffe's!

He whimpered.

"So what the hell-" Dean had managed to make it to the bathroom, and began to speak, but was overcome. He started to giggle helplessly, leaning back against the door jamb, hands on his stomach. "Oh, man. Oh, Jesus. Oh, man!" he gasped.

Sam whirled around angrily. The breeze on his ears, neck, was unfamiliar and chilly, and it made him whimper a tiny bit again.

"What do you mean, 'What the hell'?! You did this, dammit, I know it, you've been threatening to chop off my hair forever, you sonovabitch!" Dean was holding up a hand, shaking his head, but still could barely speak.

"Not me, not me," he chanted breathlessly in between fits of giggling. "Swear it!"

"Oh, give it a rest! Not you, my fat ass!" Sam ground out, pushing past his brother into the main room. He strode over to his bed, pulled his duffle bag out from under it, and began angrily stuffing his things into it. He grabbed his hairbrush from the bedside table, glared at it, and suddenly threw it across the room. "Goddamit, Dean, this is the last straw! Stop being so fucking immature! What the hell-cutting my fucking hair off!" he shouted.

Dean staggered into the room, began to say something, looked at Sam's head, began giggling again, and sat down abruptly on Sam's bed, looking away.

"Dammit, can't even look at you!" he choked, catching his breath and clamping down hard on the giggles that tried to escape. "Dude. I swear. Not me." He stopped a moment, heaved in a few deep breaths, and continued, "Really, truly. Not me. I didn't do it. Scout's honor." He held up a hand with an imitation Boy Scout sign.

Sam narrowed his eyes at his brother's back. "'Scout's honor'. Dude, you never were a fucking Boy Scout."

Dean shook a finger back at him, staring determinedly at the wall in front of him. "Point remains. It wasn't me. So: who was it? How'd they do it without waking us up? And, for god's sake, why?!"

Sam's rage and horror began to drain away, and his brain kicked in. He sat down slowly on his side of the bed, frowning thoughtfully. His hand unconsciously reached up to brush his hair back again, and he scowled, forcing the hand down to rest on the bed quilt. "You swear it wasn't you?"

"Dude. I wouldn't do a thing like that." Then he spoiled the earnest words by adding, "And if I did, I'd sure as hell do it while you were awake so I could see you breaking down in tears as I cut off your lovely, lovely-" he crooned the words, and Sam snarled. "-long locks of hair."

"Jerk," Sam growled at him, thumping him hard on the back.

"Bitch," Dean responded absently. He turned around to thump Sam in return, caught a glimpse of his shorn head, sputtered, and turned away again just in time. "We need to figure this out," he choked. "I mean, someone-some thing-gets in here, cuts your hair-gives you a fucking buzz cut!-and we don't wake up? Yeah, right."

Sam stood up, began pacing back and forth, chewing his lips. "You're right. We didn't wake up. That's a kicker." He stopped, thought, then strode back to his bed, to where the covers were rumpled up. He threw them back, scanned the linen, shook his head. "And there's no hair-" He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut for a painful moment, then opened them. "Not a bit of my hair here on the sheets." He picked up the pillows, eyes them, turned them over, tossed them back down. "Or pillows. Nothing. Nobody's that good at cleaning up."

They were both silent for a few moments, thinking. Then Dean clapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. "Okay, then. I'm gonna go out, get us some food. You do some digging." Sam nodded wordlessly. Dean edged around the bed, keeping his eyes away from it, and Sam, and his buzz cut, and headed out the motel room door.

Sam blew out a deep breath, ran his hand over his head, and whimpered again.

Though it did feel nice and velvety under his palm...