Roots
K Hanna Korossy

So, it didn't happen when they went after that powerful ghost that exploded into ectoplasm, literally gluing Sam's hair down to his scalp. He hadn't been able to dissolve that gunk for days, even with Dean trying to help.

Sam wouldn't hear of it after his shaggy hair made a cop suspicious of their Fed IDs and ended up outing them. Frankly, Dean was surprised that didn't happen more often, and gave Sam grief about it the rest of that case.

Nothing changed after they hunted a puca in the pouring rain and Sam's hair was continually being plastered across his eyes. Dean finally loaned him a kerchief to tie it back.

Sam didn't even want to talk about it when the waitress who only saw him from behind and the neck up accidentally called him "Miss." At least that was funny. Dean laughed so hard he snorted coffee, and didn't let his little brother forget it for some time.

Sam probably didn't think about it at all when Dean found him after way he'd been missing way too long, and his hair was in filthy tangles Dean had to slowly work through in the bathtub. It took a few shampoos, but Sam was pretty out of it and, anyway, that was the least of Dean's worries.

Rapunzel remained unfazed when his hair was grabbed by a wendigo, a succubus, and one nasty brownie. Even when that handhold let the wendigo slash his shoulder. Dean just gave him a hard look each time, and Sam would glance away first.

His hair got tangled in a net. Caught in the car door. Memorably, stuck to a mouse glue trap.

And Dean teased him, bandaged him, grumbled at him, held his hair back when he threw up, tucked it out of his face when he was hurting, and threatened repeatedly to cut it off in his sleep, but left it at that.

Kid Sam hadn't been able to articulate why his hairstyle was so important, and adult Sam didn't want to talk about it. But Dean had some ideas why Sam was so determined to keep that mane. When he was little, it had been one of the few ways he could rebel against his father that Dad tolerated, to be his own person. Dean also figured it'd been one small thing Sam could control in a life where they'd had very little say in where they lived, what they did, who they were pretending to be. And then at Stanford, he'd fit right in with the other kids there. After that…well, it wasn't like he was planning to stay a hunter, right?

So Sam stubbornly continued to refuse anything but basic hair trims, and Dean chose his battles. Sammy had inherited their dad's hardheadedness, and nothing would force his little brother to do something he was dead set against.

Until one bright March morning.

Dean awoke slowly and groggily, which made him lie still a moment and take stock before moving. That kind of cotton-headedness usually meant drugs, which meant injury, and even if he couldn't think clearly, Dean had enough experience to instinctively take it slow.

He checked the room first: no Sam, no obvious danger. But the other bed had been slept in, and Dean's phone and a bottle of water were on the nightstand between the beds, Sam's unspoken promise he would return soon, or if Dean called.

Dean lay back and, yeah, there it was now: a low throb of pain in his right thigh, quickly turning into a sharp stab as he shifted. Ow, okay, no moving that leg. The rest of him was…achy, especially his bad shoulder and his right flank. But the leg was the worst of it. A peek under the blanket revealed a bandage wrapped around the limb and tied off in a classic Sam Winchester knot.

The memories to go with the injury were a little hazier. They were hunting…uh…something small. Fast. Magical? Or powerful, anyway, because it had whipped up the wind in the park like an advancing hurricane. Dean remembered trying to yell something to Sam, Sam shoving the hair out of his eyes. Then Sam looking…scared? Dean tensed at the memory. Sam had bellowed something. And then Dean was falling.

Crap, he was pretty sure Sam had carried him back to the car.

For his brother not to be here after all that, hovering angstily at Dean's bedside until he woke up, was kind of weird. Dean had gotten used to hunting alone while the kid was at school, but since Sam was back, he'd become not just solid backup, but a true partner. Even more so, he worried about Dean as if Sam were the older brother. Had he just run out for breakfast?

Unease churning his gut, Dean pushed up on an elbow and reached for his phone.

The Impala growled in the distance, getting closer.

Dean dropped back to the bed in relief. Then decided he didn't really want to be just lying there when Sam came in. Dean pushed himself up with gritted teeth and slid back until he was leaning against the headboard. He'd just caught his breath when the door opened.

Whatever he was going to say, whether it was complaint at Sam's disappearance or a witty demonstration that he was fine on his own, evaporated when Dean caught sight of his brother.

Or rather, his brother's hair.

It was short. Not buzzcut short: it was wavy and thick on top. But his ears were visible, and the dark hair curled to an end mid-neck. He looked…professional. Like a cop, or a marshal. Like a hunter.

"Hey." Sam avoided his eyes, tossing the keys onto the small table near the door. "How's the leg?" He dropped a bakery bag next to the keys and shrugged out of his jacket.

"Uh…" Dean said intelligently. He couldn't stop staring. He hadn't seen the back of Sam's neck—well, besides checking for injuries or ticks or helping him wash up—in more than a decade. "Fine. Uh, hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, but… What the Hell, dude?!"

Either Sam didn't get his meaning or, more likely, was playing dumb because he still wasn't really looking at Dean as he passed Dean the bag, got out a bottle of juice from the fridge, and grabbed the first aid kit. "It was a nahuale, remember? It raised a storm and snuck up on us in wolf form. Chowed down on your leg."

"I'm not talking about the leg, Sam!" Although, yeah, a wolf bite was both cool and worrisome. "What happened to you? The—" Out of words for the unbelievable sight, Dean just made a gesture around his own head.

Sam looked up at the ceiling, then the wall, lips pressed together. He was definitely upset. In fact, he looked…defeated.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Did you…want to—?"

"—get my hair cut?" Sam cut a quick glance at him and grimaced, hands twisting around the first aid box. "Yes, okay? Nobody tied me down—I went to a barbershop and got my hair cut. That's what you always wanted, right?" He mustered a defiant stare.

Dean's frown deepened and he leaned forward. "Dude, I know I give you a hard time about it, but you know I never actually, you know, wanted you to cut it all off."

"Well, I did." Sam's voice had a note of finality. He pulled up a chair next to Dean's bed and uncovered his leg. "I need to take a look at the bite."

Dean dropped back against the headboard, chewing on his lip as he watched Sam. Okay, yeah, it actually had been what Dean wanted, ever since the first time something bad had grabbed Sam by the hair when they were still teens. This would be safer for him, for both of them.

But Dean hadn't wanted it to go down like this.

Sam had cut the bandage off and was carefully peeling the last layer away. Dean stiffened as the gauze pulled at dried blood, and Sam laid a warm hand on his kneecap. "Almost done," he soothed.

"I would have cut it for you," Dean gritted out. He glimpsed the puncture wounds and torn skin, the deep bruising, the stitches Sam had put in, and swallowed, fixing his gaze on his brother's unfamiliar profile.

"I know. I just…needed it done today, okay?" Sam was examining the wound for infection, pressing gently but, man, that still hurt.

Dean concentrated hard on something else. Sam suddenly needed his hair cut today, after so many years? "Why?" he asked dumbly. "You pick up lice or something?" It wasn't unheard of in the kind of motels they stayed in; they'd been infested several times during their childhood, both with lice and fleas. Sam hadn't gotten his hair cut then, either.

Sam was incredibly focused on squeezing some antibiotic gel onto the wounds.

Dean was breathing through the pain, but he made himself remember. Something had happened the night before. The park. The…narwhale thing. They were hunting on full alert because they didn't know what form it would take. It was a shapeshifter, although thankfully not the infecting-bites kind. But it was powerful, and it had conjured a wind to slow them down.

It had been dark. The wind was howling, tearing at their clothes, their hair. Their hair. Sam's hair was all over the place. He'd been scraping it out of his face when…

When the wolf-thing had come up behind Dean. Dean remembered his brother's eyes growing big as he started to yell a warning, but it was too late.

Dean sagged against the headboard. "Dude, this isn't your fault," he said mildly.

Got it in one: Sam's lips went white, but he didn't look up.

"Sam—"

"I put you in danger," Sam said quietly, even as he gently lifted Dean's leg to bend at the knee and started wrapping his thigh in a new bandage. "I couldn't see, and the nahuale got the drop on you."

Dean snorted. "So what?"

Sam, startled, actually looked up at that. "'So what'?" he parroted incredulously.

"So your hair got in the way for a second, so what? That wind threw all kinds of crap in my eyes, too. And last week, I was checking my gun and that spirit almost took my head off. Week before that, I was hung over and moved too slow when that knobby tried to grab me. Stuff happens, Sam—we're kinda in that business."

"Yeah, and it's about time I accepted that, don't you think?" Sam knotted the bandage and started to stand.

Dean grabbed his arm, hissing when Sam pulled at him and his injured leg was jostled.

Sam, wincing and miserable, sat back down. His hands moved aimlessly against his legs, at a loss.

Dean gathered his thoughts. "Sam…listen to me, okay?" He licked his lips and made himself say it. "This isn't gonna last forever, right? We gank the son-of-a-bitch that killed Mom and Jessica, then you're back at school and this'll all just be a bad dream. Cutting your hair isn't giving up on that—it'll grow back and you'll," it hurt to say it, "you'll be a person again. Hey, you can even leave now if you want. Nobody said you have to be a full-on hunter again."

"Dad—"

"Dad's not here. And Dad never shoulda tried to make you into something you weren't, anyway. So if you've got a whole…" Dean waved his hand, "…Samson thing going on, you grow your hair long, braid it, dye it pink—I don't care. If that makes you feel better about this whole crappy life, then do it."

Sam's eyes slid up to him, and he gave Dean a wobbly smile. "Pink?"

"Okay, maybe not pink," Dean conceded. "Pretty sure that'll blow any law enforcement cred we have out the window."

Sam grew wistful. "You know, I actually always kinda hoped you'd leave hunting and come with me to California."

Dean dropped his head back, letting himself imagine that for a moment as he had a thousand times since Sam had left. He'd never tell his brother how close he'd been to doing it. But Dean had to do what was right for him, too. He rolled his head to the side to look at Sam. "Two worlds, man. I'm sorry I dragged you back into this one."

"You didn't," Sam said immediately, and paused. "And I don't want to leave yet."

Dean was just gonna ignore that yet; he'd gotten good at that. "For what it's worth, kiddo, it's not the hair that makes you my geeky little brother." He smiled a little.

Sam went to shove his hair out of his face as was his habit, and flushed when his hands just met air.

Yeah, Dean was less and less a fan of this new look. "Sam?" He leaned forward just enough to swat his brother's leg. "You hear me? Any of this sinking in?"

Sam nodded. He was sitting a little taller now, not so beaten.

Dean dropped back, suddenly tired, and reached for the bakery bag.

"So, what'd you bring me, Baldy?"

00000

It only took a month or so for Sam to start looking more like himself again.

While it lasted, the haircut did make it easier for them to pass themselves off as detectives, or feds, or marshals. Sam was quicker out of the bathroom each morning. And Dean was pretty sure they were spending less on hair-care products.

But Sam wore a cowboy hat when they were in Texas and a beanie when they were up north. He seemed more self-conscious and hung back, letting Dean do more of the talking. Weirdly, the kind of people who'd always opened up to him before barely gave him a second glance now, even though he still had those puppy eyes. He looked more like a hunter and less like a "normal" guy, which Dean knew Sam hated.

And, Dean was surprised to find, he wasn't loving it, either. It just wasn't his kid brother. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief the first time he saw Sam swipe his hair out of his face again.

Dean was okay with hunting being his whole identity, but he was sort of possibly a little bit starting to be okay with it not being Sam's. Maybe Dean was fooling himself, but he was pretty sure the kid who'd moved Heaven and Hell to save him after his electrocution wouldn't just disappear back to school and never be in touch again. They could make it work somehow, right? It would be nice to have a home base, even nicer to have one in Cali.

But he got Sam a curling iron for Christmas that year, because some things never changed.

The End