“BDSM is a sex thing.”
October 29
“Life is a highwaaaay,” Dean thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I wanna riiiiiide it, allll night long.”
Sam grinned to himself while he dug through the coroner’s report he had received in his email. It was hard to focus, Dean’s general happiness was infectious. So was his paranoia…
When Dean turned his head for the fifty-second time to check on Harry, so did Sam.
Harry looked up from the homework he was reading when they both turned to him and raised an eyebrow before silently pulling on the chest strap of his seatbelt. Sam nodded with a wry grin and went back to his email, Dean went back to singing.
Sam had picked up a case, out in San Diego, and Dean jumped up to volunteer his and Harry’s services. It was probably a werewolf, the timing was right with the cycle of the moon and the marks on the victim were pretty distinct. Sam flipped through the attached photographs before putting away the laptop.
“Werewolf,” Sam said decisively.
“I thought so too,” Dean nodded.
“Wrong.”
Sam turned again to peek at Harry about his immediate disagreement. Harry didn’t look up that time - seatbelt still buckled - but there was a smug twist to his lips.
“Why do you think we’re wrong?” Sam asked with careful neutrality. He didn’t want to argue, the last thing he wanted to do was upset the shaky relationship he had with his younger brother…
Everything was better before Sam nearly killed him. It might have even been fine if Harry’s dick of a godfather hadn’t pushed all of Sam’s buttons by merely breathing too loudly. Sam had apologized to Harry, multiple times, and they were… okay.
Not great, not like how Harry and Dean were, but they weren’t actively fighting.
“Because the full moon isn’t until the 31st,” Harry said. He pulled out the cell that Bobby got him - a common sense item that Sam should have thought to buy - and flashed the screen at Sam in an absent manner, probably showing the date. “So it can’t be a werewolf.”
Sam really didn’t want to argue with him, but he was wrong.
“Werewolves can transform the week of the full moon,” Sam told him factually. “Three days before, the day of, three days after. So last night would have been the first night of the cycle. It fits.”
Dean nodded shortly out of the corner of Sam’s eye, but it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t jump in the argue the issue.
Harry marked his page and closed the book so he could argue with Sam with his full attention. Harry was frowning and Sam worked hard to keep from frowning. Passive and calm, that was what Sam tried to convey. It was a friendly discussion about werewolf transformations between brothers, that was it.
Harry wasn’t arguing with Sam because he hated him… that would be ridiculous.
“No, that’s wrong,” Harry said slowly, his face pinched. “Er… my defense teacher last year was - is - a werewolf. Trust me, it’s just the one day a month.”
“That school is fucked,” Dean muttered, quietly with that only Sam heard.
Sam suddenly remembered something else though, something Harry said months ago about a haunted shack. Sam had asked if the shack was haunted - Harry said only by a werewolf. They’d been put at gunpoint by Ellen and Jo ten seconds later though so Sam had forgotten.
“Your teacher was the one that haunted that shack?” Sam asked. Dean didn’t have the slightest idea what Sam referenced, but Harry nodded.
“Yes,” he said, emphasizing the word. “And he only transformed one night a month. It’s not for an entire week.”
“It is though,” Sam insisted. He turned away to dig John’s journal from the bag he kept his laptop and work reports in. It only took a few seconds to find the page he wanted, as much as Sam used the book as a reference.
“‘The werewolf cycle begins the week of the full moon’,” Sam read aloud. “‘For seven days, the wolf will be able to transform. If they bite another human during this time, without killing, they will spread the disease’.”
There was more - information about their distinctive claw marks, preference for eating human hearts from their victims, but Sam only needed the one section of information. Not that it changed Harry’s mind.
“Have you ever met a werewolf?” Harry asked him. “No,” he said before Sam could answer. “I have and I’m telling you, they only transform one day a month. And it’s not a disease, it’s - it’s just a…” Harry’s lips twitched like he thought of a good joke. “It’s a little furry problem.”
Dean snorted at the extremely minor way that Harry described a werewolf.
“It’s not a bad bunny,” Dean said, checking Harry’s seatbelt in the rearview mirror. “They’re dangerous, kid.”
“Tell that to…” Harry opened his book up to get back to reading and Sam and Dean waited to see if Harry would think of whatever name he must have been stalling on. “That bloke I know that’s a werewolf.”
Sam and Dean shared a subtle and disappointed look. Sam wasn’t blaming Dean, but if Dean had stuck around the hospital and let the wizard-doctors monitor Harry… maybe he wouldn’t be struggling with names still.
Of course, if Sam hadn’t wrecked - if Sam made Harry wear a seatbelt - if Sam had made home less of a stressful place to be - then Harry might have healed up in no time.
So most of the blame lied with Sam, maybe a little with Dean, and they were counting on wizards fixing it.
Basically - it sucked. And since Sirius was - very maturely - not answering any calls, it meant they were counting down the days until Harry could get to Hogsmeade and bring it up to Dumbledore.
They still had a couple of weeks; Sam had done some research and thought maybe there was a missed bleed in Harry’s brain, Dean was going straight to denial:
“It’ll fix itself.”
As if anything ever just fixed itself when it came to the three of them.
Dean insisted on driving the entire route to San Diego which left Sam free to work on the budget he was trying to firm up before he received his first paycheck in a few days. Sam had never had a steady income, something to do budgets with, and it was fun making one.
When he’d been at Stanford, he just budgeted out his student loan payments to cover any expenses he would have during the semester. A time or two he would get low on cash when he had unexpected expenses - a date night with Jessica, replacing a pair of shoes - but monthly checks were new… exciting.
“We could get a phone plan,” Sam told Dean, mostly thinking out loud. They were about fifty miles from San Diego and planned to stop for dinner when they hit the city limits.
Dean grunted in a tired way. “What?”
“A phone plan,” Sam said, clicking through the options. “Maybe a better wifi setup for the house?”
“Are you…?” Dean looked over at Sam’s screen and scoffed at the page Sam had pulled up. “Dude, you’re geeking out, aren’t you?”
Sam turned the screen some, blocking it from Dean’s view. He was not ‘geeking out’, they would just get more reliable service if they had a real phone plan. Sam wouldn’t need to rely on random psychics who may or may not be dead to tell him where Dean was if someone took him… Dean could track Harry if Sam ever locked him in a storage unit again.
And the janky USB Sam jail broke for portable internet could go in the garbage, where it belonged.
“I’m not geeking out,” Sam told Dean, sniffing so Dean knew he was offended. “I’m just saying, you’ll be begging for better internet when your classes start.”
Sam already found Dean a laptop he was going to order first thing. It was amazing, Dean going to college. Sam figured he might be nervous about it… Dean had always struggled in school with the reading and writing aspects. Sam probably did more of Dean’s essays than Dean did, but Dean would be surprised by how much easier having a laptop made everything.
And maybe Dean would just be surprised in general… like Sam had been when he gotten his laptop delivered to him at Stanford.
“Why would I need internet for my classes?” Dean asked, sounding genuinely confused. “It’s automotive, Sammy, not a lot of research required.”
Sam opened his mouth automatically to tell Dean… like… He knew there would be other classes involved, right? Sam closed his mouth and debated quickly when he realized that, no, Dean probably didn’t realize that he would still have to take English, math, other basics.
There was every chance that telling Dean that when his classes didn’t start until January would only make him change his mind though, so Sam kept that information to himself for the time being.
“Porn, Dean,” Sam said. “You could stream porn.”
Harry sputtered in the backseat, Dean was sold.
Sam had his budget finished by the time they pulled up to a Dennys. Sam took the laptop in with him, ready to show Dean how he divided everything up.
“And this column, look!” Sam had the laptop turned so both brothers could see the screen, see the spreadsheet he made. Sam had gone over normal budgetary items - electric, water, gas for the cars. Dean had vetoed Sam paying for car insurance, he called it a scam, but Sam insisted on the homeowners insurance.
There were some big blocked out areas, large purchases Sam wanted to make like laptops for Harry and Dean, a printer for the house, the downpayment for the phone plan that they would add Bobby to.
Sam even budgeted in groceries, entertainment, and ‘beer’ for Dean.
“Who needs the college fund?” Dean was chewing his burger, but Sam was an expert in interpreting Dean muffled chatter.
“Uh… Harry?” Sam said, gesturing to where Harry ate his chicken strips. Harry looked surprised, raising both eyebrows at Sam.
“I’m going to college?” Harry asked after chewing and swallowing, setting a good example for Dean.
“Do you want to go to college?” Sam asked. He tilted his head. “Do - do your people do college?” he asked in an added whisper, conscious of other patrons in the booths around theirs.
“My people? Er… I don’t think so?” Harry seemed as confused as Sam was. “My friend’s brothers just went straight to their jobs, I think.”
“Bill?” Dean asked, smirking. “Nothing straight about him, kid.”
Harry blinked and Sam did some quick mental calculations. Harry’s friend Ron had five brothers, Bill was probably one of them. Dean must have met Bill when Dean went to the Quidditch World Cup with Harry and Ron’s family… and apparently there was nothing straight about Bill.
So Dean screwed Harry’s best friend’s older brother… awesome.
“What’s that mean?” Harry asked Dean. Harry dramatically put down his half-eaten chicken strip to focus the entirety of his attention on Dean. “What exactly does that mean?”
“You want details?” Dean asked, perking up and getting a wicked sparkle in his eyes. “You gonna put my experience to good use?”
“Did you shag him?” Harry hissed, leaning across the table to scowl fiercely at Dean.
Sam slowly closed his laptop… his budget wasn’t nearly as exciting as Dean finally pulling a ‘Dean’ on Harry. Dean slept with almost all of Sam’s friends when they were in high school together, any guy friends with older sisters? Dean screwed them too.
It was classic Dean.
“I didn’t ‘shag’ him,” Dean made the air quotes for it. Sam watched and waited, knowing Dean was setting Harry up. And the second that Harry relaxed, took a drink of his soda…
“He ‘shagged’ me.”
Harry choked on his drink and started actually sputtering. It made Dean laugh as hard as Dean ever laughed and even if it was at Harry’s expense, Harry who Sam was trying hard to repair his relationship with, it was a contagious laugh that had Sam grinning as well.
When the waitress brought them their check, Sam and Dean were both laughing and Harry was trying hard to stay indignant, but he finally caved.
“You’re the worst,” Harry huffed at Dean. “Honestly, why would you do that?”
“Uh… he was hot, I’m an adult, and, unlike you, I don’t have any hang up with sex,” Dean told Harry cheerfully, handing the waitress his card with a leering wink.
“Get used to it,” Sam told Harry, not unsympathetic, but too amused by Harry’s disgust to show it. “Dean’s a perv, dude.”
“You left me in a motel to probably go shag… that - that chick,” Harry accused Sam suddenly, taking the wind from Sam’s sails. That would be something Harry remembered, not the wreck itself, but a note Sam left Harry that weekend.
“So you’re a perv too,” Harry added, grinning crookedly like he would when he tried to make a joke, when he tried just a little too hard to ‘fit in’ as if he weren’t already a permanent fixture.
Sam’s jaw dropped and he was horrified. Not just because Harry sounded more like Dean than he ever had before, but because - because…
“I didn’t sleep with Tonks!” Sam said, pointedly ignoring Dean’s look of glee. Sam snatched his laptop and prepared to make a hasty exit, absolutely not having any sort of conversation about his sex life - lack of a sex life - in the middle of a Dennys.
Sam didn’t flee from the restaurant, but he did walk fast enough that Harry had to run to keep up while Dean swaggered behind them too cockily for Sam to be comfortable.
“Then where were you the night you disappeared?” Harry asked.
As an answer, Sam climbed in the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. Harry was relentless though and Sam got tag-teamed the rest of the drive to the motel.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Harry asked. “I was worried about you.”
“You went on your date with Hermione and literally didn’t even say hi when I saw you at the Three Broomsticks,” Sam countered. Sam was as slumped in his seat as he could physically be, trying to hide physically even if he couldn’t hide from the endless questions.
“Who’s Tonks?” Dean asked. He tried to smack at Sam’s leg and Sam shifted to hunch over by the door. “C’mon, it’s a chick?”
“Yes, she’s a woman,” Sam muttered.
“Where did you sleep?” Harry asked.
“Is Tonks hot?” Dean asked.
“But you never slept in your bed, right?”
“What’s her rack look like, Sammy?”
Sam let it go. He did. Sam should have gotten a medal for ignoring both of his brothers while they relentlessly hounded him with questions. Sam tried to not let it get to him, it was Sam’s problem, not theirs… but then Dean, because it was Dean, went too far.
“Finally dusted those cobwebs off, eh?” Dean must have thought that quip of brilliance up while he rented their room because it was the first thing he said when we returned from the office with a room key. Dean jostled Sam with his shoulder as they got the duffels from the trunk and that was it.
“I didn’t freaking sleep with her,” Sam snapped. He was a little rough when he swung his bag from the trunk, clipping Dean in the hip with it. “Shut up about it, okay? Just shut the hell up, please.”
Dean and Harry didn’t say another word about it, leaving Sam free to stew in frustration while they moved their bags inside the room and got situated for the night. Harry tried to take the couch, Dean made it a point to throw Harry’s stuff on the bed furthest from the door as soon as Harry went to the bathroom.
Sam would have offered to take the couch, except he just knew Dean wasn’t done with his teasing-shit and Sam wouldn’t be teased about something and have his legs hanging over the armrest of a couch. If he was going to be mocked, he’d do it in a full-sized bed.
Harry dropped straight to sleep, Sam thought Harry spent the entire car ride in some sort of muted terror that they would wreck - Sam certainly had - and Sam just waited for Dean to start up again. Dean laid down like he was sleeping, but Sam knew him too well to know when Dean was only biding his time.
“So… who’s Tonks?” Dean asked, keeping quiet so Harry wasn’t bothered.
Sam laid on his back and looked up at the ceiling. Sleep was going to be a pain to find, he might as well answer just enough of Dean’s questions to keep him from bugging him the next morning.
“A woman I met in Hogsmeade,” Sam said with as little inflection as possible. Sam kept his eyes open, refusing to blink or he’d make the stinging sensation behind his eyes worse.
“Yeah? What happened?”
Sam shrugged, forgetting for a moment that Dean couldn’t see him.
“She’s great,” Sam admitted, feeling like a jerk all over again. “She’s smart, funny… gorgeous.”
But… but Sam stood outside Tonks’s hotel room for an entire hour, just thinking about —
“But she isn’t Jessica?”
Sam pressed his fist against his mouth for a moment, sometimes hating how easily Dean could read him.
“Why is it like this?” Sam asked his brother, feeling like he was eight years old again and needing Dean to reassure him that everything would be okay. “Am I just that bad of a person, Dean? That - that I can’t even move on? Am I just going to be punished forever?”
Sam didn’t think he should get to move on… it was his fault that Jessica was gone… it was just when Sam met gorgeous and interesting women like Tonks, he wished that he could be someone who moved on. It wasn’t fair that Sam met his person young and lost her just as young. It wasn’t fair to him, it certainly hadn’t been fair to Jessica.
Sam tried to tell himself that, shoe on the other foot, Sam wouldn’t want Jessica to be alone and unhappy. Sam would want her to find someone to be with, someone to have in their corner for whatever reason, someone to hold at night and to call just to chat. If Sam had died and Jessica lived, he would have wanted her to find that and Jessica loved Sam, Sam knew that for sure, so why couldn’t he convince himself that she wouldn’t be devastated to know he tried to replace her?
“Sammy…” Dean’s voice carried over to Sam, soft and sympathetic. Dean was only ever soft when nobody was looking at him, Dean didn’t do soft or vulnerable, not when there was the pressure of an audience on him.
When he did though, Dean did it better than anyone.
“It’s not a punishment that you miss her. It’s just… I mean, it ain’t even been a year just yet, you know, man? You should take it easy, quit thinking everything has to be forever or never. Get back on the saddle and see what happens, huh?”
Sam thought that over long after Dean had fallen asleep and the soft snores of both his brothers filled the room.
Get back on the saddle… quit thinking everything has to be forever or never…
Dean was a jerk nine times out of ten, but that tenth time… maybe he was on to something…
Sam felt like a new man the next morning. He had went for a run, bought donuts and coffee (uncaffienated for Harry), showered, and dressed before Dean or Harry began to stir.
“Rise and shine, boys,” Sam called, throwing open the curtains and filling the room with sunlight. Harry hissed, actually hissed, and rolled over to hide beneath the blanket. Dean groaned, rolled, and hit the floor.
Sam let them grumble and bitch for a moment - because he was a kind and considerate brother - and then told them there were donuts and coffee if they were up and moving soon.
“And there was another death last night, so,” Sam looked at his watch, “let’s try and be out of here in the next ten minutes, guys.”
It took seventeen, but Sam allotted for twenty, so they were still ahead of the schedule.
Their first stop was the coroners office, just so Sam could go in and confirm what had been in the report. The first victim, a lawyer, had been discovered in his office by his assistant. The second, a police officer, had been killed only a block away from the lawyer’s office.
Both had gashes across their body, matching werewolf claw marks, and were missing their hearts. The coroner had no ideas, since one man had been in the office building when he’d been killed. Sam lied and said he would keep him up to date on the investigation, then got the address of the assistant that found the first body from him.
The assistant, Madison, only lived a couple of blocks from the law office. It made her a possible witness for the second attack as well. A quick call to the law firm confirmed that she had taken a few days off work, coping with the aftermath of finding her boss’s dead body.
“Where to, Sam-aroo?” Dean asked when Sam rejoined him and Harry in the Impala. Harry was either working on homework or writing a letter, Dean had his feet hanging out the window, winking at anyone who walked by and shot him a curious look.
Sam rattled off the address for the witness and checked that Harry was buckled before Dean pulled out of the parking lot. Harry didn’t look up, he only pulled out the chest strap.
“You know what you should add to your fancy-pants budget?” Dean asked. “A helmet. A helmet and one of those ‘arrive alive, buckle up’ stickers.”
“It’s ’arrive alive, don’t drink and drive’,” Sam told him. Sam had seen the stickers and signs enough when he’d been at Stanford, the gory ads were meant to terrify students… it didn’t often work, from what Sam saw with his classmates who had cars and on campus parking spots.
“And I’m not wearing a helmet,” Harry chimed in from the back. “Really, it’s the two of you that cause me the most accidents.”
“Plane crash, Harry,” Sam reminded him drily.
“That was a demon’s fault,” Harry said. He hesitated. “Right?”
“Right,” Dean said without missing a beat. “Car crash was Sam’s fault, plane crash was the demon.”
“And who punched Harry in the face?” Sam asked Dean pointedly.
“That was one time!” Dean said. “Harry needs a helmet and you need a - a blindfold for your mouth.”
“A gag?” Sam stared at his brother hard with one incredulous eyebrow raised. “Dude, think that through and say it again.”
Dean had his mouth mashed shut while he tried to decide how he wanted to play it. Sam could wait, Sam had endless patience when it came to Dean embarrassing himself.
“A muzzle,” Dean decided when they neared the witnesses house. Dean seemed pleased with himself and nodded decisively. “Harry gets a helmet, you get a muzzle. You know,” Dean grinned, “like a dog.”
Sam would have let it go any other time, but Dean had picked on Sam the day before and Dean was Dean. So before they arrived, Sam pulled his laptop out, found what he wanted, and spun the screen around to show Dean.
“Like this?” Sam asked innocently. There was a black leather muzzle on the screen, the most innocent one that Sam could find.
Dean glanced over and laughed. “Yeah, like they use for dogs!”
“Or…” Sam waited a moment, upping the dramatics some. “For BDSM, since that’s the theme of the website where I found this.”
Dean went a satisfying shade of red while he began stammering out how that wasn’t what he meant and Sam knew that.
“What’s BDSM?” Harry asked, trying to lean forward to see the screen.
Sam had never closed his laptop so quickly in his life.
“Yeah, Sammy.” Dean parked the car and found the perfect chance to turn Sam’s joke at his expense back on Sam. “What is BDSM? Go on, explain it to our brother.”
Sam’s face was burning and he hesitated, trying to find a way to answer Harry without opening himself up for more questions.
“Uh… well…” Sam swallowed and he blushed harder when Dean snickered. “It’s - an activity that adults can enjoy together if, um… if they’re both interested and consent...”
Harry mulled that over while they all left the car. Sam tried to compose himself, look like a professional instead of an adolescent tomato, on the way to the witness’s front door. The woman lived in a nice house, small but sweet with a sporty car in the driveway, an adult bicycle on the porch, and Sam even saw a yoga mat stored beneath the porch swing.
“So it’s a sex thing,” Harry said just after Sam knocked on the door. Dean started laughing his dumb ass off and the door opened in some of the most mortifying timing of Sam’s life.
“Yes, BDSM is a sex thing,” Sam told Harry, only realizing the door opened after he said it.
The woman, Madison, looked up at Sam just in time to see his worst blush to date begin to burn his face. She was pretty, clearly shocked, but had an amused grin tugging at the corner of her lips.
Dear God, why couldn’t the ground open up beneath Sam and swallow him whole?
“I am so, so, sorry!” Sam blurted out. “That’s not - that sounds really wrong, but in context, it makes so much more sense!” Sam began to ramble and he paused to take a deep breath.
“Oh.” Madison leaned in the doorway and looked from Sam to where Harry stood beside him and Dean held her porch rail to hold himself up while he laughed. She had dark eyebrows that matched her long hair and one of those was quirked upward, just a touch mockingly. “I would love to know the context involved in your, frankly inadequate, description of BDSM on my porch.”
Sam chuckled nervously and he ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm himself down.
“I think we got started off wrong,” Sam said. He reached in his suit jacket for the National Wildlife Federation Badge he had. “I’m Sam Fogerty, this is my partner, Dean Cook, and his son, Harry.”
“So the wildlife federation showed up to discuss BDSM with me?” Madison crossed her arms and hadn’t even looked away from Sam, she just grinned challengingly at him. “It’s an interesting fundraising technique, I’ll give you that.”
“We’re not fundraising,” Sam said. “Uh… we’re here about the recent deaths, do you - may we come in?”
“Oh.” Madison made a face, but she backed away from the door so they could enter the house. “This is much less interesting than I hoped it would be.”
“Two dead bodies is less interesting than kinky sex?” Dean asked brightly, seemingly having a great time watching Sam make an ass of himself. “Lady, I like you.”
“Oh, thank God, I was so concerned about you liking me,” Madison said, just the right mixture of sarcastic and genuine. She took them through her house - Sam noticed it was tidy, cozy, books piled up in different places - and stopped in the kitchen. There was a teapot, an actual teapot, on the stove and Sam politely waited for her to move it off the burner. “Tea, anyone?” she offered.
“Yes, please,” Harry said immediately while Sam and Dean turned down the offer.
Apparently you could take the kid out of England, but you couldn’t take the love of tea out of the kid.
Madison poured herself and Harry each a cup of tea while Sam and Dean propped themselves against the counters. Sam looked around the kitchen idly, interested in the little plants that were hanging in the windows and thriving apparently.
“Is that a Schlumbergera?” Sam asked, looking at one of the blooming pots.
Madison turned to look where Sam was and then she gave him a wide smile that made her amber eyes sparkle.
“You know your cacti,” she said approvingly. “It was a gift from my ex. I almost threw it away when we broke up, but it’s not the plants fault, ya know?”
“So you’re single?” Dean asked, giving Madison his most charming smile.
Madison shrugged a shoulder, causing her oversized shirt to slip off her shoulder and showing a silver slash of a scar. She didn’t look away from Sam though, which made him feel a little warm.
“I am,” she said. “I’m guessing that’s totally relevant to your investigation?”
“Well…” Sam thought of Dean’s advice from the night before and he tried to smile charmingly at a pretty woman who was maybe flirting with him?
“We can never be too thorough,” Sam said seriously. “You never know what could end up being key to a case.”
Harry looked from where Sam was grinning to where Madison was smiling and then looked down at his tea and shook his head in obvious bewilderment.