Dean loves the telephone.
More specifically, he loves to call Seamus on it.
It's the one thing about summer holiday he actually likes.
(well that's simply not true. Dean likes: a) sleeping late b) not doing homework c) not studying d) staying up late e) staying up late to chat with sister f) going to the movies g) going to the West End h) watching too much tv i) making lemonade on a hot day j) drinking lemonade on a hot day k) seeing his family l) playing sports with his old friends and getting too dirty m) all of them going back to his house and swimming n) swimming o) cars p) calling Seamus)
Seamus is awful with the telephone.
He picks up and presses buttons and doesn't know what to do or where to speak. He's gotten better, for sure, but he's still awful with the telephone.
And Dean loves to torment him.
What Dean likes best about it is when Seamus is trying to find the right end of the receiver, Dean can hear his breath. In and out. Slightly panicked as Seamus doesn't want to look a fool. Dean loves the breath. Sometimes it's better than the actual conversation. But rarely. It's the buildup that he really loves. The buildup to the 4 hours he spends in the closet, surrounded by darkness and stuff coats, talking to his best friends on the phone about anything that pops into his head.
The car door opens and Dean pops the trunk. The air is sticky and warm. Uncomfortable. He pulls his t-shirt down and hikes up his jeans as he gets out of the car.
"Let me get that," his mother says. Messing his hair with her manicured hand.
She goes and makes one attempt to lift his massive luggage trunk from the car trunk, then she giggles.
"I think I better get that, mum," Dean says quietly, smirking.
Love his Mom like he does, she's an office professional through and through and they could never go camping. Not that Dean particularly wants to go camping, it's just the knowing that the possibility is out there that he wants.
He takes his suitcase inside and slides it haphazardly to his room. Almost running over his dog, Fettucini, that was snoozing in the hall.
His room hasn't changed. Still dark blue, with one wall entirely covered with a massive chalkboard. His mother has written, in her perfect cursive, "WELCOME HOME DEAN" and she's drawn a dragon or two and some fireworks.
"Thanks for the drawing, Louise!" he calls to his mother. Sometimes he calls her by her first name. She doesn't mind. He doesn't know why. But he does. Only sometimes. Not when he really needs her. When he is crying or in need of a hug, it's "mum" or "mom".
She's in the kitchen.
"I'm putting up soup!" she calls to him.
"I'm putting up my clothing!" he calls back.
"Carolyn walks to school now!" she calls. He hears the stove flicker, then light. The apartment is small, "Isn't that wild!?"
Dean can't imagine his spoiled little sister Carolyn WALKING in her heels and lip glossy mouth and perfectly straightened hair and designer clothes. And certainly not to her school.
"I don't believe it!" He says, putting his shirts in an empty drawer.
She turns on the Barry Manilow and croons with him in her best "step-into-my-office-baby" voice. She loves taking off a half day of work to pick up her son. Even though he's old enough to take the bus or tube home. She doesn't approve of such activities on his first day of summer break. A mother should be around to do things like cook soup and fail at lifting luggage.
"Soups on!" She hollers and Dean scampers into the tiny kitchen, knocking over a stack of his boxers as he goes.
He slurps canned chicken-noodle-soup happily as his mother drills him about school.
"Learn any math this year?"
SLURP
"no"
"how about english? Read any shakespeare?"
"No mum"
Some noodles fly through his pursed lips.
"How do they expect you to get on in the world without a slightly secular education?!" She groans, throwing her hands up.
Dean swallows a chunk of chicken.
"They don't expect us to get on in the world. They expect us to get on in the wizarding world, Louise. It's different."
"I just don't understand. Taking a class about the... the history of magic, won't help you file papers all day!"
Dean sighs and tips the cracked porcelain bowl to his lips, he sips.
"How's your friends?"
"Fine"
He likes the broth.
"Harry? Ron?"
"Good." SLURP "Good."
"Seamus?"
Dean chokes a bit on the hot liquid. He coughs, his tongue burns.
"He's... good too."
Louise doesn't seem to notice at all.
"You didn't get into any trouble this year, did you?"
"None whatsoever..."
"Good."
Dean washes his bowl and sets it in the old drying rack.
Louise looks at the clock, then at her hands.
"I'm getting old, Dean. Just look at me."
"Nonsense. You're still the most beauteous ever!" he crow's and throws his arm around her, "I really miss you when I'm away mum..." (notice he said MUM there, not LOUISE. get it?)
Louise just looks at her boy. All grown up. Taller than she. Strapping, an old relic might say. He thinks she doesn't notice, but she does. How every time she says his name... his face goes red or he chokes or coughs or giggles or smirks or BLINKS, even. She sees everything. She's his mother, after all. They know they're sons better than anyone save the sons themselves. Mothers are perceptive creatures, indeed.
"Shall we go to the cinema tonight?" She asks, flipping through the paper. Half concentrating.
"I was thinking Chinese Take-Out and a movie?"
"Perfect. We'll have to work around-"
"Is the wanker home!?
A voice cries from the entry. Carolyn enters. She's become more of a Seventeen reading, lip gloss overusing, chuck taylor wearing pretend hipster slash prep in disguise than he remembers. But she's his sister. And he loves her.
"In this very room, you bitch," he calls to her.
Louise groans,
"Will my children ever stop fighting?!"
The sound of books being dropped rings through out the apartment. The downstairs neighbors will complain about it.
"DEAAAAN!" she shrieks and gallops into the kitchen, the neighbors will complain about this too.
There is much rejoicing as the whole Thomas family (Well, ALMOST whole, but Father's story is unique in itself and it is safe to say he won't be showing up) is reunited at last.
One AM.
Dean creeps out of his bedroom.
After too much General Tso's Chicken and fiddling with a scratched DVD of Little Shop Around the Corner, his mother and sister retired, Dean is pleasantly content with the start of summer. He knows that he will get bored and complain, and that it will get hot and muggy, and he will get teased, or he'll get drunk, or he'll do SOMETHING to piss his mother or sister off. But right now, in this very moment. Everything is perfect.
He picks the phone off the receiver and quietly steps into the closet.
He dials a number he knows by heart even though he uses it very few times a year.
Someone picks up. He inhales the scent of fur.
The breath. How wonderful. How-
"Hey buddy."
It's his voice.
Things could go to hell in a hand basket. But right now, Dean's got the telephone in his hand, and his best friend on the line.
He could ask for nothing more.
Nothing.