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Chapter Seven
Sam was no stranger to experiencing stunned disbelief at what Dean was prepared to do to save his baby brother.
Dean had taken his Primary Directive – look after Sam – very seriously from a young age, and there was just about nothing he would not do if he thought it would keep Sam safe. He seemed to be programmed at a fundamental level to ignore his own welfare if necessary and keep Sam from harm. He was the D1000, the Deaninator, and it was hardwired into his circuits.
There had been numerous situations where Sam had been utterly gobsmacked by this. From Dean trading away his soul to Dean crash-tackling a very grumpy male swan, Sam thought that one day, he might get to a point where nothing his brother would do would surprise him.
Today was not that day. This one really took the biscuit. The dog biscuit.
Sam did a very convincing goldfish impression for several seconds before he finally found his voice. "You..." he began, "You... Dean, you... you fed me to... a werewolf?"
"No!" yelped Dean, "No! Sam, I did not feed you to a werewolf!"
"You fed me to a werewolf," Sam repeated woodenly.
"No he didn't," Andrew offered reasonably, biting into a chunk of crackling. "If he'd fed you to a werewolf, you wouldn't be here, because you'd have been eaten. Could I have the apple sauce, please?"
"He didn't eat you," Ronnie added, "He just had a teeny little taste. Here you are."
"Sam Winchester, the other white meat," nodded Andrew. "Low in fat, high in protein, dolphin safe, free range. Thank you, dear."
Sam did the goldfish thing again; Ronnie tutted, reached over and shoved a piece of crackling into his mouth. "Chew first," she patted his arm.
"You fe' be do a 'ere'ol'," Sam repeated, before starting to chew on his crackling. Ronnie tutted again, leaning in to wipe his face with a napkin.
Dean's face was a picture of despair. "Sam," he tried, "You were dying. You were dying! I had to!"
"But..." Sam's looked around the table.
"Chew," Ronnie reminded him. "You're too old for me to pre-chew it for you."
"And you're waaaaay too old for her to regurgitate meat for you," Andrew gestured with his fork.
Sam obediently chewed and swallowed.
"So..." he looked down at himself, "I'm a... werewolf."
"That's right," Ronnie beamed, like a teacher encouraging a shy student who'd just gotten a question right.
"I'm a... werewolf," Sam repeated.
"Sure are," Andrew nodded. "I bet you'll make a real good one, too."
Sam turned to Andrew. "You bit me," he said slowly, "And now I'm a werewolf."
"Yup," agreed Andrew equably, "I bit you, and now you're a werewolf. A live werewolf."
Sam turned back to Dean. "What the...?" words failed him. "Dean, what the hell were you thinking!"
"Sam..."
"I'm a werewolf!"
"Yeah, I know, I..."
"I'm a werewolf, Dean!"
"Sam, I'm aware that..."
"No, Dean, I'm a were! A werewolf! Why did you want me to be a werewolf?"
"I didn't!" Dean shot back in anguish, "I didn't want you to be a werewolf! I just wanted you not to be dead!"
Sam dropped his head into his hands. "I'm a werewolf," he said again. "I've been bitten, and now, I'm a werewolf."
"A live werewolf," Andrew reminded him. "Instead of a dead human."
Sam looked up. "How can you... how can you be so calm about this?" he demanded.
"Because I'm a live werewolf, too," shrugged Andrew, nabbing a juicy piece of meat. "And it's a magnificent excuse to stuff myself with chunks of dead pig. I suggest you stop angsting, and eat. A tortured psyche is a lot easier to deal with if your stomach is full. Trust me on that one."
Sam sat in bemusement, mouth open. Ronnie leaned in, and popped in more meat. "Chew."
Sam turned back to his brother, chewing as instructed. "Did he shay... did he shay that thish cang ge ungdonge?"
"Totally," nodded Dean eagerly, "Bobby says that we can undo it as soon as he gets the countercurse together, for sure."
"How long will that take?"
"He's not certain, maybe a couple more weeks..."
Sam slumped back in his chair. "So, I'm gonna be a werewolf for a while."
"Sam..." Dean ran out of words too. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But..."
Tormented green eyes looked into bemused hazel ones.
Sam sighed. "Well," he said eventually, "I guess it could've been worse." With a resigned expression, he reached across to grab another piece of crackling. "Given a choice between eating dead pig and marrying Becky..." he contemplated the crackling then bit into it. "At least I can keep my shirt on here." He saw the gratitude in Dean's eyes, and marvelled anew at how it could be possible to want to hug his brother and kill him at the same time. "So, what happens now?"
"We finish this off, then have dessert," answered Andrew.
"That's not what I meant..."
"We know what you meant," Ronnie smiled, "You just keep doing what you've been doing – healing up – then once Bobby has the countercurse sorted out, we do that, and then the two of you get in your car, and rumble off into the sunset, happy ending, upbeat music plays, roll credits, fade to black."
"No homo," cautioned Andrew, making Dean choke on a mouthful.
"Okay." Sam stared at nothing for a moment. "I think this might be the bit where my brain explodes."
"Could you do that somewhere without carpet?" begged Ronnie. "Brains is so hard to get out of carpet."
Andrew gave her a look. "How do you know that brains is..."
"Don't ask." She stood up. "Now, who wants ice-cream with their brownie?"
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The Winchesters' preparations for bed that night were more subdued than usual.
"So, er," Dean began, "You wanna call first on the shower?"
"Yeah, sure," Sam replied. He picked up his bedtime sweats, and headed for the en suite.
"Sam..."
He turned around to see Dean watching him carefully. He heard his internal voice having the argument with itself again – Hug first, kill later? No, kill first, then hug; no, that'll get blood all over me, hug first, then kill, no, what about kill while hugging?
The Deaninator. It absolutely will not stop until you are safe.
He smiled, and settled for teasing.
"Dean, if you're about to make some comment about getting me some flea shampoo, I don't wanna hear it."
It made him happy to see the relief spread across his big brother's face, as the guilt he'd been carrying since the Black Dog attack dissolved.
Sam headed for the bathroom. "You know, Andrew's right. Bein' a live werewolf is way better than bein' a dead human. Or a live Mr Becky."
"That's what I figured," nodded Dean. "And no flea shampoo jokes, I promise."
"Good."
"If I see you scratchin', I'll just use some of the stuff I spot onto Jimi's neck..."
"Jerk."
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Dean slept better that night than he had for several days; when he awoke, Sam was already gone, and Jimi with him. The thought of food drove him out of bed, and he headed for the kitchen.
"So, guys, I'm here, don't scream all at once, what's for..."
He stopped, and blinked.
Ronnie stood behind Sam, brushing his hair.
"Hey, bro," Sam greeted him.
"Uh," Dean began, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything..."
"He wasn't doing it properly," Ronnie explained, "His arm is still sore, so I'm doing it for him."
"Oh. Uh, okay," Dean mumbled, heading for the coffee.
She finished Sam's hair, then made a small whuffing noise. "All done", she said, handing him the brush and bending down.
"Thanks," Sam smiled.
Dean watched as they exchanged a brief sniff of noses. Okay, wasn't expecting that...
"So," Ronnie went on, "Who wants pancakes for breakfast?"
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It wasn't as if it was completely unexpected, Dean told himself: his brother had always been such a little bitch, he shouldn't be surprised to see him acting like a little bitch who was interacting with a couple of other bitches.
What he did find strange was the way that Sam didn't seem to notice, or care, if he was doing things that he might not have done two weeks ago. Like, eat enormous amounts of bacon for breakfast. Or growl at a dog getting too close to his plate. Or communicate without using words; for a guy who could be incredibly articulate, Sam was getting the hang of basic Canine pretty damned quickly.
Dean was scraping at his plate when he heard his brother make a sad noise. He looked up and was about to ask what was wrong, when he saw Ronnie lift the jug of batter and whuff. Sam smiled, and grunted happily.
"What about you Dean?" she asked.
"Yeah, if you're gonna woof some more ruffs, I'll have a couple," he rolled his eyes. "Geez, Sam, if you had a tail, right now it'd be waggin'."
"Old North werewolves don't have tails," Sam reminded his brother. "The human form undergoes some pretty extreme transformation during the shapeshift, I mean, just look at the change to digitigrade hind limbs, but that doesn't include growing the extra vertebrae that would be required to have a tail." He looked at his own hands. "I've wondered about the hands," he went on, "They're like a cross between paws, and hands; you can run on four legs, but I know you can use a knife."
"That's an exception rather than the rule," Ronnie commented, in a voice that once again made Dean think of a teacher – or maybe a parent – listening to a precocious student talk about AP subject matter. "It took a lot of practice, and a wolf's hand could never be as dexterous as a human one. A werewolf will never fire a gun."
"The claws would probably get in the way," Sam agreed, "Are they actually protractible at all?"
"Hardly at all," Ronnie replied, "Much more like a canine paw than a feline one."
"They look like it, when a wolf is, uh, you know," he waved a hand, "Gettin' ready to get nasty."
"It's part of the threat display," Ronnie smiled, "When the carpals extend, they look bigger. Look." She put down the spatula, concentrated, and let one of her arms shift to a large, hairy appendage, tipped with wicked claws. "Relaxed, you can see there's not much more to 'em," Sam reached out, and poked curiously at one of Ronnie's digits, "But if I do this," she flexed her arm, and extended her hand as if to strike, "Everything looks bigger."
"You'd knock 'em dead at the Ms Olympia," muttered Dean, "Although you'd hafta make a double booking for your waxing appointment beforehand."
"They do retract a bit," Sam noted.
"I think that's to make it possible to run on all fours," Ronnie suggested, letting her arm snap back to human. "Compare it to Jimi's, you'll see the difference."
They continued the discussion of comparative anatomy over second helpings.
"I kinda wonder what sort of wolf I would look like," Sam admitted.
"I bet you got a long coat," smirked Dean.
"It's impossible to say," shrugged Ronnie, "There doesn't seem to be any reliable correlation between what somebody looks like as a human, and what they look like as a wolf."
"You go from, well," Sam fished for a way to put it tactfully, "You're kinda..."
"The phrase my Gammer used was 'Built like a brick shithouse'," Ronnie grinned. "Yeah, for me that translates into my lupine form. But look at Andrew; he's not exactly a 99-pound weakling, but when he transforms, he's massive. I've seen guys twice his size who are nothing like that when they shift." She giggled. "There's this bloke in Cleveland, can't control it, but locks himself in the basement every full moon. He's a bodybuilder, but when he shifts, he's, how do I put this..."
"A 199-pound weakling?" suggested Dean.
"Something like that," she grinned. "He wanted to know what he looked like, so we got some photos for him. Poor bastard, he was so embarrassed, he deleted them. Andrew can pick him up with one arm. Hell, I can pick him up with one arm."
"Are there any generalisations you can make?" asked Sam.
"Well," she said with a suggestive grin, "You know what they say about males with big C1 fangs."
"No," replied Dean, beaming innocently, "What do they say about males with big C1 fangs?"
Ronnie leaned across the table, and purred suggestively, "They have really... really... big... toothbrushes."
"Oh, God," groaned Dean, "That's ridiculous."
"Sure is," she agreed, "I mean, if you want to see how big a werewolf's dick is, all you gotta do is look." She paused thoughtfully. "Of course, most people who get close enough to a male werewolf to look at his dick don't live long enough to tell anybody about it. I'm kind of privileged in that way. So are you, technically. After all, you've seen Andrew's dick too."
Dean dropped his fork.
"Speaking of a werewolf's dick," Sam shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth, "Do werewolves have a baculum?"
"A what?" echoed Dean, looking slightly horrified at the turn the topic had taken.
"A dick bone," Ronnie translated. "Like dogs. No, but..."
"Gaaaaaaaah!" Dean yelped. "We were NOT speaking of a werewolf's dick!"
"Yeah we were," protested Sam.
"It's not a big deal," shrugged Ronnie, "Werewolves don't get hung up about nudity, you know that. Nobody cares if you've seen Andrew's dick, Dean. He certainly doesn't."
"I haven't looked at Andrew's dick!" yelped Dean.
"I didn't say you've looked at it," she countered reasonably, "I said you've seen it. And if you had looked, well, so what?"
"Oh, God, make it stop," Dean moaned. He turned to Sam. "Look, I get that you're curious about all this, seein' as you're goin' through werewolf puberty, so to speak, and that's fine," he turned to Ronnie, "But you are NOT gonna give him The Talk over breakfast, okay?"
"I think it's healthy to talk openly about these things," she smiled guilelessly at him, "I don't want him to feel dirty or ashamed about the changes in his body; these things should be taught in a no-nonsense way in the home, where he can be free to ask questions and get answers in language he can understand..."
"I hate you," Dean growled, stabbing viciously at a piece of egg. "I am NOT going to listen to werewolf sex ed over breakfast," aserted Dean, "There are some things that can ruin a man's digestion, and the thought of lookin' at a werewolf's dick – the thought of lookin' at anybody's dick – is one of 'em."
With as much dignity as a man can muster whilst juggling a plate of breakfast and a coffee, Dean announced "I'll be in the living room until you freaks are done."
They watched him stomp out.
"Was that naughty?" asked Sam.
"I think so," Ronnie nodded, "But he's just adorable when he's pissed off." She nodded at the stove. *Whuff?* (Still hungry?)
*Whiiiine* (Yeah, a bit.)
*Rumph* (I'll get more food.)
Awwwww, of course Sam forgives Dean - this is the Jimiverse, where the angst never lasts, the endings are always happy, and the Winchesters always make up (no homo). And as so many of the Denizens have pointed out, anything would be better than being Becky's sex slave. She can just go and check out Tumblr and deviantART for That Sort Of Thing. My word, they do have quite the imaginations, don't they?
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