Chapter 18 – Got Me Good

From the bed
To my heart
To my head

Guess that's the price that I pay
For falling so hard for you in less than a day

Feeling well and truly mortified, Sam walked to the electronic gate of Janey's illustrious London mansion alone, pulling his clothes back on as he went, the bedsheet discarded on the driveway in shame.

He wanted to scream, to cry, to punch something with all his might.

Instead, he pulled out his mobile phone. It had just gone two in the morning and, with a guilty knot in his stomach, Sam saw that he had five missed calls from his mum and three from Elliot. He cursed under his breath as the immense gate slid open for him. How had it gotten so late? How long had he and Janey been… doing what they'd been doing?

Sam simply couldn't bear the grilling he would get from his mum if he snuck in that early in the morning. And this time he thought, feeling sick, she would be one hundred percent correct in her assumptions of what he had been up to. He would never be able to look her in the eye and lie. She would see right through him, and he simply wasn't ready to face that.

Sam supposed the other option was the lesser of two evils, and a moment later, he had apparated to Elliot's front door. With a nervous gulp, he knocked, hoping to God he would be permitted entry.

Noises emerged from within, a delayed response time to usual, but unsurprising given the early hour of the day. Sam felt sheepish, unsure how he could possibly explain himself.

Elliot opened the door to him, blonde hair ruffled from sleep, and clad in a navy striped dressing gown. He looked half relieved, half furious as he recognised Sam's physique.

"Jesus, Sam!" he hissed, ushering him into the house. "What the hell are you playing at?"

Elliot's girlfriend Emma was poised on the stairs with curiosity in her eyes. She too was wrapped in a dressing gown and looked relieved to see it was Sam.

"Delia called me," Elliot said furiously.

Sam's face fell. "She did?"

"Yeah, and I covered for you. I said I'd spoken to you and you were with Janey—because I assumed that's where you were—but bloody hell, you could answer your damn phone once in a while!"

Sam felt overwhelmingly guilty. His mum had always been a worrier, and Sam had never returned home later than midnight. "Thank you," was all he could mumble.

Emma ushered him into the lounge, her blonde curls nowhere near as displaced as Elliot's. She was also treating Sam with a lot more kindness, for which he was grateful. She made him a hot chocolate before bidding them both goodnight, and Sam found himself sitting alone in Elliot's living room whilst his stepbrother glared at him with a stony expression. He had never been one to wake up in a pleasant mood Sam recalled from all those years they'd shared a room.

"Explain," he said furiously.

Sam took a sip of his hot chocolate. It was a little too hot still and made his tongue go fuzzy. "I had sex with Janey."

If Elliot had been drinking anything himself, he was sure to have spat it out. Instead, he dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, Jesus."

Sam was so used to people using 'Merlin' in place of a Christian deity that he almost found it amusing, but he held it together.

Elliot narrowed his eyes at the younger man, sizing up the situation. "Am I supposed to congratulate you?" he asked bitterly, but seeing Sam's expression, he immediately softened. Why else would Sam be there, he must have realised, if there wasn't something more. "And this was… a mutual decision?"

Sam hadn't realised, but he had been shaking his legs in nervous anticipation. He had found it humiliating to speak to Elliot about this before, and he had no idea how he would now possibly describe the encounter he'd just had and everything he was feeling about it. He still hadn't really processed it.

"Of course it was mutual," he snapped, unsure what Elliot was implying.

"Sam, last time we spoke about this, you told me you weren't even remotely ready to… progress your physical relationship with Janey, and now you're on my doorstep at two in the morning telling me you've done exactly that? That was barely two weeks ago!"

"I know, I know," Sam said awkwardly. "It just kind of… happened."

Elliot looked deeply concerned. "What exactly happened?"

Sam took a steadying breath. "It's Janey's birthday."

"Seventeen?" Elliot checked.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Obviously—we're in the same year at school."

"You assume I know how old you are," Elliot teased, before remembering he was supposed to be somewhat mad at his younger stepbrother. "Anyway, go on."

"So we spent the day with our friends and then I, uh, offered to take her home," Sam explained, "and we hung out for a bit, and then she…"

Elliot cocked his head inquisitively.

Sam gulped, averting his gaze. "She asked me to sleep with her."

"And you didn't, you know, pressure her into this request?"

"God, no," Sam snapped in disgust. "Elliot, please! I had no idea this was going to happen—that this was something she had on her mind. I don't even know," he spluttered, "if this was something she'd thought about beforehand, or if it was just an 'in the moment' thing."

Elliot couldn't wipe the look of suspicion from his face, but he didn't say anything else.

"I told her no!" Sam insisted. "I told her I wasn't ready and it felt like things were progressing too quickly. She's the one who pushed for it."

Elliot now looked concerned but for different reasons, and Sam realised that, in trying to clear his own name, he had tainted Janey's.

"Not like that," he quickly amended. "I… wanted to. Eventually."

But the blond man didn't look any more at ease. "You told her no?" he clarified. "And she still insisted that you—"

"She didn't insist. She… propositioned me," Sam explained delicately, "and I expressed reluctance because I wasn't sure we were on the same page. But then, you know, stuff happened, and we both wanted to do it, so we did. Kind of…" He drained the last of his hot chocolate but continued to clutch the mug like it was some kind of beacon of safety. It was very uncomfortable to recount the events of only a few hours ago. Speaking it out loud just felt wrong somehow.

"What do you mean kind of?" Elliot asked suspiciously.

Sam felt the tops of his ears burn bright red. "It wasn't, umm, successful."

"Sam, please, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Neither of us, you know…" He gestured frantically.

Elliot's eyes widened in realisation. "Oh, okay, I see."

"It was just really awkward and uncomfortable, and I don't think she was having a good time, and I kept accidentally hurting her, and it just—I was—" Sam was mortified to realise his eyes were starting to well. Was he seriously going to cry over this?

Elliot looked just as uncomfortable as Sam felt, but he could tell that he was trying to be empathetic and kind, despite how sleep-deprived he must have been.

"Sam, it's fine, it happens," Elliot reassured him. "It is never good the first time, I promise you."

Sam assumed he was just trying to be kind, feeling only fractionally reassured. "Yeah, but this was, like, really bad," he emphasised, feeling like he was betraying Janey somehow. He knew he wasn't saying she was bad; it was entirely his awkwardness and inadequacies that had ruined what should have been an incredible moment.

"I'm sure Janey didn't expect anything, you know, overly incredible," Elliot said awkwardly. "You're probably overthinking it, Sam. As long as no one was hurt or upset in a, you know, serious way."

But Sam didn't know. He was sure Janey had been both hurt and upset. More so than he would have wanted her to have been given that he was trying to provide her pleasure.

"Communication is really important."

"I was trying," Sam insisted. "I kept asking if she was okay, if she was sure, if I was hurting her… I kept saying we didn't have to go any further."

"Well, that probably didn't help either." Elliot offered a weak smile. "It was your first time; you were nervous. But you are almost one hundred percent overthinking it all, Sam. You both would have had a lot of expectations, given that it's a pretty big step to take, and it's hard to meet that. There are a lot of hormones, and emotions, and, uh, sensations—"

Sam winced. "It was bad, Elliot. I'm not just being hard on myself. I know it was."

"Even so, Janey cares about you," Elliot said kindly. "It's something you'll both learn together, and as you become more comfortable with each other, you'll…"

"No." Sam shook his head. "No, no, no, I'm never doing it again."

Elliot rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious. It was humiliating. No amount of… pleasure"—Sam winced at the word—"is worth the complete mortification I put myself through."

Sam's stepbrother regarded him with kind pity. "Wow, really that bad, huh? You're already swearing sex off for good?"

"It was the worst experience of my life," Sam mumbled, once more feeling like he was betraying Janey.

"Geez, Sam, you are the weirdest teenage boy I've ever met," Elliot snorted in amusement. "And trust me, you will sincerely regret thinking that when you've actually done it properly."

"Well, it's not like I can practise," Sam snapped. "I guess you're either good at it or you're not, and now that I know I'm not, I owe it to the world to never try again. Nothing is worth putting myself through that."

Elliot merely stared at him in amused disbelief. "I wish I was recording this so I could play it at your wedding."

"I'm not going to marry Janey!" Sam exclaimed without thinking.

Elliot snorted again. "Hey, I never said Janey's name, I just meant in general."

"Well, I'm never going to be able to get married, am I?" Sam demanded. "Who wants to marry some guy who can't satisfy them sexually?"

"I know, it's almost as though sex isn't the most important thing in a relationship."

"But it is important," Sam insisted.

"Yeah, maybe, Sam, but Jesus, you're only seventeen! A month ago, this wasn't a factor at all, and it doesn't have to be! Clearly, it was too much for you too soon, and that's fine. I tried to tell you it was fine! You're still at school, Janey isn't going anywhere, and you have plenty of time to continue developing your relationship physically when it is the right time."

But Sam didn't see how they could possibly go back from what they'd now done. He and Janey surely couldn't just shrug off their failed attempt at intimacy? Discard it as though it had never happened? It would hang over them like a ghost, lurking in every corner, constantly haunting them. Nor could they, Sam realised, integrate it as a real part of their relationship—not after the disaster of that night. Though with the way he'd left it, he really wasn't sure they had a relationship left at all. How would he ever look her in the eye again? How would she ever speak to him?

"Just communicate with Janey." Elliot was trying to be kind and assuring, but Sam could see how desperate he was to return to the clutches of sleep. "She probably feels exactly the same as you do right now. I mean, what did she say afterwards?"

"She didn't," Sam said in a daze.

"What do you mean?"

"She didn't say anything," Sam explained. "I just apologised and left."

"You're kidding me?" Elliot looked furious.

Taken by surprise, Sam just gawked back. "Well, what the hell was supposed to happen? We put the kettle on and discuss my inadequacies as a lover?"

"You didn't even say goodbye?"

"No," Sam said sheepishly.

"Oh, geez, Sam, seriously?"

"What!"

Elliot was shaking his blond head in deep disbelief. "You need to talk to her about this, not me!"

"And say what, exactly?" Sam demanded sarcastically. "Sorry the act of losing your virginity was so incredibly disappointing for you, but I hope you had a great birthday. What specifically about my performance did you think was the most unsatisfactory and how humiliated are you that you chose me as a lover?"

Elliot pursed his lips. "You need to tell her how you feel. That you were nervous, and it was unexpected, and that you, maybe, aren't ready for this just yet. She will understand. She probably feels exactly the same."

But Sam highly doubted that. "Nope. I'm never speaking to Janey again."

"Oh, wow, real mature, Sam."

"I don't think you appreciate how utterly humiliating it was," Sam hissed, unable to prevent himself from getting riled up. He knew he only had himself to blame, but would it kill Elliot to just agree that Sam be sent away to a special facility where he never had to interact with any human ever again due to the simple fact that he was the most embarrassing person on the entire planet?

"Don't throw away what you have with Janey over this," Elliot advised. "The way you feel about each other is way more valuable and important than a crappy first time."

"What was yours like?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"Oh, fantastic. I'm an excellent lover."

Sam scowled.

"It was fun," Elliot said with a smile. "It wasn't great, but I don't regret it at all."

But still, Sam thought he was being humble. There was no way Elliot would be saying the things he was if he knew how truly awful Sam had been.

"Not enough for me to swear off sex for life after barely even having it."

"I don't think she'll ever speak to me again," Sam said sadly, ignoring Elliot's jibe. "I don't know if I want her to. Part of me wishes we could go back to how we were before tonight, but it's going to be incredibly awkward now."

"It will be worse if you give her the silent treatment or make her feel ashamed."

"She shouldn't be ashamed. She didn't do anything wrong."

"So tell her that, Sam," Elliot said gently. "She probably feels exactly the same. If it's all as doom and gloom as you say it is then what's the harm? It can't get any worse?"

Oh, but it could, Sam thought. She was almost certainly going to dump him.

"Maybe you just need to sleep on it," Elliot suggested. "I'll text Delia to say you're here and you're safe, and you can stay the night."

If the thought of seeing Janey again was unnerving to Sam then seeing his mum was downright terrifying. "Can I stay here forever? You can tell people I died."

"If you stay here forever then I might just kill you," Elliot said brightly.

"What the hell am I supposed to say?"

"Tell her you did something worse—that way she'll never question it."

"Like what? A hit and run or something?"

"Well, you don't drive."

"Exactly," Sam declared. "That's even worse. Especially as I was blackout drunk at the time."

"Wow, it really must have been awful sex," Elliot mused. "To need all this misdirection."

"They should make it illegal to be as bad as I was," Sam mumbled, his ears burning bright red again.

"I don't think that's what they mean when they send people to prison for being a sex criminal."

But Sam truly felt like prison, after death, might just be his best option to escape the humiliation. Elliot's offer of a bed for the night was incredibly enticing though. Perhaps if he fell into a deep enough slumber, Sam could awaken and find it had all been a horrible, cruel dream. Or else, never awaken at all…

Elliot had gotten to his feet, clearly deciding the conversation had come to an end, and Sam didn't blame him. The clock on the wall let him know it was nearing three in the morning. He wondered if Janey was still awake.

"My advice," Elliot concluded, "is take things slow, actually speak to Janey, and, you know, keep being safe whatever you do."

When Sam said nothing, still sitting on the sofa, Elliot looked at him sharply. "Oh, Sam, please don't tell me you didn't use protection, I swear to God!"

"We didn't even need it!" Sam protested.

"Are you kidding me?" Elliot flung a throw cushion at Sam's head, but he ducked just in time, despite his sleep-ravaged responses. "What was the one thing I made you promise when I specifically spoke to you about this!"

"I tried!" Sam protested. "I said I didn't have anything, and that I didn't feel comfortable without, and she said she didn't care!"

"So!" Elliot demanded in a hushed shout, trying not to disturb Emma or the neighbours. "Don't be an idiot, Sam, why did you go along with it?"

He just stared helplessly. "I am but a man…"

"No, okay, I'm being serious," Elliot said furiously. "When you speak to Janey, whatever you decide, you tell her straight that you're not doing anything without certain guidelines that you put in place before you actually do anything. And that is always, always, an obligation."

"I did try," Sam mumbled, but he knew Elliot was right. He supposed he was grateful things had gone the way they had in that aspect—he never should have risked it. "But she said she'd deal with it, you know, after…"

Elliot's glare intensified. "How, exactly?"

Sam didn't really know where he was going with this; he just didn't want to be under scrutiny any longer. "Well, there are pills, aren't there? And… procedures?"

"Not your choice," Elliot said fiercely. "And not, by any means, a rational justification for being intentionally unsafe! Sam," he said with firmness, "it is always your responsibility, okay?"

"I was hardly going to get her pregnant," Sam insisted, a little annoyed Elliot was overreacting so much. Yes, it was a dumb risk, and he should have enforced his choice not to proceed without any kind of protection, but at the end of the day, it hadn't mattered and nothing bad probably would have happened.

"Really? How do you know?" Elliot demanded sarcastically, still furious.

"Because," Sam spluttered, struggling to think of a succinct answer, "it's really statistically unlikely, isn't it? Like, we would have had to have been really unlucky for—"

"Sam, don't be an idiot," Elliot cut across in disgust. "Unless you're infertile, you can literally get a woman pregnant every single time you… you know…"

Neither of the boys wanted him to say the word out loud.

Sam had gone red once more. "That's not true?" he asked in panic.

"It one hundred percent is."

"I thought the timing had to be right,"—he gestured wildly—"biologically."

"For her, yeah," Elliot said, "but not for you. A woman can only get pregnant for about six days in a month. So statistically, if she had sex with a different man every day, there's only, like, a twenty percent chance of her actually conceiving. A man, on the other hand, could have sex with a different woman every day for the same amount of time and could, technically, get every single one pregnant."

Sam just stared in complete disbelief. "You're kidding?"

Despite himself, Elliot was now a little amused by Sam's naïve response. "No, it's true. I thought you said they taught you this at school?"

"Not that," Sam said in a daze. "It was more just… these protective spells you could use. And, you know, the physical biology…"

"So there are spells you could have used?" Elliot looked genuinely intrigued but then irritated once more. "So why didn't you?"

"I forgot what they were," Sam said sheepishly.

Elliot just shook his head. "But see, that is why it is precisely your responsibility, okay? It's your biological functions that will result in pregnancy, so it's your responsibility to use protection!"

Sam was definitely startled by this revelation. They really ought to have led with that at Hogwarts. The thought of becoming an unwitting father at seventeen was certainly terrifying, but he had just sort of assumed it was a lucky surprise whether or not you got pregnant—(lucky depending on whichever outcome you viewed as such).

"Why do you know so much about all this?" Sam asked, suddenly suspicious. "Those stats?" It wasn't anything Sam had ever heard before, so how on earth did Elliot just happen to have it ready in his back pocket? Unless he was making it up, Sam rationalised, but that didn't seem right.

It was Elliot's turn to blush and avert his gaze. "I just… remember it," he said offhandedly. "From hearing it somewhere."

But he refused to meet Sam's gaze, and the younger boy had an influx of realisation. "Are you and Emma," he asked breathlessly, "trying for a baby?"

Sam felt a knot of excitement form in his stomach, quite the opposite of his views on his own hypothetical fatherhood. Why on earth would Elliot otherwise have this niche font of knowledge about conception statistics?

Elliot looked sharply towards the staircase where his girlfriend had disappeared up earlier and frantically shushed Sam. "I—no," he denied, but without much conviction. "I'll tell you another day."

And Sam asked no more, but he felt delighted anticipation at the thought of his stepbrother potentially taking steps to start a family of his own. He would be an uncle! Sort of.

"Anyway, I want to go to bed—are we done here?" Elliot asked.

Sam didn't feel sleepy at all, but he knew he'd regret it if he too didn't get some rest, and he'd regret it even more if he denied Elliot any more sleep.

"Talk to Janey about how you're feeling and ask her how she feels," Elliot instructed. "Set clear boundaries and guidelines about what you are or aren't going to do and what exactly you're comfortable with—which doesn't have to be anything at all," he reminded him. "But," he sighed, perhaps sensing this was unlikely, "whatever you do, be safe. And answer your mother's phone calls, if not mine! If you go AWOL again, I'll tell her exactly what you've been up to."

Sam grimaced. "I told you, I'm not doing it ever again, I don't care. Janey's going to dump me, and everybody will laugh at me, and I'll have to leave Hogwarts a year early out of shame."

Elliot had run out of all patience and charm, desperate to return to bed. "Right."

"But," Sam said delicately, "if I, err, did need"—he gulped—"protection. Where would I get it?" He was staring down at his feet, refusing to look Elliot in the eye out of total mortification. He was still pretty certain that he and Janey would never relive what had happened that night, but it would be valuable to know, right?

"Oh, God," Elliot breathed, equally as uncomfortable. "Just wait here."

Sam watched as Elliot jogged out of the room and listened to him try and gently ascend the stairs, followed by a door opening somewhere, or maybe a drawer. In less than a minute, he had returned, stretching out his hand to offer Sam a small cardboard box that neither of them wanted to look at directly.

"Please don't tell me I have to get a cucumber out and show you how to use them."

"No," Sam dismissed, blushing furiously before looking alarmed. "But a cucumber's not, like, an actual representation of…?"

"What?"

"People—girls—don't expect a cucumber? That's not normal, right? The… the length, and the girth?"

Elliot snorted. "Speak for yourself." But when Sam didn't look reassured, he softened. "Of course not, Sam." He instantly perked up again. "But Janey's pretty small, so that should work in your favour, right? Perspective and all that."

Sam just rolled his eyes. In truth, he was terrified of what Janey thought of him physically. Another reason to never ever be naked in front of her again. He awkwardly pocketed the box Elliot had given him, not even wanting to look at it.

"Thanks," Sam mumbled.

"Oh, come on, Sam, you know I was kidding!"

"No, I mean it," Sam assured him. "Genuinely. For…" He gestured to his pocket, still bright red. "And for covering for me, and letting me stay the night, and… the advice."

Elliot offered a proud smile. "No problem. I am always here if you need to talk about this stuff."

Sam smiled back, finally starting to feel the tempting call of sleep.

"But for the love of God, please, please, let this be the last time."

Author's Note: Title and epigraph inspired by DNCE's 'Got Me Good'

As this is only a short chapter, have a second one too!