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Sam Evans was a teenage werewolf.
Actually, Sam Evans was a secret teenage werewolf. That meant it totally and completely sucked. No riding around on top of vans celebrating his wolfy nature for this dude. It was all secret pining and flimsy excuses for disappearing on full moon nights for him.
*
The thing about being a secret teenage werewolf was that you constantly wanted to eliminate the ‘secret’ from your job description. The only problem with that was that Sam wasn’t really down with the idea of the whole Glee club finding out about his full moon activities, which largely centered around excruciating pain as his bones cracked and flesh reshaped, followed by snarling at anything that moved and licking his own balls.
Admittedly, there were some perks to being a werewolf. Some things just weren’t possible in human form.
But it also meant that Sam had to keep a lot of secrets ranging from how he healed his busted shoulder so quickly to why he accidentally kept sniffing Puck pretty much any time he saw him.
It wasn’t really his fault that Puck smelled really, really awesome.
Sam was pretty sure that Puck mostly smelled like every other dude on the football team – a mix of sweat and unwashed socks and body spray-- but there was a certain musk underlying that which Sam just couldn’t get enough of.
Puck had started to notice the frequency of the sniffing, though, which meant that Sam got a lot of weird looks from him. Thankfully he hadn’t asked about it yet, since Sam hadn’t managed to come up with a non-creepy story about why he liked to sniff Puck.
Probably because secretly sniffing a dude was about as high as you could score on the creep-o-meter without actually breaking into his bedroom and watching him sleep.
Granted, in Sam’s case it was a wolf-thing, but Puck didn’t know that.
*
Lifting weights with Puck was the worst.
On one hand, there was plenty to talk about because Sam knew a lot about abs and biceps and how to make abs and biceps look awesome, which were mutual areas of interest. On the other hand, there were a lot of exposed abs and biceps, and working out made Puck smell even more… Puck, and Sam had to grit his teeth a lot because the urge to pounce on Puck and bite him was pretty damn strong.
Sam thought that singing with Puck would be worse in terms of proximity and thus the danger of Sam sneaking in a sniff, what with choreography being involved. By the time Puck was out of juvie, though, Sam was used to the ebb and flow of Glee practice, which thankfully focused more on boy-girl dancing.
One day close to a full moon, Sam was in the weight room when Puck came swaggering in. Sam had been trying his best to avoid Puck, since as his transformation neared, his self-control decreased. He kept watching Puck out of the corner of his eye, and Puck’s faint scent kept tempting Sam to come closer and press in tight and just breathe in. It was so incredibly difficult to ignore him.
Sam was at the point where he had to concentrate fully on his free weights to resist the temptation to steal the sweatshirt Puck left laying on a nearby bench.
Seriously, Puck’s scent was driving him crazy. It was the only explanation for wanting to make a shrine of Puck’s dirty laundry. Being a werewolf sucked.
“Hey, Angelina Jolie, spot me,” Puck said. He was laying on his back on the bench, staring up at some weights.
Sam set down his dumbbell and slowly walked over. “Angelina Jolie?”
“Lips, yanno,” Puck said. He shrugged. “Nicknames work for Coach Sylvester, and she’s a badass.”
“True enough,” Sam had to agree. He watched as Puck lifted the weights, and tried not to close his eyes and sigh as Puck’s scent grew stronger.
“By the way,” Puck said. “You aren’t allowed to date Quinn anymore.”
That was not what Sam was expecting. “What? Why?”
“Because you’re obviously into me, and it’s creepy to date her just because I got there first,” Puck said sternly. “Quinn deserves better than that.”
“I am so not into you,” Sam lied, before adding truthfully, “and dating Quinn has nothing to do with you.”
Puck raised an eyebrow. “Dude, you keep sniffing me. I keep expecting you to steal my towels like Suzie Pepper did.”
“I do not,” Sam protested weakly.
“Whatever,” Puck said. “No hurting Quinn.”
Sam blinked. That was pretty much the opposite of how he’d expected Puck confronting him to go. For one thing, he still had all his teeth.
“I’m not gonna hurt Quinn,” he confirmed. He just had to figure out what he should do in order to not hurt her.
*
Sam broke up with Quinn. He had the sinking feeling Puck had been right about more than just Sam’s secret desire to steal dirty towels.
He tried to ignore Puck’s knowing glances and had to endure angry ‘you suck’ songs from not only every girl in Glee, but Finn as well.
He really liked Quinn, so that made him feel guiltier about the whole thing. He sang “Runaway” to her, and she laughed at him.
He felt better afterwards.
*
“It’s not worth it.”
“What the hell!” Sam exclaimed. Kurt Hummel was standing on the other side of the shower partition, giving him a knowing look. “You seriously need to stop with the shower creepin’.”
Kurt waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve seen the looks you’ve been giving Puck.”
“There have been no looks,” Sam said. Unless you counted the ones he was constantly giving Puck because Puck smelled so damn attractive. And maybe sometimes because Puck was seriously if unintentionally hilarious.
“Uh-huh,” Kurt said. “Right. No longing, dreamy looks where you’re obviously planning out the exact placement of lights to create the perfect atmosphere for a romantic beach-side dinners for two.”
Sam blinked. Was that what Kurt fantasized about? “Not even close.”
Imagining pushing Puck into the forest floor and biting the back of his neck really wasn’t that odd a thing to think about. Not really.
Kurt didn’t budge. “I’ve gone down the hopeless-crush-on-a-football-player route. It ends badly. Lots of awkward family dinners.”
“I don’t think my mom’s in the market for a sister-wife,” Sam said, even though the thought of Puck as a step-brother filled him with exhileration. It would be like living in a cocoon of Puck-scent. “Also,” he added, feeling the need to reiterate his point, “I don’t have a crush.”
Kurt looked casually over his shoulder. “Oh, hello, Puck. Cute undies.”
Sam craned his neck to see before realizing that he’d just failed Kurt’s test. “Crap.”
“Save yourself the dumpstering,” Kurt advised. “The Cheerios will be merciless if they realize why you dumped Quinn.”
“That isn’t why I dumped Quinn,” Sam insisted.
Kurt raised an eyebrow.
“And she’s better off without me,” Sam said.
"And Puck?”
Sam sighed. “Nothing is happening there.”
“Obviously,” Kurt said. “He’s really not going to swing your way.”
Sam turned back into the shower’s spray. “I know.”
*
The next day when Sam made his way to his locker after his post-practice shower, he came around the corner to find Puck right there. Sam was beginning to think that a dude couldn’t get naked in this school without an audience.
“Well?” Puck asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sam subtly made sure that his towel was secure. “Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me or something?” Puck asked. “Surprise attack me?”
“Why would I do that?” Sam replied, confused. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
Belatedly he realized this sort of conversation was strictly forbidden around McKinley, so he looked around the locker room. Apparently he’d spent too long on his hair, since everyone else had cleared out.
Or, he thought, maybe Puck had inspired the exodus. He turned back to Puck, who was… right there.
“Not in the slightest,” Puck said. He was really a lot closer to Sam than locker room etiquette dictated. “You broke up with Quinn.”
Sam stepped back, and Puck looked… disappointed.
“Dude,” Sam said. “You totally want me to kiss you!”
Puck narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything.
Sam was not a moron. He kissed Puck.
It was totally awesome.
*
“We aren’t dating,” Puck said the third time they made out. But, seeing as how his hand was down Sam’s pants at the time, Sam was entirely unperturbed.
“Why would we date?” Sam asked. “Dates are boring. Making out is awesome.”
Puck looked like he’d won the lottery. “That is the greatest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Sam laughed before nuzzling at Puck’s neck again. He was resisting the urge to bite and/or growl, which was the most challenging part of making out with Puck. Sam didn’t think Puck would appreciate Sam’s wolfier side taking over.
Sam kind of wondered what Puck would say if Sam told him about being a werewolf. He’d never really told anyone before, but he was already pretty sure that it was going to be exhausting to make out with Puck and not growl. Maybe Puck wouldn’t mind! Maybe he’d think it was awesome. Puck did have an appreciation for the finer things in life, and werewolves were totally badass.
Who was Sam kidding? He was a weirdo and Puck would think he was a crazy if he tried to say he was a werewolf. And he didn’t think Puck would let him get in this close anymore if he thought he was some kind of werewolf freak.
And he liked being this close. It was amazing, because Sam sometimes ended up with Puck’s scent all over himself, pressed into his clothes. It was almost unbearable to him, having that irresistible scent around him all the time, since it triggered his baser instincts.
But not nearly so unbearable that Sam was willing to put a stop to it. He wasn’t stupid.
*
“Are you okay?”
Sam jumped. He was standing there staring at his locker, preparing to put on his street clothes after football practice. Finn stood nearby, looking concerned.
“Yes?” Sam guessed. “I think so? Why do you ask?”
“You’ve just seemed kind of distracted lately,” Finn said with a shrug. “I thought you might be sad. You know. About Quinn.”
Sam must really be out of it if even Finn Hudson was realizing that he was acting off. Thinking back, he had spent a lot of time staring off in the distance, remembering how Puck’s muscles felt under his fingertips. He hoped he wasn’t blushing. “I’m fine. Just worried about the game coming up.”
“It’s against that school for the deaf,” Finn said. “I figured we’d just sneak up on them.”
Sam opened his mouth, then closed it again. There was no use explaining to Finn the fourteen things wrong with that statement. “You know when you lose one sense, the others get more powerful.”
Finn blinked. “Like superpowers?”
What the hell. Sam nodded. “Just like superpowers. Like the Daredevil.”
“Oh, man,” Finn said. “I saw that movie. This is going to be awful!”
Finn was like a big, earnest puppy. Sam felt bad for making him fret. “I’m sure we’ll still beat them. So that’s why I’ve been off. Worrying. Not anything major.”
Nothing major like fooling around with Puck while keeping lycanthropy a secret. Sam’s life was the hardest.
Finn nodded. “Hey, you want to come to my house to hang out after school? We can watch Daredevil and figure out weaknesses.”
Sam agreed.
As he passed the girl’s locker room, he could hear Santana’s voice clearly. She was complaining about not having had a dry spell like this since Puck was in juvie.
Sam almost forgot how to work doors. Puck wasn’t sleeping with Santana? Did that mean… Surely Puck wasn’t exclusive with him. Before he thought about how desperately uncool such an act was, he texted Puck asking if he had a girlfriend.
He turned his phone on silent. He was too nervous to read the answer.
*
Finn’s house was a little weird because, as Sam should have remembered, it was also Kurt’s house. There were issues of Vogue in foreign languages mixed in with the car and hunting magazines on the coffee table. Finn carefully toed off his shoes before propping his feet on it.
“Kurt pitches hissy fits if you get footprints on his magazines,” Finn explained. “You’d think he’d keep them in his room, but nope, that doesn’t properly display their majesty.” He didn’t have to do finger-quotes for Sam to know who he was quoting.
Sam snorted, but was very careful to remember to keep his own feet planted firmly on the ground. He didn’t dare incur the wrath of Kurt. One time in practice he’d accidentally stepped on Kurt’s shoes and had gotten a twenty-minute lecture on how impossible it was to get scuff marks out of suede. He did not want to repeat that experience again. Ever.
They were twenty minutes into the movie when Kurt arrived, rosy cheeked and cheerful. Sam suspected it had something to do with the fact that he was still spying on the Warblers, but he kept his mouth shut.
“You wanna watch?” Finn asked, and Kurt agreed, even though he looked pained when Finn explained the reason behind the movie choice. Sam shrugged at him, and Kurt sank into the sofa with a sigh that sounded a lot like, “Boys.”
The movie was almost over when Sam felt a familiar cramping in his legs and arms. He tensed up, trying desperately to think of when the full moon was supposed to happen.
It’d been a while since the last one, now that he thought of it. But the next one wasn’t until the twentieth…
Crap.
Sam surreptitiously checked his phone, but at first all he could see was a text notification. It was from Puck, and read don’t need a girlfriend now, which, what the hell did that mean? Did that mean Sam had replaced Santana? He was so distracted he almost forgot why he’d checked his phone, but a rolling wave of pain reminded him. The date and tiny lunar calendar told him what he already knew. The full moon was tonight.
Now.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I have to go,” Sam blurted out, standing up so quickly that his head spun. If he was already feeling cramping in his arms and legs, that meant that the change itself was due to happen within the hour.
He had to get home. Get to his basement. He couldn’t be here in Finn Hudson’s house, with Finn and Kurt staring at him when he turned into a ravenous supernatural beast. That would be so very, very bad, even if he managed to not tear their innards out.
“The movie’s not over!” Finn protested.
Kurt gave him a suspicious look.
“My mom needs me,” Sam said, hurrying across the room.
“Don’t you need shoes?” Kurt asked. “As appalling as calling those things ‘shoes’ is.”
Sam glanced down at his feet. His socks stared back up at him. Crap. “Yeah, I just… forgot.”
He sat back down and crammed his feet into his sneakers, not bothering to untie them first.
“We don’t have a strategy yet,” Finn said.
“We’ll play it by ear,” Sam offered, and Kurt let out an unladylike snort. Sam briefly wondered what that was about, then remembered why they were watching Daredevil. Sam was officially the worst person.
The ache in his legs was getting more severe by the second, and Sam knew he had to get the hell out of dodge.
Kurt looked like he was debating whether to say something or not, and Sam tried to escape the room before he could talk more. Of course Sam wasn’t that lucky.
“That was Puck, wasn’t it?”
“What?” Sam said, totally thrown for a loop.
“You checked your phone. It was Puck,” Kurt said confidently.
“Why would he run off if Puck texted him?” Finn asked.
Sam nodded. “I wouldn’t. It was my mom. And I really have to go, so, bye!”
He was halfway to the door when a painful cramp in his belly made him double over, gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t make a noise.
It passed quickly enough that he knew that the change was coming and it was coming quick, and that he was going to have to make a run for it if he wanted to get to the safety of his basement.
“Are you okay?”
He glanced back over his shoulder. Finn and Kurt were both standing in the foyer with him, looking very concerned. Crap on a stick.
Sam took a steadying breath and said, “Yeah. Bellyache. Gotta run.”
“You don’t look okay,” Finn said.
“You look dreadful,” Kurt agreed.
“You shouldn’t drive,” Finn added.
“I’ll walk,” Sam said, anxious to get out of there before he did something he would regret once he’d changed back. He was pretty sure Rachel Berry would hunt him down personally if he maimed two of the strongest male vocalists in New Directions before sectionals.
Plus he’d probably feel guilty about it.
“I can drive you,” Finn offered, and Sam shook his head, backing towards the front door, trying his best to look calm and in control of his motor functions.
“Yes. You’re in no way fit to drive, and if we let you die in a fiery crash on our watch, Rachel will be insufferable,” Kurt said. It was so disarmingly similar to Sam’s own thought processes that he stopped short. A cramp that rattled him to the bone struck then, and it was all he could do not to drop to all fours right then and there.
“I said I’ll walk,” Sam said, a bit desperately, and then hurried to the front door. His hand was on the handle when he realized that the transformation was starting, and that his hands were starting to look decidedly paw-like.
Finn hadn’t noticed yet, but Kurt’s eyes were wide.
“Don’t… it’s nothing,” Sam said pleadingly and fled, leaving the door swinging open behind him, where he could still make out Kurt’s shocked expression.
He didn’t make it to his basement.
*
Sam woke up at dawn under the jungle gym at the local elementary school. He was buck naked and only just managed to flee the property before the janitorial staff started to arrive and reported him for being a pervert.
Sam was pretty sure that getting caught naked at an elementary school was one of those things that the police never let you live down, so he was thankful that he only scandalized a few old ladies on his run home, trying to stick to bushes and behind fences. Thanks to incidents like this and a few unfortunate changes at his boarding school, he was getting alarmingly good at fleeing naked; he would make an excellent Don Juan.
It was almost a shame that he was with someone like Puck, because he’d never get to put these skills to practical use. Puck was more the type that would have to flee naked than someone who would shove a lover out a window.
He was thankful when he got home. He immediately found a pair of pajama pants and checked to make sure his parents were still out in their compartment of the basement. They were; he figured he could pretend he’d gotten there late. No sense worrying them. He felt sore and was a little wary of inspecting the injuries he’d sustained overnight. He hadn’t run free as a wolf in a long time, and he didn’t like to imagine all the horrible things he might have done.
He hadn’t been shot, at least. That was a plus. And there wasn’t that much blood on him. Definitely not enough that he had to worry about seeing an unexplained mauling on the news. So that was awesome.
He realized he’d never replied to Puck, and wondered if Puck had said anything else. When he reached for his phone, though, realized it was still in his pile of clothes right where he’d left them: in the Hudson-Hummel’s backyard. Crap. There was no way he was going there right now.
He hopped in the shower, feeling all the twinges in his joints and discovering several mysterious scrapes and bruises that were going to hurt like hell, and it suddenly occurred to him that it might be difficult to hide stuff like that from Puck. Because Puck would notice shit like giant purple bruises on Sam’s side, and Puck wasn’t the sort to just accept excuses. He’d assume the worst, and he’d want to go berserker on whoever’d done it. Sam could imagine Puck announcing in all seriousness, no one laid a finger on his definitely-not-a-boyfriend and got away with it.
So he’d definitely have to avoid making out with Puck for the next day or so. He might heal faster than normal, but not that fast.
He decided against going to school. Running into Puck wasn’t a great idea and he wasn’t ready to deal with whatever Kurt Hummel might or might not have seen.
So Sam spent the day sprawled in bed, watching his Justice League Unlimited dvds and wishing that he’d been hit by a gamma ray or gifted with an alien power ring instead of having inherited a very inconvenient mutant werewolf gene.
Sometimes Sam thought that was the worst part of it – he didn’t even have an awesome survival story. He’d just gotten a very serious talk from his parents after the first time his voice cracked, and a few months later he’d started transforming into a wolf. It was all very boring and mundane, insofar as supernatural transformations went. No space aliens, no lab accidents.
Thanks to comparing his life to the JLU’s, he was feeling almost normal by the time the doorbell rang. He opened it without checking who was there, and Kurt Hummel breezed into his house like he was welcome.
“I brought you your phone,” Kurt said, offering a bag to Sam. “And your clothes.”
“Um,” Sam said, because there isn’t really a good reason to leave your entire ensemble in someone’s backyard.
Kurt continued on into the living room, settling down in the uncomfortable chair no one sat in but that Sam’s mother kept around because she claimed it was classy and crossed his legs. “I think we should chat.”
“I don’t know what you think you saw,” Sam began, “but it was nothing.”
“It looked like you were turning into something,” Kurt said. Which was about as spot-on as someone could get, but Sam shook his head.
Kurt raised an eyebrow.
Sam gave him his best skeptical look. He could totally out-diva Kurt. Totally. He wouldn’t talk, he would just give him look after look until Kurt realized how crazy it was to think that Sam might turn into something.
Sam’s resolve lasted for at least five minutes. “Turning into something? That’s crazy talk.”
“I know what I saw,” Kurt replied. “And plus you just made all of those twitchy nervous faces.”
Of course he’d given it away already. Fast-talking Kurt Hummel was apparently not part of Sam’s supernatural skill set. He sighed. “What do you think you saw?”
“I think I saw your hand turn into…” Kurt trailed off, like actually saying it was ridiculous, despite his conviction.
This encouraged Sam. He’d never actually had to deal with someone discovering his secret, and it seemed that it was too far from normal to acknowledge. “Into?”
“Something.” Kurt, for the first time, looked less than confident.
Sam reached in the bag Kurt had brought for his phone. He had two missed calls from Puck, one puzzling text from Finn (where’d u get elf ears) and a text from Rachel Berry berating him for missing glee practice.
When he looked up, Kurt was on the edge of his seat. He was paler than usual. “There’s not something wrong with you, is there?”
“No,” Sam said shortly. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, teetering back and forth. He couldn’t believe that he was about to do this.
“But what I saw…” Kurt bit his lip.
Sam took a deep breath. He could do this. He had to. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I’m good at keeping secrets,” Kurt said. He kept looking at Sam’s hands. Sam resisted the urge to shove them in his pockets, to hide.
“Yeah,” Sam said dryly. “Of course you are.”
Kurt gave him a withering stare.
“This isn’t something you can gossip about,” Sam said. “It’s serious.”
“Cross my heart,” Kurt promised.
Sam couldn’t believe he was confiding in Kurt Hummel, who couldn’t even keep other people’s hair dye a secret. “I’m a werewolf.”
The words were strange to say aloud. Kurt didn’t react, just sat there staring until Sam thought maybe the words had mutated on the way out.
“Well?” Sam said. He’d expected some sort of shock or disgust or horror. Getting a reaction was pretty much the only reason to confess to being a werewolf.
“I kind of thought you were going to confess that you are totally dating Puck,” Kurt replied. His blank expression was fading into something more fearful, though Sam could see he was trying his best to hide it.
“I’m not dating Puck,” Sam said. “What would Puck have to do with what you saw?”
“He might have given you a weird disease or something,” Kurt said, flitting his hand carelessly. “Look at what he did to Quinn.”
“I can’t believe I confessed my darkest secret and you were just after dating gossip,” Sam said. “Erroneous dating gossip, at that!”
“Whatever, Santana already started a betting pool on when you two would come out,” Kurt replied. “Though she’s a fine one to talk.”
Sam tried to get the conversation back on track. “Werewolf?”
“You don’t seem overly hairy,” Kurt said, “And since you spend a lot of time showing off a lot of skin, that’s a pretty well-informed observation.”
“I’m not a circus werewolf,” Sam tried to clarify. “A real one. I turn into a wolf.” He howled in demonstration.
“For a werewolf that’s a pretty terrible howl,” Kurt said, brow furrowed. “Last night…”
“Was the full moon,” Sam said. “I lost track of days. Took me by surprise.”
“So your hand…” Kurt’s eyes were wide, and Sam could practically see the acceptance taking root.
“Was turning into a paw.” Sam kept waiting on Kurt to freak out. To break out a pitchfork, maybe.
Kurt shook his head, but the color was returning to his cheeks. “This is too weird.”
“You didn’t have to make your way home naked this morning,” Sam said, leaning his head back against the couch. “You can’t tell.”
“Who would believe me?” Kurt said. “I barely believe you, and I saw it!” He narrowed his eyes. “Does Puck know?”
“Seriously, not dating,” Sam said.
*
Sam kind of couldn’t believe that the world didn’t implode when he told his secret.
His parents had never really gone into detail on why they kept it a secret, though Sam could pretty easily imagine that life wasn’t grand for people who claimed to be werewolves. He didn’t particularly want to be known as Wolfboy around school, after all.
But then he called Puck back, and as soon as he heard Puck start to rant about the pansy-ass songs they were doing on glee that week, he felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t told Puck first. It was the first time he wanted to take the words back since he told Kurt, and it took everything in him not to blurt it out over the phone, interrupting Puck’s scathing critique of Mr. Schue’s dance moves.
“You know, one day I’m going to record you talking about glee and then play it back to you, and you’re going to have to kick your own ass for saying, ‘he wouldn’t know pizzazz if it bit him in the razzle dazzle,’” Sam said absently.
There was a dark silence on the other end of the line. “Dude, that is not cool.”
“You’re the one who said it,” Sam shot back.
“Yeah, well,” Puck said, “I’m a baller. We know how to move.”
Sam could practically feel the leer through the phone. “That’s right, handsome. You’re a total stud muffin. A dreamboat, even.”
“Keep that up and I won’t let you blow me,” Puck replied, which was the most hollow threat Sam had ever heard.
“Good, you can blow me instead.” Sam should be sharing the darkest secret of his soul, not flirting. But this was probably something that he should say face-to-face, anyhow.
Puck probably wouldn’t even believe him. Kurt barely believed him and Kurt had seen his paw.
So instead he played the see-how-long-it-takes-Puck-to-realize-he’s-having-phone-sex game, which lasted all of five minutes. Puck hung up on him pretty quickly after that. Sam suspected he was napping.
So Sam went downstairs and worked out and tried to come up with the perfect way to tell the guy you absolutely were not dating that you were a werewolf.
*
When he got to school the next day, Mercedes cornered him before he even made it to his locker.
“So, how’re you doing?” She was acting nice, but Sam was a predator and he could recognize his ilk.
“Fine,” he replied cautiously.
Mercedes raised an eyebrow. “Really? You were out sick yesterday.”
“Twenty four hour bug,” Sam said. He had a lot of practice at making up excuses for full moon days. Mercedes was not going to trip him up just because she was giving him the kind of evil eye that made lesser men crumble.
“Yeah, well, Kurt’s been worried about you,” she said, which wasn’t what Sam was expecting at all. Some sort of inquisition, maybe, or perhaps Mercedes turning into a Sentinel that detected possibly gay teen werewolves.
Sam blinked. This was no time for a sexuality crisis. “I appreciate it?”
“It worries me, blondie,” Mercedes said frankly. “Kurt’s not exactly the humanitarian type, and I know that you were hanging out at his house the other day. What’s going on?”
Did… did Mercedes suspect that he had a thing going with Kurt? Sam was unsettled. “I watched a movie with Finn. There’s nothing going on with Kurt.”
“I don’t believe that,” Mercedes said. “He was freaked out about something when we had our Classic Project Runway marathon last night. He didn’t even appreciate Tim Gunn’s verbal bitch-slaps.”
“This worries me,” Sam quoted before he could stop himself.
Mercedes didn’t look amused. “So what’d you do to my boy?”
“Absolutely nothing!” Sam promised.
“I’m watching you,” she promised before stalking off. She was on her phone before she reached the corner, and Sam had the sinking feeling he was going to be the center of more scrutiny at glee practice.
By second period, he’d already been grilled by Tina about Kurt and Rachel about missing glee, and on his way to lunch Santana and Brittany each took one of his arms and started asking him pointed questions like his opinion on Mohawks and the effect lock-up would have on a dude.
“I’ve never been locked up,” he answered, even though that was kind of a lie, since his mother locked him in his special room in their basement every full moon. He was pretty sure Santana would have a field day with that, though.
“It’s fun,” Brittany confided. “As soon as you find the key.”
Santana blushed, which caused Sam to blush because, hot damn. And hey, that answered the gay question up pretty well. Looked like Sam was a Neapolitan kind of guy.
Of course that’s when Puck came around the corner, and Sam tried to look like he wasn’t enjoying having a cheerleader on each arm while they referenced their sex life, because that totally wasn’t entertaining at all, and yeah, Sam was totally failing at playing it cool. But Puck didn’t seem bothered. Actually, he tried to get a handful of Santana’s ass, and laughed when she swatted him away, ponytail flying.
Sam totally was not the least bit jealous of Santana’s ass.
“Are you two charming my boy Sam?” Puck asked, seemingly noticing Sam for the first time.
“Your boy, huh?” Santana said knowingly.
“She thinks we’re dating,” Sam offered.
Puck blinked. “But I’ve never serenaded Sam. Everyone knows you can’t date in glee club without a public croon-fest.”
Santana and Brittany both dropped Sam’s arms.
“Dammit,” Santana said, then pointed at them accusingly. “I’m not losing this bet. You’d better hook up, or else.”
Brittany patted her arm consolingly as they sashayed down the hall, leaving Sam with Puck. Puck watched the view admiringly before turning to Sam. “If we play our cards right we might get a foursome out of this. That is exponentially more awesome than a threesome.”
“I’m not sure it’s exponentially more awesome,” Sam began, but then stopped before Puck was forced to steal a slushie from a passing hockey player. “You think Santana cares that much about winning a betting pool?”
Puck raised an eyebrow. “She was threatening to cut bitches over a free dinner at Breadstix. What do you think?”
Okay, yeah. Santana was that devoted to being completely right all the time. “Awesome. And kind of scary.”
Puck grinned. Sam was pretty sure that Puck just told him, in the Puck-est way possible, the answer to the girlfriend text puzzle. Sam was definitely not just a make out buddy. He kept grinning stupidly back at Puck all the way to the cafeteria.
Sam should probably pull him aside and tell him about the werewolf thing now, but he was hungry enough to eat a cow, and even if he was pretty sure that none of the meats in the McKinley cafeteria had ever actually started out on a cow, he was willing to give the funky grey hamburgers a go.
They ended up sitting with some dudes from the football team, so that definitely shut down Sam’s plans of confessing his deep dark secret. Instead they talked about Princess Peach and how little game Bowser had for a dude with such badass bracelets.
Sam caught a few of the glee clubbers giving him weird looks, but he could deal with that, especially since Finn was treating him completely normally, which meant he hadn’t noticed anything was up the other night.
Glee practice itself went smoothly enough. Except, of course, Kurt’s knowing glances in Sam’s direction. And then Santana noticed said knowing glances and kept shooting him suspicious smirks. Sam felt as though his life was the most complicated life ever.
And then Quinn sat down next to him, and yeah, there was no doubt about it. His life was not only the most complicated, but also the most awkward.
“So I hear you’re hot for Puck,” she said without preamble.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Sam asked.
“Probably because you look at him like you’re going to eat him alive,” Quinn offered.
“I don’t want to eat him!” Sam hissed. He was pretty sure that his cheeks were going to catch fire, the way they were burning. “That is ridiculous.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Sweetie, I’m not mad at you. You don’t have to get so defensive.”
She didn’t sound like she wasn’t mad. She kind of sounded like she thought Sam had used her to get to Puck. Which was ridiculous. “I didn’t use you to get to Puck! That’s ludicrous.”
“Are you sure?”
Sam nodded. “You’re really pretty and I liked you,” he said honestly. “But I’m not good enough for you.”
“No one ever is,” Quinn sighed. “So how long have you two been going at it?”
“No one has gone at it,” Sam protested. He was probably protesting too much. He added for good measure, “There has been no going at it of any kind.”
“You look kind of… ravished,” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow.
Sam realized that maybe half of the odd looks he’d been given today were because he hadn’t spent the requisite forty minutes on his hair this morning. He ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. “I think you mean ravishing, darling.”
Probably the fact that he was hyper-aware of his wolfy nature right now wasn’t helping things. He hoped he hadn’t stalked anywhere.
Quinn gave him one of those looks she was amazing at, where she managed to look amused at being unamused at him. “You wish, cupcake.”
He stood up and announced to the glee club at large, because he was pretty sure they were all listening in on his conversation anyhow, “I am single and not yet ready to mingle. Thank you.”
He felt it was an appropriate speech. He sat down.
Rachel glared at him. “That was not worthy of our full attention, Sam. Please keep further updates on your romantic life or lack thereof to yourself.”
“Right back atcha,” Artie said quietly, and Sam’s shoulders shook as Rachel stood and began to sing a sweet love medley to Finn.
Of course, Puck winked at him on the way out of practice and said, “Want to mingle?”
Sam absolutely did.
*
Mingling was a little awkward since Sam didn’t want Puck to see his bruises. Sam thought about telling Puck about the werewolf thing and the reason he kept sniffing Puck, but every time Sam took a deep breath to steady himself, Puck quickly changed the subject, usually with his hand or tongue.
Sam got pretty distracted.
He quickly realized the best way to keep Puck from paying attention to his own body was by lavishing attention on Puck’s. It was a really super plan. Sam considered asking about Puck’s text, but really, mid-make out was no time for asking about girlfriends or the lack thereof.
He dropped Puck off, and considered telling him about the lycanthropy in the car, but Puck hurried out and into his house before Sam could get further than, “We need to talk.”
It was really weird. Usually Puck hung around and shared his thoughts on kung fu, but tonight he couldn’t leave fast enough. Sam sighed, but didn’t bother trying to follow Puck inside. His mother was scary.
When he got home, he sighed. Kurt Hummel’s SUV was sitting in his driveway.
“What the hell,” Sam said to himself before going inside.
Kurt was perched on the same chair as before, legs crossed and showing a lot of ankle where his trousers rode up.
“What’s up?” Sam said, because he wasn’t going to alienate the only person who knew his secret by demanding they explain their presence, no matter how inexplicable said presence was.
“What was that scene in glee club about?” Kurt asked. “Do you lose brain cells every time you transform?”
“That scene was about how everyone was hassling me,” Sam said. “You need to clear things up with Mercedes, dude. She thinks I’m breaking your heart.”
“She knows I have—“ Kurt cut himself off, then finished lamely, “way better taste than that.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam said. “Just tell her I haven’t traumatized you or whatever. I’ve got too much on my plate to be dealing with other people’s romantic problems.”
Kurt perked up. “You’re having romantic problems?”
“I didn’t say that,” Sam protested. He paused. “Though, theoretically…”
“I’m good at conjecture,” Kurt said, “My entire sex life is theoretical.”
Sam took a breath. “Then theoretically, I’m not dating anyone, but we’re, you know, boning. And I want to tell them about the whole werewolf thing, but every time I try, they run off. What the hell’s up with that?”
Kurt looked like he’d just gotten the juiciest gossip scoop of his entire life. “You aren’t starting out with something like ‘we need to talk’, are you? Because whoever you’re not dating probably thinks that you’re trying to break up with them.”
Sam blinked. “How could we break up? We’re not dating.”
Kurt waved his hand dismissively. “Fine. End your mutually beneficial relationship.”
Sam wanted to hear him say it. “Stop boning?”
Kurt pursed his lips. “Stop boning,” he affirmed.
Okay. Sam could work with that. “So I just have to let him know I want to keep on trucking.”
Kurt looked pained. “Yes.”
It made sense. Sam clapped Kurt on the back. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Sure,” Kurt said. “I love to hear about all the gay sex everyone but me is having.”
“One day,” Sam said, “your prince will come.”
Kurt gave him a bitch-glare that could win bitch-glare awards, and then left.
*
“I’m not trying to break up with you,” Sam told Puck.
“How could we break up?” Puck said rationally. “We’re not dating.”
“That is a valid point,” Sam said, because he totally agreed. “What I mean to say is, I want to keep boning.”
“Awesome,” Puck said, sounding legitimately relieved, and then moved onto complaining about the blister he’d gotten while practicing with his nunchucks.
Sam was clearly the most awesome at relationship stuff. Now all he had to do was drop the wolf-bomb.
*
“So,” Sam said, staring down at Puck. “Um.”
“That wasn’t gay,” Puck said quickly, wiping his mouth on the shoulder of his t-shirt to make sure he didn’t have any jizz on his face.
“No, it’s just…” Sam paused. Probably not the best way to break the news, but he didn’t really have any smooth introductions to lycanthropy planned out. “Have you ever had werewolf balls in your mouth?”
“…no?” Puck replied, raising his eyebrow.
“Now you have,” Sam said. He made finger-guns for emphasis.
Puck stared at the balls in question for a minute, then said, “Teen Wolf lied to you, dude. They’re supposed to be hairy.”
“What?” Sam said. Puck was awesome, but Sam hadn’t quite figured out how his brain worked yet. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I think Mrs. Pillsbury has a pamphlet in her office about body hair,” Puck offered, then appeared to think on it. “Though it would be cool to have monster junk. Superpowers and shit.”
“All of me is a werewolf, not just my balls,” Sam said, pulling his pants up.
Puck wiped at his mouth again, this time slightly panicked. “Wait, am I going to turn into a werewolf now?”
Sam looked at him very seriously. “Yes. Lycanthropy is an STD.”
Puck rested a hand across his abs as if he could feel the werewolf germs growing in his system. “Will puking help?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “You aren’t going to turn into a werewolf by sucking me off, jeez.”
Puck rose to his feet. “Then why did you decide to say something now? And how are you even a werewolf? Aren’t those nonfiction?”
“Fiction is the fake one,” Sam said, “and it just popped out.” He continued before Puck got a chance to make some joke he thought to be totally rad. “I didn’t expect you to really believe me. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Yeah, I’m cool like that,” Puck replied with a casual shrug.
*
So Puck knew Sam was a werewolf.
Cool.
*
“Are you sure you’re okay with it?” Sam spent a lot of time trying really hard to be cool about things, but he still couldn’t tell if Puck was acting or actually cool with the whole secretly-a-monstrous-supernatural-beast thing.
“Dude, chill out,” Puck said. “It’s not like you’re going to suddenly go all man-wolf and eat me.” He paused. “Wait, are you gonna go all man-wolf and eat me? Because then I’m not okay with it.”
“I have no plans to,” Sam said. “I just thought that you’d have a harder time adjusting. I mean, I’ve been trying desperately to keep this a secret and it turns out you’re just cool with it. It’s pretty anticlimactic.”
“I’ve lived with a preggo,” Puck replied. “You getting scary once a month is pretty much cake after that.”
Sam didn’t think it was that bad. “Those aren’t really comparable…”
“Sure they are,” Puck said easily. “Wait, is this why you’ve been sniffing me all year?”
“You smell really good,” Sam said miserably.
“Of course I do,” Puck said. “That’s the smell of badassery. Fellow predators best recognize!” He fist-pumped.
Sam almost hurt something holding in his laughter. “You are correct, my friend.”
“Damn straight,” Puck said. “How do you even become a werewolf, anyway?”
“Born with the wolf-gene,” Sam said. “I’m kind of like a mutant, only with less spandex in my closet.”
Puck looked disappointed. Sam was about to offer to buy some spandex when Puck said, “So I won’t turn into one even if you bite me?”
“I’d probably just bite your arm off,” Sam said honestly. “And no, it’s not catching.”
“That sucks,” Puck said. “What if I wanted to be an awesome supernatural beastie?”
“You’re gonna have to find a vampire or something,” Sam said. “Werewolf is a no-go.”
“Damn,” Puck said. “Wolves are badass.”
Sam didn’t stop smiling all day.
*
So Puck knew he was a werewolf and was totally down with it.
Sam’s life was pretty awesome. The only not-awesome part was the fact that Santana kept pestering him and Puck about sending out wedding announcements already, and so far Puck’s attempts to get her and Brittany in bed with them had been futile.
And Sam felt like he deserved all the slushies to be thrown at him for even thinking this, but he’d thought of the perfect song to sing to Puck, and he was kind of itching to serenade him. Which was weird. Sam had never really wanted to serenade a dude before. Well, there’d been that one time at his old school, but that had been a completely different circumstance. He definitely wasn’t going to wear a dress this time.
But he practiced his song anyway, because maybe he kind of did want Puck to be his boyfriend, and there was only one way for anyone in glee to declare such intentions to another. Not that he wanted to declare his intentions. Totally not. Just because Puck was hot and awesome and accepted Sam’s wolfy nature and understood the importance of a good ab routine…
*
Fuck it.
Sam strode into glee rehearsal. “Mr. Schue, I’ve got a song I’d like to sing.”
Mr. Schue gave the casual hand-wave that meant that he didn’t have anything actually lined up to do, and Sam told the band to hit it.
He sang “Hungry Like The Wolf,” and he made sure that everyone knew who he was singing to.
Santana looked triumphant and Brittany swayed back and forth. When he danced at Quinn, she gave him one of those adorable half-smiles of hers.
Artie said, “Bow-chicka-wow-wow!”
Mike Chang leaned forward to flip him in the back of the head, an action Tina had clearly egged on.
Finn bobbed his head along to the words cheerfully, and Rachel looked as though she were barely containing a critique of how ill-suited the song was to him. He was pretty sure Kurt was going to rupture something, holding in laughter like that. Mercedes was eyeing him like she didn’t quite get the joke; Sam was momentarily grateful that Kurt had managed to keep something a secret. Then Mercedes winked. Of course Kurt couldn’t keep anything from her. Sam was a moron.
But most of Sam’s focus was on Puck, who sat there smirking up at him like he’d been waiting on this. The rest of the club joined in on the harmony, but Puck didn’t. He sat there soaking in Sam’s performance, and winked a few times. That almost made Sam forget the words, because he knew what kind of hunger Puck was interested in.
When Sam was done expressing his feelings through song, Puck made finger-guns and said, “That was bangin’, but I’m not holding your hand or buying you flowers.”
“I’m not your girlfriend, dude,” Sam said. “I got us tickets to Wrestlemania.”
Puck high fived him in such a way that Sam was pretty sure he was going to get so many awesome orgasms after Wrestlemania.
Being a teenage werewolf was actually pretty awesome.