Chapter Seventeen

Having hope for the return of his hotness, Gary brightened up considerably, and chattered happily about his training routine and diet all the way back to the Winchesters' room.

"What the hell is he talking about?" demanded Dean, looking bewildered, when they had a break from Gary when he left to go get his diary, which he assured them would be an accurate record of his activities leading up to his unfortunate fall from hotness.

"Himself, mostly," grunted Sam with a roll of his eyes.

"He's big on cycles, isn't he?" Dean noted, sounding bemused. "Bulking cycles, cutting cycles, protein cycles, amino cycles, ketone cycles. I thought only women had, you know, cycles."

"Those are hormonal," Sam reminded him. "And natural," he added.

"What the hell is a ketone cycle? It sounds like something a European chick might ride."

"Ketosis," Sam clarified, "It's a thing that body-obsessed narcissists like Gary do, screwing with your diet to induce a fat metabolism state that borders on biochemical pathology." He paused. "It's always struck me as a form of psychological pathology, really."

"I mean, he spends all that time exercisin'," Dean went on, "And when he's not in the gym he's findin' ever more disgusting things to eat, and ever more disgusting ways to eat 'em."

"There's no law against having no life outside of self-maintenance," Sam shrugged, tapping at the keys, and frowning. "Okay, that's weird..."

"What?" Dean pressed, "What's weird?"

"I told you I found the coroner's files on some of those other hot guys?" Sam went on. "Well, the names match up, the ages, but get this." He turned the screen to face Dean. "Look at these guys. Even before they were dead, they weren't even lukewarm."

Dean frowned, and opened a couple of Facebook pages. "Like me," he noted, "They're recognisable as themselves, but... not."

"DNA from a family member was used to ID this guy," Sam pointed out, "And the, uh, distortion of appearance was put down to post-mortem changes, but..."

"It matches," Dean confirmed, checking the screen and his notes, "The details, the info, these guys aren't shy about puttin' their life stories online, it all matches. These live guys, who were hot, are those dead guys who are not." He scrolled up and down. "Dates of their deaths are about a week after their last postings."

"They stopped posting, because they weren't hot anymore," mused Sam, "And a week or so after that, they died." He turned his laptop back to him. "This one had sudden acute cardiovascular failure, collapsed at the gym. This one had catastrophic liver failure – he was found at home."

"I'm guessin' that one was desperate to do something about his new fat suit, and the other tried to drown his sorrows," Dean mused. "See, I keep telling you, exercise aint healthy..."

"In this case, it was lack of exercise, then too much exertion, that was unhealthy," Sam corrected. "So you are not excused from your whiskey-alpha-tango-kilo later. So long as you don't try to run a half-marathon, you'll be fine."

"Bitch," Dean muttered. "So, what links them, and what links me and Gary to what links them?"

"Well, you can go through Gary's diary with him, see if anything he did matches anything you did," Sam told him, looking up as they heard a car pull into the lot. "Speaking of which..."

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," sighed Dean, as Jimi let out a welcoming whuff when the knock at the door sounded.

"Hi guys!" Gary sounded positively chipper, "I got my diary, and I brought lunch!" He offered them a sheepish smile. "I wasn't sure if I should, I got this feeling that I'm gonna have you two watchin' me and judgin' me, 'cause I can't eat as clean as you..."

"Under the circumstances Gary, I think we should just do the best we can," Sam assured him, "Nobody is judging your for your, er, dietary habits."

"I am," Dean muttered.

Sam surreptitiously kicked his brother in the ankle. "For the moment, I think we should concentrate our energy and attention on figuring out how to fix this," he went on firmly before Dean could say anything unhelpful like If you have green leafy vegetables in that carrier I will shove them into every available orifice of your body then cut you some new ones so I can keep stuffing. "So, if you can go over your movements with Dean, from the time you played pool to the time you woke up, er, not quite yourself..."

"It's all right here!" Gary brandished a dog-eared work book the way a missionary might show his holy text to a heathen, "So, let's start with pool..."

Giving Sam a murderous glare, Dean sat down next to Gary, and looked at the diary.

"So, after we, uh, yeah, sorry, man, anyway, I went home and went to bed, then the next morning, I got up, mood, still a bit pissed, see, so, I prepared my post-workout shake, and hit the gym, as you can see here it was biceps and lats day, so I started with a couple of warm-up sets..."

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An hour later, having sat through an excruciating episode of The Gary Show, in which Dean was treated to the most detailed minutiae of Gary's life, from his uprising to his downlying, from his iron pumping to his cardio sweating, from his shake-swilling to his egg-white omelette eating, from his supplement-gobbling to his bowel moving, from his beach-posing to his barre classing...

"Whoa, whoa, back up," Dean's attention sat up and yipped in surprise, "Did you just say, bar class? Is that, like, exercise in a bar somewhere? 'Cause I could probably come at that."

"No, barre, as in, ballet barre," Gary replied. Sam looked up, his keyboard rattling to a sudden halt. "Seriously," Gary went on, "You oughta try it sometime. For stretching, and core strength, it's a killer! Man, those guys are flexible!"

"You... Gary, you do ballet classes?" asked Sam in bewilderment.

"I, uh," Gary looked sheepish. "My Mom sent me to dance classes when I was a kid," he admitted, "I didn't like it much then, and didn't really have any talent, but it's a seriously tough work-out. Plus, the women are really hot." He paused. "I don't wear a leotard," he added defensively.

"No, no, it's okay, Gary," Sam assured him, "It's just a bit, uh, well, surprising."

"It's my secret weapon," Gary smiled, "My body, I mean, my own body, can do a full splits, and actually get both ankles behind its head, which I gotta tell ya, can be kind of..."

"That's great, Gary," Sam cut in before Dean, who looked as if he was going to ask for clarifying details, "But I don't think that's a common factor, here." He looked at his brother. "Unless you've been sneaking out and doing barre classes without telling me."

"No!" yapped Dean. "Although I did hook up with this ballerina once – actually, I've hooked up with a number of ballerinas, but I remember this one, because she could..."

"So, if we could back-track from the day we found you," Sam cut in.

"Yeah?" Gary was suddenly attentive to something else besides his own life. "Did she do the leg lift thing?"

"To when you became, uh, unhot," Sam pressed.

"Ohhhhh, yeah," Dean smiled in recollection, "In fact, she put on her pointe shoes for me."

"She didn't!" gasped Gary, "She didn't! Seriously? What happened then?"

"Because that has to be the window where the curse kicked in..."

"Well, she wasn't just flexible, she had stamina."

"Oh, wow, man! How many rounds?"

"There has to be some common factor in that time frame..."

"Anyway, she actually put her foot on my shoulder, so I could kind of bend at the knees, and whoaaaaa mama.."

"You're kidding! Dude, that sounds awesome! Then what?"

"Well, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, she started to..."

"Could we just get back to trying to figure this out?" said Sam with a roll of his eyes, "Prioritise the breaking of your curse over another Chicks I Have Banged story?"

"Yeah, in a minute, Sam," Gary waved a hand vaguely, staring at Dean like an avid reader watching a favourite author give a sneak preview of an upcoming book, "I just wanna know what happened next..."

"It's irrelevant," Sam snapped, "Right now, we are working on the problem of what has cursed you both! What's more important, listening to him detailing his more depraved activities, or getting back to your old self?"

Gary looked absolutely torn, and threw a pleading look at Dean.

"Yeah, okay," sighed the thwarted storyteller, "It's okay, Gary, I'll tell you the rest later. Don't mind him, he's just like that because both of his have long since shrivelled away and he's forgotten how to do it..."

Gary looked at Sam doubtfully. "One of the guys had that problem," he said faintly, "We told him he was going too hard on the dosage, and his nuts, like, did just that, they shrivelled away, but I didn't think you looked like you were, you know..."

"What?" Sam's brain took a few moments to catch up with the implication. "No! NO! He says that all the time about me, because I don't screw around like a total man-whore!"

"It might explain how you look like you do when you live on salad," Dean pointed out.

"Hey, I get it, you do what you gotta do," Gary held up his hands in a non-judgemental gesture. "Your body, your decisions."

"And why you're always so hormonal," Dean went on, "Seriously, you don't wanna be around this guy when he's on his man-period, it's brutal."

"But it's okay," Gary's tone turned reassuring, "If you back off the dose, drop the stuff for a while, well, Dan said that his kinda grew back."

"Any advice you could give him about growin' a pair would be appreciated," Dean said solemnly.

"Although he did look a bit, uh, weird in his Speedos for a while..."

"STOP IT!" snapped Sam, giving both of them a searing Bitchface #1™ (Dean, I Don't Believe You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!), "Just stop. Right. There. We are NOT here to hear about one of Dean's sexcapades, we are not here so that you can have a Q&A with him on his various debaucheries, and we are not here to discuss my sex life! IN addition, I do NOT use anabolic steroids, I do not WANT to use anabolic steroids, I do not NEED to use anabolic steroids, and for your information, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my balls just because I don't feel the need to stick my dick into anything with a pulse and two X chromosomes to bang together! So knock it off, and get back to work!"

Dean and Gary stared at him as, muttering to himself darkly, Sam turned his attention back to his laptop.

"Wow," whispered Gary as he and Dean went back to the diary.

"Yeah," Dean grinned, "Magnificent when he's angry, aint he? The rampaging Sasquatch."

"I heard that," Sam snapped without looking up.

"I mean, he could walk into a bar, and have his pick of women," Gary sounded somewhat confused.

"I know," Dean sighed in a deeply put-upon fashion, "But try tellin' him that."

"He's not, you know," Gary's eyebrows managed to convey his vaguely embarrassed question and subtle tinge of homophobia about Sam's preferences in a much more articulate fashion than his vocabulary could ever manage.

"Nope," Dean answered, "But there are days, Gary, there are days when I think, I really don't care, as long as he picks an informed consenting adult, he needs to get laid..."

"Knock it off, Dean."

"Maybe even an informed consenting giraffe..."

"I hate you."

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They worked for a while without recourse to Dean's Chicks I Have Banged stories, or thoughtful discussion of Sam's after-dark proclivities (or perceived lack thereof), until Gary stood up and stretched. He looked down at himself, and sighed.

"Not having any clothes fit is the worst," he grumbled, "I mean, as well as looking like a doughtnut addict, that's the worst, too. None of my pants fit me, and even my sweats are too long."

"I hear ya," Dean said forlornly, "He thinks it's funny that I'm even shorter now." He looked up at Gary, then stood up himself. "Yep, we're about the same height." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Sam, what did the reports say about our dead guys? Stats, I mean."

"Hang on." Sam's keyboard rattled briefly. "Okay, this one, five foot nine, estimated two hundred and twenty pounds, this one... five nine, estimated at two-twenty, aaaaand..." he looked from the screen to his brother. "Same again."

"Now that's weird," Dean went back to his own laptop. "These guys are taller than that. Usin' the cars and stuff for scale, these guys were definitely taller before they were cursed with unhotness." He picked up a pen. "Gary, stand against the door frame for a minute..."

A quick check against a door frame verified that both Dean and Gary were the same height.

"Five-nine," pronounced Sam, consulting the tape measure. "Just like the dead guys. All the same height. And they were all the same weight, too: two-twenty to two-thirty." He eyed the others. "We need to get you two onto a scale, just to check..."

"No!" Gary yelped, looking down at himself, "I don't wanna know! I don't wanna know!"

"It's okay, Gary," Dean reassured him, "Let's just, uh, take it as read that we're probably about the same, two-twenty or so."

Gary let out a small keening sound.

"Why?" Sam wondered out loud. "Why are all the affected men that tall, and that weight? Why the detail? It would make the curse more complicated."

"What's the significance?" Dean wondered. "Is it some sort of code? 5-9-2-2-0, what is that? Zip code? Co-ordinates? What's so special about those numbers? Who else is five-nine, and about two-twenty?"

"Nobody, that's who," Gary supplied glumly. "Just Mr Average Joe. That's me right now. That's us."

Sam suddenly stared at him with an intensity that made Gary uncomfortable.

"Uh, Dean, what you said about your brother before," Gary stammered, "I gotta say, man, I don't, you know, swing that way..."

"Don't worry, Gary," Dean grinned and clapped Gary on the shoulder, "You see that expression? That expression means that Sam Is Working Something Out."

"Yeah?" Gary looked doubtful as Sam started tapping ferociously at the keyboard again. "Because for a moment there, he looked like he was, uh, thinking about, you know..."

"Unfortunately, for my little brother, computers pretty much are sex," Dean shook his head. "The actual computer stuff, not the porn you can get on 'em. I have no idea where I went so wrong. Take a seat," he added, "We can't know how long this might take..."

It was a few minutes before Sam sat back, a smile of grim triumph on his face, "Congratulations, Gary, you cracked it."

"I did?" Gary looked mystified.

"You did," Sam confirmed. "Mr Average Joe is, actually, five-nine and about two-twenty." He turned the screen to face them. "The average American man's stats, five-nine, two-twenty. Plus," he clicked on another window, "About half of American men have pre-diabetic pathology, and about half the men in your age bracket, Dean, find that their eyesight is deteriorating with age. You two are walking, talking, Average American Men. Just like those guys were before they died."

I have named Gary after a goat that, many years ago, used to have a thing for my mother; every time he saw her, he'd start bleating and leaping about, then he'd sit back on his haunches and wee all over his front legs to rub it on his face, which apparently is what gentleman goats to when they want to impress a lady goat. Whatever she had, it was what he was looking for. (I'm in no position to point and laugh: for many years, a Water Dragons used to do his mating display for me every morning in Spring. It made me feel special.) Mind you, it did lead to some pretty strange conversations if she was the one who took Gary his evening snack of vegetable peelings (of which he was very fond). "Where's your mother?" "Oh, she's just gone for another sexcapade with the goat, it won't take long, she'll be back in a minute."

Feed Beau-Ponty reviews, and we'll see where he goes with this. (If he starts weeing on his face for my benefit, thought, I'm abandoning this story.)