Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam stared at the laptop as it all suddenly made sense.
The reason he couldn't find what he would immediately recognise as a traditional 'altar' was because Karen was not a traditional 'witch'. He'd read a bit about techno-heathenry, but given how much humans – and most gods – loved tradition in their rituals, it wasn't in practice in a widespread fashion. Not yet, anyway – but for someone who dealt in information, a computer would make a strongly relevant focus of worship.
Later when he had time to think about it, he'd decide that the real question was, why hadn't the Winchesters encountered it earlier?
And she had been petitioning Loki.
Loki, the Trickster of the Norse pantheon, was by his nature a force of chaos, challenging accepted norms and conventions, allowing room for transformation out of the ensuing uproar; he would be a perfect patron for a pagan doing research in statistics, seeking to find the pattern in the huge amounts of information coming out of big data projects. And, like all Tricksters, he had a penchant for dealing out a bit of cosmic comeuppance if the whim took him.
And, like all Tricksters, one of his strongest aspects was humour. Sometimes cruel, usually educational, generally capricious, and always, to somebody – even if it was only Loki himself – very, very funny.
For example, something like granting a request to place averageness curses on shallow arrogant narcissistic hot guys to teach them a lesson about being shallow arrogant narcissistic hot guys.
And like landing Sam Winchester in a situation where he had to destroy a laptop to save his brother.
It was like asking a small child to throw away the ice-cream in order to save the candy.
It was like asking a fickriter to set fire to a motorcycle in order to save her dog.
It was like asking Donald Trump to get a buzz-cut in order to save his Twitter account.
Yeah, he'd do it. He'd cry on the inside, but he would do it, to save the thing that was most dear to him.
While still having to listen to the increasingly disturbing noises from the bedroom.
And that, that right there, that was some classy assholedom.
Grimly determined, Sam took out his knife, turned the laptop over, and as quietly as he could prepared to disrupt the altar.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
When Dean Winchester referred to himself as the Living Sex God, he meant it: he was damned good in the sack. Or the spa. Or the car. Or on the sofa. Or the table. Or wherever the lady liked. Because being the Living Sex God meant ensuring that his partner had a good time too – as far as he was concerned, that was a vital part of the fun. He knew what ladies wanted. He enjoyed giving them what they wanted. And he had an unerring instinct for finding willing and frisky ladies who knew what they wanted, and who also knew what men wanted. And he had never been reticent about telling a woman that he liked it when she knew what she wanted, and also what he wanted.
(He would never admit it even to himself, but there was also the moment, the fleeting moment, in which he could feel an undeniably human connection, at a fundamental level, an involvement with another human being, as evanescent as it was, which tethered him to his own species between the hurt and horror of one job and the next, so just for an instant he was not a killer or a monster, but just a man who was wanted by a woman.)
So naturally, that all had to be part of the act – before heading out to meet Karen that night, he'd rehearsed it mentally, carefully, planning it meticulously using his Upstairs Brain to craft it into something convincing.
But somehow, it all went out the window, because his Downstairs Brain staged a shameless coup and took over, kicking his Upstairs Brain in the higher thought processes with its size fifteen hob-nailed testosterone and shouting it into submission, because the basic fact was that, she might be a witch, and she might be unhot at a first glance, but between the sheets, Karen wasn't just hot, she was smokin'.
He barely recognised his own wavering voice. "Oh, God, oh, yeah..."
"Ohhhhhh, oh, Dean..."
"Ohhhhaaaaaah, God, Karen, you're, oh, oooOOOOhhhh..."
"Oh... oh... huh?" Karen suddenly stiffened.
Dean squelched a small noise of disappointment as she stilled. "What? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"
"No," she hissed, "I heard a noise!"
"Ohhh, that's all me," he drawled, Killer Smile reasserting itself on his face and potential creepiness be damned, "Because you are one sexy lady..."
She resisted his efforts to resume proceedings. "Out there!" she insisted, "I heard something!"
"It's just the wind," Dean tried not to sound desperate, "In the trees, you're imagining things, let it go, let me tell you what I'm thinkin' about right now..."
"Are you sure, becaaaaaaAAAAAAAAOoooh,"
"I'm sure," Dean breathed heavily, "I'm sure, oh, God, Karen, oh, oh, oooooohhh..."
"Ohhhhh... aaaaaaaah..."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Hurry, hurry, Sam told himself, fumbling at the cover; from the sound of things, he was already too late to save Dean from... er, yes, well... he could only hope that his big brother's acting skills and stomach were up to the job. He cursed himself inwardly at the noise he made in his haste, I can do this, I have to make this work...
Will a small sob of relief, he located the battery, yanking it out, then heading for the circuitry – a machine of this vintage, if he pulled the motherboard battery, that would be the end of the hard drive...
The music and the noise from the bedroom reached a crescendo. Dean's charade was about to be discovered – he was out of time.
The cover sprang off and without any finesse at all he began frantically tearing out components.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
One thing you could say for the Living Sex God, he had perfect timing: when he was taking a lady for a long, scenic drive in his Ferarri, so to speak, he always knew exactly where she wanted to go, and exactly when they were going to arrive.
"Oh... ah... oh..."
"Oh, God, oh..."
"OooohOOOOHHHHH..."
"WHOOOOAAAAAA.. Oh, DEAN..."
"OH GOD, KAREN, OHHHHHHH, YEAH, YOU ARE SO HOT, OH, YEEAAAAAAH..."
There was an unfamiliar but extremely enjoyable tingling sensation that ever so momentarily distracted him, but he resumed proceedings with barely a hesitation...
"STOP!" Karen yelled, "STOP!"
"YEEEA – WHAT?"
Karen briskly pushed him away, got up, and reached for her robe. "I heard something!" she snapped, heading out of the room.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Sam sat down heavily, his knees wobbling. He'd made it. Only just, but he'd done it. He just hoped his brother would forgive him for taking so long, then cutting it so fine.
Karen came stomping angrily out of the bedroom; her face went from thunder, to surprise. "What the... Sam? It is! It's you! What the hell are you doing?!"
"It's over, Karen," Sam told her, "No more curses. What you're doing is..."
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
Sam was interrupted by his big brother in in full fury: Dean stood before him, bristling with outrage, murder in his eyes, mayhem in his voice, the Michaelsword waxing wroth with full-on wrath-of-God righteous indignation...
"WHAT THE FUCK, SAM?" he thundered, "SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?"
The Living Sex God, magnificent in his long-lashed, sinfully handsome, six-foot-one, chick-magnet come-hither ruin-of-angels and downfall-of-saints CFM glory glowered at his brother, his awesomeness barely attenuated by the dancing banana-patterned comforter wrapped around his waist.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Sam looked at his brother ruefully. "I'm sorry, bro," he said, "I am so sorry."
"You're SORRY?" Dean yelled, "You're SORRY? You, you, you wait until RIGHT THEN, you interrupt RIGHT THEN, and you're SORRY?"
"I was trying to be quiet," Sam explained, "And I couldn't find the altar, then I had to be quiet – I am sorry, really..."
"There are no words, Sam," Dean growled in a dangerously quiet voice, "There are no words, mere words cannot apologise for this."
Sam's eyes were filled with his crushing sense of failure. "I did the best I could, big brother," he said quietly, trying to keep the guilt of letting his brother down yet once more in one more way out of his voice, "I'm... I'm sorry..."
"Altar?" Karen sounded confused as she switched on a light, then spotted the remains of the laptop. "What the... what have you done to Geoffrey?"
"Geoffrey?" Sam looked as bewildered as she did. "Who's... you named your laptop Geoffrey?"
"He was my first laptop," she told him, "I bought him when I was in high school, with money I won at a science fair. He's too old and slow to do much these days..."
"Except be your altar," Sam's voice hardened. "For communing with your god." He turned a pleading look to Dean. "She's a techno-pagan, a Lokean," he went on, "She used a laptop as her altar, and electronics as her medium."
"A techno-pagan?" Dean paused momentarily to peer down from the lofty altitude of High Dudgeon. "I didn't think that worked – Orgle has a theory about that, and Crowley tried to explain it, something about the electrons getting so frightened that they all just jump on their megacycles and ride away..."
"She's intelligent, Dean," Sam glared at Karen. "Sooner or later somebody was going to figure it out."
"What's a Lokean?" Dean's brow creased as he considered the word. "You mean, as in, worshiping Loki?"
"The very same, bro."
"Loki? That Loki? As in, Loki Loki? As in..."
"Yep."
Dean's top lip, returned to its usual ridiculously attractive fulsomeness, quivered in anger. "Ohhhhh, I am gonna roast that asshole in holy oil until Colonel Sanders would compliment me on my hot wings..."
Karen picked up the disembowelled laptop. "Your brother is right, Sam, you are a smart one. You got it all figured out."
"Smart enough to stop you cursing hot guys," he shot back. "Your altar is destroyed, Karen. The cursing stops, now."
"You mean Geoffrey here?" She gave him a smile. "I only really keep him for sentimental value. You haven't 'destroyed my' altar." Her smile widened as Sam's face became confused. "Oh, you've done the equivalent of kick it over, maybe – but it certainly isn't destroyed."
"But..." Sam's face was utterly bemused. "It broke the curse. Dean is back to himself. Look, bro," he gestured at a window, where faint reflections were visible. "It worked. You're you again. The real you."
Karen waved a hand dismissively. ."Well, yeah, the hard drive is gone, and I probably won't even bother trying to reboot the poor old thing – but the content, the true substance, the data, that makes it what it is, well, surely a college boy like you has heard of cloud computing? I told you, Dean, 'college educated' and 'plain dumb' can sometimes co-exist in the same person."
Sam could've kicked himself; he swore and thumped the table. "But I disrupted something," he insisted, "Dean's curse is broken..."
"Oh, he did that, all by himself," she snorted derisively.
"He did?" Sam sounded incredulous.
"I did?" so did Dean.
"Definitely." Karen smiled up at Dean. "And, if I might say so, spectacularly." She turned back to him. "But I will definitely ask for revocation of the good luck charm I solicited for you, if it hasn't already petered out. You are probably actually they nice guy you seem to be, but I'm only human, and I do have some urge to avenge Geoffrey."
"Aha! I knew it!" declared Dean, "You were having anti-Winchester luck! Or Winchester anti-luck! Or something."
Understanding dawned on Sam's face. "Ohhhh, yeah," he ground out with a scowl, "This has got 'Loki' written all over it. So, hot guy is mean to you, and so you make him, literally, mean. Average. He gets kicked right in the arrogance, with a lesson to be learned; and the curse breaker, having sex with you?"
"Oh, please," sniffed Karen disdainfully, "You think that would work? Petitioning Loki to curse someone for their arrogance, then demanding that I be the key to breaking it? That would make me as bad as the rude narcissistic assholes I wanted cursed, and any petition like that would definitely come back around to bite me." She grinned mirthlessly. "All that any of them had to do was to offer a genuine and heartfelt compliment to a woman who they previously would've been rudely dismissive of. Any 'not-hot-enough' woman would do, any age, any situation, any compliment." She nudged Dean. "Telling a woman how good she is in bed is, apparently, the most genuine and heartfelt compliment that Dean can pay."
Poor little Beau-Ponty has no reviews to nibble on - alerts or updates are probably on the fritz, but he dictated this chapter on a rumbling empty tummy. If you haven't left him a review for the previous one, don't be stingy, he's a cute little plot bunny, and you don't want to see him starve, do you?
So, the Living Sex God rescued by his own horniness - this is going to end up doing Sam's head in. His brain might head back to the Bahamas, where it enjoyed a nice holiday during It Don't End With Blood. Poor Sam's brain; it has a hard life.