Spoilers from the end of S2.
Warnings: Experimentation on a live human subject + emotional and physical after-effects. Angst.
Summary: AU from end of S2. Bryce is alive and Fulcrum has him. Chuck finds him, but bringing Bryce home isn't as easy as it sounds.
AN: written for a request from Ursula for Bryce/Chuck hurt/comfort, with Bryce still alive and needing rescue from Chuck.
Fic:
Chuck sighs as he looks out the window. The sun is bright today, but the motel parking lot is covered with puddles from last night's storm. Amorphous shapes on asphalt, shallow pools of filthy water clothed with the brightness of the reflection of the sky.
Chuck tries to think of the dance of sunlight, bright and wild on the water. He tries to imagine that they are somewhere else, that the waterlogged parking lot is a river that will carry them to open seas.
Instead, he thinks of all the people who are looking for them.
The people who want to kill them.
The people who want to torture them until they co-operate.
The people on their own side who want to debrief them no matter what the effects will be. The people who care about them but who care about the information just a little bit more.
And the others. The people who love them, who haven't heard from them, who have no idea if they are even alive.
Everyone - truly, everyone - is looking for them.
Chuck closes the curtain. He really shouldn't risk looking out the window.
Chuck Bartowski didn't go into the mission intending to find Bryce Larkin.
Like he always did in matters Bryce, Chuck stumbled into it, like a revelation, and then had to run from it fast as he could.
It started when Chuck had convinced a very skeptical Casey, Sarah, and General Beckman to let him do a long-term undercover op. They wouldn't have agreed, but a key Ring operative had seen Chuck in action and had offered him a huge bribe to become a double agent. This kind of offer came along rarely, they knew, and Chuck was getting more and more able in his use of the Intersect.
Chuck had even been allowed to look at a Ring facilities, and he of course snuck around the first chance he got.
He panicked when he overheard a man in a white labcoat say, "The Intersect is not working out. We should terminate him."
He was confused when the man in the suit responded, "No. We'll get that information out of him, and YOU will find a way to do it."
"But we have tried every method - the human mind can only take so much before it breaks- and then we won't ever be able to get the Intersect," labcoat objected.
As suit threatened the scientist, Chuck thought back. Had they really used every method on him? They had actually been pretty nice. Except for threatening his life and making him prove his loyalty by doing horrible things (or getting Sarah and Casey to help him fake it), but really, that seemed pretty standard for double agents.
So he followed the scientist, figuring he would have answers, and snuck into the laboratory and hid behind a bench.
And then he saw Bryce Larkin strapped into a exam chair. And Chuck realized:
Bryce is alive!
And then he realized. The Intersect. They've been using every mind-breaking method, thinking they would be able to get the Intersect information from Bryce.
Chuck thought of all that suffering Bryce must have endured, how sharply alone he must have felt when they were doing who-knows-what to him. And he thought of how easily Bryce could have made them stop if he had just told them that Chuck was the real Intersect.
But of course Bryce would never do that....
Chuck knew the smart play would be to wait until it was safe to contact Castle and ask for backup.
He knew the best plan was to play it cool so the good guys could take the whole facility and everyone in it.
He knew Bryce would do that. And since getting his new mix-tape of Intersect abilities, Chuck had started to really think about what it meant to use his powers responsibly.
So on one side of the argument was the fact that waiting was the smart, strategically better, patriotic, and possibly more ethical thing to do.
Chuck, however, was more persuaded by the other side of the argument.
Which said, Screw it, that's Bryce.
Chuck knocked the unsuspecting scientist out as soon as he walked by and grabbed the unconscious Bryce and threw him over his shoulder as best as he could. He grabbed the scientist's laptop so he could figure out what had been done to him, and then he did his best to flash on something useful.
For once, it worked.
But with the weight of Bryce on his shoulder, he could barely even find time to smile at the fact that he was, at long last, a ninja.
Chuck managed to get away, also flashing on explosives expertise so he could create some distractions without killing anybody. He also, to his delight, managed to flash on how to hotwire a car, so soon he was speeding away, Bryce laid gently in the backseat. He headed toward home, switching cars often, taking back roads, and using other hard-to-follow measures that Sarah had taught him.
He was relieved when Bryce stirred in back.
"Bryce! You're okay, it's me. Chuck. I'm getting you home, buddy."
Bryce seemed to have a panic attack, and Chuck looked at him worriedly in the rearview.
Bryce gasped out, sounding as if he hadn't spoken in weeks, and then finally said, "Can't go back, Chuck, can't-"
"Okay, Bryce, okay, we won't go back," Chuck promised immediately. Bryce thanked him by falling unconscious again.
Chuck frowned as he gripped the steering wheel harder.
He had never seen Bryce scared. Not even a little scared.
Seeing him terrified was...
Awful. Chuck couldn't imagine what Bryce could be so scared of, couldn't imagine what he must have gone through.
And Chuck started to think about the fact that this was not the first time someone had told him Bryce was dead.
And not the first time he had reason to doubt the people who gave him his orders. And Bryce seemed only to panic when Chuck said they would be going home. And Bryce didn't panic ever.
So Chuck could trust that the agencies that employ him would do what's best. Or he could doubt all of them based on some ambiguous half-conscious panic from Bryce.
Of course this was definitely not the first time when Bryce trusted Chuck to do the right thing, just because he was Chuck. And Bryce never seemed to put that much trust in anyone, not even the people they worked for. But he trusted Chuck.
At the turn, Chuck felt a burst of worry in his chest. Fear and concern and self-doubt. When Bryce said he didn't want to go back, did he mean back to the lab? Or did he mean... he didn't want to go back home?
Chuck came to the exit that would lead south, back to Burbank.
He decided to head north instead.
He ended up driving for hours.
Chuck was pretty sure he was disobeying orders and breaking several laws by keeping Bryce in an out-of-the-way motel in northern California instead of bringing him back home. And then of course there were the laws he broke by using his Intersect abilities to steal cars and hack an ATM to get cash for the motel.
Charles Bartowski. Ninja warrior. Master thief. Rogue spy.
Chuck smiled at Bryce's sleeping form on the nearby bed and said, "Bryce, you really bring something out of me that no one else does."
When Bryce didn't answer, Chuck started to look into the laptop. There were few security blocks, probably because the facility they kept it in was so secure. Possibly because they wanted to be able to hand the research off to another researcher if a scientist got killed or, worse, ethics.
As Chuck looked at the research, trying to figure out what was done, he realized that among the scans and medical charts there were several plain-language logs designed to explain their progress to non-scientists.
Chuck wanted to stop reading after the first page. A salted rage built up in his abdomen, but he kept reading until he figured out what happened to Bryce.
Chuck had thought Bryce died on Ellie's wedding day. Instead, he was put on life support. The reports began with Bryce's 'transfer' to the Ring facility, and their use of experimental treatments to bring him back.
And then the torture. Conventional and unconventional means to make him reveal the Intersect's secrets, and more importantly, how they might create their own Intersect.
Which of course didn't work. But it was clear from the reports that the scientists didn't think it would be possible to reverse engineer a new Intersect just because they had one in their lab; it was also clear that their bosses threatened their families and their lives to ensure that they kept trying anyway.
Desperate brilliant people, all trying to forcibly dig through Bryce's mind to find Intersect technology.
Chuck went to throw up twice while reading the reports of what the lab tried.
They threw everything they could think of at the problem. Things that re-arranged and re-routed and re-wired.
Then they got it into their heads that if they could force him to flash while they monitored him, they would be able to reverse engineer some part of the Intersect. So they tried to induce a flash.
They figured that the best way would be to make him feel like his life was in danger. But then almost-throwing him off a cliff or holding a gun to his head did nothing for his co-operation; Bryce was too experienced for that. So they decided to mess with his brain's ability to control emotion, those parts of the brain that can put emotion aside long enough to make a decision, that allow a person to think and act and survive when they would rather panic or wail or shut down. Chuck realized then that the panic he had seen might not be unusual now; they had taken away from Bryce the ability to quell any strong emotion, to force himself to focus. Besides the cruelty of putting someone in a terrifying, lonely, and painful situation - and then chemically stripping them of the ability to control those damaging feelings - Chuck felt pained at the thought of Bryce losing that most Bryce-like of qualities; Bryce had always -always - been the guy who could show only what he wanted to show.
But this wasn't even the worst thing. When more threats came down, and the scientists got more desperate, they decided to play with his memories; they wanted to fool Bryce's brain into thinking that it was some other place and time, and then make sure he flashed. So they found the stored memories that seemed to be closest to the strong emotional centers and then they induced the brain into interpreting them as present experience.
So Bryce had to keep reliving his worst moments. But unlike in the original experiences, this time Bryce would have no way of stopping himself from panicking, despairing, or, well, freaking out.
As Chuck read over their procedures and records, he realized. Bryce was in hell.
Chuck looked over at Bryce who appeared still but breathing. Chuck had feared going to a hospital but he used the medical knowledge in the Intersect to apply every old-school low-tech diagnostic trick to make sure Bryce was still okay. But now, he wondered if Bryce's seemingly tranquil sleep masked some terrifying existence; he had only tested for physical harm, after all.
Still, he wouldn't know how to help unless he learned what he could from the files.
More of the same. Insane ideas, scared researches throwing everything they could at Bryce's neural pathways just to see what sticks. Finally, Chuck found the notes of the cognitive psychologist who observed the 'unusual characteristics of the subject's experiential memories.'"
"It does not appear that any of these actions have gotten our team closer to activating an Intersect event. The experiments with his memory, however, may prove useful for future interrogations as a means of provoking duress. It appears that when the subject recalls a traumatic event, he experiences the same firing of brain cells and - significantly - nerve cells as he previously did, except for the alteration of the subject's ability to process strong emotions. In layman's terms, when the subject recalls being shot, he physically feels the pain in his body, as well as feeling the fear. This is the likely reason the subject has had several cardiac events since the procedure. The subject's voiced outbursts during these moments of 're-living' the past also indicate that the subject is at some level aware that the experiences are not real in the present; for example, during one recent such example, the subject loudly protested "Not real, not real, I'm not there any more," before succumbing to the pain, and as was noted above, the subject has no intellectual-emotional way to compartmentalize pain or otherwise cope with it. It is hypothesized that the intensity of the experience overwhelms the processes the subject would normally use to reject the reality of the trauma, even though the subject is factually aware of its falseness.
"Furthermore, when the subject is calm, he shows high levels of reasoning and intelligence, which suggests that if treatments stop soon, his brain may eventually normalize to some degree; this is not a certainty, however. Pharmaceutical assistance is likely to exacerbate the problem, as is further experimentation of any kind. It is strongly recommended that the subject be allowed to recover before further damage is inflicted; otherwise, the entire project may be lost."
Chuck felt sick reading this. He also felt rage at the scientist who had blithely referred to 'the subject' until a quick glance at the other records indicated that the scientist brave enough to voice her concerns had 'disappeared' soon after suggesting they give Bryce's brain a break.
But this also explained what little he had seen of Bryce's reactions.
So maybe it was just a panic that made Bryce scared. Maybe Chuck really shouldn't be emotionally torturing the people who have no idea where he is. Plus, that other thing about willfully and secretly keeping an asset from the government. That thing that would make Casey mutter about the difficulties of convicting someone of treason.
Maybe Chuck was wrong to hide Bryce.
But then again...
Chuck hadn't exactly been comforted by the ends-justify-the-means approach his recent missions were taking. Or by the fact that what he referred to as "the good guys" tended to run the gamut from "does bad things for really good reasons" to "pretends to have good reasons in order to do bad things." The more they let Chuck learn how to be a real spy, the more he could see that it wasn't just about shooting and stunts; it was about doing things even when you weren't sure you could live with them. And it was about trusting no one.
He had been especially cynical about the whole thing since Casey had drunkenly confessed that he once had orders to shoot him, and that only the destruction of the false Intersect had saved him. Chuck was surprised. But within seconds, he realized that from a pure security perspective, the order made a lot of sense.
That's what scared him. That he could coldly sit back and see the logic of someone murdering himself.
Ever since, Chuck had been hesitant, taking time to think through things, sometimes in a way that interfered with his ability to flash. It looked on the surface like self-doubt and for a moment the team thought he was regressing - which is why they were hesitant to let him go to the Ring facility in the first place - but he wasn't. He was figuring out what kind of spy he was becoming. If he had to become a new, less ethical, more lethal Chuck 2.0, it was at the very least going to be on his own terms, through his own albeit questionable decisions, not through whatever moral decline the Intersect felt like doling out that day.
So Chuck thought about it.
Chuck knew that if he brought Bryce back, they would take him away. Chuck wouldn't see him. They would claim he's being taking care of well, but Chuck would have no idea.
The 'procedures,' the experimentation -- they made Bryce unable to deal with his emotions in a healthy functional way. They made him feel things, physically and emotionally, that should have been muted by the months and years that had passed since they occurred.
But they didn't make him feel things he shouldn't feel at all. So if Bryce was afraid to go back, then Chuck would keep Bryce away from them as long as he could.
Dying sucks. Even when it doesn't stick.
Bryce would know. He's almost died four times. Not as in "barely made it out alive" or "just squeaked by in surgery"; Bryce has been legally dead four times.
The memory of it hurts. Not just the pain of what happened to the body, it's the pain of the body struggling, taking its extreme measures to survive; it's often the body's own responses that hurt the most.
Drowning was the worst.
Every of the alveoli. The lungs, the organs of the throat. Twisting and choking and clenching, like your chest is bursting, being crushed from the inside. The surfaces, the membranes designed for the light touch of air, made to sieve the oxygen from the loose scatter of molecules in the atmosphere: by contrast, the merciless hardness of water hits them like a thousand tiny swords with hooks.
It's like an asthma attack only worse. More pain, more panic.
Bryce remembers drowning. He was sneaking into a secure ship through a submerged panel, but he hadn't realized the level of the syndicate's paranoia; he ended up trapped in the water, having been caught by the security measures that shot out a net at him and then allowed a large metal weight pull the net plus the would-be intruder down to the sea floor. Bryce remembers that het worked through the fear and managed to send up a float to signal Sarah where he was. He figured even if she couldn't find him in time, at least she'd get his body away from hungry fish. And he didn't struggle or flail, despite his instincts, since he could tell that would make him fade faster and only get him more tangled in the net. He remembers that Sarah saved him and that he woke to Sarah pounding his chest so hard it broke ribs.
Bryce remembers that it happened. And that it happened long ago. And as his eyes go wide with fear, Bryce sees that he is not underwater at all, that he is not drowning. He tells himself to calm down, to find a solution.
It doesn't happen.
His brain thinks there is water in his lungs, and so his body reacts. And he tells himself to breathe, that there is air enough, but that part of him that knows what's real is so small, so puny, so useless.
And the panic has a hard grip on his brain and his chest, tearing at those minute parts of the lung that want to keep him alive, the physicality of it mocking Bryce for ever believing in the separation of body and mind.
But then, suddenly, Chuck Bartowski is there.
Bryce assumes it is his imagination conjuring someone to lie to him.
Chuck's hand is on Bryce's chest then, and even with all that's happening, Bryce can tell that it's real.
It's real.
Dissonance then. Water, net, light from the surface fading as he sinks.
Chuck, anxious, hovering, saying his name. Chuck's hand on him, and Bryce can feel how gentle it is, like he's worried Bryce is fragile.
Both happening at once. A riddled collision of past and present, pain and pleasure, cold and warmth.
He hears Chuck, "Bryce! Bryce! Stay with me, please stay with me!" He shouldn't be able to hear so clearly through the water but he does.
He tries to tell Chuck that he can't breathe, that he's trapped where Chuck can't help him. He wants to cry and beg Chuck to save him and hold him and keep him forever.
He can't tell Chuck anything. He hears his mouth make something like a gasp.
But Chuck is touching him, running his hands lightly from his chest to his face, promising him, "You're all right, Bryce, you're here with me. Wherever you think you are, you're not. You're with me."
The drowning doesn't stop. It lasts for three minutes, twenty-two seconds, just like it did that day in the ocean, and it hurts and Bryce is terrified and desperate and he hates himself for feeling this way but he does, and if he could breathe he would surely be screaming and sobbing. But Bryce's mind stays fixed on Chuck, Chuck's mouth saying his name, Chuck's hand pressing soft, branding his body with the honesty of his love, and some part of him knows that this time is different, that this time there is a reason to get through this.
Chuck leans his own chest onto Bryce's, then, holding his weight up with his arms to keep his touch light. And there it is, Chuck's body on his, and though Bryce's body is trying to convulse, but the steady motion of Chuck's chest going up and down affects him somehow, each of Chuck's breaths a rock to hang onto in the waves, solid and true.
Chuck whispers now because his face is so close to Bryce's.
"You're not there. You're with me. We're at Stanford and we're in my room. I want to kiss you but I'm scared so we talk about Klingon mating rituals all night. You are with me and we are young and stupid and horny and we don't have a thing to worry about in the world...." Chuck continues his bedtime story then, insisting again and again that they are in a dorm room, that they are happy, that the pull in his lungs is not a pint of water, harsh like poison in his chest, but merely the anticipation, the nervous giddiness of their first time together. They are warm and safe and the future is full of good things that can't wait to happen to them and they are young, and none of what has happened has happened.
For three minutes and twenty-two seconds, Chuck tells him a story and Bryce knows it isn't true. He remembers everything. And he sees the lines, the age on Chuck's face, and even though Bryce thinks they make him even more beautiful, Bryce knows this is not the same Chuck he knew back then.
Chuck is repeating the memory like a favorite song, like it can get in his head and replace the memory that has possessed him.
Bryce knows it is not happening. Bryce knows that those halcyon days are long past.
But some part of his body must believe the words that are falling down from Chuck's lips, that are scattering over Bryce almost tangibly. Because he cannot stop gasping for air, but somehow the pain is a little bit less, the fear a little less searing, than the last time he remembered what it means to drown.
Before tonight, Chuck had never seen Bryce cry. Certainly hadn't seen him weep and weep in Chuck's arms, then push Chuck away in anger at needing him, only to have him fall in his arms once more.
Before tonight, Chuck had never heard Bryce say that he loved anyone. Chuck had always wanted to hear it at Stanford, but he accepted that Bryce could do almost anything but that being emotionally vulnerable just wasn't on the list. But tonight, he said it. Or, more precisely, he used it as a reason why Chuck could never ever leave him. Which was soon followed by an equally passionate demand that Chuck should leave him and never look back, that Chuck was too good a person to be with someone like him.
Everything Bryce felt was felt more intensely than it should have been, and Bryce couldn't do a thing to deal with it except yell it at the only other person there.
Yeah, Chuck thought, a meeting with Casey and Beckman would not be good right now.
Even when there was no instant playback of Bryce's own worst moments, there were outbursts of emotion followed by collapses into short restless fits of troubled sleep. The scientists had used entirely separate processes to mess with his emotion-control and his memory-jumps, using chemical injections for the first and microsurgery for the second, so Chuck knew it made sense that there would be periods when both were in play, when neither were, or when just one was. But the scientist's reports didn't really prepare him to see Bryce Larkin in this condition. He felt almost guilty for being there, now that he saw how meticulously Bryce had hidden these parts of himself.
There were other firsts too.
First time Chuck flashed on how to use wires pulled from a wall socket to defibrillate a memory-induced heart attack.
First time Chuck heard Bryce shout the wrong name in bed. Except they weren't together in the bed, it was just Bryce, flailing around and screaming the name of the man who had once tortured him in some far off land in some far off time that was somehow here and now.
First time Chuck heard Bryce say that he didn't want to be a spy.
This one actually hit Chuck hardest. He wasn't even crying or angry like with the other feelings. He just lay there looking broken, no fight in him. Saying, "I don't want to be a spy any more, Chuck. I don't want to do anything any more. Please don't make me be a spy again."
Chuck kept saying he didn't have to be a spy any more, he could be anything he wanted. Bryce just shook his head and repeated his plea, as if he didn't believe Chuck at all.
Chuck was relieved when sleep took Bryce again.
It takes many long hours of closely watching Bryce to get to one of those moments of clarity the laptop reports claimed were still in there.
When it comes finally, Bryce calmly informs Chuck that he must turn him into Beckman.
"I'll probably panic, but I won't have a lot of self control, so with your new Intersect powers you'll certainly be able to control me without too much inconvenience."
"Yes, Bryce, that's my main concern. Whether it will be convenient as I betray you as you scream in agony."
"I know it's hard for you. I ... remember what I said. So I know this is hard. But I don't get to think clearly that often any more, so you should listen. They might be able to help me."
"The Ring scientists thought that more tests would just exacerbate the problem."
"Chuck, I know you're trying to do the right thing. You always do. But I have a decade's worth of secrets and no self control. You have to know that's a dangerous combination."
Chuck set his jaw. "I know that an hour ago, you were convinced that the Agency would have you killed or kept in a permanent state of drug-induced coma if you returned."
"That was the fear talking. The irrational fear that I can't control."
"The rational fear that you can't hide. Got it."
"I'm not fit to be a spy," he said, "I spend every second wondering if I'm about to get thrown into some part of my mind that I don't want to be in, and I have no way of dealing with those moments. I'm not fit to work in intelligence. Hell, I'm not fit to take a walk or have a meal at a restaurant, I'm not even fit to live in civilization."
"Civilization is overrated," Chuck answered, "Trust me, I've lived in it my whole life."
"Leave it to you to have a cheery answer for everything," Bryce said, but kept arguing with Chuck. It wasn't the first time they argued over whether a man or a mission was fundamentally more important.
"If it were you in my position, I would bring you back," Bryce said finally, almost glaring at him.
Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, I seem to remember a time at Stanford when you decided I wasn't quite ready for spyworld and you decided to keep me out. Without asking my opinion."
"So this is payback? Still pissed off about college? Still blaming me for your crappy job and your crappy life?" Bryce said mockingly, and Chuck could tell Bryce was trying to provoke Chuck into making a mistake.
"You're trying to get me so pissed off I leave the room to cool off, so you can use the phone and turn yourself in."
Bryce sighed. "You really have become a good spy."
Chuck grinned and shrugged. "I'm okay. Like a seven on a scale of one to ten. Okay, like a one-point-five without the Intersect skills. But in college I wasn't ready to be spy. I would have passed out at the first body I saw. And I wouldn't have had anyone like Sarah or Casey protecting me and teaching me. And I'm sorry for not saying it before, but, you know... thank you for ruining my life. Seriously."
Bryce smiled at that, almost against his will.
Chuck realized he was surprised that Bryce was still able to. "You put the man before the mission," Chuck pointed out.
But then Bryce argued, "But later I sent the Intersect to you. Because I learned to put the mission first."
"Because a hundred reasons, Bryce. Because of my father and because you needed a non-spy and for who knows what other reasons you came up with in that maze of a mind. And also because you like to get me presents. Don't deny it."
Bryce smiled again. "You're not going to win this argument by flirting with me, Bartowski."
"You love my goofy barely competent flirtation skills. They're endearing. And they have won PLENTY of arguments with you."
"Not about anything this serious."
Chuck grimaced. "I know exactly how serious this is, Bryce. I spent the last six hours trying to convince you that you're alive, and I mean that in every conceivable sense. This is not because of what you said, so don't blame yourself. This is because I only 'mostly' trust them, and you, Mr. Realism, know that I'm right not to totally trust them. And if you really truly believe that they will be able to help you medically, and they won't just observe and see if you change - which, by the way, I can do without them -- then we can go back. I'll agree to bring you back on the condition that I get to be your full time bodyguard."
"They'll never-"
"OR, you can do what that scientist who seemed to give a crap about you wanted. Rest. Wait. See if your brain heals itself."
"You read Dr. Haviland's notes," Bryce observed.
"I read everyone's notes."
Bryce sighed. "You could leave me here. I'll be okay. You can go back, not tell them about me."
"Not an option."
"Ellie? Is she worried?" Bryce always knew what to ask.
Chuck frowned but said, "Sarah and Awesome will cover for me. They won't give her bad news unless they're sure they have to."
Bryce looked frustrated that the trump card he had held back for the end still didn't work.
"Look, Chuck, I do not need you to do this for me! I died, I almost died, protecting you, and all I ask is the dignity to choose whether I go back, and you're -- "
Suddenly Bryce is on his knees, staring at his own hands in disgust.
He looks up at Chuck, lost. "I killed him," Bryce said, trying to wipe imaginary blood off his hands on his shirt.
Chuck wants to ask who, but he says, "Long time ago, buddy."
"I know," Bryce says as he leans over into fetal position and starts shaking, "I know it's a long time ago, it had to be done, I don't even care about this guy," he says as he starts crying hysterically, "I know, I know, I know."
Chuck kneels next to him, tries to open up Bryce's hunched over body enough to get close, to hold him, to promise him - however falsely - that it wouldn't feel this bad forever. Bryce just looks at him with big lost eyes and says, "They say the first kill is the hardest. Will it get easier? I don't know if I want it to get easier."
Chuck wraps his arms around Bryce as tightly as he can. He doesn't have an answer, or maybe hates the answer, so he waits and waits and waits.
When Bryce is calm, Chuck continues to run his hands over him, soothing, allowing him to escape reality, and, also, bringing him back to it.
"Stay with me, stay with me," is Chuck's refrain.
Finally, Bryce recovers enough to nod and pull back a little. "I've never done this before," Bryce says with an exhausted croak.
"I know, buddy. But telling the government to shove it? Gets easier with time. I promise."
Bryce could hear Chuck's smile, could tell Chuck thought he was acquiescing to staying hidden.
He wasn't. He meant that he had never cried in front of someone he knew. He hadn't cried at all from when he was six years old to when Fulcrum played pin the tail on Bryce's brain. He had never been able to, and he had never had to.
It wasn't like what he remembered of crying as a child. When crying meant you were hiding from the person who made you cry, plotting some way to outsmart him or them next time.
"It's not what you think, Chuck. I'm nothing like you think," Bryce murmured then. He didn't hear Chuck's response. Bryce was somewhere else, Chuck's hand on his hair the only thing to remind him that somewhere, at some time, the real Bryce was waiting to reclaim himself.
It has been five weeks since Chuck found Bryce Larkin.
They have moved every four days. They have stolen things for both necessities and comfort.
Chuck has held Bryce close every time he let him.
Chuck also manages to contact Orion under the radar, who sends the message that the chemicals should work their way out of Bryce's system with time, slowly. Orion agrees that bringing Bryce home early would be putting the mission before the man.
Chuck tells Bryce that he has been slow to flash recently, that they have lost faith in him. He needs to come back with a new partner, a functional Bryce Larkin, if he wants to be treated with respect. Also, they're much more tolerant of Bryce going off and doing things without telling anyone, so it would be nice if Bryce were coherent enough to shoulder the blame.
Bryce laughs and knows that Chuck has thought of another argument to keep him in his protective shell, one less damaging to his ego. He knows, but there is just enough truth to it that Bryce promises that they will make the decision to go back together, when they both decide it's time.
For the first couple of weeks, there is little improvement.
They start to wonder if anything would change.
In Bryce's frequent outburst-induced sleeps, Chuck would find himself staring at Bryce, watching his eyelashes flutter in the restlessness of his dreams. For the first time, Chuck thinks that Bryce looks small.
He is someone different than who he used to be.
Chuck understands. He's in much the same position. Not that being the Intersect is the same. It's not remotely the same. It's cool and helpful and a gift - an amazing gift. But there's also the fact that there's something lurking in Chuck, able to pop out at any moment. Something that is from a different time and place - and from a different person as well.
Something that might make Chuck a killer if he loses control for even one second.
And it's not just the Intersect. It's the whole situation. Turning him into someone that he never thought he could be. Someone not necessarily better.
It's nothing like the agony Bryce is going through. Chuck knows that, doesn't compare.
But he notes the irony, that they're both a little.. what's the term that one prof at Stanford would always use?
He and Bryce were becoming a little posthuman.
A different relation to time and space than the more traditional person.
He knew that Bryce had been given the worst of it, and he had been given the best.
But Bryce was a survivor, Chuck told himself. He should be printing "Happy you're alive after all!" greeting cards by this point.
And really, a great spy is great because he is good at becoming something new, at living multiple lives. Because he lives in a state of constant transformation.
And Bryce was better at this than anyone, even Sarah or Shaw. Bryce was better at being both a spy and not-a-spy at once. Better at becoming a new person entirely when the situation demanded, but always staying Bryce.
It was hard to imagine someone -anyone - living like this, thrown about one's own mind. And though there are any number of injuries and ailments that affect the mind, that make one not know what year it is or where one is, none of them bear the intensity and paradox and physicality of what Bryce has.
But if anyone could figure out how to adapt to a new kind of human existence, it would be Bryce.
Chuck wonders if he himself would be strong enough, if he could be as strong as he is insisting Bryce can be. Chuck wonders if he would even want to live like that, and he thinks for a moment that if not for Ellie, he might choose not to live.
And this scares the hell out of Chuck because Bryce doesn't have an Ellie.
But Bryce is a survivor. Chuck knows this. As well as he has ever known anything.
But still.
He goes over to Bryce and whispers, softly enough that he doesn't wake. He leans his head down onto Bryce's stomach and places his hand on Bryce's chest, feeling the rhythm of Bryce's breaths. They are strong and regular and Chuck should feel relieved. But Bryce moans. Pain or mild unpleasantness or something else.
Chuck closes his eyes, his cheek still on the warm muscle of Bryce's stomach.
"Together," he whispers, "Together you and I will become new kinds of people. The kind who knows that a mind can work many different ways. I promise, Bryce, we are a new breed, you and I, and we will find new ways to live with these mixed-up, hyperspaced brains of ours. We will learn to be people who can live with anything."
It was a terrible promise, Chuck knew. Admitting that the people they once were might really be gone, that they would have to be brave and persevering and innovative at every step just to have a chance, that they would have to wage war for every ounce of personhood they had. That the selves they would carve out for themselves might not be like who they were before, as collapse and pressure felled Bryce's wall between past and present, and Chuck's line between good guys and bad guys.
But if Bryce turned into the kind of person who could live with the onslaught of his trauma, then Chuck would turn into someone who knew exactly how to share a life with that kind of person.
A few more weeks passed. The chemical injections eventually left Bryce's system, leaving him with that notorious cool exterior.
The other damage - the fact that Bryce was suddenly hurled into another time and place in his life, and always a traumatic one - didn't go away.
After a while, Bryce was able to just give Chuck a needful look and Chuck would know immediately what was happening, would hold Bryce and moves his hands gently as he could, whispering to Bryce every joyful thing he could think of. Bryce showed less and less reaction to the past's sudden assaults, and he practiced acting like he was merely suffering a headache - a passable defense for outsiders. But he still accepted Chuck's arms, Chuck's words, wrapping around him so he didn't crash while trying to again reach the heights of imperturbability that Bryce was once known for.
Bryce and Chuck discussed it sometimes, and came up with practice techniques so that Bryce could use his thoughts and his knowledge of reality to minimize the physical symptoms of the attacks. They remembered a comic book that said that some people were so disciplined that they could use their minds to dictate bodily actions that are normally automatic, like one's heartbeat or sweating. Chuck managed to flash on a set of exercises to do just that, and they adapted them for Bryce's particular situation. Eventually, Bryce could have only mild physical symptoms.
The emotion experience of dying or killing would be there no matter what they did. But now Bryce could hide it with a smirk and a quip.
Chuck was enormously proud of Bryce. He kind of also hated both Bryce and himself for living in a world where it was necessary.
When Bryce drowned again, and this time only made minor gasps as he excused himself from the table, he realized that he was about as good as he was going to get. He would have to live with his new condition, but he wouldn't have to let his condition run his life.
He convinced Chuck to go back by telling him that since they are both in unusual situations that require certain accommodations, they will probably be allowed to be partners. And that going back would help bring to justice the people who had done this to Bryce in the first place. Chuck was a little worried that such a vengeful argument worked - and that Bryce knew it would work - but it wasn't the only reason, and Chuck had to admit that after a few weeks the amazing Bryce Larkin was again quite the superspy.
Right before they went back, though, Bryce looked worried.
It wasn't injections in his systems. He just didn't care any more that Chuck knew he was scared.
"It'll be weird, I guess. I'm not me any more. I am, but I'm not."
Chuck hesitated, then said, "I know." He could offer Bryce solace, but as much as the truth hurt, he wasn't about to lie. Bryce's own mind was lying to him enough.
"Well, I guess I we all carry our pasts around one way or another," Bryce said with a tired smile.
Chuck wondered what Bryce felt as he said it, what freefall of emotions might have been lurking behind that calm exterior. And it was a terrible thought, but Chuck just briefly wondered if it would be easier if Bryce had taken a little longer to get back his power to push aside his emotions.
But he felt guilty for thinking this, reminding himself that love never means wishing people to be less than they are.
"If anyone can find a way to live like this, Bryce, it's you," Chuck said, and meant it.
Bryce let out a little sound, a breath of something unsure. But all he said was, "Geez, you can stop flattering me, Chuck, I already agreed to sleep with you."
Chuck smiled. "You're an asshole."
"Good thing I have someone to call me on it," Bryce said, gratitude peeking through the sarcasm.
"Are you sure you want to go back?"
"No. Not really. But I'm sure I can't do this without you. And I'm sure I want you to go back to Ellie and Morgan and Devon and everyone else you care about. And I'm sure I don't want us to spend our whole lives on the run, and I'm sure that the information I have could hurt the Ring, and I'm sure I'll go crazy if I spend another month moping. Any one of those reasons would be enough."
Chuck hesitated and then said, "Okay. We'll head back. But only if you promise me that if you need to leave, you let me know. Say the word, and it'll be you and me, travelling around."
"Like a buddy comedy?"
"Absolutely. We'll get a convertible - or a van!- and travel around using our superspy skills to help the quirky but troubled characters we meet in old-fashioned diners across the country."
Bryce laughed - genuinely, Chuck could tell. But Chuck repeated himself, "Promise me. We're in it together. If you need to leave, we leave."
"I promise," Bryce said.
They left then, heading back into what other people would call their real lives. Confluences of technology and power had made them something not quite human, some kind of hybrids of man and mission. But tethered together, they learned to live - and love - in ways that others would never have to.