My entry into the Summer Gen Exchange. Written for Gladdecease.
Julia glanced down at the papers in her hand with dismay.
This was not what Julia had envisioned when an old friend called her up and said he was in town. She'd been thinking something along the lines of a couple drinks- maybe a pizza. A little 'remember when'...or sure, one small favor. A ride to the airport. A night on her sofa. No problem. Anything for an old friend.
Yeah, she was an idiot. Call it a momentary lapse in judgement, or a nostalgia-induced case of temporary insanity, but here she was, and if the shoe fits...
Julia shook her head and set aside the pages she'd been holding. She folded her hands on her desk. "Chuck," she said, leaning forward. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but-"
Chuck's shoulders drooped. Julia sighed. It was like kicking a puppy.
"Look, I'm not saying it's not good" - except that I am, she amended silently, "But I really think you need to broaden your horizons. I haven't had time to do much more than skim the manuscripts, but that much is pretty obvious."
He looked up at her with watery and bloodshot eyes, which she appreciated, though he wasn't even approaching presentable. She'd never dare hope for a fresh-pressed suit, but she'd grudgingly give credit for it not being as wrinkled as she'd expected. All things considered, it was an improvement over the ratty robe in which she'd last seen him in.
The same could not be said of Chuck himself. The last time she'd been graced by the presence of his charming self had been right around the time her sister's wedding. She'd stopped by to say hello. It was right around the corner, after all. He'd been lounging around in the disaster area he called a house, wearing something long since bound for the rag bag, but he'd been happy. His grin that day still lingered somewhere in the back of her mind, lighting up the darker corners. He'd been about to take the plunge. Quit everything else and go into writing full-time. "Julie," he'd said, "This is probably a stupid idea. It is a stupid idea. But hey, look at me. It's two o'clock and I'm still in my bathrobe. It's the greatest thing to ever happen to me. I've just got a feeling. It's meant to be, you know?"
She could hardly believe that had only been a few years ago.
"That's what I was doing," he mumbled. He didn't sound too convinced. Pity was sneaking into her heart. She squelched it. This was Chuck, after all.
He caught her eye. "Not one of those is like Supernatural." She stared right back.
He dropped his gaze.
She leaned back into her seat and raised an eyebrow. "Chuck. Come on. What exactly are you trying to pull here?"
He sank a little deeper into one of the company's oh-so-stylish (but oh-so-uncomfortable) chairs and fidgeted. There was an uncomfortable silence until Chuck said, "There wasn't a single mention of, uh, hunting in any of them." He wasn't arguing with her.
"That's not the point." She folded her arms. "I'm not an idiot, you know."
Chuck winced. "I'm trying. I'm trying like you wouldn't believe. It's taken over my life, my actual life." He looked shaken. He gulped, then steeled himself. "These were different, though. Right? I mean, if you didn't know – they could still work."
Julia closed her eyes massaged her temples before looking back at him. "What am I going to do with you, Chuck?"
He gave her a sad little grin. He probably meant for it to seem hopeful. "Give me an advance?"
"Chuck, you know I love you, right?' He seemed to be bracing for the onslaught. She ignored it and went on. "No, I do. I do. And not just out of nostalgia for the old days. You've got such...potential as a writer. I don't really understand why you can't put this all behind you. You're imaginative, I'll give you that. It's time to move on, Chuck."
He looked pained. "I...can't."
"Sure you can. Just go back to your roots. Your literary roots. Spend some time in the library, build yourself back up into the writer I know you can be."
"I don't have any literary roots," he argued.
"Sure you do," Julia assured him. "And if you just go back, maybe spend sometime finding that inspiration- hell, play around with it. You might be surprised."
He worried at one of his lips. He didn't seem to be convinced. "Hah. Sure. If I wanted to get smote but good," he said under his breath.
Julia blinked. "What?"
"Uhm-" he grinned, then tried to pass it off as a joke. "For blasphemy. You know, working from my literary roots? Never mind; inside joke."
She rolled her eyes. She should know better than to question him on his idiosyncrasies. "Whatever, Chuck. Do whatever you need to do, because I can't take these."
"Why not?" he asked, but he seemed resigned about it, "If it's because they're a little thin, maybe a little rough, I just need to polish-"
She cut him off. "Because you don't own the rights to Supernatural, Chuck. No publisher would touch it with a ten foot pole."
"No one would have to know," Chuck tried.
"If they looked at any of your previous work, they'd know, Chuck."
"Not the kids' book, there's no connection-"
"Chuck," she said. She grabbed a stack of papers off her desk and sorted through them. "You're talking about this story here, aren't you?" she waved the title page at him. He made a face and nodded.
"I thought so. Even if they didn't- there's no way to sell this. None. We'd end up with angry mobs of parents."
He shrugged. "Not necessarily. It could be the next Harry Potter,"
"Chuck, you're proposing a story about the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ, for God's sake."
"He's a kid with magic powers! No one said anything about the Anti-Christ. He's just wandering around Australia, doing good deeds and um, trying to avoid being caught by...this one bad guy. He's got a destiny! It could be good, it could be bad. Kids'll love it." He smiled weakly.
Julia gazed at him evenly. She could feel some of the old frustration coming back. "And the bad guy in question goes by the name of Lou Cypher, used to be an angel, and wants to conquer the world- no, all of creation. Or am I wrong?"
Chuck looked up at her from under his eyebrows. "...maybe? There weren't any angels in Supernatural," he added defensively.
She glowered at him, stubbornly refusing to be won over by his resemblance to a particularly sad teddy bear. "And yet I hear that's the new big thing. I think I should be worried, Chuck. I really think I should be worried. Lou Cypher?"
Chucked crossed his arms across his chest, but it was more of a protective gesture than a stubborn one. "Maybe the angel thing was too much, but come on, Julie, half of the evil overlords out there want to conquer the world or all of the universe. It'd sell, you know it."
"Uh-huh." She grabbed at another stack of papers. "And how about this one?"
"Which one?" He was wincing again.
"All of them, Chuck. All of them. But in this case, I was thinking about the one you've titled Zombies of the Apocalypse."
"So the title needs some work." He licked his lips. "But I've really got good feelings about this one- it could be a whole series about that band of survivors, living in some old summer camp. Bleak but compelling stuff. Lots of gore. Great opportunities for licensing- It'd make a great movie. Um." he waved his hands around. "Or a video game. You know. Because they're always fighting zombies, trying to get supplies, and fighting, uh-"
"Demons." Her cheek twitched.
"Right, demons," he continued, oblivious to her lack of enthusiasm - "And there's that one guy, he's like running the logistics of this camp, giving it kind of the normal guy perspective 'after the end'. And then the two other main characters, they've got kind of an odd couple thing going on- one's a hardened hunt..uh, bounty hunter with a dark past who has been leading the survivors, and the other's um, a kind of lapsed religious type, who has kinda fallen into debauchery in a big way. It's great. I'm sure it'll sell."
"Chuck." Her tone was reproachful.
"No, no, no," Chuck said quickly, "hear me out on this one, okay? It could have everything. Action, drama, some humor-" his tone turned desperate, "Zombies are really big right now."
"According to what you've got here, Chuck, your 'bounty' hunter is named Dean, a man whose 'dark past' involves a stint in hell after he sold his soul. Your sex guru is an angel. The angel- if I remember right- who pulled him out of hell, incidentally."
"He's not an angel- exactly," Chuck tried.
"No, he's a fallen angel. And the everyman is you."
Chuck deflated. "Alright, alright, that's a bad one."
Julia leaned forward again. Her face softened. "I sympathize with wanting to move away from your old series, but it's obvious you're not ready to let go. What I don't understand is why you're doing so after you turned down the investor who'd bought out the rights."
"It's... complicated, Julie." He gazed at her with those sad brown eyes and she felt herself soften, just a little. Damn him.
"I'm a good listener. I'm saying this as your friend- you've always had commitment issues."
"How can you-"
She held up a hand. "Just listen. Maybe you just don't have enough faith in yourself. I don't know. My advice, though? Go back to your investor, apologize for freaking out on him, and write the books you so obviously want to write."
"I can't." She would have dismissed it as exaggeration- except that he seemed strangely insistent. That, combined with the sheen of perspiration on his brow, made her think that maybe, just this once, there was more to this than she realized.
"I really like breathing," he added.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know, some days I regret ever meeting you." Chuck nodded. She sighed again, and tapped her pen against the desk, thinking. She massaged a temple with her free hand. She was going to regret this.
"Alright, alright. What about this family drama? That seems different. I didn't get a chance to read it."
He paused. "There were a couple...?"
She made a face. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you? The one you're calling Ascension of an Ad-Salesman."
"Oh, yeah."
"Your titles really suck. Just so you know."
"They're works in progress," he said defensively. His fingers twitched. He looked like he needed a drink. "It's not easy, you know."
She waved a hand to encourage him to get on with it.
"So, um. Well, I was thinking maybe it's something kind of in the vein of Arthur Miller, you know, Death of a Salesman- a man, his family, and the American dream."
"I never would have guessed," Julia remarked dryly.
"Right, right," Chuck said, and cleared his throat nervously. "So, um. Yeah. I wanted to go for that tragic flaw kind of vibe. The family man who's got it all. The house, the beautiful wife, the cute kid. But he's looking for something, feels that he needs to find his purpose, a purpose greater than what he is. Uhm." He looked at Julia, who was regarding him steadily. She still didn't look convinced. He continued on, "Well. Anyway, he gets what he wants, and it really sucks."
Julia raised an eyebrow. "It sucks? It sucks?"
"Oh yeah, major suckage," Chuck assured her. At the look on her face, he hurried to elucidate. "He...realizes it wasn't what he thought it was, and only appreciates what he had when it's irreparably gone, leaving him a broken man with only regrets and memories?"
She sighed again.
"You do that a lot, you know," Chuck grumbled.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Sighing. Have you considered huffing, rolling your eyes, clucking your tongue or grinding your teeth?"
"What?" she demanded, brow furrowing as her calm if increasingly less-patient manner fractured into a mixture of confusion and burgeoning outrage.
"Yeah, like that."
"Why- what- Chuck...what?" She could feel the frown creeping down her face, and that annoyed her more than anything. If she found a wrinkle, her revenge would be swift and terrible.
He gave her the hang-dog look. "It's a writing thing."
"Chuck! I'm trying to help you. If you're just going to...pull this shit again-" she stopped and took a deep breath. After a second she said, "What does it matter, anyway? You better not be putting me in one of your books."
At his guilty look she sputtered, "You are? Chuck, come on. You've got a tendency to make evil or kill or both every woman in your books. What did I ever do to you?"
He sighed this time. "I'm not- okay, I am, but not really, so don't worry about it. I've just been...tired recently. There's a lot of stuff going on. Very stressful stuff." She continued to look distinctly skeptical. "Like, people exploding kind of things," he added.
"People exploding, Chuck, seriously?" she asked, exasperated, "You lounge around in your house all day- Don't even talk to me about stress-"
He slumped further down in there chair, something she wouldn't have thought possible. "Yeah, I know, I know. The point is- well, the point is, I really need to sell some books and I can't do anything more in Supernatural...right now."
She opened her mouth.
"And I can't tell you," he said.
"You can tell me," she argued.
He just shook his head. He glanced over at the clock on her desk.
"Oh, crap. Um. Can you wait a second, Julie?" Chuck pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. It rang half a second later, and he answered it without even looking at it. "Hey, guys," he said into the phone. He sounded tired.
Julia looked down at the clock. It read 3:24.
Maybe Chuck really had lost his mind.
He had a shifty look on his face as he spoke to whoever had called him. "Uh, now's not really a good time, De-uh. Dude. You'll figure it out. Try calling B- Robert."
"No, I didn't hit my head. There's nothing wei-, ok, nothing weirder than normal. I'm just busy."
"Chuck," Julia tried. He waved a hand at her.
He frowned. "Um, I really need to go. Yes, she-," he started, paused, and then said, "no, she's in publishing..."
That was the wrong thing to say, it seemed. Chuck swallowed. "No! No, nothing like that. Just some other stuff. I need to make a living. Writing's all I've got."
The person on the other end seemed to be reading him the riot act. She could make out faint yelling. "No, no, I understand. But- I need to tell- There's another- please, just listen-" he stopped. Whoever he'd been talking to had apparently hung up on him. "Watch out for the other one," he mumbled to himself.
He looked back at her, the hang-dog expression more pronounced than ever. "Sorry," he said.
Julia just stared at him, bemused. The phone rang again. He answered it. There was more tinny, far-off yelling.
"I tried to tell you-" Chuck said. He winced, apparently at something the other person said. "Um. Have you tried Neosporin?"
Julia tapped a pen pointedly against her desk. Chuck glanced over at her, his expression surprisingly nervous. She knew she wasn't going to be winning any miss congeniality awards, but she hadn't done anything – yet – to earn the cautious, uneasy expressions Chuck kept throwing her way.
"Please- just, now is really, really not a good time." Chuck looked really unhappy now. Julia wondered again who in the hell Chuck could be talking to. Maybe he'd not been paying his bookie...though that didn't really fit with his end of the conversation. How about- Could he have fallen in with the mob? Him? Nah. And that wasn't even the wildest story her brain had come up with in the last few minutes.
In any case, it seemed like her old buddy Chuck had made some interesting friends in the time since she'd last seen him.
She watched his face fall in response to some suggestion she couldn't quite hear. It quickly traveled from dismay to outright panic.
"Nonononono. That's a bad idea, guys. A really bad idea." She could actually see all the blood draining out of his face.
She gathered he was telling the truth about it being bad. Though she supposed they could have been threatening to break his legs. Maybe that's why he was acting so cagey...though so much of that was connected to Supernatural...and that didn't make any sense at all.
She leaned forward on her arms, trying for 'attentive' and maybe a bit of insincere patience. Chuck did not get the message.
"I've got another appointment soon, Chuck, so if we're done here-" She couldn't quite manage to hide the irritation in her voice. Chuck looked over at her, grimaced apologetically and held up a hand, begging her patience...and then went right back to his conversation, the ass.
"We''re a bad combo. Do you remember what happened last time?" His voice was getting louder and- she had to admit- kind of squeaky. He looked up at her, then dropped into a harsh whisper. It might have worked if she hadn't been sitting three feet away. "I don't want to repeat the experience! Chunky soup, remember? I'm still finding bits and pieces in my rug, and you do you know how nasty that is?"
Julia could guess. She still had no idea what he was talking about, but she knew that anything that fell into Chuck's shag carpeting was unlikely to be seen again.
It was part of the reason she always kept her shoes on when she visited. Not that that was likely any time soon. Or ever again, possibly.
There was a micro-wince. Apparently the person on the other side of the phone had seen Chuck's rug.
"Okay- that was stupid-" Chuck said apologetically, "but De-" he glanced up at Julia, "-Dude. They can't find you, but they can always find me...and uh, our mutual friend is back." Chuck managed to come across as affronted, even in the face of all that panic. "Of course I know! Do you know what it's like- I'll never forget the look on that poor bastard's face. All he wanted was an autograph."
Definitely the mob, Julia thought. In any case, Chuck was losing the argument, judging from the way he suddenly slouched into the chair. "Remind him to use the door!" he shouted into his phone. They had hung up on him. Again. Chuck gave the phone a look so forlorn, you'd have thought it had personally let him down.
"I knew this was going to happen," he mumbled. "I mean, actually, literally. Why am I even here?" It sounded rhetorical.
Julia opened her mouth to say- well, something. Maybe to suggest therapy, but she didn't get that far.
The door banged open- a little too dramatically for her taste- and in strode a man in a trench coat and a suit. She'd have called him handsome if it weren't for the scowl. His eyes practically blazed. Chuck groaned and sank his head into his hands.
Julia stood, stuck out her hand, and tried to paste on a professional smile. "Are you my four o'clock?" she asked, "We'll be done here in just a minute."
The man ignored her and her outstretched hand, and continued to stride towards Chuck.
"It's on my desk!" Chuck shouted, "Under the pizza box."
Maybe this was the bookie, she thought- but before she could say anything else, the earthquake hit. She'd been in San Francisco during Loma Prieta. This was worse. The entire room seemed to vibrate. Her window shattered, and the wind tore threw the room, scattering the pages of Chuck's books everywhere.
"Oh God." She tried climbing under her desk, but it wouldn't stay still. The damn thing was shaking so hard that it was slowly moving across the room.
She abandoned it and looked around for Chuck. She could barely see him, though he had to be less than two feet from her. The room was engulfed in light. His bookie was nowhere to be seen. "Chuck! We need to get to the door!"
He didn't move though, just stood in the middle of the circling papers and the bright light, waving his arms. He was shouting something, but she couldn't hear it through the noise. It was like standing next to a jet engine, a growing high pitched whine. It felt like an icepick through her ears.
"Chuck!" she screamed.
And then it stopped, just as suddenly as it had began. The papers settled to the floor, landing on pieces of shattered glass and broken furniture.
Julia got up off the floor, steadying herself against her desk.
Chuck stood in the middle of the destruction- but, she noticed, feeling a little hysterical herself – none of it had touched him. The only clean spot in her entire office was a circle two feet around, centered around Chuck.
"What the hell was that?" she asked, not really looking for an answer. "What the hell?" She shook herself. "Are you okay, Chuck?"
She looked around the room again. "My mp3 player has a radio. We, uh. We just need to find it." She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice, but wasn't entirely successful. "Oh god. That was a bad one."
He shuffled his feet, and wouldn't look her in the eye. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. Um. I've got to go."
And then the rat bastard actually left- he scurried out her door, leaving her in her destroyed office. Julia found her chair, brushed some glass off it, and sank into it.
The door opened again, and in popped the head of her assistant. "Ms. Richardson- your phone isn't working. Your four o'clock- holy shit, what happened to your office?"
"The earthquake," Julia said numbly.
"What earthquake?"
"You didn't feel it?"
George took one more look about the room and said, "I'll tell them you need to reschedule," then popped back out and shut the door.
With nerveless fingers, Julia slid over to her desk and opened the top drawer. She dug out her cell phone, found Chuck's number, and called it.
It rang to voice-mail. Of course.
"Chuck," she said at the beep, "Your bookie owes me a new..." she looked around the office once more. "Everything."
Then she hung up.
She thought a second, then scrolled through her contacts.
"Rebecca," she said when the call was answered, "Meet you at the Lone Eagle. You're buying."
The End.
Prompt: Chuck's failed attempts to write non-supernatural (but secretly supernatural) books.