Title: He Used To
Fandom: Chuck
Pairing/Characters: (past)Chuck/Casey
Warning: Angst
Summary: He used to say "good job, Bartowski," and it would be the highlight of his day. Until the kisses became the highlight of the day. Then the gropes. Then the sex. Then the words "I love you" were what the world was made of.
Author's Note: Depressing little thing I wrote.
There it was.
It started with a series of pictures. Well, it seemed to always start with a series of pictures. The Intersect. The damned Intersect that had ruined him as a man. Without it he wasn't good enough, but with it no one could ever really need him. He was useless.
Useless to him. Him. There was no other way to say it. There needed to be venom behind that word. Behind that thought. But there was only pain. And pain was almost enough.
He used to say "good job, Bartowski," and it would be the highlight of his day. Until the kisses became the highlight of the day. Then the gropes. Then the sex. Then the words "I love you" were what the world was made of.
Until those series of pictures. The pictures that stole his life away.
But, if he looked at it differently, they gave him his life back. He made Ellie and Awesome happy. He didn't have a high chance of dying every weekend. He even got to go further in his career. Past the Buy More. It opened his life.
But best of all, it showed Chuck just what John had thought of him.
No. He wasn't John anymore. Casey. Agent Casey. Lieutenant. General. Whatever was the furthest fucking thing from the name John.
Because the moment news of the Intersectless-Chuck hit the agent-in-which-he wouldn't-name, grenades hit the fan. Or not. It was much more silent than Chuck had ever thought Casey could be. It was eerily silent, actually.
Which went to show how much he knew about him.
Chuck was sitting in front of his computer right now on a Thursday morning. Not flashing on anything. Nothing. Instead, all he could think about was how he couldn't flash on anything. Ever again.
But he would take the Intersect back up in a heartbeat if he could.
His phone sprang to life and he looked down at his new cell phone. It was a normal phone. There were no tracking devices, no NSA or CIA numbers programmed, it was a clean phone. Sliding it open, he saw a text from Morgan. He opened it only to slide his phone shut. Another question on if he was okay.
No. He wasn't. But it wasn't like he would tell anybody.
What would he have been doing on a Thursday morning if he still had the Intersect?
He would have woken up at God-knows-when o'clock in the morning to a different bed. One that smelled distinctly of that agent. He would have left by now. Probably to take a jog around the damn country before coming back to shower with Chuck and head of to the Buy More with him. They would share a few kisses. They always did that, if not more.
By this time of day he would have either been behind the Nerd Herd counter or he would have been on a mission in an exotic new country with him and Sarah. And receiving kisses from him either way.
But instead he was sitting in his room thinking about how much he had hated waking up alone in his own bed. No one held him. No one kissed him. No one loved him.
Not that they ever did.
He used to kiss a frown off of Chuck's face whenever one would appear. Like now. But he wasn't here, now was he?
Closing his eyes, Chuck pretended for the fleetest moment that John was still there. But it didn't last long. Because he was in his own room. Alone.
The room was cold, despite the weather outside. Or maybe Chuck was just going crazy. Anything was possible.
On missions where snow was involved, he used to wrap an arm around Chuck's waist. It was almost slick, the way he did it. Sometimes Chuck would notice he was warmer, sometimes he just completely thought it was normal.
Chuck let himself chuckle as he thought about how he would never visit a country where it snowed.
Not that he expected to go traveling soon, anyway. He had no reason to.
He had used to call him Chuck. Not Bartowski. It was Chuck. His name. His given name and it sounded amazing when it came from the agent. It made Chuck warm when he heard his name in that gruff voice. It made him feel useful. Loved.
What a lie, he thought to himself.
They used to be on a first-name basis with each other. Say each others name when they woke up in the morning. Shout each others name across the Buy More. Whisper each others name at night.
He used to tell Chuck that he loved him. That he cared for him. That Chuck actually meant something to him. He would yell his name over the radio when Chuck got injured. When Chuck was in danger.
Chuck believed him then. Wanted to believe him now. But he couldn't.
John had just left him like nothing. When Chuck saw those pictures flash and he had heard that Chuck couldn't be a spy without the Intersect, he had broken everything off.
"You should know that I never meant anything that I said. All heat of the moment."
Fuck that. Three months was not the heat of the fucking moment. But it didn't mean enough for him, obviously. He could just as easily pack up and leave. Stop anything that had been going on. Maybe nothing was going on.
Maybe Chuck was just pretending things had happened between him and John. Maybe he had pretended that he had used to say that he loved Chuck. Maybe he had pretended that John actually cared for him. That maybe he actually had loved him.
Maybe Chuck was going crazy.
But that night Chuck rolled over in his bed and held on tightly to his extra pillow, pretending that his heart wasn't broken.