A/N: Fanfic community after canceled intervention: Thank God, we've got him down to four ongoing.
Me: NEVER! *pushes publish to get reaction from everyone on this being an ongoing and skips out of the room*
A/N 2: A few notes before we start. This fic will be (not this chapter, but down the road) a little more…saucy, spicy, than things I've done before. It's still T but, I'm going to take it up one or two notches. This fic takes place current time, Chuck is approximately 26 years old. Welcome to Hotel California Ch 1, Bartowski, IT
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, but I do own several copies of Hotel California.
He felt the eyes on his back watching his every move. This had required more than he thought it would when she brought him the laptop. Most men were scared of her beauty, but he wasn't. It was a weird friendship, but one just the same. They teased each other….well, she teased him, and he laughed about it. They were on the same page about the important things. He felt her over his shoulder.
"What's wrong, Chuckles," Carina said breathily into his ear. Her breath was making it hard to concentrate, but that was Carina's game. She loved making Chuck uncomfortable. She probably loved making all men uncomfortable, but he had no empirical data to support that theory. "Have I corrupted the hard drive? Please don't ask me to turn off, because you already have me so turned on." Chuck turned toward her slowly.
"Carina, I'm pretty sure that's sexual harassment," Chuck said, an amused smile on her face.
"What you gonna do, report me to myself? I am HR," she replied, bending back over his shoulder to watch him work on her laptop.
"Carina, you are in benefits until they hire someone," Chuck said, chuckling. "You're the Director of Operations."
"And I'm trying to let you enjoy some benefits," she said with a smirk. Chuck stopped in mid turn of the screw on her laptop. "Well, finish screwing me."
"I swear I keep walking right into these," he said, finishing putting the case back on. He plugged it in, hit the power button, and sat back, bumping Carina because she was so close.
"Chuck are you trying to touch me?" Carina asked.
"Keep it up and I won't fix this," he said. She jerked her hands back in a defensive posture. He paused, unsure if he should say anything or not, but it was her, so he went ahead. "Carina, there was some interesting porn on there." She looked at him. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't yours."
"Chuck, you think you know what I want to see?" Carina asked, with a coy smile. He looked at her with no humor on his face.
"It was furry porn," he said. She closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let me guess, some guy you were seeing used it." She nodded, opened her eyes and looked at him.
"Explains why he wanted the costumes," she mumbled under her breath. Chuck shuddered. The computer started up, and she hugged him. "You are the best, Chuck. Can I pay you?"
"Nope," he said, unhooking everything, giving her the laptop, standing up, and walking with her to the door. "You could tone down the innuendos."
"But then how will I see you blush?" she asked. "I love to see you blush, all the way down to the roots of your hair." She looked him up and down, slowly, and not even trying to hide what she was doing. "I wonder if you blush…everywhere?" With that, Chuck began to blush. "Hmmmm." She gave him a grin that looked nearly predatory. "Hey, I have an idea."
"Nope, no, not a happening," Chuck said, shaking his head. She reached up and moved his hair around, fixing it the way she wanted it. He looked up at her hand, back at her, and she finally stopped, satisfied with how it looked. "No blind dates, especially when they're probably with you," he said, grinning.
"You don't know the blind date I was gonna set you up on was gonna be with me," Carian said. He gave her a look and she bounced a shoulder. "Fine, but you're missing out." The look on his face was "here we go again." "I swear one night with me would ruin you for all other women."
"Is that what you really want, Carina, me at your door step every night playing bad love songs to win you?" Chuck asked, amused. She rolled her eyes.
"You would too, wouldn't you," she said, laughing. Chuck leaned against the door frame and gave her a look. She thought she might melt.
"Well, you want to ruin me," Chuck said, waggling his eyebrows. She gasped.
"Chuck Bartwoski, are you flirting?" she asked. Chuck grinned at her, and winked. She hugged him, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and watched as he turned and started back to his desk. She couldn't help herself, and slapped him on the back side causing him to whoop and high step for a second.
"Seriously, HR!" he said, with a grin. She winked, spun, and strutted out of the room as only Carina could. Chuck shook his head. "That woman is twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag," he said to himself.
-ooooo-
Carina returned to her office and shut the door. She liked Chuck, he was a sweet guy, but he was also one of those forever, with a house, 2.3 kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Carina was not in to that, today. Someday, maybe, but today, today she wanted to have fun. She sighed and pulled out a folder that she needed to turn in before the day was over before Zondra gave her grief. Well, not too much grief, because Zondra knew Carina would get things done. Her thoughts returned to Chuck. She felt bad for the guy. It was a few months ago that she was talking to Martin in the kitchen, or was it Morgan, she wasn't sure. Whatever his name was, he had told her how his friend Chuck had been screwed over by Bryce. Bryce had framed Chuck at Stanford and gotten him kicked out of college. Bryce denied it, but Martin swore Chuck wasn't that guy. They needed someone in IT, and Carina was intrigued. She thought Bryce was a tool as well, so that's why she went to scope out Chuck at the Buy More. She tried to flirt with him, but he basically was nothing but super professional and excused himself when some idiot father forgot to load tape into his camera to record his daughter's ballet recital.
Carina told Zondra about Chuck, but left out everything about Bryce. Zondra called him, offered him an interview, and Carina asked if she could take care of it. She and Chuck had a long talk more than an interview. The reason for hiring him was two-fold, one, it might upset Bryce. Two, he was good, real good. She had called around and asked those who used the Buy More if there was a technician they would recommend, and all the recommendations came back as one Charles 'Chuck" Bartowski. She had to admit, she was pissed at Bryce for hurting Sarah, and if this would upset Bryce, all the better. Bryce might be the Hotel General Manger, but Carina wasn't scared of him. His parents loved her too much to fire her, and that's who she was worried about, the Larkins.
Zondra tried to remind Carina that they needed to keep their personal lives out of this, and it was somewhat Sarah's fault for dating the boss. Zondra thought Sarah knew better, and she did. But, Carina had encouraged Sarah to date Bryce, and that had been an absolute disaster. Sarah thought they were in a relationship, and Bryce thought they were casual. She caught him with someone, Sarah never would say who, and that was the end of Sarah and Bryce. Sarah refused to date coworkers now, and since she didn't want to go clubbing much anymore, Carina was determined to find her someone. Chuck wouldn't bite, Sarah wouldn't bite, so somehow she had to get the two together. How? And that's when it hit her. She picked up the phone and made a call.
"Hey, Reg, it's Catrina," she said smiling. "Did I say Reg, I meant Rick, sorry." Whoops. "So, I got my laptop fixed. You know the one you visited the furry porn site with. Yeah, Rick, that one. Well, there's a real simple way to make it up to me. Tell me the site name. No, I'm not kidding. I met a cute IT guy and I want him to come scrub my hard drive. I know that sounds dirty, I said it." She wrote down the website address. "Thanks Rick. No, I don't want to dress up. Good-bye." She hung up, a grin on her face. She knew just what to do.
-ooooo-
Sarah came in the next morning, tired. She had stayed up most of the night watching old movies on the old movie channel. She liked her job, loved it actually, and especially the people she worked with. She liked them all, except for Bryce Larkin, the biggest cheat that ever cheated. "We're causal," she said, in a low mocking voice, twisting her face. The thing was, she didn't miss him, she was upset at how bad she had gotten burnt. She swore it would never happen again. No guy was going to hurt her, and definitely no guy at work. She turned on her computer and waited for it to warm up as she drank her coffee. Maybe she'd get lucky and someone would pull the fire alarm today and she could watch the firemen come in. She always enjoyed that. She shook her head as she logged into her computer. She waited a minute and realized it was acting very weird. There was a strange icon on her desktop. She double clicked it to see what it was.
"OH GOD!" she screamed and turned off the monitor. She looked around to see if anyone had seen that and then she remembered she was in her office, and no one could see what had happened. The backs of the monitors were facing the doorway…what was that noise. THE SOUND! She turned the monitor back on, found the sound bar, and muted it. She took a deep breath, and nearly jumped out of her seat when there was a knocking sound on the door.
"Hey," Carina said. She took a good look at Sarah and had to fight not laugh. Sarah looked beautiful as usual, her blond hair just past the shoulder with that slight curl, the simple blue top and the black jeans. She looked elegant, and frazzled as can be, all at the same time. "Something wrong?"
"Uh, well," she began.
"Oh, before I forget, there's been a slight porn problem on some computers. If you have any problem, call down to IT and ask for Bartowski," Carina said. "Skip is a good guy and all, but Bartowski is the one you want."
"Have you had any problems?" Sarah asked, nervously.
"Oh, no," Carina said. "Gotta run," and she was gone. Sarah took a deep breath and composed herself. She picked up the phone, put down the phone, walked over to her door, shut it, locked it, and called IT.
"Bartowski, IT," the voice on the other end answered. Sarah smiled at the soothing voice.
"Hi, this is Sarah Walker," she said trying to have steel in her voice.
"Hello, Sarah Walker, are you okay?" he asked.
"Why do you ask?" Oh no. Was she so shook up over this that this guy could tell? What was he gonna think? She had to get control of the situation. "I need help and so help me God, if you tell me to turn it off and turn it back on, I will come down there and…"
"Well, that answers that question. You don't sound like things are going well, and that's never good," he said. "What's wrong?"
"There's this weird thing on my computer," she said with a low voice, still snapping. She didn't care if he thought she was an awful person, but she couldn't have him thinking she was looking at porn at work. "Carina told me to call you to get it off."
"Carina Miller?" he said with a hint of laughter. "Okay, so we're probably going to be at this for a bit, my name is Chuck."
"Chuck?" she asked, her tone changing to curiosity.
"Yeah, my parents were sadists," he said. She laughed. She couldn't help herself. "But, I've managed to make my way in this world despite it." She was wrapping the cord around her finger, and feeling better just talking to him.
"Chuck, I'm sorry," she said. "Things….well…"
"Something went wrong, you snapped and I happened to be the first person you talked to," he said. She winced. She bet that happened a lot.
"No one calls you to say thanks for making everything run smooth, do they?" she asked. Chuck laughed.
"Nope," he said quickly. "So, what happened?"
"Well, I started my computer, and it was running weird, slow," she began. "There was this weird icon…."
"You clicked on it didn't you?" he asked. She heard the humor in voice.
"I was very tired and not thinking clearly," she said waspishly. She huffed. "Again, I'm sorry, I'm just having a very bad day."
"Hey, I'll fix it," Chuck said. "And I won't judge." She looked guilty and was glad no one could see her. "You have no idea how many people get things on their computer and call me wanting me to fix it and are in the foulest mood because they think I'm going to judge them."
"I don't watch that stuff," she said softly.
"You said Carina told you to call me?" he asked. "Is it a certain type of porn?"
"Yes," she said, burying head in her hand.
"Well the good news is I can fix it quick," Chuck said. "But I'm going to have to come up there."
"I've got a meeting, do you think you do it while I'm gone?" she asked.
"Sure," Chuck said cheerfully. "Go to your meeting, and when you get back it will be fixed. Sound good?"
"Sounds great," she said. "And, Chuck, I'm sorry I was a jerk."
"Don't worry about it," Chuck said. "Bye," and with that, he disconnected.
-ooooo-
Chuck pulled up today's calendar and made sure and waited five minutes after the meeting started before he headed to Sarah's office. The last thing he needed was to be yelled at by some crazy woman because she had double clicked an icon that wasn't on her desktop the night before. He had already reformatted a hard drive and loaded her backup from the night before. This would literally take minutes, and then he would reformat the original hard drive and use it down the road. He checked his watch, saw he had some time, and accessed the log-in system. Her computer had been accessed last night by Carina after Sarah had logged off for the evening. What was Carina doing? Chuck thought about the blind date thing Carina had mentioned yesterday. He closed his eyes and had a bad idea as to what was going on. She was going to try to pawn another insane person off on him. What did he do to deserve this?
He appreciated all that Carina had done for him, most of all getting him this job. He sat back in his chair, wasting ten more minutes. He thought about that day they met for the interview, and how she told him about her friend who Bryce had screwed over. Join the club, he though. She told him about how she wanted someone she could trust in IT. She wasn't saying Bryce was doing anything wrong, but she wondered how he had some of the ideas he came up with. Bryce was a lot of things, but his new hotel security internet system made her scratch her head. Chuck's ears perked up when he heard that. He had been working on a project for a class. It was unfinished, but the security system would have been full proof by the time he was done. He asked if he could see it, and with a grin, Carina told him she couldn't allow him to see it unless he was hired. He took the job immediately. When she logged him in and let him access the system, he became sick to his stomach. It was his system, exactly the way he left it, and more importantly it wasn't finished and there were security holes. He told Carina and she could only shake her head. She told him to keep his head down and do his job.
A few days later he got walked up to Bryce's office by Casey, head of security. Chuck figured he was fired. When he sat down Bryce grinned at him like they were old pals. Bryce said he was glad he could give Chuck one last chance, and he really hoped Chuck didn't blow it. If Chuck did well, Bryce could give him all the recommendations to clear that little snafu at Stanford and Larkin Hotel and Resort would gladly pay his tuition to finish up his degree. Chuck started to say something, but realized it was his word against Bryce's, again, and that had gone so well last time. Bryce told him if something happened here like it did at Stanford, the Buy More would be the only place he would work for the rest of his life. Chuck just stared at him, but knew he couldn't win this fight. He simply nodded, thanked him for his time, and got up to leave. Bryce had asked him how Ellie was. Chuck stopped, turned, smiled, and said, she hates your guts and if you ever enter her house she knows over one hundred painful ways to kill you. Bryce blinked and Chuck walked out, grinning.
He looked at the clock, got up, and headed upstairs to the offices. He entered Sarah's office, and quickly took apart her computer, swapped out the hard drive, put it back together, turned it on, check it out to make sure it was alright, logged off, and started to leave. He paused, that was unprofessional. He left her a note to say if anything was wrong, make sure and call and ask for him. He looked at it, smiled, and started out the door, when he nearly ran into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. Chuck was tall, but so was she, only a few inches shorter than he was. She had blond hair, and stormy blue eyes. He was transfixed.
"Chuck?" she said again.
"Hey, that's me," he said, grinning. "Got your corrupted old drive here," he said, holding it up. "Give it a whirl and if you need anything just give me a jingle," he said, holding his hand up to his ear like a phone and internally wincing. Jingle? Who the hell says jingle?
Sarah meanwhile was trying to hold down a giggle, wondering when the last time she had giggled. Who had hidden tall and dark-haired curly down in IT? Get ahold of yourself, she thought. She scolded herself. No more interoffice relationships. Besides, what could they possibly have in common. He was a nerd and she was a conman's daughter who was lucky enough to get out of the life her father had tried to drag her into and make her way through college working odd jobs.
"So it's fixed?" she asked.
"I believe so," Chuck replied. He stood there staring at her, and that's when he realized he was standing in her office. "Soooo, guess I'll be going," he said, pointing out of the office. She was blocking his way.
"Oh, yes, of course," she said, and stepped aside. "If I need anything I'll give you a jingle," she said as he was walking away. He paused, looked over his shoulder and saw her biting her bottom lip so as not to laugh. He smiled and headed on, determined to have words with Carina.
-ooooo-
"What do you think you're doing?" Chuck hissed, coming into Carina's office.
"Well hello to you too, Handsome?" Carina said. "Miss me?" she asked with a wink.
"Carina, why did you put porn on Sarah's computer?" Chuck asked. Carina studied him a minute. "I have log-in access," he reminded her.
"Oh, yeah," she said, grinning and shrugging. "So, how was it?"
"She's crazy," Chuck said. "She double-clicked the icon you installed on her computer and then yelled at me about it."
"But, Chuck," Carina began.
"No, no, no," Chuck said. "I am not dealing with a crazy lady, no matter how attractive she is and how soothing her voice is."
"Her voice is soothing?" Carina asked, an eyebrow raised. Chuck glared at her.
"Carina, I'm telling you, NO!" he said, and headed out her door. Carina sat there a minute, thinking.
"Well, I'm just gonna have to try this a different way," Carina said, grinning.
A/N: Shrugs...Welp...that one has been sitting in todo folder for months. I finished chapter 2 yesterday and thought I'd give this a test run. Like Chuck V2 (the previously known as Chuck 2.0) I'm just putting it out there to see...I have two more fics in reserve as well...Reviews, PMs, and anything, are always appreciated…take care…see you soon…til next time.
DC
