The fact is that it's really, really hard not to like you immediately. You have an instantaneous magnetism to you that cuts through your self-deprecation, your nerdiness, your uncertainty, even when it's actually enhanced by those things. The way you rambles makes me want to smile, despite myself. Despite all the training I've received against letting a non-agent privy to any of my emotional thoughts. And you have a knack for saying things in an unexpected manner that brings a giggle to my lips (and when was the last time my giggled?).
"Making really tasty gourmet weiners," you say after the more pertinent information and I want to not laugh, I really want to not laugh, and I just barely hold it back into a smile even though I'm pointedly biting down on the corners of my mouth to prevent it. I think that I've had to control my facial expressions more in the past few days than I have in the entirety of the rest of my CIA service.
You slip in, Chuck.
I only used to use the term "disarming" as a verb. I am disarming my opponent. But since I've met you I've realized that it's actually more dangerous as an adjective. His smile was disarming. I never thought about it before. It's not often that people in my line of work even realize that disarming can be used as an adjective, but you are. Dangerously so.
In a way, you're the most unpredictable opponent I've ever had to face. I don't know exactly how you're going to approach a subject, so when you say something like, "I could be your very own baggage handler," or, "Tonight was probably the best-- only-- second date I've been on in years," I find myself unable to speak, but curiously touched. Until I remember that I'm supposed to be protecting you, not smiling at you fondly from the driver's seat of my car.
Which is why you not trusting me hurt. Because already I care about how I seem to you. Which I shouldn't but, well...
I didn't grow up normal, and maybe that's it. Maybe it's having such a strange childhood that has made your familial normalcy something that I look to as a sort of guide as to how to act in the real world. It hurts to realize that, to a normal guy, I didn't seem like a trustworthy person. Even when I asked you specifically for that.
I want you to see me as your protector, Chuck. Which, in a situation where our cover story is that we're enamored with each other, I understand is a difficult request. Lines get crossed even if you're walking straight. But you were never supposed to try to protect me. You were never supposed to see me in tears at Bryce's funeral. And you were never supposed to see me as a threat.
I'm sure you know that betrayal hurts. Bryce's betrayal hurt. The fact that he was working against everything I believed in and I never saw it hurt. It hurt professionally. As in, "How did I not see anything in him that would have led me to believe that he was doing this." And it hurt personally. As in, "How, Bryce, could you do this to me?"
And, in the same way, your betrayal hurt. The fact that you didn't believe that the only thing I was working towards was your safety and the protection of your life hurt. It hurt professionally. As in, "What about my actions ever gave you any reason to pause when I asked you to trust me?" And it hurt personally. As in, "How, Chuck, could you think that of me?"
It's easy to be mad at you when I have time to build it up, because you aren't exactly aggressive in defending yourself. And watching you fly that helicopter after alerting Zarnow to your presence gave me plenty of time to build it up. You tend to just sit back and take it, which makes it both easier to get mad at you and go through with being mad at you, but very difficult to stay mad at you. Because you'll respond to something like improbably landing a helicopter by wanting to high five me and if I hadn't had the time to get mad at you, then I might have had a harder time not smiling at that.
Because, when I don't have time? When it's just a moment, an immediate moment, it's really hard not to like you. It's really hard not to return your smile, or laugh at your jokes, or just like you. And it's even harder to not want to be liked by you. As your protector, it's probably a good thing that it's just as hard to not want to protect you. You have a good heart. You care about the people around you intensely. So when I see you putting yourself into dangerous situations without thinking it's hard to understand. Because you think and you think and you think before you act. Except when someone is in danger. Then it seems like you'd gladly throw everything away-- even the Intersect that is only yours accidentally-- to protect them.
A lot of times it seems as though you're stuck in your own head, Chuck. Like you're all you think about. Like I said, you think and you think and you think before you act. But when you turn that off, and you turn your attention completely on someone, you can make them really feel how much you care. Sometimes it leads to you running into those dangerous situations, and it is infuriating. But other times, quieter times, it just seems like they're all that you think about. And they can seem, for that moment, like the center of your universe.
And it's hard to want to leave that universe.
You slip in, Chuck.
Because as untrained and haphazard as you are with just about everything in your life, it makes it that much easier for you to find the cracks in someone's armor. You could trip and fall into someone's truest nature, could see their entire lives through an accidentally unlocked door. When you give that quip about saving your life and protecting the country and making gourmet hot dogs, you just about do it to me.