Casey holds Chuck while he sleeps, studying the new lines that have started to appear on his face. He's relieved that the shadows under Chuck's eyes no longer look like bruises. Chuck shifts, nuzzling into Casey's shoulder, then stills again, seemingly reassured by the big man's scent. One of Chuck's long legs rests against Casey's groin, making him painfully aware of his morning erection. He wills it to subside before Chuck wakes up, but his luck isn't that good.
Chuck's eyelids flutter open and he looks straight into Casey's piercingly blue eyes. In that waking moment he is unguarded, vulnerable. Casey feels as though he can see into the young man's soul. Then Chuck blinks and the spell is broken.
'Morning,' he rumbles, praying Chuck won't notice what he's sprawled across.
'Morning,' Chuck replies automatically. 'Uh... You're holding me.' He has a talent for stating the obvious.
'You're the one using me as your pillow,' Casey retorts. He still hasn't let go.
Chuck blushes, shifts again, then stills with a sharp intake of breath.
Casey freezes. Pressed against his hip is the unmistakeable confirmation that Chuck is in a state identical to his own.
After a pause, Chuck speaks, his eyes resolutely focussed somewhere around the level of Casey's chin. 'Well, this is awkward.'
Casey grunts his assent and watches the flush deepen along Chuck's cheekbones. Then he sighs and loosens his hold.
'You have to move before I can get up,' he says and is only a little annoyed by the smirk that passes across Chuck's face. 'Move it, Bartowski,' he snaps and is more annoyed when Chuck does as he says.
Casey pushes himself out of bed and goes to use the bathroom. When he comes out, he begins his morning exercise routine.
Chuck pretends disinterest, then gives it up in favour of outright gawping as Casey runs through several sets of sit-ups, push-ups and crunches in reps of thirty. When Casey has finished, Chuck shakes his head in amazement.
'How do you do that?' he asks, impressed.
Casey shrugs. 'Practise.' He showers and dresses in black jeans and a black t-shirt as Chuck manages to shower himself. Seemingly from nowhere he produces cereal and cold milk and makes Chuck eat when he's dressed too. The clothes are like his old ones, only new.
'Your sister might have noticed if some of your clothes went missing,' Casey explains, although Chuck doesn't ask him to. He ignores the hangdog expression and the cloud of gloom which Chuck gathers to himself, instead taking the room's one wooden chair and standing it on newspaper which he has laid across the floor.
'Sit.'
'Why? What are you going to do now?' Chuck's face sets into his stubborn expression, chin jutting, brows a little furrowed, mouth narrowing ever so slightly. Casey is tempted just to order him to sit on the damn chair, but he's known Chuck for long enough now to realise that way is counterproductive.
'If I'm going to keep you out of the hands of our government, I need to make you look different. The easiest way for me to do that is to change your hair. Cut, colour, style. Are you okay with that, Bartowski, or should I just buy you a wig and call you Shirley?' He stands patiently beside the chair, one hand resting on its square-framed back.
Chuck sits on the chair.
'So where are we going?' he asks as Casey begins to cut those thick dark curls away from around his neck. 'Are you going to disguise yourself? How are we doing this?'
Casey growls. 'Unless you want me to cut your ears off too, keep your head still.' Once he's finished with the tricky bits, he starts talking again.
'I have roughly eight months of leave accumulated by now. I'm going to take as much of it as I can before I hand in my resignation. They won't like it, so I'm going to need to make them believe I've lost my edge, lost my taste for the life. They need to believe I'm burned out, but not a danger to them. That's where you come in.'
'Me?' Chuck asks, his voice rising. 'You can't just hide me in your attic?'
'I have a background prepared for you. We're heading to Wyoming, go see some mountains and horses. You're a stable-hand at a ranch owned by an old friend of mine. He owes me a favour, so he's had you on his payroll for six months now.'
'How long have you been planning this?' He looks betrayed.
'A while,' Casey admits, and puts down the scissors. He combs through what's left of Chuck's hair, sending loose strands floating down onto the towel around Chuck's shoulders and the newspaper on the floor. 'There, that's better,' he says gruffly, hiding how sad it makes him to see Chuck's beautiful unruly hair tamed. 'Now for the dye.'
Chuck sits still as Casey applies bleach, being careful not to let it drip down his forehead or neck.
'What then?' Chuck asks once his eyes have stopped watering from the chemical haze.
Casey takes a deep breath. This is where his plan could all still fall apart.
'I meet you, we fall in love, and I tell Beckman that I quit.'
Chuck stares at him for so long that he can feel his jaw clenching, his shoulders tensing up. Then Chuck speaks.
'Okay.'
Casey nods once, and gets back to the job of making Chuck into a new man.
