Chuck Versus the Birthday
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Agent Bryce Larkin's puzzling attempt to look up an old college friend after he disappears with U.S. Intelligence's top secret Intersect sends Larkin's betrayed partner Agent Walker to Echo Park, Los Angeles, California as Chuck Bartowski's birthday approaches. Slight AU of the pilot.
A/N: Thanks for still sticking around. Just a few more chapters. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters. I'm not making money posting this.
It had been an hour now, and she was just barely resisting the urge to race out onto the streets of Los Angeles to find him. Worse than that, she knew how to track his phone and she was on the verge of doing that.
He'd just had some serious truths dropped onto his head, and while she'd intended at first to spread them out once she found him again, she couldn't help it all spilling out at once. He'd asked too many questions. And she didn't, couldn't, blame him for that.
The poor guy.
No wonder his walk that he'd said would be a "few minutes" was now stretching past the hour mark. The sun had since set and the shadows were getting darker, the streetlights having turned on at this point.
Still, as she stared out of her window down into the streets below, she didn't see any tall guys with a black Buy More jacket and a curly head of dark brown hair.
And she was so fucking worried she could barely see straight.
After Bryce left her alone on that bridge, after the countless thoughts that crossed her mind and the decision she'd ultimately made, Sarah pulled the hard drive back from where she held it hovering over the long drop to the water and she let it slip from her fingers into her jacket pocket.
Sweating like mad, she went right back to her apartment in D.C., shutting the curtains, checking for bugs or cameras, and she took it out to set it on her kitchen counter, just staring at it. She let herself cry, over Bryce, over Chuck, over what they'd ruined, misconstrued, gotten all tangled up, and all the while Chuck had been so heartbroken and left out in the cold, in the dark about all of it.
She'd hunched over it with her palms braced on the table, letting herself cry.
And then she'd cried hard in the shower, letting the water beat against her face.
Because eventually she had to go back and tell him everything. She couldn't keep any of it from him. It wasn't right. He deserved to know. And she also had a hard drive to deliver to him. It belonged to him. Not to Bryce, not to her. It belonged to Chuck.
And like she said to him, it always had.
Since that test chose him.
Only now he actually had a choice about what to do with the Intersect. The CIA wouldn't force his hand because they didn't even know, and Sarah wouldn't make the decision by destroying the copy of the Intersect. Not before he was given the ability to pick his own fate.
She spent weeks traveling. Not necessarily to be a tourist, or for any sort of vacation. But to give herself space, new places in which to allow her brain to settle down, recalibrate. In that time, she came to the conclusion that she missed Chuck Bartowski worse than she ever thought possible, and that she wanted him more than life itself.
But she also knew that putting this choice in front of him meant she might lose him.
And she'd needed time to come to terms with that reality as well.
Finding someone like him, falling for him, wanting him so badly she wondered if she could die from it, only to have him choose to open Bryce's email, solve the puzzle thing, absorb the Intersect into his brain…and have it destroy him.
What if there was no one in the world whose brain could safely retain that much information without breaking? She would lose him. So soon after finding him.
What would she do then? How did she approach his family? His friends?
Could she go through life without hating herself forever? She would never forgive herself, she knew that much.
When she finally felt like she was ready, she came back to Los Angeles, got herself an open reservation at this hotel, and went looking for the Nerd Herd supervisor. She discovered he wasn't home and went straight to the Buy More, knowing those were really the only two places he could be.
She waited for longer than she told him, closer to two hours rather than one, but when he finally emerged, she followed him to that loading area on the side of the Buy More building and now…here she was two and a half, almost three hours later.
Praying he'd come walking around one of those corners soon.
Before she lost her damn mind without the Intersect's help.
She really would track his phone. That would be her first move.
He had ten minutes…
Nine…
Eight…
Seven…
Sarah glanced up from where she'd been watching a toddler and her parent walk a terrier on a leash and froze. It was him. It had to be him.
He'd taken off the jacket and had it slung over one shoulder, trudging along with his shoulders slumped and his head down. But it was him. White shirt, black pants, black sneakers.
"Thank fuck," she breathed, her heart in her throat. She climbed up from where she sat beside the window watching for him and still waited, staring like a hawk until he finally walked through the lobby doors below and disappeared from view.
Sarah tugged at her blouse, picking a piece of lint from her jeans. She'd since taken her boots and socks off, hiding the hard drive away in her safe again to protect it like she promised him she would.
And then she heard his footsteps stop in front of her door, and a sad, quiet little knock.
Her heart was already flooded with emotions before she even opened the door for him. But as she looked at him, the way he peeked up at her through his eyelashes, his shoulder leaning against the doorframe, the rest of her emotions cleared away and left only one remaining.
A need for comfort…but mostly, a need to comfort him.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and this time she made a decision. She reached out for him, sliding her fingers around his and pulling him into the room with a quiet, comforting, "Come here."
Chuck stepped inside, moving to his right just enough for the door to shut securely behind him. Sarah gently took his jacket from him, laying it over the nearby table, and then she cupped his face, looking into his eyes. "You don't have to decide what to do with this right now," she said so quietly it was slightly louder than a whisper. "And in the meantime…I'm here."
She didn't ask him where he walked to for so long. He hadn't gone to a bar like she thought he potentially could have. Drinking himself sick and passing out with his head on some bar in front of bartenders who didn't cut off a customer as long as they had the money to keep the tab going. She didn't smell alcohol, though. He'd just walked. For over an hour.
She didn't ask him any questions at all. She didn't feel the need to say anything else.
Agent Walker wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against him, pushing her chest into his, and she let her lips graze his neck, then the underside of his chin, his neck again, and her lips traced his jawline, before switching to the other side. He shivered against her as she kissed his Adam's apple, her touch not so much a brush of a feather anymore…more adamant, pointed.
She pulled back to look in his eyes and his tongue wet his lips, looking back at her. Sarah leaned in to kiss those lips, cupping his jaw in both hands again, moving to her tiptoes, sighing.
Sarah gasped, squeaking in surprise when Chuck's hands closed over her waist; he turned them around, and she found herself with her back pressed against the wall beside the door. He pinned her with his body, kissing her back with a desperate need. He needed the comfort as much as she needed to give it to him. She could feel it in him, in the way he touched her, the way he moved his mouth against hers.
She whimpered, letting him know exactly how she was taking this turn of events, tugging his shirt up and touching the warm skin of his back to let him know exactly how she wanted things to proceed.
Their lips came apart as they each sucked in deep breaths and he bumped her nose with his, holding onto her like his life depended on it, his fists twisting in her blouse at her hips. "Sarah," he panted. "Please…?"
Their mouths tilted together again, hunger necessitating it, the kiss passionate and bristling with need.
This time they both whimpered as their hips met, Chuck thrusting himself against her, sending electric shocks of pleasure shooting through her limbs the likes of which she'd never felt before.
And as they broke the kiss once more, she opened her eyes to find him looking down at her with a question in his eyes. She'd never trusted anyone else so much ever in her life, while simultaneously wanting him in every way. The amount of need in her should've scared her, should've made her stop this, but she didn't. Instead she answered his question wordlessly, with an eager but sincere nod.
She felt mad, and a little wild, as he stepped back to pull her to the bed. The madness, the wildness, acted of its own accord, and she gripped his wrist tight and pulled him back against her, forcing him to continue pinning her up against the wall.
Chuck dropped his gaze down between their bodies, turned to glance over his shoulder towards the bed, and finally faced her again. Something in his golden brown eyes snapped then, purple lightning perhaps.
She didn't know.
She didn't care.
Because they worked in tandem to move the barriers out of their way, and his name dripped from her lips desperately when she finally felt him, all of him. She held on for dear life and let him take what he needed from her, comfort and anything else he desired. And when they needed a more accessible surface and fell into bed, the rest of the barriers shirked completely, she took the comfort she needed from him too.
As he touched her, tasted her, with utter reverence and hunger both at the same time, the lack of tenderness, care, devotion…and love…in her existence for virtually all of her existence fell into stark contrast. And she drowned in him, not caring to come up for air.
Instead she took from him and gave back in equal measure.
And she didn't stop.
She refused to stop.
}o{
Her eyelids fluttered and she let out a wanton whimper as she felt him roll his hips away from hers, and she reached back behind her, up over her head, to stroke her fingers through his curls.
His lips pressed to her shoulders, her upper back, tracing her spine as she sucked in deep breaths through pursed lips, trying to rediscover oxygen, trying to slow her heart rate.
His arms were pinned between her stomach and the mattress, and he shifted one of them so that his large hand was splayed over her skin just beneath her belly button. As his thumb dipped into said belly button, he pressed a slow, warm kiss to the nape of her neck, right near her hairline.
And then he finally pulled his arms out from under her, but kept his body half-draped over her, his chest against her left arm, fingers lightly stroking patterns up and down her opposite arm, moving his ministrations to the small of her back.
Sarah let out a deep and satisfied groan, beaming madly.
"Y'okay?" he panted, kissing her shoulder.
She grinned harder. "You see the grin on my face?" she asked in puffs, still trying to catch her breath.
"No." He slid his chest against her back to peek at her face that was turned away from him, her cheek pressed into one of her forearms as a makeshift pillow. "Oh I see it now."
Giggling, she squirmed a little and bit her lip, her whole body still buzzing wickedly.
His lips were still against her shoulder when she heard his muffled voice mutter, "But do you like the name Sarah?"
Sarah giggled harder, and because she wasn't entirely in control of her breathing yet, she accidentally let out little snorts too. "You're relentless," she huffed in faux frustration, still grinning.
"I don't want to call you a name you don't like," he defended. "Especially not…erm…well, in a situation like…the one we were…just in for…a while…"
"Are you saying you don't want to call me a name I don't like while we're having sex?" she asked in a flat voice.
He cleared his throat. "That. Yes."
She felt the awkwardness in the air now that things had calmed down significantly. Significantly.
It was to be expected. Once they'd finished with the wall and tumbled into her bed, the more common surface hadn't tamed their passions in the slightest. It seemed they'd both needed comfort, and apparently a lot more than that too.
So that now that the raging inferno between them had died down a bit, the contrast left her feeling like things were a bit…tiptoe-y. She didn't know about him, but she'd never touched anyone like this before in her life, and she'd certainly never relinquished literally every bit of her control before either…even if he had given that control back to her—all of it—with no small amount of glee.
"I like Sarah," she said quietly.
In the throes of passion, he'd said her name, and then when she least expected it, in one of the short and rare lulls in activity, he'd asked if it was her real name. She hadn't known what to say except that it was her name now and that was all that mattered.
She'd quickly thrown her weight to the side to pin him and continued things, pushing all of those thoughts out of his mind.
…Or so she'd thought.
"It's beautiful," he said quietly. "Sarah. It fits you."
"Does it?" she asked through a smile.
"Mm." He nodded and she loved the way he pursed his lips to drag a kiss over her skin. "It means noblewoman. Lots of people say princess, but it could also mean noblewoman and I like that one better. The word noble fits you."
Sarah snorted. Noble. Right. "You just know what Sarah means off the top of your head?"
"No," he said quietly. She sent him a questioning look over her shoulder, having to crane her neck. He pressed his lips together into a thin line and cleared his throat, reaching up to shyly scratch a spot above his eyebrow. "Um, I thought about you pretty constantly the last couple of weeks, and maybe that resulted in some…late night Googling about the meaning of your name."
The CIA agent froze, and then she turned over onto her back. He shifted to give her space and she rolled closer to him, their chests pressed together as she reached up to put her hand on his arm. "You looked up the meaning of my name?"
"I couldn't sleep, you were all…buried in my head, so…yeah. I did."
She was floored as she melted into the mattress and pulled him in closer.
"Between this and putting my burn phone number into your phone under the code name 'Blue Eyes' to protect my identity from bad guys, you seem pretty determined to make me swoon, Chuck Bartowski."
"It isn't something I'm consciously doing," he said, tucking her hair away from her face tenderly. "…But is it working?"
Sarah laughed, tilting her head back against the pillow. "Yeah, it is."
"Score." He giggled and moved his face in close to kiss her forehead. And God damn it, but it was such a sweet and intimate thing to do, she found herself swooning yet again. "Weirdly enough, I also looked up the name Charles and, um…yikes." He wrinkled his nose. She gave him a curious look. "It means 'free man' and 'no longer enslaved', so that's got some icky connotations."
"Oh Jesus," she said, widening her eyes.
"Yeah, not great."
He looked down at her then, shifting his golden-brown eyes to take her in, as much of her he wasn't covering with his own body at least, and then his gaze finally swept up to meet hers again. "What are we supposed to do now?"
She knew the bubble of bliss would eventually pop, that reality would set in, invading this incredibly, jaw-droppingly, and mind-blowingly intense meeting of bodies and souls. That once quiet settled between them, their bodies at least somewhat spent, there would have to be some meeting of the minds. They needed to talk about everything, finish that conversation they'd started.
Chuck pushed himself up onto his elbow, hovering over her, his lower half still pressing her into the bed. And she wanted him to stay there, his weight comforting and warm, so she slung her arm over the small of his back and held him in place.
"Where do we go from here?"
"Where's here?" Sarah prompted, looking into his eyes. "I think that's the first question. What did we just do?" He groaned, a satisfied grin on his face that made her heart race again. "I mean, what's it mean for us?" she corrected, giving him a look.
"I don't want you to go again. At least, not-not with that same sense of finality there was the last time. I can't go back to that. I can't let you go without knowing you'll be back. I refuse," he said adamantly.
Sarah took a deep breath. "I can't go back to that, either." She amended and said, just as adamantly, "I'm not going back to that."
His smile was so dreamy, breathless, and he dove down to kiss her cheek, over and over, moving to her jaw, her neck. She felt stirring in her lower belly and as much as she wanted that, she needed to stay on track.
So she gently moved him away with her hands on his biceps, giggling. He complied, but his hand that had been on her hip shifted under the covers and now rested just under her belly button, his palm warm, his fingers heavy against her skin. She wanted his hand there, as distracting as it might be, so she didn't subtly shift it back to her hip, she instead honed her focus a bit sharper.
"What does that look like? I have no clue," she said, taking a deep breath. "I've never…done anything this crazy before."
"Is it crazy?"
"Yes." She widened her eyes. "It's batshit. I'm not just some…regular spy, Chuck. I've been something of an…enforcer. A weapon. Since I was a teenager. I don't have anything like the Intersect in my head, but I am very valuable to my superiors, to the big brass at the CIA. Just like they wouldn't let you go if they knew the truth about you, I don't know that I'm ever gonna be free from the agency. And that's meant they've kept me on a pretty short leash. I don't know what that means for me…doing this with a civilian. If they knew about it, what would they do? And I just…don't know." She huffed in awe, shaking her head.
He furrowed his brow. "No way. They don't get to tell you who to have sex with."
Sarah raised her eyebrows at his protective tone, and she thought to herself he seemed not to be having trouble saying 'sex' now.
"No, it-it isn't that. They don't control us like that. The sex-with-marks stuff is creepy old school KGB nonsense, and maybe they still do have spies over there that do shit like that, which is nauseating, but that isn't a part of my work. My superiors would never. I don't…I don't know CIA agents who have, either." She bit her lip. "But relations with…civilians…for someone like me, that's…potentially dangerous. A distraction. The whole reason I got this time off is because I've been distracted, struggling to step right, and it could've gotten dangerous. For me, for anyone else involved in my next mission. So my superior sent me on some R&R."
"This isn't making me feel super confident about the direction of this conversation. I mean, the decision about…what to do about this."
"Sorry," she breathed, sliding her hand to his hip and squeezing. "I'm just…talking. I don't do that often. Just talk. Talking through my thoughts. I-I'm not…good at any of this. I'm struggling with it."
"That's okay," he said and she felt his thumb stroke her belly. It sent sparks through her and she sought to ignore that. "That's okay, Sarah. We're talking it out together. Right? I'm here, right now, with you. And I'm really freaking grateful. I think…" He let out a slow breath, looking at the headboard, and then he turned his determined gaze to her again. "I think if we're agreed to do this together, we can figure it out. Make it work."
"Make…what work? That's what I'm trying to…get at."
"Oh. This. You mean… Right. Okay." He swallowed. "I'm trying to think of something to say that isn't…intense," he admitted quietly, shutting his eyes in a wince.
Sarah bit her lip looking up at him. He was so fucking sweet and thoughtful, and she'd say he was too much of both of those things, maybe a few hours ago…? But not after the way he'd touched her, where his hands had gone and how, and the things he'd done with his lips… and his tongue, even his teeth… None of that had been sweet. It had been…
"Intense," Sarah breathed. He looked down at her with curiosity and she shook herself. "You don't want to say anything intense, Chuck, but what we just did was exceptionally intense. Did you not feel that? How swept up in the intensity we were? Nothing in my whole life has ever been that intense, and I've had plenty of people try to kill me."
Chuck swallowed hard. And then he shifted his lower half off of her just slightly, leaning his hip against the mattress next to hers, his fingers delicately shifting the bunched up sheets out of his way to reveal her hipbone.
His fingertips grazed the light line that cut across her skin over the bone that jutted out. "This?" he asked, his voice unfairly deep and passionate. "I noticed it earlier when I was…down here…for reasons."
Sarah blushed hard as she remembered those reasons. Yet another first for her, having a man crawl down between her legs and spend an inordinate amount of time there, how one-sided it was and yet how eagerly he dove right in.
She practically gulped and nodded. "Yes. Even an inch to the left and the bullet would've shattered my pelvis. That's what the medic said as she stitched it up." Sarah held onto his arm, diverting his wide eyes back up to hers. "And still, the last few hours have been the most intense of my life. So whatever you have to say, intense or not, just say it. And I'll deal with it."
"I want to be with you," he said. Her heart sped up, her blood pumping like mad. "Whatever that means, whatever it looks like. I know it isn't gonna be the same as it would be if you…I dunno, if you ran the sandwich shop around the corner from the Buy More."
His words settled and she raised an eyebrow. "That's…oddly specific." He pursed his lips, seeming to regret what he'd just said, and the pieces fell into place in her brain. She found herself smirking even with the tiny pang of jealousy she…might also be feeling. "Is there a girl running a sandwich shop near the Buy More, Chuck? Something happening there?"
He winced. "There's a…young woman who runs a sandwich shop near the Buy More, yes. But no, nothing's happening there. I was eating a lot of sandwiches because I—Well, I didn't make any move because she's out of my league." Something seemed to dawn on him then because a crooked grin grew over his handsome face in stages. "But that didn't seem to stop me here and you are so far outta my league they don't even have a name for whatever interstellar league you're in."
Sarah hummed, melting into the bed. "I don't think there was anything that was gonna stop you," she half-growled, honey dripping from her words.
"Nnnnnnope," he growled back, kissing her jaw as his thumb dipped inside of her belly button.
And damn it, if they didn't prove the words she'd just hummed. She was powerless to stop him, and he wasn't able to stop her either, as she grabbed him by his hips and pulled him back on top of her, the conversation halting where it was, there for them to pick back up again later. When they finished. Whenever that might be.
}o{
The walk hadn't helped. He'd wandered further and further from the hotel in the hopes that the longer the walk, the more time he spent in the crisp October air, the better he would understand everything Sarah had told him.
It didn't work.
He'd still been just as confounded, just as hurt. Nothing had settled in his brain properly. It was all just swimming around loosey-goosey. And he felt unmoored as her hotel came back into view, as he wandered back to it. He'd decided to just give up trying to make sense of what Bryce had done.
What he hadn't counted on was going back up to her hotel room and seeing her face when she opened the door, the relief in her and something else…a deep longing, an ache…want. There was comfort in that want, and when it became clear he was what she wanted, he dove in headfirst without second guessing.
Turned out the walk hadn't been what he needed to get his brain to settle.
He'd needed Sarah, agent of the CIA. The way she clung to him, touched him, the scorching pattern of her lips on him, her tongue, her fingertips, and how it felt to have them dig into his muscles. He'd needed her voice in his ear, breathy, whimpering. The flash of lust in her blue eyes, mixed with determination, and mischief.
Being with her, losing himself in her for hours on end, hadn't really made everything with the Intersect and the CIA's plans for him before Bryce disrupted them make sense per se. But what it had done was push it all onto a back burner, force his focus onto something that was easier to understand, something that was second nature, something that didn't require a whole lot of thought, just action…and acting on sensations, on need. On her needs.
He could've done it all damn night.
But in the late hours of the night, after a particularly frenzied meeting of bodies, he'd felt her go limp against his chest, her weight grow heavier on him, the fingers that had held his waist so tightly while they sucked in deep breaths losing that fierceness in their grip.
It took him a while to figure out how not to shift her and wake her up by reaching over to flick off the lamp that was on beside her bed. The one light they'd had on in the place as the sun finally set and LA was plunged into the dark.
He let her sleep for a while, holding her, cradling her, thinking again.
And the thoughts became disjointed, mixed with things from years ago, memories of his parents, memories of Jill even, and the fear of what all of this would mean for his future, and finally it all became foggy, and he fell into a restless sleep.
He was awake again now, his eyes snapping open. Had a car backfired down below? Or had it been dumbasses street racing somewhere nearby? It didn't matter, he was awake.
They'd shifted at some point, as they slept. They were on their sides facing each other, legs still tangled. Sarah was on his left arm, her head pillowed on his bicep, her hair tickling the sensitive skin on the inside of his elbow. Her left arm was slung limply over him, the right arm tucked between their bodies, her hand spread out, her palm pressed against his chest over his heart. He had prime view of her face as she slept and he knew there wasn't anything in the world that would deter him from this. From her.
Let the CIA burst onto the scene with helicopters, tanks, guys sliding down on wires from the roof in tactical gear, with big ol' guns. He wasn't letting her go. He knew nothing about her; all he had was one name and it probably wasn't even her real name. It didn't matter. He loved her. He was hers. And whatever was coming for them, he'd fight it tooth and nail to stay with her.
Especially when she was like this. She looked so much younger, relaxed, without the tension in her shoulders, no spy mask. Her long eyelashes fluttered a bit against his arm as she drew in a deep breath, hummed it back out again, and cuddled even closer to him. Her nakedness rubbed against his in a way that made him bite his lip.
Wicked, wicked lust.
He strained to peek at her bedside clock without jarring her and saw it was after three-thirty in the morning.
This was the worst part of the day to be up for him because he knew falling back asleep would be an uphill battle at this point. On his earliest days at the Buy More, he had to get up around four to be there by five and start moving promos around, putting out new clearance items, whatever else had to be done before the doors opened to customers at nine.
And because his body was awake, alert…his brain followed.
Which meant everything Sarah told him came roaring back with a vengeance.
His mind flicked between so many things. The Intersect. Bryce. Stanford. The look on the school officials' faces, the deep disappointment, the anger, as they expelled him, the disappointment and anger in Ellie as she arrived the next day to help him move back home, her eerie quietude as they rented the U-Haul… and finally her explosion as they drove home. She knew he hadn't cheated, but "fuck Stanford" and "fuck the wannabe Ivy League shit schools" and "they didn't even give you a chance to defend yourself" and "I'll kill him, I'll murder him in his sleep", and even Devon hadn't seemed to know what to say. Just tight hugs. "We got you, bro" and tight hugs. Morgan was ready for vengeance, and he knew it was bad enough not to do any of the "I told you so" stuff after all those years of saying he didn't trust Chuck's "Stanford best friend" because he was too hot.
Chuck thought of that test, how hard it had been, how much he'd struggled over the course of those four hours to even understand what in the hell they were even asking him to do. What kind of a weird ass test was that? What was the internship even going to be with strange word problems like that? It was like the SAT with a shit ton of physics, plus the ACT, drop LSAT shit into it, add steroids to it, and call it a day.
He'd handed it over to Professor Fleming once he'd answered everything to the best of his ability, thanked him for the opportunity, shook his hand, and walked out of there. And he remembered calling Ellie immediately, telling her he was sure he blew it. Weirdest test ever and he just wasn't the guy for whatever the internship was. She'd insisted he was wrong and to just wait and see.
That was the test that got him expelled from Stanford. He hadn't known that until last night. Professor Fleming hadn't been there when they searched his room for the test answers. He hadn't been on the panel that expelled him either. So he'd had no idea what the hell was going on.
All these years, he hadn't known.
He'd gotten a perfect score on that test. He didn't know how someone got a perfect score on a test like that, with so much of it having felt subjective. His brain had done that. His brain, his heart, whatever else he'd put into that test…got him a perfect score. He was the perfect candidate for the Intersect.
And now he couldn't stop thinking about what it would've been like if Bryce hadn't planted those test answers and in one fell swoop and knocked Chuck the hell off the CIA's radar as a cheating cheater who shouldn't be anywhere near their agency.
Chuck spotted the hard drive with the BeamReamLARPin email still sitting on it. The copy of the program that would apparently shoot multiple world Intelligence agencies' highly classified secrets into his brain. A version of this existed five years ago. And they'd meant to put it in his head. Based on one test.
What if they'd done it and he was turned into a vegetable? What would that do to Ellie? To Morgan? To Captain Awesome? His whole life, literally cut off at the knees, no ability to do anything or live any kind of life…
They'd have to put him down or something.
Pull the plug.
Brain dead.
All of him dead.
And if they'd done it and he hadn't gone full vegetable? It sounded like Sarah had been in this work since she was a teenager, which he wasn't sure was…all that legal. He had plenty of questions there. And concerns, deep concerns. But she knew this agency probably better than anyone. And she seemed to think his freedom would be significantly limited. Would he ever get to see his sister? Or did he only get to go chaperoned by armed agents in plainclothes. For a few hours, a quick hug, a meal, and then he'd be whisked off to a safe bunker underground where the arms dealers and whoever else wanted his brain couldn't find him?
Would they use him like Bryce had apparently feared back when they were twenty-one and roommates? Keep him off to the side in a safe place until they needed him, used him, stuck him back in his container? Like…like a fucking spatula or something?
What if they were both wrong, though?
Bryce had apparently learned enough about the CIA, had seen enough, that he thought ruining Chuck's future, getting him booted out of Stanford, and tossing their friendship into a spike pit to die a grisly death, was necessary. To keep the CIA from touching him. And Sarah knew enough about the CIA to agree she didn't want their paws on him, either. Though her approach was significantly different.
He oh so carefully extracted himself from her arms and glanced at the hard drive again, where she left it on the nightstand where she put it after taking it back out again. He scooted to the edge of the bed and just sat there.
Chuck picked up the hard drive in his hands and turned it over, looking at it, and then he shifted on the mattress to look down at Sarah. The arm she'd had draped over him while they slept reached towards him across the mattress. That was when he noticed the sheets had pooled at her waist, so he tenderly reached over to carefully ease them up her back and cover her better.
This woman could've done exactly what Bryce had five years ago, though with much less of a cruel, life-altering twist of a knife in his back. She could've let the hard drive drown in the Potomac, the copy of the Intersect that Bryce made dissolving in the frigid water, destroyed forever. It would've meant he was safe from the CIA, that he stayed off of their radar forever.
But it would've also meant she'd made a choice for him without him even knowing about it.
Instead, she brought it back to him, insisted the hard drive was his, the copy of the Intersect was his. And the choice was his too.
He'd never felt so respected, so cared for…and he'd never felt closer to anyone. It would've solved so many problems if she'd destroyed the copy Bryce made. And she would've kept Chuck safe too, which seemed to be her first priority in all this. Otherwise she would've just handed her superiors the copy, told them she took it from Chuck's email inbox, and let the chips fall. The way a spy following orders would have.
And still, she brought it back to Chuck. He was sure it hadn't been easy. She had to know there was a chance he'd choose to sit down and suck this thing up into his brain, come what may. And that meant there was a chance his brain wasn't strong enough, that this incredible connection, this bond they'd formed, the intensity and depth of it, would die along with his brain. She'd done this anyway.
Chuck had no doubt that Bryce Larkin thought he'd done the right thing. And fuck, he had no idea…maybe Bryce had done the right thing. Maybe he'd saved his life, given him the normalcy he wouldn't have had if the CIA vacuumed him up out of his life and locked him away from people forever to use what was in his head.
Maybe he'd saved him from a lifetime of pain and suffering.
But his heart still ached so badly.
Was it easier back when he thought Bryce had screwed him over to have Jill for himself?
Because now he knew the truth, that Bryce really had framed him as a cheater, but that he'd done it to keep him from being recruited by the CIA, an entity Bryce was sure would destroy Chuck, everything that made him who he was.
Fuck, it wasn't his fucking decision to make. It wasn't.
And Chuck didn't know if he wasn't also a little grateful. He hated that he'd done it, he also thought maybe Bryce hadn't had any other choice that didn't mean Chuck was sent into a wolf's den.
He was flooded with sadness, thinking about how alone Bryce was in that decision. A twenty-one year old, not a lot of life under his belt, the privilege of being from a rich family, no barriers in his way…suddenly being plunged into making a decision that would make or break his roommate, a close friend. He'd chosen to fuck Chuck over…to potentially save his life.
Now he apparently thought so much of him that he thought he might be able to save the world with this copy of the Intersect thing, if bad guys got their hands on the original and tried to take over the world.
He thought no one would keep it safe the way Chuck would.
Bryce was apparently sure now, five years later, that Chuck was the potential Ghostbuster if the CIA or some other entity decided to become the Gatekeeper and Keymaster.
It felt weird to be given that kind of responsibility. And instead of choosing for him, Sarah, this woman who'd only been with him for a few hours on the night of his birthday, had cared enough about him, respected him enough, that she put that power back into his hands.
He would decide what to do with it.
Chuck stared down at it in his hands.
Fuck…
There was a quiet rustling of sheets behind him, and he felt warm fingers gently trace down his spine.
"Chuck…? You okay?" he heard her voice ask behind him, sleep still in it, confusion, concern.
He turned to look at her.
He hadn't known there were tears on his cheeks until her beautiful features crumbled in concern and heartbreak and she sat up immediately, closing the distance with the sheets held over her breasts, cupping his face in her hands and stroking said tears away with her thumbs.
"Chuck…" she breathed.
He sniffled and shrugged. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize. Talk to me," she said, rubbing the back of his neck, nuzzling the side of his face with her nose. Something so simple and yet it had a powerful comforting effect.
He lifted his shoulders in a bit of a shrug and wiped his cheeks with his fingers.
"Man, I'm just scared. I'm terrified, Sarah." Her hand kept rubbing the back of his neck and he melted against it, against her. "Part of me…" He sighed.
"What?" she prompted.
"Part of me is looking at this thing, looking at the choices laid out in front of me, and…I dunno, I guess that part of me kinda wishes you hadn't given me the choice, that you'd chosen for me." Her eyes widened just slightly and she turned to look down, ducking her head. He immediately reached over to stroke his fingers along her jaw, gently turning her face back to look into her eyes. "It's totally illogical, the way I'm feeling. Lots of conflicting things rolling around in my chest. I dunno how to explain it, Sarah. Of course I'm grateful you respect me enough to have brought this back, to let me decide my own future. And of course I want to be given the option of making the choice for myself." He furrowed his brow. "But then I don't want to have the opportunity to decide for myself because it's hard. I don't know what to do and I don't know how to figure that out."
Sarah let out a long breath, leaning in to prop her forehead against his temple. "It felt like the right thing to do."
"Don't think I'm not grateful. Please don't think that." He turned to face her better, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Where Bryce decided for me, took away my choice, you gave it to me and I'm sure that wasn't at all easy. I keep thinking about what it must've been like to be in your shoes as you stood on that bridge. If it were me, what would I do? Choosing between destroying the copy, keeping you safe, and having the chance to maybe see where…this thing between us might lead. And taking it back to you, so that you can potentially choose to download it into your head and…who knows what then? You brought this back to me and now there's a chance…we might lose this. Us. If I put this in my head, there's no guarantee it doesn't make my brain into mush."
"I know," she said quietly. "In my time in the CIA, I've done plenty of choosing people's fates for them. And you have to know, and maybe I should've told you before I took you to bed, but…sometimes I decided their fate with a bullet, or a well-placed knife." He couldn't help shivering, though he knew there was a good chance she'd killed people. Her eyes were too haunted when she talked about the CIA, how long she'd been with the CIA, not to have some of that in her past. "I couldn't justify choosing your fate for you, even if it meant saving you, being able to get to know you better, potentially…be with you."
Chuck nodded, holding onto her hand tightly. He wasn't going anywhere, no matter what the CIA agent had done, whether it haunted her or not. If she was game to see where this went, he'd find out more about her, her life, her backstory, and he was sure some of it would be startling, maybe even horrifying. He would stick with her anyway. This woman who'd stood on a bridge, seeing a way out, a way towards happiness and a normal life, and instead turned away from that to put her faith in a man she barely knew, letting him figure out his own path for himself. She was a woman worth fighting for.
"I don't know what to do. I don't want to decide," he said, lifting the hard drive and lowering it again into his lap, frustrated. "There's no going back if I decide either way and I know that and it's killing me. Ya know? Because if I destroy it, if I run it over with my Nerd Herder or whatever else I decide to do to get rid of it, that's it. There's no taking it back. And if I sit down and download it into my brain, I can't take that back either. If I kill my brain, I can't bring it back to life. If it doesn't kill my brain by some miracle and instead I've got the world's most classified secrets in my head, I can't get them out again."
Sarah sighed, shaking her head. "Probably not."
"If Bryce is right, if there's some future in which this Intersect thing might be used for bad, for world domination, by some arms dealer who steals it from the CIA, by the CIA itself if they're corrupted enough, what if I am the world's only hope? But I can't help, I can't save it, because I punted this fuckin' thing off the end of the Santa Monica Pier? What should I do, Sarah? What should I decide?"
He looked at her pleadingly and she looked right back, longing in her face. "I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could tell you and make this easier."
"What do you want?"
She bit her lip and swept her gaze to the side. "That feels like a path we shouldn't go down, because I don't want to influence…how you—"
"But you are gonna influence it," he interrupted, and she looked at him curiously. "It's too late for that. We just spent hours having the most incredible connection and it was physical and emotional and intense, and I found things in your arms, in you, that I never thought possible. We can't go back from that, I can't just wipe that from my mind, from my body. I can't and even if I could, I really, really don't want to." She looked surprised, and he thought in the wisps of moonlight coming in through the window that there was a blush perhaps. At least, there was a shyness in the way she pursed her lips and turned them to the side. "I want you, I want to be with you, and I'm not gonna try to pretend that isn't gonna influence my decision here. So I wanna know, I need to know, what it is that you want. I mean, I'm goin' crazy here, Sarah, and I don't know—"
"You."
He stopped. She was looking him straight in his eyes. "Wh-What?"
"You, Chuck. You are what I want. I just found you, I found this…phenomenal, extraordinary man who's mind is undeniably out of everyone else's league…brilliance, a brilliance even the CIA couldn't explain with their little secret test they gave you when you were only twenty-one. And what's even more staggering, hard to even comprehend as possible, is that your heart is somehow just as big and impressive and magnificent as your brain is. And you care about people, you care about me in a way no one in my whole entire life ever has. All of them put together. I just found you, Chuck Bartowski. The thought of losing you this quickly makes me want to scream. The thought of having to give you to the world when I barely had time to have you to myself…" She swallowed thickly and pulled back into herself. "Shit, I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know how to handle any of this. For so long, all I've done was my job. I say what I need to say to get the mission done, and then I move onto the next mission. Talking about feelings and emotions, it-it feels so foreign and awful and hard. How do you do it so much?"
A bubble popped in his chest, coming out as an adrenalized giggle. She gave him a look that was so scandalized and offended that he nearly laughed. He held it in, reaching out to frame her shoulders, squeezing tenderly, meeting her unsure gaze. "Sorry. I didn't mean to giggle. I'm just…overwhelmed. I don't want to lose you either, Sarah…" He furrowed his brow. "Do you have a last name?"
"Walker," she said. "It's Walker."
"You aren't gonna tell me whether it's real or not…?"
"It's more real than any name I've ever had."
He let out a rough breath. "Well, that's good enough for me, Sarah Walker." She smiled at him, melting against him and propping her chin on his shoulder.
"I told you what I want, completely and utterly surprising myself," she said after a few long, comfortable moments in which they just sat in silence together. He smirked at the self-deprecating look she sent him, her eyes wide and lips pressed together into a thin line. "So…what is it you want, Chuck?"
He balanced the hard drive on his hand and lifted it up in front of them. "With great power comes great responsibility."
Sarah hummed. "I like that. You make that up?"
"I love that I could say yes and you'd totally believe me. Having you around is going to be so much fun." He felt her pinch his side and he jumped with a, "Yeowch!" He snorted then, settling back against her. "It was Uncle Ben. From Spider-Man."
"Oh. I know what that is."
"Heeeeey!" He held up his hand and she giggled, meeting his high five. Then he slung his arm around her bare shoulders and held on. She lifted her chin from his shoulder and peered up at him, gathering her knees up to her chest under the covers, waiting expectantly.
What did he want?
He wanted to live his life without the intrusions of the government. That was for sure. And he had to trust that two people who were familiar with the inner workings of the CIA knew better than he did about what kind of a life they'd let him have if he had the Intersect in his head. He didn't want what Sarah told him might happen if they got ahold of him. He didn't want to be hidden away, used, and put back in his box like a fucking crayon. Or maybe not like a crayon, at least crayons got to hang out together in their box. More like … sunglasses. You used them when you went outside and when you were done, stick them back in their case. Prescription sunglasses. Definitely prescription…
"…Chuck?"
He shook himself, deciding not to tell her he'd gotten lost in comparing himself to prescription sunglasses. That'd be hard to explain. "Sorry, I'm…trying to figure it out. What I want. I don't…want to decide yet. Do I have to decide? Can I straddle the fence? Is that something I can do? Can I just hide it someplace safe and not do anything with it?" Sarah pulled back a little, blinking off to the side, her lips parted. "Like, what if I don't destroy it. And what if I don't put the Intersect in my head? That leaves both or either option open…and I'm still doing what Bryce meant for me to do, I'm still protecting it, it's with me. Like he meant for it to be. My brain stays in one piece, and if the original Intersect goes into the wrong hands, if the two of you are out there in the world being your super secret spy selves and start seeing shit hitting the fan or something, then I can decide if I want to use it."
Sarah took a deep breath, raising her eyebrows. "What if someone steals it from you? Worse than that, what if someone finds out about you? That you have a connection with Bryce, that the CIA sent one of their best to look for the Intersect here, and they start honing in on you too. What then? You'll be in serious danger."
"So will the Intersect copy…"
"I don't give a fuck about the Intersect copy, I'm talking about you. Your safety."
"I…don't know," he said, unable to keep the nice warm flooding sensation in him from plastering a dreamy smile on his face as he looked at her. He knew it wasn't any sort of small thing, having a top level spy in the CIA verbally (and vehemently) prioritize him over something as astronomically important to the nation's security as this Intersect thing. It was selfish, but he was only human.
"Agent Larkin is still out there, and he'll continue to be out there. They're still looking for him but I don't think they'll find him unless he wants to be found. He's…a really good spy. For all his faults."
Chuck nodded. "He's gonna be all alone out there forever, isn't he?"
"Probably. It's what he chose. He had the choice, he made it. And now this is where he is. But I also don't think he's gonna let anything happen to you. I don't know how, I don't know if he's going to be hovering around here forever or if he's got eyes on LA in some other way. But…" She began to rub his lower back as she spoke, her eyes turning to meet his. "I don't know how to feel about what he did to you in Stanford besides…angry. I'm angry. I don't know if I can understand it. It's probably a failure of mine, an inability to put myself in others' shoes? I don't know. But it just feels so horrible. And in spite of that, I have no doubt…none…that you are his priority. He said you're the only real friend he's ever had. He…loves you. I saw it in him. And I believe him when he says he wants to protect you. That he will protect you."
He felt the tears in his eyes as he swallowed the lump that rose in his throat.
He loves you.
"It's…hard for me to reconcile what he did with love," he muttered. "I considered him my brother and that betrayal felt…worse than the girlfriend thing. In hindsight, that was bad but…having a deep connection like me and Bryce had, that shit felt rare. Jill? Not so rare, even if I thought I loved her at the time. He threw me under a bus and I didn't know why. Even if I had cheated on that test, to rat me out instead of just sitting down and talking to me… It felt like he stuck the God Killer sword right into my chest."
Sarah frowned.
"That's Wonder Woman's sword. She uses it to—"
"It's fine. Sometimes I don't need the context. I got the sword bit," she said, smirking.
Chuck nodded. "Right. Sorry." She stroked his back and kissed his shoulder. "If you believe him, I do too. He did what he thought was…right. It was fucked up but I guess I…get the sacrifice there? Ugh, I feel like I'm just saying shit I'm supposed to say without actually feeling it."
"I know what you mean," Sarah said with a frustrated scoff. "Chuck, the important thing is that he's going to keep you safe. If you don't want to make a decision about the Intersect copy, if you want to just keep it with you, protect it, hide it away, this is yours now." She put her hand on top of the hard drive. "Bryce meant it to be yours. He made it for you. You decide what to do with it."
Chuck nodded, draping his hand over hers.
"And in the meantime, I'll protect you too."
He raised his eyebrows. "What's that gonna look like? When you go back, they'll send you to…Jakarta to quell a revolution with a fork." She snorted, giggling, shaking her head. "How do you protect me from the other side of the world?"
She nibbled on her lip. "I'll have to hope Bryce fills that void until I can come back."
That still didn't answer his questions he had about whether or not a CIA agent could even be in any sort of relationship with a civilian like him.
There were so many questions.
So many things they had to figure out. With them, with the Intersect copy.
"So I'm gonna have two of the best spies in the CIA looking out for me?"
"I guess so…" She shrugged one shoulder cutely.
"Lucky guy…" Her small smile became a grin. Something occurred to him then and he furrowed his brow, gulping. "Hey, uh, I'm… This is probably the dumbest time for me to bring this up, but… That talk you and Bryce had, erm, on the bridge in D.C…." She ducked her chin and looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Do you…think Bryce would be pissed off that we, um, have this…connection? You and me, I mean. 'Cause well," he paused, gulping again, "I know you two had a thing when you were…partners. More than partners."
Sarah looked away. "He was hinting," she admitted. "He said he understands how quickly you can get under a person's skin. I don't know if it upsets him or pisses him off, but I also don't care, Chuck. I don't care. He blew it. With you and your friendship, and with me and our…whatever it was. If anything, I think he was trying to catch me, get me to slip. He knew I wouldn't outright admit something more was happening here."
There was tension now and he felt it. The silly but still real prick of jealousy in his chest at the knowledge that Bryce and Sarah'd had something before. He didn't blame either of them, and still, the stupid jealousy.
He pursed his lips, wanting to ease the tension he knew she probably felt too.
"So…there is…something more happening here?"
Sarah sent him a slow, crooked smile, her blue eyes sparkling. "Did you miss the last eight hours or so?"
"No," he muttered thoughtfully. "No, no. I was there. But I could stand to be reminded maybe. Just in case."
Arching one eyebrow, she gave him that sweet pursed lips shy look of hers, and then she shocked him by taking the hard drive, depositing it on the mattress away from them, and swinging herself onto his lap in one quick, graceful move. Oh, he was never getting used to this.
In the best way.
"Maybe just in case," she breathed, and she slid her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, threading her fingers in his hair, lowering her weight in his lap.
They didn't notice when the sun finally came up outside of her hotel room's window.
In fact, they wouldn't have noticed if the earth was yanked off of its axis and hurtled towards the sun.
A/N: Thanks for reading. There's more to come.
Please review if you're so obliged!
-SC