A/N (1) Previously on Chuck versus The Journey: Bryce and Sarah have left our poor nerd back at her room to wait for Carina. I shamelessly mixed two scenes from the show (Chuck knocking at Sarah's door for a surprise date at the end of "Chuck vs The Seduction" and the scene where he disses Sarah's dress in "Chuck Versus the Break-Up") and will lead them into the mission from here. But first, our favorite redhead exchanges niceties with Chuck...
A/N (2) Since I've been asked, a word about my schedule: The story is written, and we only take a bit of time in fine-tuning, the last time combing through in the search for typos and similar. So I am positive I can keep a weekly schedule and aim to have the chapters out every Wednesday or Thursday. This chapter, being very short, marks the last time I update twice a week.
A/N (3) I don't own any of these characters, I don't own the "Chuck", and I don't make anything out of this except your much-appreciated "Hellos" on the review page.
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You say you got a friend, that she's wilder than you
Why don't you bring her upstairs
If she's so wild, then she can join in too
"Stray Cat Blues" (Keith Richards & Mick Jagger)
Chapter 4: Chuck vs. The Threesome
Sarah simply had walked out of her room. It felt like she walked out of his life. She was at least twice as beautiful as all the models on the catwalks of Paris' Fashion Week combined, but it was Bryce Larkin who was by her side, and supposedly had been in her bed earlier today, celebrating their reunion. The fact that they simply left him in her room made him feel like a dumped car, ready to be scrapped.
Chuck sighed deeply. Could he be so wrong? Wasn't there more in Sarah's eyes the past few days, even today? Wasn't there a genuine concern for him as Chuck Bartowski when he saved her life by jumping down from the Buy More using that silly yellow assistant manager banner, when she ran over, her hands on his cheeks, her eyes full of affection, her smile so wide and honest?
Get yourself together, Bartowski! She was manipulating you again! Every time you thought you'd seen it all, she raises the bar. Now she's back where and with whom she belongs, and she couldn't care less.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, facing the green door and waiting, of all people, for Carina Miller - and nearly fell off when the bathroom door behind him opened once more. Out strutted Carina, only a sizeable orange towel wrapped around her body. He quickly got up and made sure to have a sufficient safety gap.
"Chuckles!" she shouted excitedly, "So nice to see you've come to pick up your lady for the briefing!"
The initial shock over the presence of the most infamous redhead he knew waning, Chuck nervously ran the fingers of his left hand through his curls. He growled in a way that would make Casey proud: "If anyone mentions that briefing about a mission I never heard about again, I'm going to scream. What briefing? What mission? What... lady? I didn't come here following orders. I just showed up by myself and suddenly get trapped in bad memories, bleak futures, and mission talk. I'm just the Intersect, not the mentalist!" he spat out with growing anger.
"Wait," he said, his face falling and a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach sweeping away the ire instantly, "Why did you shower?"
Carina looked at Chuck like she just identified the class dunce in a school bus.
"I came last, so I was the last to shower," Carina matter-of-factly replied as it was the most natural thing in the world, and rubbed it in, lowering her voice: "Y'know, I was a bit sweaty from earlier sinful exercises-"
He gave her his best Et Tu, Brute? look as his world seemed to fall apart completely. Accompanied by a hurting glance towards the redhead, he interrupted her bitingly: "That was as graphic as I expected from you, but so not necessary. I have no interest in the particular order you all came and, to close the subject, actually not at all. You simply could have skipped the fact that you and Sarah and -"
Carina swiftly stepped towards him with a menacing face. He reciprocated her move, only in the other direction, holding up his hands in defense, and stopped talking except for a small whimper, all faster than a flashing Intersect.
"Are you crazy?" she hissed. "Do you imply that Sarah, Bryce, and I had a quick threesome while preparing for the mission?"
"Am I talking to Carina?" he asked scornfully, peeking at her between his hands. "The one who would never miss out on an opportunity?"
She grabbed the hem of the towel that covered her. Chuck feared she would undo it and beat him with it. Given all the ways the new women in his life could kill, he certainly wasn't keen to find out what Carina could do with a towel. But she only attacked him verbally.
"I would never. A threesome? A menage a trois! Well, I did, and I hope I will again, but not with Bryce. With Bryce? Never! C'mon!"
"Out of respect for Sarah?"
"Out of respect for myself!"
Fanning a hand in front of her nose as if she wanted to wave away an unpleasant smell, she snorted: "Bryce? Self-entitled, smarmy, and arrogant? Do you think as low of me that I would hop in the sack with someone like him if I have the choice? If it came to me and Bryce having sex and reproduce to save mankind from vanishing, well, good luck, let Greenpeace put another entry on the list of extinct species."
Chuck didn't buy her disdain.
"Aw c'mon, he has all the girls swarming around him like moths to the flame..."
"..or like flies around a piece of shit," she finished for him.
Something wasn't adding up for Chuck.
"But if what you're saying is true, how could someone like Sarah... I'm a bit confused now-"
She gesticulated wildly to make a point.
"Only now? Isn't that your permanent mental state? Can you change your middle name to Dizzy or som'thing? I don't like Irving anyway, by the way."
Somehow Chuck had to give Carina credit for grounding him again through her brusque behavior, shaking him out of the shock when he saw Bryce.
"Wow, we took quite a while this time until you insulted me. It seems we are making good progress in our friendship."
Carina thankfully adjusted the towel that had gotten out of place during their lively exchange.
"Ok, fathead. So you think Sarah and I had a tribangular with one Bryce Larkin minutes before you got here?"
He cringed. He was a healthy young straight man. He should feel at least a touch of erotic curiosity about the vision of two beautiful young women pleasuring a lucky fellow, but it was too close for comfort.
"Uhm... look... you know how I... I mean, you are ready, willing, and able any moment of the day, and Sarah and Bryce go so well together..."
"Are we a bit jealous?" Carina laughed as she watched him, "Yup, I definitely see some greenish specks in the corners of your eyes."
He let his arms hang defeatedly. He looked as miserable as a Great Dane that had lost its favorite chew bone.
"Fine. I am not jealous, I care; I only care," Chuck stubbornly lied as he pointed at the rose and the bottle on the bed. Carina ignored his words and quickly closed the distance between them.
"Ooohhh, Charles, for me? A red rose? Château Margaux? And...," she rested one hand at his shoulder to lean over and glance at the bottle ,"… a good vintage! That's my kind of guy! Wanna get your reward right now?"
His "Oh please, Agent Miller!" made her sigh in exasperation, and she returned to the mission he did not know about.
"OK. We need to move along and join them at Castle, so listen up. I came last as in I was the last to arrive here. And I showered because I arrived straight from the airport and on the flight that male steward was sooo yummy and my membership with the Mile High Club had to be renewed anyway, so-"
"Oh, please," he cut in, "TMI, Carina, and not in all related to the topic of our discussion."
She held two fingers up: "Guess!"
Blinking, he asked impatiently, "Two? What's that now? Don't make a quiz show out of this!"
"That was the second, Oh, please from you. I don't take that attitude from anyone. The one who mutters the third Oh please gets hurt," she said sternly.
Chuck raised his hands in the air in defense again. Conversations with Carina Miller may be hazardous to your health.
"Oh pl- ...sorry for that, sorry! What was it you said?"
She was earnestly sighing. That slim tall yellow vase containing some non-identifiable brush that Sarah smashed on her glass table a year ago, in a vain attempt to hit Carina, had been replaced with a new one. She was considering that the second incarnation of the vase could follow its predecessor's fate and that she could hit him with it. Yet, she could live without the reprimands from Sarah about damaging her valuable asset, so she discarded the thought.
"Serious conversations with you are a pain in the ass, you know. OK. So you know why I showered. Have we tamed the green-eyed monster now?"
She gave him a long reassuring look from under her eyelashes.
There are actually two green-eyed monsters I am dealing with right now, Chuck thought. He nodded without much enthusiasm: "I trust you that you didn't... well... you know. But when I arrived, Sarah and Bryce were dressing, which means they've been in a state of undress before, and there are reasons why two people in a room are undressed. Therefore, logically, I assume..."
Carina knew that his monologue would take more time than they had left, so she had to get dressed. She began to undo the towel around her body and carelessly dropped it to the floor as an embarrassed Chuck turned away. "Hey, hey, give me some warning before you go get nekkid!" he whined.
"As much as I'd like to torture you further, we need to get going, so here's the summary: When I arrived, Sarah was about to step into the bathroom to change, and Bryce out here-"
"But that doesn't rule out…" he intercepted.
"If you interrupt me once more, I'm going to rule out any chance that you ever own the means to have sex with Sarah with my bare hands. Keep your hatch shut and listen. Larkin was out here, changing from the clothes he wore on his flight in. Actually, I saw his taxi drive up right in front of mine but waited a minute before coming up myself."
Chuck didn't even say a word, which made his impatient gesture all the more impressive.
"I'd have loved to walk in on an embarrassing moment, like Sarah and him ripping off each other's clothes, but they weren't. Yeah, Bryce was trying to reconnect with Sarah, but her concern was her outfit, not her love life. She kept him at a distance somehow."
"Somehow? What does somehow mean?" he squeaked.
"Well, you know how Bryce is, right? Always trying to get touchy-feely in that sophisticated way of his."
Arms akimbo, he rolled his eyes to no use as he still faced away from her while she slipped into a sleeveless, V-neck mini dress that shimmered in uncounted hues of green and blue. Unintentionally, his eye-roll ended on the nighttime window, and he saw Carina in all her raw beauty in it. He needed a moment to realize what he was seeing, then his left hand shot up covering his eyes, and his right hand covering his mouth. His reply to Carina was slightly delayed.
"Excuse me if I lack any experience of Bryce groping me; never had the pleasure, hope I never will," Chuck sarcastically explained.
"Well, that makes two of us. We should start a Facebook group, but I'm afraid it'll remain a tiny group. Anyway, Bryce certainly was in the mood, but Sarah wasn't."
Checking the window to be sure she was dressed by now, he turned around and stared in her green eyes so unflinchingly, that she emphasized:
"They didn't."
"Oh. Ok. I mean... I am... I'm... I mean..."
"So, you haven't given up?" she asked, pointing a long and elegant index finger at him. "Still assaulting the citadel?"
"I don't want to view my efforts as an assault. Only someone like you could make such a comparison," Chuck explained matter-of-factly. Carina obviously took it without sarcasm as she remained calm.
"Someone like me?" she echoed. "You'd better not forget that Sarah is also someone like me. Someday she has to fall. Everyone does. The only question is who will catch her. Wanna get some advice from someone like me?"
He nodded in anticipation. Carina placed the finger on his chest.
"Spies don't fall in love, Chuck. Make love. Bed her for the fun of it, but just don't fall in love or expect her to fall in love with you as that would go belly-up. Most of all, no deep feelings, she's a spy. Rock her world but not her heart."
Chuck examined her expression for an extended moment. Carina, by way of a change, seemed serious. "Oh. Oh. Thank you… I guess," he managed to say something civil.
"You're welcome. I say, Chuck..." Carina featured her most wanton voice for him, her glance meaningfully straying from Chuck to the window and back to him: "If you ever get serious 'bout that threeway with Sarah, call me."
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A/N (4) As I said above: Gimme a shout if you liked it. Gimme a shout if you didn't like it. By a strange coincidence, there is a "Review" button right below to do that.