A/N: You folks had to wait a long time to figure out what was going on with this woman's phone. Hope this is worth all the waiting. Hehe.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or its characters. And I'm not making any money from this story.
"Hi. S-Sorry. Um…"
"No, s'okay," he rushed out. "I'm sorry. I…didn't mean to interrupt. I saw that I'd…left this on my table. Kinda gross. Not proud of it."
Sarah giggled, shaking her head, and then she turned her phone over in her hands. "I…know it's weird. Me…sitting out here in your hallway like this. With no ice. Which is…what I…was supposed to…get."
"No, it's not…weird." He winced as she sent him a flat look, and that made her sniff in amusement.
Something was up. And he cared about her too much not to at least make sure he couldn't help her, or make it better somehow.
Chuck moved the swing bar to block the door and make sure he wasn't locked out of his suite, and then he moved to the other side of the door, kneeling down next to where she sat. He wanted to be at her level when he did this, not standing over her.
"R'you okay, Sarah?"
She swung her gaze up to his, and it looked like she was trying to make a decision for a long moment. She sighed then, turning her phone over in her hands again. "I'm totally good and then…" She sighed harder, tilting her head back and letting it lean against the wall with a dull thump. "I shouldn't be doing this. It's, like, one-thirty in the morning and this has been…" She bit her lip. "Honestly? It's been the best night of my life."
His heart raced in his chest as she finally turned to look at him. He smiled, in awe of what she'd just said. And he realized, "Mine, too."
That made her smile as she reached up to give the sleeve of his T-shirt a cute little tug.
"Look, whatever it is you think you should be doing because this has been such a great night, please know that I'd rather you talk to me if it's…something you need to…" He searched for the right words. "I mean, if you gotta vent to somebody about whatever is going on, I'm here. I'd rather you do that if you gotta than…have you stuff it down inside and pretend it isn't there and just feel bad for the rest of the night." He made a frustrated sound at himself. "What I'm trying to say is I'm a good listener and you can talk to me if you need someone." He licked his lips, trying to gauge her reaction, dismayed by the unreadable look on her face. "Or! You don't have to, of course. I'm not saying that's something you have to do. Just opening the…proverbial door."
He topped that off with a dorky pantomime of opening a door, even making a creaking sound effect out of the side of his mouth to go with it. When she just stared at him, he reached up to close the pretend door with a soft "click".
She smiled a little then, and she moved her hand up to stroke her fingers down his cheek, leaning in to press her lips to his. She pulled back and pecked his lips one more time, before she sat back against the wall again. "Thank you, Chuck. It's…okay. Not a big deal. Okay?"
Chuck smiled and nodded.
He knew it wasn't the right way to feel, and still there was a prickle of disappointment in his chest. It didn't necessarily mean she didn't trust him with whatever it was. And he knew that. …And still.
"How 'bout we both go to get the ice? It'll be cute, like a miniature date." He stood up in front of her and held his hand out for her as she beamed, giggling. "C'mon. I'll let you hold my hand, even."
She outright laughed, shaking her head, taking his hand and letting him hoist her up to her feet. The look she had on her face in that moment, he absolutely could read. He grinned at her, wrinkling his nose, and he swooped the bucket up off of the floor.
Sarah did slip her hand into his and he tucked the bucket under his opposite arm, threading his fingers with hers and squeezing. And because she was still quiet, seemingly upset by whatever had been on her phone, he began swinging their hands back and forth, giving her a boyish grin to make her smile.
She did smile, even laughing again. "You're too much," she said, still smiling. But then the smile dimmed and she sighed. "I'm okay, Chuck." He didn't respond, just waiting, because it felt like she had more to say. "It's just one of those…situations." She seemed to think long and hard then, and then she continued, tentative, halting. "Um. Have you ever had someone…hang onto you unfairly even after everything's…all said and done?"
Oh. Oh shit.
"I mean, like, you're done, it's over, and you're on a fucking island practically on the other side of the world, and it's been a long time since you've even thought about them, and then they pick, like, the worst time to call and leave this long…miserable message on your phone." She huffed. "I didn't want to hear his voice tonight. Like, I didn't want to hear it again ever, but definitely not tonight."
Chuck heard himself gulp hard. So that was the upset in her face when he stepped out into the hallway, that was what she'd been listening to. A man from her past. Not ManBun, not the dude she'd kicked out of her house in his skivvies. Someone who'd apparently meant something. At one point.
And maybe he still did?
"This…this is someone you used to date, huh?"
A corner of her mouth tilted up and she lowered her gaze to the floor in front of her as they strolled. He felt her hand squeeze his tighter and he wondered if she felt how clammy he'd suddenly gotten. "Yeah. In D.C…."
"Oh. Got ya. D.C. is where you lived before you moved here." She nodded. "Was he…why you left?"
She shrugged. "Part of it. I don't like thinking I'd pick up everything and move somewhere far away because of some guy, even if it's to get away from him. Like, I don't want him to think he had that kind of power over me, over my decisions." Sighing, she glanced at Chuck, a tentative look on her face. "But he maybe was one reason."
"Bad break-up?"
"Pretty terrible, yeah. It, um, sucked." She swallowed, licking her lips, her eyes going a little dull. "But it's been over a year. I don't know why I'm…"
Chuck wanted to collapse into a pile of limbs and sink into the floor, but he kept hold of the bucket and her hand, putting all of his squeezing power into the bucket to keep from crushing her hand.
"Still stuck on him?" he heard some other alternate universe Chuck ask, because it definitely wasn't him; he couldn't get his voice to work right now.
She let out a bitter snort. "No. It isn't like I'm still attached to him, like I…still want him. It's just a reminder of bad things and bad feelings, and I haven't thought about it in a long time, especially not these last couple of weeks." She winced. "But hearing his voice again, and hearing him say all that…bullshit…fucking sucked. Hanging on…" Sarah pushed a hand through her hair. "It's not fair and it's upsetting and I was having such a good night. The best night. Like…ugh, like he somehow knew, like he had a sixth sense that I was spending time with someone else, being respected by someone for fucking once, and that's why he had to call with his drunken I miss you shit."
Chuck froze as he went to step into the ice room and he turned to face her. "He left an I miss you voicemail?"
"Yeah. The timestamp on it is smack dab in the middle of…" She blushed a bright red and lowered her voice. "Pretty sure I was licking champagne off of your chest literally right when he was leaving the message."
Chuck let out a choking sound and coughed a bit into his fist, backing into the cold room, going so far as to literally bump into the machine. He yelped and stepped forward, sending it an offended look over his shoulder. "Oh. I'm gl-glad we didn't get reception out there."
Sarah smirked, kindly not mentioning the whole backing into the ice machine thing. "Yeah, me too. I wouldn't have wanted to be interrupted during that for anything, but especially not for a drunken I miss you voicemail from a guy who, uh…shit, he broke my heart a little. Ugh, I hate saying that out loud."
"Did he?" He shoved the bucket under the chute but didn't press the button. "He broke your heart?" She shrugged with a tiny nod. "Fuck him. I'll go kick his ass."
She giggled and put a hand on his chest, fisting his shirt and tugging. "That feels kinda good, seeing as you're such a peaceable sort of guy. But it's not necessary. I kicked his ass myself at the time."
Chuck's eyebrows shot up and he pressed the button. Neither of them talked as the machine let out a cacophonous sound, not that either of them would be able to hear themselves even think over it if they tried. The bucket filled, he took his finger off of the button and tilted his head. "You…kicked his ass?"
"Punched him. Yeah."
There was a long pause. "I know this isn't the important thing, but did he just…stagger back a little when you hit him, or did he hit the ground, like full-on…ass on the floor?" She gave him a look, but underneath it, she had to purse her lips and twist them to the side, as if she was trying to keep from laughing. "I know. Sorry. That's not important."
Sarah shook her head, glancing off to the side. "Ass on the floor," she mumbled then.
"Oh, yesssss!" He fist punched and she finally broke, laughing. Still, she looked super uncomfortable, as if she really hadn't wanted to talk about this, and he couldn't blame her.
He cleared his throat, grabbing the bucket again and just standing there for a long moment, holding it. He finally stole a peek at her as she stared dully off to the side, seemingly lost in her own head. He wondered if what she said was true, or if she was actually still stuck on him.
Chuck didn't blame Sarah if that was the case. He was stuck on Jill for years, in spite of her cheating on him, in spite of hating her as much as he was heartbroken.
Before he could think of something to say, Sarah groaned. "Sorry. This is totally unfair and shitty, for me to even say stuff like this to you. I'm so awful at this shit. See? This is why I don't do this unloading crap. I can't ever do it at the right time…"
"No, no. Hey. Hey, just last night, I gave you the whole messy story with my ex, didn't I? Literally last night. Twenty four hours ago."
Sarah nodded slowly, but the frown was still on her face as she lifted her cell and wiggled it between them sardonically. "Your ex didn't leave a three minute message on your phone telling you that she misses you like crazy and is miserable without you, did she? If she did, I missed it somehow." She arched an eyebrow and tilted her head. "Though I did drink a shit ton of alcohol, so it wouldn't be a shocker if I did miss something that big."
Chuck winced. "No, that's…a good point. Jill's by and large left me alone since the break-up. Confirmation of just how inconsequential I was to her existence."
Rolling her eyes, Sarah stuck her phone in the back pocket of her capri jeans. "Yeah, well, she's inconsequential to all existence," she muttered darkly. Chuck snorted and she pursed her lips and twisted them to the side again. "Something I had to come to terms with, though. When he gets drunk and calls me to say all this bullshit, he doesn't mean any of it. He's gonna wake up in the morning not remembering, see that he called me on his phone eventually, be like oops, and then move on with his life. He didn't give much of a shit about me when we were dating, so he definitely doesn't now, a year later. This isn't, like, some unconscious thing where he actually does miss me deep down and that's why he calls to tell me when he's drunk instead of sober. Like, he probably saw my number on his phone, pressed call, and just let the alcohol say whatever the fuck it wanted."
Nodding, Chuck scooted past her to leave the ice room and she followed. He didn't miss the way she immediately grabbed his hand again, threading their fingers and clutching tightly.
"Relationships are hard," he said quietly. And then he mentally kicked himself. Why the fuck did he say that out loud?! He was trying to find a way to drum up the courage to tell this woman he wanted a relationship with her, and it would be an especially hard relationship because they'd be thousands of miles away from each other. God damn it, his big mouth knew no end.
"It depends on the person you're in a relationship with," she mumbled.
"True. Very true. Definitely depends on the person," he agreed quickly.
"If you're with a total dickwad, the jerkiest jerk on the planet, then yeah, relationships fucking suck." He was glad she didn't seem to have picked up on any of his big-mouthedness. "I've still just got these bad…I dunno, feelings, I guess. Stuck in me, deep inside. And hearing him bring up some of the good stuff, as rare as it was," she added bitterly, "in this voicemail… I guess it just feels really unfair."
"That the relationship ended up going down in flames?" he asked, not quite enjoying this conversation. In fact, he very much disliked it. But he was putting her first. She seemed like she needed to talk, and he was going to let her.
"No." She shook her head vehemently. "It's good that relationship died, even as awfully as it did, as much as it hurt. It isn't unfair that it's over. I'm so much better off far, far away from that mess. It's unfair that he keeps trying to drag me back towards the toxic dump. I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who…" She growled in frustration as she pushed open the door to his suite and went in, holding the door for Chuck. "I could literally put a blindfold on him and stick noise cancelling headphones over his ears to blast my voice into his big fucking head, and he wouldn't listen to me. He just refused to listen. He always knew best. For him, for me, for us. Didn't care to listen when I said what I wanted. Didn't care enough to notice I wanted anything at all."
Sarah let the door fall shut and she grabbed the ice bucket from him.
"Here, I said I'd get the drinks and I'm gonna get 'em. Even if you are done with your shower because I was interrupted by a damn fool and his voicemail."
He nodded, and followed her towards the mini bar anyway. He reached down and snatched the whiskey from inside of the cabinet, then set it down on the countertop. She gave him a grateful smile and grabbed the two hotel glasses sitting on the dresser before she got to work.
"It's unfair that he refuses to let me live my life without these attempts at guilting me back to D.C., even if he doesn't even mean to make the call and he's just drunk. I mean, even if his subconscious isn't what's making him dial my phone number when he's drunk, the fact that he does it means he still has me in his phone and he…thinks about me."
Chuck leaned his hip against the cabinet. "Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Isn't that what people say?"
She rolled her eyes. "Whoever says that is making excuses for people who don't listen, don't see, pay attention zero percent of the time, but still flip things around to make it like their partner is the bad guy. It's not my fault if he acts like an asshole, cuts me off, and then decides he made a mistake later, once I've moved to a tiny island far, far away."
"It isn't your fault at all. And-And I didn't mean that I, um, believe that phrase, or-or that I'd jive with anyone who…tried to use it as an excuse."
"No, I know, Chuck," she reassured him, sending him a soft look even as she poured. "Anyway, this whole bullshit mood I'm in over it, I-I don't want you to think that, um, it's…him. It isn't, not really. I know he does it to exert control over me in a way he really couldn't even when he and I were dating. So no, it isn't about him really. He was a bad boyfriend. It took me too long to figure that out but I did figure it out."
"That's how that awful shit works." He paused then, searching for the right way to ask the question that popped into his head. He didn't want to sound accusatory, or like he didn't believe her. So he nibbled on his lip a little.
"You're making that thinking face again."
He smirked at her as she handed him his whiskey on ice. "Thanks," he muttered, lifting the glass towards her. "I guess I'm just wondering why you haven't simply blocked his number."
She got quiet, and let out a long breath. "Block his number, huh? I guess that's…a good solution. I won't hear from him again."
Chuck tilted his glass back and forth, watching the golden brown liquid move up and down each side of the glass the ice tinkling pleasantly. "And that's…good, right?"
"Of course." And then she looked at him for a long time and she frowned. "I really don't want to hear from him anymore."
"I believe that. I guess I'm just thinking back to…" He winced. "My situation with Jill and all that. I still wanted to see her picture and hear from her, and I wanted to know how she was, what she was up to, for an embarrassingly long amount of time, even after she busted up my heart. Even when I was so angry with her. And it was definitely against my best interest. Ellie full on smacked me with a rolled up magazine like I was a mosquito when she found me looking at Jill's Facebook."
Sarah giggled and winced. "Yikes."
"I'm not proud of it. I deserved the mosquito smack."
She was quiet for a while, and then she asked quietly, slowly, "Are you saying maybe…I need a mosquito smack?" Chuck was careful not to say anything, but she seemed to read the look on his face anyway because of course she did. "Maybe…blocking his number means it's actually done. The end. For good."
"Is that something you want? Do you want it to be over with him, or, um…maybe you aren't ready to…let go?" He hated every single word of that, feeling like he was spitting acid with each syllable that came out of his mouth. Was he trying to torpedo this?
No. He wasn't.
But he cared about her too much to let any of this slip to the wayside when she seemed to want to talk. And he respected her too much to pretend the voicemail from her ex in D.C. hadn't rattled something in her.
Sarah's eyebrows turned down in the middle. She took her phone back out and unlocked it. "You think that's why I never blocked it? In spite of the voicemails he keeps leaving me that fuck up my day every time?"
Did it make something in her feel good to hear her ex tell her he missed her? That thought made something in him feel absolutely awful. He swallowed hard. "I'm not the one to answer that question, Sarah. And I'd never tell you what you are or aren't thinking, why you are or aren't doing something. Not just because I've only known you for a few weeks, but because this is your ex, your thoughts, your…feelings. You're the only person who gets to say what's in your own heart."
She stared at him for long enough that he found himself shifting his weight uncomfortably.
"…What? Did I say something wrong?"
Sarah shook her head slowly, the corner of her mouth tilting up. "No. Per usual, barring the very rare exception, you said exactly the right thing."
He watched as she looked down at her phone and clicked around it for a few moments. "What, um, what are ya…doin'?"
She clicked the side button on her phone to put it to sleep then and put it down on the dresser, facedown. "I need you to know, Chuck, that even if I wasn't standing here with you right now, even if I'd never even met you, if you'd never climbed onto my boat that day, what I just did would still have been the right thing. And I eventually would've gotten there. It's just that…knowing you," she finally looked back up at him again, and he felt the air crackling between them, he saw the gravity in her blue eyes, "having met you, and knowing now what it feels like to have someone actually hear me when I talk, and see me, and respect me, my agency, my voice…it made me do this a little sooner, that's all. It made me realize sooner."
"Do what? Realize what?" he asked quietly.
"I don't have to waste my time and energy on someone who never heard me, saw me, or respected me." She swiped her hand through the air. "Not for another second." He raised his eyebrows in question. "I deleted him off my phone, including his voicemails, and I blocked his number." She shrugged. "I'm never gonna hear from him again."
"Oh." Relief. He felt so much relief and it was selfish, so he did everything he could to keep it from showing in his face. He thought maybe he succeeded. "Are you…okay?"
She smiled at him, then took his drink from his hand and set both glasses back down on the dresser. She stepped in close and laid both of her palms flat against his chest, tilting her chin up to look into his face. "That's the first question you ask? That's the first thing you say to me…"
"Well, it's-it's the most important thing to me so I asked it first."
Her eyes softened and she melted against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and diving in for a tight hug. He hugged her back just as tightly and felt her tuck her face against his hair, taking a deep breath. "I'm so lucky you walked onto my boat, Chuck Bartowski. There are so many scuba schools around here and you came to mine, on that day, when I was leading that dive."
Chuck shut his eyes and just held onto her with everything in him, cradling her against his chest as she clung back hard. "You have no idea how glad I am I was on that boat, on that day."
She couldn't possibly even begin to know the very real and intense feelings churning in his ribcage. And to think, just a few minutes earlier, a voicemail threatened to bust open those feelings he had in a pretty bad way.
"Thank you for making that so clear and easy for me," she said after a few more long moments of hugging. "Getting rid of that…ugh, hang nail."
"You did it."
"It was a lot easier with such a fucking fantastic guy standing here in front of me. I won't lie, that really, really helped. I wasted too much time on that piece of shit."
He pulled back, keeping his arms around her, and he leaned his forehead against hers. "Let's drink and snuggle."
Sarah giggled, letting her head fall back, blinking at the ceiling. "Oh, that sounds amazing."
There was a light back in his chest as they picked up their drinks. He held his glass up. "To knowing your worth, Sarah Walker."
She pressed her lips together in a big of a pout and tilted her head, her feelings for him showing in every bit of her face. God, he felt so much better than he'd felt five minutes ago.
"To knowing our worth, Chuck Bartowski."
Sarah clinked her glass to Chuck's and he grinned, taking a long sip of his whiskey. "Mmm, that's good."
"So good."
He lifted his hand and gestured grandly towards the bedroom in the suite. "To the bed! Where snuggling awaits!"
She laughed the whole way to the bed.
}o{
They sat across from one another cross-legged on the bed to enjoy their drinks, continuing their conversation, and Chuck learned more about the man who'd hurt Sarah before she escaped to Kauai.
He didn't think the whiskey was making her talk the way he thought it might have last night. Neither of them were drinking that much. Instead, it just felt like she was opening up. She'd made the mistake of letting this guy get under her skin when she should've seen the red flags, she said. And there'd been plenty. But he'd been handsome, hot even, and they'd just looked good together.
It was easier to listen to her talk about her past relationship the more she did it, the more he saw that talking about her ex was helping her. Everything that was wrong with the relationship, the mistakes she'd made, and the way he'd refused to even try to understand her or where she was coming from. His way or the highway. Totally incapable of seeing past the nose on his own face, incapable of putting himself in someone else's shoes. Thinking he was always right.
And finally they got to the part where she admitted she never got definitive proof, but she was pretty sure he'd slept with other women. Women he met through work or in some other capacity. How it had all hit her in the gut at once when they were arguing after he came back into town after a long trip. (The way she'd paused before trip hadn't escaped him but he'd quickly shrugged it off.)
She told him about how much more it hurt that he hadn't tried to get her to stay, that he'd seemed to almost shrug over her breaking it off with him. How she hit him for not seeming to give a shit. How she'd been the one on the verge of tears, not him, and how she was realizing even as she sat on the bed talking with Chuck in that moment, that all of this time, maybe all she'd needed was to verbalize all of it instead of throwing it into a deep hole inside of herself and locking it up. Of course it seeped out every time he called in the middle of the night, begging her to come back, whining about missing her, needing her, telling her he was struggling. "Blah blah blah," she'd groused, shaking her head. "He isn't my responsibility anymore. He never was."
There was such a finality and relief in the way she'd spoken to Chuck as they sat cross-legged on his bed, their knees touching, leaned in close, finally setting their empty glasses to the side, done with the whiskey, and instead basking in one another's company.
And he decided he'd done the right thing, just letting her take the reins, letting her talk and get everything out, even if there were bits and parts he maybe didn't want to hear. And weirdly enough, a lot of details about him, about what he did and who he was, that she'd seemed to purposely skirt around.
"I should've deleted him out of my phone and out of my…head…a long time ago," she said quietly. After he didn't know how long she'd talked to him about it. About the ex he realized she never even gave a name to. Chuck wondered if it was on purpose or not, but he didn't ask. That was her information to give if she wanted to.
"It's easy to say now that you have deleted him. But it's not as easy as people make it out to be to do the deleting. It's worse when the break-up is messy."
"I slept with him even after I broke up with him," she said, shutting her eyes tightly and wrinkling up her face in self-disgust.
Oh.
That also didn't feel great, and he knew he had no right to feel that way about something that happened a year ago, when he was a guy trying to get another program off the ground at his tech company, overworking himself, totally unaware that there was a woman out there, in D.C. in particular, who he would meet someday on a boat in Kauai, who would change everything. He stamped down the unfair feeling of jealousy as best he could.
"I know," she mumbled with a pout that made him want to reach across the small bit of space between them and hug her. "Weak. I was weak with him. He's the type of person who makes you feel…powerless around him. All he had to do was show up and apologize when I was feeling low. It happened three whole times." She buried her face in her hands and groaned. "And I felt shame every single time. I just, I realized I couldn't keep living like that. And I hated my job, it got to be so overwhelming and they needed so much of me. I felt like I was surrounded by things that just kept…taking from me. Taking, taking, taking, and I wasn't getting…anything back. From anyone. Not from him, not from my job, the superiors at my job. So I put distance there. I cut myself away. I escaped from it all. I escaped all the way to an island."
"So it was…the ex and the job that made you come here."
"I guess. That's the truth of it. Shames me to admit it." She sighed. "I don't regret leaving, either. I needed to take care of myself."
"You did. This is gonna sound selfish maybe considering my current situation, sitting here with you, but I think you made a really, really good decision coming here. Not just because it meant I got to meet you, and I definitely wouldn't have if you'd stayed in D.C.. I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I wasn't about to go spend multiple weeks there for my first vacation in…practically a friggin' decade." She giggled and nodded. "But you just seem to fit here. In this place. You seem happy here. The Scuba Shack folks are good people, and your job is awesome, and I love your house. I mean, that thing stood up to a hurricane, you can't ask for more than that from a house," he reasoned, making her laugh. "I think at the end of the day, standing up for yourself, taking care of yourself, prioritizing your safety, whether that's physically or emotionally or whatever… it's the right choice. And he sounds…kinda toxic. Anybody who just takes and takes and takes, but never gives anything back? It's easy to get stuck with someone like that. But you got out and that took strength and courage." Her eyes softened as she watched him. "And I gotta tell ya, I didn't think it was possible for me to admire you any more than I already did, but I was wrong. I admire the shit outta you for taking care of yourself. For deleting and blocking this dude."
"I never should've let him back in the amount of times that I did."
"Maybe not." He shrugged. "But it's not an easy thing to do when you have a history, and lingering feelings and all that. You know it's wrong, but it…"
"Feels good at the time?" she asked, a miserable look on her face. "Ugh, at the time, I thought he was pretty good in the sack. That was part of my weakness."
Chuck couldn't help twisting his face up."Oh, I'm sorry," drawled, reaching over to take his hand. "That's fucked up. I shouldn't have said that to…the guy I'm currently sleeping with. Oh my God. I'm awful at this." She pressed her free hand to her forehead. "I suck so bad. This is why I don't open up about things, because I suck at it."
He laughed and pulled his hand out of hers, clamping both of his hands down on her shoulders and waiting for her to wincingly look him in the eye before he spoke. "You're doing one of my Chuck spirals. I don't like it. That's my thing." She chuckled, shrugging. "I told you out in the hallway that you can talk to me. And I meant it. Look, does it feel a little not-great hearing you talking about another dude's mattress skill sets? Sure, I'll admit that."
"Mattress skill sets? Really?" she laughed.
"I'm trying here, Sarah, cut me some slack."
"Sorry." She clamped her teeth down on her lips and held up her hands in submission.
"But this is past stuff. You had to listen to me blab about Jill last night. And if it makes things a little more even, I'll go ahead and say that she was pretty good for, you know, college. A little more of a taker than a giver, but I guess that's where you and I have something in common. We got stuck with takers."
Sarah snorted. "Well, I promise I'm not just saying this as a balm to your ego, but there's a reason I said at the time when I praised my ex's…mattress skill sets." He smirked at her using his weird lingo. "He has been thoroughly surpassed since then."
"ManBunMountainGuru?"
She laughed so hard she fell backwards and he chuckled, just watching her with glee shining bright in his chest. "Not him, you freaking nerd," she said through her laugh. She peered up at him, beaming at him, and then she pushed herself to sit up again, and instead of crossing her legs, she crawled right into his lap, curling herself around him, legs and arms, and pressing her forehead to his. It felt right. Like they were created by some ethereal higher power to slot together perfectly just like this, their bodies molding into one another. "For one, I don't have to worry about whether or not I should ask for things that I want," she said quietly, her voice crackling in a way that made heat pool in his stomach. "Because you seem to just…pay attention, and pick up on it, and then you do exactly what I want."
"Oh," he breathed. He licked his lips and stroked his hands up her back, then down again to rest on her waist. He slid his arms tighter around her torso and tugged her in even closer then, earning a gasp and a sultry grin. "Well, can I just say for the record that I don't want you to worry about whether you should ask for things that you want. I do not mind you asking."
She hummed in satisfaction and tilted her chin to capture his lips in a heated kiss. She broke it and he felt himself panting a little. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Do that."
Sarah hugged him then, and he hugged her back. "Oh no, you know what this means?" She didn't respond, and he tipped them both over into the pillows with a drawled, "Timberrrrrrrrrr", making her squeak and laugh into his hair. "It's snuggle time."
He let her pull her arm and leg out from under his body and they tangled themselves together, lying on their sides with Sarah curled up against Chuck's chest, her face buried under his chin as he cradled her in a tight embrace and slung one of his legs over both of hers.
They were quiet for a few minutes, just enjoying being close.
"You know, I never really understood the appeal of snuggling."
He didn't know why, maybe it was the two glasses of whiskey that made him feel loose and toasty all at once, and the way she'd openly praised his…mattress skill sets. (He was only human after all and God, that felt good.) But her words struck him as funny suddenly, and he laughed into her hair.
"What?" she asked, a little offended sounding, pulling her face back to look at him. "It's true."
"I believe you, I just… that's such a funny thing to… I don't know. How do you not like snuggling? It's such a safe feeling."
"Well, you didn't let me finish. I never really liked it because I wanted to either be…I don't know, like… are we having sex or are we sleeping? Like, make up your mind. That weird in-between thing, the snuggling, it just didn't have appeal."
He chuckled. "Geeeeez, Sarah."
"Hey, look. It never felt like a safe…thing before." Her eyes darted to the side. "I-I mean, not that it felt…like a dangerous thing to do." She looked like she was suddenly super uncomfortable with what she'd just let out. "It just never had that nice, warm, safe feeling for me." He nodded, feeling the momentary tenseness in her body ease just like that as she smiled at him squirming happily in his arms. "I get it now." Her hand moved from where it was smashed between their chests and she wound it around his torso and reached up behind to twist her fingers in his curls teasingly. It felt damn good and he grumbled happily, making her grin. "I feel warm and safe right now. Maybe I see the appeal of a good snuggle when it's with the right person." She cleared her throat and made a diplomatic face. "That goes for cuddling, too."
Chuck giggled. "You're such a dork sometimes and I love the crap out of it."
"Excuse me? I just opened myself up to you, big time, and you call me a dork? Woowwwwww. Okay. Maybe I don't even have to be here right now," she said as she chuckled and teasingly pushed off from his chest like she was leaving.
He held fast to her, laughing as he yanked her back into his chest. "Nope. Too late. You're already here and in prime snuggle position. Should've thought about that before you crawled onto this bed with a big ol' nerd, ya dork."
"Oh fuck you. You're lucky you're so cute."
Chuck cracked up.
Another couple of minutes went by and he felt how heavy and still she was in his embrace, which made him think she'd probably fallen asleep, and he was more than content to just lie there on top of the covers with her pressed so close to him, her face against his chest and her hair tickling him under his jaw.
But then her voice drifted up to his ears, negating his assumption.
"Read something to me."
Chuck blinked his eyes open and furrowed his brow in confusion. "Hm?"
The shy look on her face when she pulled back to look up into his eyes made him want to promise to literally go out and get her the entire universe. And he wondered how this woman had worked so fast on him that he had these intense desires and thoughts he'd never had with anyone else, after only a few weeks.
"When we were locked away in my house, riding out that hurricane, and you read Shakespeare with me, I liked it a whole lot. You're good at it." She narrowed her eyes. "Or maybe I just like you so much, I like listening to you. Maybe both."
Chuck blushed. "Well, that's a first. Never had anyone like me so much they wanted to hear me talk. Damn."
She laughed. "Come on. Read something out loud." She poked him in the ribs. "You were such a good Benedict."
"What am I supposed to read? We aren't at your house and I don't have Shakespeare."
"No, not Shakespeare." She shook her head. "Something you like this time."
"I don't know how well comic books will translate to being read out loud…"
Snorting, she made a face. "No, not comic books. Something else. I don't wanna look at pictures, I wanna hear your voice. I'm serious, you're a good narrator. Maybe you were a world famous storyteller in your past life."
He let out a, "HA!" and shook his head. "I don't think so. I just have a little experience under my belt. But I haven't actually done this in, like, almost five years."
She pushed out of his arms and sat up, giving him a teasingly arch look. "What other girls are you reading out loud to, Curls?"
He giggled and rolled onto his back, looking up at her. "Uh, there were girls, but also boys. Except that they were under the age of, like, ten." She made a cute, excited face and he chuckled, reaching out to play with the drawstring of her pajama bottoms she'd since changed into since they got back from the ice-capade. "I had a work study job at the Stanford library as their I.T. guy and one day, the librarian didn't have time to do the Saturday morning story time thing he usually did and there were only, like, two kids there but it was specifically a thing we did for kids from families who were lower income and Josh begged me to fill in, guilting me with these two little kids' expectant faces. So I did it. I read a few picture books to these kids. And then more came back the next Saturday, and Josh showed up at my desk looking a little put-out because they all asked for the super tall guy who does the voices. Hehe."
Sarah melted. "Awwwww! That's actually really adorable. I love that story. See? I knew I saw something in my Benedict." She poked his side again and made him squirm and giggle. "Those kids knew talent when they saw it."
"It's just 'cause I did silly voices and made faces. Kids dig that shit."
"Everybody digs that shit. You get better and better, you big ol' nerd. Now come on. Read me something."
"I don't have any books here…" Something occurred to him then and he narrowed his eyes in thought, lifting his finger. "This is good. I don't even have to leave this bed, something I really, really don't want to do right now thanks to my present company."
"Hm. Flattery will get you everywhere."
He snorted in amusement and grabbed his phone from the nightstand, opening it up. "I have an ebook on here because I was rereading it on the plane. Didn't feel like heavy shit, just wanted a good old-fashioned fun action adventure book about alien wars."
"You're gonna read to me about aliens?" she asked dubiously.
"Yep. You said I get to pick this time. I did a you thing, now this is a me thing." He thrusted his hands out, palms up, in a shrug. "Aliens."
She sighed. "You're right. I won't complain. I'll listen to you read an alien thing. Frankly, I'd listen to that silky smooth voice of yours read the instructions to put together a bookshelf from IKEA," she said in a growl, crawling down beside him with a smirk, her eyes heavy lidded as she teased him.
He threw his head back with a laugh. "Now you're embarrassing me, and I stand by what I said about you being a dork. Silky smooth. IKEA bookshelf. Honestly."
"Hey. Isnay on the orkday. I don't get called a dork ever and I might not take so nicely to it if you keep doing it." She gave him another teasing glare as she propped her head on her elbow, leaning over him.
"Nobody has ever called you a dork?" He made a dubious face. "Because you're a dork a lot."
"Maybe that's only ever around you."
And then she looked shy again, tentative, a blush on her face.
"Really?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah. Really." She shrugged one shoulder and glanced away. "I don't really… Well, you should've figured out by now, Chuck, that I'm not exactly…a forthcoming type of person. Tonight notwithstanding." She winced.
"Uh, yeah. I guess I noticed that. But I don't expect that from you. I mean, I don't have expectations about this, about you telling this dude you only just met, like, two weeks ago all of your personal stuff."
"I know that. It's what makes you special. And maybe it's why I let my guard down around you so easily."
He pursed his lips and let out a long, slow breath. "There you go, hacking away at my lack of self-esteem again."
She giggled. "Good. That's what I aim to do."
"You're really good at it, so congrats. And hey, listen, I'm honored that you're such a dork around me. I'm a giant nerd, so you gotta know I'm a massive fan of dorky women. They get me goin'."
Laughing, she draped herself over him, nestling her face into his chest. "That's good news. Being in control of, like, every situation and every moment I'm placed into, or I step into myself? That's what gets me going. I hate not being in control. It freaks me out."
He'd picked up on that about her, too. "I don't blame you," he said honestly. "It's scary, not being in control."
"…Thanks for saying that. I've been called a control freak by more than one guy."
"That guy too?"
"Him most of all."
"Well, maybe he made you feel the need to have control over situations because he sucked so bad." She giggled. "Sorry, that sounded dumber coming out of my mouth than it sounded in my head."
"I thought it was adorable." She pulled away to look down at him. "You're adorable. And I want you to read your alien book off your phone to me now. I'm tired of spewing all this shit that makes me feel exposed." She pointed to her mouth. "Like that for instance."
He grinned at her. "Well, I'll protect your exposures." His face crumbled in mortification. "See? That one was bad, too. I don't know what the fuck that was." She cracked up. "I think from here on out, I'm going to stick to words that someone else has written because I cannot be trusted with my own. Let's do that, shall we?"
He crawled up to lean back against the headboard of the bed, and he figured she would join him, but instead, she shifted around in the bed and nestled her head on his lap, using his thighs as pillows and smiling up at him expectantly.
"Is this okay?" she asked, then, as if she'd seen the slightly startled look in his face.
Chuck gave her his warmest smile. "Always."
She smiled back and he forced himself to look away from it, thumbing through his files to find the title he was looking for. When he found it, he gave off a maniacal snicker. "Oh, are you in for a treat. I gotta get to the part where it gets really good and then I'll read."
He went to the table of contents and narrowed his eyes, swiping.
"Wait, wait. Hold on. You don't get to just jump to some random part," she argued, sitting up a little and frowning.
"Why not? It's the really good stuff."
"No! What the crap? You start reading to me from the middle and I won't know what's happening or who these characters are or why they're doing any of this stuff. Come on, Chuck!"
He laughed, letting his phone slip out of his fingers onto the mattress next to him and holding his hands up in defense. "Jesus, okay! Fine! I'll start from the beginning! I was just trying to find something extra entertaining."
"Well, if you love this thing so much, let's hope the very beginning can sell me, huh?" She winked and pillowed her head in his lap again, crossing her arms at her chest expectantly. "I'm ready. From the top."
"Oh my God," he chuckled. "Bossy." And he jumped, laughing even harder when she brought a hand around to pinch him in the leg.
He cleared his throat, zooming in a little on the words so that he could read them better. "To the reader of this work: In submitting Captain Carter's strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest…"
}o{
"His property was left in such a way that I was to receive the entire income for twenty-five years, when the principal was to become mine. His further instructions related to this manuscript which I was to retain sealed and unread, just as I found it, for eleven years; nor was I to divulge its contents until twenty-one years after his death." Chuck paused dramatically, raising an eyebrow and tilting his chin. "A strange feature about the tomb, where his body still lies, is that the massive door is equipped with a single, huge gold-plated spring lock which can be opened…" He paused again. "Only from the inside." Sarah gasped and turned over, hunched over his lap with her elbows on either side of his hips propping her up. He bit back a laugh. "Yours very sincerely… Edgar Rice Burroughs."
"Nooooo! Come onnnn!" she drawled, her jaw falling open. "So this guy inherited his weird uncle's stuff, this uncle who stares into the sky as if pleading with it after being gone for all those years…and then he dies in that same pose and leaves all these instructions for his nephew. And then they put him in a tomb that has a lock that can only be open from the inside?!"
Chuck shrugged smugly. "I told ya."
"All right, sci-fi nerd, you got me with that intro."
"By the way, the author's name is Edgar Rice Burroughs."
"Fuck right off. The author made himself the nephew introducing the work. That's pretty clever."
"Edgar Rice Burroughs was born that way, Sarah. He does epic stuff like this all the time." He wiggled his phone.
"Will you keep reading it to me?"
"The fun part? Or keep reading from here?"
"We'll get to the fun part. Don't skip anything."
He made a whining sound. "Sarah, this is a whole novel. You realize that, right? It's the Princess of Mars and it's like…I dunno, two hundred pages."
"Guess you better get to it, huh, Curls?" she teased. "I wanna know who this princess is. And I wanna get to Mars. Let's go. Chop chop."
Chuck snorted and shook his head at her. "You're in a mood. Fine. Here we go. Buckle your seatbelt, Scuba Sarah."
He took a deep breath and began again.
"I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood…"
}o{
His vision blurred a little as he read, not really even knowing how many "pages" he'd gotten through at this point, since it was technically just a file on his phone that scrolled endlessly.
He blinked a few times and kept reading. "Grasping the sill I pulled myself up to a sitting posture without looking into the building, and gazed down at the baffled animal beneath me. My exultation was short lived, however, for scarcely had I gained a secure seat upon the sill than a huge hand grasped me by the neck from behind and dragged me violently…" He stole a peek at Sarah and saw that her eyes were shut. She'd since turned her face into his stomach, her hand that had a grasp on his hip having gone limp in sleep. Chuck whispered the rest of the sentence. "…into the room."
Looking down at her, he smiled at the vision of her, face slack, her chest rising and falling as she drew in even breaths. He didn't blame her for falling asleep as he checked the time on his phone. It was nearing three-thirty in the morning, and he wondered if he'd get any sleep at all before he left to go home to LA.
That was fine.
This was worth being tired when he got home.
Carefully reaching over to the nightstand, he put his phone down, then sat back again. Could he make her more comfortable in his bed without waking her up, he wondered? Sneaking out from under her, gently cradling her head in his hand, he slowly lowered her head back to the mattress, then scooted off of the bed altogether.
He turned off the lights in the suite, in the main living area and in the bedroom, everything save for the lamp next to the bed where Sarah still slept.
It took a little longer than was maybe necessary, but he eventually was able to manipulate the sheets out from under her without her so much as stirring, and shifted her on the bed to lie properly. He slipped a pillow under her head, then crawled into bed with her, reaching down to grab the covers and tug them up over both of them.
And the moment he scooted down to lie beside her, she turned over in her sleep and rolled onto him, nuzzling her face against his collarbone and draping an arm over his torso, hugging him tight as though he was a lifeline for her in her sleep.
Chuck Bartowski could've shut his eyes and maybe eventually that might've lulled him to sleep, but instead, he kept his eyes open, staring unblinking at the ceiling, his fingers gently moving against the skin he felt between the hem of her shirt that was riding up a little and the waistband of her pajama pants, stroking her comfortingly.
He couldn't sleep knowing that in the last twenty-four hours, they had each shared parts of their lives, of their pasts that left them uncomfortable, vulnerable, raw. The experience he'd had with Jill, the utter hell he put himself through over her… and then Sarah. God, Sarah. She'd opened up to him about her ex in D.C. before she'd come to Kauai to start fresh.
Chuck wasn't stupid. He was well aware of the fact that she'd led him to believe literally everything else had been the reason for her traveling halfway across the world to get out of D.C., everything else besides a man. And in the end, her ex-boyfriend had probably been a pretty big reason, though he believed her when she said it wasn't the only reason.
It had been deeply personal. It felt big.
This whole night had felt pretty damn big. The entire day, if he was being honest with himself. And now she was asleep in his arms, the words of Burroughs lulling her into a deep sleep eventually.
After everything she'd told him, the healing nature of the conversation, the way it had made him feel tender, raw even, while also even more powerful and strong, ready to go to battle for her against anyone, everyone, everything.
Ready to go to battle with her.
And unlike the other night, neither of them was drunk, or even buzzed. Which meant he wasn't going to have to wonder if she'd meant to say any of it. She'd willingly spilled her guts in front of him. She'd put herself out there.
Whiskey'd had nothing to do with it.
And Chuck didn't have to wonder if she'd only said it because she was drunk; he only had to wonder if waking up in the morning might cast things in a different light, a light that made her regret telling him something that personal.
He wasn't sure if he'd sleep another wink until he knew.
A/N: I know this'll probably piss some of you off, but I specifically felt the need to establish the level of comfort she's feeling with Chuck. He isn't just a guy she's connected with physically, although apparently that is a huge part of the connection. Hehe. They've built a friendship, on a deeper level, and when you find the kind of friend you can say things to, you just...ramble all this shit you've stored up. And in Sarah's case, it also happens to be the guy she's having sex with, and she's like CRAP I SHOULDN'T SAY THIS TO YOU. It feels natural to talk to him, and she doesn't think...maybe this isn't stuff he wants to hear until it's too late to shove it all back into her mouth. Like always with Sarah Walker, though...she's trying. She tries so hard all the time even if she doesn't do everything right. And I adore her for it.
Hope you all enjoyed! Please leave a review if you're able. Thanks for reading!
-SC