Chuck Versus Thin Ice
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: On the doorstep of the Olympics, top American curler Sarah Walker has lost her mixed doubles partner and her boyfriend in one fell swoop. Her coaches throw newbie Team U.S.A. curler Chuck Bartowski onto her team and thrust them into the Olympics, hanging America's curling hopes on two people who only have a short amount of time to learn to trust one another.
A/N: John Schuster, Schmohn Schmuster. I'm pretty sure my writing this fic is what got the U.S. men's curling team its first gold medal in the history of curling being in the Olympics. You're welcome, Team U.S.A. You're welcome.
Disclaimer: I don't own this show. I don't own the characters in this show.
They were down to their last stone of End 8. Harrison and Everly from Winnipeg were up nine points to their seven. Three of Sarah and Chuck's red stones were placed inside of the eight foot ring, but there was one yellow stone directly in the button. And they'd set two guards up just past the hog line. The bastard stone was buried pretty well.
She turned to Chuck and studied his profile. There wasn't much time left for deliberation. Anyone sane would just throw in the towel.
Bryce would throw in the towel. The only shot that might win the match for them was curling around the guard and somehow slicing through their own two red stones in the eight inch ring. There wasn't much of a port between them…but there was a port, and it was big enough to get a stone through.
Chuck finally turned and met her gaze. "I'm doing the thing."
She let out a harsh breath and nodded. "Good. That's where I am. Do it."
Not recognizing the way his hint of a smile made her feel like there was a knot behind her belly button, Sarah turned away from him as he slid to the hack and picked their very last stone of the game, getting into position. All she could do from one hundred and fifty feet down the ice sheet was line up the throw for him, setting her broom for him to line up his delivery.
He pushed off from the hack, and he was up in a flash, chasing the rock, his broom at the ready.
"It's good!" she yelled. "Good line! Go! Hard!"
He started clearing the ice in front of the rock, increasing the curl so that it left the Canadians' guards behind.
"Whoa! S'good!" she barked.
Chuck pulled his broom off the ice, still following the rock. She saw something in the ice, then, something that could be catastrophic, and she jumped in, clearing it just in the nick of time and sweeping.
"Whoa, whoa!" her partner warned, and she lifted her broom. She held her breath as the rock oh-so-cleanly threaded the needle, so to speak, before bumping the yellow rock lying in the button.
Sarah jumped into action, getting in front of the yellow rock's roll and sweeping like a madwoman.
"Yeah! YEAH!" Chuck yelled.
When the rock slid to a stop, it was behind the eight foot ring, just barely biting into it. Chuck and Sarah suddenly had three of their red rocks lying as counters. They'd just made three points with their last shot.
The audience watching their match erupted. Sarah smiled politely as Harrison came over to concede, shaking her hand, and then she and Everly shook hands. "Helluva shot, man," she heard Harrison say as he shook Chuck's hand.
"Thanks. Thank you. Round's on us later."
"Deal."
And then Chuck was there in front of her, his hand up in the air, a massive grin on his face. She high-fived him so hard her hand stung through her glove. And she swallowed back the urge to throw her arms around him in a hug. She didn't know why, it just felt like something she should resist. Just in case.
"Was that as good for you as it was for me?" he asked.
She laughed so hard her sides hurt.
And that wasn't the last time they'd won, either. The next day they won two more and lost the last one to a team they'd likely meet at the Olympics in a few weeks, Beckman had told them afterwards.
"Three wins and three losses," the coach said as they trudged through the snow to the hotel. "Not bad for first-timers. Not bad at all."
"Have we won Graham over yet?" Chuck asked, and then he paused. "Have I won him over?"
Sarah snuck a look at him and let herself ponder for a moment just how much crap this guy had to swim through while he was here, while he was her partner. The naysayers weren't just on the Internet, praying on wishbones and eyelashes that he would just go away and Bryce would take his place, that she and Bryce would get back to dating again. He also had to face doubts from Coach Graham. She could see it in the older man's face. He thought this was all crazy. But he was going along with it because he respected his co-coach. She imagined after that conversation he'd overheard the day before, Chuck figured the federation doubted him, too. Doubted his ability, his viability. He really was unpredictable. But he was still consistent.
And God, he really was one hundred percent in.
That was more than she could say for Bryce, even when they'd first started, and especially not when that partnership had become a relationship off the ice.
Photoshoots had started to take precedence. And when losing started going hand-in-hand with the photoshoots, he dropped the curling altogether, and the losing along with it. You couldn't lose if you didn't play the game.
And screw Bryce Larkin because he was still getting modeling gigs now. His new top model of a girlfriend probably pulled some strings. But of course it helped that he was hot. And screw him for it.
Huffing, she pushed thoughts of him out of her head altogether. She wasn't letting Bryce Larkin derail this for her. Hell no.
As they stepped into the lobby, stomping their boots a bit on the welcome mat, Beckman saluted at them and began backing away. "Gym, tomorrow morning at seven, hear me?"
Chuck groaned. "We're competing tomorrow. Two matches."
"Not until the evening so suck it up, buttercup."
And then she was gone.
Sarah reached over and nudged his bicep with a closed fist. "Yeah, buttercup."
"I mean, I really think that was uncalled for, what she said to me."She laughed and led him further into the lobby. As she pressed the button to call the elevator she turned to look at him over her shoulder. "Pretty nice of them to spring for two rooms this time, I gotta say. I half expected them to shove us into one room."
"Well, the rooms only have one bed. That'd be…"
His voice drifted off and she quickly turned back to face the elevator. She'd really walked into that one, hadn't she?
"Yeah," she muttered, because it was all she was capable of.
They stepped into the elevator and she saw him lean back against the railing out of the corner of her eye as she pushed the button for the floor they were both staying on.
"Hey, you hungry? That, uh, that Barry guy on the Richmond team said they've got awesome food at the restaurant on the top floor. I mean, I had a burger at the bar, but I'm a growing boy and I'm kinda hungry again 'cause I'm a garbage disposal."
He really was. The man ate so much and stayed lithe and lanky.
She was going to accept the invitation, because why not? And then she halted. She wasn't sure why not, and yet…
"I'm actually gonna take a shower and read the book I brought in bed, if that's okay."
The doors to the elevator slid open on their floor and he automatically stepped forward to hold it open and gesture for her to exit first. "Of course! That actually sounds like a good plan. I'm feelin' kinda lazy anyway," he reasoned, shrugging as he followed her into the hallway and they walked side by side to their rooms. "I'll just order something to be brought to me."
Sarah smiled and nodded. "Okay."
She stopped at her room, getting her keycard out. He kept walking to his own room, which was right next to hers, but she spun as she opened her door, holding it but not going in. "Hey. Chuck."
"Yeah?" He swiped his card and popped his own door open, wedging his boot in it to keep it from shutting on him.
"Fantastic curling today, partner."
"Same to you. Teamwork." His chuckle was pretty freaking cute as he lifted a hand up for a high five.
She couldn't let her door close in order to go over and smack his hand with her own, so instead she mimicked an air-five at him.
He gave her a quick goodnight and a nose-wrinkling smile, and then he was in his room, the door shutting behind him.
Sarah climbed into the shower and stayed under the hot jet for a while, going through the matches they'd played that day. Three hard-fought matches, two difficult wins, and an even more difficult loss. But it just felt better. It felt much better.
Sure, they weren't going to finish near the top in this bonspiel, but they won three of their matches. Even if they lost both tomorrow, they won three. And to do that in their first official competition together? She felt really good about it.
By the time she was out of the shower and dressed in her pajamas, it was close to midnight. She sat on her bed and took a deep, calming breath. She had a lot to look forward to. It was a little less than a month until the Olympic games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Her very first Olympics.
Before she could get too far up in her own head, she heard a sound from the room next door. It sounded like Chuck had turned on his television. He tended to watch TV late at night, she'd noticed. And by the sound of it, he was watching cartoons. She wasn't sure if it was weird or if it was cute that she sometimes caught him watching cartoons. It was maybe just one of his quirks.
She never went into his bedroom in their apartment, but he'd asked her to grab something from it for him once when he was repairing Jane's laptop, and she'd seen boxes and boxes of comic books, meticulously preserved in sleeves. She'd wondered if he read them, or if he just collected them. There were action figures, too.
It was something she elected to keep to herself the last few weeks. If anyone else on the team knew he was such a huge nerd, he'd be crucified. She imagined Casey, especially, would have a field day. Chuck hadn't mentioned his hobbies before, and she wondered if it was something he'd prefer to be kept secret.
What would his Twitter antagonists do with information like that?
God, she couldn't imagine.
Her eyes casually latched onto the door on the wall next to her bed, the one that connected her room to his. She didn't think their coaches had purposely booked them rooms with that adjoining door, but it was still there.
She bit her lip and got up from the bed, going to the door. She touched the lock, then pulled her hand back. What was she doing? Why was she being so awkward? Chuck was her mixed doubles partner. He was her roommate back in San Jose where they trained. And, at the request of their coaches, the U.S. Olympic Committee had slotted them into the same living quarters in the U.S. building at the Olympic Village. She had no idea what that was going to look like, but she didn't care as long as she had a bed and a place to shower.
Shutting her eyes and silently cursing herself for being so silly about this man she'd really only known for a few months and curled with for a few weeks, she unlocked her side of the door and knocked on it. She heard shuffling in the other room, and then the lock on his side clicking, before he opened the door.
They stood there staring for a moment.
"Hi."
She cleared her throat. "Hi, I uh…I heard your TV…"
"Shit, is it too loud? Am I keeping you awake?"Sarah chuckled and shook her head. "No. No, your TV isn't keeping me awake. I'm keeping me awake."
"Ah. Gotcha. Well, do ya want some cake? I had it brought up to me and it's a giant piece."
Laughing, she nodded, and he stepped aside to let her in. She was right about the cartoons, and she must have stared at it a certain way because he cleared his throat and rushed over to grab the remote and change the channel.
"You don't have to do that on my account."
"Nah, it—it's just old stuff that I used to watch when I was younger. I was surprised to find it on. But um…" He turned it to some house buying show and set the remote down again. "Ah, the cake. Right. Um."
She stood in place as he walked around her and grabbed the plate from the tray the hotel staff had brought up for him. Then he brought it over to set it on the end of his bed. He was right about it being a massive piece of cake.
"Oh. One fork. That's not…helpful. Wait." He snapped his fingers and went over into his backpack, digging through it until he pulled some chopsticks out. "It's a bad thing I do sometimes when I order sushi, but I take the unused chopsticks off of the table. I like using them at home sometimes."
"I didn't know that. But…Chuck, you don't have to use chopsticks. It's okay."
"No, no. You take the fork."
She just smiled and sat down at the end of his bed, all wrapped up in a baggy sweatshirt she'd gotten a few years ago when her four-woman team were runners-up in a tournament in Oshkosh. She pulled her legs up under her body and watched as he sat on the other side of the cake, his hands on his knees.
"You ordered it. You get the first bite," she finally said, breaking the slightly awkward silence between them.
With a smile, he grabbed the plate, handed her the fork and was surprisingly dexterous at breaking off a piece of the fluffy chocolate cake to put in his mouth. "See?" he said, mid-chew. "The trick is to be very delicate with the chopsticks."
Giggling, she dug her fork into the cake and shoved a large piece between her lips. "Mmmmm."
"So what's keeping you awake, Sarah Walker?" He paused, his warm eyes flicking up to hers quickly. "If you don't mind my asking."
"It's not important stuff. The usual things that flood your brain at night when you really just want to get some sleep."
"Like that time in seventh grade when Emily Thornton actually looked at you for once to ask if you had an extra pen and you said, 'sure course' instead of 'sure' or 'of course'?"
Sarah laughed. "I hate that."
"Yeah. It happened. I think about that and other stupid things I said or did, missed opportunities that are so supremely trivial, right before I'm falling asleep. And it's the most uncomfortable feeling and then I'm just lying there like whyyyyyy?"
"God, that's so true." She waited for him to get another bite of the cake before she took one of her own.
"The human brain is such a complex, insanely difficult, but wickedly fascinating thing, isn't it? I get why people study it so much." Then his eyes flashed up at the TV. "Oh, come on. These stupid assholes. Speaking of brains, these people have none. They go for the most expensive house. Every single time. Never fails. Because they want the big yard. But they're right next to the beach if they pick the other house. The beach would be their yard. And it's cheaper and the floor plan is nice and open. They get way more bang for their buck." She gave him a long look and he swallowed thickly, blushing a little. "Sorry. It's just…people on this show are stupid." He shook his head then. "But brains. Brains are…cool, er, and then sometimes they're kind of—well, they're mean."
"That's for sure," she agreed.
"Yup. Sometimes your brain is the biggest roadblock to success. Anxiety, nerves, overthinking things…trauma." He ducked his head, poking at the frosting on top of the cake with one of the chopsticks distractedly.
"Are you speaking from experience, Chuck?"
"Huh?" He lifted his gaze to her and opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, his shoulders sagging.
"Sorry, was that…too personal of a question?" She put the fork back in her mouth to lick some of the excess frosting off of it.
"No, not at all. I just didn't realize I was giving off the pity-me waves."
"You're not giving off pity-me waves." She frowned. And then something occurred to her. "Does it have anything to do with why you aren't going to the Olympics for ski jumping?"
He was silent, and a bit brooding.
"We don't have to talk about that. We can go back to making fun of these stupid people for discounting an entire house because of the paint color of the walls in one room. Like they can't just repaint it, am I right?" She snorted and shook her head.
He chuckled. "You're right. I hate when they do that. But um…it's okay. It's common knowledge…sort of. Not really, but sort of. The extra stuff I managed to keep private because people didn't care about a guy that got twentieth place in Sochi."
She was quiet, just watching, waiting patiently for him to continue.
Chuck licked his lips slowly. "A year after Sochi, I was competing in the World Cup in Klingenthal. The winds were pretty dead, which isn't what you want when you're a ski jumper. We really like the winds up there."
"Oh yeah?"
"Mhm. Sometimes it picks up your skis and carries you a bit further. They take down drafts and up drafts into account in your score, of course, but it still helps a lot. So we were all sort of put out. Ski jump without wind isn't as fun. We like that unpredictable variable, having to adjust in the air, adjust take off and ski placement and how high or low our bodies are. It's a whole…thing." She nodded. "But on this day, there was just nothing up there. It was crazy…almost eerie. Anyway, the only thing that'll really cancel a ski jump tournament is a straight up blizzard, so we went ahead with the jumps that night. I buckled into my skis, got into place, and zzzooooom! Down I went." He seemed to be pointedly looking down, not at her, as he relayed the story, and she wondered why. Was he embarrassed? Was this too personal? "I was prepared for no wind. I had this whole plan—just shoot out as flat and straight as possible, not get too high. But then right as I left the ramp, this insanely strong gust just came out of nowhere. I wasn't ready for it at all." He stuck his pointer finger and middle finger out to form a 'v' like a peace sign, then with his other hand, pushed back on them hard. "The wind just shoved my skis back and it was so violent and sudden that my right ski snapped off. The ski came down and caught on the snow, lurched me forward with only one ski still attached to my left foot. But I was so off-balance that I just smacked into the ground and bounced with my ski getting twisted under me. I flew down the slope, bouncing over and over, just boom…boom…boom…The ski finally broke right in half at the bottom, shot up, and cracked me right in the chin. I was unconscious by the time I stopped at the bottom."
Sarah dropped the fork in the plate and covered her mouth with both hands. "Holy shit."
"Yeeeahh…It was bad. Internal bleeding, lots of broken bones, bruises all over. But the lovely German doctors took care of me, saved my life. I mean, obviously I'm fine now. No permanent damage…physically. But, uh…I definitely ended up with nightmares." He let out a low whistle and she couldn't help reaching out to put a hand on his arm. The thought of what it must have looked like to see that, the horror of it…let alone living through it…
The terror she felt just sitting here listening to him talk about it…
"Just being that high up and seeing the ground coming closer so fast, and you have no control. You just have to brace for impact and hope you don't die. The image still haunts me sometimes."
"Chuck, that's horrific. I had no idea."
"Don't go on Twitter. Some of the Bryce fans have been sharing the YouTube video of it. You can watch the ski snap and shoot into my chin in slow motion. I, uh, I can't watch it."
"Fuck those people. You could have died," she snapped, feeling almost a little bit vicious. People were absolute monsters on social media, when they had a fake name and fake picture they could hide behind.
"Trust me, I know." He chuckled good-naturedly and offered her the plate so that she could take the last piece. She smiled her thanks and took it, putting her fork on the plate and letting him set it all to the side."Anyway, I have a fear of heights now. Which is embarrassing. And I haven't strapped into a pair of skis since then. Also embarrassing. But I dunno, I just…I can't do it again. You hear about people crashing in their sport and they jump right back into it the second they're healed, but that's just not how things worked out for me. I neeever wanna do that shit again." He shook his head vehemently.
Sarah nodded, eyes wide. "I don't blame you at all. Some of these winter Olympic sports seem insanely dangerous. That's why I was so surprised to see you'd done ski jumping."
"I know. I really don't seem like the type." He laughed self-derisively. "But I was once."
"No, it's not that. I'm not saying you don't seem like you have the guts or anything. Ski jump is just such a particularly nuts thing to get into, no matter who you are."
"It so is. I just loved spending my weekends in Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead on the weekends, and when Ellie really started competing professionally, got a coach and everything, we'd go up to Mammoth. I was picked up by a ski jump coach who saw me going off these big hills without fear. He called me crazy, started taking me to the jumps and stuff." He shrugged. "I should see how Rye is. He, uh…He wasn't happy with me when I quit."
"Well, what the hell did he want from you after all of that? That's a lot to ask of somebody."
"No, I think he sort of got it. But he held out that I'd change my mind eventually. Not gonna happen, though."
"I'm sorry you went through all of that. Must have been really hard."
"Yeah. And expensive." He chuckled. "Ellie and I really had to combine forces to pay off those medical bills and the physical therapy, all of the rehab I had to go through, and the brain evaluations to make sure there wasn't permanent brain damage. Jury's still out on that," he joked, pointing at her, and she laughed, shaking her head.
"Shut up. Your brain is just fine. I saw what it's capable of today."
"It has its moments. Curling kind of, uh…rescued me, you could say."
"How so?" She inadvertently leaned in closer, their shoulders brushing.
"I spent months on the couch, not working, not skiing, not doing anything but vegging on TV and video games, eating cheesy puffs and drinking Mountain Dew."
"Ugh, Mountain Dew? Really?"
"Haven't touched it since, I promise."
"Mountain Douche."
He laughed hard. "Trust me, I know. I was at a really low point. Like, super low."
She gave him a part teasing, part understanding smile, and unconsciously slid her hand over his where it rested on his leg.
"Ellie finally dragged me off the couch, made me shave, and forced me to Illinois for a week with her and Devon to visit his family. While they were out on the slopes and stuff, Ellie bought me a wristband to get into this curling tournament up there. So I, um, I went with her one day, Morgan the next, and by myself that last day. I found myself…" He blushed then, and she couldn't figure out why, but she did finally realize he'd turned his hand over at one point and was holding hers. Their fingers fit together really nicely. It felt good. But was he really blushing over holding her hand? Or was it something else…?
"I found myself super drawn to the sport. By the third day, I'd sort of figured out most of the rules. You—I mean, it was great. Seemed fun. Anyway, I got home and found a local club and it got me out of the apartment, got me back into a place where I could start working, too. I found some purpose again. It was really fun and I met a lot of cool people. And that was when Beckman approached me…the rest is history."
"It's nice to hear someone talk about curling the way I feel about it."
"I really love it. It's just so much fun. And I don't have to worry as much about dying, which is a plus. And now I'm being paid to do it. But best of all, I'm being paid to have Sarah Walker as my partner."
She squeezed his hand tighter as he turned his head to face her, and their eyes met. "That's sweet, Chuck," she breathed, her heart starting to race.
"I mean it," he said quietly, his eyes like warm honey, so sincere and almost sparkling in awe. "You're pretty extraordinary. Not just as a curler, but also as a person."
Sarah wasn't sure what to say. But they both leaned in even closer…she tilted her chin up, their lips just barely brushing, and then she was flooded with one million conflicting thoughts, and she quickly pulled back, sitting up ramrod straight. She realized her hand was still wrapped up in his and she took it back, folding it together with her other hand in her lap, looking down. "Sorry, I just—"
Just what?
Just one million things. So many things that crashed over her all at once. And it was so overwhelming that she couldn't even seem to give him one reason. She shut her eyes tightly and huffed.
"I'm sorry, Chuck. I'm going to go to sleep. I-I'm tired." What a liar. She was such a liar. "Thank you for sharing your cake with me. Enjoy your HGTV," she rushed out, gesturing to the television. Why was she such a damn moron? Just get out. Get out! "Good night."
As she rushed back to the door between their rooms, she felt so ridiculous. So frustrated. And she hated the idea of looking at his face at that moment because he must think she was absolutely insane. But as she opened the door, she stopped again, glancing just barely over her shoulder but not sneaking even half a peek at his face. "Sorry," she breathed, and then she disappeared into her room, shutting the door tightly and turning off all of the lights, climbing into bed without even checking her phone.
Now there was no damn way she'd be falling asleep.
-oooo-
It was a really bad cliché.
Running into your crush after working out in the gym for over an hour, covered in sweat, mouth breathing, clothes sticking to you in the worst places, smelling terrible…
But as he nearly knocked Sarah onto her backside, having to reach out and grab her by her biceps to keep her on her feet, he knew there was a lot more making this moment awkward than just the way he currently looked and smelled.
"Jesus! I'm sorry, Sarah! You okay?"
"Yeah." She gave him a smile and took a step back, shouldering her gym bag again. "I'm okay."
"Good." He nodded. "I, um…I was just working out."
She swept her eyes down him and lifted them back up to his face again quickly. "Yeah, I-I see that."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
Three and a half weeks had passed since that night in his Mammoth hotel room, and the subsequent bomb that was the next (and last) day of the bonspiel. They'd lost those last two matches that next afternoon. The two of them were just not gelling the way they had the days before. That brain meld that had carried them through three wins the first two days wasn't there on the last day. They'd dropped the ball…or rock, as it were.
And that stinging feeling of Sarah practically running back into her room after he almost kissed her had stuck inside of his chest that whole day. It stuck in him the next day, and then the next day. And every day since then. It was the last thing he thought of before falling asleep. It was the thing he thought of at four in the morning when his body woke him way too early, the thing keeping him tossing and turning, unable to get back to sleep.
He decided that he would do whatever he could to minimize Sarah's discomfort since this wasn't her fault. And that meant giving her space, trying to keep her from having to be in an awkward or uncomfortable situation by keeping himself away in the times outside of training. He put his all into training, into scrimmages with the other curlers on the team, and then when it was over, he tiptoed around her.
Chuck was still incredibly embarrassed. And he knew he was immature, that it was out of character, but he hadn't apologized yet. It was just too mortifying to bring up again. So he spent a lot of his time around training in coffee shops, at the gym, and on the rare occasion, playing video games with Tyler and Mark, or playing Destiny online with Morgan. He even spent time with Ellie, Devon, and their friends from the ski scene. He loved them both dearly, but he didn't entirely fit in with their friends. He tried anyway, because it seemed better to be there than at home alone with Sarah, making her uncomfortable.
This way she could have the apartment to herself, and not worry about having to leave and go somewhere else to keep from being in that uncomfortable position.
He wasn't going to make her be the one to change her schedule. He wasn't going to make her be the one going out of her way to have to avoid him, stay out of the apartment to keep from spending too much time around him. He thought that time passing might alleviate the awkwardness, giving her space might make things better between them, comfortable of that had happened.
He just hoped she knew he didn't expect anything from her.
God, and after her relationship with Bryce, he'd seriously tried to kiss her? What in the hell had he been thinking that night? He had no reasoning for why he crossed the line like that. What if she thought he'd expected her to be open to romance with her new partner after her relationship with Bryce? He was so stupid. So stupid. This was the worst. He was so mortified and ashamed.
"Chuck?"
He jolted back down to earth and cleared his throat. "S-Sorry. I—Yeah?"
"I asked you if you're okay…?"
Chuck nodded. "Oh, yeah. Yep. I am. I…You know, I maybe went a little too hard, too long in the gym. Maybe overdid it with the weightlifting." He paused then tilted his head and made a face. "Which is definitely not something you ever would've caught me saying two months ago."
She giggled. "Welcome to mixed doubles."
"Ha. Welcome to the muscle show." He flexed teasingly, trying to ease the tension between them. "At least, that's the goal."
She giggled again. "Yeah, I guess." Her tongue flicked out to lick her lips and he hated himself for noticing.
The thing was, there was nothing seriously wrong between them. Their training sessions went well, workouts went well. Everything was seemingly fine. But they were just…off-kilter. Not on the same page.
The balance they were supposed to be finding simply couldn't be found…
Granted, the fact that they didn't spend much time together in the same room anymore when they weren't training might add to that.
And before he could think much about it, his mouth just…damn well went off.
"Actually, Sarah, I-I really owe—"
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"
He stopped, frowning, and Sarah turned to glance down the hallway in the direction from which the loud yell came.
Without saying another word, they met gazes and both decided to find out what Anna Wu was yelling about.
When they got to the lounge, Chuck saw most of his fellow Team U.S.A. curlers crowded around Anna as she sat at one of the desks with her laptop open in front of her. They were all looking at her screen. Chuck heard one of them say something about Bryce, but then they all slowly, one by one, looked up and noticed that he and Sarah had come into the room. Silence fell over them immediately.
None of them were looking at were all looking at Sarah.
He exchanged another confused look with her.
"What's going on?" she asked them then, turning back.
"Uh…" Anna seemed to not want to say.
But Chuck wanted to know what they'd all been looking at and talking about before turning silent as the grave when Sarah arrived. So he left his partner's side and gently nudged his teammates out of the way to jostle for a position behind Anna.
The first thing he saw was a picture of Bryce and Sarah in a promotional photograph, in black polo shirts and pants that were a dark shade of magenta. They each had an arm around one another, curling brooms in hand, exchanging a bit of a smirk. It made him feel…not good. He was only human and in spite of knowing he had no right to be jealous, that gross squirmy feeling in his chest was there.
But worse was the headline underneath it: Bryce Larkin is back!…Sort of. And under that, The retired pro curler heads to PyeongChang to provide NBC's commentary for the curling events.
Shit.
This was shit.
"He better not be on my plane," Casey snarled. "I'll throw 'im off of it. With a parachute that has a hole in it. He'll think he's safe for a while, wearing a parachute 'n all, and then he'll pull the chute and come to the sickening realization that there's a hole in it. The sudden switch from thinking he's safe to knowing he's gonna die would be excruciating."
"I like it," Anna murmured.
Chuck looked back and forth between them for a moment. "You both need help."
He turned back to the screen then and so focused on his own avalanche of bad feelings that he didn't notice Sarah approach until she wedged up next to him.
The room was silent for a while, but then he heard her let out a long breath.
Without another word, she walked out of the room altogether. Everyone stood still, unmoving. Chuck wanted to go after her, chase her down, make sure she was as okay as was possible, considering her ex-partner and ex-boyfriend would literally be providing color commentary to her own matches for pretty much all of America to hear and watch. The saga of the break-up of America's Curling Couple would continue for everyone to see live on television. What a juicy bit of drama for the masses.
And how devastatingly unfair to Sarah, and to a much lesser degree, Chuck as well. It was pretty low for them to offer a contract to Bryce, but they needed viewership, didn't they? Jerks.
He wanted her to know he was here with her, though. And he knew how old school and presumptuous it sounded, but he wished he could protect her from this melodramatic shit show, and help make it so that she could focus on her game the way he knew she wanted to.
God, Twitter and the rest of social media would have a field day with this.
He had to go after her and make sure she was okay.
But then Jane sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, almost as if she knew what he'd been about to do. "I'll talk to her."
As she walked out of the room to follow Sarah, Chuck felt the way the mood of the room plummeted.
Everyone here cared for Sarah Walker. She was more than just a teammate. He'd seen the way they rallied around her, as subtly as possible considering the way she was. Her independence and…well, he didn't know much about her background, really, but he imagined whatever it was might lend to the way everyone sort of tried to keep her from knowing that they were taking care of her. He'd observed quite a bit when he first arrived months earlier. Bryce hadn't been afforded the same treatment, and when he'd pulled that crap and abandoned the team, and Sarah mostly, the antipathy was strong—for lack of a better word.
Chuck backed away from the article, not even wanting to know what the hell Entertainment News had to say about the once It Couple of sports, not wanting to know what they had to say about Sarah Walker in general.
The last three weeks, he'd found himself getting lost in the social media rabbit hole, letting the negativity get under his skin. Some curling fans were predicting these Olympic games in PyeongChang would be the last of Sarah's career in the sport. And her team-up with the failed ski jumper and curling nobody Chuck Bartowski would implode soon into the tournament.
A zero out of seven record was predicted for the mixed doubles round-robin.
They said it would be too much for Sarah and she'd quit altogether, become a recluse, because she was the one in the couple who was less outgoing. The "Ice Queen" would build herself a castle out of ice and stay in it forever, causing there to be Winter forever, they joked, using pictures of that white-haired Disney princess from that one movie with all of the plot holes and that loud, stupid snowman.
Some of the posts were just about him. There were all sorts of theories about why he was on the team in the first place. Some said he'd known he'd never make it in for ski jumping so he picked the easiest and safest looking sport, but that he had no idea how in over his head he was. Others said Sarah had wanted a pretty boy to replace the one she'd lost in Bryce, but that the coaches had missed the memo on the "pretty" part. Some thought nepotism had kept Chuck on the U.S. Olympic Team, with his sister, brother-in-law, and best friend Morgan Grimes all competing in snow events, so they tossed him onto Sarah Walker's team because she was already on her way out…Without Bryce, where else could she go?
Each one was more insulting than the last, all questioning his ability in the sport. Some made digs on his looks in comparison to Bryce's, others harped on his athletic failures in the past.
It all just went on and on and on and on.
He knew how insanely lucky he was to be where he was.
Being in the Olympics again was a dream come true. Being handpicked by the curling team's coaches to partner with the best curler in the country for the first ever mixed doubles curling event in Olympic history was more than a dream come true. Because he'd never even dared to dream it could happen in the first place.
Maybe there was some truth to the Twitter slander.
Because in spite of being given this amazing opportunity he hadn't even begun to deserve, he'd gone ahead and done something so damn stupid that it could've potentially ended it all. If Sarah wasn't as good of a person as she was, it would've ended. And he wouldn't have blamed her for it.
He was such a damn idiot.
He'd tried to kiss her like a hormonal teenager, an entitled hormonal male teenager, which was exceptionally worse.
It was an hour later when Chuck finally left the showers, his bag over his shoulder, ready to just get home and maybe lose himself in a few hours' worth of exploring and arrowing some machine-animals in Horizon Zero Dawn.
As he strolled down the hall, his mind preoccupied with everything that had happened that day, Lester Patel swerved around the corner.
He pointed at Chuck as he walked towards him. "Chuckiiiiie. Leaving in a few days for the PC in the SK, huh?"
"What?" Chuck frowned in confusion, stopping to face the much shorter man.
"My man, c'mon. PyeongChang. South Korea."
He narrowed his eyes, then rolled them, shaking his head. "Oh. Right. Uh, yeah. I am."
"Listen, mon amigo. Don't be nervous, though. All you can do is your best, right? No matter how our girl Sarah performs."
He felt his hackles rise a bit. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, this whole Bryce thing. I was in the room. I saw how she reacted to finding out he's gonna be there…watching. One, she def isn't over him. Trust me. I know women. And two, that whole couples curling thing worked really well for her, but el solo? Ehhh not sure she can really—"
But the small, greasy-haired man couldn't get much else out before a red screen fell over Chuck's eyes and he had the guy's white button-up in his fist. He hoisted the guy in the air so that his feet dangled a few inches over the floor and he shoved his back against the wall.
"Wha—? My grandma bought me this shirt for my birthday! I—" he tried to squeak, but Chuck cut him off.
"I'm a generally non-violent man, Lester, but if you ever say anything even remotely similar to what you just said where Sarah can hear it, I'll kick your ass." He got another scared squeak in response, and he felt bad about it, calming down enough now that he set the guy on his feet and released his shirt from his fist. "Actually, just don't repeat that bullshit about her at all. Whether she's around or not. Got it?"
"Eeep?"
"Do. You. Understand. Me?"
"Y-Yes." He cleared his throat, running his hands down his shirt nervously. "No, I'm—I'm all about that plan. I'm—Yes, indeedy. I will spread it across the land. I mean, not—I mean the opposite of that. I'm all about this combination. So serious. Team Charah. All the way." He lifted a fist by his head. "Charaaah. Yaaaay."
Chuck just walked away, then, striding out of the hallway into the main lobby and heading for the Curling Center's front door. He was still sore enough, and distracted enough, that he didn't notice anyone else who might've been within earshot of the altercation he'd just had with Lester Patel.
A/N: I'm so excited for you to read the next chapter. So so so so so so excited. Please please please please please come back. Please come back to me and my little Olympic AU of a story. There's curling ahead and I know that sounds so boring BUT I PROMISE IT ISN'T BORING AT ALL.
Please leave a review! Spread this story far and wide. Give it to your grandma. Tell her it's better than Reader's Digest. That'll get 'er!
-ESC (eeeeevillll)