Critical Hellfire

By Steampunk . Chuckster

Summary: Chuck and Morgan are co-hosts of a locally popular streaming channel in which they discuss all things metal while playing video games. Their lives are uprooted when their demo guy hands them THE demo of the ages—a band called Critical Hellfire, fronted by singer and bassist Sarah Walker. AU Charah.

A/N: I'm gonna do my best to keep plugging along editing posting this fic! In the meantime, I'm working on other fics of mine when the muse steers me in a direction. So for those of you asking about other stories in the reviews for this one, I am working on those too. It will all happen. It's just that I'm one person. And I'm getting zero cents for this, so I have to prioritize the job that is paying me. Thanks to those of you reading and reviewing. It really does help!

Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK or any of its characters. I don't own any of the songs mentioned in this chapter, this fic, or anywhere else for that matter. I am making absolutely zero dollars writing and posting this.

Her bandmates chatted with Morgan next to Mac's red Spider parked at the back of the lot behind Sinner's. Everyone she'd walked away from when she'd excused herself to use the restroom before they all went home for the night was there, at Mac's car. …Except for Chuck. She couldn't find Chuck.

Where was he?

In spite of telling him in particular that she'd meet him in the back parking lot, Sarah could only find Morgan, Zondra, Mac, and Dylan.

"Where's Chuck?" she asked as she wandered closer.

Dylan heard her and glanced in her direction, then he wordlessly smirked and pointed behind her.

She spun on her literal high heel, looking towards where he pointed.

Ah. There he was.

Enthralling a group of early-twenties Los Angeles denizens who most likely watched Games N Rock Sessions. She imagined they never missed a livestream. Apparently most people didn't, which still left her mind-boggled. How had she never known about it? Everyone in Sinner's had recognized the co-hosts of GnR.

Now she watched Chuck cut his hand through the air, regaling his fans with a story most likely, his face animated. They all laughed, enraptured by him. Charmed.

People actually liked this guy, genuinely liked him. It wasn't his apparent celebritydom that had them so interested in talking to him, either. It was just him, who he was. She'd never met anyone who was so good with people, so natural and easy. And still, she'd seen so many moments of genuine self-consciousness from him, and a lack of self-esteem that was kind of upsetting.

She squeezed Dylan's shoulder in thanks and left them behind to join Chuck and his little crowd of fans.

"—I looked up from where I laid in this big ol' pile of grapefruits and there he was: the legend himself, Ian Anderson. Right there. Hovering over me. Asking me if I was okay."

"No way, man! That guy stays in the UK. It couldn't have been him."

Chuck shrugged. "Okay, fine, it wasn't. But this guy looked just like him! Super nice guy, too."

They all cracked up and Chuck finally glanced over, noticing her waiting patiently nearby. He beamed at her. "Hey, folks. It was nice to talk to ya, but I've gotta head out, huh?"

"Wait, wait! Chuck, can we get a selfie maybe?"

Sarah reached out for the fan's phone. "Here. Lemme just take it for you. Even though this guy has freakishly long arms that are perfect for selfies," she added, winking at Chuck.

He sent her a grumpy little look, smirking, then slid into the middle of the four GnR fans, wrapping his arms around the shoulders of the two closest to him. His adorable, genuine smile lit up the dark parking lot as she took a few pictures.

"Hey, thanks, lady!" The guy took his phone back.

"You're welcome," she giggled as they staggered off, chattering excitedly.

Chuck slid in close, "Yeah, thanks, lady."

"Shut up," she admonished, wrinkling her nose and narrowing her eyes at him.

"Um, what's this about freakishly long arms?" He thrusted his arms out in front of him and looked down at them with a dubious, sweet little pout.

"Aw, I was teasing," she drawled, moving onto her tiptoes to press a slow kiss to his cheek. "I like 'em long."

He cracked up. "Wow. Okay. That's what she said."

"Oh Godddd," she groaned, grabbing his hand and tugging him to the side, deciding she didn't quite want to join the others just yet.

Even though she'd spent most of the night at his side, hands intertwined, arms linked, dancing, drinking, just enjoying one another's company, and the song she spent wrapped around his back like a koala while Zondra did the same on Mac's back beside her, both of them screaming the lyrics of the song and pumping their fists as the men beneath them cracked up. Morgan and Dylan took the cake when the former climbed onto the latter's back to join them halfway through the song.

She leaned in close again and kissed his cheek a bit closer to his ear, and she stayed there. "I was going to invite you back to my place, but after that terrible 'that's what she said' nonsense, I might just bite my tongue."

"Don't do that," he rushed out. "Don't bite your tongue. That's painful. We don't want that for your tongue." She laughed, surprised by his response and amused to no end by how quick he was with the funny. It was kind of a gift. "But also," he chuckled, "D'you mean that? You want me to go home with you?"

"I do," she said smoothly. She shifted her hand so that their fingers were threaded and she squeezed. "I want you to come over. What d'you sa—?"

"Yes," he said immediately. Then he sent her a look, raising one eyebrow. "You sure you wanna invite someone over who's this disheveled? Look at this. It got bigger." He turned, giving her a sad look as he showed her the tear in the seam of his deliciously tight suit jacket that emphasized his shoulder width.

She winced. "That might've been me. I probably shouldn't have jumped onto your back during that song but I was excited."

"I mean, it was a 'Number of the Beast' sing-a-long. I do not blame you at all. I was about to jump onto your back, only you beat me to it."

Sarah threw her head back with a happy cackle. "I could take it if you did."

"Ooooo baby, I'm sure you could." He let out a dorky (and still delicious) growl.

She giggled through her nose, and she reached back to finger the torn seam, inspecting it. "Come home with me. I like my men a little disheveled."

That made him laugh and she glared. "S-Sorry. I'm sorry. Ahem. That was just…really cute. You're a dork."

"You fucking take that back, you fuck."

He cracked up even harder and she even giggled a little, wrapping an arm around his upper back and holding him upright.

When he sobered up, she slowly pulled him back towards their friends. "You comin' or what?"

"Yeah." Then he screwed up his face in frustration, gritting his teeth sheepishly. "Shit, I do…have to bring Morgan home first. Is that okay?"

"Well, with what I have planned for you, it's probably best you don't bring him to my place with you." She gave him a look he wouldn't be able to misunderstand, biting her lip.

"Oh, I am taking him home so fast," he breathed.

She laughed, and by then, they reached the others. They said their goodnights, hugged, high-fived, and split off, but Chuck followed her to her car as Morgan waited inside of the Nerd Herder where it was parked in the street outside of the lot.

"So I'm seeing you later, yeah?" she asked him, leaning against the driver's side door of her car.

"Hell yeah. Like I said, just gonna drop off Morgan. I might also swing by my place to make sure Ellie knows I didn't get shivved at Sinner's. And I'll pick up some jammies in the meantime. That's what this is, right? A sleepover?"

She let out a bubbly giggle. "Jammies? A sleepover?"

Chuck blushed, looking genuinely embarrassed as he squirmed. "Sorry. I got too comfortable with you. I'm-I'm just teasin'. I mean, I can't exactly wear your clothes the way you wore mine at my place."

She glanced down, contrite. She didn't mean to embarrass him. There were moments when he seemed like a kid. A sweet, big-hearted kid. And that wasn't a bad thing, she simply wasn't used to being around someone who let things like that erupt out of them. The genuine joy in him was so infectious.

"Take all the time you need. I've got all night. But, uh…no sleeping bag, huh? There's room enough in my bed for two." She cupped his face and pulled him in for a steamy kiss, giving him a taste of what he had to look forward to later.

When they broke the kiss, he hummed, "Oh, I know. I experienced that phenomenon firsthand."

One minute he was talking about jammies and sleepovers, the next he was delivering delicious lines like that? He was keeping her on her toes and it freaked her out even as she loved it.

"See you soon," he breathed, pressing one more kiss to her lips.

She watched him look both ways and trot across the street to his car a few moments later, and she swung in behind the steering wheel with the biggest, most idiotic grin on her face.

}o{

Sarah craned her neck a bit to look at the clock on her bedside table. It was almost three in the morning and she wasn't even slightly tired. Even if she had to admit silently to herself (and only silently to herself) that her body might disagree. She'd just used very underutilized muscles…and she'd done it a whole lot.

She shifted against Chuck and propped her chin on his bare chest, peering up at him with a small smile.

He'd only taken a half hour or so to bring Morgan home, throw stuff in a backpack, and show up at the door of her loft with a jaunty little knock.

He was still wearing that delicious suit he'd apparently bought earlier, likely just for her all modesty aside, and it had done exactly what he intended for it to do. It awoke something inside of her that wasn't satisfied until she tugged him inside, locked the door, stripped him bare, and had her way with him.

Now, after well over an hour of exploring, he was grinning at the ceiling like the cat who got the cream. Normally, she'd be rolling her eyes at a guy having that look on his face after sex. But he'd one hundred percent earned the satisfied toothy grin he was wearing on his handsome face.

Holy shit, he'd earned it.

"Know what?"

"Hm?" he hummed deep in his chest. She felt it go through her own body, a pleasant tingle snaking through her.

"I'm really glad you didn't change outta that suit before you came here."

He moved up a bit more against the pillows so that he didn't have to crane his neck as badly to look at her. "Oh, yeah? Why?"

"Well, first of all because you look real damn good in it…" His eyebrows shot up and he blushed cutely. "But I also wanted to do this one thing…" She kissed his chest. "…for you." She kissed his shoulder. Then his jaw.

"Mhm…and, uh…what's…this one thing?" he asked, sending her something of a smolder.

She framed his face, rolling her body onto his, hunching forward a bit to kiss him with a certain heat. He let out a half-groan, half-whimper into her mouth, his hands starting to wander down her sides, to her hips.

But then she crawled off of him altogether, getting out of bed, leaving him alone, gaping at her as he propped himself up on his elbows, still on his back.

She padded across the room, her eyes roving her bedroom floor, scanning for…A-ha!

"What're you doin'?" he chuckled as she made a beeline for the suit jacket she'd admired so openly all night long.

She snagged it off of the floor, then went across her room to her desk, tugging open one of the side drawers and digging in it. "Rescuing this beautiful piece of clothing that you look beautiful in."

"Rescuing it?"

"Mhm." She found the kit finally, taking it out, sliding the drawer shut with her naked hip, and walking back to him. She'd give him a pass for the look he was giving her, the way his amber-colored eyes were eating her up. "Rescuing it," she reiterated, joining him in bed.

"Is that…a sewing kit?"

"It is."

"You sew?"

She pushed herself up against her headboard, propping a pillow behind her, and she flattened his jacket on her lap. "C'mon, I'm in a metal band. Do you know how many shirts and pants I've seen split at the seam? Fuckin' Mac jumping off of his seat too hard at the end of the song to come down and blast his drumsticks onto the cymbals." She mimicked it, which was hard to do while she trapped the sheets around her chest for an attempt at modesty, even bouncing on the mattress, making Chuck giggle adorably. She grinned. "He once tore his leather pants and put a dent in his drum all at the same time."

"What a badass!"

"I was gonna say he's an idiot. But sure, we'll go with badass. We're in the business of super tight pants, so yeah…I can sew."

"How'd you learn?"

She reached over to the bedside lamp next to her bed and twisted the neck of it so that it was angled at the suit jacket, and she squinted at the color of the thread, going through her kit to look for the right match. "My grandma taught me when I was a kid. Somethin' to keep me busy. I had a hard time sitting still and this gave me a reason." She giggled, pulling the black thread out, snipping it, and meticulously threading the needle.

"So you aren't scared you might drop the needle in your bed and have it get lost and you won't find it until you're like…" He made a yelp sound and reached back to rub his backside with a pained look on his face, making her crack up.

"You're such a doofus," she said through her laughter. "I mean, that's a good point. If I do drop the needle in here and we can't find it, from this point on, I'm letting you take bottom and I'll take top." She gave him a saucy wink.

Chuck gasped hard, his jaw falling open. And then he seemed to think about it, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips. "You know what? Worth it."

She laughed even harder. "Cut it out. I'm trying to freaking thread this needle, you butthole."

"Butthole!" he exclaimed. "Haven't heard that one since I was twelve. I love it."

Smirking, she finished threading the needle, then reached over his head, pointing at the bedside table on the side of the bed he was lying on. "Can you hand me that little black remote there?"

"Sure."

He did.

She smiled in thanks, then used the remote to turn on the stereo over in the corner. Music started, an epic crescendo of rock'n'roll with a whole orchestra behind it. She turned it down from where she'd had it blaring while she got ready to go out earlier on in the night. "Sorry," she explained when he gave her a questioning look. "I got into the habit of sewing with music on. It steadies my hands."

And she got to work.

"I'm not complaining. I will never complain about someone turning on Bonham's 'Wait For You'. A triumph if I ever heard one."

Sarah sent him an impressed look. "You know this one…?" He smiled and nodded. "You really do know your stuff, huh?"

"I'd better. My whole Twitch channel kind of revolves around it. And when a metal band uses a whole fuckin' orchestra, that's some very serious shit." She laughed. "You know your stuff too."

"Mmm. I'd better. Critical Hellfire mostly does covers."

"Well, yeah. That's where the party's at."

"Exactly," she giggled, tugging the pieces of material snug against each other and turning the needle to go back through in the other direction.

"I have a question."

"I might have an answer."

Chuck pushed himself to sit up, the sheets pooling in his lap. Was it that serious of a question that he felt the need to sit up all the way for it? Oh boy. She'd already blurted out her damn life story, her dad's hands-off parenting giving her a complex that made her let terrible guys pursue and catch her for her whole teen and adult life so far.

"Why bass guitar? What made you pick that over regular guitar, drums…? Or! did it pick you?"

Sarah stopped sewing, raising an eyebrow up at him. "That's a good question."

He snorted, then shrugged with teasing modesty. "Well, I mean…I ask good questions sometimes. Ya know, I have a Twitch channel…"

She giggled, sending him an amused but flat look, then went back to sewing. "It's a little of both." She paused, her fingers slipping a bit on the needle. She set it down, wiped her fingers on the covers to make them a little less clammy, and picked up the needle again. "I picked it, it picked me. Actually, you're not gonna believe this, but the first instrument I picked up was a violin."

Chuck gasped. "You played the violin?"

"Mhm." She smirked at him. "I was pretty good at it too."

"That doesn't surprise me at all."

She felt like that earned him a full smile and she winked. He smiled and winked back. She couldn't help noticing the way his curls stuck up, the definition of bedraggled. She decided she was very into it.

"Yeah, but it didn't…" She sighed. "I don't know. It was a thing I had to do because my mom told me she wanted me to do it. I was in fourth grade. I did what my elders told me to do back then." He chuckled and she smiled, preening a bit.

"I get it. You were a fourth grade virtuoso violinist but it didn't do anything to your heart."

Sarah stopped sewing, sending him a soft, long look, wondering how things seemed to just make sense with this guy. The way he listened, the way he just got it. "Yeah," she breathed. "That's it exactly."

"Mmm." He nodded, waiting patiently for her to continue. Listening. Always listening.

Biting her lip, she went back to repairing the seam of his blazer. Having something to focus her efforts on made her feel less out of her depth. "Like I told you before, Grams saw me in ways other people didn't, not my dad or my mom or my teachers or the school counselors, or my friends. When my dad skipped out on my twelfth birthday, I think she knew I was, um…heartbroken." She felt Chuck's frown against the side of her face and she studiously focused on sewing. "So she told me I could put down the violin if I wanted to. She asked me what I wanted to do instead."

"Your grandma sounds like she was rad."

"She was," she giggled, nodding, trying not to get bogged down by the genuine melancholy in her chest, knowing that this great supportive force in her existence was gone now. "I'd heard metal by then, fell in love with it, and I wanted to sing. So I told her that. That I wanted to sing. And she paid for me to take voice lessons at this little indie music shop downtown. You know how they have those back rooms where they give paid music lessons in those shops…" She glanced at him and he nodded, leaning in closer, still listening. "My voice teacher was great. She was so cool. She liked metal too and encouraged me a lot. Said I had raw talent. And she'd show me videos of, like… Heart and Lita Ford."

Chuck let out a cute, "H'ooooooo yesssss", biting his lip.

"I knooow," she drawled. "It was very effective. Had a huge effect on me. But she was also big on, like, teaching me to sing with knowledge of, um, the whole. Raising a whole musician and not just being like, 'Oh great, you can sing good, you're done', you know what I mean?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Makes sense."

"So she took me out of the little room where she'd been teaching me for a couple of months at that point. Jacks, the salesman, was out there pounding at this bass guitar one day and I was just, like…" She let her jaw fall into her lap, her eyes going wide. "Like a magic spell came over me. Then he let me put the strap on and hold it. It was fuckin' heavy, I remember. But he showed me how to pluck it and everything. I remember what he told me, too, that really pushed me over the edge."

"What?"

"He said that the bass guitar is the skeleton of a song. Everything else is built around it. The muscles, veins, organs, skin, that's the drums, the guitars, vocalists, whatever other instruments go in there—harmonica, flute…"

"Kazoo," he input, making her laugh.

"Sure, that too."

"I feel like a kazoo would be the hair. Or, like, the hat you wear over the hair?"

"You're such a weirdo."

"Yeah. I am." He gave her an adorable closed-mouth smile, propping his chin in his palm, his brown eyes sparkling.

Snorting, she continued. "But the skeleton holds everything up. If the skeleton wasn't there, it'd just be a grisly pile of person. But the skeleton gives it all a structure to exist within." Chuck nodded, his smile widening. "Anyway, I told my grandma how it felt playing it…like it got inside me somehow…"

"It did something to your heart?"

"Yes." She liked the way he slipped in that little callback there. "So my grandma took me back, and she let me rent a bass guitar, take lessons, all while continuing my voice lessons. I did not give a fuck about anything but that. I did what I had to in school and shit, but I didn't care."

"You just wanted to rock." He made his voice high-pitched like Dee Snider's and sang, "I wanna rooocckkk!"

Sarah chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that's what I wanted. Nothing else. Not much has changed since then either." She winked and reached out to nudge his arm with a closed fist, then finally finished sewing the tear closed, tying it off, carefully snipping the extra string. "There. Nice and tight."

"Tight was how we got here in the first place," he said with a wince. "The saleslady said it was supposed to be like this, by the way. Slim fit. Pffft."

"You really do look like a whole snack in it, for what it's worth. Like, having you wear this where my eyes could see it was worth having to sit here and sew the tear shut."

He blushed and it was so damn cute. "Hah. Thanks. I, um, I feel like it looked pretty good. In spite of the lady trying to sell it as hard as she was, telling me I looked good in it."

"Excuse me? Should I be jealous?" she joked.

"Please, no."

Sarah set the sewing kit to the side then, holding up the blazer in the air in front of her, looking at it from both sides. "Looks pretty good. Can't even tell. Put it on."

She thrusted it at him.

Chuck eyed it suspiciously. "If I put that on, I feel like I'm gonna barely move and what you just did will pop out again. And it will all have been for naught," he finished with a pretty good posh English accent, batting his long eyelashes.

"Uh, excuse me? No faith in my sewing skills? I sewed the shit outta that. It's not popping out." She thrusted the jacket at him again.

He took it with a sigh, giving her an indulging look, before he shrugged it back on over his shoulders, wearing it with nothing underneath.

Sarah bit her lip for his benefit, but it was also a pretty natural response to the very appealing sight of him wearing the blazer and nothing else. "Okay, hot. Now take it back off."

"What?" He scoffed. "You're making me crazy. Now you want me to take it off?"

"It's for a good reason," she said with an innocent shrug.

"Uh huh. And what's th—Oh," he breathed when she rolled closer and swung her leg over to his other side, straddling him, propping her elbows on his shoulders jauntily.

"What were you saying?" she asked with an innocent pout.

"I don't know. I don't know a single thing. Please do literally whatever you want right now. Immediately."

She threw her head back with a bark of laughter, then pushed at his suit jacket, taking it off of him again, tossing it towards the end of the bed, and diving in to kiss him, passion spilling through her, spurring her on.

A/N: WHOLESOME! Except also not.

Thanks for reading and next chapter will be up as soon as I can manage. These next two to three weeks at my job are going to be more insane than the English language can properly describe. Say prayers, spare thoughts, burn some sage, cast spells, whatever it is you do. I'd appreciate that.

Take care, see you all very soon! And if you have the time, please review. Thanks!

-SC