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: Yes, these chapters have been shorter than I usually make them. It's made it a hell of a lot easier to edit and I'm enjoying that perk a whole lot! So I'm not sorry about it. The work has been cut in half, and the product remains the same. Love this for me. Hope you enjoy this chapter. There's lots of Charah.
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.
They stopped their instruments, holding them by the frets and pulling them up by their shoulders in the beat of silence, the warehouse getting eerily quiet for a split second as the audience watched with rapt attention, and in swung Dylan's voice, chanting the last lyrics of the song she'd written with his gravelly singing voice in mind.
Perfect execution.
Stepping up to the front of the stage, they bowed, the small crowd they'd invited going wild.
This time, they weren't coming back onstage. Now, they got to party like everyone else.
So she packed away her bass, winding up the wires, chatting with her bandmates.
Per usual, they cleared the stage before she did, as she liked to give it a once over for anything they might have missed. Too many times Mac and Dylan left stuff lying around and then it took weeks to find it again. She swung the wound amp wires from where she'd perched them on her shoulder down into the cloth tote where they kept them, shoving it inside.
"Need any help with that?"
Furrowing her brow a bit, she turned and saw a man she'd never seen before, and certainly hadn't personally invited here, standing at the base of the steps that led onto the stage, one hand on the railing, his head cocked a bit.
He reached up to slowly remove the sunglasses he'd been wearing, folding them and tucking them into his inner pocket on his suit jacket.
"Uh, nope. All finished up."
Anyway, why the hell would she ever let a stranger touch her stuff? That was a big fuck no.
"Ah, I see. Good, good."
Sarah sent him a polite smile, straightening up and heading for the stairs, climbing down them and meaning to walk around him to join the guests.
"What a great show. Incredible. So powerful. You could really feel the passion in it, you know? From you, all of you. But…your vocals in particular are very special." It sounded flat, like he was just talking, saying something to fill the space. But he looked and felt very out of place here, in his fancy tailored suit and his expensive shoes, not a hair out of place. This was the anti-metal-fan. Why was he here?
She paused, raising her eyebrows. "Thank you."
"I'm Barker. Cole Barker."
He stuck out his hand and she decided she should probably shake it to be polite so she did, a weak, limp shake, and she let go immediately. "Sarah."
"Ah. Sarah. Good, good. I'll get to the point. I've got a client trying to sell his product; we're looking for a band. Someone relatively unknown, extreme talent, like your band. Real firecrackers, you are."
He followed her as she moved to grab another water out of one of the drink tubs. She twisted the cap off and downed half of it.
"Yeah, thank you. We've got contact info on the flyers by the door. On the back. Email and phone number and all that. We have a guy who does our booking. Name's Bob."
"Ah. Oh, good. You have someone hired for that. Good, and I can contact him?"
"Sure." He slipped a card into her hand and she glanced at it distractedly, her eyes roving the room. She found familiar faces and smiled. "Thanks for this." She lifted the card.
"You'll hear from me, Sarah. Well, Bob will. But you will, too."
She was sure she would, she just didn't know if she could trust what he'd just laid down. Guys had come after her like this before, only every time it was a lot of empty promises. Nothing had actually come from any of it, because they hadn't actually had the connections, hadn't tried, and had wanted to get into her pants instead.
Sarah Walker wasn't an idiot and she saw the way this Cole guy was checking her out.
She decided to put some distance here like she usually did when these types approached her. Had one of her bandmates invited him because he was the real deal, maybe? And maybe she was just untrusting, prejudiced, and was being a brat?
She didn't know. She'd deal with it later.
"Nice to meet you," he was saying to her as she walked away.
"Yeah, likewise. Thanks," she shot over her shoulder.
Leaving him behind, she tucked the card in her pocket, headed for the group, and held up her bottle in greeting. "Heeeey!"
They cheered, accepting her into their circle, exchanging hugs. This was the only group of coworkers she'd actually bonded with in her endless litany of dead-end retails jobs. Her ragtag rebels from the indie record store she'd only been able to work at for six months before her grandma got sick and she had to stop working altogether for a few months to care for her until she passed.
She actually kept in touch with these people, even if they weren't close friends. And they came to her gigs whenever they could. They were good people. And she felt a blossom of warmth in her chest as she leaned against one of the cement blocks in the corner of the warehouse they hadn't been able to figure out a use for. It was just there, pressed into the wall. Mac had covered it with a table cloth once and they'd all laughed at him. "At least I'm trying!" he'd pouted at the time.
Minutes passed, and she found herself cracking up at Paul's anecdote about a customer he'd had to deal with earlier that day. The amount of times someone had wandered in to ask if she could help them find an album with a "black cover", as if that wasn't seventy-five percent of all albums.
Their conversation became more related to the day to day grind and "office" gossip then, stuff she was no longer privy to, and her brain half-wandered, aware that she'd been a little standoffish with that guy with the slick hair and sunglasses. He had a producer air to him now that she thought about it, but the way he talked, it felt like he hadn't been to rock shows, or maybe any music shows.
Maybe it was just the British accent that made her not trust him. She had an inherent distrust of British men, all smarmy and know-it-all. One of them had hurt Zondra Rizzo bad—bad enough that Sarah squirmed at the sound of the accent now.
She was probably just being unfair about the accent and her rudeness might've potentially turned off an actual producer or promoter or something, someone who could actually get Critical Hellfire some attention.
Or maybe a good paycheck for once?
Had she just fucked that up magnificently? She'd die in the worst way.
Before she could spiral too hard, though, she felt someone walk up and stop near her. She turned and glanced up to find the Games N Rock Sessions guy with the curly-hair standing there a bit awkwardly, hovering, an unsureness to him, the look on his face tentative. As if he wasn't sure he should've come over in the first place.
"Hi," she chirped, smiling at him, hoping it set him at ease. She didn't exactly want to be unapproachable to everyone in the joint.
"Hi. Hey." He pulled his hands out of his pockets only to clasp them together in front of him, shifting his weight nervously. "Do you think you'd be interested in finding somewhere to talk?"
It didn't sound like business, some offer to appear on his Twitch channel or maybe a connection he had in the industry. It sounded like he just wanted to talk.
…And she decided she didn't mind that.
So she nodded. "Yeah. Sure. Follow me."
Sarah pushed up to her feet, turning to her ex-Rick's Records colleagues and now-friends and put her hands on the shoulders of the nearest of the bunch. "Hey, thank you for coming, guys. Love you. See you later, huh? Keep in touch? I'll stop by to get a few things soon."
They waved and she grinned, backing away from them. An idea sprung into her head as she faced Chuck again. "I know a place if you're game. C'mon, the elevator's behind the stage."
"Elevator? Cool. I don't mind chatting in an elevator. Cozy. Unless it's one of those old haunted ones with the diamond-shaped gates? That's the kind of thing that could get a guy cursed for all time."
Sarah giggled, sending him a look over her shoulder. "The elevator's going to take us to the roof. There are stairs if you prefer, but that's on the other side of the warehouse." She paused, stalling her sure gait. Maybe he actually had a fear of elevators?
"No, no. Wow. Okay. Jesus. Duh. We're not—We're using the elevator to get to a—Right. Because why would we hang out in an elevator? I don't…"
She laughed, squeezing his elbow reassuringly, as he seemed legitimately embarrassed. "C'mon, I'll give you a pass on that one."
"Gee, thanks," he chuckled good-naturedly. And he stuffed the hand that wasn't holding a half empty beer in his pocket, leaning against the wall beside the elevator as she pressed the button to call it down. "So just out of curiosity, how many passes do I get tonight?"
Raising her eyebrows, she tugged the grate covering the elevator up and he dove in to help. They ducked under and he helped her shut it again, before she pressed the button for the roof. "Are you expecting you'll need a lot of passes?"
"I'm not sure yet. Depends on if I've got Foot-In-Mouth syndrome super bad tonight or if it's just my usual case. I ask because I just wasted one on something real dumb."
He gave her a flat look that amused her to no end.
"So what you're saying is, play it by ear."
He laughed and she felt a strange sensation in her chest. It was probably the movement of the elevator as it took them to the roof. She'd only heard that laugh through laptop speakers, the stupid amounts of streams in the archive she'd watched earlier that day, enamored with the little Twitch channel and its hosts.
Host.
He'd put on a suit, she just realized. He'd worn a suit to a rock band gig, and it looked almost like it could be vintage, from the 'eighties maybe. A hand-me-down? Or had he bought it at a thrift store? And he'd done something to try to control the curls.
Earlier tonight at the cooler when she met his co-host and best friend, she'd noticed his hair had looked different, without the free wildness, curls popping up on top of his head, when he did the streams. Then again, he wore big headphones and they smashed down his hair.
Now the curls were starting to poke up from his attempted taming. He'd been dancing, like he said earlier, in spite of not liking dancing. No wonder his hair was losing the control he'd worked to inflict on it.
They pulled up the grate and ducked under, sliding it back in place again, and she looked up at him with a smile. "Thanks."
"No prob."
But then he turned and his jaw dropped as he cast his gaze around her makeshift rooftop oasis. Well, it was a chill-session oasis, less of a water with palm trees in a barren desert sort of thing. She and her bandmates had set up water-resistant couches, one of which a couple she didn't know was currently using to make out heavily. Good for them, she guessed. But if they tried to pass certain bases on one of her couches, she was kicking them back downstairs, damn it.
He gestured to the water tower at the corner of the roof. "That got grain in it or something?"
She laughed. "No, this warehouse isn't used for anything like that anymore."
"Oh, okay. Sorry. Stupid question."
"Not at all."
It was more cute than stupid.
Then he pointed to the tilted long glass windows that looked down into her loft. Well, they would at least. If she got them cleaned. She liked the privacy that the dirt and grime caking them gave her. Not that anyone just hung out on her roof unless Critical Hellfire were hosting a gig like this here.
"Those are cool."
"Yeah. A lot of these old warehouses on the outskirts of downtown have been outfitted with this kind of stuff. They can charge exorbitant prices for a loft living space with lots of natural light, yeah?"
He sipped his beer. "I don't remember seeing those from downstairs. And trust me, this place is super rad, Morgan and I were looking at the stuff hanging from the ceiling and the cool art on the walls, so I would've noticed the slanty windows."
"No, this looks into the second level. We've got two stories. Just doesn't seem like it because that first story is a warehouse and the ceilings are way high. But the second story is there; it's been made into a loft. I live there."
Sarah moved to perch on the nearby slanted cement slab she typically laid herself out over when she needed to think and wanted fresh air. It was her favorite spot on the roof, in spite of the couches that maybe had a better view. She propped her boot on an air vent. But as she looked up, she saw that he was rooted to his spot. She pointedly gestured to the air vent and he shook himself, hurrying to join her, sitting on it so that she looked down a bit on him.
He didn't seem to mind as he glanced over his shoulder at the windows again. "That skylight looks down into your loft? Where you live? You live in this warehouse?"
"Yeah, it's mine."
"This whole thing is yours? Wow. Okay, that's seriously wicked. That's awesome. You can just go downstairs from where you live and make this epic music venue and invite people in. You own the whole building though. Damn." He lifted his beer towards her. "Cheers to that. Congrats."
She giggled, gently knocking his beer bottle with her water. "Thanks. I was pretty happy when I found this place."
He sipped his beer. "So that's why it's such an exclusive performance, huh? Invitation only. You only invite people you want here. Because it's your home. You actually live here." She nodded. "Now I feel a little honored. Me and Morgan made the list. That's pretty nice."
Sarah liked the crooked little smile he flashed her, holding his beer in both hands between his knees that stuck up as he planted his sneakers on the rooftop, his shoulders hunched a little forward. He seemed nervous, and that more than anything made her glad he'd pulled her out of the party to come up here.
She was glad he'd drummed up the confidence to do it. Already.
"Please. Your Twitch channel is pretty great, we had to invite you. You know, a lot of people watch that thing. More than I realized. That group I was with down there when you approached me?" He nodded. "I worked with them for a while a few years ago. They were like, 'Did you see that Chuck and Morgan are here? The GnR guys are here!' All excited and everything. You guys have your own little pocket of fame in the LA rock scene." She'd found herself grinning as she shrugged and informed them the 'GnR guys' were fans of Critical Hellfire now. Maybe it was a brag, but she was also weirdly excited that other people knew who Chuck and Morgan were and recognized them milling around at the show.
She didn't really get the sensation of excitement; it was excitement for them, even though she didn't know either of them at all. Weird the way her brain worked.
He shrugged, seeming a little bashful. "Uh, it's… I guess people recognize when you love what you do. It shows or somethin'. I believe that. Like when you guys—Critical Hellfire—are onstage. Shit's outta control. You folks put on a show. That's top notch spectacle, Sarah. And it works because you all seem like you love it. Love playing. Love making music. Making music together. It shows. That stuff is infectious. Crowd picks up on it. They have both times I've seen you perform now and I have no doubt all the times I unfortunately missed out because I didn't know y'all existed yet." He shook his fist at the sky, teasingly dramatic regret in his face.
Sarah found herself grinning hard at him, leaning her elbow on her knee and biting her lip. "Thank you for saying all that."
"No, I'm not just saying it. It's real. You guys are real." He made a fist again and clenched it in the air in front of him, shutting his eyes reverently.
The staid, talking-through-teeth sort of compliments she'd received from the sunglasses man—Barton? Banker? Shit, she should've remembered his name—didn't come anywhere close to this. Chuck's compliments were so genuine, even a little breathless.
So she was melting. She could admit that. She'd melted a little watching him do it on his Twitch show; it was even worse up here, sitting right next to him, watching it happen in person.
"I believe you!" She held up a hand in surrender and giggled, then leaned down to set the water on the ground, away from her so it didn't get kicked over accidentally. "I'm glad you guys came tonight. And I meant what I said earlier. I really appreciate the promotion—the band, we all appreciate that you guys promote us on your show so much. Mac, Dylan, and Zondra are fans. They were ecstatic when you first talked about our demo. They freaked out." She widened her eyes.
He chuckled. It was a sweet, kind sound. And she thought maybe because this was a sweet, kind guy she'd pulled up here onto the roof with her. "But they're the only ones who are fans?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. She winced and he chuckled again. "It's okay. I get it. We're probably a little grating to a lot of p—"
"No, you aren't. I mean, maybe you are to some people. Not to me, though. I just didn't know about you until my freaking jerk bandmates finally decided to show me one of your streams. I'm just late to the bandwagon, that's all. I really do love it. You guys have something special."
He ducked his head bashfully. "That's super nice. You don't have to stroke my ego, Sarah, okay? I'm using my vast platform to get Critical Hellfire out there anyway."
She laughed, nudging his shoe with her boot in consternation for the sarcasm about his Twitch channel.
"Hey, stop. Your platform is more vast than ours."
Chuck set his beer away from him and held up both hands. "Okay, point taken. I'll stop taking a dump on my Twitch channel and our platform."
"You guys do good work, that's all I'm saying. I appreciate the focus on independent, small bands who either aren't on a label yet or are on indie labels. You might not think it helps because you aren't, like…Billboard or whatever, but just being recognized is a huge boost. You made us feel seen." He'd made her feel seen. But she wasn't in a confident enough space to say that part.
They exchanged a long look, and a smile slowly grew across his lips. "I'm glad. That's kinda what we're about. It's what we want to be about, at least. That's something we'd like to hold onto as we, I dunno, move forward I guess."
"As you get a shit ton of viewers and become insanely popular the way you deserve to be?" she asked, looking at him through her eyelashes with a smirk.
"Oh. That's right. You don't know. I guess nobody knows really. I don't know if I'm…" He cleared his throat, squirming a bit where he sat on the air vent. "Well, this is hush-hush. Maybe. I'm not sure now that I'm saying it out loud. I mean, I don't know if I'm allowed to say anything. We haven't announced on our channel or social media accounts. 'Cause, frankly, we're still kind of not sure it's…real. It's like it's…too good to be true, kinda."
She sat up a bit straighter. "Announced what?"
"Well, don't tell anyone just in case, huh?" Sarah mimicked zipping her lips shut and he snorted cutely. "The other night, Morgan and I were approached by a producer who wants to give us a bigger platform than just our Twitch channel, somewhere with a bigger audience, something that'll give us more reach with gamers, with fans of rock, metal, all the metals."
Sarah leaned in closer. "What?! Are they putting you on TV or something?" Her heart began to race.
"A huge hosting website, apparently. Gets millions of visitors a day. They want to build a studio that looks like my basement for us," he said with a chuckle. "But with better production value than, ya know, me and Morgs setting up our webcam, TV, and video game consoles an' callin' it a day."
"Don't knock it. Apparently a shit ton of Los Angeles denizens are super into it exactly as it is." She raised an eyebrow, then shook her head, slicing her hand through the air. "But that's not to say this isn't fucking great! Wow! Chuck, that's big. You guys can expand your platform, do more of what you're so good at." She pushed a hand through her hair, grinning at the way he went pink, smiling with his lips trapped between his teeth. "I'm so happy for you guys. Seriously."
Chuck nodded, finally beaming at her. "Hey, thank you. Thanks. Yeah, it feels good." He stopped then, narrowing his eyes. "Actually, can I be honest?" She nodded, her insides warm in spite of the chill in the air as a nighttime breeze cut across the roof. "It happened last night. He gave us each super fat checks so we knew he was on the level, like an advance or something, and I'm still not sure how to process it all. Not the check. Not processing the check—I mean they do that for ya at the bank."
She laughed, shaking her head at him, charmed out of her mind. He chuckled cutely, sharing the joke with her, which made her like him even more.
"I mean, I don't know how to process this whole upgrade. They want to build a whole set that looks like my basement? I mean, what?! They're sending guys in with cameras to take pictures of it next week. Madness. Like, I'm over here freakin' out. Like, do I have to straighten up and do a huge clean-up of the basement? Are they gonna judge me if it isn't spotless? Or is that part of GnR's charm—the dust and clutter? Fuck, I dunno. And I don't even know if it's settled yet. Because I am starting to freak out a little. I haven't spiraled. Yet. And that's my go-to when a crazy change interrupts my existence. When I start spiraling, that'll be when I know it's really happening."
He really was being honest, wasn't he? It felt so new and different. She loved her friends, loved her bandmates, but this kind of unguarded, unfiltered honesty about feelings wasn't really something she shared with anyone else, nor did they share with her.
She wasn't raised that way. Her grandma had taught her the ol' stiff upper lip thing. They'd loved each other endlessly, and they'd never talked about anything personal. Which was how Sarah hadn't known about her fortune until after she passed.
"So yeah, I still haven't processed," Chuck was saying, yanking her out of her momentary melancholy. "One of these days, it's gonna land and I'm gonna have, like, a nervous breakdown." He chuckled self-deprecatingly, pushing his fist into his other open palm.
"A nervous breakdown? Shit, my guy, this is a good thing. Only good things can come from this. You better talk about Critical Hellfire on that show of yours once you're in a cool studio with a shit ton of fancy cameras and guys with those clacky things." She mimicked snapping a clapperboard.
He laughed. "I know, I know. I'm bad at change. But not as bad as Morgan is. So this is going to be a, um…voyage. To put it nicely. The two of us struggling to get our footing. I mean, Cole said it'll be very similar to how we're already doing things in my basement." He shrugged.
Sarah wasn't sure if that'd actually be the case or not. She was maybe more cynical than this guy seemed to be. He seemed to still have stars in his eyes, where she'd seen too much shit in her twenty-six years to have any of those left really.
"Maybe this will be exactly what you need. In a lot of ways."
"Well, it'll get me out of my basement at any rate," he drawled, making a silly face.
She cracked up, enamored with the way he clamped his teeth down on his tongue and wrinkled his nose with a cheesy grin.
"Ohmigod, Chuck?!"
Sarah turned to look towards the staircase where she heard the voice come from. A pretty brunette in a little black dress and glasses was grinning toothily at Chuck's back. But he didn't turn, strangely. Had he not heard?
"Chuck! Hey! Hi!" She waved at his back, as he continued to not turn. And as Sarah glanced back at him, she saw a look of utter misery mixed with annoyance on his face.
A/N: Who's that girl? It's the shittiest shit character in the whole Chuckiverse! That's who!
Please review if you're able to. This conversation continues in the next chapter. I'll post it soon!
Thanks!
-SC