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: Getting closer and closer to ... things happening. And only a few hours away from Australia getting into its first ever World Cup final, men or women's! Let's just see if this A/N ages well! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! OI! OI! OI! Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter!
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.
Sarah walked slowly behind the duo, with their mismatched height, arms slung over one another's shoulders, and she smiled, admittedly a little heart warmed by how genuinely they adored and supported each other.
Without conditions.
Without fail.
"I think that went super well," Morgan said, glancing over his shoulder at Sarah, a grin taking up his whole face. "Like, super well."
"Yeah?" she asked, shyly.
Sure, after the episode ended, she'd gotten high-fives from both of the guys, they'd insisted backwards and forwards that it was one of their highest-viewed interviews, if not the highest-viewed, and that it would prove to be a great precursor for the performance.
She helped them break down what Morgan insisted was their "studio", making Chuck smirk at her and shake his head, as if sharing an inside joke.
Then Morgan announced it was time for him to bounce and she followed the co-hosts of Games N Rock Sessions out of the basement.
Now they halted beside Morgan's bicycle in the side yard behind a gate that led to the front. Chuck relinquished his hold on his best friend and pulled a key out of his pocket to unlock the gate and prop it open.
"They love you now," Chuck said warmly. "I don't know how often you had a chance to look at the chat while we were streaming, but they're Team Sarah. Fully. You charmed 'em hard."
She giggled, leaning with her back against the outer wall of the house, her hands folded behind her. "Hm. I don't know how. I absolutely failed at the Guitar Toy Game."
"But you tried, Sar. And, sorry, not to make you mad, but it was legitimately funny. Your reactions to the game were…" Morgan brought the tips of his fingers to his lips and did a chef's kiss. "Self-deprecating wit is what Chuck and I do and it's what our viewers love. You slipped right into it like a pro. They were eating it up. Trust."
She raised her eyebrows. "Okay, well, I'll take it." She waited for them both to look at her then and she glared back, pointing at them severely. "But I'm not playing that shit again. I'm sticking to the real thing, thanks."
"Fair," her boyfriend chuckled. "It isn't for everyone."
"It isn't for anyone with actual music talent."
His jaw fell open and she winced as Morgan let out an "Ooooohhhhhh shiiiiiit!"
She shrugged, hoping he picked up on the flirtatious glint in her eye. "Sorry…" she said with faux innocence.
"You are not," he drawled, a crooked grin on his face. "Not only are you not sorry, you're not wrong." He winced. "I cannot play an actual instrument."
"You could learn, I bet…"
He waved a hand through the air dismissively, then raised an eyebrow at her. "But hey, how 'bout you? I mean, how'd it feel tonight? We didn't scare you off, did we?"
Making a teasingly thoughtful face, humming, she snorted and tugged on his blazer. "It was pretty fun. Once we got to chatting, it felt like it all fell into place and my nerves just flew off like they were never there to begin with. A nonissue."
"Oh, good. I feel like the three of us had a pretty good rapport going on, too, yeah?" Chuck asked. Morgan made a face, almost as if he was going to say something and then stopped himself, shaking his head a little. Chuck must've seen it too because he turned to his friend with a dubious, "What?"
Uh oh.
"Hm? Nothin'…"
"Morgannnn…"
"Did I fuck something up?" Sarah finally asked, concerned. She faced him head-on. "You can tell me, Morgan. If I said something wrong or…offensive or…"
"No, no, no. No, not at all," he insisted, cutting her off, squeezing her arm. "I do have, erm, a note. Just a small note. Itty bitty." He held up his pointer finger and thumb close together between them, squinting with a wince.
"For me?" she asked. So she had messed up something…
"For both of you, I guess. Ahem." He squirmed. "Remember how we sat down at the warehouse a few days ago? Me and you, Chuck, and then Sarah, you too, and the rest of Critical Hellfire. The six of us had a talk about Sarah's interview, and then the live performance on Wednesday." Chuck and Sarah nodded. "Well, you brought it up, Chuck, that maybe letting folks know about you two dating might not be a great idea…?"
"Right," he said, nodding. "Not-Not that I don't want people knowing, like I'm ashamed or—" He spun and gave her a wide-eyed look.
"I know," Sarah said, interrupting him, reaching out to thread her fingers with his. "It's a good idea. People will assume things that aren't fair."
"Exactly. I don't want them to think we're promoting Critical Hellfire on our Twitch channel this much because I'm super into the lead singer slash bassist—which I completely am," he added, making her blush and hoping the bad motion sensor light on the side yard made it so the GnR cohosts couldn't see said blush. "We're dating. My girlfriend is in Critical Hellfire. It kinda gives this a whole look. Like we're just promoting Critical Hellfire this much so that my girlfriend's band gets popularity. And that's not what this is."
"Not at all," Morgan said vehemently, cutting his hand through the air. "We got that demo, loved the band's sound, just happened to go to Mosh Mansion when you guys were performing, we fell even deeper in love with you guys as metal rock stars, and you two kids got all cozy after that…" He trailed off pointedly.
"So…? Why you bringing that up?" Chuck prompted in the silence.
Morgan winced. "Only it, uh, kind of—Well, see, our viewers were in the chat pointing out that there were some, shall we say, sparks flying? Between you two?"
Oh. Oh shit.
The bearded cohost's wince deepened. "They were in there with the 'atta boy Chucks because you flirted at Sarah and Sarah flirted back." She turned to exchange a look with Chuck. "And she flirted back kind of…ahem, blatantly."
Chuck cursed softly.
"They were going on and on amongst each other about the chemistry. One of them called it, um…m'emplmffmvv…" he mumbled under his breath.
"Say that louder…?" She stepped in a bit closer.
"He, uh, said the chemistry between you two was explosive."
"Oh, Jesus," Chuck breathed. "You said they were going on and on? Were they talking about it the whole time? Really?"
"Um, a lot, towards the end especially. Erm…ahem… One of our regulars straight-up used the term…"
He stopped.
"What?" Sarah prompted.
"Eye-fucking."
"Holy shit," Sarah muttered, sending Chuck a sheepish look.
"Yeah, ahem, you guys didn't see any of that because you were a little too busy…"
"Eye-fucking." She mumbled it, but it didn't diminish the shock of both men as they spun to gape at her. "What? They said it first," she said with a defensive shrug.
And they probably weren't wrong. A few months ago, she'd say his obvious skill at the Guitar Toy Game wasn't marketable, or at all impressive for that matter, but he was apparently about to be making good money off of it, and…maybe the viewers had seen all of that going through her face as she watched her boyfriend shred on the stupid…color buttons and idiotic plastic lever thing.
Chuck let out a soft choking noise, followed by a nervous giggle. "Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I really didn't want people to know we're dating. I don't want them to think Critical Hellfire is the first band we let perform live during a Games N Rock Sessions stream because my girlfriend's the singer and bassist."
"Well, silver lining," Morgan piped up. "They don't know you're dating. They only think you two sat next to each other and were all flirty and had chemistry. From what I saw at least, it just seems like everyone's rooting for you, Chuck. They want you to try to tap that, because apparently whatever you were dishing out, Sarah Walker was liiiiiking. Eeeeeyyyy."
Chuck was definitely blushing as he pushed his hands through his hair. "Oh God, the way you're phrasing it makes it sound really weird. Maybe stop."
"You're not gonna try to tap this?" Sarah asked, gesturing at herself then poking him in the side.
"Oh, fucking hell," he groused with a sheepish half-smile.
Giggling, Sarah wrapped her hands around Chuck's forearm and sidled in close. "I should probably be more ashamed of myself, but I guess I'm not."
"Yes! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout, Sarah! Woo!" Morgan held up his hand for a high-five and she laughed, slapping his palm with hers. "Embrace the explosive chemistry. You two kids deserve it. And hey, if they think there is some nepotism thing goin' on here, oh well. Come Wednesday, they'll forget they ever saw that when they experience the beeeeaast that is a Critical Hellfire performance."
He moved in to give Chuck a bear hug. And then he hugged Sarah. She gave him an extra squeeze for that last part. "Thanks, Morgan."
"Buddy, why don't you take the Nerd Herder home and you can leave your bike here, come back tomorrow during the day. Then you're not riding around at eleven at night, yeah?"
"No, no. It's a quick ride. I'll be good. Thanks though, pal." He nudged the kick stand and walked the bike through the gate.
Chuck held it for her to go first, then followed, shutting and locking it behind him.
The shorter of the two friends swung one leg over to the other side of his bike and rode it down into the street, casually making a few circles and beaming.
He decided to yell the rest, as if they couldn't hear him otherwise. "And hey, you've got the house all to yourselves now. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, eh?!"
He cackled as he road away, Chuck leaning down to pick up a pebble from the sidewalk they stood on, throwing it harmlessly at his friend's retreating form.
"Fucking idiot," he said only loud enough for her to hear, scoffing as he turned back to her.
She was both extremely amused, and extremely glad she was standing on the sidewalk with Chuck Bartowski…the two of them very much alone now.
"What wouldn't Morgan do?" she flirted. "Beeeeecaaaause I kiiiinda wanna do it." She shrugged one shoulder cutely. "Just to be able to say we did it."
Chuck blushed again, biting his bottom lip and emitting a groan, closing the distance and slinging his arm over her shoulders. "We can figure that out together, since apparently we sorta, hmmm, started it with our eyes during the stream."
Sarah laughed, blushing herself this time as Chuck pushed open the front door for them to walk in together. He shut and locked it behind him and leaned back against it, pulling her in so that her chest bumped his.
"Sorry," she finally said, wrinkling her nose in sincere guilt. "I actually didn't realize I was flirting so hard."
"Me, neither. But what's new? I'm totally clueless about that shit, like, one hundred percent of the time."
She kissed the underside of his chin, running her lips along his jaw line, then. "All joking aside… You wanna have some fun?" she breathed into his ear.
"Holy hell yes I do. I so totally completely absolutely do." He froze then, giving her a sheepish look.
"…What?"
"I gotta do the dishes first."
Sarah threw her head back with a guffaw. "Shit, I forgot. That's okay. We'll do the dishes. Maybe we can recreate whatever it was we were doing with our eyes during the interview so that we don't drop this vibe in the meantime."
"I'll be honest with you," he chuckled, heading for the dinner table and starting to stack up the dirty plates to take them into the kitchen. "I don't know that I can recreate it because I had no idea I was doing it at the time."
She snorted. "That's fair."
They worked in a companionable silence for a few minutes, getting the dishes done in tandem, and it almost felt like a measured dance of sorts, swirling around one another, finally standing side by side at the sink as he washed and she awaited the clean dishes with the towel to dry.
Finally, he glanced over at her as he handed her the pan Ellie had made the sauce in.
"What?" she asked, furrowing her brow at him.
"You were fantastic tonight."
She stopped, facing him better, tilting her head, fixing him with that slow smile again. "Was I, really?" She wrinkled her nose more thoughtfully this time. "I dunno, I feel like I probably could've said more about the band, or maybe answered some of the questions better."
Chuck shook his head. "Nope. You were great. You were sweet, badass, and super funny. Insanely charming. The way you got so huffy about the toy guitar not having the right dimensions, being too small, the fact that there weren't strings and instead it had toy buttons. People loved that." He sighed and shook his head, turning off the water, the last of the dishes in her hand being dried.
"But God damn, what you said when you answered my question about…you know, the why metal question?" She nodded, raising an eyebrow. He melted a bit. "I've never been so attracted to a person ever in my life. And I saw Elvira in person at Comic-Con once."
She let out a happy laugh, tilting her head back, mirth filling her chest. But then what he said before the adorable Elvira part hit her right in the gut, and she slowly lifted her gaze to his, looking at him through her eyelashes. "Oh yeah? I got you good with that, huh?"
"You fuckin' kiddin' me? I dunno, maybe that was when they saw the eye-fucking. At least from my end, because I was…"
Chuck halted, looking at her, obviously seeing something in her face.
She didn't know what she was giving off with the look she was flashing. Only she knew that she'd likely never wanted anyone this badly in her whole existence.
"Okay, that," he breathed, pointing. "I-I think that was probably what they are talking about when they said eye-fffwhooaaaaaa!"
Sarah grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt, tugging him out of the kitchen. And she didn't stop, not even when she got him pinned to his bed underneath her.
}o{
He was guilty of a lot of bad boyfriend moments, he knew. In the past, especially, he'd really dropped the ball here and there. Not just with Jill, but with women before her, with girls in high school…even if dating was more of a rarity for him back then.
One particular thing he knew he'd been guilty of? Ignoring his girlfriend when she was trying to fool around, either because they were watching a movie he loved or he was in the middle of a video game and was trying to concentrate.
In his defense, it was one of those games that did autosaves; you couldn't just hit the menu button and save it, and the autosaves were so few and far in-between. It was a crucial moment in the story. He'd struggled so hard to get to that point.
But now he wondered if it wasn't just that he was being a little immature, his priorities maybe stupidly skewed. Maybe it was also the women he'd been with before. Or not them but him, and whether or not he was really all that into them? Perhaps a better way to think about it was that the woman he was with now made it so that he'd gladly lose all sixty-two hours of the Red Dead Redemption II time he'd put into his campaign to get to one hundred percent completion… He did not care if Sarah Walker erased the whole God damn thing. He'd repeat those hours with no qualms.
Let alone tossing his controller away to make out? Oh, that was easy.
In fact, Sarah had put that to the test yesterday morning after staying the night post-interview. He'd woken up earlier than she had, stuck his headphones on his head, and pulled up his RDR2 campaign. She'd surprised him, shifting his headphones away from his left ear, having crawled to the foot of the bed where he sat playing without him even feeling it and certainly not hearing it. She'd nibbled on his earlobe a little, muttered a raspy, "Good morning", kissed his neck, his jaw… He'd dropped the controller to the rug under his feet, whipped off the headphones, and lunged for her, making her laugh. The game had sat there, leaving Arthur Morgan to get peddled with bullets, die, and get respawned elsewhere.
It had been so easy, he hadn't even had to think about it. Where before, he might've been less apt to stop in the middle of a gunfight, with Sarah Walker, there was no way the video game would win. Not in a million years.
Then, tonight, Sarah had invited him over to hang out. She'd ordered delivery from a Oaxacan restaurant that ran out of a local woman's home, a place Dylan swore by (and he was right), and then she'd turned on her big screen TV and said the hottest four words he'd ever had a woman say to him: "Put on something nerdy."
Sarah willingly parted with the seventy bucks it cost to purchase the complete series of Babylon 5 even though he warned her to just do the first season to see if she liked it. But she told him she trusted him, since he insisted it was a space opera she'd be super into as someone who was as big of a reader as she was.
He also wondered if she was just indulging him and was actually pretty certain this super nerdy space show wasn't going to be up her alley.
But the first episode landed well, and the second, and the third. And maybe the fourth would've too…only her hand landed on his thigh, and then her whole leg got slung over his… In spite of it being a really important part of this serial story with big plot points you had to pay attention to, when Sarah's lips brushed against his neck, her fingers sliding into his hair, he no longer cared that Nelson was starting to transform after his contact with one of the artifacts brought aboard the station.
And, unlike the Chuck from days of yonder, he didn't chuckle, brush her off politely, and say, "Watch this part. It's super important to the story," leaving a pouting girl glaring at the screen as he sat enthralled with whatever was going on in the show or movie.
Instead, he turned his head and caught her lips in a kiss. And episode four continued without them, their arms winding around one another, legs tangled on the couch, mouths melded together, hands wandering under clothes. Mischievous touches, giggles, soft sighs.
If he had the bandwidth to do anything else outside of making sure he put his all into this make-out session, he might've been proud of himself for getting his priorities right this time. But he didn't have the bandwidth.
And frankly, he'd have to be a fucking moron not to get this one right.
She'd since tucked her bare toes under his pants leg and was stroking the back of his calf in a way that was making him feel like the couch had been set on fire.
No space opera, not even Babylon 5, was winning a fight against this woman.
Not for his attention.
Not for anything.
Her grip on him tightened, one hand twisted in his T-shirt, the other around his shoulders, and she wrapped the leg that wasn't pinned to the back of the couch by his hip around his waist and tugged his front against hers, humming happily into his lips.
Chuck felt her starting to tilt towards the cushions as though she wanted to lie down, so he let himself tip with her, his hands on the small of her back, one of them tucked under her camisole, feeling her soft, warm skin against his fingertips.
But as she plopped down on the couch, she jumped, breaking the kiss with a hiss.
Chuck pulled back, tugging her up from the cushions as though they might burn her if he let her go. "M'what? You okay?" he panted.
She winced, amusement in her face as she let go of him and reached under her back to pull something out. She looked at it and rolled her eyes, giggling. "This is what I get for tuning my bass on the couch. A tuner digging into my back when I'm trying to get to second base with my boyfriend."
"Trying?" He gave her a goofy, crooked smile. "What if I did away with the trying stuff and we can just skip to the doing stuff?" And he let go of her just long enough to grab the hem of his shirt and pull it off in one quick movement. He tried to play off the fact that it got caught on his nose, but she saw it and laughed, taking the shirt from his hand and tossing it over the back of the couch to land somewhere.
Her hands were on his bare chest then, dragging over his skin, over his muscles, around to his back and down his ribs to his hips, squeezing him there as she set an open-mouthed kiss to his throat.
He shivered, ducking his head to capture her lips in a heated kiss.
"Mm'I have a question," he breathed after a few deliciously long moments, breaking the kiss just enough to get the words out against her lips.
She surged up from the cushions to kiss him hotly, her tongue tracing his bottom lip for a moment, before she pulled back and mumbled, "Huh."
This moment, this experience, the current situation he was in, especially with the way she was dotting kisses along his jawline, was filling him with a lightness that made the silly in him come out. The ridiculous, even.
"When Games N Rock Sessions goes big…like…massive big, and I'm, like, rolling in the dough… d'you think you're still gonna wanna be with me?"
Sarah gave him an amused look. "You do know I'm rich, right?"
"Sure, but the question still stands." He shrugged. "Maybe you think there's something ruggedly handsome about my threadbare moth-eaten suits I wore to your gigs before that check for two-hundy got slapped into my clammy palm."
She giggled, rolling her eyes. "Okay, then. My answer is yes. I'll still wanna be with you."
"What about when I'm in my hanging out with Ravi Shankar phase? Will you still wanna be with me then?"
A grin started spreading over her face oh so slowly. "Yeah."
"Will you wanna be with me when I start wearing sequin jumpsuits and sunglasses that are too big for my face?"
Laughing now, she pushed her fingers through his hair. He winced a little when her pinky snagged on one of his curls. "Yeah. Actually, definitely then."
He bit back an amused smile, adoring her sense of humor and the way she played along with him so seamlessly.
"How about when a famous but admittedly controversial actor bases a weird drunken pirate character in a movie on me and even copies my slurring speech pattern to try to get an Oscar? Still gonna wanna be with me when I'm in that phase?"
She made a thoughtful face. "No, I think that's where I draw the line."
Letting out an offended gasp, Chuck snapped, "What?!"
"Well, think about it. By that point, I'll be in my making an album doing songs with every pop artist and their mom to make money hand over fist so that I can continue to gift books to kids for free phase. I won't have time for that other nonsense you're gonna be going through."
He finally broke, laughing. "Well, that's great. Just great. We're both gonna be rich and famous and while I go the fucked up weirdo druggie route, you're gonna be America's darling handing out books to kids and saving the world. I love it."
Sarah preened. "You came up with the questions, I didn't. And who said druggie?"
"What, you don't think I'm the type who'd get caught up in the…White liiiiiiiine," he sang. "Goin' through my miii-iii-iiiind."
"Oh God, stop." She rolled her eyes, giggling. "You're too straight-laced."
He gasped again. "A'squeeze me? Straight-laced? Moi?"
"Yeah, you're a good boy. You are not a bad boy."
That made him chuckle, seeing the teasing sparkle in her blue eyes and not taking offense at all. "I can be bad. I broke into an abandoned house with Morgan once. Yeah. We broke a whole window and everything."
"Really?" she asked, an intrigued lilt to her tone. "Did you actually break a window?"
"No." She cracked up. "But we skulked around in there. It was very bad. Terrible behavior."
"Spent the night in there, huh?"
"Well, like five minutes." She laughed harder. "And then Morgan said he had to pee and he had serious misgivings about the bad karma that would get him if he peed in an abandoned house's toilet, so we snuck back out again."
Sarah threw her head back, cackling. "I like you both so much, it's nuts." She pursed her lips thoughtfully then, shifting on the couch so that her head was propped on the pillow against the arm. He followed her, staying close.
"So what are we gonna do about the fact that your fans noticed this chemistry here?" She gestured between them with her pointer finger.
"Ahem. Explosive chemistry." He grinned toothily as she snorted. "That's a good question. I really don't want them thinking Morgan and I are so gung-ho about showcasing Critical Hellfire because my girlfriend's in the band."
"That's sweet," she said warmly. "But, um, I was maybe curious and went back to look at the chat."
His eyes popped. "You did?"
He had too and some of the things in there he was rather hoping Sarah would never see.
Oh, boy.
"They're really rooting for you to get the girl," she answered with no small amount of amusement.
He pulled his lips back between his teeth and narrowed his eyes. "You know, it might just be… Well, they're seeing a guy who likes video games and is a metalhead and marathons Babylon 5 sparking with a super cool, extraordinarily gorgeous singer of a rock band and that's probably kind of…affirming for them. As guys—or girls, or neither, or whoever—who are also into all those things."
"Nerds?" Sarah asked, raising an eyebrow. He nodded. Her voice softened as she played with one of his curls. "Sometimes the nerd gets the girl."
"If they knew this nerd was getting this girl, it'd probably be a confidence boost that they can reach high, too."
"Chuck, this show is probably the nerdiest thing I've ever sat down to watch and you've got all the Nerd Cornerstones too—video games, comics, sci-fi, action figures, and probably things I don't even know about yet. But I like you because you're sweet and thoughtful, and you make me laugh. And don't think for a second that you aren't extremely cute—hot, even—with this jaw, the nose, the long eyelashes, your stupidly pretty eyes, and last but not least, the delicious curls. Only thing you have to figure out is how to see yourself the way I see you." She booped him on the nose. "But then you'd probably go out and find a pretty girl who's super cool and also not quite so dysfunctional and maladjusted."
"Buuuuuullllshiiiiiiit," he sang, shaking his head, grinning. He could feel himself blushing after all of that praise. And still, in spite of how sincerely she'd said it, he wasn't sure he believed it.
"Fine, don't believe me. I'll get you to see it yet. For now, though? I'm not so sure this…sparking," she emphasized, smirking, "they sensed between us is affirming for them, as much as they just love you and maybe feel a sense of ownership over you boys. Which makes them a little protective, wanting the best for you…"
"Hmmmm, maybe. Oof. You better not break my heart, Sarah Walker," he teased, grinning cheekily.
"Yeah, well, I may not have an army of LA metalheads out there to be my protector squad, but I do have a band and they are pretty protective. So you'd better not break my heart, either. They'll kick your ass." She gave him a prim eyebrow raise.
Chuck gave her a scared look. "Is…there precedent there? I mean, did they kick other guys' asses for doing that?"
Biting her lip, she shook her head, her fingertips dancing over his lips, over his cheek, down his jawline. Then she pinched his chin gently. "No, but then…my heart was never really in much danger with those other guys."
He held his breath, going still, and he didn't look away from her piercing gaze for a moment. He swallowed hard. "But it is now?"
Sarah nodded shyly. "Yes."
"I'm not gonna let you down," he said vehemently, adoringly moving some of her hair away from her face with his finger and tucking behind her ear.
She took a deep breath he felt against his chest. And then she dug her fingers into his skin at his shoulder and nodded again. "I believe you."
Sarah yanked him down, their lips crashing. And this time they didn't stop at simply tucking hands under clothes, fingertips dancing over heated skin. They helped one another undress, staying on the couch, exploring again.
Chuck allowed himself to not only feel everything physically, but he also allowed himself to drown in his own intense deepening feelings for her, the frighteningly rapid falling, a rip current swallowing him up. And he allowed her to see what he felt, too.
A/N: Good night! See y'all soon for the next chapter! Leave a review if you're able!
Thank you!
-SC