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: Thanks for reading! And thanks for the reviews. Buckle up, put on a helmet, and don't drink any bubbly liquids while reading this. Trust me when I say it'll hurt if it goes up the nose.
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 Walker glanced to the side at Zondra as she, Dylan, and Mac crooned, "Gimme all o' your lovin'…"
She growled, "Every bit of it," into her own mic, setting blazing blue eyes on the crowd. The lights were bright and she could barely see them, but there were maybe only twenty-five people peppered through the music venue, and a good chunk of those were pressed against the bar trying to get a drink.
When they got to the chorus, singing, "Armageddon it!", a few of the people in the bar pumped their fists and yelled along with it, but the crowd was pretty low energy, and she could feel it seeping into the band a little.
Or maybe she was projecting, because it was definitely draining her of the electricity they'd had in them driving their van up this damn mountain. There'd been adrenaline and excitement flowing through the van, and a lot of that excitement had been about Chuck and Morgan's first big time show on Recruit Emperors.
Now that they were onstage, the energy being sucked out of them, they let the song fade and ended it with a climactic clash on Mac's drums. For a small crowd, the applause was pretty good, so at least there was that.
But Sarah knew they had to turn this around quick. Or this would be another dud that they were shoved into. Another low energy venue. Not a good crowd. A Bob sort of situation she thought there was a chance they'd be done with now that they'd had a long talk with him about what they needed. He'd apologized for dropping the ball on the GnR and CB Productions skirmish. And he'd seemed sincere, at least.
She stepped back from the mic and went to Mac, motioning for the guitarists to follow her. Knowing the drill, Mac shoved his mic away from his face as well and handed her the set list they'd stuck down by his feet on the stage, as well as the pencil she always kept there too. Just in case they had to switch things up.
"This isn't working. They aren't jiving with me," Sarah said.
"Because you have a vagina?" Zondra droned, rolling her eyes.
Blunt, but perhaps not wrong. She gave Zondra a look. "Maybe. Or maybe it was just the songs. I think we need to toss you into the limelight, Dyl. You okay with that?" He nodded and shrugged. "Which means we take out 'Magic Power'. And honestly, maybe we should dump the song I wrote, too."
Dylan frowned at that one. "I dunno, Sarah. Playing just covers? What, they can't handle something deeper? Slower?"
"This crowd is liable to start booing. We gotta get them revved up. If you guys disagree, we'll leave the rest and just replace Magic Power with… shit, I dunno, what do you guys think?"
"'Lil' Devil.'" They all looked at Zondra and she continued. "Dylan kicks its ass, I get to play lead guitar for once," she teased in Dylan's direction, making him smirk, "it's simple, and these mountain people probably love The Cult. I dunno, maybe I'm playing to a stereotype."
Dylan winced. "As someone who's had to see way too many frat Halloween parties with people in a feathered head dress and a Cro-Magnon type ax hanging from their leather thong shit that isn't even slightly close to what we've ever worn…I think I don't give a fuck if you're playing to a stereotype with these people. Assume away. Let's blow the roof off of this crappy little shack."
"Fuck yeah," Zondra growled, nudging his shoulder.
Here we go…
Sarah scratched out "Magic Power", writing "Lil' Devil" there instead. Mac snagged the set list and pencil from her, pointed to her song she'd written last year after a break-up that had actually hurt, and he gave her a questioning look. "I might have an idea of what we replace this with if you really want to take it out." She was interested, especially because he gave her a jackal grin. Then he wrote "Fortunate Son" down.
"You're really trying to get us chased offa this mountain by people holding pitchforks, dude," Sarah chuckled.
"Go out with a bang, right?"
"Fuck it, I'm in."
They agreed, moving to their places, and Dylan put his guitar in its stand, grabbing the mic and leaning into it, shifting his double braids to the front. "Hold onto your giant buckles, buckos. It's about to get looooud," he drawled, turning to Zondra and winking.
She gave them all a look and started riffing on the guitar to start the song.
Mac dropped a skip beat, and Sarah, Dylan, and Zondra all jumped, their feet landing on the stage right as they swung into the full thrust of the song.
Dylan slipped the mic off of its stand, did a Jagger march to the edge of the stage, his braids swinging, and began a hypnotic half-yell, half-croon that would make Astbury proud—or pissed, depending on if he appreciated being shown up or not.
Zondra strolled across the stage next to Sarah, taking the brunt of the guitar riffs, the solos, sharing her mic as they sang back-up for Dylan. "Come on, lil' devil…"
The crowd was different suddenly, like they were coming alive, energy mounting as Dylan hyped them up, leaning down to sing about his girl coming on with an alligator smile, giving his own alligator smile to a brunette woman who'd approached the stage to watch him, dancing.
Others were dancing now, pumping their fists.
People were moving away from the bar, paying attention.
When Zondra broke into her guitar solo again, Dylan beamed at her, skipped around her, pressed his back against Sarah's and they both did grinding thrusts forward towards the audience.
The crowd hooted and hollered for Rizzo as she leaned forward, pointing the neck of the guitar down at the stage, finishing her solo, and they jumped back into the chorus one last time.
Dylan looked up at the ceiling, shut his eyes, and let the last, "Be my little angel" ring out through the building.
With one last jump, the song ended, and the place blew up.
Sarah breathed, "Thanks", into her mic, though she wasn't sure anyone heard it over the ruckus. And then she turned and winked with a smile at the rest of the band. That had woken them up. Even if it was a paltry little number of people.
The rest of the songs went well once the thirty viewers or so were swept up in their set list, and even "Fortunate Son" got a raucous sing-along from the group.
They were applauded off of the stage, even the bartender sticking his fingers between his lips and whistling like mad.
Clearing up the stage, packing everything away, Sarah glanced at her phone. There was nothing from Chuck. No updates about how the streaming prep was going so far at the studio. They'd be going live in twenty minutes and she wasn't sure they'd be on the road home yet by then, but she might be able to catch some of it on Mac's iPad.
As they lugged everything out to the van, loading it in, Dylan leaned against one of the back rear doors and frowned deeply. "Considering everything, I think we turned it around… But we still gotta talk."
Sarah knew this was coming. "The venue…"
"Not ideal. Not that I'm not open to performing in different locales and to a different crowd. After all, this advertisement contract with this CB Production company is going to expose us to a variety of people. But…"
"I counted thirty-one at the end," Zondra groused. "That's shit."
"Yeah, it was like playing at a holiday family reunion," Mac added, hefting his bass drum into the van and sliding it further back to make room for everything else.
"Bob has handed us five duds in the last two months now." Dylan threw up his hands.
Not knowing why exactly she felt the need to play devil's advocate, Sarah added, "He also got us Mosh Mansion, though, didn't he? Which led to the GnR guys coming to the Walker Warehouse gig and that's where Cole Barker saw us because he followed Chuck and Morgan. And now we've got this contract to be in an advertisement that's gonna be on TV and streaming."
Dylan shrugged. "Yeah, sure. He's gotten us good stuff, too. But you bring up this contract…if it works out, we're headed for bigger and better things. Don't you think that includes having a booking agent who cares about which places get us exposure, who cares about growing our band's brand? I fuckin' do. It's always felt like he doesn't prioritize us. At all."
Sarah gnawed on her bottom lip. "So give it to me straight then. Do you all wanna fire Bob?"
Zondra thrusted a hand out. "We don't have to call him now. Maybe when we get back, we can talk about it, and then call a meeting, tell him how we're feeling."
"We've sort of already done that once. And he found us this." Mac gave them a flat look. "I know what you're thinking, and I get it. We threw our boys Morgs and Chuckster under a bus already, and you don't wanna toss Booking Bob, but this is different. Bob's never really exactly been enthusiastic about us and our needs. Firing someone who's doing a bad job is a different thing."
Zondra frowned at Sarah. "This was dismal, even if we worked up the crowd by the end."
"Surely there are venues out here above the Grapevine that can pull in more than thirty people," Mac offered, crossing his arms.
"And instead of finding one of those, he tossed it at us because we aren't a priority for him. He books for the Barb Eaters, too. You know the Barb Eaters got Mosh Mansion as their first gig with Bob as their agent? From there, they only went up. Now they're opening for Death Cab on tour." Dylan shoved their mic stands into the van, an annoyed frown on his face. "They aren't even that good. Sugary trash."
He wasn't wrong.
"You're right," Sarah muttered. "About Bob and about the Barb Eaters. He plays favorites with the acts he represents and we're obviously not anywhere close to the top." It was just that she was the one who found him and got everyone to agree to hire him, and he'd underperformed and she felt guilty, maybe. She'd hoped over the years he'd turn it around but he hadn't.
This one was on her,
"So what do we do if we do sack Bob? Who books us?" Mac asked the important question.
"CB Productions might give us one. Since we're under contract, yeah?" Sarah shrugged. "But let's get this stuff loaded up and get on the road anyway. I'd like to get through the Grapevine before it gets clogged up with the rain. They said a storm is brewing and coming down from the northeast. I'd really like to not get trapped here."
Dylan looked around and shivered. "Yeah, not my kind of place." He lowered his voice. "Or my kind of people."
Mac thumped his best friend on the back. "You an' me both. I'm way too hyped on the D to be a fave with these folks."
Laughing, they finished loading up and got into the van. Sarah had a few misgivings about the prospect of firing Bob. They were right in that he wasn't doing a good job, and he hadn't been for a while. But there was also that nagging voice in her head that reminded her of that talk with Cole a few nights ago, in her loft. Sure, she'd been drunk, but she hadn't been blackout drunk and she remembered the whole conversation. With some embarrassment, sure. But that rum had also made her stand up for herself, stand for her own principles, in a way she might not have if she'd been sober.
He'd fully promoted the idea of tossing all the old stuff from their career prior to him "discovering" Critical Hellfire. Bob was part of that "old stuff", there in the beginning, booking their band in small time bars, getting them signed up for talent competitions in East LA.
Something about firing Bob left an icky taste in her mouth, like she was doing the thing she told Cole she didn't want to do. Even if the band was right that Bob hadn't been prioritizing them at all.
Sarah climbed into the front seat as Mac drove, Zondra and Dylan in the back. Sarah pulled up Mac's iPad before even buckling her seatbelt. It was already fifteen minutes after nine, so they'd probably missed a good chunk of the new (and allegedly improved) Games N Rock—minus the Sessions part.
"We're late," Dylan whined.
"I know. I'm bummed but it couldn't be helped," Sarah said with a shrug, quickly going into Mac's favorites on the Internet browser and pulling up the link that would take them to the Recruit Emperors site that was hosting their brand new channel there. "Here it is. Oooooo, this is definitely more fancy. Lots of ads on the sides too."
"They're gonna make bank!" Mac exclaimed, grinning as he took them onto the main road and aimed the van down the mountain, back onto the Grapevine that would lead them home, back to the civilization they were used to.
The screen filled with the usual background of Chuck and Morgan's basement. Only the guys looked different. Chuck was in a button-up with nice slacks, and as he had one foot on the coffee table in front of him, she could see that he wasn't wearing his titular sneakers. Even Morgan had a tie on, and she'd never seen him more uncomfortable as he kept tugging on it.
"What the fuck they wearing?" Zondra asked from behind Sarah's shoulder.
Chuck clapped his hands together. "Okay, next on the docket, we're playing—Oh, we're not…doing that…yet. I guess." He glanced off to the side of the camera. "We're having our sponsor on as a guest? That's…cool. Folks, we're having our sponsor join us! Huzzah corporate America."
Morgan and Chuck glanced at each other and the bearded one of the two shrugged demonstrably. He turned and then squinted, very clearly reading off of a teleprompter, sounding out each word. "We would like to…introduce you…to… doctor of social psychology…and author of the book, How to…Seduce a Man-Hater?" He turned to Chuck with a, "Huh?" and Chuck looked back at him, and then at the camera, with the funniest what the fuck look she'd ever seen anyone make.
They all cracked up in the van as a producer scrambled onto the set and handed them both giant flashcards that looked to be written on already. Interview questions? Yikes.
"What the hell is that book title?" Dylan asked through his laughter.
Chuck then shook himself a bit and rushed out, "Uh, Dr. Chet Bozz, also known as…Dr. Bozz." There was an applause track laid down over the audio that was jarring and weird and Sarah turned to exchange a look with the rest of her band, holding the iPad up better so that everyone could see it.
She wasn't sure she'd ever been more attracted to anyone in her life as Dr. Bozz strutted his leather-suit wearing bombastic ass to the couch, plopped down to hold up his book, and immediately received the funniest damn line from the curly-haired cohost: "So Chet, is this your Oprah moment? That'd be really cool if we catapulted your career like Oprah did for—"
Morgan cut in quickly, as if getting a sign from someone off-camera. "Dr. Bozz, you're one of our biggest sponsors, which, uh, means you make a shit ton of money off of your, um, I'm assuming…dating books?" He was looking down at his flashcards, confused as hell.
"Yes, I have a whole line of dating books."
"Please tell us the other titles," Chuck requested eagerly, smacking his hands together in a praying gesture. So her man liked a little chaos. Good to know.
Dylan snickered behind her. "Dear God…"
"Oh. Well, the first one I came out with was a book for men who are tired of being nice and getting nothing out of it. It's called The Nice Guys Guide to Being Bad. I'm sure you guys have had to deal with being friendzoned by a girl because you're the 'nice one', right? Only for her to go off with some asshole because he treats her like shit and she likes that for some reason."
"No," Chuck said easily.
"I…guess?" Morgan muttered at the same time.
"And then I wrote a second book called Get Laid, to help guys who are having a hard time making women want to have sex with them. Kind of a fun little take on those books about making money, you know, called…Get Paid. Stuff like that. Only it's about getting sex. It hit the New York Times bestseller's list through preorders it was so popular."
Sarah furrowed her brow as Chuck turned over one of the large flashcards he used for interview questions, as well as a Sharpie, scribbling something on it. He held it up so that only the viewers could see it as Dr. Bozz explained the bestsellers list to Morgan, and he made it look like he was holding it up to read it so that the guest would have no idea.
The whole van exploded with laughter and Dylan read it to Mac as he drove.
Chuck wrote: HEY KIDS! YOU WANNA GET ON THE NYT BESTSELLER LIST, BUY 100K COPIES OF YOUR OWN BOOK
God, she was crazy about him. And she loved this damn show.
"So tell us about your book How to Seduce a Man-Hater," Morgan said. "What the hell is it and why'd you write it?"
"No, really, why?" Chuck chimed in drily.
This Chet Bozz—Doctor—was seriously clueless as he grinned and shrugged.
"Sure. Well, what the book's really about is this faction of women who've kind of grown up in this world that despises straight men. You know, when our parents were growing up, it was different. Now women are groomed from birth to mistrust us. Gives us a real disadvantage in dating. For example, now they flip out when we open doors for them."
"Holy fuck, he's a joke," Mac hissed.
"How are they not punching him in the throat?" Zondra added.
"Wow," Chuck exclaimed, slipping the makeshift sign back behind the couch where Dr. Bozz wouldn't see it. "I've never had trouble opening doors for people. There was the time I opened the door of a car and people just kept coming out of it, over and over and over and over, just so many people, one after the other. I swear I was holding the door for an hour."
Dr. Bozz frowned at him in confusion.
Morgan leaned forward and asked, "What kind of a car was it, Chuck?"
"A clown car."
They both broke into a fit of giggles, stomping their feet in amusement.
Sarah laughed, shaking her head. Idiots. She adored them.
Chuck continued, beaming like an idiot. "PT Cruiser, or as I like to call it…PT Loserrrrr."
Dr. Bozz cleared his throat, a tentative crooked smile on his face that probably would have a wrinkle or two on it if he hadn't gotten a lot of Botox.
"You know, I've seen a lot of clients who are really upset about the dating scene for straight men. We're competing with pop culture that tells women guys in period piece clothing who are perfect and do everything they want like a bunch of cucks is the standard. This book is taking that back," he said, waving his book.
Cucks?!
Holy shit…
"You know, they don't call me DR. Bozz for nothing…"
Chuck was scribbling away. And he held up the back of another flashcard: DOES NOT HAVE A PhD OR EdD. An arrow pointed comically at their guest.
Chuck widened his eyes and made an oops face, then dropped the flashcard behind the couch again.
Dylan recited what he wrote to Mac again as Zondra howled, practically tipping over she was laughing so hard.
"This is quality entertainment," Sarah drawled, beaming. She was proud, and she was also so deeply amused.
But suddenly, the screen froze, the three men sitting on the couch not moving, the sound cutting out.
"NO!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"What! What happened?!" Mac yelled. "What is it?! Why'd it stop?!"
Sarah shook the iPad a little bit. It came back for just a moment, but the stream was jumping around, freezing, and their voices were cutting in and out. And just like that, the screen went grey with the alert: Your internet connection isn't strong enough for this stream. Reconnect to your internet and try again!
"Shit!" she snapped. "Fucking Grapevine. I don't know why I thought we'd actually get to watch this driving through this hellscape." She was actually pissed.
"The Grapevine is where service goes to die," Dylan groaned. "That was so good! Damn it!"
Sarah pouted, folding her arms at her chest, slipping Mac's iPad back in his knapsack at her feet.
"I guess we're doing music then."
Mac passed Sarah his phone and she pulled up his music list, putting on some Dio, frowning out of the window the rest of the trip, her chest aching in annoyance and regret at missing most of Chuck's first big time live stream.
}o{
This guy was an entire sphincter.
Chuck was sure he'd never met bigger one, and just a few weeks ago, after their first date, he'd met Sarah's ex, Christian. He'd been the biggest sphincter Chuck had ever met, the king sphincter…and now this guy—Dr. Bozz—had knocked him off the throne.
Why hadn't anybody told him their biggest sponsor was exactly the type of douchebag he and Morgan mocked on their show so often?
They hadn't known anything about any sponsors at all. And now he thought maybe it was a mistake.
This was a joke.
Maybe they could twist this and make it the good kind of joke, connecting with their fans the way they always did.
"—and so I told her, 'Look. I get it if I'm not the type of guy you're looking for. But if you want romance—real romance, like they used to do it in the nineteen-fifties—I'm your guy.' And she stopped and looked at me. And it was like something overcame her. She suddenly wanted me. Like, really wanted me. Total three-sixty."
Chuck scribbled, HE MEANS 180. …OR DOES HE? and held it up for his viewers to see. What really sucked is someone else had the reins as far as the chat went. He and Morgan didn't have access to any screens where they could interact with their viewers. So he had no idea what kind of reception their sponsor was getting.
Or his antics surrounding the sponsor.
Some dude was in the corner at the back sending people thumbs up or links to the sponsors or some shit. Trying to drive donations by interacting with some sort of cookie cutter response.
"She sounds…nice," Morgan muttered, slowly flicking his eyes over at the camera and then back again, as if sharing an inside joke with their viewers.
"Turns out she wasn't so nice, if you catch my drift, Morgan," the asshole drawled, nudging The Beard with his elbow.
"Ewww," Morgan muttered.
Chuck looked down at the questions on his flashcard. What in the shit was this mess?
He found a passable one.
"How did you get into psychology, Dr. Bozz?"
"Oh great question! My dad was a big wig in Silicon Valley when I was growing up. You know, palling around with Gates and Jobs and The Woz. I knew him personally, came to dinner with my dad all the time and we called him The Woz."
"Cooooooool," Chuck droned, pulling a Morgan and looking right at the camera for a moment, before swinging his gaze back to their guest.
"Really cool." This guy was a numpty, holy shit. "Anyway, my dad told me to put my trust fund to good use. And I knew that guys like me were getting the raw end of the deal in society, so I wanted to kind of figure out why. I took an online course in..."
As he continued, Chuck turned over the flashcard and wrote, TRUST FUND KID-CUM-DATING EXPERT. OOOOOOH
He held it up.
Morgan leaned in a little to see it, snickering quietly and stomping his feet. When Dr. Bozz turned to look at him, he stopped snickering, propping his chin in his hand as if he was listening, interested in what Bozz had to say. When he looked away, Morgan started snickering again.
Chuck dropped the flashcard behind the couch.
"Fascinating stuff, Dr. Bozz," he drawled. "I don't want to speak for Morgan, of course, but I can say, for myself, I wish I'd had this book when I was in high school."
"Oh. Me too," the sponsor said, shaking his head. "Trust me, me too."
"To use as a paper weight," Morgan mumbled.
"Hm?" the fake doctor turned with raised eyebrows to Chuck's cohost and best friend.
"To use to get a mate!" the bearded man said more loudly.
"Well, it's never to late to read it! You're young yet! Still have plenty of time to sow your seed."
While their guest was facing the other way, Chuck moved the couch pillow and hunched over as if he was barfing behind it.
"Thanks for being on, Mister Doctor Bozz," Morgan was saying as Chuck sat up straight again, plastering a fake polite smile on his face. "Real pleasure."
"It was my pleasure," Dr. Bozz said, shaking both of their hands. "Again, the book is How to Seduce a Man-Hater. It's on sale now, only on Amazon, ten percent off!"
He got up and walked off screen as Chuck and Morgan did the beauty queen wave.
"Byyyyye," Morgan was saying. Chuck dug in his pocket, pulling a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer out, squirting some onto his hand and giving Morgan some as he reached out towards him with a, "Gimme some o' that. Yeeeeaaah…"
As they both rubbed the hand sanitizer on their hands, Chuck sent the camera a toothy grin. "Well, now we're playing—Oh. Wait. No, we're not. We're not playing NBA Street. Because first we're taking a break? So you can hear from our sponsor… whomsssttt you just…just heard from. Ooookay. Cool."
They counted them off, and he heard a crisp, "Cut!" ring out through the set.
He turned to Morgan and they high-fived each other.
Suddenly he heard, "Chuck!"
He turned to see Cole had stomped over to the spot next to the camera, and his face was red, fury etched all over his face. "I'd like to speak to you," he said in a scarily calm voice. Though he wondered if posh English accents always sounded calm.
"Oh. Sure." He turned back to Morgan. "Pardon me for a moment, mi amigo."
Chuck hopped up to his feet, pocketed the hand sanitizer and the Sharpie, and followed Cole into the sound booth at the back. "What's up, boss ma—"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The other man whirled on him, getting in his face, poking his chest with his finger.
Chuck blinked. "A'squeeze me? What are you…referring to?"
"You blatantly mocked a massive sponsor. When I say massive, I mean he's bankrolling most of this venture, you fucking pissant," he spat. Chuck had never seen him like this before and it was a little bit startling.
"He's. A. Tool," Chuck said.
"I don't give a fuck. He coughed up a fortune to get your little show onto a massive streaming platform. And you're an ungrateful little shit for what you just did there."
"Did you see the chat? Did they like it? Because I'm pretty sure they're the only ones who matter."
"No, actually they are not. In fact, they mean absolutely nothing. The man with the money gets to call the shots. Not these fucking losers in their parents' basements watching your little streaming channel, eating Funyons and drinking Mountain Dew and listening to your little hair bands instead of working real jobs that will get them their own places so that they can live their lives like real ADults!"
That one actually stung. Chuck pulled his shoulders back, clenching his jaw. That was absolutely a dig pointed at him, too. He wasn't stupid. Though Cole Barker apparently thought so.
"Our viewers are the backbone of this channel. They helped me buy a car. They help me pay my rent. They're why I am here. They're why both of us are here."
"They don't pay you anymore. That man you just eviscerated with your cute little sarcastic cue cards signs your fucking paycheck now, you ungrateful shit." He paused then, tilting his head passive aggressively. Or maybe just aggressively. Because his next words were: "Well, he did anyway. He won't anymore, because you're fired."
Those words rang through his ears, deafeningly loud, and it was like someone had snapped their fingers and made the floor disappear out from under him.
A/N: Oop!
-SC