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: Read on, troopers.

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.


"Fired?"

Chuck let out a scoff.

"Yes, fired."

"You can't fire me. This is my channel. Games N Rock Sessions is my channel. My literal face is in the logo."

"Hm… That's funny, because you signed your name on a literal legal document that means I own this property now."

Chuck blinked. "What?"

"I. Own. Games. And. Rock."

A chill crashed through him.

"Nobody's gonna watch it without me. This show isn't shit without its viewership."

"Well, we have sponsors, and we will build a new fanbase. Maybe this one will be a little more mature, what do you think?" Cole Barker said with no small amount of sarcasm, even squinting his eyes mockingly.

"I built this with Morgan from the ground up. Years of work. We didn't just kick up our feet, snap our fingers, and all of this magically appeared. We worked for it. We went from two or three of our friends watching to getting over two-thousand metalheads and gamers in the LA area watching each stream live. You can't just fire me and take it all away."

"I can. You wanna know how I know I can? Because I just did."

"No." Chuck shook his head. "That isn't how this is supposed to go."

"Well, guess what. You're not in one of your shitty low-budget movies you watch with your strange friends, Bartowski, the ones where the little guy wins over the big guy. In real life, the little guy doesn't win. Because he doesn't have money and the big guy does. He isn't mature and the big guy is. He doesn't have any business sense, not even a single speck of it in his skinny body, and the Big. Guy. Does. Maybe this'll be good for you. Grow up. Do something meaningful with your life."

Chuck grit his teeth. "I should've known this was who you were. From the very beginning, you didn't get our vision of what GnR was, trying to change it. I felt it but I wanted our channel to be something, and that fucking two-hundy check put blinders on me." He cursed. "You didn't give a fuck about us even while you were promoting our show to Recruit Emperors. You didn't let Critical Hellfire perform on our stream."

"Because of the stupid antics you just recreated here on our set, mortifying the biggest sponsor. You think I want a band I'm promoting to end up fodder for your childish games before they're going to be in an advert I'm trying to get on TV?" the producer spat, pointing out towards the set.

Chuck swallowed hard. "Stupid antics? What I did out there is the entire vibe of the channel. Fuck corporations, fuck this fake bullshit, fuck grifting pieces of shit with terrible dating books that lionize misogyny and make already shitty dudes into even shittier, more entitled dudes! We make fun of that. It's why people love our Twitch channel! And we play video games and talk about metal. That's what metal is! You ever hear a fucking metal song before? Metal is all about 'fuck The Man'!" he yelled.

"Well, maybe the new iteration of Games N Rock will be about actual rock and not this metal shit. Maybe we'll do a segment on Elvis."

"Elvis?! Oh hell no. You're not—"

Cole pulled his cell phone out. "All I have to do is push this button and security will come to escort you out. Or you can just leave. You're fired. Effective immediately."

Chuck felt a deep pit opening in his gut. "Fuck this. I'm out of here."

His one-track mind took over as he pushed past the traitorous producer, bursting out of the sound booth, walking past the equipment on the set, and out of the fucking studio altogether.

He saw red the whole way.

}o{

Sarah tied the towel around her damp body, scrubbing her hair dry with another towel and shouldering her bathroom door open to pad out into the bedroom. The first thing she did was grab her phone, pulling up the conversation with Chuck. He hadn't responded to her "So how'd the first show go?" text. Maybe something had happened with the reception when she texted it and it hadn't sent.

But it looked sent. She didn't want to double text him. Maybe he was still busy at the studio.

She tossed her phone back onto her bed, crossing to her dresser to pull clothes out that she could wear to sleep in. At worse, she'd talk to Chuck in the morning and get the whole story.

But then her phone rang.

Sarah rushed to it, already smiling as she grabbed it and looked.

The smile died.

Damn it.

She swiped to answer and brought it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, Sarah." There was a pause. "It's Cole. Cole Barker."

"Hi, Mr. Barker."

"Cole, remember?"

She winced. "Right. Sorry."

"Uh, listen, did you see the show tonight? The, uh, stream of Games And Rock."

"Ugh, we had a gig," she groaned. "The one you approved up above the Grapevine. Little shit shack, only thirty people were there, and it took a bit for us to get them revved up but we did it."

"Well, with you singing, I don't see how it could be any other way. So…you…didn't see the show."

"We saw a few minutes of that interview. Laughed our asses off," she giggled. "But then the Grapevine did what it does and we lost reception. We were driving back to LA. So I missed pretty much the rest of it."

"Ah." Why was there a hint of relief there. "We had a few…technical difficulties. Had to call it a bit short. Still playing with the format and the themes. You know. Maximizing what we get out of the property."

"Mhm," she muttered. They called it short? …Why?

"Has, uh, Chuck talked to you?"

Sarah froze, a bad chill going through her as she sat on the end of the bed. "About what?" She tossed out a half-joking, "Why? You canceling Critical Hellfire's music video?"

"No, no, no. Never! Of course not!" he said immediately, and the nerves dissipated, at least somewhat. "In fact, I was calling just to make sure we're still all set for it."

"Yeah. The band's ready. Whenever we have to head out, we'll be there with our gear."

"Yes, good. The band. Well, I don't know if I'll see you before we shoot the video in the desert, though I would…love to make good on that dinner before then. You know. Anyone from the band who can make it… even if it's just…one of you. Maybe tomorrow night? Night after?"

"Oh. Uh, I'm sure that'll be fine. I'll run it by the guys and Zondra."

He paused. "Good. All right."

"Bye."

She hung up, then pulled the phone back to look at it again, frowning. What in the hell was that? And Chuck still hadn't said anything, so she shot him another text. "Hey hot stuff got a weird call from Barker. Everything ok?"

So she'd double texted.

A dating no-no.

Oh well. He'd understand. She was just checking on him after all.

}o{

His legs stung from walking for an hour with no actual destination, just stomping along the sidewalk in the dark, passing under the streetlights, ignoring everything around him, clinging to the seething anger roiling in his gut.

He'd never been talked to like that. Never been treated like that.

And maybe he'd just never been exposed to that class of person. Someone with that much money, that much power, that much of a big-ass, hubris-filled head had never come around Chuck or his friends. They'd only ever been in movies and TV shows.

When people like that needed I.T. help, they didn't go to the Nerd Herd at the Buy More. Their personal assistants took it somewhere fancy, he was sure. So that they didn't have to hobnob with the peasants.

The tone, the things he said, had blistered Chuck's skin horribly. And he wouldn't admit it even to himself that his feelings had been hurt. Really badly.

He was an adult. He had an adult job. And Ellie was right; while he was living in the home he grew up in, the house belonged to Ellie, and to him. And that was his basement they'd done their show in. It belonged to him.

Funyuns were disgusting and so was Mountain Dew.

But shit, who was he to judge if any of his viewers indulged?

There was a screech of tires off to his left and he jumped up against the nearest brick wall, holding his hands up by his face, absolutely positive he was about to be plugged like Paulie Gatto in Godfather. Or maybe he'd be kidnapped by guys in masks.

Instead, the Nerd Herder roared up to the curb, the window sliding down, Morgan leaning over from the driver's side. "Dude! What the fuck!" He turned off the car and scrambled out from behind the wheel to stand next to the car. "Get in here right now! Do you know how scared I was?"

Chuck winced a little. "Look, I was heated, I needed to get some air. He said some shit that—"

"You aren't answering your phone or texts! You're just walking around?! Fuck, bro, I was about to call Ellie!" Chuck's eyes went wide. "Yeah, didn't think about that, did you?"

"Sorry, man. I'm-I'm comin'. I'm getting in the car."

He climbed into the passenger seat.

Morgan stood out by the hood for a few long moments, and then he huffed, coming around, climbing in behind the wheel, buckling his seatbelt. "You know what? I'm really pissed off at you, actually."

Chuck gaped. "What? Morgan, you-you don't…get pissed at me…"

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have walked out on our stream like that. Without saying shit? You just go? I-I mean, I handled it…okay."

"You handled it? What's that mean?" Oh boy…

"Well, you were just gone and nobody out there knew shit about it, man! So we're going back on after the sponsor crap, and I'm just sitting there. And they've got the camera on my fuckin' face, bruh! I don't…do streams on my own! I don't do it! So I just kind'a sat there freakin' out!"

"It doesn't matter. It's over. Kaput."

"It doesn't matter?! You shouldn't just walk out on something that big without telling your best friend first, Chuck! Your cohost! I was there by myself holdin' the bag! It was a very heavy bag, dude!"

"Look, sorry! I was just pissed, buddy. We built this show from scratch and I do the same stuff we always do and suddenly I'm fired for it? Pffft!"

"Yeah, you got it right. WE built the show. You should've come out and told me instead of walking off set, leaving me there by myself to pick up the pieces, and get the car and then you weren't responding to anything and I was driving around all over trying to find you. If I were Chuck where would I go?" Morgan threw one hand up, the other steady on the wheel. "It was bullshit!"

"You didn't hear how he talked to me. Like I'm not fit to lick cow shit off his shoe."

"Yeah, get the net, Chuck! That's how he's been this whole fuggin' time, man!"

Chuck did a double take. "What d'you mean?"

"Sonofabitch has been treating us like maggots since the beginning. Oh cool, we got big two hundy thou dollar checks or whatever. Greeeeat. But underneath the two hundy thou, he was like…" He paused. "You know those deadbeat dads who, like, never spend time with their kids 'cause they hate 'em, but they buy 'em cars 'n pay for their trips to Amsterdam so they can get shitfaced with their friends and get run over by Dutch bicyclists? And it's all just making up for the fact that they don't give a shit about 'em? It felt like that, Chuck."

"Why didn't you say anything if you weren't happy with—"

"Why didn't I say anything? How 'bout this, Chuck: Why didn't you listen? 'Cause I did say. Plenty! All those trashy dating books? I saw this comin'. Know what else I saw comin'?"

"Pray tell, Morgan! O Great Seeing One!" He was starting to get pissed all over again, this time at someone he'd never been pissed at before—not seriously, not outside of trivial video game shit.

"Sarah!" he snapped. Chuck gave him a surprised look. What the hell did Sarah have to do with it? "She's your girlfriend, Chuck, but that doesn't mean jack to guys like him."

"The hell's that mean?" He knew what Morgan was getting at but he asked anyway.

"Seriously, Chuck? He has been slobbering over Sarah from the moment he tailed us to her Warehouse gig!"

Chuck knew that, too. And still, everything was stinging, including his pride. So he snapped, "Whatever. It's about the band, Morgan. This is Critical Hellfire's big break. It's Sarah's big break. That's why she's been spending time with him. That's the only reason, okay?"

"I didn't say anything about Sarah's motivations. She probably can't see the snake in the grass because she's got a one track mind about getting the band discovered! And lemme tell ya, he knows that, too. That's why he's gonna try to use the tricks he learned from Dr. Bozz's Get Laid book to bag your girl."

"Stop it," Chuck said through a clenched jaw.

"No, you need to hear me!"

"Oh, I hear you just fine, thanks! Some super rich guy wants to steal my girlfriend. Got it!" he yelled.

"Yeah, well, he's a walking, talking babe trap is what he is. Guys like that aren't used to not getting what they want, either, so watch out, Sarah."

"That's such bullshit, man," he said, his own insecurities about everything mounting in his own head, bundling up in his chest, a dark, twisted ball of bitterness clogging up the space around his heart. "Sarah's not into that dickwad."

"Not yet, but give her time! Lemme just see here." He started counting off on fingers, slamming them against the steering wheel one by one. "One! He's filthy rich. Two! He drives a filthy rich person car. Three! He's all dripping with charm and chicks dig that. Four! That penthouse is madness, like who wouldn't want to live in that?! Didn't Sarah say those exact words when we left that night? Something like, 'Shit, what I wouldn't give to live there'," he said, making his voice higher pitched.

"That's not even what Sarah sounds like!"

He felt like a child even as the words came out but he was fed up with people treating him like this, fed up with people snapping at him. He was who he was and he couldn't fucking change that. And if he wasn't enough, well then, what was new?

"Five!" Morgan continued, ignoring him. "Cole Barker is a James Bond name, which, sorry to break it to ya, Mr. Polish Roots, Chuck Bartowski is not." Fuck, that one hurt. "And six! He's giving her a ticket to paradise, man! A music video shot in Joshua Tree? That's some U2 shit! That's career-making! And he did that for her."

"It's about the band, it isn't about Sarah."

"Maybe for Sarah, and maybe for the band, but not for Cole. He'll give her a couple music videos if it means getting into those leather pants."

"Stop," he snapped. "Don't talk about her like that."

Morgan winced, to his credit. "Yeah. I know. That wasn't cool. Sarah's awesome. But man, all you've got is that basement and a webcam."

"I have passion!" Chuck tried, but it sounded lame even to his ears, and he was suddenly struck with a sick feeling.

"Passion doesn't mean shit in a world run by money, power, and influence. Cole has all three in spades. Sooner or later, that shit works. On everybody. It'd even work for me and I'm a straight male." Morgan shrugged.

"Yeah, well, how about you take Cole Barker and shove him up your ass since you're such a fan."

"I'm not a fan! I think he's a piece of shit! And there you go, not listening again! I've never liked the asshole! He's slimy! He's a slime ball! A slime machine! You put a quarter in the slot and slime just oooozes out!" Morgan pointed at him, taking the car off of the freeway offramp and guiding the Nerd Herder towards Chuck's house. "Oh, and by the way, how about you take your show that you don't even own anymore and shove that up your ass!"

Chuck blanched. "Know what? I'm done with this shit. You don't want to do the show anymore, let's just not do it. How about that?"

"Well, we can't! Because we don't own it! Because we signed a contract that passed it over into James Bond's possession, so we're shit outta luck there! Everything we've built, not worth shit anymore. And I'm gonna have to go back to selling washing machines at the fuckin' Buy More." He groaned angrily. "You really fucked this up, Chuck."

"Me?! I?! Wow. Okay. You were making fun of that sponsor piece of shit, too."

"Of course I was! He was offensive! But I didn't then go into the sound booth and poke the Producer Bear like you did!"

"I didn't poke the bear!"

"Well, oooooobviously, you did, otherwise I'd still have a job! And we could've dealt with all of this together, but then you just disappeared and left me with a camera in my face and I didn't know what the hell even happened!"

Chuck was silent, his arms crossed, nothing but bad thoughts cascading through his brain. "I'm gettin' outta here."

"What, are you gonna jump out of the car into the street and splatter your brains on the pavement?"

Would that be the worse thing at this point? No. No, it would not be.

Chuck continued with the silence then, looking out of the window until Morgan finally pulled the Herder into the Bartowski driveway what felt like a century later.

They both got out of their respective doors, looking at each other over the roof of the car.

"I'm biking home. Bye." Morgan slammed the door shut and walked towards the gate behind which he kept his bike when he was over to hang out, or when they carpooled.

Chuck stomped up to the porch, but stopped short of the steps, turning back as Morgan clattered out of the gate with his bike, a storm cloud over his face.

"Morgan, wait."

Morgan paused.

"The car keys. I want 'em."

"You have your own!"

"I know."

His best friend turned to look at him, betrayal in his face. "Wow. Okay." Fishing in his pocket, he took the keys Chuck had made for him when he first bought this car and threw them at Chuck. Chuck snatched them out of the air. "Fuck you!" Morgan said over his shoulder.

"Fuck you too, man!"

He got a no look middle finger as Morgan Grimes rode away.

Well.

God damn.

}o{

She woke up later than she meant to, knowing that reading until two in the morning would screw her sleeping pattern, and she did it anyway. But as she rolled over and picked up her phone, her first thought was of him.

She ignored the "Good morning, Sarah. How are you? Interested in dinner? Maybe late lunch?" text from Cole, pulling up the conversation with Chuck again.

He'd finally responded sometime in the early morning hours, and considering the timestamp was way later than when she'd gone to bed, she felt a spike of concern in her immediately. "Talk to you tmrw. Lot to say."

Lot to say?

He didn't even answer her question. Lot to say wasn't an answer.

And now she was really worried.

She sat up in bed, yawning, and crawled out from under the covers, standing, stretching. But before she could decide whether to call him or text him, check on him, make sure he was okay, she heard the knock he'd established as his own when they first started dating. It was the drum beat from Heart's "Barricuda", the dork.

Grinning, she swung into the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror, getting the dregs of sleep out of her eyes, smoothing her brush through her long blond hair quickly, rinsing out her mouth with a bit of toothpaste, applying deodorant, and rushing out into the main room of her loft with a, "Be right there!"

He waited patiently, not knocking again, and she finally whipped open the door. "Hi."

Oh. He looked a little… Something. He was in his usual T-shirt, zip-up hoodie, and jeans, the sneakers on his feet again instead of the nice leather shoes he'd been in the night before during the show. But he also looked like he'd not slept a wink. And his hair was messier than usual.

"Hey." He smiled at her. "Can I come in?"

"Of course." She opened the door wider for him, aware she was only in pale green boy shorts and a pink cami. Whatever. He'd seen her in less more times than she could count in the last month that they'd been dating.

"Did I wake you up?"

"Just missed waking me up, actually. I'm ashamed, but I woke up maybe two minutes before you knocked." She winced. "I know, it's late. I'm in the middle of a really good book."

"Oh, yeah? What about?"

"It's a romance set during the fall of the Roman Empire and there are basilisks and griffins involved. The characters are really juicy. Are you okay? That text you sent me really freaked me out when I saw it this morning," she rushed out, shutting the door behind him.

"S-Sorry." He shook his head, shooting her a guilty look. "I didn't mean to freak you out. I just didn't want to try to text it all so I said…well, there's a lot to say and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Today's tomorrow, so I'm-I'm here. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, it's okay." She played with the zipper of his hoodie. "You want some coffee or anything?"

He shook his head.

"Mind if I make some while you talk?" He shook his head again and she moved to the coffee pot, preparing what felt like very necessary coffee. "What happened last night?"

"Which part do you mean? The show? Or the shitshow after the show? Or during the show? I don't even know what I'm saying right now. God." He made a frustrated sound and ruffled his hair, hanging his head.

"The show went bad?"

"You didn't see it cut off abruptly after the Word from our sponsors?" he finished in a mocking voice, waggling his head.

Sarah gave him an apologetic look. "No. God, sorry. We tried. We got some of it. But we drove into the Grapevine and the reception died so we missed the rest. I saw that interview with that damn joke of a person. Oh my God, you guys were so funny. We were dying in the van."

"Thanks." He smiled a little. "That's kind of like our shtick."

"Yeah, I know. That was pinnacle stuff. Cracked me up. That Oprah line, like…right off the bat, it took me out." She sent him an appraising look and his shoulders seemed to relax just a little, but for only a moment. Then they went back to tense. "You said it cut off abruptly… Why? Cole called last night and was…weird. Asked if I'd talked to you…"

"Oh yeah? Cole called? Kind of late for him to be calling…"

Sarah gave him a funny look. "I mean, he knew we had a gig, so he probably figured I'd be up."

Chuck shifted his weight, almost seeming to squirm. "Yeah, well, he fired me."

Shock sent her back against the counter and she had to clutch onto it to keep her knees from buckling. "Wait. What?!"

"He fired me. Because I insulted Dr. Bozz who is apparently one of our biggest sponsors. Which I didn't know because I had no idea there were sponsors. A little tidbit we had sprung on us when we got there last night, no warning. Oh, another fun thing? Apparently we aren't getting our money from the viewers either. Dr. Bozz and Co are handing us our paychecks. Not that it would've changed what I did because fuck that guy and his whole philosophy. But I guess I didn't…realize how different it would be. Nobody told us." He gulped loudly. "And now I have no job."

"This doesn't make any sense!" she exclaimed, hurrying to his side and rubbing his arm. "How does he fire you from your own show? It's you and Morgan. That's it. That's the show! The logo is a cute little cartoonish drawing of your face next to his!"

"It's not my show anymore. That's what Cole said. Apparently our contract signed over all rights to GnR …drumroll please…to CB Productions. So that's it. It's done. My job is gone. And good ol' Cole Barker has my life by the balls. He's squeezing. I can feel it."

She was numb.

"Chuck… God, I'm…" She swallowed hard. She didn't know what to say. What in the fuck was Cole Barker doing? How was he okay with doing this to another person? Just taking their livelihood out from under them for doing their show the way they'd always done it.

She moved in to wrap Chuck up in a tight hug, because that was all she could think to do. "Are you okay?"

"No."

"I figured that might be the answer. I don't know why I asked." She pressed a kiss to his temple.

"Yeah, well. Fuck him. Fuck Cole Barker. Fuck his whole shit production company." He pulled out of the hug and started pacing. "I'm so tired of being told by guys like that that I don't get to control my own life. Guys like me are always getting stomped on by guys like that! It's never gonna stop, either. Because that's just how things work. And nobody is gonna tell someone like Cole Fuckin' Barker that he can't have everything he wants."

He gestured right at Sarah, raising his eyebrows, and then crossed his arms.

She'd seen it clear as day. He'd thrusted his hand out…at her. While saying that.

"What…was that?" she asked tentatively.

"What?"

"You kind of threw your arm in my direction when you said all that. Like you were implicating me."

Chuck shook his head, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't implicating you. I did that because Cole Barker has wants and what he wants he gets to have. Look out Sarah!" He shrugged dramatically, as if saying oh well that's that.

"Excuse me?" What in the hell was this now? "Look out Sarah?"

"Yeah. Come on, you haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?" She narrowed her eyes. He was going to have to use his words on this one, not because she didn't know what he was getting at, but because his tone was starting to prick at something inside of her.

"You're one of the things he wants, Sarah. Yes, c'mon. You know it. You're smart. You're observant," he cut her off when her jaw dropped and she tried to deny it. He affected a bad English accent then. "Yeees, Sarah. Whatever you waaaant, Sarah. Band? Critical Hellfire? Who are they? Sarah Sarah Sarah."

"Are you drunk?"

"Nope."

"High?"

"I am not. I'm seeing clearly finally for the first time since that swarthy bastard knocked on my God damn door."

Chuck Bartowski was standing here completely sober, angry, and angling at some sort of point. She wanted to know what that point was. So that she could get properly mad.

"What exactly is your goal here?" she asked him. "Let's get to the point."

She stepped up close to him and looked into his face. Challenging him.

"Are you still doing that music video?"

Sarah let out a harsh breath, shaking her head. "Yeah. I am. You said it yourself, it's a huge opportunity."

"Uh huh. Okay." Chuck pursed his lips, sticking his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. "That's great. So it doesn't matter that he just stole my show from me, stole my whole livelihood from me. Stole years of work. Because he was mad I embarrassed him in front of a fellow richie."

"Of course that matters to me! I feel terrible about it, Chuck. But you can fix it. Right? Go to him, tell him you lost your head, and… What? What's that look?"

"Did you see the stupid shit they made me and Morgan wear? They had this corny ass theme song they started the show with about Buddies and Pals Having Fun, Metal and—I don't even remember how it went because it was cheesy as hell and not even catchy. We were so confused. We don't even get to talk to people in the chat because we can't see it. There's some guy off to the side who filters it and gives us thumbs up if the chat's reacting well and thumbs down if it's bad. I'm not going back to that, not for any sort of fucking paycheck. I refuse."

Sarah sighed, nodding. "Okay, I get that. But sometimes compromise needs to be made. Didn't you say that to me?"

"That was different."

"How? Because then you were saying it and now I'm saying it?"

"No! He hadn't fucking fired me, stolen Games N Rock Sessions from me to have new hosts that talk about…Elvis! Elvis, Sarah, I mean come the fuck on!"

Ooooof, Elvis? Really? Terrible.

"It's all just for ad clicks, a get rich quick bullshit corporate play. He doesn't give a fuck about anything our channel stood for. This dude doesn't even like metal."

"Yes, he does."

"No, he doesn't."

"Okay, so why is he doing all of this stuff to help Critical Hellfire get a break? Hiring us to do this music video for a car commercial. We'll be on TV, Chuck. Hulu, other streaming services."

"I'll give you three guesses and the last two don't count." She glared a little. "Sarah, it isn't about the band. It's about you. He doesn't give a shit about the band, or metal. He's trying to snag you and he knows the band is his gateway, because your band is the most important thing in the world to you."

"That's bullshit," she snapped. "Maybe you need to take a moment and think before you say something you'll regret."

"It isn't bullshit," Chuck argued, stepping even closer, their noses almost touching. "He's been angling for you since the beginning of all of this and I was so caught up in my own Twitch channel and our potential promotion that I didn't notice."

"My band is fucking great, Chuck. That's why we got this opportunity."

"Your band is fucking great. Critical Hellfire is the greatest band I've ever seen. And Cole Barker doesn't agree with me, he's just bending over backwards to get you to notice he's bending over backwards."

She felt hurt starting to throb in her chest. She didn't want to clarify, and then she knew she had to. "Maybe he thinks we've got talent."

"Maybe he thinks you're the hottest thing he's seen this side of the Atlantic. Maybe he'd like to do more than just promote your band."

"What?"

Sarah couldn't help letting him see the hurt, it came on so intensely and so suddenly. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat, waiting a moment to be able to control her voice. Even still, she heard a bit of shakiness under the righteous anger. "You think that's the only way I can get my band a gig? Sleeping around?"

"He sure thinks so. Makes sense though. He screwed me, and now he wants to screw you."

Sarah let that rest for a few moments, knowing if she didn't, she'd try to hit him or something. And that wasn't what she wanted. Not this time. Because roiling with the fury was a deep and overpowering hurt.

"Okay. That was incredibly offensive. Thanks for letting me know how you feel about me, about my career."

"Come on." He rolled his eyes. "This isn't about your career. You know how I feel about the band. This is about Cole. And what he wants. It's about Cole stroking your career because he wants to str—"

"You should leave."

Sarah looked him right in his eyes, barely holding in the explosion of terrible emotions threatening. She felt it lining her eyes.

"What?" he snapped. "We're in the middle of a convers—"

"Leave." She pointed to the door.

She saw the hurt in him and that wasn't at all fair with the way he came in here, dragging chaos and vengeance in with him.

"Fine." He threw up his hands and backed to the door. "I'm out of here."

Chuck gave her one last look over his shoulder before he went through the door and shut it behind him. She heard him trotting down the steps loudly, as if he was stomping.

Which was appropriate, considering how much of a fucking child he was.

Sarah moved to the door, locked it, and left the kitchen and coffee machine behind, heading straight for her bedroom again, climbing into her bed, and throwing the covers over her head, letting the tears finally spill down her cheeks.


A/N: All I ask is that folks keep reading.

Thanks!

-SC