Critical Hellfire

By Steampunk . Chuckster

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

A/N: I appreciate the vast majority of y'all! So much!

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.

She heard it. It just wasn't right.

Stopping the recording, she wound it back and listened again.

"No. Guys." She huffed, pushing a hand through her hair. "You hear it, right? We go from the chorus into the solo here, and we fall apart and rediscover what we're doing like two seconds later. But we need that to be clean, crisp. Perfect."

Dylan threw up his hands, putting his guitar in the stand. "I need a break."

Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. "Again?"

"Well, this is what happens when we pick a song we haven't covered before to try to impress Sir Has Too Many Top Buttons Undone, the Anointed," the guitarist complained.

She gave him a glare. "I'm not trying to impress him. We want to impress the people who are going to be seeing this advertisement, yeah? You guys were the ones who said we need to do something operatic. You literally used that word."

Mac raised his hand with his drumsticks trapped between his fingers. "That was me. I said that word. And I stand by it. But we have songs we've already worked into our set lists that are pretty operatic."

Sarah knew that. And yet… "Cole wants to lean in on big. Cinematic, he said."

"He also told us to cover Kashmir for the video, so I'm not too inclined to think he knows what he's talking about," Dylan said."Only thing that would've been a worse suggestion?"

"Stairway to Heaven." Mac and Zondra had joined in and said it with Dylan.

She gave up.

Honestly, ever since they convened a few hours ago, everyone had been on edge. The guys had stormed in especially pissed off, having apparently found out about Barker firing Chuck and Morgan and yanking their show out from under them through the online GnR discussion boards. Zondra hadn't known, and she blew up when they told her.

Things hadn't clicked in their rehearsal since then. There were blips in their sound, missed notes. They struggled with dropping in at the right times. It was like everyone was distracted. The band had shifted off of their axis.

And while she got it, while she understood how angry and disillusioned they all were with CB Productions after what they did to Chuck and Morgan the night before, Sarah was trying so hard to get everyone's head back in the game.

At least one of them had to be a little more clear-eyed.

Granted, she was holding on by a thread after this morning's skirmish with her boyfriend, the same boyfriend who'd just lost everything he'd worked his ass off for…to the same man Critical Hellfire were doing all of this rehearsal for now.

Shrugging in an attempt to push all of that out of her mind, she went back to the beginning of the recording they made of their latest attempt at "Still of the Night". She wasn't sure why everyone was struggling to see what she saw. That no matter what else was going on, this opportunity with CB Productions could change the tide for Critical Hellfire. They needed to get it right. And in spite of the wrong he'd done Chuck and Morgan, in spite of apparently being an asshole…Cole Barker was their ticket.

Still, none of this was settling right in her gut. And one thing her grandma had always told her was to go with her gut. Damn it.

"So he told us to cover Led Zeppelin. Is that a crime?"

"Kinda," Zondra muttered. She gave the woman a look of betrayal. "What?" Zondra shrugged defensively. "Anyway, why are you sticking up for Barker all of a sudden? What's that about? What he did to those guys was fucked up and we all know it. We can still do this music video without being on Team Barker. He's a dickhead."

Sarah straightened up from where she'd been stooped over the recording system, putting her hands on her hips. The boys were looking at her steadily too. Great, now there was a wedge forming here? That was the last thing they needed, and the worst timing for it.

"I'm not sticking up for him. He is a dickhead. I know that. It has nothing to do with Cole Barker and everything to do with the fact that this is an opportunity for us. A big opportunity. This is going to give our band exposure in a way the things we've booked for ourselves, or Bob booked for us, never have. And if don't take every chance we get by the horns, if we throw water on it or are cynical about it, that hampers our ability to get the best result out of this."

Dylan in particular made a grumpy little sound.

"Okay, fine. We haven't really addressed it, so why don't we?" she blurted, shifting to face all three of them better, taking her hands off of her hips and crossing her arms instead. "How much do we want Critical Hellfire to get the attention we deserve? Do we all want this? Or is this all just me yanking everyone along because it's what I want? I'm asking genuinely."

She paused. None of them said a word.

"This is where I'm at right now," she continued. "We don't have to like Cole Barker. Shit, my boyfriend just got his livelihood destroyed by the bastard. I don't like him. I don't want to be around him in any capacity outside of what is necessary to get this done." She pointed down at the floor with both fingers.

Mac twisted his face up and tilted his head. "So we haven't gone to dinner with him yet and he keeps texting you about it. Do we…have to? Can we just…not? Is that an option? I don't want to eat food that he's paid for. It would probably taste like ripe booty."

"And you're okay taking the money and potential opportunity for an album deal from him?" Zondra asked, raising an eyebrow.

"But you see, I'm not putting those things in my mouth," the drummer explained with a shrug.

"So we're talkin' about things you're willing to put in your mouth now?" Dylan muttered.

Mac pointed at him. "That was actually a really good one."

"A'thank you."

"Guys," Sarah cut in. Neither of them looked a bit contrite when they turned back to her. She was so tired of men. All of them honestly. "Maybe we can just ghost him about the dinner thing."

"Yeah, he keeps asking though. He refuses to get the hint," Zondra groused, rolling her eyes.

"We just have to hold off long enough to get through this video shoot. That's it," Sarah tried, but Zondra cut in again.

"So how isn't this us protecting Shades Bond from having hurt feefees?"

"Shades Bond. Also a good one," Mac muttered.

"If we piss off Cole Barker, the face and name of CB Productions, we can kiss this opportunity goodbye, okay?" Critical Hellfire's bassist responded, ignoring Mac. "I can't send a text to him that goes like, 'We aren't eating dinner with you, whether you pay for it or not, because we hate your guts for what you did to our boys. Fuck you. Also what time do you want us to be in Joshua Tree?' Might not go over very well." She shrugged sarcastically.

"Well, you don't hafta say it like that," Dylan mumbled. "Just a nice and simple, 'Hey, it's a no from us on dinner but thanks for the offer.' And then top that off with the, 'What time should we be there for the shoot?' Boom. Or just lie and say we want to put all our focus on rehearsing."

"Lie. Yes. Lying's good," Mac agreed, pointing at his best friend.

"I'm not texting him anything," Sarah said, cutting her hand through the air. "My hope is none of us have to interact with him outside of getting our instructions for where we gotta be and when. Okay?"

She was getting frustrated. She could feel her blood pressure rising. But she had to remind herself they were all angry, they were hurting, and there was this deep guilt pricking at them as well…again. She needed to be patient with her bandmates.

"We love those guys. What CB Productions did to them is still sitting in my gut like I swallowed a boulder," she said quietly. "But we've been striving for this for years. We could use Cole and this opportunity to springboard into some other big break that gets us away from him and his jerk production company. We don't have to even see 'em again." She pushed her hand through her hair. "I can't be the only one who wants this for us. Right? Like, we all want this to be a huge success, we want to sign a record deal, get our music out there to people."

"We've only really known the Morgster and the Chuckster for a little over a month, but they've worked for years to build Games N Rock Sessions, too. It feels really bad, like we're telling them what we've worked years for is more important than what they've worked years for." Dylan hung his head. "That's just me saying what I'm feeling right now. Hence why I'm probably playing like shit right now."

Sarah looked at him for a long moment, really looking at him. He was right. "Yeah," she said quietly. "You're right, it kinda…does feel like that, doesn't it?" She made a miserable face then, plopping down in the nearest seat. "I don't know what to do. This is the closest we've come to broadcasting our talents to a lot of people. We deserve this. We're so good; it's just that we haven't gotten that lucky draw yet. And we're so close to something, I can taste it. This could be it."

Mac twirled one of his drumsticks distractedly, speaking up. "Maybe none of us has the answers. I can taste something too and it isn't the cheesesteak I had for lunch, either." The doofus. "And yes, it does feel like we're holding hands with the people who stabbed our friends in their backs and shoved 'em off a cliff…"

Finally, Zondra made her voice heard. "I'm not usually the optimistic one out of the four of us, and I know that. That's reserved for this guy over here with his privilege." She gestured at Mac, a teasing smirk on her face, touching on the running joke that existed between them all.

"Hey," he responded with his usual pretending at being offended. "I'm gay!"

"Eh." The guitarist shrugged, and she smirked a bit harder at him, sending him a kissy face. He snorted. She sobered up a little then. "But I keep thinking, ya know? What if this does lead to a break for us, we get an album, it kicks ass, we get more albums, we sign with a big label, we get power, say so… Ya know what people say about what goes around comes around? We either drop a hammer on CB Productions or we buy GnR back and give it to our guys. Maybe both."

"Cool, when we're all in our fifties? 'Cause that's how long it'll take to get that kind of money, Riz," Sarah said.

"And theeeere's Miss Pessimism," Mac drawled.

The singer and bassist glared at her drummer. "It isn't pessimism. I'm being realistic. But I won't lie, the idea of using 'em now and wrecking 'em later is kind of glorious." Zondra wiggled her eyebrows and crossed her arms triumphantly. "But I don't want to be the one who decides this for the rest of us. So we do this here and now. All four of us with equal say in what we do moving forward." She climbed back to her feet. "Are you guys just doing this because you know how intensely I want it? Or do you want it intensely, too?"

She didn't want them to be worried about it fracturing the band. She didn't want them to be worried they'd upset her. She would never let anything drive a wedge here. They'd be together no matter what happened.

But she also knew she'd sound patronizing if she told them they wouldn't upset her if they didn't want to do the music video. They already knew. After all of this time? They knew.

She looked at Dylan first, got a nod from him, then at Mac who also nodded, and finally at Zondra. "You, Riz?"

"Stupid question," the other woman growled. "I want my khâleh Leila to eat her words about how this music obsession is just going to lead me into a life on the streets like it did their cousin Bahram."

Sarah found herself smiling, seeing the rest of the band do the same.

"This is for us," Sarah said. "All of the rest of it to the side. Even…" She licked her lips. "Even Chuck and Morgan. I'm positive they understand." She wasn't positive. In fact, Chuck had been very sore about it, enough that he'd said something to her, about her, that felt like a needle jabbing into her heart. She swallowed hard, sucking in a deep breath, blinking, trying to push the pain away. She hadn't cried about it since this morning and she wasn't about to do it now. "We've worked our asses off. We got here because of that work, because of our talent. There's no other reason."

And she maybe said that last part with an extra amount of vehemence because of that awful stinging sensation. She'd had over twelve hours to recuperate and hadn't. She likely wouldn't anytime soon. It had fucking hurt.

"And we all sat down and figured out a list of things we could pick from. We settled on something that would showcase all of our talents. Sure, none of us can play the cello, but if we nail this like I know we're gonna after we work on it some more, we won't need the orchestral break. Just us: our two guitars, a bass, and drums. That's it." She cut her hand through the air.

"Oooo, you say it like that and I like it," Mac drawled, a slow grin stretching over his face.

There was a long pause then as everyone fiddled with their instruments, Dylan moving to drink water.

It was late in the night and they'd all been working like mad on learning the song and trying to get the details right pretty much all day. Maybe they could all use another break.

And then Mac's voice cut through the silence. "Still bummed we don't have the outside-of-the-band ear to help us pick the song this time. Could really use Chuck and Morgan right about now. Even if just for some fuggin' confidence boost." He twirled his sticks. "Sucks they're in a fight."

Sarah did a double take, fixing Mac with a wide-eyed look. "They're in a fight?"

"Yeah." Mac shrugged. "Wait, you didn't know? Chuck didn't already tell you? I figured that was why neither of them were here, that you decided it'd be awkward for us to choose which one came and which one didn't."

She was silent for a moment, a thousand things happening in her head at once. "No, I didn't know. They had a fight today?"

"Last night," he filled in. "Apparently after that mess with the show, Cole yanking the plug on GnR with the guys who fuckin' started the thing, which…I know, I know, no talking shit on Cole right now because he's handing us a ticket that might lead to stardom." Sarah frowned, shifting her weight. "But Chuck got pulled away into another room after the sponsor interview, Cole fired him, and our boy Curls stormed out of there without telling The Beard. So Morgan was just there, the cameras on him, freaking out, sweating balls, confused, tongue-tied, and he finally bolted. The stream apparently cut out there. But then Morgan couldn't find Chuck anywhere, drove around for an hour looking for him, found him all pissed off walking around LA, made him get in the car, wheeere they then proceeded to have a blow-out fight."

"How'd you know about all this?" Zondra asked him.

"Morgan texted me the whole story all upset earlier, and said that was why he couldn't be here."

No wonder Chuck had come into her place this morning with such a massive chip on his shoulder. He'd gotten into a blow-out fight with his best friend. Not that it excused what he said to her. Nothing excused that.

"I didn't know," she breathed. Here went nothing. She swallowed hard. "I didn't invite anyone, especially not Chuck, because, um…" She cleared her throat. "We fought. Today. Earlier. This morning." She looked away, her chest constricting. She'd really thought she could get that out without it feeling like it was strangling her, but no luck.

"Oh shit," Zondra breathed, giving her a sorry look that almost snapped the determination she'd had all day. "No wonder you've been so tense all day."

Well, there went her assumption that she'd been keeping it all out of their rehearsal.

"Do you need to—?"

"Nope," she cut Mac off. "Thanks," she said as sincerely as she could. "I appreciate the offer, but I'd rather not. We have a lot of work to do and almost no time to do it in. I'll be fine."

They were all silent for a long moment. And then Dylan had to say, "Man. I thought the Chuck and Morgan fight was why we didn't have our fun little audience helping us out today, and now we find out it was a whole thing with you and Chuck. Sorry, Sarah. That sucks."

"Yeah, well…" Sarah shrugged, grabbing her water and taking a long swig, trying to play it off. "You get used to this shit after a while. When it happens over and over with every single fuckin' guy. I'm gonna play back the recording," she rushed out. "Tell me to stop when you have a note or suggestion or whatever, 'kay?"

Sarah rushed on, willing herself not to cry. She didn't have time for tears. They had their careers to build, and getting this song perfectly right was the gear on which it all hinged.

}o{

He waited for a click to interrupt the ringing. He stole himself for that click. He was ready for it. Ready to hear her voice.

He heard the click then, and her voice flooded his ears…only it was a recording. "You've reached Sarah's phone. Leave a message."

Direct. To the point.

The beep sounded and he shut his eyes, a cool late afternoon breeze rustling at his hair as he leaned against the Herder in the Graham's lot.

"Hi, Sarah. It's Chuck. I'm sorry. But that isn't the only thing. There's a lot I wanna say, but saying it over voicemail feels stupid and trite and half-assed. I'd like to talk to you, see you. If I can. I know you're busy preparing for that music video, but…if I can see you, apologize in person, that'd be…um, great. Okay, uh…yeah that's it. Um. Bye."

He hung up, his face crumbling in agony. "What the fuck was that, dude?" he breathed to himself, turning to face his car and hunching over to thump his forehead against the dusty roof.

Finally straightening up, he stuffed his phone in his pocket and turned to look into the large windows of the 'fifties style diner, sweeping the place for a particular person he was almost certain would be there.

Chuck took a deep breath when he saw the person he was looking for sitting at a back table, and he walked into Graham's, nodding at the owner as he glared at him from behind the register while taking a couple's order.

Was that the usual Graham glare? Or did Morgan dish the drama to him and he'd taken sides?

Who wouldn't take Morgan's side in this one?

He took the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon to let himself just drive around and think. And then he'd called the Grimes landline, rather than Morgan's phone. Bolonia answered and told him immediately where her son had gone. It was exactly the outcome Chuck had been hoping for.

Now he approached the table, his hands stuck in his pockets, feeling out of his depth. They'd never fought before really, and he wasn't sure how to approach making up.

Morgan barely glanced up at him. He huffed, fiddling with the straw poking out of his blended mocha drink. "My mom told you I was here, didn't she?" he mumbled.

Chuck stopped behind the chair closest to Morgan's but didn't sit just yet. "Yeah. How'd you know that?"

He picked up his cell from where it sat facedown on the table top. "She texted me to warn me you might be coming to find me."

"Oh. Makes sense."

That meant Morgan had a chance to make a clean escape so that he didn't have to talk to or see Chuck, and he didn't take it. He stayed. That was encouraging at least, wasn't it?

"M-Mind if I sit down in this chair?"

"No. S'a free country. Or whatever." Morgan looked away, slurping his drink.

Chuck took that win and pulled the chair out, plopping down into it and clearing his throat.

"Dude, I…was a dickhead." That seemed to surprise The Beard, who spun to look at him with wide eyes. Chuck looked down into his own lap and let out a rough breath. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stomped out of there, leaving you alone to deal with that stupid fuckin' situation with Cole and all of them alone. That was garbage. I should've kept my head enough to come out to grab ya and tell you on the way or something."

"Oh. Yeah. That sucked," Morgan said. "Um, I shouldn't have said that shit about Sarah and you…and Cole. That was me lashing out 'cause you made me mad. But it was a low blow. Like…you aren't a catch and he is. I didn't mean that. You're obviously the coolest guy I've ever met besides that time I saw Jet Li going through the celebrity entrance to Indiana Jones at Disneyland and I yelled his name and he looked in my general direction. Cole? Pfft. He's trying really hard to be Robin Thicke and it's embarrassing. Like, out of all the people to emulate…him? The poster child for why nepotism can be really super terrible? Yikes."

Chuck let out a soft laugh. "Oh, man. He does look like he's going for Robin Thicke. Yikes is right. But you know, you…weren't wrong. Even if it hurt. Maybe Sarah isn't going to fall head over heels for Robin Thicke Lite because she's smarter than that, but he still has the ability to take care of Critical Hellfire in a way I never will. The fact that I'm in love with their lead singer aside, that is a sucky feeling, knowing he has power and money and can use it for whatever he wants. It's pretty clear Sarah is what he wants, and he'll run through that stellar fuggin' band to get to her. It's driving me nuts. They deserve so much better. All of 'em."

Morgan nodded. "Yeah. They do."

Clearing his throat again, Chuck shrugged, not looking at Morgan, feeling unsure still. They'd never fought like this before. Ever. He finally decided to just go for it, narrowing his eyes in a wince down at the table.

"We buds?" he asked quietly.

"We buds," Morgan said, not even pausing for a moment.

Chuck looked up, Morgan met his gaze, and they both smiled softly. "Ah. One more thing. To make it official." He blushed as he pulled the second set of car keys out of his pocket and slid them towards his best friend. "That was cold, super shitty, and I'm sorry I did it. Take those keys back, please. I was lashing out at your lashing out. It was childish."

Morgan smiled harder and nodded. "It was crappy, yeah, but thanks for the apology. And for the keys." He took them off the table and stuck them in his own pocket.

"Wanna drive us back to my place?"

"Oh. Sure. Or maybe we can swing by the warehouse. I think they're prepping for the music video and… What? What's that face?"

Chuck swallowed hard, checking his phone. No calls, no texts. He shouldn't have really expect anything different.

"I'll tell you in the car. There's been a…development."

}o{

"You said what?! DUDE!"

Chuck groaned, thumping his head against the back of the plush chair he'd slung his lanky body over. "I knooooow."

"I mean, I won't lie, I'm hurt they're still doing this whole thing with CB Productions after how hard Cole fucked us. That is hurting my feelings."

He nodded. "I'm also stinging over it. But I guess I've had all day to think about it, ya know? And to ask them to throw away an opportunity like this when they've worked so hard for years to get somewhere…all for us? Guys they just met a little over a month ago? It isn't fair to expect them to choose us over this opportunity they've deserved for, like, years."

"Yeah. It isn't. But I can't help how I feel. And I guess neither could you this morning when you snapped at Sarah." He wrinkled up his nose in a wince. "But hinting she's using Cole's obvious intention to sex her up in order to get her band this opportunity? Not great, man."

"Worse than not great," Chuck breathed, letting his head fall back over the arm of the chair, his legs slung over the other arm. "This is a really tight spot for her, and probably uncomfortable, too, ya know? But fuck me, I might've screwed that up for good. It's such an offensive thing to say and here I've been doing the most to make her feel appreciated and cared about and like she's the most badass, talented person in the whole universe. Only to fuckin' ruin it because someone took a mallet to my feet Kathy-Bates-in-Misery stylez."

"Oooof. Shit. Imagery, bro. You try to call her?"

"Kathy Bates?"

"Dude."

Chuck winced apologetically. It was his defense mechanism to be a goof. "Yeah, I texted, called, left a voicemail. Nada."

"Give her time. You're a good man. She's a good woman."

"I know she is. Which is why she didn't deserve to get shivved like that." He cursed and pushed his hands through his hair in frustration.

"We've all shivved people who don't deserve the shivving. You just gotta get her to let you apologize. And you gotta do it from the heart. And be yourself. She fell for yourself—you."

"I don't know how to force her to let me apologize to her. I don't really want to force her to do anything. I just…want her to be happy." He sighed. "I want Critical Hellfire to get a record deal. I think that's what will make her happier than anything else in the world."

Morgan sat up a bit, his eyes widening. He pointed. "And you want to be what makes her happier than anything else in the world, yeah?"

"No, I'm-I'm not competing with her band. That's not fair to ask her to put the guy she's been dating a couple of weeks above something she's worked her whole life for and—"

"No, no, no. I'm not saying you have to make her happier than her band's success would make her. I'm saying you be the one who hands her that happiness. What if we make it so they get their big break without having to sell their souls to the Devil like Robert Johnson did at the crossroads?"

Chuck sat up as well. "I don't…not like that. But we don't have Cole Barker's money, or his power and influence. We don't have a big stupid production company. How are we supposed to snag Critical Hellfire an opportunity that gets them big time exposure that's bigger and better than what Barker's already set up for them? That ad is gonna play on Hulu, for God's sake."

"Passion!"

Chuck and Morgan jumped at the sound of a third voice in the basement, both of them spinning with scared squeaks to see Ellie standing at the base of the staircase that led up into the house, her arms crossed at her chest, leaning back against the wall.

"Holy shit, Ellie! Are you a cat now? How did we not hear you?" Chuck asked.

"I'm in socks."

"Clever giiirrrrlllll," Morgan growled.

"Passion," Ellie repeated, pushing off from the wall and walking around to look at them both. "Nobody believes in Critical Hellfire like you two do. Nobody. I haven't seen the douchebag around Sarah, but if you two say his whole enterprise with the band revolves around trying to bag Sarah like she's an inanimate object instead of a living, breathing human being deserving of respect, I believe you. And if that's the case, if his heart is in the wrong place—namely in his eensy-weensy peepee—" Morgan choked out a laugh and Chuck grinned proudly. "—That's gotta be pretty obvious in the way this music video shoot goes down. Right? You can always tell when someone's not into it."

"Ellen DeGeneres in the super-flopped movie Mr. Wrong," Morgan said. "You watch that and you're like 'yeeeahhh she's a lesbian'. Really, like…super was not into making out with Bill Pullman, which is so crazy to me because 'nineties Bill Pullman? Man could pull. No pun intended."

Chuck and Ellie exchanged a look.

Ellie muttered, "So you two made up, then…"

"Yep! Buds again!" Morgan chirped.

"Shame." She turned back to Chuck as Morgan frowned, offended. "We need to figure something out that will be bigger and better than a car commercial on Hulu. That means more than just thinking outside the box. We need to kick down the walls of the box." She headed for the stairs again. "Come on. Upstairs. We have planning to do and I'm not doing it on an empty stomach."

Chuck scrambled to his feet, pulling Morgan up as well on his way to the staircase to follow his sister. And as they all moved into the main living area towards the table, Ellie belted, "DEVOOOOONNNNNN!"

He clambered down the hallway a moment later, shirtless, nothing but a towel knotted at his waist, his hair still wet from the shower. "Babe, I swear I wasn't the one who recorded a wrestling match over that Bachelor finale!"

Ellie's jaw fell open. "You did what?!"

Chuck threw his hands up. "You know what? Finish your shower, Awesome. Please."

"Oh. I did. It's finished. I take these really quick showers now, for the environment. Micro-showers. Google it."

"No, that's okay," Chuck murmured.

"Get dressed. You can join in after," Ellie said, seeming miffed about the Bachelor thing still with the way she narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend.

"Join what? What's goin' oooooon?" he drawled, giving them all a dubious but excited look.

"We're getting—"

"We're helping Chuck get Sarah back!" Awesome cut off his girlfriend, thrusting his chiseled arms out to either side, his fingers splayed in excitement. "Yes! I'm in!" He clapped his hands together once, really hard, as if he was back in his UCLA quarterback days, dismissing the huddle.

"Actually, we're making Critical Hellfire famous. But, um…" Chuck wrinkled up his face. "If getting my girlfriend not to hate my guts also goes with that, I'll be very stoked."

Awesome pumped his fists over his head. "YES! I! AM! IN!"

As he rushed back down the hallway, barely keeping the towel on long enough to disappear, Ellie turned back to Chuck and Morgan. "He says that as if he has a choice."

"I was thinkin' the same thing," Chuck said at the same time as Morgan's, "Exactly."

When Captain Awesome emerged again, he proved exactly why Chuck had given him his nickname.

As they all bit into their sandwiches, he said around his ham and cheese deluxe (with everything), "So make it smaller, and maybe that'll make it bigger."

Chuck furrowed his brow. "Um. Explain?"

"A TV commercial is whatever. Who's gonna see it? Some eighty-five year old who crochets while she watches her daytime soaps? What does she care about an Ocelot sedan, first of all? But also, do you think Betsy cares about a metal band? She'll probably mute it if she can find that button on her remote. What is this racket?!" he mimicked in a terrible old woman voice. Then he shrugged. "But if you put them into the ears of metal fans? Lots of metal fans? Money."

Ellie shook her finger at her boyfriend. "Wait a second, that's kind of brilliant. Find the right audience and that'll go a lot further than one of those Hulu commercials that last so long I get pissed off at the actual thing being advertised."

"It is brilliant!" Chuck exclaimed, sitting up straighter. "We hone in on the metalheads. Like what we would have done on Games N Rock Sessions. But…there are some issues with that." He frowned. "First of all, our channel only hits LA's metal fans, a few outliers here and there. And while it's more people than they'd get at a gig in a metal venue, it isn't nearly enough to make the impression we need them to make."

"I think I know what the second thing is…" Morgan muttered glumly. "Is it that we don't own Games N Rock Sessions anymore?"

Chuck snapped his fingers and pointed at his best friend. "Bingo. We try to go live, Cole Barker can smack us with lawsuits galore. And he will. He's enough of a li'l shit."

"Crap," Ellie hissed around her peanut butter and jelly.

Awesome's eyes went big as he sat forward. "No. Nope. Hold on. Something's brewing." He pointed to his head. "Something's coming up."

"Maybe you ate that sandwich too fast?" Morgan offered.

Ellie sent him the most annoyed look Chuck had seen come from her in a while. Still, Morgan snickered and snorted, stomping his sneakers on the floor in amusement.

Awesome ignored him. "Weren't you guys miffed because they told you they were knocking that last word off of the channel's title? I remember, we were eating Ellie's pot roast, and you guys were talking about how stupid and pointless it was, and that the Sessions part was important. Is that what they wrote in the contract? Did they put Games N Rock Sessions or just Games N Rock into the actual legal document?"

Chuck didn't quite get it for a moment, but he held up a finger with a "Hold on and we'll look together", pushing his chair back from the table and heading for the hallway that led to his bedroom where he kept the contract at the top of his desk drawer. But he halted halfway down the hallway, because it finally clicked in his head.

If CB Productions used the name Games N Rock in the contract instead of Games N Rock Sessions…

Ripping open the drawer, he snagged the contract and rushed back to the others, even as he scanned the document, every single page painted with: "Games N Rock!" he blurted as he burst back into the room.

They all spun to look at him as he hoisted the contract over his head. "There is no mention of the Twitch channel Games N Rock Sessions in this contract." He slapped the contract loudly onto the table, clattering one of the plates loudly and making Ellie half-glare at him as he winced.

Awesome snatched it up and went through each page meticulously. "Well, that's one big problem…defeated," he finished in a cinematic growl.

"Finish Himmmmm," Morgan growled in his best Mortal Kombat growl.

"You've spent too much time with them," his sister muttered to her boyfriend.

"Oh, I've always been like this," Awesome said with a shrug.

"HA!" Chuck reached over to high five the man he was absolutely sure would become his brother-in-law at some point. And he'd happily walk his sister down the aisle for this guy.

Awesome slapped the contract down again. "I'm willing to bet there isn't a single court room that'd side with Cole Big-Britches Barker on this. You use your actual show name and you're peachy."

Well, that was already a step in the right direction then. Chuck grinned at Morgan, earning a nudge of the shorter man's fist against his shoulder. He tried not to get too cocky about this, though. Because there was still a lot to figure out. Like…the whole entire plan to get Critical Hellfire on metalheads' radar, for instance.

"Okay, well… Then…" Chuck pursed his lips thoughtfully. "We can use our Twitch channel—the full name, motha fuckaaaa—but how do we get the kind of viewership we would've had if we were still streaming on Recruit Emperors? That's what Critical Hellfire needs. Big. Not just big but mega big. And how in the hell do we get ourselves there?"

They slid into a thoughtful silence, and in spite of the downturn his life had taken in the past few days, he felt lucky. He had his people here to help him. He wasn't alone. He didn't have to go into this battle by himself.

For that, he was grateful.

A/N: Hey, thanks for reading. Please review if you can! More soon!

-SC