The Detective and the Tech Guy
Author: Steampunk . Chuckster
Rating: T
Summary: A case of mistaken identity and murder brings Sarah Walker, Pinkerton agent, to sunny California. Protecting the heir to the Bartowski Electronics Corporation should be just business - but Chuck Bartowski fills out a suit nicely and makes a mean martini. Chuck lobbied to hire the Pinkerton Agency, but had no idea the detective they'd send would be as alluring, intelligent and fascinating as Sarah Walker. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man movies.
Disclaimer: No money is being made from this story. I don't own Chuck or The Thin Man series.
Author's Note: Happy 9th anniversary to this story! dettiot and I posted the first chapter on this day September 9th 2013. 9 years, folks. Madness. So anyway, I had to quickly write and post a special anniversary chapter for this specific occasion because this is who I am. So. Happy anniversary to this fic. It's been a wild ride and there's an insane amount still to come. Hope you enjoy this little surprise! And for the record, never heard of the word "Anniverse"? Well it's a word now, damn it. - Steampunk . Chuckster
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
The Detective and the Tech Guy Anniverse
She couldn't believe this was her life.
She was tired, frustrated, and disappointed.
And now she couldn't get ahold of the person who sent her on this wild goose chase. Or at least, what seemed like it was going to be a wild goose chase. There'd been no movement now for three hours. And she felt like shit for the way she'd failed to prioritize tonight. It was too late now. Plans had been cancelled, phone calls made to let the restaurant know they could give away the table.
They'd been planning on this for a week. Longer, even.
And she'd answered when she saw Casey pop up on her cell phone. She should've let it go to voicemail. She hadn't. Now she was on a fucking stakeout instead of eating a perfectly cooked filet mignon covered in bleu cheese…a spring salad tossed in raspberry vinaigrette. Wine. So much wine. Enough wine that she would have to practically be carried to the car.
She wouldn't have any wine, or steak, or salad.
Cursing under her breath, she ended the call and hit the button to retry Casey's phone.
In the meantime, she reached over to snag her water bottle, flipped the top open, took a swig, and nearly spilled when Casey answered this time.
"Walker. What is it? Movement? He show up?"
"No, he didn't show up," she snapped. "And now I've been sitting in my car watching this place for three hours for God knows what."
"I told ya what. If Hewitt shows up, you take pictures, get good shots of whoever he shows up with. We're after him for some big time shit. And if we get him, we'll get his accomplices. When we get his accomplices, we blow a whole trafficking ring to bits."
"Tonight's my anniversary," she groused.
"…Okay, and?"
"And I should be having a romantic dinner with my boyfriend, and instead I'm sitting in my car in the middle of the night staring at the entrance to a high class hotel in downtown WeHo."
"Ugghhh," Casey grunted. "Disgusting. I don't need to hear about your weird thing with your secretary."
"I'm not in the mood for that crap right now."
"You decided to take the job."
"You hooked me with this take-down-a-trafficking-ring shit, damn it. You knew I wasn't going to pass that up," she argued.
"Hehe. I'm a stinker like that."
She glared out of her windshield. "Anyway, when can I bounce?"
"You already missed dinnertime, so who cares?"
"I do. And he does."
"Jesus Christ. You know how many times I missed important things for this job, Walker?"
"I'm not you, Captain."
"Well, see if you can try to channel me tonight. Stick around a while longer. If I need to, I can ask one of my detectives to do what you're doing. I'll tear them away from their own work, send them to shithouse WeHo. Look, Walker, nobody does recon or takes stakeout photos the way you do. The shit you've handed over to me is rock solid in court. And with no moon tonight?"
Sarah snorted. "Okay, okay. I get it. You need nice pictures and I can get 'em for you. I'll stick around a little while longer, see what I can pick up for you lazy coppers."
"Ey."
"I'm joking!" she drawled.
"Better be. Lemme know if anything happens."
"Got it."
She hung up and huffed, rolling her eyes, dropping her phone in her lap, and staring at the hotel entrance again.
Sarah froze when she felt something pelt her in the back of her head. And she slowly turned, propping her elbow on the shoulder of her seat as she did.
"Wasn't me."
She gave Chuck Bartowski her best glare. "Oh it wasn't?" she asked sarcastically.
"Nope."
"Okay, well the thing that just smacked into the back of my head felt a lot like a gummy bear, and you happen to be tossin' back gummy bears, nerd, so…"
"I don't know what you mean," he said, mid-chew, shoving the bag of gummy bears behind his body where he lay prone across the backseat, his legs all bent up with his knees akimbo due to how damn tall he was. "I don't have gummy bears."
"You're ridiculous. But I guess I deserve the gummy bear to the head after the shit I pulled tonight."
He dropped the teasing and grabbed the bag from where he'd "hidden" it, immediately thrusting it out to her. "Have some. You need 'em. And I also don't want you doing this guilt thing again."
Sarah huffed and rolled her eyes, eating one of the gummy bears. "These taste like trash. You know that, right? Like, it's terrible for your body, putting this into it."
"Okay, fine. I won't share then. More for me. But I'm serious, Sarah." He pushed himself up onto his elbows and put the candy away, reaching over to curl his fingers around her wrist. "It's just a date. And hey, you let me come on a stakeout with you! Which is like…my dream come true. Best anniversary present e-vah," he exclaimed dorkily.
She smirked and shook her head at him. "You're the only person I've ever heard of who is like 'hmmmmm, romantic dinner with my girlfriend for our anniversary, or go to my girlfriend's work with her for our anniversary? I'll go to my girlfriend's work with her!' You are very weird."
"Okay, but context. Because my girlfriend's work is a going on a stakeout to watch a very bad criminal's snazzy hotel pad and take secret P.I. photos of him with a very cool professional camera with the thingy sticking up from the camera—you know, the long thing."
"That's what she said."
Chuck gasped. "Oh, that was goooooooood."
Laughing, she reached over and patted the passenger seat next to her. "Come up here so that I can be closer to you, bozo. I hate this chasm between us." She gestured to the space between the front and back seats of her car.
"You come back here," he said with a chuckle. "There's lots of room to spread out."
"Oh yeah? Is that why your knees are all scrunched up practically to your nose?"
"Look, I'm tall, okay?" he groused.
"Oh, I'm lookin'." She wiggled her eyebrows saucily and swept her gaze up and down his lanky body.
"You likin' what you're lookin'? …At?" he tacked onto the end, making a confused face, and she cracked up. "I dunno. I'm a little loopy."
"Could be all the sugar you've ingested in the last few hours." She made a guilty face. "I'm so sorry I'm such a terrible girlfriend. I fucked up, choosing this. I should've shut my mouth, told Casey no, and let myself actually have a nice night off. An important night off. This is important. I wish I wasn't such a mess, damn it."
She was being sincere. She felt like she'd royally screwed up tonight not just letting Casey go to her voicemail. Let one of his detectives do this. But the check would be nice, and she wanted to see Hewitt locked the hell up for the lives he'd ruined over the last few decades.
None of that was as important to her as this. And she shifted in her seat, pulling her legs up so that she could turn to face him better, pouting and leaning her cheek against the back of the seat. "You know any other guy probably would've broken up with me for this, right? Cancelling our anniversary dinner for work?"
"Welllllll, any other guy would be a total jackass if he walked away from you for any reason, let alone something like this. And hey, I won't lie…I was bummed when you talked to me about Casey needing you to watch this guy's building tonight, because I knew I wasn't going to tell you not to. I'd never tell you not to. I was so ready to make this anniversary celebration the most romantic night of…your…life." He reached over again, poking her knee with each word to emphasize what he was saying.
Sarah groaned. "I'm such an idiot. I needed this night and I just fell right into the work trap again instead. I'm terrible at this."
"At what?"
"Being a functioning human being in a relationship with another person." She narrowed her eyes at him sheepishly. "And now I'm blabbing about how awful of a girlfriend I am so you can wax poetic about how great I am to make me feel better about this awful decision I made."
Chuck laughed. "As if you need to go to all that trouble to get me to wax poetic about how great you are. I've got a whole list I can whip out at any time; I call it the 'How Great Is Sarah? Super Great' list."
Sarah blushed, even as she drawled, "So cheesy."
"You love it."
"Yes, we've established this." They shared a smile. "Thank you for being so understanding. Seriously. I shouldn't have done this and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She reached a hand out towards him and he took it with almost an eagerness. "I should've ignored Casey."
"And ignored the thick paycheck you're gonna get? Pffft."
"Yes," she said adamantly. "I need you to know, Chuck…you are so much more important to me than any paycheck, no matter how big it is. I screwed up tonight and I…didn't mean to. I guess even after two years of being in this…incredible relationship with you, I still forget how to be a girlfriend. A functioning, regular girl."
"I don't want a regular girl. I want you."
She made a face. "…Thanks?"
He giggled and sat up, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and propping his chin in his palms cutely. "Regular is boring. Gimme that spice." He growled and wrinkled his nose, then tipped forward to kiss her chin, making her giggle this time. "I love you," he said seriously. "You're being hard on yourself unnecessarily, Sarah. It isn't like you stood me up. I'm not still waiting at a restaurant three hours later, wondering where you are, why you didn't show up, getting drunk off of red wine and shoving buttered bread down my throat."
Sarah shrugged and stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. "You still had to cancel everything."
"Sure, the restaurant and all that. The old-fashioned romantic type stuff couples usually do on their anniversary. But we talked about it and decided how to handle it together. And then when I asked if I could come on the stakeout, I was totally expecting you to say no, but you didn't!" He pulled his free hand to his head, doing a head-exploding gesture and making the sound with his mouth. She giggled, smiling widely at him. "We're together, Sarah. We're here, spending our anniversary in the same place. Is it what I had all planned out? Nope. Definitely not. Am I unhappy? I'm not. I'm actually very happy. Being anywhere with you automatically makes me happy, Sarah Walker. That's what this relationship is about. That is romance. Not a steak dinner at an expensive restaurant."
Sarah melted against her seat. She was filled with warmth, breathless. "I've got it so bad for you, and I hope you know that," she muttered, looking into his eyes. "I mean, bad. This is some serious stuff, Charles Irving Bartowski."
"Oh, I'm taking it very seriously." He scooted forward in the seat and pressed his lips to hers, surprising her. She picked her head up from the seat and hummed, her eyes widening. And then she let out a more delicious hum and shut her eyes again, pushing her fingers into his hair.
When he pulled back, she bit her lip, nuzzling his nose. "Thank you for apologizing, Sarah. I get that it seems like our anniversary isn't important to you, like you chose work over this, over us, but I know that isn't it at all. I mean it. We'll get expensive food another night," he said, giving her that miraculously uplifting grin of his, wrinkled nose and all.
"We're such a weird freaking couple, aren't we?" she asked, nuzzling his nose with hers again.
"Oh, I'm sure from the outside, we seem batshit crazy." They giggled together and she was brimming with the way the air seemed to crackle around them, the depth to the connection they had. "We do things differently, you and me," he continued with an endearing shrug. "We always have, we probably always will. So…dinner? Meh. Nah. We do this anniversary thing different. Stakeout with gummy bears different. Busting bad guys different." He pecked her lips, making her smile harder. "Wouldn't have us any other way, frankly."
"It's too bad I'm working…" she breathed then, absolutely positive in that moment, as she stared into his brown eyes in the dark cabin of her car, that she would likely be spending the rest of her life (and if she was lucky, beyond that even) with this man. "If I didn't have a job to do, I would be hopping into the back of this car and who knows what might happen then…?" She arched an eyebrow coyly.
Chuck tilted his head with a high pitched hum. "Pretty sure I know what might happen then. You should just do it and then we can compare notes."
Sarah threw her head back with a laugh, but turned to face forward, putting her hands on the steering wheel. "Uh uh. Nope. You're dangerous, and I'm staying right here."
"Fine. I'll come up there."
She cracked up as he clumsily crawled through the seats and stretched out his legs, bent them again, stretched them again, until he finally threw himself into the passenger seat, nearly bumping his head on the window. She winced, tensing up, waiting for the bonk, and let out a sigh of relief when he narrowly missed that fate.
"I'll grant you, not the most elegant dismount," he chirped, making her laugh.
"Oh, but I love you in all your clumsy splendor," she said in her best posh English accent.
"Thank you," he responded in his own version of the accent, sitting up in the seat properly. He even held an invisible monocle to his eye.
But as he opened his mouth to say something else, her senses went off. Maybe movement out of the corner of her eye, or she heard voices…perhaps she simply had developed a sixth sense for things like this.
She spun to look at the hotel and clamped her hand over her boyfriend's mouth. "That's him," she breathed, spotting the Citizen Kane-looking guy walking out with his arm slung over the shoulders of another man, shorter and younger, but almost a carbon copy of him. "And I think that might be one of his sons."
Grabbing her camera with the "long thing" mounted on it, she began taking pictures of them, zooming in as others filed out. They seemed to be milling around, still in discussion…and then she spotted someone she hadn't expected to see.
"Oh my God," she breathed.
"What?! Who?!"
Sarah passed over the camera, her jaw in her lap. "Look at who just walked out of the building, see if you recognize him."
"It's Magneto, isn't it? I knew he was real…"
Sarah ignored that as Chuck pointed the camera and looked. He gasped so loud she nearly jumped, the camera to his eye as he snapped some pictures. "I dunno if I'm pressing the right button to take pictures of 'im, but I hear the little sound that these make in the movies with the click! bjjjjjjtttt! so I think I am," he rushed out. "Nick Varuso, candidate for LA city mayor."
"What the fuck is he doing hanging out with Denny Hewitt?"
"I cannot think of any good reason why. Like, I can only think of bad reasons." He pulled back from peering through the camera sight, and he spun to look at her. "Very bad," he added somberly.
"Yeah, me too."
"So what now?"
Sarah was silent for a while, her focus pristine as she watched that door, waiting for some other high profile politician she might snap a picture of. Perhaps this time, it'd be a city council member. Or someone on the schoolboard.
"I need to get closer," she said then.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Chuck did a double take.
"Wait, what? Like…leaving the car and wandering closer to them? By foot? That isn't too obvious? Dangerous?"
It felt safe in here. They were shrouded in darkness as she took pictures of these people—apparently a mayoral candidate too. He'd known Nick Varuso was a problem when he first met him before the guy even indicated he was thinking of running for mayor. Sure, he owned one of the biggest shopping areas in downtown LA. Owning things didn't make a guy a good leader or a good politician. It didn't mean he cared about Angelinos. And he'd been such a self-absorbed dickhead when Chuck, Mary, and Stephen were introduced at a benefit. Even Mary had made a face after the meeting, along with a comment like, "Who died and made him king?"
Sarah scoffed. "It's me. I've done this hundreds of times. This angle isn't right and I can't see them all. I need pictures of everyone." She turned to pin him with a long look then. She finally sighed. "Do me a favor… it's a big one and I know it's going to be hard for you, but stay in the car. Actually stay in the car, yeah? Don't just say you will, hear something that freaks you out, and come after me. We've been through all that before and I can't go through it again." She reached up and cupped his face. "I'm serious."
Chuck swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah, I-I won't…do that again." He winced. "I'll, um, stay here."
"Thank you." She lowered her hand to squeeze his and then opened the door, oh so carefully, squeezing out so that she was kneeling beside the car, and then she gently pushed the door back in against the car's body, not closing it all the way. Made sense, though, considering a loud slamming sound might alert her quarry.
Chuck didn't see her for a moment, and then she crab walked into view on his side of the car, her features set in determination in his side mirror as she snuck up next to his door. And then she appeared in his window and mimed a cute kiss at him through the glass, before she snuck off to get closer.
He bit his lip, smiling as he watched her creep along the wall of the jewelry store, crouching behind a planter, snapping a few pictures, and then moving even closer, clad in all black, hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her blond hair.
Chuck's smile died a little as she continued to sneak. In his estimation, she was getting too close at this point. And it wasn't that he didn't have faith she knew exactly what she was doing. It was that she was getting close to people who likely wouldn't think twice about pulling a tommy gun out or some weird shit like that (again) and blow her to pieces with it. They'd both already been through the experience of getting shot at with an old-timey gun like that.
Only these guys likely had way more efficient weapons than that.
Sarah spent the first few hours of the stakeout telling him horror stories about the damage Hewitt left in his wake. What a terrible bastard he was.
Chuck had actually been really disappointed when Sarah showed up at his apartment early, sat him down, and talked to him about the opportunity Casey was giving her. She said the LAPD needed her. And while she gave him the option of saying no, because tonight was their second anniversary, the second anniversary of the morning they sat on the floor in Paris and agreed to make a go of it as hard as they both knew it'd be, he also felt like he couldn't say no to this.
If he did, he'd be that guy. The one who tells his girlfriend who's chugging along fulfilling her dreams that she needed to slow down to make room for him.
So he didn't say no. He told her he would cancel their reservations at the restaurant. And he was bummed, but he covered it up.
But then the more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion he'd just voiced to a very remorseful girlfriend a few minutes ago. Stuff like that was drummed up by society, but it wasn't what they had to be, what their relationship had to be. In TV shows, part of a couple forgot an anniversary, or an anniversary celebration fell flat or something, and it was like the world was ending. So much drama. Sure, forgetting an anniversary…wasn't great. He'd feel bad if Sarah had simply forgotten what today was and went off to do her P.I. work without even mentioning it. But they'd been talking about tonight with excitement for days now so of course neither of them would or could forget.
Still, their relationship didn't require the big shebang, the whole kit and caboodle over an anniversary the exact day of.
She sat him down and talked with him about this opportunity. And while he had felt the pressure of needing to say yes, pressure he knew he was putting on himself, it did feel right, telling her to help Captain Casey and his detectives who were working this case against Hewitt.
Chuck and Sarah did things differently.
As long as they talked first, what did it matter if they made their dinner plans tonight and kept them? They would have fancy dinner tomorrow night or the night after, and nothing would change about this relationship. They both knew how much they meant to each other.
And then he'd gotten the brilliant idea to ask her if he could go on the stakeout with her.
Maybe it was only guilt that made her say yes.
But he'd freaking take it anyway.
This was amazing. He'd been having a blast trapped in this car with her for hours, snacking in spite of the drive-thru burgers they'd gotten on the way. There was nothing else to do but listen to quiet music, she'd insisted on quiet and he got that. And then they talked about things—everything under the sun, including things that made her roll her eyes ("But think about how much more damage Godzilla would do if he had shoes! Like, the traction he'd get from the soles of the shoes would mean he moves faster, and it would hurt his feet a lot less when he crushes a building, right?"). He felt a closeness there between them that reached down to the deepest parts of his soul.
For his money, this was the best anniversary ever. Granted, he didn't think he'd be able to convince her that he actually felt that way and wasn't just trying to minimize her guilt for seemingly choosing her job over him.
He simply didn't feel that way. He knew where he stood. And he wasn't afraid of being with a woman who sometimes prioritized solving a case, getting a paycheck she sorely needed, over having dinner at a restaurant. Anniversary or not, it didn't matter.
And now he wanted her to come back to the car so that he could say that to her.
But he knew she wouldn't. She still had work to do and oh God, she really was getting in close.
Close enough that she'd disappeared from view. How had he lost her? Where did she go? He was the worst stakeout partner ever!
He felt nerves cascade through his body. How was it possible? She'd been right there! And he took his eyes off of her for a second. He combed the darkness, squinting into shadows. God, she was really good at hiding. He literally couldn't see her anywh—Oh shit.
When his eyes lifted to look at Hewitt and the others, both Hewitt and Varuso were looking right at Sarah's car. With him in it. He ducked down quick, knowing inherently that he would be recognizable to at least one of them, perhaps both, considering who his family was.
And then something made contact with the car. Hard.
"AHHH!" Chuck screamed, jumping, pushing himself back against his door and looking up to see Sarah at the driver's side, yanking the door open. He'd thought it was a bullet smacking into the car, or maybe a bad guy had found him. Instead, it was Sarah slamming into the side of her door, unable to stop herself in time she'd been sprinting so fast.
And now she was behind the wheel, snapping, "They've made me. Put your seatbelt on."
Chuck just gaped at her from the floor in front of his seat.
Sarah strapped in, then turned on the car, her blue eyes crackling and hard as they stared straight ahead. "Chuck! Seatbelt!"
"AH!" he yelped again, climbing back into the seat and putting his seatbelt on just in time for Sarah to put her car in reverse gear, slamming her foot on the gas. Chuck slapped his hands on the dashboard, holding on.
"What were you doing on the floor?!"
"I didn't want them to recognize me! I've met Varuso in person! Are you going in reverse out of the alleywaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"
The second they broke through the alleyway and onto the street, taking out someone's trash bin in the meantime, Sarah yanked on the wheel, spinning her car in a two-hundred-seventy degree turn, then switching the gear to drive and slamming her foot on the gas again.
"HOLY SHIT!" Chuck screamed, bouncing in his seat practically. "Holy shit that was AWESOME!"
"Spot our six," she said, unfazed by his behavior. "See if they're following."
"Six. Six six six. Oh! Behind us! Got it!" He spun in his seat and watched. He thought they might be in the clear and he almost said as much but then a car burst around the far corner, probably having gone the long way around because they weren't quite as bonkers as his girlfriend was, tearing down a damn alleyway like that. He was gonna see about getting his guy to buff out whatever damage that trashcan did to her back bumper.
And why the hell was he thinking about that right now?
"Sarah! Sarah, they're coming! They're after us! WHAT DO WE DO?!"
"Deep breaths, first of all. I've got this."
Chuck turned back to look at her. She slowed just slightly as they hit a light, and then she slammed her foot on the break, turned the wheel, and skid around the corner, pounding her foot onto the gas pedal again. He'd watched her through the whole process, the way she grit her teeth, her eyebrows going down in the middle, ducking her chin, body tense. Executed like a God damn pro.
She was a getaway driver. Ryan Gosling but with a better sense of humor and way, way hotter.
Sarah must've felt his gaze on her, because she turned and looked at him with her best what the fuck look. "What are you looking at? Look back there! Are they following us?!"
"Oh! Oh oh!" He spun to crane his neck to look back again. "Yeah. Shit. Shit, big black van. They're still coming!"
"Why is it always a big black van?" she groused through her teeth.
"Bad guys gotta bad guy," he muttered with a shrug.
"Okay, I gotta lose these fuckers."
"Freeway?" he asked.
"No. I'm stuck if I get on a freeway. This time of night, there could still be traffic and then I have to wait for an offramp to try to escape. We'd be sitting ducks." She glanced in her rearview mirror, then scoured the area around them.
"Oh. That makes sense. They're gaining kinda, Sarah. Sarah…" The black van was roaring after them, lights blazing. Maybe only a block behind.
"It's okay. I got this, Chuck. Trust me."
"I do! I'm still scared outta my fuckin' mind!"
"I've done this a hundred times. Hold on again."
"What? For whAAAAHHHHHHHHTTTT!"
Chuck had to hold on for dear life as Sarah crossed the partition, her car thumping through some traffic cones, headed into oncoming traffic, but before said oncoming traffic got to them, she cut through a long hotel driveway, blasted her car through the side parking lot, and burst out onto the other side, the car hopping a bit as it cleared the driveway and then it screeched to a stop.
Chuck slowly turned big eyes on her, watching as she blew some of the hair away from her face, hair that came out of the loose bun she'd put it up in halfway through the stakeout. Just to tease him, he thought, what with the way it had put her perfect neck on full display…
And now he was doing that? Jesus Christ, his brain!
Sarah sent him a quick look. And then she put the car in drive. Again, slamming her foot on the gas.
And here he thought they were done.
Considering she just broke a hundred driving laws with that one maneuver.
"Ah! Fuck yes!" she exclaimed then. And she sped across the street, again onto the wrong side of the road, only this time there weren't other cars. Chuck chanced a glance over his shoulder. No big black vans. Nobody at all, thank God.
Sarah guided the car into a storage facility's open gate, rushing through the aisles, and then she popped out on the other side, and went straight into a garage with the swinging doors open just enough for the car to get through. She skidded to a stop, put the car in park, and turned off the lights, unbuckling her seatbelt. "The doors! Help me get the doors closed!"
"Oh!" Chuck nearly choked himself trying to get out of the car without unbuckling his seatbelt, and then he scrambled out of the car, dashing to the doors of the garage, and gave the one on his side a yank as Sarah did the same with the door on her side.
It closed and Sarah threw the latch, turning to lean her back against the door and letting out a rough breath. Her head tilted back to thump against the wood. "I think that did it. But we better wait fifteen, twenty minutes just to be sure."
Chuck could only gawk at her, his hands out to the side, fingers flexed, breathing hard.
She finally looked at him, concern in her face. "You okay?"
"This…is…the best…anniversary…EVER!" he hissed, aware of the fact that he should probably watch the level of his voice right now.
Sarah groaned, but it became a laugh. "We just got chased down by a serious criminal's goons through the streets of LA and you were screaming—like, ear piercing screams—while I drove. And now you're standing here all excited. I don't know what to do with you."
"That's a shame, because I know exactly what I want to do with you," he flirted, leaning his hand against the garage door just beside her head. The door shifted just slightly and he yelped a little, pulling his hand away and standing up straight.
Sarah giggled through her nose at him, crossing her arms. "When you deliver a solid line, you can't follow it up with something like that, hot stuff. Doesn't work."
"I know. I stole my own thunder. My bad." He wrinkled his nose.
She beamed up at him. "Anyway, I said I don't know what to do with you. I know exactly what I want to do with you."
"Writing rule number one, Sarah Walker. Show don't tell."
Sarah Walker arched her eyebrows.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
She sucked in gasping breaths, digging her fingers into the back of the passenger seat and holding on for dear life.
His fingers dug into her bare back, deep into her muscle there, the other hand clamped down on her thigh.
And as the sensations throbbed inside of her, she tipped forward, letting go of the seat, and flopping onto his chest, burying her face under his jaw and clinging.
"D-D'you think that was…" He took a deep breath. "Fifteen minutes?"
"I said fifteen to twenty…" She pulled her left wrist up where she could see it, angling so that the one single light in the garage could flash over its face and she could see the time. "Oops. Forty-five. I think we're good," she said, giggling a bit wickedly and rolling to the side to wedge herself between him and the backseat, still half on top of him.
"I'll say it again. Best. Anniversary. Ever." The grin on his face lit up the whole garage as he reached up to push his hand through his curls.
"It's one of my best, definitely," she said, shrugging nonchalantly, teasing him.
Chuck pushed himself up onto his elbows. "One of?"
Sarah laughed, propping her forehead on his shoulder. "I'm messing with you. I don't typically have anniversaries with car chases."
"Or sex in a car parked in an abandoned garage," he chuckled. She stayed quiet on purpose, just to see how he would react. He did a double take, his brown eyes going wide. "…You've had sex in a car parked in an abandoned garage before?"
"No, but you're cute when you're jealous and a little impressed at the same time."
Chuck cracked up, throwing his head back, but it thunked into the door handle and he hissed, reaching up to rub his injury.
Sarah's giggle faltered as she hissed with him, beaming as she reached around to rub his head as well, pushing his fingers out of the way. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Worth it. That was funny. You pegged me, too. I was both jealous and impressed." He bit his lip then. "You were teasing though, right?"
"I was teasing," she confirmed, snorting. She slipped off of his lap and began to fix her clothes, picking her black Henley up from where she'd dropped it on the floor, pulling it back down over her bra. "And I think it'd be smart to get outta here now. I have the photos I need."
"And if they made you what about this car?"
Sarah smirked at him. "That's why I obscured the license plate. Duh."
"You… Ohhhh my God, you're so sneaky."
She giggled and then she put her hand on his stomach, her fingers drawing a light pattern that made him grumble. "C'mon. Let's skedaddle."
Chuck nodded, sitting up, gingerly (she noticed) pulling his own clothes back in place. "Soooo…" He cleared his throat.
"What?"
"You don't have to go to the precinct to turn in the photos…liiike…immediately, right?"
"No," she said, shrugging, pulling the hair tie out of her blond locks and fixing them back up into a neater bun behind her head. "Why?"
"I was just thinkin', you know, it is still our anniversary. Technically. So maybe we could go back to my place and do some of the stuff I had planned for the last half of the night, before duty called of course."
He was so adorable, ducking his head, blushing as he tried to button his shirt in the dark. And he was doing it crookedly. Probably a combination of the dark and the fact that he was unfocused, his fingers still shaking from what they'd just been doing back here.
They'd given it their all, the both of them.
Sarah gently swatted his hands away from the buttons. "Here. Let me. You're doing this all crooked."
"Oh. Yeah. Right. Thanks."
She giggled, unbuttoning the shirt and starting over. "What exactly did you have planned for the last half of the night?"
"It's kinda funny you should ask… It was definitely sex."
Sarah laughed so hard she tipped to the side and wrapped her arms around the front seat.
"Funny because we already did that. But eh…what's more, right? Can't hurt us." She just laughed harder. "Granted, there was going to be a lot more romantic stuff before it. But I'll take this. For sure."
"Presumptuous."
"Hey, now. I planned on earning it," he said, letting her reach up to tug his collar up from where it had gotten tucked under itself.
"You always do," she said, raising an eyebrow. And then she leaned in and kissed his chin. "Let's go home."
"Hmmmm," he hummed happily, squirming even more happily.
And as he crawled up to the front, Sarah couldn't help giving his backside a little swat, earning the most satisfying gasp she'd ever heard in her life as she followed after him.
He climbed out of the car, jogging his wiry self over to the garage doors and pushing them open again. She drove out, idling in front of the garage so that he could dive back into the passenger seat, and he yelled, "GO GO GO GO GO!" as she slammed her foot on the gas and peeled out, getting her life from the loud whoops and hollers of her dope of a boyfriend as she headed back towards his condo where she had every intention of hearing what the rest of this "anniversary plan" would entail.
Sarah Walker decided he was right. Not that she had many other anniversaries to go off of… but this one was supreme.
The best.
Ever.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
A/N: Chuck and Sarah, the SUPREMES. Cheers to letting people construct their relationship the way they see fit rather than getting bogged down by what society expects of them. It's hard. Which is why I love them so much. They do the hard things to stay together.
Happy weekend! And happy anniversary, Detective and the Tech Guy, you gem. I love you.
-SC