Castle in the Air
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: Sarah has opened her dream bookstore just before the holiday season, but when a corporate monopoly announces their reduced-price brick-and-mortar is going in a block away, she must band together with her fellow small businesses to fight for their lives, even if it means getting past a slew of bad first impressions to work with Chuck, the owner of the comic book shop next door. AU Charah.
A/N: Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck or its characters, and any similarities in this fic to any corporate entities are just coincidence... shh.
Being awake and alert at eight in the morning on her one day of the week that she had off—if a bookstore owner who had no employees even had a real day off, as if she left her work at the store—was not something Sarah Walker enjoyed.
In fact, she was verging on grumpy.
Coffee was the only thing keeping her from tipping over the edge.
But when John Casey had called her on the phone to tell her there would be a meeting for the shopping center's small business owners on Sunday morning at eight, his tone and word choice made it clear he expected her to be there.
Nothing in her lease, nothing in any contract she'd signed, required she be there. And yet, she'd spoken with her landlord, and had spent enough time around him, to feel as though calling a meeting like this, putting himself in a situation in which he had to be around a lot of people and talk to them wasn't something he'd do if there wasn't a really good reason for it.
So here she was, walking in from the parking lot to the cantina style Mexican restaurant owned by a family that had apparently been living in this area of Southern California since before it was called California, back when indigenous and Mexican people were the only inhabitants.
She slipped into the restaurant and smiled at the hostess. "I'm here for the tenant meeting…?"
"Of course. You're meeting in the back of the restaurant." She pointed behind her into the next room over. "Just go all the way back. Did you want to order food?"
"Do you serve coffee?"
"We have Mexican coffee."
Sarah widened her eyes. "Oh. Oh yes." The hostess laughed. "I'll be having some of that."
"I'll have it brought back to you."
"Thank you so much."
She moved towards the back of the restaurant and pushed into the large room where around fifteen or so people had already congregated, some of them eating Mexican omelettes, others drinking coffee or juice, the rest standing, milling around, talking and laughing.
Casey was in the corner, his arms crossed, a storm cloud look on his face. Or…was that just his face? Sometimes she wasn't sure.
He was shifting his weight, checking his watch. She checked her own. Five minutes to eight.
Sarah found she couldn't help casting her gaze around the room.
He wasn't here yet. Or maybe he wasn't coming? Had he ignored the signs that this meeting might actually be about something important? He didn't seem like the type not to care, considering she'd seen him frequenting the other shops in the shopping center, and the small businesses on the streets flanking the center like that coffee place where he bought her a hot cocoa.
Martha, the owner of MegaJamz, was in the room already. And as Sarah's gaze landed on her, she looked up, almost as if she could feel it, and a big grin crossed her pretty face.
She had a massive plate of what looked like tortilla chips smothered in beans, scrambled egg, and salsa verde in front of her and in spite of having almost no appetite when she arrived, her stomach grumbled at the sight of it.
Martha waved her over. "Hey!"
Sarah joined her, sitting in the seat Martha pushed out for her. "Hi. Thank you."
"Sarah, right? The bookstore."
She beamed, knowing she was silly for being pleased this exceptionally cool person had remembered her name weeks after their first, only, and very brief, meeting. "Yeah. And you're Martha. I've…been meeting to get back to your shop and…buy something." She felt so lame. It wasn't the truth. She didn't need any music; she'd literally (stupidly) rejected Chuck when he tried to buy her something. And she still felt the sting of embarrassment when she thought of that.
Just then a waiter came, setting her Mexican coffee down in front of her. Oh God, it smelled like coffee and chocolate, with a hint of spice. And there was a creamy froth on top, just to make everything even better. "Oh, thank you so much. This looks amazing."
"De nada. Anything else I can bring you?"
Martha thumped her arm with the back of her hand. "Share this with me. She's good, she's sharing this with me."
"Of course."
The waiter disappeared as Sarah gawked at the plate Martha pushed so that it was equidistant between them. "A-Are you sure? I can't eat your food."
"Nonsense, it's too much for me. And it's gooood. Taste it."
"I'll try a little. But I'm paying you back," she said.
"No, you aren't. Mister Landlord over there gets the tab at these meetings." Sarah gave her a wide-eyed look. "Mmmmhm, I see that shock in your face. I don't blame you, either. He comes off as… Well, he's kind of a dickhead, isn't he?" she muttered, lowering her voice. "But on the inside, he squishes. Er…sometimes."
Sarah giggled. "Well, if he's paying, let's get that waiter back here. I'm getting an egg burrito with everything in it," she joked, digging into the breakfast nachos. Oh God, the crunch of the chips. They weren't even soggy from the beans or salsa. And the texture of the egg with the beans. The heat of everything else, combined with the cold salsa verde. And the way the inside of her mouth was burning from the jalapeños in the salsa.
Neither woman spoke, instead focusing on the food. And God, the way the coffee tasted. That hint of cayenne with the chocolate coffee. So thick, the cream of the highest quality.
This was so worth getting out of bed early for.
And then Casey finally pushed off from where he leaned against the wall, lifted a hand, and stuck his fingers of his other hand between his lips, unleashing a shrill whistle.
"Christ, Casey!" Martha hissed, grabbing onto her ears and sending him a dirty look.
He ignored her, everyone else wincing and taking seats. He looked around the room, almost resembling the teacher at the front of the bus before a school field trip, taking attendance before they left.
She looked up and around. And then she looked at her watch. He'd waited 'til five after eight. Seemed the comic book shop owner would be a no-show. She didn't know why it was her business, or why there was a throb of disappointment in her chest.
Who cared if he didn't think this was important enough to be here for? That was his business, but he didn't have much to stand on being upset at Casey for giving him guff.
"I'm just gonna get started even though we're missin' a few of our—"
There was a thumping sound then near the entrance to the room and she turned with everyone else to watch Chuck apologize to the guy he'd bumped on his way in.
"Sorry. S-Sorry. I am so sorry." Then he turned and saw everyone was watching him. Poor guy definitely tried to quietly sneak in and it seemed he'd failed miserably. "Hi. M'here. Heh. Ahem."
Sarah glanced back at Casey who was just staring at him with a curled lip. "Thanks for blessing us with your presence, Bartowski. Now I can start the meeting."
She turned to exchange an amused look with Martha, picking up another chip and munching on it.
Casey crossed his arms, his lip curling even more. "I don't like pussy-footin' around, as I'm sure you're all aware. Even newbie bookstore over there." Sarah froze mid-chew, as she felt people's eyes settle on her. The food she was eating pooched in her cheek as she smiled a bit awkwardly. "So here's the nitty-gritty. That big ugly monstrosity of a warehouse lookin' thing that went up a block over has been bought by Cadabra."
Sarah's stomach dropped and she heard a few quiet gasps, someone else breathing, "What…?"
She could feel the tension in Martha beside her.
"Oh, don't worry. It gets worse. This isn't a Cadabra warehouse. They're setting up a brick-and-mortar, a retail shop. They're already working on a campaign, saying they're revitalizing the area, employing fifty Angelinos in the Del Rey area." He picked up a folder from the table behind him and you could've heard a pin drop in the room as he flipped the folder open. "They'll be stocking DVDs, BluRay, CDs, vinyl…" Martha slammed her fist on the table and cursed, sitting back against her chair in dismay. "…books, comic books, clothes, knick-knacks…" But Sarah Walker couldn't hear the rest of the list because her ears were ringing. Loudly.
Books.
They were selling books. People already didn't shop at Castle in the Air and they'd be even less likely to once a giant well-known monopoly like Cadabra moved into the spot a block away.
She'd go under. The bookstore she'd dreamed about since she was a kid wouldn't make it a year.
She could cry.
"Hold-Hold on now, wait." She bit her lip and looked up as Martha stood, getting everyone's attention. "These pieces of shit are opening up a brick-and-mortar in our neighborhood selling all the same things we're selling," she gestured around the room, "moving into a place that prides itself on being a small business oasis. Who the hell approved this?"
"City fuggin' council," Casey growled. "Didn't even announce it'd be on their docket for voting. Just pulled it out during the meeting Friday night and voted. Wham, bam, thank you fuggin' ma'am."
"I'm going to the next city council meeting," one of the other shop owners exclaimed. "They'll hear from me."
"But it's revitalizing the town," another shopkeeper drawled mockingly.
Casey cut through everyone again. "Well, I'm pretty damn sure they're gonna be price-matching whatever you can get off their website. Which means cheaper vinyls than you're sellin', Mudenda. Household knick-knacks for half what you sell yours for, Wanda."
Wanda was purple in the face, her arms crossed. Sarah didn't know if she was furious or going to faint, or both.
Sarah stole a glance over her shoulder towards Chuck where he still stood at the back of the room. His brow was furrowed, lips parted, eyes staring off into space. She wondered if he was picturing his shop shuttered the way she was picturing hers. He had so many freaking comic books. What would he even do with all of them if he closed up shop?
Shit, what would she do with her books?
She decided she wasn't as hungry anymore. And it seemed Martha wasn't either as she slumped back into her seat and covered her mouth with one hand, seeming almost despondent.
And then a voice from the back of the room came down over the din almost like a blanket gently being laid on top of it, and she spun to watch as Chuck stepped forward.
"We're not letting them do this."
Everyone just stared at him.
He looked at everyone in the room individually just about, and then his gaze finally settled on her and he shifted his weight, almost squirming as he looked away. He tugged on his jacket, clearing his throat, and his voice gained a bit of steadiness.
"We built our stores, cafés, shops, restaurants, whatever else. We built them from scratch, from the ground up, all of us. None of us were handed our businesses by daddy like Geoff Frezos. He thinks he can plop a monopoly brick-and-mortar into our neighborhood, right next to us, a block away, and put us all out of business with his trashy monopoly? Absolutely not. I'm not gonna speak for the rest of you, I'd never do that, but—and I mean this with everything in me—not on my watch. We've all got stuff Cadabra will never be able to recreate. Our people, our employees, we're all passionate about what we do. Who are they gonna hire? Tell you who, people who aren't passionate about stupid Cadabra. Because who's passionate about Cadabra?! Geoff isn't even passionate about it and it's his trash corporation. He's just riding it in a rocket ship to space, the greedy bastard."
"Hear, hear!" Martha barked from next to Sarah.
Others let out short cheers, pumping their fists.
"Sure, maybe they'll pay more for our comics at Ashcan, but they also get to watch Morgan dangerously use our front counter as a stage to act out the entire first issue of Gotham by Gaslight."
"Oh, Jesus," Sarah heard Casey grunt.
"I take Mrs. Banda her soaps she orders from me every month, right to her door, free of charge, on my way home from the shop," the soaper whose shop was over near MegaJamz said, lifting his chin haughtily. "I don't think Cadabra would do that."
"See?" Chuck said, pointing at the balding man. "Absolutely, Javier! This is what small businesses are about: community. Cadabra doesn't give a shit about this community. Geoff just wants to see shops like ours shut down, gone, so that he can further monopolize products and then jack the prices up when folks have nowhere else to go for the things they need."
"Man, fuck this," another guy said, sitting up from where he'd slouched back angrily. "I don't care if they sell skate shit there or not. I don't want that mess in my digs. I don't want my skate shop to have the shadow of a monopolistic asshole warehouse over it."
The conversation went on, and Sarah did her best not to be despondent. But holy shit, this was bad. Worse than bad.
If this Cadabra retail building did what it clearly meant to do, all of these folks could lose their livelihoods, along with all of their employees. That was likely over a hundred people, which was a lot more than the fifty Cadabra was promising employment to. It was so backwards.
She would be losing hers store. Martha, too. And Chuck. All of these people. The whole center would be empty, and Casey would be up the river, too.
Casey took control of the room again. "Okay, okay. Thanks for the rousing…whatever that was," he said, nodding at Chuck. "Braveheart over here."
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" Chuck bellowed in a Scottish accent, shaking his fist.
"Went too far, hon," Martha muttered.
He cleared his throat, shrinking into himself a little. "Yeah, I felt it."
"I just wanted everyone to be aware of what's happening here. I'm verging on murderous, I'm so pissed off. But I don't know what to do right now. City council meeting's not a bad idea to start. But if anyone thinks of anythin', call our office. He's an idiot, but the comics kid is right about one thing. We aren't gonna lie down and take it."
The meeting ended a few minutes later. Some folks sat there in frustration, some in shock. Others just quietly finished their food. And then there were the shop keepers who burst to their feet and hurried out, likely getting their affairs in order, calling their accountants…who knew what else? This would uproot everyone.
Martha's arm draped over her shoulders then, a friendly hand squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. "It's gonna be okay. My boy Chuck is right. At the end of the day, we've got good people who shop at our stores, who value what we do over that monstrosity's shitty price match scheme. They'll stick around."
Sarah nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, totally. Only, I haven't actually built up…a clientele as of yet."
"Oh, yeah. You're the new kid on the block, huh…" She frowned. "Not even with those signs I put up lining the busiest streets around our shopping center?"
The bookstore owner straightened her spine at that, slowly turning to look at the older woman. "What?"
"You haven't seen 'em? Kinda proud of the Mod Podge job I did putting your logo over my old signs." Martha snickered. "My man Ray kept getting on my ass about all my old MegaJamz yard signs clogging up our garage whilen he's trying to teach our kid about car shit." She rolled her eyes and snorted. "So I bought a ton of Mod Podge, slapped your logo over 'em, and put 'em up on the busiest streets, thinking that'd be a good addition to your flyers. Not that the flyers weren't great…" she added, holding out a hand.
Sarah just gaped. "You did that? The signs were you?"
"Mhm. Bet you were wondering. It was me," she said proudly, grinning. "Has it helped at all?"
"It has. Yeah." She nodded. And that was the truth. More people had been coming in since the signs went up, a lot of them telling her those signs let them know there was a new bookstore in the shopping center. They'd bought books from her, too. Even the new customers who came in just to look around and promised to come back had made her feel better than just sitting alone in that shop by herself all day.
"Good. It helped me when I first opened, too."
"Thank you," she said, shaking her head. "It was really nice of you." No way was she giving Martha the same treatment she'd given Chuck when she—Oh God, she'd been terrible to him. Why hadn't he told her it was Martha?
He'd stood there and taken her diatribe about not needing help and why didn't he tell her first before he put up a bunch of signs for her, and this whole time, it hadn't been him. Holy shit, she felt so awful. She needed to—But he wasn't in the room anymore.
She'd turned to look for him the moment she realized she owed him the biggest apology on Earth.
"Listen, Martha, thanks for the signs, and for sharing your breakfast with me, but I have to go." She grabbed the woman's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, thank you. If you think of anything else that helped you when you opened your store, please let me know. Okay?"
"I will," she promised, smiling. "See ya later, girlie. Don't be a stranger."
"I won't be a stranger," she promised, and she burst to her feet, hurrying out of the room.
}o{
Ashcan Comics was already bustling at a little after nine in the morning, on a Sunday morning. It left her in awe, and she had to admit she was envious as well. What she wouldn't give to have people show up at her bookstore right when she flipped the open sign and unlocked the door.
She'd thought she could get there eventually, but the Cadabra brick-and-mortar opening a block away, most likely selling some of the same books she'd have on her shelves but for cheaper, stuck that hope in the toilet. Geoff Frezos had his finger hovering over the handle, ready to flush.
Mocking her with that smarmy smirk and that bald head.
And, she had to remind herself, the other small businesses around town, not just in this shopping center even.
The employee she thought Chuck had called Flint before turned as the door made a cute dinging sound, smiling. She took note of the they/them pin on their brown beanie they wore over their shoulder-length orange hair. "Oh!" they said, fixing their glasses. "Hi. You're the bookstore owner, right? I've seen you go in and out."
"I am," she said, smiling. "Flint, right?"
"Yeah!" They left where they were stocking some comic books behind and approached. "Can I help you find something? Or you wanna talk to my boss…" They paused, frowning. "He, um, told us about the…you know. The Evil Candelabra sweeping into our town."
She rolled her eyes. "It's clear they won't even make that much money on it; they just want to kill us all."
"That's what I said when Chuck told us!" Flint exclaimed. "It's how they operate. Assholes."
"Well, don't go farming your résumé out just yet because it sounds like your boss has no intention of letting the bastards win. And I don't, either."
They grinned and crossed their arms. "Oh, I'm stubborn. I told him as much."
"Me, too. They have no idea who they're messing with. Hey, is he here? Chuck? I just want to talk to him for a few minutes."
"Please. Take him. I'll go get him."
"Take him?" Sarah asked, causing Flint to pause. "He causing trouble?"
They smirked. "Nah. But he's doing this protective fluttering thing. Morgan says it's a nervous tick he gets when there's bad news. Taking care of the people around him. It's kind of annoying," they finished with a whisper, making an oops face.
Sarah laughed. That was actually…pretty cute. But she had a bone to pick with him and she needed to pick that bone immediately before she went crazy.
So it was with a deep relief that she greeted him as he swept out from their back area with Flint in tow a minute later.
"Hi. Can we talk?" she cut in before he could say anything else. He looked a little stricken and she felt like an asshole. The last time she'd wanted to talk to him he'd gotten grilled like a piece of salmon on a George Foreman.
Don't be scared. I owe you an apology.
It was on the tip of her tongue, but people swept into the shop and he held up a hand with a super friendly but genuine, "Hiya, everybody. How are ya? Can we help you with anything? Nah? Just looking? Cool, have fun. That's Morgan over there, and that's Flint. Luce is towards the back. I'm Chuck. If you have questions, ask any of us, okay?"
She gently curled her fingers in his jacket sleeve and tugged. "Outside? If that's okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, of course. You lead, I follow."
They filed out of the front door and she led him across the sidewalk to the bench where they'd eaten lunch together a few weeks ago, when he'd sort of opened up about his break-up. Instead of being pissed off she'd creepily stood in the window and watched it all go down, he'd opened up about something he was likely still both hurt and embarrassed by.
She stopped just short of sitting on the bench, instead leaning against it, crossing her arms, and looking up at him as he halted in front of her, shifting his weight.
"Okay, look," he blurted in the pervading silence. "If this is about earlier, I know I did way too much with the Braveheart impersonation. It wasn't the right time."
Sarah laughed, shaking her head. "Is there a right time for that? Really?"
He laughed with her, shrugging. "Probably not."
She dove right in, not wanting him to think she was pissed at him about something again. He didn't need to stand here squirming for longer than he already had.
"Chuck, why didn't you just tell me you weren't the one who put up those Castle in the Air Bookstore signs?" she asked point blank.
Raising his eyebrows, he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and glanced away from her, squinting in the late fall Southern California sun. "Um. Then you know that it was…"
He seemed reticent to say and she tilted her head. "Martha was all excited about it, asked me if it helped. I can't give 'er the diatribe I gave you, because she's…her. I don't ever want to be anything other than totally nice to her because she's just so cool."
Chuck snorted. "I get it. She's the coolest." Then he made a face. "Hey, wait. So you dropped all that on me? Am I not cool?"
Sarah caught the teasing in the way he said it, the sparkle in his golden-brown eyes, and she could hug him. Really, she could. She resisted because she owed him an apology more than anything else.
She sighed, zipping up her jacket to protect herself a bit more from the early morning cold. And then she looked right into his eyes. "I apologize for taking you into my office like I was some sort of…school principal." He snorted again, this time more quietly. "I'm serious! That wasn't okay. I basically Principal Office'd you over what amounted to a kind gesture, which was silly enough. But then it turns out you weren't even the one who did it. So I Principal Office'd the wrong person. But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you cut me off?" she asked him, pushing up to stand straighter, not breaking his gaze. "You stood there and let me kick at you about not talking to me before putting all those signs out to promote my bookstore, knowing the whole time that it wasn't you, that it was Martha. Why didn't you stop me and tell me it was her and not you before I spiraled and said all that stupid shit?"
Taking a deep breath, he pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms, too. Then he glanced down at his feet, shifting his weight. "Well, you weren't that bad. Can I just say that? I get what you were saying. I understand the issue you had with it. I don't know your story, but I do know what it's like to have people laugh in my face because I wanted to open a comic book shop. I imagine you got it too with your bookstore…" She snorted, widening her eyes and nodding. "Yeah. See? Screw those people. Can I be honest with you for a sec? Not to get off-topic…"
Sarah nodded, interested in whatever he had to say next.
"I had a sort of, erm… Well, I came into a lot of money. Me and my sister. Our uncle Alexei left almost all of his wealth and assets to us in his will when he died in a plane crash about five years ago."
Her jaw fell open. "Oh. Chuck, I'm—I'm so sorry."
"Hey, it's okay." He shook his head and furrowed his brow. "I came into this comic book shop gambit a very rich man, which is a distinct privilege very, very few people have when they open a small business. That shit still goes to my head all the time. I look around the Ashcan and I'm just like…mmm, yeah, none of this would be here without my uncle dropping a fortune in my lap."
"I don't buy that. People don't go into your shop because you're Chuck With His Uncle's Fortune. They go in because you get the right stuff, stuff they like. And you guys know comic books. Your customers like you guys."
"Super nice way of saying we're a bunch of geeks."
"Nerds."
He grinned, his nose wrinkling. "You've been paying attention."
"Sometimes I do that." She sighed, shuffling her heels against the sidewalk. "I think I know where you're going with this. You want Ashcan Comics to be something you built on your own, without the aid of your inheritance from your uncle. You don't want people thinking you only got this far because of that fortune."
"Yeah. Basically." He shrugged. "But you know what? It's probably true. Being rich helped a whole lot. But in my head, I'd like to…not have that be what it is." He winced. "Kind of disingenuous but I'm only human."
And very honest. Human and very honest. She felt something akin to respect building in her chest as she looked up at him.
"Nevertheless…You got me," she breathed. "I want that freaking bookstore to make it because I knocked myself out to get it up and running. And I'm bad at letting people help me. Ellie had to basically twist my arm to let her help me with the website."
She wouldn't be as open as he was. He'd told her about his uncle's death, the fortune he inherited, not wanting that to be what defined his business's success. She didn't even talk to Carina about the shit with her parents. Carina was the only person who knew anything about what she'd dealt with growing up with two parents who didn't know how to parent. She didn't know about Sarah's deep-seated fear of becoming a leech like Jack and Emma. Nobody knew. Nobody would know.
Chuck watched her for a long moment, and then he nodded with a steadying, "I understand."
"You could've just said Martha put out the signs, you know," she said then, ducking her chin and looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Save both of us the headache. Because there was no way I was gonna march over there and tell 'er to mind 'er own business." She winced.
That got her a smirk. "Nobody better say anything like that to Martha." He let out a low whistle that made her laugh. "I didn't correct the record on who put the signs out 'cause I hate the idea of throwing people under buses. You seemed so upset; I didn't wanna be like 'but it wasn't meee, it was Marthaaa!'"
She took a moment to let what he said ruminate in her brain. "There's throwing someone under a bus and then there's truth. I stood there making a fool out of myself at you—Granted, a lot of that was on me, I could've just…not lectured you." She wrinkled her nose and tilted her head, twisting her pursed lips to the side shyly. "I wish I'd known you hadn't put out those signs."
Chuck nodded. "Sorry I didn't tell you it wasn't me. Taking the hit and letting Martha off the hook felt like the right thing at the time, but I should've just been up front. I didn't mean for you to feel like you made a fool out of yourself."
"It's okay." She peeked up at him through her eyelashes with a wince. "…Am I forgiven for my principal's office mess? Because I'm really sorry I did that to you."
He laughed and nodded again. "Of course you are. Anyway, I'm not…totally in the clear on this." His features became sheepish. "Martha asked me if she could use our printers in the back to print your logo big enough for the sign. And using Mod Podge was my idea, too. It's such a handy little tool, that Mod Podge! And it's so fun!"
Sarah cracked up, rocking forward. Her hand automatically fell to his arm, squeezing just below his elbow. "Okay, that's it. I retract my apology. You let her use your printer and you gave her the Mod Podge idea? Get out of my sight, Comic Book Guy."
That made his eyes light up brighter than the whole freaking sun, and she felt her chest fill with that light.
"Eyyyyy!" He spread his arms out to either side, ending the drawl in a chuckle, and for a moment, Sarah forgot about the dark clouds gathering on the horizon.
}o{
He heard her rummaging in his kitchen, probably in the fridge or something. She always checked the contents of his fridge to make sure he was still eating well in spite of not living in her apartment with her and her boyfriend anymore.
Sometimes she was more tactful about it, and sometimes she seemed to be too tired to pretend she wasn't doing it.
He loved his sister nevertheless.
"You find anything interesting?" he called back to her as he stood at the hearth of the fake fireplace in his apartment's living room, peering at the framed photographs there, one in particular. He hadn't been able to get the guy out of his head since he dumped his sob story into the bookstore owner's lap a few days earlier.
"You're coming to have Thanksgiving with us, right? I know you can cook, but I don't know what the hell you're doing with this fridge right now, brother. It exists for you to store enough food in it for you to eat three to four square meals a day."
He laughed, rolling his eyes. So she was having a tired, not-so-tactful day. Fair.
"I'll be there," he said quietly. And then he nudged the glass covering the photograph with the knuckle of his pointer finger, right over the handsome, grinning man, his hair greying, dimples deep and genuine. "Do you miss him?"
"Huh? Who?" Ellie came out of his kitchen then, a glass of wine in her hand. When had she poured…? Where had she even found it? Jesus. But more importantly, she pushed a second glass into his hand as she approached. He really did love his sister. "Oh. Uncle Alexei."
There was a long silence as she peered at the photograph of Alexei with one arm around Ellie on one side, and Chuck was under his arm on the other side. He'd taken them on a fishing trip and brought a big clunky camera with a tripod and a timer and everything. It had taken the three of them so many tries to get this one. The other photos had Chuck reaching around Alexei to give his sister bunny ears, and other tomfoolery.
It had been one of those rare times when things had felt almost normal. When they'd been away from the city, away from people, away from the true crime enthusiasts and podcasts.
"He did so much more than I ever expected from him," she said finally. And she sighed. "I do miss him. A lot. Especially around holidays."
"He never skipped out on a holiday with us, did he?"
"Nope. Not after mom and dad…"
Disappeared. Into thin air.
She didn't have to say it. They both knew. And when an insanely popular unsolved mysteries show did a whole slew of episodes on the Bartowski siblings and their disappeared parents, when the spotlight was on them, Alexei had flown in from offstage to sweep them up and protect them from the true crime fandom fanatics.
He wasn't a parent, that much was clear. And he didn't do anything to make either of them feel like he was going to step in to parent. They hadn't been misled, they hadn't gotten their hopes up.
But he guided, he helped keep them from being separated by child services, stuck in foster homes. And he'd take them with him on trips—it was rare, but they hadn't expected more from him.
But then that plane went down near the Cayman Islands when Chuck was twenty-one, Ellie a few years into med-school. And a lawyer visited them in their apartment to tell them they were rich thanks to their Uncle Alexei.
Chuck sighed. "I went momentarily crazy the other day and told Sarah about how he left us his fortune in his will. Sarah, the…bookstore owner. My neighbor."
"I know who Sarah is," she said with a scoff. "She's more my friend than yours so nyeh." She stuck her tongue out, making him laugh and hold his hands up in surrender. "I don't see anything wrong with her knowing. What's the issue?"
"I dunno." He shrugged, turning away from the photo of them with their uncle. "I feel like maybe I should be more careful." Ellie raised a curious eyebrow. "That girl is probably incredible at poker."
His sister seemed confused for a second, and then it must've dawned on her because she sighed, her eyes widening. "Oh. You mean she's got a poker face. Definitely."
"Yeah, well…I don't. She keeps stuff close and I'm just swinging in with, Hi my uncle died and left me and Ellie a huge fortune what else would you like to know about me? Oh also, our parents disappeared when we were barely pre-teens and an unsolved mysteries fetish show did a bunch of episodes about our trauma and we became household names for a few months. Cool, huh?!" He did a little dance, tapping his feet on his wood floors.
Ellie crossed her arms, taking a sip of her red wine. And then she gave him a bit of a side-eye, biting down on her bottom lip. "Hold on. You've never worried about giving too much info to a new friend before this. You just bwlehhhh everything and that's just who you are. If they don't like it, they aren't worth it. But…you're resisting with this girl who opened a bookstore next to your comic book shop…" She nudged his bicep with her glass. "Why?"
"Ah! Don't get your red wine on me!"
"I didn't! I touched you with the outside of the glass, drama queen."
He let out an annoyed "pffft" and brushed the imaginary red wine particles off of his baseball-tee sleeve. "I don't know why, okay…? I'm… She's all bookish and brainy and enigmatic, and I guess I'm the opposite of that."
"So?" Ellie leaned in, her eyes slowly widening. "That bothers you because you're interested…" She let out a breathy laugh. "Oh my God! You're blushing! You are! You're interested in Sarah!" She held up her glass and tilted it as if toasting with it. "Finally."
Chuck made a face. "What d'you mean, finally? She barely opened her bookstore next to my shop a little over a month ago and I literally only saw her in passing before that."
"Not that. I'm talking about how you've always gone after the wrong girls before this."
She said it so matter-of-factly it almost rolled right over his head. He shook himself, taking a gulp of wine. "W—Hey, that's Lou slander."
"No, it isn't. She's a nice girl and she makes amazing sandwiches holy shit, but she wasn't right for you. You weren't right for each other."
Chuck put his glass down on the mantel and threw his hands up in the air. "Did everyone know we weren't right for each other except for me? Christ!"
"Probably." She calmly sipped her wine. "You were too enmeshed to see it."
"Enmeshed? What's that even mean?"
"If you read more books, you'd have a better vocabulary. Sarah would agree with me." He glared. "I'm teasing. God! Chuck, when you like a girl, you dive in headfirst but then she sort of floats at the top with her head above water where everyone else is, being…not enmeshed. So everyone can just…see things you can't see. Because you're…enmeshed."
"Please, say enmeshed one more time."
"Enmeshed."
She took another casual sip of her wine.
God, when she had a long shift and she was exhausted, she became a brutally honest version of herself that was verging on savage.
"Okay, I'll admit. My relationships have all involved me…being more into a woman than she was into me. I get it, I'm not—"
"Don't even make this a thing like you're so terrible and unlovable. Everyone who meets you thinks you're great. …Almost everyone. Your landlord at the shop clearly does not like you but I think he's part…oh what're those Lord of the Rings things? Orcs? He's part orc." Chuck laughed and she seemed pleased with herself for that. "Chuck. Honey. People don't fit sometimes, even if they like each other. That's how it goes. Remember when I was dating that guy Stu?" He winced. "Don't make that face. Yes, Stu is a bad name, I know, but I liked him a lot and he liked me. But we didn't fit. We figured that out eventually. And now I'm with a guy I…very much fit with," she drawled in a deep voice, wiggling her eyebrows and slurping her wine this time.
"Wow. Atrocious. You're being horrific right now," he mumbled, shaking his head, highly amused.
"I'm tired. Lay the fuck off," she snapped.
He snorted, eyes going wide.
"My point is you're finding girls who you like, who like you in some way, maybe even in the same way, but they aren't…right for you. They figure it out before you do and then you get hurt when it ends." She put her hand on his shoulder and rubbed comfortingly. "Maybe it's that you have a big heart and you're super sweet. I dunno."
"Or maybe there are better guys out there?" he asked with a shrug. "I mean, Ji—I know, I know, I won't say her name because you'll go all She-Hulk—she cheated on me. So what was that about?"
"She's a trash heap full of toxic leeches that got set on fire and had an acid rain shower douse it." He blinked. "Anyway, I'm not talking about her."
Chuck brushed his hand through the air. "Well, I'm not interested in Sarah. That's crazy. That would be a crazy thing to…be. Because I'm not a glutton for punishment, I would not go in that direction. So. There."
"Uh huh."
"Anyway, if I was—if I was and I still have not confirmed that—"
"Haven't denied it either."
He ignored her. "If I was interested, specifically in Sarah the bookseller, what's stopping whatever happens between us from going exactly in the direction as every other relationship I've had before? What's stopping her from having her head up over the waterline and me down in the Mariana Trench, or whatever your weird metaphor was?"
Ellie made a face. "I didn't say anything about a trench, you dork." She rolled her eyes. "It's about her."
She made it sound so simple. When none of this was remotely simple. It never had been, it wasn't now, and it never would be.
"That makes no sense."
"It does make sense. She makes sense, Chuck."
"Uh huh. Right. Okayyyy…" He twirled his pointer finger around his temple and made a sweeping whistling sound between his teeth like she was crazy.
She laughed and shoved him gently. He chuckled.
"She's special," she said. Again, like it was so simple.
"And you know that…how exactly?"
"Like I said, she's more my friend than yours. I've spent a lot of hours in that store helping her with her website, talking about how to make it work better for her, talking books, gossiping about other stores and their employees…" A wicked flash lit her green eyes as she snickered.
Chuck narrowed his eyes, unable to help himself: "Oh? She…talk about…me, or…? I don't care. Not important." Why couldn't he shut the hell up? Seriously?
"She's got a really good heart. She's funny. She's super smart, like…street smart, too. She is very good at books, some books more than others, but she was born to have a bookstore, to sell books. And she is easily the most gorgeous person I've ever seen in my life."
"Bit shallow, don't you think, Ell—Ow! Geez! I'm kidding!" She'd swatted his shoulder hard before he even got her name out. "She tell you anything about her story?" he asked, unable to even pretend he wasn't at least interested in knowing more about her. She really was an enigma. Mysterious. And not in that oooh she's mysterious and it's so sexy bad romantic comedy written by a dude sort of way.
"If she did, it was said in confidence. In short, that's for me to know and you to find out." She bit her lip and grinned around it a little wolfishly.
"You're so weird."
"You're weird. You're the one holding back and being out-of-character repressed about this woman you're clearly crushing on."
He threw his hands up again. "With all my hangups in past relationships drowning underwater in the belly of the whale while the girl I'm with is chillin' in an inner tube sucking on a piña colada through one of those tiny straws—"
"You've completely killed my metaphor dead."
"—you expect me to be anything less than tentative about pursuing someone I'm interested in? When it's gone so ass-backward every other time? Maybe I'm just getting smarter. Especially with someone so very out of my league."
"Hey. Nobody is out of your league. That's an excuse."
"Not with her, it isn't. It's just fact."
She hummed, finishing her wine. "I'm gonna get more wine, want some?"
"Yes!" he groused, shoving his glass at her miserably.
"What I'm getting from everything you just said is that you're no longer denying you're interested." She batted her eyelashes at him and swept away with a flourish, their glasses in her hands.
Damn it.
A/N: Hahaha it was Martha!
I say it all the time and somebody always pops up to try to disagree with me, but Ellie is one of the greatest characters of all time and the show under-utilized her.
Please review if you have the time.
Thanks!
-SC