The Nerd Versus the P.I. Family
By Steampunk . Chuckster
A/N: Thanks for still hanging around this one. More to come.
Summary: Sarah Walker has uprooted her life, leaving her job with the LAPD and going it alone as a private investigator, all in the hopes it provides her with less dangerous stakes and a schedule she can control so that she can handle her most important job, raising her toddler, a bit easier. But when the single parent thinks her computer might've been targeted by a criminal, she has to request help from the unlikeliest of sources: The Buy More Nerd Herd.
Disclaimer: I do not own CHUCK, I do not own its characters, I am not making money from posting this.
It had been a day full of unfortunate circumstances, including an overheating engine in his car on the way home from a drawn out, excruciatingly difficult job at a museum in Lancaster, a job that hadn't needed to be so difficult save for his client's inability to just leave him the fuck alone so that he could work. And the engine had overheated out on a section of CA-14 that had no cell reception. He could either walk three miles back to Palmdale, or just walk until his cell got reception, or he could try to jigger something together from the tools in his bag.
He'd managed the latter and got hold of a towing company who had to drive a long-ass way to come to his aid thanks to the fact that he was trapped in the middle of fucking nowhere. Thankfully, the guy hadn't needed to tow, instead fixing it and getting it to start again so that Chuck could get it back to Burbank in one piece and to his local mechanic…who just so happened to be keeping his car until the next day, maybe even the day after that.
And now he was sitting in a rental, parked at the LAPD headquarters downtown at seven-thirty, having had nothing to eat since before noon, actively hangry, exhausted, and feeling sweaty and downright dirty.
He'd been so close to just going home, showering, and passing out. Maybe he'd squeeze food in there somewhere. But then his phone rang, and the captain, The Disgruntled One himself, was on the other side of the line. He'd grunted out something about needing his expertise, with an emphasized "Now!" and a promise they'd make it worth his while.
"Yeah, you better…make it worth my while," he grumbled under his breath as he grabbed his messenger bag. "Friggin' calling me and just…expecting me to drop everything to… Just who do you think you are?"
Chuck realized he was grumbling to nobody, but it made him feel better.
No, it didn't. But it was better to grumble now and get it out of his system than to let any of it show on his face when he got inside.
He climbed out of his rental car and slammed the door shut. Rolling his head on his shoulders, feeling the frustration of the day in his limbs for God's sake, he pushed into the building and headed for the elevator.
And because it was just how today was going, another person's body slammed into him hard, sending him staggering. Somebody behind him caught him, keeping him from hitting the deck, but the teen who'd been looking over his shoulder as he tried to sprint out of the station to elude an officer wasn't so lucky, sprawled out on the floor and wincing as he held his wrist.
"What the fuck, dude?!" he yelled. "The fuck you doin'? Look where you're fuckin' goin'!"
Chuck watched as the officer yanked the kid off of the floor and to his feet, brushing him off a little and shaking his head. "I don't know how many times we gotta bring you in here, Malcolm, before you get your shit right. Tammy, can we get a doctor over here to look at Malcolm's wrist?"
"Shit!" the teen snapped, tossing his long blond bangs out of his face. "Thanks a lot, asshole."
The last part was directed at Chuck.
All he could do was roll his head back to look up at the powers that be and shrug. Shrugging a second time, he shuffled past the front desk to the elevator. "Hey, Mister. You okay?" the officer behind the desk asked, eyeing him carefully.
"Just in general? Been better. The little angry one running into me? Eh. I'm fine."
She snorted and nodded, and the elevator doors slid shut, trapping him in a metal box that he half expected to get stuck on its way up to the floor where he'd meet an unfriendly face. But it was an unfriendly face that paid him a lot of damn money, so…he'd take it.
The elevator made it just fine, miraculously, and Chuck Bartowski stepped out into the bullpen, walking past ringing phones and shuffling papers, people in cuffs sitting at the end of desks looking morose as they answered questions.
The holding area was empty save for one super drunk guy tilting over on the bench he sat on. He was tilting so slowly Chuck wondered if the tilting was actually a figment of his own imagination… No, he was actually tilting, it was just that slow. Or…
"Here he is, Cap. Lookin' like a cat dragged 'im outta the dumpster."
It didn't matter. That was Detective Rizzo's voice. And he was here for a reason. That reason had nothing to do with whether the drunk in the holding area would eventually tip off of the bench or not. It also had nothing to do with her insult she'd tossed at him so naturally, either, so he was ignoring it.
"Ah. Good. Thanks, kid. We need you." Captain Casey was there in front of him then, putting his hand on his shoulder and guiding him away.
"Sweet of you to say so," Chuck chirped before he could fix his filter that had thoroughly broken at some point while he was hunched under a mechanical piece of art that was supposed to revolve slowly, but the mechanism had broken, and it was apparently connected to a wireless signal… Jesus, what a mess. And Dr. Young hadn't shut up the whole damn time, just yammering, blah blah blah blah. That was when Chuck's filter broke, he was sure of it.
And now the LAPD Captain was looking at him like he wasn't sure if the younger man was being a sarcastic asshole or what. Thankfully it looked like he decided to just let it go.
"We got a perp in our custody, and we have a warrant to search his electronics to find any contacts he might've made that can help us find more li'l fuckers like 'im. But he's a smart asshole and had his laptop all locked up with some kind of failsafe that made it so we can't do shit with it. We need you to get rid of the failsafe so we can play on it." Casey raised his eyebrows over his shoulder at Chuck.
"You wanna play on it, huh? He have the latest version of Red Alert or somethin'?" Casey made a confused face at him. "I just… You seem like you'd be super into Red Alert. The Soviets versus the Allies and it's basically just a strategy…war play game—You don't care. Right."
Casey's face had gotten grumpier and grumpier as Chuck kept talking. "You play Commie games, Brukuski?"
"Bartowski," Chuck corrected as he heard Detective Rizzo snort behind him. "And it's not a Commie game. You can play as—You know what? I'm not even explaining this to you. I really think you'd have fun with those Tesla coils, that's all I'm saying."
"I don't care about any of this. Here's the laptop." Casey walked him into a conference room off in the corner. "Get to work. We'll be out here if…I dunno, something happens, it starts to smoke or whatever."
"Think it's into Marlboro or Camel?"
Casey blinked at him as Rizzo sighed and rolled her eyes, spinning on her heel and wordlessly leaving.
Chuck cleared his throat. "Sorry, I've had a really long day. I'll…get right to work. Erm. Sir." Casey nodded and started leaving, but Chuck felt his stomach turn itself over. "H-Hey. Wait. Just a second. Sorry, um… Look, I know this is probably time sensitive. I…haven't eaten all day really, and I'm legit just…starved. So starving. Can this wait, like, fifteen minutes for me to just hop outside and get some food? Please. I'm begging you."
"No," Casey said.
"Right. Well, that's that."
Then Casey turned and called into the bullpen. "Etheridge, go get the tech geek some food."
Chuck watched through the window as the detective gave his captain a genuinely pristine what the fuck look. "Huh?"
"Food. For the geek. He's hungry. And you're just sittin' on your ass Googling fishing rods."
"I'm not—"
"Yes, you are, I can literally see it from here," Casey groused, gesturing at Etheridge's computer screen. "Geek's got work to do and it's time sensitive. So get him some food."
Shaking his head, the detective got up and shrugged on his jacket, walking out of the bullpen.
Casey turned back. "Hope you like third rate Chinese food, because that's all that guy eats. Now get to work."
The door shut behind him and Chuck turned to the computer. "I actually do like third rate Chinese, so joke's on you, Grumpy Gus."
He opened up the laptop and got to work. Whatever had happened to this thing, Chuck wasn't sure if it was a failsafe as much as he'd done something to jam it up, maybe to make sure nothing was taken off of it.
Eventually, he decided to turn it back off and open it up. And just as he turned it over and began to unscrew the plastic plate from the bottom of the laptop, Detective Etheridge came back with a plastic bag of food. "Here. Got you orange chicken and pan fried noodles. If you need a drink, there's a vending machine. You can get that yourself."
"O…kay. Hey, um, thanks a lot, Detective. How much do I owe ya for dinner?" He took out a twenty and reached towards the detective who quickly snatched it up and walked out, shutting the door even though Chuck was still talking to him. "You don't…have any change? Guess not. Jesus Christ."
Now he'd just paid twenty bucks for… He opened up the container and sighed. At least it looked good. And as he began eating, he decided it was third rate, but it was food and it was doing its job. Even if he'd paid way too much for it, damn it.
Maybe that was a delivery fee.
Glum, he got back to the laptop, wondering if this night would somehow turn around before he finally got to his bed and passed out. Maybe he needed to just survive until then and try again tomorrow.
}o{
He was almost in.
As it turned out, he'd needed to replace a bit of the hardware, and he knew he had what he needed at the Buy More, which meant making a late night trip to the store with Rizzo in his rental car's passenger seat.
Which was…
Well, it was awkward.
"Didn't expect a Buy More guy to have such a nice car," she finally said, interrupting the tense silence. At least, it was tense for him. Nothing freaking seemed to faze this woman. Literally nothing. She had pulled the lever on the seat to make the back of it recline and she had one knee bent with her boot heel braced against the glove compartment.
"It's a rental."
"Oh, yeah? Trying to pick up a girl or some shit?" She snorted at her own joke.
It wasn't even a good joke.
He sighed. "No. My car overheated on the way back from a job today so it's at the shop and I need a car so I decided to just cough up the dough for a rental 'til my mechanic's done fixing mine."
"Oh shit. Overheated huh? Sucks." He nodded. "Probably shouldn't have the AC on full blast with the radio going on a hotter day like this."
Chuck just barely bit back a snide response. "Thanks. Yeah," he said dully instead.
"Why the fuck you driving like a grandma, though? You realize the speed limit is, like, eighty here, right?"
"It isn't eighty. It's sixty-five."
"Hah! Oops. So it is. Still, you're driving grandma speeds."
"I'm at seventy-five, Detective Rizzo. And I have a freaking LAPD detective in the passenger seat so pardon me for not super speeding."
"Ten miles per hour over the speed limit, huh? Pull over, I'm arresting you for speeding." She snorted again.
Chuck needed this night to just fucking end.
Thankfully he was only in the car for another three minutes with Rizzo before he pulled into the back alley of the Buy More. "Everyone's gone home for the night, so we're heading in the back door. I really don't feel like dealing with the front door's alarm system," he explained when she gave him a confused look.
"Okay, well… Good. Just know I'll kick your God damn ass if you brought me back here to try to murder me."
The Nerd Herd area specialist glared at her one last time before he swung out from behind the steering wheel and hopped up to grab onto the metal railing, hoisting himself up onto the platform rather than going all the way over to the ramp.
Rizzo followed suit, making the whole climbing thing look a lot cooler. It was probably the bomber jacket she was wearing. And the boots.
Chuck unlocked the back door and popped it open, moving to the alarm panel against the wall right next to the door and punching in the code. He made quick work of leading her to where they kept computer parts, laptop parts, any spares of things they might need for a repair job. And he began rummaging through things.
"So what are you even looking for?"
He ignored that question. "You know, the captain didn't have to send you with me. I could've just hurried over here, grabbed what I needed, and come back. Kind of a waste of your time."
She shrugged. "I don't mind getting out of that bullpen for a sec, clearing my head. Besides, Casey's getting real paranoid about everybody's safety and he wants me to be here in case someone tries to jump your ass. So I can kick their ass."
Chuck watched as she crossed her arms and cocked her hip.
"Paranoid about everybody's safety? What for?"
"Nature of the job. You're also real good at computers n' shit so he's come to see you as an asset. Expensive goods. And you don't let bad things happen to your expensive goods." She smirked.
"Great, I'm a Tiffany's ring now. Cool." He snorted and kept rummaging.
"More like Jared's than Tiffany's."
Okay, he had to laugh at that one. She looked overly pleased with herself but he'd let her have it.
He found one of the things he was going to need and held it up with an, "A-ha!" Then he stopped and looked around. "Crap. I forgot the tote in the car." He fished in his pocket for the keys. "Can you grab the tote I've got in the backseat for me while I keep looking for the stuff I'm gonna need?"
"Sure." She caught the keys he tossed to her easily. "Back seat?"
"Yep. Thanks."
She left him there alone and he slumped down onto the floor tiredly. "Shit," he breathed. Served him right for letting Skip and Lester slack off the other day instead of doing what he asked them to do, which was to start sorting the spare parts so they could find them easier when they needed them. "Alphabetical, or by serial number, boss?" Lester had sassed. Chuck had glared and he'd squeaked, dashing off with Skip in tow.
Chuck went into his pocket then and took his phone out. He did a double take as he realized he had a text. And not just any text, but a text from a certain private eye. His heart raced and this was already the best part of his entire day, just seeing her name there on his screen. He glanced in the direction the detective had gone in quickly, then opened up the text.
"Hi! I know it's super late I'm sorry so so sorry but I thought maybe if you have nothing else going on and you're up for it you'd like to come over and drink this bottle of wine I'm about to open with me?"
She'd texted that almost ten minutes ago. Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit! He scrambled to respond.
"Sorry! Yes!" He grumbled in frustration at himself and erased it, typing something else instead. "I didn't see this til just now! Sorry!" He hit send and glanced towards where Rizzo went again. No sign of her, so he kept typing, seeing that Sarah had responded with "That's ok!"
"I'm so down for drinking wine with you. I'm at a job but I'm going to finish it as soon as I can and text and if you still want me to come over / you aren't too tired, we can draaaank." That last part was embarrassing and he was going to erase it but then he heard Rizzo coming back and he pushed himself up onto his haunches and re-pocketed his cell, continuing to look for the pieces he needed.
Rizzo reappeared and held up the tote, tossing it to him. "There."
"Thanks. Appreciate it."
"Why is this place so full of junk? You guys don't have, like, labels or anything?"
He huffed. "Yeah, that's my bad. I have been putting off organizing the warehouse back here because it's gonna be too much work and my Nerd Herders are an exhausting bunch. Trying to get them to work is a lot of work for me."
"Sounds like they should all be fired and replaced."
Chuck laughed. "Oh, if only. Unfortunately, I can't fire anyone. That's up to Big Mike, and he won't fire anyone." He finally found it and held it up. "Yes! Okay, just one more thing and I'm pretty sure I know where it is. Then we can split."
"Good. I feel like I'm in some kind of Puppet Master movie, except with computer parts instead of creepy little puppets."
Chuck froze, slowly turning to look at her. "Did you just…reference the Puppet Master movies?"
"Yeah. So?" She made a face. "Wait, you know what those are?"
"What?! Yes! I'm sorry, you just… You're talking about the little puppets that do the stabby-stab, right?" She nodded and he hunched forward, laughing, filled with glee. "This is the best thing ever. Detective Rizzo of the LAPD, a Puppet Master fan."
"Whoa, hold on, okay? When did I say I was a fan?"
"Gut feeling."
She made a face. "Well…they're just okay. I'm not, like, a fan, a'right? The concept is…kinda tight. That's all it is. I like campy horror trash, but so help me God, if you tell anyone about this conversation, I'll turn you into one of the victims from those campy horror trash films, got it?" she threatened through a clenched jaw.
Chuck's massive, happy grin dimmed and he nodded seriously. "Yep. Got it. Yeah. For sure. Totally." His phone beeped in his pocket. "Oh. Oh crap. Probably my sister looking for me. Can I just…check my text real quick?"
"Fine. Make it quick."
He was buzzing. Not only did he now have hope his night would end sitting across from Sarah Walker, Private Eye with a bottle of wine between them, he also had just gotten Detective Zondra Rizzo of the LAPD to admit to him that she was a fan of the Puppet Master movies and other campy horror trash movies. The night had certainly turned around.
"A job THIS late? God I'm sorry. I'll wait to open the bottle til you get here sounds like you need it more than I do. Text me when you're on your way, I'm not going to bed for a while."
"How long is a while?" he texted quickly. And she responded almost immediately.
"As long as it takes."
He could've done a backflip. What a damn response. He was on fire. He felt so good. Fuck his dumb car and the stupid heat of CA-14 outside of Palmdale. Fuck Dr. Young and his endless rambling, and fuck that stupid modern art thing he fixed the stupid wireless connection on so that it could keep…revolving or whatever.
None of it mattered. He texted back, "Well God DAMN Ima be hurrying my ass UP."
And then he did hurry his ass up.
}o{
She sat on her countertop in her kitchen, legs dangling, the bottle of red wine clutched in her hands. She'd read the label on it too many times now, to the point where if her high school history teacher Mrs. Gutierrez were to walk into her apartment right now and ask her to recite the whole thing from memory, she might be able to.
Glancing at the clock on her microwave, she saw that it was after eleven now. Poor Chuck. What in the hell was this job that he was working this late?
And then she remembered how many times she'd literally kept him working until the early hours of the morning, almost until dawn, holed up in Carina's secret office, and she felt a thread of guilt go through her.
She was about to do that to him again. Only this time, she wasn't making him work. She just wanted to share her wine with him.
She wanted to see him.
She missed him. She hadn't been in the same room with him since he left after the donut debacle three days ago. What a mess that was.
And even still, despite moments like the donut thing the other morning, he managed to be one thing she could always count on to make her day better. She'd meant it when she'd told him she'd be awake for as long as it would take.
She was determined to see him tonight. Determined.
He'd left here the other day feeling terrible, she knew, even if it wasn't really his fault. Two year olds had meltdowns sometimes, and it didn't even have to be about anything.
She'd been a little frustrated with Max. Not sleeping the way he was used to sleeping the night before had put him on edge in a way she hadn't foreseen. And he'd been in one of his moods where random things could nudge him off said edge. And then he lost it. It wasn't his fault. He wasn't even three years old yet. So she'd repressed the frustration and instead tried to be the best mother possible for him in that moment.
But as many times as she'd ensured Chuck it was just lack of sleep, that it was okay, he hadn't done anything wrong, when he'd left that morning, she'd been half worried Chuck would count his losses and split. She said it enough times, but sometimes men simply didn't listen to her; Max was a handful, just like any other two and a half year old, and he would continue to be, even as good of a kid as he was most of the time. A vast majority of the time.
Sarah was glad she'd drummed up the courage to text him tonight. It didn't feel like he was still sore about the other day. So at least there was that. She would apologize again, and then she would underscore for him that this was how life was with a toddler. It was going to be a part of things if he wanted to date a woman with a two and a half year old toddler.
Maybe Chuck would be different and he'd actually listen.
So far she felt like that'd been the case, but she was also tired of being disappointed. She tried not to pin high hopes on him.
Kind of.
She couldn't help it. He was the type of man who made you feel like you could pin high hopes on him and he wouldn't let you down. It felt a little dangerous. He felt a little dangerous. And still she'd texted him to come tonight. She wanted him here.
Reaching over to set the bottle down on the counter next to her, snatching her phone from the counter on the other side of her, she hopped down, her slippers making a soft squish sound as she landed. She checked her cell again. Nothing since the text he'd sent that had made her laugh out loud. That text was a day maker. She looked at it again now and giggled.
"Well God DAMN Ima be hurrying my ass UP."
It was as she moved over to the table that her phone buzzed in her hand. He was calling her. Well okay. Buzzing similarly to her phone just had been, Sarah answered. "Well, hello."
"Hi!" He sounded like he was in his car, on speaker maybe. "Hi, sorry. I'm in—This is a rental car and it has this Bluetooth connection thing, unlike my old-ass car, so I thought I would use it to my benefit." A rental car? What happened to his car? Before she could ask, he continued. "Instead of taking extra long to text you, or texting while driving in the middle of the night, which…nope, I thought I'd just call and drive at the same time. Can I still come over or is it too late? I'm so sorry this took forever, I had to reassemble this laptop and…" He let out a frustrated growl.
She took that opportunity to get a word in edgewise. "Please come. Unless…it's too late for you?" She thought she'd at least give him an option to—
"No no. No no no no no it's not late at all for me, I'm on my way literally as we speak. I'm coming I'm coming I'm coming."
Sarah laughed. "Okay. Good. Um, just know that Max is sleeping so don't knock when you get here. Maybe just text. He's a good sleeper typically, but he's like a dog when they hear someone opening the fridge with knocks on doors. He is so nosey, he needs to know who is here. He'll be awake and alert and wanting out of that room."
He'd been like that at two, one and a half, one, and even as a newborn. She'd been expecting a man after putting Max in bed to sleep and said man had knocked. Suffice to say, dealing with a crying son had meant she hadn't ended up getting laid that night, and she hadn't seen that guy again. Three dates and done. Whoops.
Max had done her a favor, really.
But she didn't want him interrupting her nice, chill, quiet late-night time with Chuck, just the two of them, having wine and unwinding. She caught herself thinking that last part and froze. Unwinding. It felt like something two people who were in a relationship, together, really together, would do. Unwinding with one another, using each other's company to find calm and comfort at the end of the day.
"I'll text when I'm outside of your door," Chuck's voice invaded her unnerved thoughts. "But hey, it's good he's asleep; my dumb big dopey foot won't be in the way."
She pouted. "Chuuuck, it's okay," she giggled. "No harm no foul. Really."
He made a dubious sound, but before she could reassure him, he said, "I'll see you in ten minutes or so?"
"Yeah. See you then." She bit the inside of her cheek to cut off the words that nearly came out. I can't wait.
}o{
She realized as his text came in twelve and a half minutes later that she was wearing the clothes she typically slept in and for some reason it hadn't occurred to her when she first invited him, nor when he called and said he was on the way, to put on some proper clothes or something? Not even a robe?
Shutting her eyes in frustration for just a moment, she took a deep breath, counted her losses, and plastered a smile on her face as she opened the door.
Any nerves or bad feelings she was having for whatever reason dissipated as she took him in. He was wearing his black Buy More jacket over a button-up and slacks. And always with his Converse sneakers. But he looked exhausted. That was apparent almost immediately. Even under the massive grin on his face and the light sparkling in his golden-hued eyes, he looked so tired.
"Hi," she drawled, grinning back at him.
He let out a rough breath, almost as if relief was coursing through him at being here, and then she caught his gaze dropping. He took in her camisole and sleeping shorts that stopped at her upper thighs and left a whole lot of leg bare to his gaze, and just as fast his eyes snapped up to steadily focus on hers.
Chuck cleared his throat and rasped out a, "Hey." He cleared his throat again, blushing. "H-Hey, hi. Sup."
Sarah felt herself melting against the door she still held open. "Come in. Please." He nodded wordlessly and let her step to the side, opening the door even further to make room for him. She caught him dragging her eyes down her legs to her feet and back up again before he diverted his gaze politely, even as he stepped inside. It was gratifying, and sweet that he was trying so hard. "Sorry. I, um, wasn't thinking until you were literally at my door." She shut said door and flicked the lock, Casey's warning the other morning still ringing in her ears. "I can go grab a robe."
"You don't have to." He stopped and squinted his eyes, obviously hearing the way that had sounded. "I-I mean, feel free to do that if it makes you more…comfortable. I…" He cleared his throat. "It's been a really long day and whatever semblance of a filter I even had to begin with is pretty much gone, I'm so sorry for whatever I say while I'm here, including what I just said. With the robe."
She bit her lip, raising an eyebrow, storing that 'long day' part away in the back of her head for later. And then she cocked her hip a bit flirtatiously. "Do you think it might make your day a little better if I pass on the robe?" She pursed her lips innocently. "I don't mind doing that for you if you think it'll help."
His face crumbled in awe, a slow crooked smile growing on that mouth she realized she had yet to feel against hers tonight, and she really wanted to. But then he gave her a bit of a suspicious look. "That feels like a trick question."
She giggled. "It isn't. I promise. I was just trying to flirt with you. But the question is serious. You seem like you've had a bit of a rough day and I do wanna help. Modesty aside, if this is helping, I'm glad." She gestured to her cami and very short shorts.
"Your legs are super long in that," he breathed. He furrowed his brow at that and shook himself. "I mean, they're always the same length. Obviously. That's weird. They don't, like, change…their length, depending on whether you're wearing pants or shorts. That's… I'm being so stupid right now."
"Let me just go ahead and rescue you with some wine," she laughed, moving in to help him shrug his jacket off, hanging it up, and then wrapping her hands around his arm to pull him with her towards the kitchen. "How's that sound?"
He chuckled in relief. "So good. Thank you. I'm sorry I'm so embarrassing tonight. I'm…" He huffed and followed her into the kitchen. "I'm kinda at the end of my mental health rope today, if I can be honest with ya."
She snatched the bottle with the label she'd memorized now, but stopped in her tracks as he spoke, watching as he sagged a little, a rare frown on his face. "Well I don't like hearing that," she said, setting the bottle back down on the counter as she crossed the distance to sidle up against him and take his arms in a steady grip, rubbing her hands up and down his biceps in an attempt to comfort him or reassure him or…something.
"Sorry. I know, kinda melodramatic."
"No, no. Hey. Of course you can say that to me, I just mean I don't like that you're having such a bad day, that's all."
He blinked. "Oh. Oh! Heh. That makes sense. Sorry. Filter's broken, brain's broken. I'm tired." And he teasingly slumped forward to put his forehead on her shoulder. She immediately moved to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight, rubbing his back. "But this feels really good. You can keep doing this. I'm good with it."
Sarah let out a one syllable giggle and did exactly that. "If you're tired, why didn't you just go home and go to sleep? I wouldn't have been upset with you."
He made a quiet meh sound and shrugged in her embrace, and his hands came up to hold onto her hips. She felt his warm palms against the sliver of bare skin revealed as her shirt rode up, right above the waistband of her shorts. And she shivered, disguising it as she shifted her hands against his back again.
"It's a different kind of tired. The kind of tired where I wanted to see you more than I wanted sleep."
"You picked me over sleep, huh?" she asked, her lips stretching into a pleased smile only because he couldn't see it. She squeezed him tight. "Should I read into that?"
"Eh, nah. Don't read into it. My filter's broken, so I'll tell you if you wait long enough. You are really good for the health of my brain, and my soul. All the important stuff, really. You're good for my health." She stilled, her eyes widening, not expecting that at all. "See? Broken filter. I'll say stuff eventually."
She didn't know how to respond to that. And she knew she had to, or he'd think she was upset, that he'd crossed a line, or that he'd been too intense. And he wasn't any of those things, but she hadn't expected him to go there, in that moment, and she was trying to get her footing. So instead of overthinking it, instead of blundering through something, she let what was in her chest out.
"I'm here."
Sarah braced herself as more of his weight shifted against her, and she held him securely. When he breathed a soft, "Thank you", she smiled, knowing she'd said the right thing.
She hadn't totally fucked that moment up, when he'd opened himself to her, opening himself to hurt… she hadn't fucked it up, and she'd made him feel better. Hopefully.
"So what is all of this? What happened? Is everything okay?" she asked. "Do you want me to stay like this or pour?"
He chuckled and his grip on her tightened. "Uh, this is good for now. Wine later."
Gratified that he'd picked her over both sleep and wine so far tonight, she squeezed him. "Okay."
He let out a long, tired sigh. "Now that I'm thinking back on all of it, it's not really all that bad. Nothing crazy happened." He pulled back just enough to look into her face, and he moved his hands to the small of her back. "Honestly, looking back at today from here, standing in your kitchen with you, it's not that bad at all. If I was stuck in the random middle-of-the-night traffic that happens here sometimes right now instead of right here, I'd think this was the most miserable day ever, probably."
"That's sweet," she said with a smile. "But I get it. I think."
He smiled back. "I just mean that, you know, making it here kind of solidifies that this long. freaking. day. is over. Or, at least, the exhausting, annoying stuff is over. And I can just breathe."
"Please breathe. Yes." She giggled and moved her hands to his shoulders, squeezing. "You breathe, and in the meantime, go sit down and chill. I'll pour us some wine." He just stood there, looking at her with an almost achingly sweet look on his face. "Go on. I'll join you in a second."
And he shuffled off, leaving her to pour the wine. Poor guy.
When she joined him, he'd skipped her table altogether and was sitting on the couch, leaned forward, pushing his fingers through his curls tiredly. She was glad he'd chosen the couch. It made her wonder if he wasn't getting more comfortable here, in her home. And in spite of the incessant voice in her head telling her to slow down, she liked the idea of him getting comfortable with her, and in her home. And, frankly, with Max too. And vice versa.
She sat close to him and handed him a glass.
"Ah. Thank you. You're amazing."
Smiling, she clinked her glass against his, and they both wordlessly sipped the red wine. "So? Talk to me. Let it out."
He gave her a look and she merely shrugged. "Sarah, you don't wanna hear me moaning and groaning about all this…" He stopped and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well, now I'm pretty sure it was just a lot of trivial shit and me whining about it to you isn't gonna help anything. I'm gonna enjoy this wine, and-and you," he said, giving her a soft look that made her heart thud in her chest. "And tomorrow, I start fresh again. Today will have been just a…stupid bump in the road."
"You don't have to talk to me about it if you don't want to. Trust me, I get it. I hate talking to people about…everything," she admitted with a self-deprecating giggle and a wince.
"You really aren't an oversharer, no," he drawled, grinning. "But I'm not gonna judge you for it even though I am an oversharer. A big one."
She smiled back at him.
She wasn't going to say it out loud because she knew how cynical it sounded, but she still believed it. Sharing things, talking to the wrong people, had gotten her into trouble before. And it hurt so much worse when you let people in and they walked away. That was a good way to get broken.
And Sarah Walker couldn't afford to be broken anymore. Not since she gave birth to a beautiful little kid who became her entire world the moment she discovered he existed. Well, after she got over the abject terror.
She had a son to raise, and if all he had was one broken parent, he'd be at a definite disadvantage.
Instead of saying any of it out loud, she pushed past the lump in her throat and reached over to gently run her fingers along Chuck's jaw, her thumb stroking over his cheek. "You can talk to me, though, Chuck. I've had shitty days before, and it doesn't matter if it's a flurry of minor inconveniences or a really massive bad thing, it still feels awful, so I won't judge you either."
He sighed and met her gaze. "I believe you."
"Anyway," she said, giving him a teasing look through her eyelashes, "I have a two and a half year old. You wouldn't believe the random shit he gets worked up over. He got upset last week, I don't even know what over, because he was making something out of Play-Doh one second and just looked super pissed the next, and I asked him what was wrong. And he stomped into his room and said 'I'm mad, Mommy!' and slammed his door." She shrugged. "Still don't know why. Maybe he was getting frustrated over the Play-Doh thing he was trying to make. Or maybe I pushed his buttons somehow."
Chuck snorted, finishing it off with a chuckle. "If that isn't a mood. You can always count on kids to be totally honest. Though I wish I still got away with that kind of behavior at work." She giggled, relating. "Jeff pretending to hump one of our Helpful Buy More Employee standups for a music video he and Lester are recording, and I just go over and scream in his face, say I'm mad, and stomp into my office, slamming the door. Sounds like a dream."
Sarah laughed. "He didn't really…" She made a face as she got that image stuck in her head.
"Well, not yet, but it's only a matter of time, I fear."
"I can't believe how close I came to getting one of them coming to my office that fateful day instead of you."
"Shit, I know. I think about that…a lot. Lester sitting here instead of me."
"You fucking…" She shoved him, grinning even as she glared. "Goof."
"I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You would've kicked him out of your office or beaten the crap out of him."
"Exactly."
His smile turned a little dreamy, and then he turned and looked down at the glass of wine he'd propped on his thigh. "I got called into a really mentally trying job at a museum in Lancaster this morning, and the whole time I was there, the curator was like…on top of me. Like, he would not stop talking. He would not shut up. And I'm a tolerant and patient man, I really am. And I'm a talker myself. Trust me, I'm very self-aware about this. But I was really starting to lose my cool. He would've followed me into the bathroom, I swear to God, except that it was a one-person bathroom with a lock on it." She giggled and winced. "Like, imagine you're on a case, and the person who hired you gets in your car with you when you're on a stakeout, or when you're tailing someone. And when you're constructing your dossiers or whatever else you do for your cases, they're sitting like…right next to you, asking you what you're doing."
"Oh God." She recoiled in horror. "That's like what my hell will be if I end up going there when I die."
"Right? And…" He sighed. "It was like he thought I would ruin the stupid piece of art I had to work on. So he just…hovered. And kept being like 'careful with that, careful careful carefulcarefulcareful', like dude, shut up." He let his head fall to thump hard against the back of the couch and she winced a little, but he just made a frustrated groaning sound and shut his eyes. "And it took me so long because I kept having to answer questions. If he'd just left me alone so that I could work, it would've been such a quick job. Just obnoxious."
"It sounds extremely obnoxious."
He opened his eyes and sat up again. "And the thing is, you know, I've been doing this work for over a decade. Since I was friggin' fourteen years old." She must've given him a look because he smirked and shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, it wasn't exactly legal but I needed money." She couldn't argue with that. "I'm used to annoying jobs. I'm used to the frustrating BS people put you through when you're working on electronics that are super important to them, to their lives, their careers, whatever. You can kinda put yourself in their shoes and usually that makes it easier to tolerate, block it out, do the work, take the check, and that's it. It's over. So this wasn't any different than the crap I've dealt with before." He huffed. "But then I finally got outta there and my car overheated outside of Palmdale on the 14 where there was nothing for a couple of miles either way."
Sarah winced and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Oh God, Chuck no."
"Yeah, it just sputtered to a stop, couldn't get it to start. And I didn't have any way to fix it. Like, if it'd been a flat tire, I'd just change the tire, take it to my tire guys, they'd replace the tire with a new one, and off I'd go. But I'm no car mechanic. I can figure some of the stuff out, but I had no idea what was going on, and of course there was no cell reception in that particular section of the freeway. So either I had to go back a couple of miles to Palmdale on foot, or I had to find some way to jigger something to get a call through. I did that, which took a while, and I called my insurance, they sent a tow—"
"Wait, you sat there in the heat working on a way to bypass bad reception to get a tow truck to come?"
"Yeah. I really didn't wanna walk."
"Chuck, that's so impressive and it's also really awful, I'm so sorry." She couldn't resist the urge to slip a hand over the back of his neck, rubbing comfortingly, a protective edge rising in her. "So you had to get towed?"
"Nah, he said I didn't need a tow and he stayed there, fixing it enough for me to get back to my mechanic in Burbank. Super nice guy. So that's one good thing." He shrugged. "So my mechanic is keeping my car for a day or two, and I was just fed up enough to splurge and get a rental. And as I'm pulling out of the rental lot…"
"Oh no. What now? Another car fail?"
"No, my contact at the LAPD called and needed me immediately. Mind you, I hadn't eaten since, like, eight in the morning. And I was rushed to get to the office then so it wasn't more than a few swigs of coffee and a piece of toast."
"So you were hungry, fed up, tired…and had to go deal with a bunch of LAPD jerks," she said flatly. "I can call them jerks, I was one of them," she added quickly when he raised his eyebrows at her.
He chuckled. "I'm certain you weren't as much of a jerk as this guy is." He snorted then, continuing before she could ask who exactly. It didn't matter, it could've been any number of them. "But they kept me there for so long, trying to do this…thing I wasn't even sure I could do."
"Again, Chuck? I thought you weren't doing that anymore."
"I need the check," he said, shrugging. "And I guess I'm not willing to not even try, you know? I don't know what this case is they're working on, and I think they're probably keeping me out of it on purpose—which I totally get—but I'm sure it's important. Life or death stuff. And if I can…if I can help, if something I do is able to help them stop something that's really terrible, or some super bad dude, I have to do it."
Sarah watched him closely, smiling a bit as she pushed her fingers through his hair. "You know what?" He raised his eyebrows in question and took a sip of his wine. "You kinda sound a little bit like those heroes in the comic books you like so much when you talk like that."
He smiled, then sighed. She noticed him pressing his head into her hand a little, as if he was seeking more of her touch. She didn't get lost in the implications; instead, she let herself momentarily enjoy what it felt like to be needed by him in particular.
"Eh. Heroes tend to know how to keep their feet from getting in other people's way."
She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Chuck, not that again. Please try not to let that bother you so much, all these days later especially."
"He okay? I felt terrible."
"I know you did. Trust me when I say I've gotten in his way before when he's going somewhere, more times than I can count at this point, and especially when he started walking. Now that he's running?" She blew out a puff of air through pursed lips and raised her eyebrows. "All bets are off."
He chuckled. "He knows I didn't mean to trip him, though, right? And make him drop his donut? My feet are just so friggin' giant. And I still don't put 'em in the right place, even after ten years of dealing with these things being so massive." He lifted his foot and wiggled it.
"Of course he knows that. And you got him a new donut anyway. He cried because he just got a little scared, that's all. He wasn't hurt or anything." Sighing, she moved her hand to his shoulder and squeezed, sipping her wine. "It's part of this raising a kid thing. Knowing when they're just in bad moods, trying to figure out why whenever things set them off and they have meltdowns."
"Oh, sure. Yeah. That makes sense." Chuck nodded. "I just feel like I need to apologize to him when I see him again, when he's awake."
Sarah felt that ever-present fluttering in her chest as she squeezed his shoulder again. "You apologized, like, thirty-seven times already, Chuck. He knows it was an accident. And he needs to learn what accidents mean, and apologizing, and how to deal with that the right way. I promise you're forgiven."
"Thank you," he said, relief in his face.
"You haven't been stressing about this for three days, have you?" He winced, which was answer enough. "Oh, Chuck, come on." She giggled softly and stroked her fingers down his jaw. "It's not the end of the world, okay? Look, he's two and a half. He's a super resilient kid. You know what he did a few months ago? Scared me shitless, thought I was gonna end up with CPS showing up at my door to take him. He dropped a crayon when he was drawing and he went down to pick it up and when he sat up, he hit his head really hard on the corner. He got a big bump and was doing that scream crying thing kids do and I took him to the ER. Like, what if he had a concussion?" Chuck made an empathetic face and she snorted. "Typical overly worried maternal instinct thing, I guess. Anyway, it was just a bump. They told me to hold an ice pack on it and he'd be totally fine. They said kids do that all the time. And that first-time parents do what I did." She tugged on his shirt teasingly. "So don't worry. He didn't get hurt, no bruise on his knees or anything. He simply got scared and was upset his donut got dirty."
He chuckled. "Poor dude. I felt so bad."
"Yeah, I know. He didn't make it better by wailing like that. But I can't judge him for it. He's two."
"Just wait 'til he grows to his full height. Falling is a lot scarier when you're six foot four."
Sarah laughed. "I wouldn't know. I'm not a giant like you."
"A giant? Wow."
She laughed harder when he gave her shoulder a gentle shove. "A gentle giant."
"Oh my God." He flopped over and thunked his forehead into the arm of the couch, groaning. Then he thrusted his empty wine glass towards her. "If it's cool with you, I'm gonna get more of this."
"I'll get it for you," she giggled, taking the glass from his fingertips. He sat up quickly to protest. "No, I got it. It's the least I can do after calling you a gentle giant."
He narrowed his eyes at her, making her snort as she got up to head to the kitchen. She decided just snagging the bottle altogether and bringing it back was the best option.
So she sat beside him on the couch, closer than she had the first time, and they drank their wine, slowly emptying the whole bottle, talking, basking in one another, enjoying the comforting quiet beats between the conversation, and she forgot the ills of the world outside of her apartment door, even pushing the case out of her head, feeling settled and calm for the first time in days.
A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review if you can.
-SC